Baxy Koseluk

I was the dutiful wife of Julian, a ruthless Capo in the Chicago Syndicate. Six months ago, my convoy was ambushed by a rival cartel. While I lay bleeding out on the cold floor of the car, my husband was on the phone with his mistress, Mia. "Lock your doors, stay inside," he told her, never once asking if I was alive. I survived, only to watch him flaunt his betrayal. He brought his mistress into our home, booked her luxury suites in Tokyo, and bought her massive diamonds with Syndicate funds. When I refused to play the part of his obedient, blind wife, he publicly humiliated me and orchestrated rumors to isolate me. He thought I was just collateral, a powerless figurehead he could control and eventually discard to settle his debts. I had endured this loveless marriage to survive in the family, yet he treated me worse than dirt while elevating a mistress who knew nothing of our world. I was suffocating in a cage of neglect, enraged by the audacity of a coward who broke every sacred vow. So, I took off my vulgar wedding ring and left it on his bathroom sink. I picked up my phone and sent a message to Dante Falcone, the exiled heir who had stitched my flesh back together in secret. This time, I chose to burn my husband's empire to the ground.

We were celebrating our ten-year anniversary at the Famiglia's most exclusive luxury restaurant. Before we could even finish our champagne, my fiancé Lorenzo suddenly stood up. "Gianna is panicking. The situation requires my presence." He walked out, leaving me completely alone in a room full of dangerous made men. Ten minutes later, Gianna posted a photo of Lorenzo in her living room, calling him her protector. For ten years, I had managed his blood money, scrubbed gunpowder from my nails, and isolated myself from my family to protect his Capo status. But he didn't even give me a seat at the table. Instead, he paraded Gianna around the underground banquet, letting her claim my place and mock my humiliation in front of the entire syndicate. When I finally snapped and confronted him, he grabbed my wrist hard enough to leave bruises. "You are making a scene in front of my men." I had twisted myself into an unrecognizable knot to survive in his world, silencing my own instincts to appease his paranoia. Why did my decade of absolute loyalty yield nothing but being treated like a discarded pawn? As I fell to the concrete, bleeding and completely broken, a towering figure emerged from the shadows. It was Dante Romano, the undisputed Don of New York. He pulled me into his arms and handed me the ultimate power to destroy the man who had ruined me. But the Don's protection came with a price I never saw coming.

To save my father's bankrupt company, I endured a forced marriage to billionaire Godfrey Valentine. He despised me, believing I was a scheming mute who trapped him. When his former fiancée, Allyson, returned, my nightmare truly began. During a family dinner, she deliberately knocked a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly onto my lap. The scalding liquid soaked into my heavy dress, instantly blistering my flesh. Because of my paralyzed vocal cords, I couldn't even scream. I could only gasp in silent, blinding agony as I collapsed. At that exact second, Allyson let out a blood-curdling shriek over a tiny drop of soup that had splashed onto her knuckles. Godfrey didn't even glance in my direction. "Tell the driver to pull up to the front!" He roared in panic, scooping Allyson into his arms like fragile glass and rushing her to the hospital. "You clumsy, stupid girl!" His mother sneered at me before following them, leaving me kneeling alone in a puddle of boiling soup. That night, seeing the paparazzi photos of him fiercely protecting her at the private ER, my heart completely shattered. I finally realized that to him, my life was worth less than a single scratch on her finger. I wiped my tears, contacted my best friend to start a street bakery, and walked away. This time, I chose to live for myself.

The camera flashes felt like a firing squad, dragging me back to the night I lost my baby five years ago. My husband, Faron, sat in the front row, his hand on his mistress Kassie’s thigh, utterly ignoring my public humiliation. This was the thirtieth time he’d made me a joke, and it would be the last. For three years, I played the dutiful Blackwell wife, shielding Faron from his endless affairs. At a press conference, a reporter’s question about his yacht booking with Kassie shattered my facade. Faron, smiling at his mistress, completely ignored me. The last filter I viewed him through instantly shattered. Later, Kassie deliberately spilled champagne on me at a gala. Faron, instead of helping, tenderly wiped it from her. She hissed, "Faron said you just lay there. Fucking you is like fucking a dead fish." This venomous taunt, after thirty public betrayals, snapped my sanity. Chained by my mother-in-law's threats, my pain was expected. My silence demanded. But I was finally done. With a cold, empty void, I slammed the folder shut. I dropped the family crest. "Have a wonderful evening, Faron," I said, turning and walking out. I left him and his suffocating charade behind.

