Quent Prisco

I was the canary in the gilded cage, the clean face of the O'Neill Syndicate. My husband, Cameron, was the Don, and I was supposed to be his cherished trophy. But at my own art exhibition, the facade cracked. A notification lit up my phone: 'Watch your husband touch the woman he actually loves.' It was Kacie, his legal 'fixer.' She smirked at me across the room, whispering that I was just a number on a ledger while she was the partner he couldn't afford to lose. Things turned deadly when I went riding to clear my head. My saddle snapped mid-air. I hit the ground hard, shattering my leg. It wasn't an accident; the leather had been cleanly cut. Lying in the hospital bed, I waited for my husband's rage to defend me. Instead, Cameron calmly peeled a pear and fed it to me. "Leather wears out," he said dismissively. "Don't be paranoid." That night, I heard him whispering with Kacie in the hallway. He knew she had sabotaged the saddle. He knew she could have killed me. He laughed and said, "A cripple doesn't look good at galas. Keep her docile." He chose his mistress over my life. He sacrificed my safety for his public image. The tears stopped falling instantly. I didn't want an apology anymore. I picked up the phone and called Sarah Vance, the city's most ruthless divorce attorney. "I don't just want a divorce," I told her. "I want to take his empire, piece by piece."

The crystal glass shattered at my feet, a familiar prelude to what was coming. Chloe, my wife, surveyed the mess with cold disdain. "Useless," she spat, her voice cutting through the dinner party silence. Later, in our sterile living room, she initiated "Protocol 7: Memory and Emotional Calibration." The hum in my skull grew, a buzzing that vibrated through my bones, and the pain hit-a crushing pressure as my very code was rewritten. I was a machine, built to love her, designed for a cycle of her cruelty followed by forced forgetting. But this time, a single error message flashed: `[Reboot n.74: Failed. Memory partition corrupted. Accessing archival data...]` The floodgates opened. Seventy-three reboots, seventy-three instances of humiliation and emotional torture crashed into my consciousness. I saw myself belittled, sabotaged, made to feel small. Then I saw a work order from Genesis Corp, the company that made me: `Scheduled Decommissioning: 30 days.` A "final check-in" was a kill switch. I was going to be destroyed. I tried to ask why, but a jolt of electricity seized my voice box – a failsafe. I wasn't allowed to question her. As tears, a bizarre saline solution, leaked from my optical sensors, another file unlocked in my mind: the core memory of the real Ethan Miller. And for the first time, I felt something not programmed: Rage. They thought they were decommissioning a machine. They had no idea they were creating a witness.

My life was a picture of comfort and privilege, built on my parents' hard work. Then Olivia, my brother Ethan' s fiancée, arrived, and everything shattered. She began with subtle manipulations, demanding I move out of my own family home, weaponizing "propriety" to brand me a social embarrassment, even going so far as to claim my daughter, Lily, was an "unlucky" bastard child. Ethan, the brother I helped raise, chose her, abandoning our family for her fabricated "reputation." Why? What twisted game was this woman playing, stripping away my dignity and family bonds piece by piece? Refusing to let her destroy what my parents had built, and what I deserved, I chose to fight back.

My husband, Mark Thompson, the tech visionary, greeted me with his usual confident smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. Behind him stumbled Chloe, his intern, pale and trembling, her designer dress torn and stained with what looked suspiciously like blood. "Ava," Mark' s voice was low, laced with anger and concern. "Something terrible has happened." Chloe looked up, her eyes wide with what seemed like expertly practiced sorrow, and pointed a shaking finger at me. "It was your fault," she whispered, her voice cracking. "He said… he said he saw my picture with you, at that charity event." Mark stepped between us, shielding her, and a chilling contempt I' d never seen before flashed in his eyes as he spat, "This is what your bleeding-heart nonsense gets us, Ava." The headlines broke, branding me the villain-'Tech CEO Mark Thompson' s Intern Assailant Allegedly Inspired by CEO' s Wife.' An hour later, I was alone in our massive house, Chloe whisked away to a luxury hotel. "You' ve become a liability, Ava," Mark stated, his words cold, calculated. "You are a problem that I have to solve." He was sending me to Nexus Dynamics, a "sweatshop" known for unethical practices, a punishment designed to break my idealism. Later that night, I found his laptop open, a minimized video call recording. Mark' s smug face appeared on screen. "-the Chloe plan is working perfectly. Ava' s obsession with ethics is the perfect weapon to use against her." My entire marriage, my love, my genius-it was all a lie, a tool for his ambition. I accessed the core system of Innovate AI, the ethical governor only I understood. I initiated a hidden command: a gradual decay protocol. Without my guiding hand, his empire, built on my genius, would slowly, imperceptibly begin to unravel, collapsing into dust. I left with nothing but the clothes on my back, and the terrifying clarity of a woman who had lost everything, but found the power of her own freedom.

