REGINA HUTCHINSON

"Fifty strikes," Floyd ordered, his voice devoid of warmth. I knelt in the freezing snow, watching the man I had taken a bullet for five years ago stand beside his new fiancée, Jaylah. Because Jaylah tore her engagement dress and blamed me, Floyd let his men beat me until my face was unrecognizable. But that was just the beginning of my hell. To save his alliance with Jaylah's family, he drained my blood to save her mother, ignoring my own fading pulse. When Jaylah lied that I tried to burn her, Floyd forced me to thrust my hands—my architect's hands—into glowing coals until the flesh melted. He stripped me of my name, my protection, and finally, my life. "You are a liability," he said, pushing me into the freezing pool with a skimmer pole. He watched me drown with the same detached interest he used to inspect firearms. My lungs burned, and my heart turned to ice. I died hating him more than I ever loved him. I thought it was the end. But then, I gasped. Air rushed into my lungs. I wasn't in the water. I was sitting at a drafting table, five years before the nightmare began. My hands were smooth. No scars. No burns. And when Floyd Meyers approached me on the quad, smiling like the boy I used to love, I didn't smile back. I ran.

The man who destroyed my life stood over my broken body, but he didn't recognize me. My husband, Carter, was just the lawyer handling the "Jane Doe" found at his client's construction site, worried only about legal complications. As a ghost, I watched him dismiss every part of me. The silver locket I' d clutched in my hand? "Just another piece of evidence," he said flatly. The faded tattoo on my wrist? "An irrelevant detail." He called me a selfish liar when my severe heart condition kept me from donating bone marrow to his manipulative fiancée, Cecelia. He threw me out of his car and left me on a street corner, where her thugs found me. He was consumed with finding justice for a stranger, blind to the fact that he was the one who had sentenced his own wife to death. I thought he'd never know. But then, the police showed him security footage from a community center. He saw my face, alive and smiling. And in that instant, the man who refused to see me in life was forced to see me in death.

My husband, Liam, was the man I literally gave a piece of myself to, a kidney donated to save his life. I loved him with a devotion that ran deeper than blood. But this morning, I discovered the heart beating inside him was now completely unfaithful, and the life I saved had been used to destroy mine. For years, Liam, the empire-builder, was my perfect husband, still making my favorite breakfast. Then his phone buzzed: a text from "Ava Sinclair" – *Can't wait for tonight.* His panicked reaction and cold, fake kiss shattered everything. His betrayal quickly unraveled: late nights, whispered calls, a strange perfume. On our anniversary, he gave Ava the real "Star" necklace, sending me a fake. A hidden photo and ultrasound confirmed it: Liam with Ava and "our baby." He then abandoned me for Ava. Overhearing Liam call me "the brand" and "barren" while I carried his child, I made the agonizing choice to terminate my pregnancy. Hollowed but resolute, I burned with injustice. I had sacrificed a life because of his lies; the man I saved viewed me as a broken asset. When Liam called, oblivious, promising a "real surprise" at his tower, my voice was steel. I would go, not to celebrate, but to walk into the fire and finally be free.

For three years, I, Hollywood's unbreakable star Aliza Cabrera, chased the one man I couldn't have: the brilliant, cold surgeon Dr. Etienne McCarthy. My relentless pursuit was a public spectacle, met only with his icy indifference. Then, a single phone call shattered my world. My mother, her voice dripping with smug triumph, announced his engagement. Not to me, but to my manipulative stepsister, Kaylee. The betrayal cut deeper when I discovered the truth. His coldness wasn't for everyone; it was a calculated performance orchestrated by Kaylee. "I did what you asked, Kaylee," he'd whispered to her, his voice laced with a devotion he never showed me. "Anything for you." When Kaylee's lies escalated to a fire that nearly killed me, Etienne saved me, only to believe her twisted story that I had set it myself. He chose her, again and again, even leaving me bleeding on an operating table because Kaylee feigned a panic attack. "My fiancée needs me," were his final words to me. I was nothing to him. A nuisance. A convenient discard. The love I felt turned to ash. So I vanished. I rebuilt my life, becoming a media mogul, powerful and untouchable. I found real love with a kind man named Collins. But just as I found my peace, a ghost from the past reappeared, his eyes filled with a desperate, belated regret. This time, he wouldn't break me. This time, I would be the one to walk away.

