Sea Quest

Arden Monroe was locked in a sterile psychiatric room by her own flesh and blood. Not long after, her brother Delmar arrived with a cold ultimatum. He demanded she publicly break her engagement so her fiancé Brenden could marry her half-sister Kallie. If she refused, the doctors would declare her legally unstable, and she would rot in this asylum forever. In her previous life, Arden fought back desperately. As a result, her family froze her trust fund and completely destroyed her reputation in high society. They even framed her fiercely loyal assistant, Jennie, throwing her into a terrifying concrete cell to silence her. When Arden had absolutely nothing left to take, they orchestrated a tragic accident. She was left to burn alive in an abandoned warehouse, feeling her own bones turn to ash. Until she died, she didn't understand. She was a Monroe, her father's legitimate daughter. Why did her father and brother hate her so much? Why did they collude with political enemies to slaughter her maternal grandfather and uncles just to strip away her protection? Opening her eyes again, the suffocating smoke was gone, and she was back on the day Delmar came to force the breakup. "I'll do what you want," Arden whispered, perfectly masking her cold, murderous resolve. This time, she would inherit the secret Beaumont wealth, ally with the dying General Donovan Mathews, and burn their world to the ground.

To fulfill her dying grandmother's final wish, Clarice married a complete stranger. After a quick signature at City Hall, the man handed her a key and vanished overseas for an entire year. But when Clarice was promoted to the corporate headquarters, her quiet life was shattered. A year later, they crossed paths at the company. As Clarice sized up her formidable CEO, she was struck by a vague sense of familiarity, yet she could not for the life of her place where she had seen him before. Rumors spread that the powerful CEO of The Sinclair Group, who had always kept his distance from all women, was married-and utterly obsessed with his wife, spoiling her rotten. Clarice had heard the gossip too, never realizing that the envied Mrs. Sinclair was none other than herself. It was not until one night after a banquet that the truth came to light. Slightly intoxicated, Nolan Sinclair IV leaned close to her ear and murmured in a low, intimate voice, "Darling."

I sealed my rare White Wolf aura and royal identity for three years to repay Alpha Silas for saving my life, secretly building his impoverished pack into prosperity. But instead of gratitude, he brought his mistress Elara to our bedroom, forcing me to sign an Omega downgrade contract. "She has earned her place by my side in the Capital. Not you," Silas announced coldly. When I tried to leave, he crushed my hand under his heavy boot. To solidify her position, Elara poisoned me with wolfsbane, and Silas tortured my face with a silver scourge to extract a false confession of a secret lover. Locked in a silver-wired cage on the carriage ride to the Capital, I bled out and lost the pup I had secretly been carrying. Silas and his mother merely watched with cold indifference. "It is merely a Rogue's bastard pup. It deserves to die," Elara sneered. I gave them everything, using my clandestine royal connections to feed their starving pack, yet they treated me like disposable refuse and killed my unborn child just to elevate a thief. When Silas dragged me before the Lycan King and Queen to publicly execute my supposed lover—who turned out to be the Royal Army's top General and my true fated mate—I finally let my black velvet hood fall. It was time for them to realize the "Omega slave" they had tortured was actually the kingdom's eldest Princess.

Chloe was drowning in crushing debt and a rare neurological condition that made her skin agonize for a touch she couldn't bear. That was until her mysterious neighbor, Julian, stepped in. He saved her from a predatory client by beating the man half to death, secured her a $20,000 payout, and miraculously cured her tormenting condition with a single, desperate night in her bed. But Julian was dangerous. He drove a Bentley, had the police turning a blind eye to his violence, and hid dark secrets behind a handyman disguise. Terrified by his world and the absolute control he had over her body, Chloe panicked. The morning after he tenderly held her together, she pulled out her checkbook. She handed him a check for $500. "For your service. It was excellent," she said coldly, treating the lethal man like a cheap escort. His vulnerable expression shattered, replaced by a look of profound hurt and ice-cold rage. He slammed her door, vanishing from her life. Almost immediately, her skin began to burn again, and her career stalled. The brutal realization hit her: she had driven away the only person who could anchor her. But why did a man with such immense wealth and power pretend to be a blue-collar worker just to get close to her in the first place? Desperate, she wired him another $500 to force a reaction. Late that night, as she stood nervously at a convenience store counter buying boxes of condoms, a low, triumphant voice whispered in her ear. "Preparing for next time?"