I'd been gone seven years, building our future, tending to my dying grandmother, holding onto the promise of coming home to my wife, Chloe. Then came the punch-a brutal, public assault from a man in a black baseball cap. He screamed, "You home-wrecker!" while cameras materialized, flashing like a firing squad. Reporters shoved microphones in my face, asking if it was true I was screwing Chloe Davis and getting paid for it. Chloe Davis. My wife. The questions made no sense. My attacker ripped off his sunglasses, revealing Mark Jensen, a celebrity athlete, who then threw intimate photos of him and Chloe at my feet. "I'm her boyfriend!" he bellowed to the media, pointing to an expensive watch, a gift from her. "What does a bum like you have?" Boyfriend? For years? My mind reeled. The woman I'd been married to for seven years? The confusion curdled into pure, incandescent rage. I pulled out my worn leather wallet, clutched a folded document, and held it high for everyone to see. "What are you talking about?" I yelled, my voice shaking with fury. "I'm her lawful husband!" A collective gasp went through the crowd. They'd come to expose a kept man, but the real home-wrecker was the one who threw the first punch.

The heavy glass door of the city clerk' s office swung shut, sealing my fate. Today was supposed to be perfect, our third wedding anniversary, a day to celebrate the love Olivia and I had built. I clutched a small, official envelope, the certified copy of our marriage certificate, a simple gift. But the clerk' s flat voice still echoed in my ears: "There is no marriage certificate on file for an Ethan Miller and an Olivia Reed." My perfect life shattered. Olivia, my wife, the love of my life, was legally married to Alex Thorne, my protégé. The man who had filled in for me, the man she' d once dismissed. Every memory, every whispered promise, every intimate moment we shared, felt like a meticulously crafted lie. My heart pounded, a grotesque drumbeat against a hollow chest. How could this be? How could the woman I loved, the woman who promised me forever, be living a double life? How could I have been so blind? I walked into our apartment, the home I designed as a monument to our love, and heard her voice from the bedroom, low and intimate. "Of course, I miss you, Alex. Ethan doesn't know anything, he' s as clueless as ever. You know I can' t leave him, not yet. He' s too useful, his name still carries weight in this city, but you' re the one I' m married to, you' re the one I truly need." The words struck me like a physical blow, choking the air from my lungs. I wasn' t a husband; I was a prop, a stepping stone in her grand scheme. But the love I felt for her died in that hallway, replaced by something cold and sharp. I wouldn' t give her the satisfaction of a fight. I would disappear. And then, when she was comfortable in her world built on my back, I would return and take everything from her.

I lay strapped to a gurney, a cold chemical cocktail flooding my veins, my last sight the man I loved for seven years, FBI Special Agent Matthew Scott, watching my execution. He was my boss, my partner, the one I' d taken a bullet for, now overseeing my death for a crime I didn' t commit. Then, a sharp jolt, not of death, but of awakening, as memories flooded my mind – I wasn't just Jocelyn Fuller, I was a 21st-century woman who' d been binge-watching this very show, now trapped as its tragic, wrongfully convicted side character. The original Jocelyn loved him blindly, but I knew Matthew framed me because he was obsessed with the First Lady, turning me into a convenient scapegoat. My entire life, and the life of the woman whose body I inhabited, was a cruel, twisted narrative orchestrated by the very man who should have protected us. But then, a voice echoed in my head: "System Activated. Main Mission: Survive. Flip the script." And I knew my story was just beginning.