For five years, I was the devoted wife who helped Brandon build his tech empire. But the moment his first love, Kristal, returned with a feigned injury, he handed her the diamond necklace meant for our anniversary and abandoned me in a torrential storm. He knew my PTSD from a past kidnapping made storms terrifying, yet he drove away with her without a backward glance. When I called him for help, terrified of the stranger driving my rideshare, it was Kristal who answered. "Brandon is in the shower," she taunted. "Don't disturb our reunion." I barely escaped an assault that night, only to return home and discover the ultimate betrayal: Brandon never filed our marriage license in the US. Legally, I was never his wife. I was just a placeholder until she came back. While he was busy comforting her, I didn't scream or fight. I simply shredded the fake wedding certificate, packed my bags, and vanished. By the time he realized his mistake and came begging on his knees, I was already gone.

For twelve years, my life wasn't my own. It belonged to Dawson Parks. I was sold to his family at sixteen to pay for my mother's cancer treatments, becoming the tech heir's companion, his secretary, and eventually, his lover. Then his childhood sweetheart, Kenzie, came back to town. He told me he was going to marry her and offered me a severance package-a few million dollars for twelve years of my life.

In my first life, I was the beloved adopted daughter of the Stanton family. My three perfect brothers showered me with affection, and Jackson, my first love, promised me the world. But it was all a lie. When they set the mansion on fire, they stood on the lawn and watched me burn. I heard them laughing through the flames. "She's just an orphan," they said. "Pretending to love her all these years has been exhausting." The only one who ran into the fire for me was Grayson Stanton—the cold, distant uncle who everyone said hated me. He held me as the roof collapsed, whispering, "I'm with you." He died for me. My world was built on their affection, a perfect, horrible lie. Now, I've woken up again, back in the lawyer's office, one week before the fire. To inherit the multi-billion dollar fortune, the will says I must marry one of my three brothers—my murderers. So when the lawyer asked for my choice, I smiled. "I choose Grayson Stanton."

The pregnancy test lay on our bathroom counter, two aggressive pink lines screaming a judgment. Seven years ago, I had a vasectomy-a choice Sarah and I made together, cementing our child-free life. But now, she stood beside me, eyes wide with an unnerving excitement, claiming this was a "miracle," a fulfillment of some bizarre "destiny card" from a tarot reader. My gut screamed impossible, yet her practiced smile, laced with an unsettling desperation, cornered me. I played along, a silent actor in her twisted play, watching her cling to this absurd narrative. My parents, then hers, were swept into the delusion, celebrating a grandchild I knew couldn't be mine. The deeper I sank into the charade, the more frantic her desperate whispers to her "mom" grew, texts angled away. Why was she so desperate, so secretive? What terror drove her to this elaborate lie? The truth was a chilling void, a gnawing suspicion that threatened to swallow me whole. Then, a hushed phone call from the next room. "No, Mark, you can't just show up here. Ethan is home." My wife's voice, intimate. Familiar. And then, the cruel, mocking laugh: "He actually believes that stupid story about the destiny card. He' s so easy to manage. Loyal like a puppy." My sanity shattered. This wasn't a miracle; it was a cold, calculated betrayal. This was her high school sweetheart, Mark, and their secret life-including "the last two times" and "another abortion." I would make her play out her perfect scene at her parents' anniversary party, then tear it all down.

I was just a ranch hand, she was a Redding heiress. Our love was a defiance, a whisper against the roaring wind of her family's dynastic rules. Seraphina chose me, giving up everything, promising forever. Then, her family made a devil' s bargain: she was forced to give them a male heir with their rival' s son, Wyatt Cole, to eventually be with me. I watched, tormented, as she became pregnant, only for her to bear a daughter, prolonging the agonizing charade. To add insult to injury, her infant child fell mysteriously ill, and without hesitation, every finger pointed at me. I was blamed, accused of poisoning the baby, and dragged into a frozen meat locker in the heart of a Wyoming blizzard. Through the frosted glass, I saw Sera. Her eyes, once full of fire for me, were cold with disappointment. "Why would you hurt my child?" she asked, shattering my world. The woman who once cradled my smallest cuts now watched me bleed, giving my family's prized buckle to my rival, openly choosing him over and over again. How could the woman who pledged her soul to me, who bled for me, believe I was a monster? How could she watch me endure such humiliation and torture without a single word of defense? What unknown force compelled her to turn her back on the very man she claimed was her only home? Broken beyond repair, I walked away from the endless torment, vanishing into the vast, remote mountains, vowing to erase every trace of the life I' d lost. But some secrets refuse to stay buried, and some pasts insist on a final, shattering confrontation.