I spent three years making myself small, hiding my sketchbook beneath silk blouses just to keep the peace in a marriage that felt like a museum. Then, Blair came home early, bringing his first love, Keely, into our living room to serve me with divorce papers. He didn't look at me, only at the legal document he’d laid on the glass table like a death warrant for my entire life. He told me to be smart and sign it, while Keely smiled and thanked me for keeping his home and wearing her clothes while she was away. I had been nothing more than a placeholder, a shadow filling the space she’d left behind, and now I was being discarded without a cent or a home. I looked at the Baccarat chandelier and the life I had tried so hard to build, suddenly realizing that I had spent three years desperate for a love that was never on offer. I signed the papers, took nothing but my sketchbook, and walked out into the freezing November rain with three hundred dollars to my name and nowhere to go. I was nothing, I was alone, and I was entirely free. I stood on the corner of the street, shivering in the downpour, and made a desperate, insane gamble when a black car pulled up to the curb. I looked at the stranger behind the tinted glass and asked the only question I had left: "Do you need a wife?"

My family and fiancé begged me to donate my last remaining kidney to my twin sister, Kyleigh. They didn't know I was already dying. My fiancé, Axel, gave me an ultimatum. "Donate the kidney, or I'll break our engagement and marry Kyleigh. It's her dying wish." I agreed, only for them to frame me for plagiarism with my own thesis, forcing me to confess on camera. They never knew I was the one who secretly saved our father with my other kidney five years ago-a sacrifice Kyleigh had stolen all the credit for. As they wheeled me into the operating room, they celebrated with Kyleigh, promising her a future built on my death. I was already a ghost to them. But I died on the table. The surgeon, seeing the old surgical scar and the poison riddling my body, walked out to face them. "This wasn't a donation," she announced, her voice cold as steel. "This was murder."

For ten years, I lived for Dante Moretti. I waited for my eighteenth birthday, knowing that the Alpha of the Dark Nebula was my fated mate. But when the day finally came, he didn't claim me. He brought Isabella home instead. A warrior. A political asset. "Welcome home, my future Luna," he announced to the pack, shattering my heart in front of everyone. I was just the orphan girl who couldn't Shift. A liability. To ensure I knew my place, Isabella offered me a "gift." A collar made of pure silver. To a human, it is jewelry. To a wolf, it is acid. When she locked it around my neck, the metal sizzled. The smell of my own burning flesh filled the room. I fell to my knees, screaming, looking at Dante with tears in my eyes. I begged him to stop her. But he just looked at me, his face a mask of cold logic. "Wear it," he commanded, ignoring the smoke rising from my skin. "Consider it discipline. If you take it off, you leave the Pack." He thought he was protecting me. He thought making me look weak would save me from his enemies. He didn't realize he was killing the girl who loved him. That night, I didn't just take off the collar. I closed my eyes, found the golden thread of our Mate Bond in my mind, and snapped it in half. Dante collapsed in the hallway, clutching his chest in agony as he felt our connection die. "What did you do?" he whispered into the void. "I set you free, Alpha," I said. Then I ran into the storm. He thought I was a defenseless human. He didn't know I was the lost daughter of the Royal White Wolf bloodline. And when I returned, I wouldn't be kneeling.

On our third wedding anniversary, I planned to tell my husband I was pregnant. Instead, I watched him get down on one knee and propose to another woman. In the ensuing chaos, he shoved me down a flight of marble stairs. I woke up in the hospital, losing our baby. The doctor called him, begging him to come. "Tell her to stop this pathetic act," I heard my husband's voice say over the phone. "I don't have time for her games." He hung up. He was at the same hospital, comforting his mistress over a minor burn while our child died. After three years of lies and five broken promises, I finally woke up. I left him a box with the ultrasound photos and my miscarriage diagnosis, signed the divorce papers, and disappeared from his life forever.

