Blair Dippel

I was happily pregnant through IVF, thinking I had finally built a perfect life with my billionaire husband, Dante. Then, an anonymous photo led me to a hidden drawer in his study, where I found a vasectomy confirmation dated a full year before we even started trying for a baby. My world shattered when I went to his office for answers and overheard him talking to his assistant. "This marriage, this child... it's all a sacrifice. I needed the perfect substitute to build up and destroy, just to prove my loyalty to Elara." The painful IVF injections, my precious pregnancy, our entire marriage—it was all a meticulously crafted performance for his childhood sweetheart. He even planned to publicly humiliate me at an upcoming gala as a welcome gift for her return. I wept for the years I had wasted and for my innocent unborn child, conceived merely as a pawn in their sick, twisted game. They thought they could discard me like trash because they believed I was just a helpless orphan with no one to turn to. But they didn't know I had spent the last three years hiding my true identity for the sake of this marriage. Wiping away my tears, I picked up my phone and called my father, the most feared underground king in the world.

After signing the death insurance with my husband as the beneficiary, I got into a car accident not long after. During the wait for rescue, I found out that it was all orchestrated by my self-proclaimed best friend and husband. Even my daughter, who was never close to me and resented my strict parenting, turned out to be their child! Meanwhile, my biological child had been killed by them and replaced. I died with resentment and my spirit floated in the air, watching them enjoy the huge compensation and live carefree. I was filled with anger like a vengeful ghost. However, to my surprise, I was reincarnated on the day when the decision of my inheritance was made after my death. I laughed happily because in this life, I won't let their family fall apart and suffer.

For three years, my marriage to Bradly Gordon, the golden boy of the NHL, was nothing more than a freezing, sexless public image. On the eve of our third anniversary, I walked into his dark study and caught him masturbating to a picture of his late brother's widow, Chandler. The very next day, he moved her and her spoiled son into our home. Her son intentionally destroyed my late mother's belongings and the only photograph I had of my parents. When I confronted them, Bradly fiercely protected Chandler, violently shoving me into a sharp table. He even abandoned me at a crucial high-society dinner to chase after rumors of Chandler dating other men. Left entirely alone, I was publicly humiliated by my adoptive family and cast out into a freezing blizzard. I didn't understand how he could be so blindly devoted to his sister-in-law while treating his legal wife like garbage. As I lay half-dead in the snow, he was busy buying her an extravagant pink diamond. His cruel mockery echoed in my mind. "Do you really think a man can love a woman he doesn't touch?" That was the final straw. I stopped playing the meek, pathetic wife. I set a trap with a fake six-million-dollar antique hockey stick for her son to destroy, packed my bags, and left him a signed divorce agreement as his birthday gift.

For ten brutal years of the apocalypse, I fought through blood and dust alongside my best friend Candice and my boyfriend Colon. But when our supplies finally ran dry, their true, greedy nature was exposed. They pinned me down and slaughtered my little pet pig, Winston, while he squealed in terror, just to get a few extra meals. When I screamed and fought back, Colon held a bloody knife to my face while Candice snatched my very last can of food. Then came the final betrayal. With a greedy sneer, they shoved me into a collapsed basement filled with the Blighted. "Thanks for everything, Aleen!" Candice laughed as they ran away. I fell straight into the grasping, rotting hands of the monsters, their groans filling my ears as I was torn apart and eaten alive in the dark. Until my agonizing death, I felt nothing but a chasm of pure, glacial hatred. I had given them everything. I even let them trick me into giving up my parents' apartment right before the collapse. How could I have been so blindly devoted to two parasites? Opening my eyes again, the soft lighting and the smell of burnt coffee shocked my system. I was sitting in a Starbucks, my hands perfectly clean with no dirt under the nails. I looked at my phone. October 12th, 2024. I had returned to exactly ten days before the world ended, and this time, I was going to drain them of every single cent.

