No Second Chances for Treachery

I thought my arranged marriage to the ruthless tycoon Axel Flynn was a love story when he risked his life to save mine. But when his fragile childhood friend, Alicia, arrived, I saw the truth. He would panic if she got a paper cut, but he didn't bat an eye when I jumped out of planes. With his blessing, she stole my company, my life' s work. At my own birthday party, he announced her as the new director. When I screamed the truth, he had me drugged. He threw me into a dark isolation room in the basement for three days, with no food or water, because Alicia claimed I was "unstable." He dragged me out, weak and broken, and demanded I get on my knees to apologize to the woman who had destroyed me. I finally understood. His "love" was never love. It was apathy. He simply didn't care if I lived or died. So, after he believed her final, vicious lie and left me for dead, I took the divorce papers he'd carelessly signed and walked away. This time, for good.

I was still bleeding into the mesh underwear the hospital gave me when the photos hit the internet: my husband, the Don, forcing his tongue down his mistress's throat. Three days ago, that very mistress had shoved me off a yacht. I lost the baby. I lost my uterus. I was left completely barren. Yet, when my husband finally called, it wasn't to ask if I was alive. "The press is eating us alive," Dante barked through the phone. "Send a gift basket to Sofia. Fix this mess." To make matters worse, his grandmother stood at the foot of my bed, holding the hand of the daughter they had stolen from me at birth. "Mommy looks like a ghost," my daughter said, her voice devoid of love. That was the moment the last ember of affection died. I realized I wasn't a wife to them; I was just a broken vessel. So, when they sneered that I was useless, I didn't cry. I pulled a black USB drive from under my pillow and threw it on the bed. "Divorce papers," I said calmly. "And the complete security blueprints of the Moretti Fortress. Every blind spot. Every tunnel I designed." "Sign the papers and let me go, or I sell this drive to your enemies for one dollar." I left the country with nothing but the clothes on my back, vanishing into a freezing attic in Paris. I thought I was finally free. But three weeks later, Dante kicked down my door, looking at my poverty with horror. "Come home," he begged, tossing a box of diamonds onto my drafting table. "We can be a family." I looked at the man who had destroyed me and opened the window. "You're looking for the girl who loved you," I whispered, throwing the diamonds into the trash alley below. "But you killed her."

The heavy steel door of the industrial meat locker slammed shut, sealing me in at four degrees below zero. Ten minutes ago, I was the woman Dante Moretti promised to burn the world for. Now, I was the rat accused of poisoning his heir. Dante didn’t just lock me in. He looked at me with eyes devoid of warmth and said, "Evidence says otherwise." He chose the lie of his arranged wife, Sofia, over my truth. For months, I endured the price of loving the Underboss. I watched him marry Sofia in a grand ceremony to secure a family alliance. I let him force me onto a table to drain my blood to save her life when she was injured. I took twenty lashes from his family’s enforcers, all while he stood by and watched, claiming it was necessary to "protect" me. He told me to wait. He told me the marriage was a sham. But when I finally escaped and he came chasing after me, revealing that Sofia was a fraud and he wanted me back, I didn't feel relief. I felt nothing. Even after he threw his body over mine to save me from a collapsing building, taking a jagged shard of timber through his chest, I couldn't forgive him. In the hospital, his mother handed me his journal. It was filled with entries about his undying love for me, written on the very same days he allowed me to be tortured. "Tell him the debt is paid," I told his mother as I handed the book back. "He saved my life. I saved his child. We are even." I turned my back on the ICU and walked out into the rain. Dante Moretti might have been willing to die for me, but he never knew how to live for me.

My husband ordered me to turn around and face the altar. He unbuckled his heavy leather belt, his eyes cold and devoid of mercy. "You need to learn respect," Dante spat. He whipped me in the family chapel until my back was a bloody mess. All because his mistress, Sofia, had framed me for breaking his grandfather's urn. He didn't ask for the truth. He didn't hesitate. He just wanted to punish the wife he considered a burden. As the belt tore into my skin, I didn't scream. I just counted the memories dying. He didn't know I was the one who dove into the frozen lake to save him in high school. He didn't know I was the one who took a knife for him during the ambush. He believed Sofia's lies that she was his savior. I had loved him for ten years. I had bled for him. And in return, he scarred me permanently for a crime I didn't commit. That night, I didn't tend to my wounds. I packed my bags, signed the divorce papers, and swore on the Code of Omertà to never love him again. Three years later, Dante found my old diary hidden under the floorboards. He read the truth about who really saved him, and realized he had tortured his guardian angel. He found me in Paris, fell to his knees in a crowded hotel lobby, and begged for forgiveness with tears in his eyes. I looked at the man who broke me and smiled. "Lie down and die, Dante," I said softly. "Because I have a life to live."

In the third year of their marriage, Liam became infatuated with his new secretary, Lindsay Price. She was open and bold. Her personal motto was "Fortune favors the bold." In bed, she knew countless different positions, and outside of it, she accompanied Liam in various thrilling activities. While he went out with Lindsay, he maintained the facade of a devoted husband by fabricating where he had been to Lillian Walsh. "I'm not coming home tonight. I was drunk, so I'm sleeping at the office." Lindsay chuckled beside him. She said with a hint of teasing provocation, "When are you going to divorce that boring old woman?" The call ended abruptly. Unbeknownst to them, Lillian was sitting in the Obstetrics and Gynecology department and staring at the pregnancy report at her fingertips. She had been pregnant for six weeks. After she left the hospital, she called her brother, Ricky Walsh, who was a lawyer. "Ricky, I need you to make a divorce agreement for me." Ricky paused briefly and then asked, "Are you sure about this?" Lillian replied calmly, "Yes. I'm pregnant. I plan to keep the baby myself."

As Dylan Andrews' kept companion, Elaine Willis was the epitome of perfection. To be readily available for her benefactor, she took on work for only three months each year, filming low-budget movies and maintaining a lukewarm career. Fully aware that Dylan saw her merely as a stand-in for his true love, she accepted it calmly, even deliberately mimicking the style of his beloved. Everyone mocked her as a fragile vine, unable to survive without a man, destined to be chained to Dylan's side forever. Yet, behind his back, she got two male escorts.