Xiao Yan

Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate. Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes." My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life. They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous. They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word. It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash. That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."

The pack was howling in celebration outside, roaring for their new, undisputed Alpha. My husband, Ryker. But inside my study, there was only the quiet scratch of my pen signing my true name. For thirteen years, I had endured a hollow, loveless mating. On the day we met, he publicly humiliated me, claiming my fated scent was just "mud and weeds." Since then, he treated me with nothing but cold disdain, openly flaunting his flirtations with another she-wolf while I desperately tried to be his perfect Luna. I shattered my own soul to build his empire. I spent my nights securing his political alliances and finding his enemies' weaknesses in secret, all to fulfill a deathbed promise to his mother. Yet, he took all the credit, viewing me as a weak, useless accessory. Even his pack warriors looked at me with contempt. Tonight, his power was finally secure, and my debt was paid. But when I laid the ancient Rite of Rejection on the council table, he just smirked. He arrogantly assumed it was a hysterical, jealous tantrum over his mistress, completely blind to the fact that my heart had died to him years ago. "This isn't a threat, Ryker. This is a notice." Using the very treaties I had secretly forged to trap him, I forced the mighty Alpha to accept my rejection, walking away from his wealth and his pack with nothing but the clothes on my back and my long-lost freedom.

I saved a man bleeding out in the snow. He had no memory, so I called him Ben. We lived in a cabin, fell in love, and married by firelight with no witnesses but the ghosts of my parents. Then one day, he disappeared. Two years later, he returned. Not as my husband, but as Bernard Logan, the ruthless Underboss of the city's most dangerous crime family. And he didn't remember me. He brought his cruel new fiancée to my clinic and treated me like a stranger. When she threw my father’s antique music box into a cactus display, he watched as I tore my hands apart trying to save it. He called our past a "drug-induced hallucination" and threatened to destroy me if I spoke up. Worst of all, I found out I was pregnant. He cornered me in the hospital room, his eyes cold and devoid of the warmth I used to know. "Is it mine?" I knew if I said yes, he would turn my child into a killer like him. Or his fiancée would ensure we never survived. So I looked the love of my life in the eye and lied. "No," I said. "It's not yours." I signed his NDA, took his hush money, and vanished to Europe to raise my twins alone. I thought I was free. I found a good man who actually loved me. But three years later, at an art gallery in Zurich, the crowd parted. Bernard was standing there, staring at me with a terrifying hunger. He had found out the truth. And he was ready to burn the world down to get us back.

My fiancé Brett and I were building a design empire. When he broke his leg, he hired a temporary housekeeper, Glenda, while I was away on business. I thought she was there to help; I didn't realize she was there to replace me. She systematically took over my home, turning Brett against me piece by piece. The final straw was finding my cat, Apollo, locked in a cage, bruised and starving. When I confronted them, Brett defended her. He called me a monster and told me to get rid of my cat for the sake of the baby I was secretly carrying. The shock of his betrayal was so profound that I miscarried that night. He never knew. He just screamed that I was a cold, calculating bitch and that Glenda was a "good woman" who truly loved him. So I left. I took my cat, liquidated my half of our company, and disappeared. Three years later, I walked into an industry gala and saw him across the room-a broken man. He looked at me with desperate regret, but I just smiled. My revenge wouldn't be loud; it would be my success.

My marriage ended with a phone call while I was bleeding out on the bathroom floor, seven months pregnant. My husband chose to comfort his intern over a stray cat instead of saving me and our baby. He told me I was strong enough to handle it alone. He then stood by as his mistress tried to murder our newborn son, forcing me to kneel and apologize to protect his political career. He called me unstable, a bad mother, while she wore my clothes and lived in my home. The hero I married was a lie. When he gave my son her family name, I knew leaving wasn't enough. I had to burn his world to the ground.

I came home from a business trip, and my husband told me our six-year-old son was dead. He showed me the dashcam footage of Leo dying of heatstroke, left alone in the car by his young nanny, Kendall. But instead of seeking justice, my husband locked me in the car and turned the heat on full blast, recreating our son's final moments. He demanded the password to my phone to delete the footage, snarling that we couldn't ruin a twenty-year-old's future over a "mistake." To force my hand, he had thugs break into my elderly father's nursing home room, threatening him on a live video call. Later, at our son's memorial, he defended Kendall as she took selfies with the casket and played pop music. He helped her show a manipulated video to the crowd, painting me as a negligent, career-obsessed mother. The mourners threw drinks at me while my husband protected his lover. The next day, I learned the truth. My father, after being blackmailed by those same thugs, had taken his own life to protect me. My husband hadn't just covered up a murder; he had caused another. He thought he had won, that he had destroyed all the evidence and broken me completely. But he forgot one thing. The GPS smartwatch on our son's wrist. It recorded everything—not just his death, but every cruel, taunting word Kendall whispered as she let him die.