I am the adopted daughter of the Dillard family, a medical student surviving entirely on a full scholarship. But when their family business faced bankruptcy, my adoptive parents decided it was time for me to pay them back. My sister refused to marry a rumored "dying freak" from the wealthy Terrell family, so they forced me to take her place. When I refused, my adoptive father showed me a flawless, disgusting AI Deepfake video of myself. "Sign the marriage contract, or this goes to your medical school." To save my hard-earned future, I was shoved into a wedding dress and shipped off to the Terrell estate. But my nightmare had just begun. My new husband was the exact same dangerous, sick man I had accidentally injured while escaping an attacker the night before. He didn't recognize me in the light, assuming I was just the greedy, gold-digging Dillard daughter. He humiliated me, forcing me to sleep on the floor and clean shattered crystal with my bare hands. As the sharp shards sliced into my skin and blood pooled in my gloves, I didn't shed a single tear. He told me I had a three-month trial period as his wife before he threw me out. I calmly wrapped a band-aid around my bleeding finger. Three months is exactly what I need to find the original Deepfake file, ruin my adoptive family, and escape this monster for good.

Erica Murphy had spent three years rotting in a freezing prison cell. She thought she was serving time for a tragic accident, but the truth was much darker. Her husband, Colten, had framed her for his mistress's drunk hit-and-run, stolen her fortune, and left her to take the fall. The day Erica was finally released, a speeding car intentionally slammed into her, shattering her spine. As she lay dying on the emergency room table, flatlining on the monitor, Colten and his pregnant mistress didn't come to save her. Instead, they tossed a stack of divorce papers onto her bloody hospital blanket. They wanted her to sign away her last remaining shares and take on thirty million dollars of toxic corporate debt. "Sign it," Colten demanded coldly, looking at her crushed body with utter disgust. "Consider this the last bit of dignity I'm giving you." The original Erica died right there, suffocating in despair and betrayal, unable to understand how the man she loved could be so monstrous. But when the flatline on the monitor suddenly spiked and her eyes snapped open, the traumatized victim was gone. Replaced by the cold, calculating consciousness of a future special ops commander. With microscopic nanobots rapidly fusing her shattered bones together, Erica picked up the pen, preparing to burn Colten's entire empire to ashes.

Ten years. Ninety-seven million dollars. And the wife wasn't me. I discovered Knox Miller's photograph on a Tuesday—him, his pregnant wife, and a future I was never meant to share. I could have walked away. Instead, I spent nine years becoming the architect of his rise, waiting for the perfect moment to engineer his fall. He never knew I was building a fortress behind his back. He never knew his wife Deana had become my secret ally. He never knew I was teaching his son to code through an anonymous online persona. He thought he was the smartest man in every room. He was wrong. When the moment finally came, I didn't just leave him. I burned his entire world to the ground—starting with the brownstone I bought us, and ending with a press conference where both his families stood on stage to destroy him. Revenge is a dish best served cold. I waited nine years to serve mine. And it was delicious.

I was the invisible daughter of the Hayes crime family, secretly painting portraits of Marcus, the Underboss. He was the man who had once protected me from the world, the man I loved from the shadows. But he chose power over affection. To secure an alliance, he engaged Isabella. Threatened by my existence, Isabella staged a fake miscarriage and framed me for destroying her heirloom wedding dress. Marcus didn't ask for my side of the story. Blinded by rage over his "lost heir," he ordered his guards to drag me to the Ice Cellar—a freezing underground torture chamber used for traitors. For days, I shivered in the absolute darkness, listening to the water drip, realizing the man I worshiped was actually my jailer. My father, protecting his own millions, let it happen. In that cold, the girl who loved Marcus died. When he finally released me, he expected me to be broken, obedient, and grateful for his mercy. Instead, I burned every painting I had ever made of him. I packed a single bag and vanished into the night, escaping to a rugged ranch in Montana where no one knew my name. Three years later, the truth about Isabella’s lies finally surfaced. Marcus tracked me down. The King of New York fell to his knees in the dirt and cow manure of my new home, weeping, begging, and offering me the entire world to come back. I looked down at the man who once owned my heart. "You can't un-shatter a glass, Marcus," I said coldly. "I'm not coming home."

