Two Degrees

On the night of my triumph, my husband chose her. As the champagne flutes toasted my resurrected Renaissance masterpieces, the news channels showed Lorenzo "Enzo" Conti shielding his new business ally—and rumored future bride—from a storm. I stood alone in the glittering gallery, the perfect, neglected wife of Chicago's most formidable shadow-king. For four years, I was his most beautiful possession. A restorer of broken art, trapped in my own gilded cage. That night, I saw the final crack. So I began my own restoration project. Myself. I forged my escape with the precision of my craft, embedding my divorce papers within a genuine museum loan agreement. He signed it without a glance, too busy building his empire to notice he was losing his wife. I vanished into the Swiss Alps, carrying two secrets: my unborn child, and the cold resolve to never be erased again. I thought that was the end of the story. I was wrong. He followed. The man who once commanded a criminal empire now lives in a mountain hut. He chops my wood, clears my path, and learns to soothe our daughter at 3 a.m. When assassins from his old life came, he buried them in the frozen earth with his bare hands. "Let me be your sentry," he says, his eyes holding a peace I've never seen. "Let me use the only skills I have left to keep you safe." This is not a story about forgiveness. This is a story about fracture, and what grows from the ruins. It's about the Don who became a carpenter, the restorer who learned to break free, and the new life we're building—piece by scarred piece—in the shadow of the mountains. Some masterpieces aren't found in museums. They're forged in the silent space between a second chance, and the courage to take it.

On my wedding day, the high school bully who once tormented me crashed the ceremony. I believed Carsten Morgan would stand firmly by my side. But he let go of my hand and walked decisively toward her. Later, when I sued the bully and exposed her past harassment, Carsten suppressed the case. He even countersued me for defaming her reputation. Overnight, I became the internet's laughingstock. At a banquet, Carsten sneered with contempt, "Those scars on your body disgust me." He added, "Give up. I've got a filthy-rich uncle backing me. You can't win." The next moment, the uncle he bragged about wrapped an arm around my waist. He whispered softly in my ear, "If I send them all to prison, will you choose me?"

For three years, I flew across the Atlantic for my fiancé, Dale. He was a brilliant tech CEO who swore he'd travel to the ends of the earth for me, saving a thousand airline tickets as "proof of his love." But when I arrived a day early to surprise him, I overheard him confessing to our friends. "Our relationship is exhausting me, and my love for her is draining away." His words were just the beginning. I soon discovered his affair with a young intern, Jetta. When she drugged me, sending me into anaphylactic shock, Dale' s only punishment for her was docking half a day's pay. He then took Jetta on a lavish vacation while I recovered alone in a hospital bed, his excuse being that I had "provoked" her. The man who once showered me with diamonds and promises now defended my attacker. His love, once my bedrock, had become a poison. As I stood at the airport gate, I sent him one last email with proof of everything. Then, I snapped my SIM card in half and boarded a flight to Iceland, disappearing from his life for good.

After three years in a mental hospital where my husband, Arthur, had me committed, I finally escaped. I went straight to my mother's grave-the mother who had given him her own kidney to save his life. But her headstone was gone. In its place was a memorial for a dog named Princess Fluffykins. My husband had replaced her with his mistress's pet. When I confronted him, he and his new woman, Blaire, destroyed my reputation online, costing me every job offer. Then, during a critical heart surgery, Arthur-my surgeon-walked out, leaving me to die on the table because Blaire called with a fake emergency. He left me to die, just as he had abandoned my mother in her final hours. The man I had given everything to had tried to murder me. But I didn't die. My childhood friend, Joel, burst in and saved me. When Arthur returned, begging for forgiveness, I looked him in the eye and delivered the lie that would become my truth. "I always loved Joel. You were just a distraction."