The cold, damp air clung to me as I stood on the porch of the Hayes family home. It was late, the kind of late where the world feels heavy and silent. I swallowed hard and asked Mrs. Hayes, "Is it true? That Liam... that he's been in love with me? His whole life?" Her brilliant smile was the answer, confirming a devotion I hadn't recognized. For years, I had held a secret, hopeless love for my adoptive brother, Ethan Miller, who had practically raised me. Sketchbooks filled with his face were my hidden treasure-until he found them. His face wasn' t just shocked; it was filled with pure disgust. "This is sick, Chloe," he spat, throwing the sketchbook at my feet. From that day, my life became a living hell. His new girlfriend, Madison Lee, my college roommate, systematically framed me for everything. Ethan, my Ethan, believed her every time, his cold, disappointed eyes killing a piece of me with every glance. The final blow came when he announced their wedding, then threw me out of the house. The Chloe who loved Ethan Miller died that night. Tonight, a new Chloe was born, one who would sever every tie and burn every bridge. I doused my sketchbooks in lighter fluid and watched them burn, his smile turning to ash. I texted Liam Hayes one word: Yes. He immediately replied, I'm on the first flight back. Don't go anywhere. I'm coming home. Ethan stood, his eyes wild with confusion, as he stared at the burning remains of my past. "Why?" he demanded, as I quoted him, "Because they're disgusting. You said so yourself." I announced my engagement to Liam, on the exact same date as his wedding. My parents nodded, relieved, but Mrs. Miller's smile faltered. "But... Chloe, that's Ethan and Madison's wedding day." "I know," I replied. "It's a good day to start a new life."

The scent of wet concrete used to be the perfume of my dreams, the promise of my architectural masterpiece taking shape. Until I stood on the muddy ground of my construction site and saw it: a clumsy, awkward box, nothing like the light-filled space I' d designed. My ex-boyfriend, Mark Davis, had offered to handle the plan submissions as a "parting gift." It turns out, his gift was a betrayal. He' d swapped my intricate blueprints for cheap, generic plans bought online. My dream home was being built into a monstrosity, a monument to his fraud. When I confronted him, Mark' s voice dripped with condescension. He' d made "practical tweaks" to make it "more sellable," he claimed. Then he blocked me, leaving me with a sabotaged project, mounting fees, and a crumbling reputation. My attempts to find justice through official channels were met with bureaucratic indifference. They saw a "messy breakup," a "disgruntled ex-girlfriend," not a professional crime. They even suggested I compromise, perhaps "compensate" the man destroying my career. But I wouldn' t compromise. I would fight. My last, desperate hope lay with Arthur Vance, my formidable former mentor, who had given me a sculpture years ago as a mark of his personal favor. I knew it was my only leverage. I had to get to him, no matter the cost. My next move would be a gamble, a desperate attempt to reclaim my truth.

Elara Vance believed her world was solid: a devoted Lumin wife to Damien, and a proud mother to Kaelen, her son whose powerful Tier 7 Aura brought her immense joy. But that foundation crumbled when, in a horrifying display of ambition, Damien and Kaelen, with chilling indifference, betrayed her, brutally extracting her Lumin Core and leaving her for dead. She gasped awake, not in the afterlife, but back in opulent Lumin society, at the very Concord Gala where, in her past life, Damien had chosen her as his bride. This time, however, utter public humiliation awaited as Damien heartlessly announced his choice of her cousin, Selena Vance-a supposed rising Lumina Scion-and dismissed Elara as nothing but "Tier 1 weakness." The degradation deepened when community patriarch Alistair Thorne, driven by family "pacts," condemned Elara to a forced marriage with Rhys Ashworth, a man suffering from a fatal Aura Drain, a cruel ploy by Damien to ensure her quiet, swift end. The raw, burning questions of her agonizing death tangled with the fresh pain of public scorn: Why did they crave her demise so deeply, despising her very being as an insurmountable obstacle? Yet, armed with the vivid nightmares of betrayal and the shocking truth she now held-that Selena' s dazzling Tier 6 Aura was a dangerous lie, fueled by illicit serums-Elara stood firm. Her seemingly helpless acceptance of the doomed marriage concealed a quiet storm: she carried the forgotten ancestral secrets of her Vance lineage, ancient healing arts like "Aura Weaving." This forced union, intended as her grave, was now her unlikely battleground, her chance to not only survive but to uncover the insidious rot beneath their community's shining facade and unleash a power they never dreamed she possessed.