I was the wife of a tech mogul I' d built from nothing. I even hired his new assistant, a woman who looked just like his dead mother, thinking I was giving him a piece of his past back. Then I discovered the truth. He wasn't just sleeping with her-she was pregnant with his son. And for months, the prenatal vitamins he lovingly gave me every morning were nothing but sugar pills. The shock of their betrayal caused me to miscarry our first child. They painted me as a crazy, violent heiress, took my family's company, and left me with nothing but the ashes of the life he'd promised me. But as I stood in our home, ready to burn it all down with me inside, I discovered a miracle: I was pregnant again. I faked my death and disappeared. Five years later, he walked into the quiet inn I now own with his family. And his eyes landed on my daughter.

The sterile hum of the hospital room grated on my nerves, a grim backdrop to my mother' s shallow breaths. I clung to her frail hand, praying each rise and fall of her chest wouldn't be her last. But then my phone buzzed, pulling me into a different kind of nightmare: a photo of my wife, Sarah, draped provocatively over a junk car, sent by Jake, her "creative director." My blood ran cold. Sarah, my Sarah, looking cheap and available, with Jake' s smug caption about "pushing boundaries." Then came his direct message-another photo, Sarah' s eyes closed, her lipstick smeared, and Jake' s hand on her bare shoulder, possessive. Below it, a single line that ripped through me: "Wish you were here? Don't worry, I'm taking good care of her." Rage flooded my chest, hot and acidic. I called Sarah, my voice shaking, begging her to come, to say goodbye to my dying mother. "I can't just leave, Alex," she snapped, her voice sharp with impatience. "This is Jake's big break. Everything is riding on this. I can't let him down." "Your mother-in-law is dying," I whispered, disbelief choking me. "My mother is dying." "And what do you want me to do about it?" she sneered. "Hold her hand? It's not like she ever liked me anyway. I' ll be there when it' s over. Just... handle it. I have to go." The line went dead, her cruel words echoing in the suffocating quiet of the hospital corridor. Moments later, the doctor delivered the news: she was gone. My world went silent. Then, my phone buzzed again, an Instagram notification: "Sarah.Evans and Jake.Creates are now live." I clicked it, a hollowed-out shell of a man, watching my wife celebrate with her lover while my mother's body grew cold in the room behind me. They celebrated their "win" with champagne, Sarah screaming, "To us! To the win!" as Jake leaned in for a long, deep kiss, for the whole world to see. Why? Why did she choose him? Why did she treat my mother with such contempt in her final hours? The answer lay buried in years of betrayal, starting even before our wedding day. And now, I would unearth every dirty secret, even if it meant tearing my own life apart.

My life as Jocelyn Scott, wife to rising political star DA Ethan Scott, was a carefully crafted facade of domestic bliss, though I, a Senator' s daughter, had traded my ambition for his. Then came the "accident." At the hospital, my husband, bandaged for dramatic effect, publicly declared amnesia, disowning me and our five-year-old son, Leo, and embracing his "first love," Sabrina, daughter of a powerful senator whose endorsement he craved. Overnight, I became a "household staff member" in my own home, watching Sabrina wear my clothes and sleep in my bed. Leo, ostracized and bullied at school, came home with bruises and tear-filled eyes, while his father walked past him as if he were furniture. The final, crushing blow came when Ethan, watching our son drown in a fountain, joked, "Well, that'll get the sympathy vote." Leo died that night, and Ethan saw his death as pure political gold. How could he? How could the man I loved, the father of my child, be such a monstrous, calculating machine? My son, my beautiful boy, reduced to a tragic headline, his resting place torn down for a hot tub. In that hollowed-out instant, the last shred of my former self died. And in its place, a cold, hard resolve was born. I would fake my own death, resurrecting Jocelyn Fuller, and become the ghost that would haunt his rise, then meticulously orchestrate his devastating fall.

