Yi Shi

I was born with a lethal allergy to our Mafia family's signature golden narcotic. My body treats the drug like battery acid, but my mother, the ruthless Boss of the Chicago Outfit, called my allergy a pathetic weakness. She secretly laced my soup with the poison, convinced she could force my immunity and mold me into a perfect heir. When my throat seized and I coughed up blood onto the dining table, my cowardly father just scolded me for disrespecting the Boss. My mother locked me inside a reinforced bathroom, leaving me to suffocate as my airways rapidly swelled shut. "The weak must suffer to become strong." She stood outside the door, casually chatting with a rival Capo about how my torture was necessary, completely ignoring my desperate pleas for a medic. Lying on the cold tiles, gasping for my last breath, I realized a horrifying truth. As long as I held value as her pawn, as long as my body belonged to the Family, she would keep poisoning me until it finally killed me. So, when I woke up in the underground clinic, I grabbed her massive stash of the lethal powder and swallowed it all dry. I chose to burn through my own organs and permanently lose my stomach, annihilating my value forever, just so I could sell my broken shell to her deadliest rival.

I was a wolfless Omega, forced into a humiliating contract with Alpha Declan just to keep my mother's life support running. Four years ago, he publicly rejected me as his Fated Mate, treating me like a shameful secret. But one night, I unlocked his tablet and discovered the sickening truth. He already had a "Chosen Mate," Karly, and a secret daughter named Ava. While I was fed gray nutrient paste like a stray dog, he was parading them around as his perfect family. He even moved them into the master suite and tossed out the last wooden toy belonging to my dead son. Worse, I found out my own stepbrother was Karly's spy, helping them keep me in the dark. The week I was hemorrhaging in the hospital, terrified of losing my baby, Declan wasn't fighting a border war. He was buying Karly diamonds in Paris. The week my mother suffered a massive stroke, he abandoned her to take his secret daughter skiing. I was entirely alone, a convenient shield for his lies. But the absolute betrayal burned away my lingering grief, leaving behind a freezing, unbreakable clarity. I didn't just want a divorce anymore; I wanted to burn their entire world to ash. So, I slipped a forged termination agreement into his stack of Pack contracts. Blinded by his own arrogance, the Alpha signed my freedom without even looking. Holding the legal key to my cage and a folder full of his treacherous secrets, I sped out of the manor and dialed an encrypted number. "It's time. Unleash hell."

I am the Fated Mate of Alpha Damien Blackwood, but because I was born a wolfless Omega, I was kept as his dirty little secret. The constant rejection from my mate was literally killing me. The Pack Healer handed me my death sentence: Terminal Soul Wither. My life was ticking down to its final months. While I sat in the dark, dying and gasping for air, Damien threw a twenty-million-dollar fireworks festival for his chosen future Luna, Isabelle. When he finally came home, reeking of her perfume, he only looked at me with eyes as cold as winter ice. "It's your ovulation window. Let's get this over with." He only wanted to use me to breed a powerful heir. He threatened to exile my only remaining family if I didn't comply, and even ordered me to draft a legal petition to invalidate my own existence so Isabelle could take my place. Even my adopted brother Jax, whom I suffered for years to protect, publicly threw me to the dirt just to ally with a powerful Pack. I sacrificed my brilliant future as a top strategist to marry Damien, enduring three years of abuse and isolation. Why did I have to rot away in agony while they celebrated my replacement on glossy magazines? I wouldn't let them watch me die in their golden cage. I signed the ancient Rejection petition, dropped the manor keys, and walked out into the freezing night. This time, I chose to sever the bond myself.

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him—my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit—watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London—an exile disguised as a severance package—I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

Five years. That's how long my Mate, Alpha Courtland, locked me in the Silver Mines for killing his "true love," Kinsley. But Kinsley wasn't dead. She was hiding in the pack house, living in luxury while I rotted. When I was finally released, broken and dying, Kinsley framed me again. To protect his "pregnant" mistress, Courtland stood by and watched as she threw my ten-year-old brother off a bridge. That was the moment my love died. I climbed to the hospital roof, accepted Courtland's rejection, and jumped to my death right before his eyes. It took my suicide for him to find the truth—that I was the White Wolf who had healed his blindness, not her. That he had tortured his innocent Mate. He spent three years drowning in regret, his brain rotting from Bond Decay, praying for death. Until he saw me at a gala. I wasn't Ana anymore. I was Amelia, the fiancée of a rival Alpha. He knelt, begging for six months of my time to soothe his dying bond, offering me his entire pack as inheritance. I agreed. Not to save him, but to watch him die. And to secure the legacy for the secret son I was carrying—his son.