My life was perfect. I was an event coordinator, planning my Maui honeymoon with Ethan, my fiancé of five years. What he didn't know was I was quietly living like this on purpose, proving myself before revealing I was the heiress to a massive hospitality empire. Then, my world imploded. My job termination letter landed on the same day Ethan confessed his boss, Victoria, was pregnant with his baby. And he admitted he'd orchestrated my firing, claiming it was a "strategic move" for his career and "our" future. He then kicked me out of our apartment after Victoria, his baby mama, vomited on my shoes right in front of him. I tried to escape to Maui, our supposed honeymoon destination, only to find them there. Ethan, unashamed, humiliated me on the beach, accusing me of stalking him. But it got worse. Victoria and he decided to make a public spectacle, branding me as an unstable harasser at a company mixer. Standing there, about to be shamed into silence, I wondered how five years of my life, built on a lie for his sake, could end in such utter public degradation and betrayal. Was I truly going to lose everything for a man who couldn't see past his ambition and an underhanded boss? Just as I thought I'd hit rock bottom, the doors swung open. My billionaire father, Mr. Miller, walked in with Liam, my childhood friend. And that' s when everything changed.

My husband, Ethan Hayes, was a powerful, arrogant man, openly flaunting his mistress, Chloe Vance. Everyone pitied me, the quiet, obedient wife, living in his shadow. But they had no idea. Every humiliation, every cruel dismissal, every moment of neglect was a calculated step in my secret, desperate plan. I married Ethan for one reason: to have a child. Not his child, but Caleb's. Caleb, his identical twin, the man I loved more than life itself, tragically taken too soon. Ethan was merely a vessel, a living replica of my soulmate. When that pregnancy test turned positive, my mission was complete. I filed for divorce, expecting his usual dismissiveness. He waved me off, telling me to "handle it," too consumed with Chloe's trivial demands. He even pushed me down the stairs when Chloe falsely accused me, leaving me bleeding, gasping for our baby. But the final straw came when Chloe, with Ethan' s blessing, shattered a small, invaluable snow globe-Caleb's last, unfulfilled gift to me. He thought my tears, my quiet "devotion," my carefully curated items were for him. He never saw the truth, never understood his own arrogance blinded him to the woman he truly possessed. How could he? His ego was too vast. So, when the divorce was finalized, I called him. "I never loved you, Ethan," I told him, each word a shard of ice. "You were just a means to an end. The child I carry is Caleb's legacy, not yours." I walked away, leaving him and his empty world behind, to start anew in San Francisco, with Caleb's child, and finally, my own freedom.

My life was perfectly on track. I was Ashley, the daughter of Katherine, heir to the "Katherine's Kitchen" bakery empire, and I was about to ace my SATs and get into my dream Ivy League school. Everything was normal. Until Spirit Week. A viral video exploded through the school, showing my foster sister, Brittany, tear-streaked, claiming our mother had stolen her. That I was the imposter, the switched baby, and the entire family fortune was rightfully hers. Her biological mother, Brenda, was right there, nodding grimly. Suddenly, I was public enemy number one. Whispers followed me, my locker was vandalized, and the bullying became relentless. My college art project, weeks of work, was smashed. Brittany even faked bruises and got me suspended, shattering my academic future. Then a "leaked" DNA test, clearly fake, confirmed their lies, making even me question everything. How could my life be stolen by a baseless lie? Why did my own foster sister resent me so deeply, and why would her mother unleash such a venomous campaign? The injustice burned, leaving me reeling, wondering who I even was anymore. But my mother fought back, proving the first DNA test was fake. Yet, Brittany's malice didn't die – she tried to drug me. And Brenda, consumed by delusion, escalated to setting fire to my house! I wouldn't run. The battle for my life, my name, and my future had only just begun. And I was going to win.

Ethan Vanderbilt, heir to a colossal fortune, was set to make the biggest announcement of his life: his engagement at the annual Vanderbilt Legacy Ball. But waking that morning, a tidal wave of *past life* memories crashed over him: his ruthless wife, Chloe Ashton's, affair with Marcus Thorne, her blatant pursuit of his fortune, the chilling truth that her child wasn't his, and the cold steel of the knife she plunged into him. He remembered the quiet, unwavering love of Olivia Hayes, his guardian, a devotion he callously ignored, leading to her heartbroken death not long after his own murder. The raw fury of betrayal, the agony of his death, and the profound guilt for Olivia's unrequited devotion consumed him. How could he have been so incredibly blind to the viper beside him and the angel who truly cared? Now, back on the very morning of his original fate, Ethan knew one thing with absolute certainty: this time, he would rewrite his past, dismantle his enemies, and choose the woman who deserved his love—Olivia.