The doctor told me my body was reaching its limit. It was the fifth time I was donating bone marrow to save my son, Leo. But I pushed through the pain. My husband, Ethan, said he had a surprise waiting for me when I got home. I walked in to hear him talking with Leo’s live-in nurse, Geneva. My blood ran cold when I heard her call Leo their son. Hidden, I kept listening. The car “accident” right after our wedding that left me infertile? They planned it. My entire seven-year marriage was an elaborate lie, designed to turn me into the perfect, continuous donor for their biological child. My love wasn’t cherished; it was a tool to exploit me. I wasn't a wife or a mother. I was a walking blood bag. All the expensive gifts Ethan gave me after each donation weren’t from love. They were payments for my body parts. They found me collapsed on the floor, and the mask of the loving husband fell away completely. "Leo needs another donation," Ethan said, his voice flat. "The doctor will be here in an hour." When I refused, he had his security guards hold me down. I watched in horror as he took a syringe and drew my blood himself, my life force, to give to their son.

The phone call came at dusk, ripping through the quiet of my evening with words that shattered my world: "Your daughter, Lily... accident... Oceanville General." I raced to the hospital, my heart hammering like a trapped bird, praying for a miracle, only to find my estranged wife, Sarah, coolly discussing the "accident" as if our five-year-old Lily was a mere inconvenience. Then the doctor delivered the fatal blow: "She was calling for you, Mr. Miller. She kept asking for her daddy." But before I could even process the unthinkable, Sarah pulled out her phone, complaining about work, and dismissed the urgent need to see our dying child' s body in the morgue. My world crumbled further when a social media post surfaced: Sarah, raising a champagne glass, arm-in-arm with her step-brother, Mark, celebrating a 'victory' while our Lily lay cold in the morgue. The next day, she refused to help with funeral arrangements, claiming she was "swamped," yet a child's voice echoed in the background of her call: "Daddy, can I have some juice?" My own daughter was deemed a burden, while Sarah played doting "Auntie" to her lover' s child, a child he had with his wife. What kind of monster cares so little for her own flesh and blood, yet dotes on another' s? The betrayal stung, but it was just the beginning. I knew, with chilling clarity, that this was no accident. This was a conspiracy, and I would expose every dark secret.

For five years, I clung to the memory of Liam, my husband, lost to a mysterious accident. Then he reappeared, a month ago, but he was a stranger, stripped of his memories of me, and worse, he brought her-Chloe, the sweet, innocent woman he' d met while he was gone. Now, Chloe, pregnant with Liam' s child, slid a half-million-dollar check across my own mahogany table, a cruel offer to buy me out of my marriage. Liam, when he walked in, only cemented my nightmare, his face softening for her and hardening in cold impatience for me, accusing me of bothering her in my own home. He even suggested I help Chloe plan their wedding, believing her lies about his lost child that once was ours. Cold rage replaced my heartbreak; if he wanted a wedding planner, I' d be the best-and then disappear, completely. But Chloe' s cruelty didn' t stop. She orchestrated my kidnapping, gloating that Liam' s amnesia was her doing, a drug she' d used for years to erase me. When Liam found me, battered and bruised, he accused me of faking it all to frame Chloe. My world shattered, but amidst the wreckage, an email arrived: my permanent residency in New Zealand was approved. I signed the divorce papers, ready to leave, just as my brother texted: Liam had another accident, hit his head, and remembered everything. Without hesitation, I broke my phone' s SIM card and tossed it, choosing to leave the pieces of my past behind. Two years later, Liam, haunted and remorseful, found me in New Zealand, wanting to apologize and fix what was broken, desperate to know about the son clinging to my leg-Leo. "No, Liam. He is not yours. He is mine." I told him, crushing his impossible hope. I explained that the love I had for him, and our future, had simply transferred to Leo, the family we were supposed to have. At Leo' s first birthday, a deranged Chloe attacked me with a knife, Liam, true to his word (and perhaps seeking redemption), threw himself in front of me, and took the fatal blow, paying his debt. I felt nothing but a transaction completed; his life for my stolen five years. Later, a tall, impeccably dressed stranger arrived, his face uncannily like Leo' s. "My name is Julian Davenport," he said, his gaze fixed on my son. "I believe you have my son. The clinic made a rather significant error with my donation. It seems they gave you the premier sample by mistake. So, I've come to collect him."