My last memory of my first life was Ethan, standing over my grave. He wasn't crying; he was smiling, that cruel twist of his lips I knew all too well. "I forgive you, Chloe," he' d whispered, putting his arm around Jessica as they walked away with the son I' d raised, leaving me to rot. They stripped me of everything: my apprenticeship, my dignity, decades of my life wasted raising their abandoned baby, "Lucky." When I got sick, they threw me away like trash, only to reveal their truth: Lucky was their child, conceived in a twisted plan to steal my future. I gasped, my eyes flying open, not in a coffin, but back in my 1995 body, young and alive, standing on a desolate back road. Just feet away, a baby carrier, and the wailing infant inside. In my past life, pity had washed over me, and I' d rushed to save him, unknowingly signing my own death warrant. This time, as I looked at the carrier, I felt nothing but a cold, hard fury. I turned my back and walked away, choosing a path of ice instead of kindness.

My college life as a pre-med student at a California state university was focused on rigorous studies, good grades, and upholding personal integrity, shared with my best friend Olivia and our free-spirited roommate, Jessica. The facade of normalcy shattered when Jessica reappeared after a three-day disappearance, clutching my personal water bottle, her neck and arms covered in unsettling red welts, all while boasting about dodging crucial health screenings. My attempt to responsibly report her for avoiding mandatory health checks spiraled disastrously: Jessica, fueled by rage, staged a dramatic escape and, aided by her ethically compromised academic advisor, Dr. Peterson, orchestrated a fake cyberbullying charge against me. Suddenly, my reputation was on the line due to a formal disciplinary warning, making me the campus pariah. How could doing the right thing backfire so spectacularly, leaving me accused and shamed, while actual recklessness went unchecked? The injustice was a bitter pill, confirming my deepest suspicions about Jessica's manipulative nature and the disturbing, illicit alliance she clearly shared with Dr. Peterson. But instead of breaking me, this unfair attack ignited a cold fury, transforming my disgust into a calculated resolve: I would expose their corrupt web, even if it meant playing their game, starting with a discreet "accident" in Dr. Peterson's office.

My sister Eleanor was set to marry Marcus Thorne, a powerful man whose family held immense sway. It was a pre-arranged union, heralded as the cornerstone of a grand alliance between the Harrisons and the Thornes. But my world shattered when I uncovered the horrifying truth: Marcus had orchestrated Eleanor's death, masking it as a "sudden illness." Before I could expose his monstrous secret, a killer's hands clasped my throat. The suffocating scent of expensive oud cologne filled my lungs as my vision faded. My first life ended right there, in my father's study-a place of power that became my tomb. Every attempt to reveal the truth, every desperate plea, was brutally silenced. The injustice was a burning fire within me. How could his heinous crimes go unpunished? The phantom ache of that chokehold, indelibly linked to the memory of that rich, woody scent, fueled an insatiable fury. I died knowing the monster would walk free. But then, I gasped, sitting bolt upright in my silk sheets, sunlight streaming into my room. It was Eleanor's engagement day once more. This wasn't a nightmare; it was a resurrection. This was my second chance. I knew what I had to do: I would marry Marcus Thorne myself, infiltrating his inner circle to save Eleanor and orchestrate his ultimate downfall. This wasn't just survival; it was war.

My 21st birthday wasn't just a day; it was the day. The day Ava Harrison promised we' d meet at Austin's iconic Continental Club, the moment I believed she'd finally see me, the kid who poured his soul into songs just for her. But as I arrived, guitar in hand, ready to begin our future, I heard her voice, clear and cold, telling her friend: "It' s a great way to finally shut down little Ethan. Still chasing that silly promise about The Continental Club." Then came the public engagement, a diamond flashing as she announced, "Sweet, but a little too late." My world crumbled. Moments later, a stage light crashed. I was severely injured, but Ava, my supposed future, didn't stay. She left me, bruised and broken, for her new fiancé, Julian, sending a single, chilling text: "#EngagedLife." How could the girl I worshipped, the one I wrote a decade of music for, be so utterly cruel? So dismissive of my love, my pain? The betrayal burned deeper than any physical wound. I smashed my guitar. Blocked her. And packed my bags for Nashville. This wasn't just over; it was a detonation. I swore I' d turn that agonizing betrayal into music so powerful, it would become her inescapable shadow. This wasn't the end of me; it was the birth of something far more formidable.