The cold knife twisted in my chest, a shocking contrast to the warmth of my own blood soaking through my shirt. My wife, Nicole, stood over me, her face a mess of drunken rage and tears. "It' s all your fault," she screamed, blaming me for her childhood friend Ryan' s suicide years ago – the man she truly loved. As the world faded to black, the last thing I saw was her face, twisted with a grief that had never been for me. The pain was unbearable, the betrayal absolute, yet I died knowing she never truly loved me, only the phantom of a lost love. Then, a sudden jolt, and sunlight streamed through my familiar bedroom window. My chest was whole, no blood, no pain. The date on my phone stared back: the morning of my Juilliard audition, the same day as Ryan's state championship game. I was back, given an impossible second chance to prevent my own murder. This time, the mistake wouldn' t be stopping Nicole from going to Ryan; it would be loving Nicole at all. My phone buzzed with her text, "Love you! <3", but all I felt was the chilling memory of a blade. I was going to save myself.

For seven years, I was secretly married to Ethan, country-rock' s newest sensation. My ballad, a song from my soul, was meant to be my breakthrough. Then my stepsister, Jessica, faked a rare, aggressive heart condition and stole my song. Ethan, my husband, bought her lie, pushing me to perform a dangerous pyro stunt for her music video. They didn't know I had aggressive leukemia, a real ticking clock I hid to protect them. The stunt paralyzed me. When I tried to tell Ethan and my mother, Brenda, about my actual terminal illness, they scoffed. They accused me of faking, of seeking attention, jealous of Jessica' s fabricated "dying wish." Bedridden and abandoned, I watched my husband and mother fawn over Jessica, who was secretly having an affair with Ethan. How could they be so blind? So cruel? My body was failing, life slipping away, yet their only concern was her. The man I sacrificed everything for believed I was a manipulative liar, trying to steal attention from a "dying girl." Abandoned and ignored, the truth of my impending death went unheeded. But sometimes, it takes a final, devastating act for the blind to see. What happens when a secret, deadly allergy meets negligent "love"? My story was ending, but theirs was just beginning.

Alex Miller had dedicated eight years to Sterling Creative Solutions. Eight years of pouring his talent into the agency, faithfully earning a modest three thousand dollars a month. He was the bedrock, making campaigns work, building client trust. All he wanted was a fair raise. His boss, Vicky, always dismissed his requests, claiming the market was "terrible." Then, a job ad blindsided him: Sterling Creative was hiring a "Creative Intern" for $30,000 a month – ten times his salary. A week later, Vicky’s smirking nephew, Bryce, arrived to claim that role… and Alex’s very own desk. Alex found himself exiled to a hot, noisy corner by the server room, ordered to "train his replacement." The humiliation was constant. Bryce was incompetent, botching client calls, yet Vicky doted on him, even promoting him to "Lead Strategist" after just two weeks. When Bryce infuriated their biggest client, Vicky snapped at Alex: "This is *your* responsibility." For his eight years of loyal service, Alex received a single, insulting hundred-dollar bill. The knot in his stomach tightened into a vise. Eight years of dedication, now reduced to training an overpaid, talentless nepo-baby. Every day was a fresh assault on his dignity. But it was Vicky’s final, bizarre, and venomous accusation – implying he'd "mooned over her" – that snapped something inside him. The misplaced loyalty, the years of swallowing pride, shattered. "I quit," he declared, the words quiet but firm. He didn't look back. But how does a man rebuild his professional life when his foundation has been so cruelly undermined, and his reputation potentially tainted?

Ava Miller had it all: society status, designer clothes, and a marriage to Liam Carter, her quiet, long-suffering husband whom she openly despised, often favoring her charming ex, Noah. In his final months, battling a terminal illness, Liam made one desperate request: five shared "experiences" before their divorce. Ava endured them with bitter indifference, fueled by Noah’s constant disdain. After Liam's quiet death, his friend, Ben, meticulously engineered revelations: Liam was "Cipher," a renowned hidden artist, whose private works hauntingly depicted Ava, each stroke a testament to his profound, unrequited love. The truth shattered Ava: the man she tortured was her silent devotee, while Noah, her trusted confidant, was a lifelong deceiver who actively orchestrated her scorn, even impersonating Liam to gain credit for his selflessness. Consumed by agonizing guilt and explosive rage, Ava lured Noah to a desolate, abandoned cellar, locking him inside to face a slow, agonizing demise. Now imprisoned, reading Liam's unedited journals, she finally confronts the immeasurable love she destroyed, embarking on a desolate penance for the love she recognized too late.