My life as a celebrated chef was perfectly seasoned: a Michelin-starred restaurant, a demanding but respected father, and a beautiful fiancée, Chloe, who promised an empire. Then, one catastrophic night, I found Chloe, my love, in a passionate embrace with Liam, my supposed business partner, amidst the dry storage of my father' s restaurant. Rage, blinding and raw, consumed me. A fight erupted, sacks of flour burst, and cooking oil slicked the floor, transforming our kitchen into a powder keg. My ailing father, drawn by the chaos, collapsed, his eyes filled with disappointment, not at the scene, but at me. Chloe seized the moment, twisting the narrative: "He' s lost it, Dad! He' s going to destroy everything!" Liam, at Chloe's silent command, ignited a kitchen torch and tossed it into the spilled oil and flour. The world exploded in flames as Chloe dragged Liam away, screaming, "Ethan did this! He tried to kill us all!" I was left trapped in a roaring inferno with my dying father, his last breath a whisper against my hand. At the hospital, framed as the jealous arsonist, I learned my father died of a heart attack, not the fire. Chloe, pristine and emotionless, pressured me to donate skin grafts to Liam, the man who set the fire, repeatedly. I overheard her cold calculations: my "tragedy" was a marketing opportunity, and my subsequent injuries meant "no messy heirs to complicate the inheritance." They wanted everything, including my very essence, leaving me an empty shell. Liam, with a cruel smirk, taunted me, "Chloe' s with a real man now. Someone who can give her what she wants." I finally saw it all: a calculated, systematic destruction, orchestrated by the woman I loved. The pain, once crippling, ignited a new purpose; this was not the end, but the beginning of a war.

My doctor ordered me to disconnect, three months in Montana. So I trusted my husband, Ethan, and my best friend and COO, Nicole, with my life' s work, EcoWrap. My baby. Then, a battered envelope arrived, shattering my digital detox: Ethan and Nicole were engaged. He' d gifted her a controlling stake in my company, my entire life' s work. I stormed back, interrupting their lavish town hall celebration. They laughed in my face, waving papers I' d supposedly signed, transferring my shares. "You gave me control," Ethan sneered. Nicole, my decade-long friend, smirked, admitting they' d been poisoning me with sedatives in my smoothies for months, making me sign while incapacitated. Now, they were in love, and I was holding the company back. My own employees, people I' d mentored and supported, chose wealth over loyalty, turning their backs on me. Ethan slapped brutal divorce papers on the table, demanding I walk away with nothing. I was cornered, betrayed by everyone I loved, stripped of everything I built. How could this happen? Was I truly losing everything? Yet, as I signed away EcoWrap and even convinced my last loyal partner, Molly, to transfer her shares to them, a cold calm settled over me. "It's not over," I whispered as I walked out. "The real show is about to begin." Just then, the doors swung open, and three titans of industry walked in, looking directly at me.

I was a zombie, fueled by lukewarm takeout and dreams of sleep. As a junior associate at a top New York law firm, my life was a blur of billable hours, 72-hour work marathons, and the soul-crushing weight of corporate expectations. After preparing for a merger that felt like a lifetime, I finally crumbled, face-planting onto a stack of legal briefs. But when I woke up, the world was a metallic blur, cold and unyielding. Panic surged, yet I found no lungs to scream. I was trapped, my entire consciousness crammed inside a high-end, silver tie clip, sitting on a mahogany desk. My new owner? Ethan Lester, the notorious bad-boy heir, whose tabloid exploits I usually scrolled past during my five minutes of daily downtime. He called me "junk," then tossed me aside like yesterday's trash. I, Jennifer Jones, Esq., was now a useless, annoying tie clip on a billionaire playboy's desk. Then I watched in horror as an assassin lunged at him, a needle glinting. I somehow, instinctually, reacted, becoming a silver projectile – a bizarre hero in a world gone mad. A strange, robotic voice in my head declared "Protection Mission 1 complete. Life -1," and I dissolved into darkness. I woke up as a ridiculous leopard-print mascot head, then a high-tech massage gun, each transformation triggered by saving Ethan from another attack. What infernal game was this? Why was I doomed to possess random objects, forced to protect this man? And how in the hell was I going to get my own body back?