My life was perfect: a loving husband, a beautiful Charleston home, and a crucial grant to restore a historic house. But my lawyer' s words shattered it all. "There's an issue with the spousal disclosures," he said, pushing a marriage certificate across his desk. It wasn't mine. It was Ethan' s, marrying his assistant, Chloe Vance, five years ago. My seven-year marriage was a lie. Chloe was always there, her presence dismissed by Ethan as "purely professional." I had wanted to believe him. Then I overheard them: Ethan confessing he needed me for "legitimacy" and Chloe for "something vital." The betrayal was colder, more calculated than I imagined. He left me for dead, tortured and disfigured, in a damp basement, after Chloe orchestrated the attack using his men. He even gave her my great-grandmother' s locket-my heritage-as if replacing me, piece by precious piece. How could he? How could the man I loved, my soulmate, be so monstrously manipulative, so blind, so cruel? My body screamed in pain, but my heart felt nothing but an echoing emptiness. My entire existence was a charade, a cruel joke. But as I lay there, broken and discarded, a chilling resolve took root. Amelia Hayes was dead. It was time for Grace Thorne to be born. I would not just survive; I would rise from the ashes and dismantle every last piece of his gilded empire. This was not just revenge; this was rebalancing the scales, permanently.

I was Chloe, a high school student with Ivy League dreams, just two months shy of the SATs. Our kind housekeeper, Ms. Evans, offered me a "special calming tea" to ease my nerves. It wasn't comforting. It was a soul-swapping recipe that stole my life. I woke up trapped in the body of Brenda, Ms. Evans's resentful, academically hopeless daughter. Brenda, in my body, went to the SATs and deliberately caused a horrific scene. She tore up the test. They disqualified me. They blacklisted me. My parents, blindly trusting Ms. Evans, believed I'd had a breakdown or cheated. Their disappointment crushed me. My Ivy League dreams shattered into a million pieces. Ostracized and consumed by despair, I faded away. I simply stopped. The horror of remembering, the injustice of watching my future crumble, burned within me. Why did Ms. Evans and her daughter hate me enough to destroy me? But then, I woke up. I was back, two months before the SATs, alive again, before everything went to hell. This time, I wouldn't just prevent it. I would understand why, and then I would make them pay.

Sarah Miller was the quiet, scar-faced tech genius at Apex Innovations, engaged to the charming CEO, Ethan Hayes. She just wanted to build something amazing, leading Apex' s most critical project, Nightshade, her professional pride and joy. Then, Ethan introduced Brittany Evans, a bubbly, blonde "coding prodigy" intern. Tasked with mentoring her, I quickly saw through Brittany's dazzling smile: she was utterly incompetent, yet constantly slipped into Ethan's private office. My honest performance review, highlighting her lack of technical depth, became my corporate death sentence. The next day, Ethan publicly stripped me of everything. My lead role on Nightshade, my groundbreaking project, and even my earned Apex Innovator Fellowship-all given to Brittany. He then stood before the entire engineering department and, with icy words, accused me of "pettiness" and "jealousy." The applause for Brittany was a hammer blow, each clap echoing my humiliation and betrayal. How could the man I loved, the man who supposedly protected me, do this? The injustice was unbearable. All my loyalty, my years of work, thrown away for an intern who spent two weeks charming the boss. It made no sense. Why would Ethan sacrifice his company' s future for her? My mind reeled, desperate for an answer that wasn't just "he's a fool." As I walked out of Apex, leaving my old life behind, something shifted. The glasses came off. My mousy facade crumbled. The quiet engineer was dead. Because the truth was far more complex: Sarah Miller was a carefully constructed lie. And now, the real Sarah-a Sterling heiress, a spy with a score to settle-was finally ready to play.

