Xiao Youzi

I was 'Nine', the deadliest assassin of The Syndicate. But yesterday, my boss faked my death in an explosion and sent me to New York. I was ordered to infiltrate the Russo family as their long-lost biological daughter. But my biological parents didn't want me. They loved the fake daughter they had raised in my place. My mother called me a feral stray and tried to shove me into a mildewed servant's quarter, while the fake daughter lived in a grand suite. When the fake daughter cried upon seeing me, my father pointed a finger at my face, yelling at me for disrespecting his precious replacement. "You are nothing but a crude, uncultured mistake trying to ruin her life!" They treated me like garbage, trying to assert dominance over a girl they thought was a helpless stray. But when I cornered my mother and whispered my question, her reaction changed everything. "If I hadn't been stolen all those years ago, would you have even needed a replacement?" She didn't cry for the child she lost. Instead, all the color drained from her face, and her eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror. She knew. Even if she hadn't orchestrated it herself, my mother knew exactly why I was kidnapped eighteen years ago. They thought they could bully a pathetic orphan. They didn't realize they had just invited a monster into their home.

I gave up my architecture dream and my entire inheritance to help Garrison build his law firm, reducing myself to a glorified maid in his home for five years. But the night my mother lay dying in the hospital, Garrison didn't come. Instead, I saw him on the news, proposing to his mistress, Kayla, with a diamond ring bought with my savings. When I confronted them, Garrison didn't apologize. Instead, he forced me to sign my 15% stake in the company over to Kayla for zero dollars. He claimed she needed "security" because she was fragile. Even when I threw the toxicology report at him, proving Kayla had poisoned my mother with arsenic to get her out of the way, Garrison covered it up to save his precious merger. He looked me in the eye and told me to apologize to the woman who murdered my mother. That was the moment Janet Gardner died. I signed the papers, threw the divorce agreement in his face, and vanished into the night without a trace. Three years later, at a prestigious art gallery in Paris, a gaunt, broken man fell to his knees in front of the famous artist "Jane." Garrison wept, clutching the hem of my dress, begging for my forgiveness. I looked down at my ex-husband with a polite, empty smile. "I'm sorry, sir. Do I know you?"

For three years, a rare liver disease has been killing me. Through it all, my husband Julian has been my rock. Our last hope was a black-market liver, secured through a life-debt owed to my family, the Volkov Bratva. But from my hospital bed, I overheard him promise that very liver to another woman. It was for his mistress's mother. I soon discovered he had a four-year-old daughter with her. Their family was established; I was just the placeholder. On a hidden security feed, I watched him in my dead parents' penthouse—a sacred place he forbade me from visiting—bouncing their child on his knee. Then he fastened the diamond necklace he'd bought for my birthday around his mistress's neck. The final blow came when I heard her whisper, "Just a little longer... the fever will do the rest." He wasn't just leaving me. He was actively trying to kill me. The love I had for him didn't just die; it turned to a cold, hard stone in my chest. The man whose devotion I never questioned now made my skin crawl with revulsion. The next morning, I signed myself out of the hospital against medical advice. I left my wedding ring and the signed divorce papers on the entryway table, blocked his number, and walked out of our house without looking back.

Ava stepped off the jet, eager to finally hug her daughter, Lily, after eighteen months away on a critical mission. A familiar face, her handler, handed her a tablet, saying, "Welcome home, Ava. Everything is ready for your debriefing tomorrow. Tonight is yours." Her eyes immediately landed on a headline: "Tech Prodigy Lily Thorne Exposed as Fraud, Groundbreaking AI Code Auctioned Off by Estranged Husband Mark Vance." And then the photo. Lily, bound to a chair on a brightly lit stage, her face pale, a mixture of shock and utter devastation. Her estranged son-in-law, Mark Vance, stood beside a woman Ava didn' t recognize-his new fiancée, Chloe. He was sneering into the camera, declaring Lily would be finished, blacklisted, her future one of "menial jobs and constant public humiliation." The tablet shattered in Ava' s hand, cracks spiderwebbing across the screen. Her blood ran cold. The rage was a physical force, shimmering in the air around her. How could he do this? How could a man she once trusted betray her daughter so completely, so publicly? This wasn't just a betrayal; it was an execution. "The mission isn' t over," Ava declared, her voice unnaturally calm, her gaze fixed on something far beyond the horrified handler. "It just began."