I spent six years raising his twins, believing I was his wife. Then the bank manager slid a document across the desk. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Dunlap. You aren't listed as the mother. Eliana Dudley is." I drove to Gavin's office, desperate for answers. Instead, I found him with his high school sweetheart, Eliana, sitting on his lap. I froze as I heard him laugh. "Alex was just a comfortable alternative," he told her. "A glorified nanny to keep the seat warm until you came back." My world shattered. But it got worse. At the twins' birthday party, the children I had loved like my own screamed that they hated me. His seven-year-old son shoved me down the stone steps. I hit the ground hard. Pain exploded in my stomach. I looked up, begging Gavin for help. He didn't move. He just wrapped his arm around Eliana and turned away. "Come on, kids," he said coldly. "Let's go cut the cake. Alex is just making a scene." I lay on the cold patio, bleeding out the baby he didn't even know I was carrying, listening to them sing "Happy Birthday" inside. He thought I would fade away. He thought a check would fix it. But when I woke up in the hospital, the woman who loved him was dead. I signed the divorce papers, walked out, and built an empire he could never touch. Now, three years later, he's begging at my feet. "I made a mistake," he sobs. I look at my new husband and smile. "I know. And now you have to live with it."

For five years, I was the secret wife of billionaire Chace Bentley, hiding in the shadows because he swore it was the only way to protect me from his ruthless family. But when his security guards dragged me out of his gala by my hair, breaking my ribs while the crowd jeered at the "delusional stalker," Chace didn't save me. He stood on the balcony, smoking a cigarette, and watched me bleed with cold, dead eyes. I thought I had hit rock bottom in that jail cell, until I found the documents in his safe. A prenuptial agreement with a socialite named Celina. And a trust fund for their future children. When I confronted him, he didn't beg for forgiveness. He laughed. "Everything you own, the clothes on your back, the roof over your head, it's all because of me. My charity." He thought he had broken me. He thought I was just a disposable pawn in his rise to power. But he forgot that I still held the one thing that could destroy him: our original marriage license. On the day of his grand engagement announcement, I didn't hide. I walked onto the stage, took the microphone, and introduced myself to the world. "I'm Gracelyn Weeks, and I'm Chace Bentley's wife."

The algorithm knew my fiancé was cheating on me before I did. It led me, five days before my wedding, to a secret Instagram account. My maid of honor was wearing my wedding dress. The account was a shrine to her three-year affair with my fiancé, Arden. They had crafted a perfect narrative for their followers: they were tragic soulmates, and I was the cold, calculating villain keeping them apart. The comments were full of hate for me. But the final twist of the knife was seeing that my best friend, Dallas, had "liked" a comment wishing I'd have an "accident" and break my leg again. I had saved his life. My family had saved hers from ruin. Why this elaborate, public cruelty? On my wedding day, I was a no-show. Instead, as the elite of New York society watched, the ballroom screens lit up with a presentation I' d prepared, exposing every photo, every text, and every single lie.

For ten years, my life was a straight line towards one goal: winning the National Design Excellence Award, my ticket to study under the world' s greatest architects in Italy. But on the night I reached for my dream, it was snatched away by the last people I expected. My fiancé, Mark Johnson, the lead judge, awarded the prestigious prize to Olivia Chen, a woman with no design experience, who had submitted an amateur sketch of a "dream closet." The polite applause sounded distant as I watched her embrace the trophy, while Mark beamed beside her, never once looking at me. As I confronted him, his bodyguards dragged me away, my career and my decade of dedication dismissed with a wave of his hand. Later, I overheard him tell Olivia that our engagement was merely a "debt" he had to pay, crushing every "I love you" and shared dream into dust. He laughed, calling my decade of effort a "hobby" he was willing to fund. The public backlash was immediate, but Mark, feigning sincerity, tried to minimize the scandal. He then threatened to cut off funding for my mother' s critical medical care, holding her life hostage to control me. Blacklisted from the design industry, I sold everything and took a humiliating job as a barmaid. Then, Mark and Olivia walked into my new workplace, and he deliberately humiliated me, throwing money at me and demanding I "entertain" them. When I refused, Olivia faked a theft, and Mark, seizing the opportunity, blamed me. In the chaos, I was shoved, hitting my head and collapsing. In the hospital, Mark brought a gaudy diamond necklace, expecting me to be bought. But I wasn't broken. I was done.