We were the quintessential Chicago love story, high school sweethearts, married for five blissful years. My husband, Michael, a successful real estate developer, suddenly longed for a family, and our high-profile OB-GYN, Dr. Peterson, joyfully announced we were expecting twins. But eight months into my pregnancy, a chilling conversation changed everything. I overheard Michael conspiring with Dr. Peterson, not about our supposed twins, but about 'Chloe's' baby, and a forced C-section for me to steal her child. "Born a month apart, they won't look like twins," Dr. Peterson warned, yet Michael heartlessly replied, "She won't see them much anyway; I'll keep her occupied." In that horrifying moment, I realized my beloved husband planned to use me to legitimize another woman's baby, then discard me. He was a monster beneath the charming facade, frantically searching for his "missing" pregnant wife on national TV, all a performance. He bought me my dream bakery and orchestrated a public reunion for the cameras, while inside, I felt only cold, sickening dread. Then came Chloe's anonymous messages and Michael's sickening "promotional wedding" with his pregnant mistress, humiliating me publicly. The man I loved, the man I married, was a ghost, replaced by a calculating schemer. How could the man I trusted utterly betray me, twisting our love into such a grotesque charade? But while he reveled in his deception, I was already planning my escape. I had to protect my baby from his sick game, so aided by my powerful mother, I left him with divorce papers, ready for a final act he'd never forget. His confident charade was his undoing; my departure was my fierce liberation.

The clinking of glasses and polite chatter filled the dining room—a supposedly normal dinner with my wife, Izzy, and a potential business partner, Mr. Henderson. This was the night meant to seal the deal for my brewery, signaling a bright future for my family. But in my mind, the scene played out differently, vividly, a horrific déjà vu of the night my life had truly ended. Last time, this seemingly innocent evening spiraled into a nightmare where my daughter, Lily, died, and I was framed for her murder. My 'loving wife' Izzy pointed her finger, screaming accusations that chilled me to the bone, painting me as a monster. My stepmother, Carol, publicly disowned me, her eyes cold and calculating, while my father, Richard, succumbed to the shock, his weak heart giving out. I ended up in prison, a shivving victim, universally condemned as a child abuser and killer. The sheer injustice of it all, the betrayal by those closest to me, had festered over what felt like an eternity. How could they concoct such an elaborate, cruel lie, especially one involving an innocent child? Why would my own family orchestrate such a devastating downfall? But this time, I was back, reborn into this exact, horrifying moment, the jagged neck of a broken beer bottle clenched in my fist. No more polite conversation, no more playing the fool—this time, the script was mine. This time, Lily would live.

Two years have passed since my death. Now, my old roommate, Jessica, stands on a grand stage, accepting the "Annual Community Contributor" award. Millions across the nation are watching her flawless smile, her humble nod—a true paragon of virtue. Then, a catastrophic glitch. My old laptop’s desktop, with a candid photo of my stepbrother Michael, flickers onto the massive screen behind her. Michael, in the front row, snarls loud enough for every microphone to catch it, “What is that dead girl’s junk doing here? So damn disrespectful!” The live chat goes wild, demanding this "trash" be removed, calling me sick, a psycho, forever "bad news." The host, David, clicks open my "Sarah's Private Posts" folder, exposing my innermost thoughts, my hidden struggles, one excruciating entry at a time. He reads my very first post—detailing a secret donation I made, the same one Jessica brazenly claimed as the start of her own famous charity work. Jessica feigns shock and Michael, clutching her hand, reinforces their elaborate deception, branding me as an obsessive, selfish liar who brought all her troubles on herself. My name, once again, is dragged through the mud, my tragic end blamed on my own "faults," even from beyond the grave. The cameras fixate on Jessica’s carefully staged sorrow, Michael’s theatrical disgust, and the world believes them, condemns me. Didn’t my sacrifices, my pain, my desperate attempts to uncover the truth mean anything? But David, the host, doesn’t stop. He scrolls to the next post, and the one after that. They have no idea what else I left behind. Because my carefully documented words, my secret recordings, and undeniable evidence are about to bring their entire empire crashing down, live on national television.

At the elite Auer Conservatory gala, I, Ava Davies, a scholarship violinist, finally felt I belonged, especially with my powerful trustee boyfriend, Ethan Montgomery, effortlessly by my side. But then, the grand screen, meant for donor names, flickered to life, displaying a deeply intimate video of me—a bedroom scene—for all of New York's elite to see, hijacking my deepest humiliation for public consumption. As gasps turned to cruel whispers and mocking laughter, and my world crumbled, Ethan, my supposed anchor, vanished, only for me to find him moments later, gloating with my stepsister, Seraphina, admitting our entire relationship was an "amusing diversion" to orchestrate my ruin. Betrayed by the man I loved, herded like an animal, I was then dragged into a dark alley by his friends, enduring unimaginable torture: chili oil burned my throat, flashes captured my terror, and a searing hot iron branded my shoulder, all for the public's entertainment, sanctioned by Ethan who later, chillingly, instructed kidnappers to "dispose of me." Why had he, the man who once championed me, orchestrated such monstrous cruelty, leaving me broken and branded, desiring my very eradication—what dark secret propelled this twisted vengeance, and could I ever escape his terrifying obsession? This raw, agonizing betrayal transformed me: I would not just survive, I would disappear from his world, on my own terms, turning my back on the ruin he created to forge a future where I, Ava, would finally be free.