The paper in my hand felt like a death sentence: glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor. That same day, my estranged wife, Chloe, flashed across my laptop screen, pregnant with another man' s child, her new partner, Mark Jensen, by her side. Before I could even process the betrayal, my five-year-old son, Liam, shattered my phone, screaming, "I hate you!", his loyalty already shifted to Chloe' s new family. Later that day, a venomous spider bite and a brutal car crash-orchestrated by Chloe herself-left me clinging to life, only for her and Mark to attempt to block my treatment at the hospital, almost succeeding. They dragged me from my hospital bed, still recovering, and locked me in my own basement, binding me to a chair. Forced to confess to lies I never spoke, I endured their physical and emotional torment, my own son throwing a toy car at my face. Every word they spoke, every blow they landed, twisted the knife of injustice deeper, making me question how the woman I loved and the child I adored could become my tormentors. My world was crumbling, everything I built stripped away by those closest to me, leaving me utterly alone and broken. But then, a new doctor, Evelyn Reed, emerged, a beacon of hope against the darkness, a promise that this nightmare, and the lies that fueled it, would finally be exposed.

The yacht bucked like a wild beast in the Lake Michigan storm, and my family faced a terrible choice. There were only two spots left on the rescue boat, and my father didn' t hesitate: "Caleb, get in. Grab the dog." They chose my adopted brother, the "good luck charm," and my mother' s prized show dog over me, yelling for me to swim to a non-existent marina. My fiancée, Molly, was already gone, announcing her engagement to Caleb on the evening news before they even knew if I was dead or alive. When I finally dragged myself back, barely clinging to life, I was met not with relief, but with rage and disgust. My "brother" Caleb, the perfect son, framed me for theft, and my parents, the people who were supposed to love me, forced me to strip naked in front of their staff, searching for something I didn't steal. How could my own family do this? How could they betray me so completely, not just once, but again and again, pushing me to the absolute breaking point? That day, as I walked away, leaving everything and everyone I knew behind, I wasn't just leaving a house; I was severing a destiny. I was done being Ethan Duncan, the cursed son; now, I would simply become Ethan, and I would build a life so strong, so independent, that their world would crumble without me.

My name is Maya Rodriguez, and I pretty much live at WOLF Radio, spinning indie tracks and secretly nursing a hopeless crush on Ethan Miller, our university' s star quarterback. He' s that guy – popular, talented, and completely out of my league. Then came Homecoming. A text from my best friend shattered my world: Ethan was about to ask Chloe Davis, the campus queen, to the Ball. And he was going to do it using my microphones! My stomach clenched. I had to stop him. In a panic, I recorded a voice note to Liv: "Liv, I have to stop this! I can't let him use the WOLF Radio mic to ask Chloe! You know how I feel about Ethan!" But a forgotten Bluetooth connection turned my private confession into a public announcement, booming across the entire stadium. The mortified silence, then the gasps and laughter. My deepest secret, broadcast to thousands. I wanted to die. Chaos. Humiliation. How could my mistake be so catastrophic? I was the invisible sound tech, always behind the scenes. This was beyond anything I could imagine. The star quarterback, frozen on the field, looking directly at me. But then the impossible happened: Ethan sought me out. He wasn't angry. He was oddly amused. He revealed a massive misunderstanding – the proposal wasn't for Chloe, or even for him. My public humiliation was all for nothing. Or was it? What exactly was the campus heartthrob doing, being so incredibly kind to the girl who just declared her crush to the whole school?