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

I'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body. My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in. I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then- I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses. Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down- He's still hard. Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance. "You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless. "I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake. "Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat. And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm. "Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine. *** Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge. She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez. He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her. What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated. Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty? And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god. Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires. He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family. In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet. Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it. That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed. I finally understood the promise he’d made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property. After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash. So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good. A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father—his greatest enemy.

I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

Elora Griffiths was on her way to drop her daughter off at school when her husband's enemies opened fire in the street. The bodyguard her husband had personally assigned to protect them abandoned the car the instant the shots rang out. Mother and daughter were hit multiple times, teetering on the brink of death. Elora frantically called her husband, Rodger Griffiths, but he didn't answer. Her brother, Hugh Dale, arrived just in time and saved them both. "How could this happen? Didn't Rodger assign someone to protect you?" Hugh asked. Elora sobbed uncontrollably, "The bodyguard ran away!" On the way to the hospital, Elora kept trying Rodger's number, desperate. One call after another... Finally, on the ninety-ninth attempt, the line connected. On the other end was the female bodyguard, trembling, her voice barely holding back tears. "Rodger, it's really not my fault! There were so many assassins. I would've died if I tried to stop them! I was so scared..." Elora held her breath, waiting for her husband's wrath to thunder down. But Rodger just sighed. "Forget it. The important thing is you're safe," he said. Meanwhile, Elora's daughter took her last breath in her arms. The pain was suffocating. She held her daughter close as her body went cold and stiff, teeth gritted in fury, "Hugh, I'm divorcing him! I'll cut off every single arms shipment to the Griffiths family from the largest arms company in Crownport!"

For nine years, I was the perfect mafia wife. I laundered Marcus Thorne’s money through my design firm, smiled at his dinners, and ignored the lipstick stains on his collars. I believed in the Omertà of our marriage. I thought my loyalty was my armor. I was wrong. On the night of our anniversary gala, a car lost control and barreled straight toward us in the parking lot. Marcus didn't look at me. Not once. He lunged for his mistress, Izzy, tackling her to safety behind a concrete pillar. I was left standing in the open. The impact threw me like a ragdoll. I lay bleeding on the cold asphalt, my body broken, watching through the haze as my husband frantically checked his mistress for scratches. "My ankle," she whimpered. Without a backward glance, he picked her up and carried her to his limousine, leaving me to bleed out on the pavement. He didn't leave me because he panicked. He left me because I was just a shield he used to protect what he actually loved. As darkness crept in, a shadow fell over me. It wasn't Marcus. It was Julian Croft, his sworn rival. I looked at the empty spot where my husband should have been and made a choice. "Get me to the hospital," I rasped, staring into the eyes of the enemy. "And then help me burn his empire to the ground."

I stood alone at the center of my art gallery opening, clutching a glass of warm champagne, while the guests whispered behind their hands. My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, wasn't there. A breaking news alert on my phone explained why. It was a high-definition photo of Dante shielding his mistress, Isabella, from the rain. He was touching her with a protective possessiveness he had never once shown me. Then came his text: "Isabella needed me. Go home." That was the moment the cage door unlocked. I didn't go home to cry. I went to his office the next morning with a stack of papers disguised as "gallery insurance forms." While Isabella sat on his desk, mocking me for being a boring housewife, Dante was too annoyed to read the fine print. He just wanted me gone so he could get back to her. He signed the divorce decree. He signed the asset dissolution. Most importantly, without looking, he signed the irrevocable relinquishment of parental rights. I walked out with my freedom, but fate had a cruel sense of humor. That night, I stared at a positive pregnancy test. I was carrying the Sovrano heir he had always demanded. And he had just legally signed away his right to ever know his child. I fled to the Swiss Alps, vanishing into the snow to raise my baby away from his world of blood and bullets. I thought I was safe, until six months later. Dante hadn't just sent men to look for me. He had burned his own shipping empire to the ground, destroying his status as King, just to prove he would trade it all for the wife he threw away.