Their Blinded Betrayal

I stood center stage at my own art exhibition, surrounded by the Pack elite who looked at me with nothing but pity. My husband, the Alpha Prime, was missing. Then someone pointed at the TV. There was Dante, live on the news, shielding another woman—a leggy Beta named Isabella—from the rain with his own body. While I stood alone, treated like a defect because I couldn't shift, he was playing the perfect gentleman to his mistress. That night, I walked into his office with a stack of boring gallery logistics paperwork. Buried deep on page four was a Severance Bond—an archaic law declaring a mate unwanted property. Dante didn't even read it. He was too busy laughing with Isabella to notice he was legally signing away his wife. I took the folder, packed a bag, and vanished into the night, taking the secret of his unborn heir with me. When he finally tracked me down in the Swiss Alps during a blizzard, he expected a submissive wife ready to return. Instead, he found a woman who looked him in the eye and said, "You are not needed here." I thought I was free, until a year later, when our daughter’s blood began to burn her alive from the inside. Her powerful Alpha bloodline was at war with her body, and my magic wasn't enough to save her. Trembling, I dialed the number I swore I’d never call again. "Dante," I sobbed. "It's Luna. She’s dying." The man who once treated me like a resource tore through mountains to save us. But this time, the Alpha Prime didn't come to conquer. He came to kneel.

The world was a symphony of agony, played on the strings of my own body. I was tied to a chair in a damp basement, the metallic tang of blood filling my mouth as my fingernails were ripped from their beds by a pair of rusty pliers. My best friend, Corrine, stepped into the flickering light wearing my favorite Chanel suit and the engagement ring that was supposed to be mine. Beside her, my fiancé Aldo held the pliers, his voice smooth and cultured as he demanded I sign over my entire inheritance to them. As I struggled, a news report flashed on an old TV in the corner: Hunter Gallagher, the man I had treated like dirt but who had always tried to protect me, was dead in a horrific car explosion. Corrine laughed, whispering in my ear that they had lured him to his death using a fake kidnapping tip. He died trying to save me from a trap set by the people I trusted most. They didn't just want my money; they wanted to erase me. They plunged a needle full of heroin into my neck, watching with cold, mocking eyes as my heart hammered against my ribs and finally seized into nothingness. I died in that basement, a blind, spoiled girl who had let her true protector be murdered. As the darkness closed in, my soul burned with a single, silent vow: If I ever get another life, I will drag you both to hell with me. Suddenly, I gasped for air, my lungs fighting against a weight that wasn't there. I wasn't in the basement; I was in my own bed, my fingernails intact and my skin unbroken. I checked my phone, and my heart stopped—it was May 20th, exactly one year before my death. Hunter was still alive, and this time, I wasn't the prey.

For three years, I was the perfect Mafia wife. I ensured my husband Jared's suits were impeccable and his public image flawless. I even sat at tables with Russian killers and calmly translated the order to execute a man who betrayed our Family. My value was my composure and my loyalty. The moment an internal memo praised Jared for his 'heroism' during the Mayland Warehouse Massacre, I knew our marriage was over. Because I was the one he'd left to die. The memo was a masterpiece of fiction, claiming he made a split-second decision to protect the Family's "most valuable asset." That asset wasn't me, his wife, who was calmly negotiating with cartel members for our lives. It was Bianca, his fragile mistress, who was crying on the phone in a sector he was ordered to stay out of. When I packed my bags and left, he had the audacity to call me hysterical. "You're my wife," he scoffed. "Was I your wife at Mayland, Jared?" I asked. "Did you think of your wife for even a second while you were running to save your weak little woman?" He was a coward who had ignored a direct order from a Don, and the Family was calling him a hero for it. But I had the proof: a thirty-second recording of his profound dishonor. I wasn't just seeking an annulment. I was petitioning the Commission, and I was going to use that recording to burn his world to the ground.

For years, I was the secret architect behind my fiancé Ethan's success. I even torched my own reputation to cover up his theft, believing he was the love of my life and we were a team. Waking from a car crash he engineered, I overheard his plan. He had not only caused my accident but also orchestrated the "stress" that led to my miscarriage. Now, he was stealing my masterpiece, "Echoes of the City," and planning a public proposal to trap me in a gilded cage. At the gala, he left me on stage mid-proposal, the ring clattering to the floor, to rush to his mistress's side. At another party, after she told me he was "relieved" I'd lost our baby, I confronted him. He shoved me hard, sending me sprawling to the floor in front of everyone before walking away with her. Lying there, humiliated, I realized he didn't see me as a person. I was just a tool to be used and discarded. The love I felt for him didn't just break; it turned into a cold, dark void. But he made one mistake. He forgot about the one man in the city he truly feared, a powerful Don who had once praised my work. I picked up my phone and sent a single, desperate text to his rival: "This is Sarah Jenkins. I need your help."

My fiancé of twenty years left me at the altar for another woman, a manipulative liar faking a terminal illness. To grant her "dying wish," he not only demanded a divorce but personally injected me with a drug to ensure I could never have children. On the day he tried to marry her, I entered a proxy marriage with a comatose billionaire to escape-and my new husband woke up.

My anniversary flight was about to board when my husband' s assistant, Chloe, appeared, tears streaming down her face, begging for my ticket because her mother was supposedly dying. It was absurd, but I told her to find another way, unaware of the trap I was walking into. When I arrived home, my husband, Liam, confronted me, accusing me of abandoning Chloe. He then offered me a glass of water, which, unbeknownst to me, was drugged. I woke up alone, stranded in a scorching desert, the sun a blazing inferno above me. A helicopter appeared overhead, and I saw Liam with Chloe, who was holding a phone, livestreaming my torment with the hashtag #AvaWalksTheDesert. They boasted about my family' s supposed bankruptcy and ordered me to apologize to Chloe. When I refused, Liam' s bodyguards took my shoes, leaving me barefoot on the burning sand, where rusty nails were then dumped in front of me. I forced myself to walk, nails piercing my feet, leaving a trail of blood. The doctor on board screamed that I was losing too much blood, but Liam was unconcerned. Then, a sack of highly venomous desert vipers was dumped in my path, preying on my deepest fear. I stood frozen, paralyzed by terror, as one viper slithered toward me and bit my calf. The doctor cried out for antivenom, but Chloe "accidentally" knocked the vial, shattering it. Liam, more concerned with his pride and the livestream than my life, demanded I apologize to Chloe and the camera for his "show." "Never," I rasped, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Just as Liam' s bodyguards forced me to my knees, a military-grade helicopter descended from the sky.