My shoulder felt like it was tearing apart, dangling precariously from a skyscraper' s edge, the city lights smeared far below. Wind howled, drowning out everything but the terror that coursed through me. My feet scraped against cold, smooth glass-nothing to stand on but the abyss. Then, a sharp yank on my collar pulled my head back, forcing my chin up. It was Olivia, the woman I' d spent three simulated years trying to save, her face pale and hard, eyes devoid of warmth. "Look at me, Noah," she commanded, her voice cutting through the roar. She wore the black dress we picked out together, now looking like funeral attire. "You didn' t save me," she hissed, her grip tightening on my shredded shoulder. "You played God. You pulled my strings, moved me around like a pawn in your own pathetic little hero fantasy." My attempts to speak her name were pathetic croaks, lost to the wind. "He was getting married tonight, you know," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Liam. He' s marrying someone else. He was mine! My beautiful disaster. My pain. He was mine to lose. Not yours to take away." With a guttural scream, she dragged me closer, and my ring, meant as a promise, fell from my pocket. She watched it fall, then let go of my collar, stepping on the velvet box, crushing metal and stone. "None of this was real," she said, her voice flat and dead. "You' re not real. Your help, your kindness... it was all a lie. A cage." Then, she shoved the mangled ring into my mouth, forcing me to swallow it, my own failure. "Get out," she growled, pushing me with all her rage. My feet were already in the air, my body past the point of no return. As the city rushed up to meet me, everything went white, and I gasped to find myself in a sterile white pod, still feeling every bit of her betrayal.

For five years, I poured my life into Apex Holdings, into Mr. Harrison, my mentor, my confidant, the man everyone assumed I' d marry. I walked into the company meeting expecting a promotion, maybe even a proposal, only to watch my world shatter as he beamed, announcing his engagement to a doe-eyed intern half my age. The room applauded, their polite smiles hiding victorious smirks, and the intern, Bethany, held up her massive diamond, looking at me with triumphant pity. Humiliated, I announced my own whirlwind marriage, but my supposed husband was a stranger, hired on the spot. He refused my resignation, sabotaged my projects, and when I finally forced him to sign, his new fiancée, Bethany, deliberately opened my parrot' s cage, and Mr. Harrison, in a fit of rage, kicked my beloved Sky, the last gift from him. He accused me of faking my pain, while everyone whispered about my jealousy, leaving me isolated, just like after my parents died, leaving me to question if my five years of loyalty meant nothing. Desperate for a clean break, I accepted a marriage proposal from Mr. Davies' s son, a man I hadn' t seen since childhood, hoping this drastic step would finally erase Mr. Harrison from my life.

For seven years, I was the perfect political wife, seamlessly orchestrating every gala, every public appearance. I stood behind my Congressman husband, Ethan Scott, a silent, smiling prop in our opulent D.C. townhouse. Then, at our annual fundraising event, he tapped a glass for silence, his arm draped possessively around his pregnant mistress, Sabrina. "Jocelyn and I have agreed to a divorce," he announced, his eyes cold, dismissive, while the room gasped. He expected me to nod, to accept the humiliating settlement, to stay on as a "household consultant" for her. But I refused, declaring I was leaving that night. He laughed, assuming I was dependent on him, that I' d be crawling back. Then Sabrina' s cruel sneer cut through the air: "The dog stays." Buddy, my golden retriever, my last connection to the child I lost, was yanked from my side. Sabrina feigned a bite, screamed, and Ethan, without hesitation, ordered Buddy to be put down. My world shattered. This wasn' t just about Buddy; it ripped open an old wound. Sabrina had given my premature son, Leo, a deadly teddy bear in his NICU crib. Ethan had blamed me for his death, choosing her over our grief. Now, he was literally sentencing my last piece of family to death for her. My tears were gone, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. I was trapped, sick, and nearly burned alive in my room, thanks to Sabrina' s arson, but a hidden message from Andrew, my childhood sweetheart, illuminated a path forward. It was time to fight.