I used to be Sarah Jensen, a driven investigative journalist, before David’s political ambition consumed my life. I became the perfect political wife, hosting lavish events and silently managing our home. My own dreams dwindled, replaced by his towering aspirations. The façade finally shattered during a bitter confrontation about his blatant affair with Victoria, my own cousin and his Chief of Staff. In a terrifying moment, my son, Ethan, loyal to his father, physically pushed me. I hit the cold marble floor, a searing pain blooming in my side. David, Victoria, and Ethan simply stepped over me, their faces utterly devoid of concern, as they left for a celebratory dinner. Hours later, at the hospital, I learned the horrifying truth: I’d lost the baby I never knew I was carrying. This savage act, this callous abandonment by my husband, my son, and my family, left me in a state of icy clarity. They chose their image and ambition over my life, over our child. My own parents later dismissed my pain, ready to side with David, even threatening to institutionalize me. How could the people I sacrificed everything for betray me so absolutely? But in that raw, profound despair, something forged within me. Not a collapse, but an unbreakable resolve. They believed I was fractured, powerless. They were gravely mistaken. I harbored years of meticulous records on David’s illicit dealings, a hidden dossier. He’d taught me the game; now, as a journalist reborn, I would play for keeps, exposing every lie and reclaiming my life.

Yana thought her first time was with the man who owned her heart. When morning came, her eyes opened to meet the gaze of a handsome stranger. She shared her bed with a remorseless devil. Not only did he destroy her wedding, but he also stepped on her dignity and clipped her wings. Indifference and cruelty covered his heart like armor, but he trapped her soul and dared to call it love. Instead of a sweet wedding day, all Yana received was suffering.

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."

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.

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."

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.

The moment I saw my husband massaging his dead brother's pregnant mistress's feet, I knew my marriage was over. He moved her into our home under the guise of "family duty," forcing me to watch as he prioritized her comfort over our vows. The final betrayal came when she stole and deliberately broke my mother's priceless necklace. When I slapped her for the desecration, my husband struck me across the face to defend her. He had violated a sacred honor code by putting his hands on the daughter of another Don-an act of war. I looked him in the eye and swore on my mother's grave that I would bring a bloody revenge upon his entire family. Then I made one phone call to my father, and the demolition of his empire began.

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.

BLURB: River never intended to be pulled into the dangerous world of the Mafia, but a single moment of bravery changes everything. In an attempt to save the man who fuels her wildest fantasies, she unwittingly steps into the path of Rico Swavey, the ruthless Mafia Lord with a dark, hidden past. Rico has built his empire on control and secrecy, keeping his heart locked away. But when River, the doe-eyed woman who sparks something dangerous within him, stumbles into his life, his defenses begin to crumble. Haunted by a crime from his childhood, Rico struggles to accept love, especially from someone like River. What happens when she becomes a stripper in his club? Can River break through the walls around Rico's heart? And can Rico forgive himself for the sins of his past to embrace a future with her? Dive into their world of passion, danger, and redemption in HIS HEALING GRACE.

On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes. She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia." Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours. He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity. But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture." I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her. And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm. Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite. He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet. He is wrong. I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door. And I changed the groom. As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears. The Reaper.

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 was trapped in a locked-in state for six months, fully conscious but unable to move a single muscle. My step-family, Delma and Jazmyne, marched into my hospital room, forged a Do Not Resuscitate order, and yanked out my oxygen tube just to stop paying my medical bills. When my three-year-old daughter, Amari, leaped out from under the bed to protect me, they beat her mercilessly. They kicked my tiny girl in the stomach, smashed a heavy metal IV pole into her fragile shoulder, and dragged her out by her ankles. They even tied her to a tree in their backyard and let a massive Rottweiler tear into her flesh, laughing as they recorded her agonizing screams. I lay in that hospital bed, hearing every blow and every desperate cry. I didn't understand why they had to torture an innocent toddler just because they thought I was a worthless piece of trash with amnesia. A tidal wave of absolute fury crashed against the invisible walls of my paralyzed body, burning away the despair. Gritting my teeth until my jaw popped, I forced my dead weight off the mattress and dragged my atrophied legs across the freezing floor to a landline. With trembling, bloody fingers, I punched in a twelve-digit military-grade encrypted code. It was time for my real family—the most powerful men in the country—to make these monsters pay.