The crystal glasses for the baby' s naming ceremony gleamed under the soft living room lights, a picture of domestic bliss carefully arranged by my mother-in-law. Everything was perfect, except for the nagging feeling that something was deeply wrong. Then, my husband, Ethan, who had promised "just us" after my accident left me unable to conceive, blurted out his impatient wish for his ex-girlfriend, Chloe, to arrive. It soon became clear Chloe wasn't just any ex; she was carrying a baby, a baby that should never have existed. His parents, my own in-laws, made it worse, scoffing at my very existence, saying, "Ava' s a brilliant doctor, we' ve always been proud of that, but this is a family affair. She doesn't quite fit in anymore, does she?" My husband simply slumped, caving under their pressure, trying to reshape his betrayal into a noble sacrifice. He truly expected me to accept this. But what they didn't know was that I wasn't running late. I wasn't stuck in traffic. I was in a sterile downtown office, signing my name decisively on divorce papers. My world tilted when I stumbled upon an email from Chloe, revealing the chilling truth: "Ethan is so amazing. He's paying for everything. He says he's doing it for his dying ex, a final wish, but I know he wants this baby as much as I do. Ava doesn't have to know until she gets back. She'll have to accept it then." My surgical fellowship abroad, meant to be my recovery, had been a lie. Chloe, glowing and anything but terminally ill, looked up at me with a smug, triumphant smile. "Ava, you're back. Come meet Leo. Isn't he beautiful? He has Ethan's eyes." That was it. The snap. My hand struck her across the face. "She's a liar," I said. "You're all liars." I looked at Ethan, "You told me it would be just us. You lied to my face for a year." The sheer audacity of his words stole my breath when he tried to justify it, saying Chloe was dying and giving me a child "without the pain of childbirth." He wasn' t just a cheater; he was a monster, turning my deepest pain into his convenient solution. I was replaced. My clothes, my books, my entire existence were packed into boxes and moved to the small, cold guest room. Listening to their intimate sounds from what used to be my bedroom, I realized every memory, every shared moment, was a fraud. My love for him had turned to cold, hard resolution. Why did they think I would just accept this monstrous betrayal? Why did he believe I would become an "aunt" to his child born of lies? What kind of warped reality did they live in? I filed the divorce papers. Then, at the baby's naming ceremony, I took the microphone, silenced his sickening speech, and delivered my own, raw and unapologetic. "My husband, Ethan Hayes, just thanked this woman for her 'gift.' Let me tell you all what that gift was. While I was in another country, completing a surgical fellowship, grieving my inability to have children after a tragic accident, my husband decided to have a baby with his terminally ill ex-girlfriend." I then declared, "I am divorcing this man. Congratulations, Ethan and Chloe. You got what you wanted."

The charity gala was in full swing, a glittering celebration of my boyfriend Mark' s success, and the return of his high school sweetheart, Emily. I stood quietly, a shadow in a white dress, watching him hang on her every word. Then, he finally noticed me, and with a flicker of annoyance, pushed a glass of champagne into my hand, instructing me to toast Emily. I murmured that I couldn' t, as only he and I knew I was two months pregnant. He dismissed me, his friends and Emily' s condescending stare suffocating me. Trembling, I swallowed the bubbly liquid, and a sharp cramp immediately seized my abdomen. I gasped, dropping the glass, as a dark red stain spread across my white dress. Pain blinded me. Through the agony, I saw Mark. He hadn' t even glanced my way. He was carefully spoon-feeding Emily expensive caviar, laughing. "Don' t mind her," I heard him say, his voice distant and dismissive. "She' s just a pet I keep. Can' t live without me." I woke up in a cold, white hospital room. The doctor gently told me the baby was gone. My heart hollowed out. On my phone, Mark had updated his profile picture to Emily' s elegant side profile. I tried to message him, but a small, gray text appeared: You have been blocked by this user. My heart hardened. The image of him feeding Emily while I bled, his words-just a pet I keep-echoed in the silent room. This time, I didn't cry. I booked a one-way ticket to Paris, leaving in three days, and a strange calm washed over me.