The stale air in City Hall felt heavy, pregnant with the promise of my future. Today, I, Andrew Fowler, was finally signing the domestic partnership papers with Jennifer Smith, the grand precursor to inheriting my family' s massive fortune on my 25th birthday. Five years I' d poured into this relationship, a future meticulously planned. But then, Jen' s phone buzzed. Her usual mask of indifference finally cracked, replaced by genuine panic as she frantically tapped the screen. She barely acknowledged my question before snapping, "It's nothing. Just Tyrone. I have to go. Now." She stormed out, leaving the clerk and me stunned. Moments later, a text from her lit up my phone. It was a photo: Jen, beaming, entwined with Tyrone at the airport, his arm possessively around her. The caption burned into my eyes: "Tyrone is fine with you being my side piece, learn to be grateful. Once your father's assets are legally tied to me, I'll see you once a week. Be a good boy." My world shattered, not with a bang, but a cold, sickening clarity. The woman I thought I loved had betrayed everything, not just my trust, but our entire five years together. She was a viper, a parasite, and her grand plan was about to kick off my humiliation. Every single moment, every claimed memory, every sacrifice, had been a lie. But as I looked at the abandoned documents, a strange calm settled. No. This wasn't the end. This was the beginning. I picked up my phone, my voice steady, and made a single call.

Last thing I remembered was pain, then cold, then nothing. I woke up back in my old bedroom, seventeen again, just months before senior year officially began. My heart pounded as I realized: a second chance. But the horror truly started when I walked into Northwood High and saw them: Mark Olsen and Tiffany Vance, draped over each other, flashing smug smiles that radiated pure evil. They caught my eye, and in their gaze, I saw it-not surprise, but chilling recognition. They knew. They were back too. Just like before, they immediately set out to ruin me, mocking my dream of MIT and launching a vicious smear campaign on an anonymous gossip forum, accusing me of cheating and mental instability. They thought their rebirth was a VIP pass to success, flaunting their "past life" knowledge and believing they were invincible. This wasn't some cosmic second chance just for me; it was Round Two, and they were playing dirty, again. My first life, they ruined it completely, watching triumphantly as my world crumbled, my scholarship lost, my future shattered. The humiliation, the years of struggle, ultimately leading to my death, flashed before my eyes. But that cold dread transformed into an unshakeable resolve. This time, I wouldn't break. This time, I would reclaim my destiny. Challenge accepted.

Jake, the celebrated captain of Phoenix Rising, had just led his team to an epic Grand Finals victory. His wife and team owner, Alexis, beaming on stage, announced a $200,000 performance bonus for his triumph. He thought things were finally looking up, perhaps even for their marriage. But the promised cash bonus quickly turned to ash in his mouth when it arrived not as money, but as worthless digital tokens. Simultaneously, Alexis lavished a $200,000 cash signing bonus and a luxury sports car on Ethan, a new recruit with average skills but a massive social media following. When Jake confronted her, Alexis waved him off, citing "brand optics" and Ethan's "engagement metrics" as more important than Jake's championship wins. Loyal young players who spoke up for Jake were swiftly punished, silencing dissent within the team. The callous disregard for their shared history escalated; he found himself locked out of his own home by Alexis, accused of being "irresponsible" after just wanting a night out. She even forgot their sacred shared day, his mother's death anniversary, only to plan a lavish launch party for Ethan on that exact date. He felt a deep, sickening knot of betrayal and injustice twisting in his gut. How could the woman he'd built everything with, the team they'd founded from scratch, treat him with such calculated cruelty and contempt? Was his value truly zero compared to a TikTok hype machine? The final blow came in front of the entire team: when Ethan faked an injury, Alexis slapped Jake across the face, screamed at him to apologize, and then handed him a promotional gaming mouse as his "severance," demanding he teach his replacement, Ethan, how to be captain. That burning sting on his cheek became the fire of his resolve.

Sarah Miller stood at the State Teacher Certification Exam hall, her lifelong dream of becoming a teacher finally within reach. Years of arduous study and her parents' immense sacrifices culminated in this pivotal moment. For the third consecutive year, a stern proctor flatly denied her entry, declaring her name mysteriously "flagged" for "security concerns." Even her kind former teacher, Ms. Hayes, turned her away with troubled eyes, repeating the same vague excuse. Her parents and friends watched helplessly as their hopes crumbled before stony-faced officials who labeled Sarah a "risk." When she lunged for the door, burly security guards brutally restrained her, scattering her notes and attracting a persistent news crew. "What is in this file?!" Sarah screamed, a raw cry born from years of suffocating anxiety and a terrifying mental blank for these alleged "incidents." She remembered no "episodes," only this cruel, unjust barrier to the future she had promised her beloved, deceased brother. Then, her admission ticket fluttered to the floor, revealing a tiny, hidden photograph: Mikey' s smiling face. Her old professor, Dr. Carter, stepped forward, finally revealing this entire harrowing ordeal was a cruel, orchestrated plan to shatter her trauma-induced amnesia. A brutal truth, long buried, was about to resurface.