The world went gray after the crash that took my parents, leaving their green tech company on the brink. Then my dazzling wife, Izzy, appeared like a savior, her old Texas oil money propping us up. She was my rock, my biggest cheerleader through ninety-eight failed prototypes, always assuring me the ninety-ninth, UrbanFlow, would be "the one." I loved and trusted her completely. Until I overheard her chilling confession. She wasn't my supporter; she was a saboteur. She'd orchestrated every single one of my "failures," systematically leaking my core algorithms and business plans to her old flame, Caleb. My IP was the foundation of his booming tech empire. Our marriage? A cold, calculated "strategic" move to keep me coding, dependent, and utterly blind. The woman I adored, my "Izzy," was a venomous lie. Every affectionate word, every comforting touch, twisted into a cruel mockery of love. My life was a meticulously constructed deception, my genius hijacked, my parents' legacy exploited. Nausea churned in my gut, quickly replaced by a simmering, icy rage. She believed I was a naive fool, that I had nothing without her. She was about to discover just how wrong she was. My heart ached with betrayal, but my mind sharpened with unwavering resolve. I would not just reclaim my work; I would unleash a reckoning so precise, so public, that they would pay for every single lie. This was no longer about a company—it was about justice.

I'm a horror novelist. Recently, the release of my new work made me quite a bit of money. However, I haven't written the ending for this story yet. To be honest, writing the ending of a horror story is really difficult. My new work is titled "The Building Ghost." Late at night, a reporter named Yolanda approached me and asked, "Xander, do you believe that building ghosts exist in this world?" I took a sip of my beer and fell into silence. "I do."

On my wedding day, my father sold me to the Chicago Outfit to pay his debts. I was supposed to marry Alex Moreno, the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. But he couldn't even be bothered to show up. As I stood alone at the altar, humiliated, my best friend delivered the final blow. Alex hadn't just stood me up; he had run off to California with his mistress. The whispers in the cathedral turned me into a joke. I was damaged goods, the rejected bride. His family knew the whole time and let me take the public fall, offering me his cousins as pathetic replacements-a brute who hated me or a coward who couldn't protect me. The humiliation burned away my fear, leaving only cold rage. My life was already over, so I decided to set the whole game on fire myself. The marriage pact only said a Carlson had to marry a Moreno; it never said which one. With nothing left to lose, I looked past the pathetic boys they offered. I chose the one man they never expected. I chose his father, the Don himself.

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."

My eyes struggled open, but a heavy weight held them shut. I was paralyzed, trapped in a cold hospital room, the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor a cruel reminder of my mother's death. I, Elena Vitiello, who controlled everything, was now helpless, reduced to a slab of meat. Then I heard his footsteps. Dante. My husband, my anchor. But his voice was chillingly devoid of warmth as he ordered, "Do not increase the dosage. I will not risk damaging the organ's viability." The organ. My mind went blank, ice filling my veins. Trapped and unable to move, I realized Dante saw me only as a "political placeholder," never loving me. He was having my kidney removed, carved from my body like livestock, to save his mistress, Sofia-the woman whose messes I'd cleaned for ten years. His hand, usually my comfort, smeared away my tear with sheer disgust. The scalpel tore into my flesh, a blinding, white-hot agony. Every tug and pull hollowed me out, stripping away my potential, my love, my future. How could the man I bled for reduce me to a mere object, a spare part for his true love? The sheer insult of it fueled a volcanic rage. As my kidney was lifted out, the final illusion of our marriage shattered completely. My fear dissolved, replaced by a chilling, absolute calm. The darkness that embraced me was not defeat, but the coiling silence of a viper preparing to strike. This kidney was not a sacrifice. It was the down payment for Dante Moretti's life.