I was Elara, a woman from the Appalachian mountains, dubbed 'the hillbilly cure.' I was brought to save Julian Thorne, a paralyzed heir. I poured my life force into him, healing his broken body, and against all odds, I fell deeply in love. We even had three unique children-precious, living eggs, humming with a power few understood. But once healed, Julian scorned me, seeing only a primitive necessity, not a wife. Fueled by his jealous stepsister, Cassidy, he orchestrated a cruel spectacle at a gala celebrating his 'miracle.' He forced me into a sadistic egg hunt: identify my children among a hundred fakes, knowing for every wrong guess, one would be brutally smashed. Under the blinding lights, my heart shattered. The first wrong guess ended with a sickening crunch. The second egg, sickeningly, was whisked away to be an 'exotic omelet'-its psychic death tore through me, leaving me writhing in agony. When Cassidy moved to burn my last child, I chose a different path. My only option was self-destruction. I publicly confessed to being a con artist, claiming I never loved Julian, only his immense fortune. My heart broke as I collapsed, sacrificing my name to save my daughter. Why would anyone unleash such cruelty on the woman who saved them? How could this monster revel in my pain? Yet, as I lay dying, my magnificent daughter hatched, unleashing her powerful Thunderbird blood. A psychic torrent forced Julian to relive every ounce of my selfless love, his healing, and the horrific, soul-shredding deaths of our other two children. His mind shattered into maddening despair. My mountain family arrived, reclaiming me from this hell. We faked my death, leaving him haunted by his cruelty, while I found true freedom and peace back home.

My life was perfect, filled with the laughter of my five-year-old twins, Noah and Mia. We were building a couch fort, our own little world. Then, her Tesla pulled into the driveway. Chloe, my estranged wife, brought not just herself, but Leo, her old high school flame, into our home. When my innocent children stood up to the stranger, Chloe' s temper flared. "You two need a timeout," she snapped, dragging them, whimpering, into the soundproof wine cellar. My gut screamed, but she slammed the heavy door, the lock clicking shut. I begged, I pleaded, pounding on the door, while from the living room, I heard Chloe's laughter with Leo. Then, seeing Leo's Instagram post – an ultrasound of their baby – shattered me. A new life, while mine were trapped. My desperate efforts to rescue Noah and Mia came too late. The cellar was silent. Too silent. I found them, blue-faced, unbreathing, an open bag of nuts nearby. Their severe peanut allergy. My world ended. And Chloe? She shrieked, accusing me of drama. At the hospital, after the doctor confirmed they were gone, she called, furious I' d ruined her evening. Later, she laughed in my face when I told her, believing it was a pathetic manipulation. My children, who loved her unconditionally, were dead because of her cruelty, and she didn't even care. How could a mother be so utterly devoid of humanity? The cremation was quiet, just me, their paternal uncle, and my father-in-law. But a few hours later, I walked into the house to the sounds of my wife having sex with Leo. She saw the urns in my hands and dismissed them as "junk." That was it. My love, my family, my life – all irrevocably destroyed by the woman I married. With Mia's drawing of "our family" clutched in my hand, I signed the divorce papers and began to disappear.

The school admissions office. A new chapter for my son, Leo, a fresh start we hoped for. Then the woman at the desk dropped a bombshell, her voice flat. "Staff Sergeant Mark Johnson already has a child enrolled here." Mark Johnson was my husband, Leo' s father. "His son, Ethan Johnson," she continued, "and his wife, Jessica Johnson, is the emergency contact." Wife? Jessica? The names echoed, cold and sharp, triggering a horrifying flashback. In another life, this exact scenario had already unfolded, leading to an abyss of deceit and despair. I remembered Mark' s smooth lies, his flimsy tales of helping a "hero's widow," forcing Leo to be a whispered secret. Then came the unspeakable: Leo, my sensitive son, vanished from a bus stop. The frantic calls, the police reports, the agonizing silence. Weeks later, a horrifying news item: a child found, badly hurt, "two fingers missing." I never knew if it was Leo. The torturous uncertainty, Mark' s chilling indifference, his brutal concern for his "reputation" over my grief. And finally, the river-cold, dark, an attempted escape from the pain. Now, here I was again, back at the exact start of that soul-crushing nightmare. The same casual dismissal, the same insidious destruction of my life, my son' s future, unfolding again. But then, a surge of icy fury consumed me, hardening my resolve into something unbreakable. This wasn' t a rerun of despair; it was a second chance. This time, there would be no crumbling, no quiet suffering, no drowning. Mark Johnson was going to pay. And I would make sure everyone heard the truth, loud and clear.