Essie wakes up on her bed in the morning and is shocked to find an unknown good-looking man sleeping beside her. On the desk, she also discovers the marriage certificates bearing the names of her and this man. She tries to figure out what has happened and finds that it's only a mistake. Yesterday, she was rejected by someone she loves and was told that he would be engaged to her deadly foe. In great despair, she went to a bar and met this guy. They drank a lot and played games. Under the influence of alcohol, they got married. However, it's hard to get a divorce now because she wants to use the dramatic yet genuine marriage to keep her proud in front of her deadly foe. Would it be possible that they fall in love with each other in the future?

She came from humble beginnings, with an average academic record, she held a dull job and earned a small income. Wearing makeup and dressing up was not in her daily repertoire. From her head to her toes, inside and out, she was a plain Jane. Yet, following the night that she had planned to teach her unfaithful brother-in-law a lesson as revenge for her cousin, she was plunged into another world. A chance encounter in the wrong room, and she met him–a man whose entire presence exuded charm, glamour, and perfection. He could have had any woman that he wanted. Any upper-class lady could have graced his arm at social events to further his business goals while he traded as a corporate raider. However, unexpectedly, he becomes infatuated with her.

Essie wakes up on her bed in the morning and is shocked to find an unknown good-looking man sleeping beside her. On the desk, she also discovers the marriage certificates bearing the names of her and this man. She tries to figure out what has happened and finds that it’s only a mistake. Yesterday, she was rejected by someone she loves and was told that he would be engaged to her deadly foe. In great despair, she went to a bar and met this guy. They drank a lot and played games. Under the influence of alcohol, they got married. However, it’s hard to get a divorce now because she wants to use the dramatic yet genuine marriage to keep her proud in front of her deadly foe. Would it be possible that they fall in love with each other in the future?

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 was three days away from marrying the Underboss of the Fazio crime family when I unlocked his burner phone. The screen glowed toxic bright in the dark next to my sleeping fiancé. A message from a contact saved as 'Little Trouble' read: "She is just a statue, Dante. Come back to bed." Attached was a photo of a woman lying in the sheets of his private office, wearing his shirt. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. For eight years, I believed Dante was the hero who pulled me from a burning opera house. I played the perfect, loyal Mafia Princess for him. But heroes don't give their mistresses rare pink diamonds while giving their fiancées cubic zirconia replicas. He didn't just cheat. He humiliated me. He defended his mistress over his own soldiers in public. He even abandoned me on the side of the road on my birthday because she faked a pregnancy emergency. He thought I was weak. He thought I would accept the fake ring and the disrespect because I was just a political pawn. He was wrong. I didn't cry. Tears are for women who have options. I had a strategy. I walked into the bathroom and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in a decade. "Speak," a voice like gravel growled on the other end. Lorenzo Moretti. The Capo of the rival family. The man my father called the Devil. "The wedding is off," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "I want an alliance with you, Enzo. And I want the Fazio family burned to the ground."

For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe. On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring. Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger. Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family. When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence. "Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets." My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet. He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts. He was wrong. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use. Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed. *I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.* His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning. *The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?* I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me. I looked down and typed three letters. *Yes.*

For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York. I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him. But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash. In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress. He forced me to watch him court her. At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her. He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain. He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life. I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god. I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole. He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps. So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother. I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars. I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia. By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost.

I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me. But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest. The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me. They didn't. Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her. They let me burn to keep her warm. When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages. That was the moment Elena Vitiello died. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York. By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring. "You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them. "Burn for it."