I was the dutiful wife of Julian, a ruthless Capo in the Chicago Syndicate. Six months ago, my convoy was ambushed by a rival cartel. While I lay bleeding out on the cold floor of the car, my husband was on the phone with his mistress, Mia. "Lock your doors, stay inside," he told her, never once asking if I was alive. I survived, only to watch him flaunt his betrayal. He brought his mistress into our home, booked her luxury suites in Tokyo, and bought her massive diamonds with Syndicate funds. When I refused to play the part of his obedient, blind wife, he publicly humiliated me and orchestrated rumors to isolate me. He thought I was just collateral, a powerless figurehead he could control and eventually discard to settle his debts. I had endured this loveless marriage to survive in the family, yet he treated me worse than dirt while elevating a mistress who knew nothing of our world. I was suffocating in a cage of neglect, enraged by the audacity of a coward who broke every sacred vow. So, I took off my vulgar wedding ring and left it on his bathroom sink. I picked up my phone and sent a message to Dante Falcone, the exiled heir who had stitched my flesh back together in secret. This time, I chose to burn my husband's empire to the ground.

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.

What's more embarrassing than a butt dial? Butt dialing your boss... And leaving a dirty voicemail when you're uhh... "thinking" about them. Working as Ruslan Oryolov's personal assistant is the job from hell. After a long day spent tending to the billionaire's every whim, I need some stress relief. So when I get home that night, that's exactly what I do. Problem is, my thoughts are still stuck on the bosshole who's ruining my life. That's fine-because of all Ruslan's many sins, being gorgeous might be the most dangerous. Tonight, fantasies of him are just what I need to push me over the edge. But when I look down at my phone squished next to me, There it is. A voicemail for 7 minutes and 32 seconds... Sent to Ruslan Oryolov. I panic and throw my phone across the room. But there is no undoing the damage done by my very vocal O. So what can I do? My plan was to just avoid him and act like it never happened. Besides, no one that busy checks their voicemails, right? But when he schedules a one-on-one meeting with me for exactly 7 minutes and 32 seconds, One thing is for certain: He. Heard. Everything.

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

As I lay in the cold underground clinic, terminating the unborn heir of the city's most feared mafia underboss, my phone lit up. My fiancé of seven years had just publicly pledged his protection and a home-cooked meal to his ex-lover, moments after telling me to risk a deadly ambush by ordering takeout. When I returned to our penthouse, bleeding and broken, he didn't even notice. He gave my specialized prenatal milk to his ex because she had a "delicate stomach," leaving me only a hollowed-out egg white and dry crusts. When I begged him to stay, he violently kicked my packed suitcase across the marble floor. "Elena's medical needs take priority right now," he snapped, rushing out because his ex felt cold. He even blocked my secure number when I frantically tried to reach him one last time. For seven years, we had built an empire together. I couldn't understand how a past flame playing the fragile doe could make him discard my life and our child's existence so callously, treating me like worthless scraps. Sitting in the empty penthouse, I wiped my tears and opened the global Syndicate network. "My betrothal to Vincent is officially dissolved. Act accordingly." I powered down my phone, grabbed my tactical gear, and boarded a private jet to leave his territory forever.

My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine. Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family. To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset. They both thought I was a broken doll they could control. I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice. She sang it, and now her career is over. Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground.

Kelvin held her wrist and pulled her into a room in the hotel. "What are you doing?" Amelia asked, trying to tug at him. "Don't pretend you don't want this too." He said, rubbing his thumb at her hard nipples threatening to tear out of her dress, his eyes watching as her body responded to him. He held her neck in the most seductive way and pinned her against the wall. His hand went up under her black dress tracing her skin in a calculated path, as his fingers touched her already soaked pants, Amelia let out a soft moan and pulled him closer with a kiss. *** Amelia found herself getting married to her ex-fiancé's brother, it was an almost perfect revenge. Only to find herself wrapped deeper in the evil hands of the brothers. Would she ever be able to get her revenge and find her true love? Explore a tale of romance, suspense, treachery, and love. The fascinating novel 'For Her Sake' will have you reading until the very last page.