The Thorne mansion reeked of unspoken rivalries. I, Sarah Ashton, was one of eighteen women, disowned by my family for this role. Ethan, my childhood sweetheart, now saw me with cold resentment, obsessed with Brenda, who claimed to save his life. A chilling premonition haunted me: Ethan' s rage-filled face, his hands stained with my blood, my newborn twins' cries silenced. He kills us. So, the faint blue lines on the test brought not joy, but icy terror. My unborn, his children. The ones he would destroy. I secretly bribed the doctor to hide my twin pregnancy. Days later, Brenda announced her fake pregnancy; overjoyed Ethan demanded marriage. The horror peaked when Brenda, feigning a fall and accusing me, screamed I harmed her "baby." Ethan' s fury erupted. He punched me, then kicked my stomach. Agony ripped through me. "My babies…" I choked, bleeding. "Ethan… I'm pregnant…" He laughed, "Pregnant? You? Don' t try that lie now." He saw only his "victim" and "attacker," dismissing my agony. My premonition became real: my twins, lost to their father's blind rage. As darkness consumed me, Eleanor Thorne, Ethan's grandmother, burst in, face etched with horror. She knew. With her help, I escaped, grieving my lost children. Ethan built his joyous new life on Brenda' s lies, unaware Eleanor was patiently orchestrating a reckoning he' d never forget.

Three years at Yale, I missed the Texas heat and the Sterling ranch, counting down the days to surprise my sister, Lily. I pictured our joyful reunion, the familiar echo of laughter in the grand halls. Instead, a chilling silence hung over the mansion. Her familiar room was replaced by a gaudy guest suite. A faint, rhythmic creaking led me to the gardens. There, under a wilting magnolia, stood a crude dog run. And inside, a tattered pink fabric betrayed the unimaginable – Lily. My sister, rail-thin, hair matted, whimpered, "No… no cookies. Cookies are for good people. Master says I'm a pet." Just then, Pamela, my stepmother, emerged, smug and heavily pregnant, dangling Lily's half of our family's sacred Falcon emblem. "Ava, darling. Home a bit sooner than expected, aren't we?" "That badge means power, and Lily graciously gave me her share," she purred, her gaze predatory, eyeing mine. How could Robert, my own father, stand by while his daughter was brutalized? He had shielded Pamela, allowed her to twist our family's legacy into this grotesque nightmare. This wasn't merely a family dispute; it was an act of heinous cruelty. A deliberate erasure of everything my mother had built. And I, the rightful heir, was now utterly alone, powerless. When her goons cornered me, tearing away my own Falcon emblem, she declared Falcon International finally hers. But they didn't know that under my shirt, hidden by years of preparation, was a silent beacon. With a single, desperate press, I had activated the Ghost Tactical Squad—Falcon's most elite, most discreet unit. The game was about to change.

I was Emily Rose, a top-tier law student, interning at the prestigious Kent Corporation. William Kent, the notorious playboy heir, relentlessly pursued me, and I fell hard, believing I was finally his "one." Old Man Kent had even announced a challenge: the woman who could tame William for six months would be the next Mrs. Kent. I pictured a future, a ring, a life. Then the news broke: Sophia Vanderbilt, William’s society-approved match, staged a public, bloody suicide attempt, blaming me as the gold-digging home-wrecker. William, to save his family's reputation and his own ascent, instantly turned on me, calling me a calculating liar. The Kents ensured my scholarship vanished, my reputation was shredded, and I became a corporate pariah. They didn't stop there; my nurse mother was framed for theft, and my younger brother faced drug charges. My world burned as their lawyers offered a chilling ultimatum: confess and disappear, or my family would face ruin. I refused, and the next day, a black SUV ran a red light. Then, nothing. Until I snapped awake, back at the very Kent gala where William first charmed me – the night it all began. My heart hammered, a wild bird trapped, but this time, it vibrated with a cold, clear resolve. Why was I back? To relive this nightmare, this betrayal? No, this time, I wouldn't be their lamb. I met William's gaze, my eyes cold and flat: "Not yours, Mr. Kent. Excuse me." This time, the game was mine to play.

They spent a night together, but he was a stranger to her. She fled in panic, thinking that they would never see each other again, but she didn't expect that this man would appear again. Once the resentment, love, and hatred began, it meant that she would completely surrender to the man in front of her. How could that be! She wouldn't be fooled by this man!

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.

On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news. He was shielding another woman—his ruthless business partner—from a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city. The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: “Something came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.” For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets. My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me. So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts. He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line I’d marked. He didn’t know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree. He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies.