War God's love affair requires ten reincarnations. In every life, it's always with me. He made friends with Fate Immortal, carrying memories of reincarnation. But I, die in his hands every life, suffering from the torment of love. In the last life, he killed my entire family, and finally killed me. Although there is guilt in his eyes, the words he said were chilling: "Mortals are just tools for our torment. You should consider yourself lucky to be chosen by me." Later, my soul drifted to the Nine Realms and met a man in dark clothes. He was sealed by a divine sword, and when he looked at me, his eyes lit up: "As long as you can pull it out, I can help you be reborn for revenge." I gripped the sword handle and said coldly: "I don't want to be reborn, I want to make sure he doesn't survive this life!"

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.

On my wedding day to Julian Moretti, the future Mafia Don, I was deliberately sent to the wrong penthouse. My half-sister Sofia had crawled into my fiancé's bed, leaving me to be discovered by the family's exiled, alcoholic cousin. In my past life, I was shattered by this orchestrated betrayal. I cried and begged when Julian publicly humiliated me, choosing his illegitimate mistress over his rightful bride. I played the perfect, dignified Mafia wife for years. I swallowed his insults, ignored his infidelities, and accepted my ruined reputation to keep the peace. But my blind obedience only paved the way for my murder. Julian discarded me, and I was poisoned to death so Sofia could steal my crown as the Mafia Queen. Until my agonizing last breath, I didn't understand. I had honored our families' blood alliance flawlessly. Why was I the sacrificial lamb while they were rewarded for their treason? Opening my eyes again, I was back on the dark leather sofa, suffocating in my heavy silk wedding dress. This time, I didn't shed a single tear. I grabbed a heavy brass letter opener, marched straight into the Don's main study, and slapped the Underboss across the face in front of the entire family. "A Valdez woman does not share her husband," I declared coldly. "To honor the alliance, I will marry Dante." If they wanted to make my humiliation a fact, I was going to make it a funeral.

On my birthday, my husband Dante asked for a divorce over a plate of cold lasagna. He held my hand, tears in his eyes, and told me his mistress was pregnant. "It’s a miracle, Elena," he wept. "God has finally given me a son." He looked at me with pity, calling me "broken" because I hadn't given him an heir in eight years. He moved his pregnant mistress into the penthouse I paid for, and his mother mocked me as a "dry vine" while cooking tonic soups for the new woman. They didn't know the truth I had buried three years ago. I remembered the day the doctor slid the file across the desk: *Azoospermia. Zero sperm count.* Dante was the sterile one. I had burned the results to protect his fragile ego as a Mafia Don. I took the blame. I drank his mother's vile herbal poisons every morning until I vomited, just to keep his secret. Now, he was discarding me for a "miracle" that was biologically impossible. I signed the divorce papers without a tear. Then I bought the debt of his company, put on a blood-red dress, and walked into his heir's Christening. I didn't come to object. I came to plug a USB drive into the projector and show the entire underworld exactly whose "miracle" that baby really was.

I was dragged back from the countryside by my father for one purpose: to be a sacrificial lamb. He ordered me to marry the mafia Don Damien Valachi in place of my sister. Everyone in the underworld knew that this Don's brides never saw the light of the next day. My stepmother put on a fake smile and took my hand, calling it an "honor"; my sister hid behind her, unable to conceal the gleam of triumph in her eyes. I smiled coldly and held up two fingers: "Twenty million dollars. Now." My father tried to play tricks, planning to take back the money from my trust fund after I died, but I had someone transfer every cent out before the wedding, leaving him a zero balance. The next day, the wedding car pulled up to the Valachi estate. The butler ordered the driver to use the service entrance-it seemed my groom didn't think I was worthy of the front gate. I got out and switched to an armored vehicle. I floored the accelerator, crashing straight through the estate gates. The gates shattered, and I didn't stop until I reached the main steps. I jumped out, the heel of my shoe crushing a broken iron railing, and shouted: "The bride is here." I looked up, scanning every window until my gaze stopped on one dark pane. I knew Damien was watching. I brushed the dust off my skirt, raised my voice a notch, and smiled: "What, the Don of the Valachi family doesn't dare come out to meet his new wife?"