The silence in our house wasn't peaceful. I was a software engineer, navigating the quiet tension of a marriage that felt increasingly hollow, raising our son Leo while my husband, Ethan, a renowned AI ethicist, became a ghost consumed by his work and his "research partner," Olivia Vance. Then, the tremors started in Leo's hand, a dizzy spell, a whispered "My head feels fuzzy, Mommy." Doctors were baffled, shrugging off his rapid neurological decline as "an anomaly." Meanwhile, Ethan dismissed my terror as overreaction, pointing to Olivia's daughter's mild complaints as proof of normalcy, the mention of her name like swallowing glass. My desperation escalated when Leo, trembling, whispered, "I want Daddy. Can Daddy come home and fix it?" I found Ethan and Olivia together, a team, a family, immersed in their multi-million dollar AI project, "Guardian," I pleaded for help, for one diagnostic scan, but Olivia, with a practiced smile, painted me as hysterical, manipulating Ethan into believing my son's illness was a weaponized distraction. "You're weaponizing our son's illness to punish me for my work," Ethan coldly accused, choosing his project and his "partner" over his dying child. He sealed Leo' s fate, and in that moment, something inside me shattered, replaced by a chilling clarity. "I'm done, Ethan," I said, a quiet vow. "Let's get a divorce." What they didn't know was it wasn't the end of a tragedy; it was the birth of an obsession. My son's death would not be quiet. It would be an explosion.

The judge' s voice was a flat, impersonal drone. "Guilty." My fiancée, Olivia, a vision in her tailored business suit, didn' t even flinch. Her eyes, once so full of love, slid away from mine, landing on my half-brother, Liam. He covered her hand with his, a small, intimate gesture that screamed a truth louder than the verdict. They were abandoning me. My parents were gone, killed in the very accident I was now convicted of causing. Seven years I spent in hell, every appeal denied, every lead a dead end. Sarah, my childhood friend and court-appointed lawyer-and my wife on paper-was my only lifeline. She kept promising to fight, telling me everything was a lie. Then, a miracle. My conviction overturned. I was finally free. But freedom quickly turned to another nightmare. Sarah, my champion, tearfully confessed her family' s firm was bleeding money from an embezzlement scheme. She needed a fall guy, and I, a freshly released ex-con, was the perfect one. "I' ll do it," I said, believing I was repaying a debt, an honorable sacrifice for the woman who saved me. Another seven years stolen. When I was finally released, 42 years old, I went to Sarah' s mother' s house, this time to surprise her. But the surprise was on me, in the form of a conversation overheard. "Liam needs this to be over." "He thought I was marrying him to save him," Sarah' s voice, cold and sharp, cut through me. "The only reason I married him was to become the victim' s family representative. The only way to legally sign a waiver that would prevent prosecutors from ever going after the real killer." Liam. He was the killer. And Sarah, my trusted friend, my wife, had been the architect of my destruction from the very beginning. Fourteen years. Two prison sentences. All a lie to protect the man who murdered my parents.

The hospital room reeked of disinfectant, a scent that couldn't mask the sickness or the despair. Rain lashed against the window, mirroring the storm inside me. I had just undergone an induced abortion, the end of a life and, I thought, the end of my marriage. Then my phone lit up with a news alert: a picture of my husband, Liam Sterling, arm in arm with my best friend, Chloe Davis, announcing a groundbreaking partnership. Not only had he betrayed me with her, but he'd also stolen the design project I poured my soul into, destroying my professional reputation overnight. My mother, fragile and unconscious in the bed beside me, was a stark reminder of how much I had neglected her, consumed by the 'perfect' city life Liam had so meticulously crafted. His unexpected arrival at the hospital, playing the part of the concerned husband, only twisted the knife deeper. He wasn' t concerned for me, but for his public image, even manipulating doctors to keep me confined, a prisoner in a gilded cage. Why was he doing this? Was it just about control, about power, or was there something darker at play? I felt like a puppet in his twisted game, humiliated and helpless, wondering what else he truly owned. But then, a glimmer of hope: a whispered note from a kind stranger, Marcus Thorne, promising help. And just as quickly, it was snatched away, leaving me more isolated than ever, trapped by a man who claimed to protect me while actively destroying my world.