I was married to the Dark Don of New York, but to the Trevino family, I was just collateral. While I was suffering from agonizing acute appendicitis, my husband forced me out into the freezing rain just to watch him parade his mistress in front of the city's elite. When I handed him the annulment papers and begged for my freedom, he coldly burned them to ashes right in front of my face. He watched me collapse on the floor in blinding pain, completely ignoring my deathly pale skin. "Stop this pathetic performance. If you aren't ready for the gala by seven, I will throw your grandfather into a state facility." His mistress even mocked my illness, handing me raw oysters with a victorious smirk while he looked at me with pure disgust. I finally understood that in this gilded cage, my life meant absolutely nothing to him. If I stayed, I would die here—either from a ruptured appendix or from his suffocating cruelty. So, I took a heavy dose of painkillers, threw my diamond ring into the river, and emptied the family's hidden safe. When he finally cornered me in a dark alley to drag me back, I shoved the real annulment papers into his chest. "Touch me, and I will scream until every rat in this city hears me." I stepped into the getaway cab, taking the master copies of his smuggling ledgers with me. It was time to burn his empire to the ground.

For seven years, I was his eyes. But the moment he regained his sight, he decided to marry someone else. Seven years of devotion couldn't buy his heart. I gave him back his dignity. Now that he was restored as the Godfather of the New York Mafia, he laughed with others, degrading me to the status of a mere "mistress." He thought I didn't understand Italian, but I heard him loud and clear: he was going to marry his first love. He arrogantly believed I would always love him, willing to stay in his penthouse like a caged bird. But he was wrong. I boarded a one-way flight to Australia. Dante, I don't want you anymore. By the time he returned home, he would have lost me forever. But a sore loser refuses to concede. Even if he had to burn the world to the ground, he would search for me and beg for my forgiveness.

I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair. They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves. Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment. But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger. In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.

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.

Heidi gripped the sterile hospital bedsheets as violent contractions ripped her body apart. The heavy door opened, but it wasn't the doctor. It was Brigette, wearing the exact custom wedding dress Heidi had spent six months designing for herself. Brigette held up her phone on speaker. When the doctor warned that a natural delivery would kill the mother, Christian Page's voice echoed through the room, ice-cold and devoid of any warmth. "Prioritize the Page heirs. Let her die." The man she loved had just signed her death warrant over the phone. Brigette stole her newborn twins, dragged her to an abandoned warehouse, and poured gasoline over her bare legs. Flicking a lit cigar into the puddle, Brigette left Heidi tied to an iron pillar to burn alive. But as the flames formed a deadly circle around her, Heidi's body convulsed with a terrifying truth. In the heart of the blazing inferno, she miraculously gave birth to two more babies she didn't know she was carrying. Using her own back as a human shield against the falling embers, she survived the fire, but the ultimate betrayal burned deeper than her ruined skin. Four years later, Heidi returned to New York with a reconstructed face, two brilliant children, and a terrifying new identity as the world's top underground surgeon. When Christian, entirely unaware of who she was, signed a waiver begging her to save his dying grandfather's life, Heidi looked into his desperate eyes with absolute, clinical boredom. "The game starts now," she said coldly.

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."

Three days after my fiancé publicly dumped me for my stepsister, the Supreme Don issued a command that silenced the entire estate. I wasn't being cast aside. I was being sold to Damien Russo. The "Broken Don." A crippled, scarred monster rumored to have murdered his last two wives. My adoptive mother, Elena, didn't cry for me. She smirked. To her, I was finally being disposed of. She was so confident I was walking to my death that she decided to loot my corpse before I even left. She forged documents to steal my entire inheritance—my biological mother’s trust fund—to pay for my stepsister’s lavish wedding to my ex. "She won't need money where she's going," my stepsister laughed, wearing a dress bought with my stolen funds. They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter. They thought I was too weak, too stupid, and too afraid of the monster to fight back. But they made a fatal mistake. With my aunt’s help, I didn't just find the proof of their embezzlement; I found a weapon. I’m not running from the monster. I’m going to marry him. And when I hand him the evidence that the Herrera family stole from his bride, he won't be my executioner. He will be my vengeance.