I was the brilliant money launderer for the most feared syndicate on the East Coast, and the fiercely loyal wife of its Underboss, Dante. While I worked sleepless nights to build his underworld dominion, he secretly diverted my operations to fund a luxury club for his naive barista mistress. When I confronted them and publicly exposed her, Dante didn't show a shred of guilt. Instead, he slapped me across the face in front of the entire syndicate. He draped his tailored jacket over his crying mistress to shield her, then turned his cold eyes on me. "Apologize to her right now, or I will send every single soldier in your crew to the slaughterhouse." He then weaponized the mafia's whisper network to destroy my reputation, painting me as a hysterical, paranoid woman just to legitimize his affair. For years, I had blindly endured his psychological torture, believing my devotion would eventually earn his respect. But looking at the brutal purple handprint on my cheek, and the ninety-nine dried bouquets of white roses he kept in the attic to carelessly patch over his toxic abuse, my heart finally turned to ice. I didn't throw a tantrum, nor did I beg for his love anymore. I left his apology blood diamonds on the table, drafted my mafia severance papers, and walked out of his territory for good. This time, I would build my own empire, and let him drown in the ruins of his.

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."

My mother is marrying a monster tomorrow. I'm the only one who remembers. My widowed mother was arranged to marry Lorenzo, a powerful Mafia Capo. I thought his status would finally bring us protection. But on the third day of their marriage, Lorenzo moved his pregnant mistress, Camilla, into the estate's master suite. She loudly claimed the child in her womb was the orphaned blood of a fallen soldier. "A Capo of Lorenzo's stature is doing your mother a service," the Syndicate wives mocked me, demanding we accept our place. Camilla systematically seized my mother's territory cuts and subjected her to endless psychological torture, while Lorenzo simply turned a blind eye. When the baby was born, it bore the exact same distinct birthmark on its neck as Lorenzo. Only then did we realize Lorenzo had used my mother as a convenient shield for his illicit affair, stealing my dead father's legacy and slowly draining our lives away. I didn't understand why the Family's brutal justice allowed a thief to siphon funds under the guise of caring for a martyr's widow, leaving us to die in absolute disgrace. Opening my eyes again, I was back to the day before the mob wedding. Looking at my six-year-old hands, I grabbed the torn marriage petition and stole the secret trust documents. This time, I ran straight to the heavily guarded gates of Don Salvatore, the most ruthless executioner in the city.

For two years, my world was circumscribed by the biometric lock on our penthouse and silent prayers for my husband, Vincenzo, the most feared Underboss of the Cosa Nostra. But when he finally returned from a brutal three-week smuggling route, he tossed me a cheap five-dollar tourist scarf, while his ex-lover Camilla flaunted the flawless pearl necklace he had just bought her. He abandoned me with a bleeding hand to rush to her side, ignored my severe medical emergencies to comfort her over trivialities, and publicly humiliated me at a Syndicate banquet by seating her in my rightful place at the head of the table. Camilla cornered me in the powder room, her fragile victim facade dropping instantly as she smirked at my reflection. "The thing a powerful man fears most isn't a wife who screams. It's a useless one who refuses to bow out gracefully." I endured his blatant disrespect and broken Omertà, wondering why my unwavering loyalty meant nothing compared to the manipulative tears of a woman who was actively leaking his classified safehouse coordinates. I didn't understand why he treated his sacred vows like garbage, eagerly feeding her Syndicate intel just to play the big, strong hero while leaving me to face cartel death threats entirely alone. But I was done being the neglected mafia wife waiting in the shadows. I calmly activated the covert audio recording device hidden inside my designer clutch. It was time to present this irrefutable evidence to the Don's Tribunal, strip my husband of his title, and build my own empire.

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.

"It was just one night stand, and now I'm pregnant with triplets? Gosh!" Josephine Jade never thought that she would have to run away from her own family while pregnant. She was alone, without money, without connections, with three fetuses in her stomach. How can she survive? However, Josephine couldn't give up now, until she managed to reclaim her arbitrarily seized property and get back at everyone who tried to get rid of her. A sick child, a past crush that comes back, a mysterious eccentric man, and a family that hates her, will weave together the journey of Josephine Jade's new life. "You have no right to separate me from my children, you bastard! I will survive and you will submit to me. Just watch!"