Just a week after my son Leo was born, as I navigated the raw grief of losing my parents and the overwhelming exhaustion of new motherhood, a seemingly innocuous email landed in my inbox, poised to shatter the quiet sanctuary of my inherited Boston home. Addressed to "Ms. Sarah Connelly, parent of Maya," it was a welcome message from the city's most prestigious charter school-for a child I didn't know, shockingly enrolled using my name and my address, a stunt orchestrated by none other than my own husband, Mark, for his colleague Brenda's daughter. His casual dismissals-"She' s a struggling single mom," "She' s vital to my team," said with infuriating nonchalance-masked outright gaslighting, culminating in a public display of affection where Brenda flaunted the custom anniversary watch I'd bought him, proving his betrayal went deeper than I could have imagined. How could the man I loved, the partner who once climbed an icy fire escape to comfort me in my darkest hour, betray me so audaciously, choosing a manipulative colleague over his wife and newborn son, then abandon us when she needed him again? But betrayal cannot break what is truly yours. My house, my name, my son. The first call was to my lawyer. This was no longer just about anger; it was about reclaiming my life, exposing their manipulative scheme, and building a new future on my terms, brick by painful brick.

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.

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.

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."

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.

My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent. But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress. Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes. "If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you." To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife. When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala. He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent. He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters. He thought he had broken me. He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage. But he made a fatal error. He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign. They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me. And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck. I didn't jump to die. I jumped to be reborn. And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin.

MAFIA RUTHLESS: BOOK ONE ************* ************ *********** The devil's captive became his heart's keeper. *************** *********** *********** Revenge! The only thing the strong ,powerful and ruthless mafia don Alessandro Moretti has harboured for years. When he discovers the identity of his mother's killer,he doesn't go after the man alone. He wants everything belonging to Giovanni Conti burnt to the ground,including his most valuable possession-his daughter. Auctioned off by her uncle to the highest bidder,Isabelle Conti's fate is sealed. Not until masked gunmen crash her wedding,and she wakes up in the don's den. She becomes his captive. His obsession...His willing prey. His weapon of vengeance. Isabelle Conti turns out to be different from the others,this time around she doesn't want his affection...she needs his downfall. And when she finally has him where she wants him and she's torn between her feelings and surrendering to the ruthless don. One question threatens to destroy everything, Have you ever loved me?

"Don't die on me, Tom, I can't lose you for the second time. It will ruin me." Vivienne said desperately, holding his sweaty face in her hands. Tom hid his pain and smiled up at her. "There are too many filthy fantasies of you and I in my head that I'm yet to carry out. I won't forgive myself if I die, Vee." She couldn't look away... ~ For Eight years, Vivienne lost her light after the death of her teenage lover, Tristan Bennett. Forced to engage his cruel stepbrother based on based on family's agreement, she made the decision to flee on their wedding day. Now, hidden in a city where no one knows her name, she sort for a new job only for her to discover that her new billionaire boss was her lover who died eight years ago. He doesn't remember her. He bears another name. And he has another woman now? Not any ordinary woman-A dangerous mafia lord's daughter who happens to be obsessed with him. But Tristan, now known as Tom in his new mafia world wants to bail out, and he needs a contract marriage with a new woman to leave his obsessive girlfriend. Vivienne agreed to the marriage contract with every intention to help him get back his past memories. But what happens when all circumstances surrounding them threatens to sabotage her efforts? Tom's cruel stepbrother who wanted Vivienne than breath itself-His Mafia boss, and his obsessive girlfriend. Vivienne must risk danger and death to be with her lover again. But some problems are far too complicated with many secrets to solve, and Vivienne is about to find out.

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.*

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."

My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention. He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor. I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don. "The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly. An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion. He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement. For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple. "Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her." As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman. Then, the steel door detonated. Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.