"Fifty strikes," Floyd ordered, his voice devoid of warmth. I knelt in the freezing snow, watching the man I had taken a bullet for five years ago stand beside his new fiancée, Jaylah. Because Jaylah tore her engagement dress and blamed me, Floyd let his men beat me until my face was unrecognizable. But that was just the beginning of my hell. To save his alliance with Jaylah's family, he drained my blood to save her mother, ignoring my own fading pulse. When Jaylah lied that I tried to burn her, Floyd forced me to thrust my hands—my architect's hands—into glowing coals until the flesh melted. He stripped me of my name, my protection, and finally, my life. "You are a liability," he said, pushing me into the freezing pool with a skimmer pole. He watched me drown with the same detached interest he used to inspect firearms. My lungs burned, and my heart turned to ice. I died hating him more than I ever loved him. I thought it was the end. But then, I gasped. Air rushed into my lungs. I wasn't in the water. I was sitting at a drafting table, five years before the nightmare began. My hands were smooth. No scars. No burns. And when Floyd Meyers approached me on the quad, smiling like the boy I used to love, I didn't smile back. I ran.

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 replaced my twin sister in a marriage contract to the ruthless Mafia Don, Donovan Blackwood. For three years, I was a ghost in his home, silently enduring his coldness while he flaunted his mistress, Chloe. On the very last day of our contract, Chloe staged an accident. Donovan didn't hesitate. He forced me to drain my blood to save her life. Then, to prove his loyalty to her, he drove me to the cliffs and pushed me into the freezing ocean. He even locked me in a cellar infested with spiders—my deepest phobia—because she lied and said I threatened her. He thought he was punishing the spoiled, arrogant Isabella. He didn't know he was breaking Ava, the woman who had silently memorized his allergies and waited up for him in the dark every single night. When I finally took my fifty million dollars and vanished, I left behind nothing but the divorce papers and a photo revealing the truth. He tore the city apart, destroying my family to find me, only to realize he had tortured the wrong woman. Now, he is standing on my porch in the pouring rain, staring in horror at the simple wooden ring on my finger given to me by another man. He falls to his knees, begging for a chance to love the wife he tried to destroy. I look at him, feeling absolutely nothing. "It's too late, Donovan," I say, locking the door. "You killed her."

"The child is mine." My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, announced to the world, his hand resting protectively on his mistress's stomach. He was lying to save her life, but in doing so, he signed the death warrant for the baby growing inside me. Just hours before, I had finally gotten the positive test we had prayed for over five years. But Dante chose to claim a traitor's bastard as his heir. When I tried to confront him, he dismissed me cold-heartedly. "It's a strategic lie, Elena. You aren't pregnant, so it doesn't matter." He didn't know. Later, when an accident left his mistress critical, he dragged me to the hospital. He forced me to donate my blood to save her, ignoring my ghostly pallor. He didn't know I was already bleeding out. He didn't know I had just come from the clinic, where I had removed the "complication" he made me feel ashamed of. He thought he was being noble. He didn't realize he was killing his own son to save another man's lie. On the night of the gala celebrating his "heir," I left a white box on his desk and vanished. Inside was a medical report: *Termination of Pregnancy. 8 Weeks. Father: Dante Moretti.* By the time he read it, I was already gone.

On our ninth anniversary, my husband Dominick didn't toast to us. Instead, he rested his hand on his mistress's pregnant belly in front of the entire crime family. I was just a debt payment to him, a ghost in a forty-thousand-dollar gown. But the humiliation didn't end in the ballroom. When his mistress, Chastity, started hemorrhaging later that night, he didn't call an ambulance. He dragged me to the family clinic. He knew I had a serious heart condition. He knew a transfusion of that magnitude could trigger a fatal cardiac event. "She is carrying my son," he said, his eyes devoid of any humanity. "You will give her whatever she needs." I begged him. I bargained for my freedom. He lied and agreed, just to get the needle in my arm. As my dark red blood flowed through the tube to save the woman destroying my life, my chest tightened. The monitors began to scream. My heart was failing. "Mr. Reyes! She's crashing!" the doctor shouted. Dominick didn't even turn around. He walked out of the room to hold Chastity's hand, leaving me to die on the table. I survived, but Annis Myers died in that clinic. He thought I would return to the penthouse and continue being his obedient, silent wife. He thought he owned the blood in my veins. He was wrong. I went back to the penthouse one last time. I struck a match. I let the room burn. By the time Dominick realized I wasn't in the ashes, I was already on a plane to London. I had left my wedding ring in an envelope, along with the medical records that proved his cruelty. He wanted a war? I would give him one.