I was supposed to be recovering, sipping green juice at a luxury Arizona retreat, post-car accident. One scroll on Instagram ripped my perfectly curated world apart. The girl wearing my daughter Chloe’s bespoke gown at our estate wasn’t Chloe. It was a stranger, Ashley, who then introduced her ‘mother’ as Brenda Hoskins, the *acting CEO* of *my* company, AuraNova. In the blurred background, chillingly, was my sweet Chloe, serving drinks, her shoulders slumped, nearly falling as someone bumped her. My housekeeper dismissed it as ‘a small get-together,’ but the school records told a different story: Chloe was registered as Mrs. Peterson’s granddaughter, and her tuition was shockingly overdue. My own daughter, reduced to a charity case, while the woman I fired, Brenda Hoskins, ran my billion-dollar company with my husband, Rick, by her side. When I finally found Chloe, she was thin, bruised, her spirit dim, and shrinking from my touch. Ashley, the impostor, brazenly claimed my luxurious master suite as ‘her parents’ room.’ Medical tests confirmed the horrifying truth: Chloe was being systematically drugged with hormone blockers and sedatives. Retrieved security footage revealed the chilling daily reality: Rick and Brenda watched, smiling, as Ashley and her clique humiliated and abused Chloe, turning her into an unwilling house servant. They hadn't just stolen my company and my life; they were meticulously destroying my daughter’s spirit, erasing her very existence. My blood ran cold, then boiled with a rage so profound it threatened to shatter me. But the despair lasted only a second, replaced by pure, unadulterated fury. They had taken everything, but they were about to learn that nothing burns hotter than a mother’s vengeance.

My Hamptons wedding to tech mogul Ethan Carter was supposed to be a fairytale, lauded by Page Six and celebrated by all who knew of his apparent devotion. But beneath the dazzling facade, a chilling secret had festered for three years: Ethan’s sordid affair with Instagram influencer Olivia Vance, a truth Olivia herself reveled in exposing through taunting texts, explicit photos, and videos sent directly to my phone. The lies became unbearable. Then, just hours before I was set to walk down the aisle, Ethan appeared on national television with Olivia, publicly announcing their pregnancy. Mere moments later, I witnessed his entire family, his mother included, gathered at a private beach house, cooing over Olivia’s bump and warmly embracing her as the soon-to-be Mrs. Carter. My world tilted. I was a fool, utterly erased. The humiliation felt like swallowing broken glass, a raw, open wound. How could an entire family be complicit in such a brazen betrayal, reducing my life to a grotesque charade? But amidst the agony, a cold, hard resolve solidified within me. This was no longer just about escaping my suffocating gilded cage. This was about making Ethan pay dearly. I confirmed the final details with Mr. Jones. A tragic accident. My death. His utter ruin.

At the age of nineteen, Vicky graduated from high school and her life took a dark turn. She had become his slave, going through such horrors that would leave anyone paralyzed. Steve, the young heir of his family’s vast wealth, was none other than the devil who made her life a living hell. Finally, he got tired of her and set her free. As she thought she got rid of that nightmare, he was the CEO of the company where she worked. Stepping into the devil’s trap again, she wouldn’t surrender easily this time.

Emily, being the designated successor of her multi-million family business, was used to having all eyes on her. However, it all changed in one night when she had caught her fiance cheating on her with her sister. Not only did he left her, but he even laughed at the thought of ever loving someone like her. Everyone had betrayed her that night, and as her sister smashed her skull, Emily found herself dying and moving back to ten years ago. With another chance at life, she would make them all pay. She would stop at nothing to make all their lives a living hell.

I am the wife of Dante Moretti, a powerful Mafia Underboss. But in secret, I am "Spettro," the phantom architect who built his entire encrypted bootlegging empire. On my birthday, I came home to find him gifting our five-year-old daughter the exact plush toy he had violently slapped out of my hands months ago. Only this time, he was giving it to his mistress, Adriana, to present as her own. "Auntie Adriana is a million times better than Mommy." My daughter's innocent words pierced my heart, while Dante coldly dismissed my presence, treating me like an unwelcome stranger interrupting their perfect family. He mocked my mothering, allowed his mistress to sever my desperate phone calls with my child, and weaponized his power to break our daughter's spirit just to spite me. He sneered that my only purpose was to stay quiet, absolutely certain I would crawl back the second my allowance ran dry. He thought I was just a weak, submissive wife who had lost everything. He didn't realize that the empire he arrogantly ruled was entirely built on my stolen brilliance. I left my diamond ring on the table, violently slashed our ancient blood oath in half, and walked out of his gilded cage forever. Sitting in a cold warehouse, I placed my hands on my telegraph machine and initiated the Ghost Protocol to permanently paralyze his entire criminal network. The era of playing the dutiful wife was over. I am Donna Falcone, and the vendetta has just begun.

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.

"My world is a mess; you want nothing to do with this" "You don't have the right to decide that for me." Her chest was heaving, harsh breaths scraping the walls of her nose. "I am your wife, and I am choosing to be in your mess." He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her closer. "This is your last chance. Once you step in, I can never let go." "I'm not planning on it." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jade Saint, who was switched at birth, is coerced into an arranged marriage after returning to the Sterling home. That is, until Roman Volkov – the richest and most dangerous man in the city – claims her as his bride. Desperate to save her dying adoptive mother, she willingly enters into a contract marriage with the devil himself. But marriage to Roman is not what she thinks it is – not the enemies lurking in the shadows. Not the dangerous world he refuses to explain, and certainly not the way his cold touch begins to feel like a promise instead of a warning. Because the more she tries to understand him, the more she realises he didn't choose her by accident. And the truth behind it all may destroy her.

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 spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

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."

"You're leaving," Lorenzo said softly. Ivy straightened her spine and raised her chin. "I am. I'm getting out of this place even if it means climbing over the front gates. I can't stay here anymore. I'm leaving!" "You can't," Lorenzo said flatly. "Not now." "Watch me," Ivy hissed, brushing past him. Lorenzo stepped in her way and grabbed her by the arms-not roughly, but firmly. "I mean it, Ivy. You can't leave," he said tightly. She struggled against his grip, her bag falling to the floor with a thud. "Let me go, Lorenzo! I don't belong here. This place is insane. Your family is insane!" "You belong to me," he said sharply, eyes burning into hers. "And it's my job to protect what's mine." "I don't want to be yours," Ivy cried. "I want to be free! I want to live!" Something shifted in Lorenzo's face. He looked at her then, not as an obligation, not as a pawn, but as a person. A frightened, strong, beautiful woman who had been caught in a storm she never asked for. And something in him cracked. Lorenzo reached down and cupped her face with both hands. Ivy flinched at first but didn't pull away. His thumbs wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I never wanted to hurt you," he said quietly. Her lower lip trembled. "Then let me go..." "I can't," he whispered. And then, without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her. *************** Ivy Wesley believed that marrying a wealthy stranger would be her golden escape from a life of struggle. Lorenzo Martinelli was supposed to be her way out: her fresh start, her answer to every prayer whispered in the dark. But the moment the mansion doors shut behind her, Ivy understood the truth. She hadn't stepped into a fairy tale. She had walked straight into the lion's den. The whispers about the Martinelli family's ties to the Mafia aren't just rumors; they're real, and now Ivy is bound to them by a ring on her finger and secrets she can never unlearn. There is no undoing this choice. No clean exit. Not after what she's seen. Not after what she knows. Surrounded by dangerous alliances, ruthless power plays, and truths sharp enough to draw blood, Ivy finds herself caught in a world where trust is a luxury and loyalty can be lethal. Yet in the middle of the chaos, something even more unexpected takes root: a love she never planned for, never prepared for, and may not survive. Now Ivy faces an impossible choice: run while she still can, or stand her ground beside the man who could destroy her as easily as he protects her. In a world where betrayal lurks behind every polished smile and devotion can cost a life, can their love endure... or will it be the very thing that brings everything crashing down?

" let that wetness drip. I want to see what I do to you without even touching You " He stared at her trembling fragile figure who stood naked in front of him with wetness dripping down her thighs making her cheeks burn in shame and embarrassment and he just sat there, staring at her. " Please ...... daddy " ---------- He was my father's best friend and a very close family friend. I had been in love with him since I was fifteen. He was the man of my dreams but Also a man I could never have. A man who could make me feel tingles. One night and It changed everything. I was in bed, letting my hand satisfy the needs and desires of my dark fantasies when he had just walked in, catching me disheveled and messed up. That night he had helped me and that was the first time I had gotten off. I thought it was a step closer to our relationship but He made it clear, he wanted to be a father figure to me. But his body opposed his words. I knew Luciano Morelli wanted me just as much as I did or maybe more.

"Did you think you could run from me, doll? Or is this just your way of testing me?" After being abandoned by her family, being sold by her godmother was the last thing Iris Paulman expected. Raised in a church in a small town, Iris's world was one filled with faith and innocence. But when her godmother put her up for sale to clear her pending debt, Irish life takes a drastic turn. What happens when ruthless mafia lord Damon Vyon decides to buy her?