I was supposed to be his wife. Instead, he made me his punchline. For five years, I hid who I was to build a life with Dominic. I patched up his wounds, bankrolled his dreams, and convinced myself his coldness was just the pressure of the game. I curated the flowers, the music, the guest list—three hundred pages of love poured into a single day. He repayed me by planting a microphone and a mistress. I heard everything. The mockery. The plot to humiliate me in front of five hundred guests. The sound of his lips on hers. So I did the one thing he never expected. I walked. But Dominic doesn't know the girl he discarded. He doesn't know that the cheap silver key around my neck opens a different kind of legacy. He doesn't know that my real name is Seraphina Vitale, heiress to an empire that runs on blood and silence—and that I’ve just spoken the one word that will burn his world to the ground. Papa. Now he’s searching for me. He’s learning what he lost. And watching me fall for the powerful, patient man who’s been waiting for me for six years is the kind of agony no bullet could ever inflict. A standalone mafia romance where the forgotten girl holds all the cards, and the man who broke her learns that some vows—once broken—can never be mended.

For three years, I was the invisible Omega scrubbing Alpha Kane’s floors, hiding the secret that we were Fated Mates. I thought my silence and devotion would eventually win him over, especially after I shifted to save his life from a mutated bear. But then I heard his voice through the Mind-Link, cold and mocking, speaking to Serra, the woman he intended to make Luna. "She is just a tool," he laughed. "A shield to keep the elders off my back while I secure our alliance. You are the only one I want." My heart shattered, but the true knife twist came during the rogue ambush at the bar. While I was cornered by a wolf wielding a knife, Kane didn't even look at me. He threw his body over Serra, letting rogues tear his flesh to protect her, while leaving me to die. He broke every instinct of the mate bond to save a woman who didn't even have a scratch on her. I watched him bleed for her, and my love finally turned to ash. I didn't wait for him to heal. I didn't wait for him to realize Serra was actually a human spy using dark magic to fool the pack. I severed the bond, rejected him under the full moon, and walked into the snow. Five years later, a crippled, broken Alpha crawled to the border of my new territory. "Lilith, please," Kane begged, kneeling in the frost, his eyes desperate. "I was a fool. I need you." I looked down at him, my hand resting securely in the grip of the most powerful Alpha in the North. "You don't need me, Kane," I said coldly. "You just need someone to save you from the hell you built."

After four years of being tortured in a black site, I finally escaped. I crawled back home, driven only by the thought of my husband, Brody, and our son, Eben. But when I reached the gates of our estate, he didn't recognize my emaciated frame. He called me a beggar and had the guards throw me out. He was with my stepsister, Carla. And my own son ran into her arms, crying, "Mom!" Brody believed Carla' s lies-that I'd abandoned them for another man. He had me committed to a "rehab facility," which was actually the same hellhole I'd just escaped. He handed me back to my torturer. I screamed for him as the drugs coursed through me, but he just turned his back and walked away, leaving me to die. The agency found me, barely alive. They rebuilt me through Project Nightingale-a full cybernetic body, with my emotions and memories wiped clean. Two years later, I am Dr. Hanna Peck. When Brody found me, on his knees begging for forgiveness, I felt nothing. I just turned to my colleague and said, "Clark, I accept your marriage proposal."

My husband left me to die in a car wreck. When I survived and confronted his mistress, he fractured my skull. But that wasn't the worst thing he did. After his mistress framed me for an injury, he cornered me in a hospital hallway. He took my right hand-the one I used to be a brilliant architect-and deliberately broke it, ending my career. He thought he had destroyed my future. He had no idea he had just declared war.

My husband, Branson, promised he' d be home. Instead, I walked into our mansion to the sounds of him with another woman in our bedroom. It was the third time. This time, it wasn't just a betrayal; it was a calculated act. Branson, under his grandfather's tyrannical thumb, was using an intern, Chandler, to conceive an heir, even drugging me to facilitate his infidelity. The humiliation deepened as I witnessed his tenderness towards Chandler, a stark contrast to his coldness towards me. He even planned to marry her once she was pregnant. My heart shattered, but a secret hope remained: my son, Leo, hidden from Branson due to his family's genetic curse. I planned to escape with Leo, but Chandler's manipulative schemes led Branson to believe Leo was a foster child. In a fit of rage, searching for Chandler, he brutally beat Leo to death with an iron poker. Leo's death broke me. Branson, still blind to the truth, imprisoned me, and I was violated by his guards. Desperate, I jumped from a cliff, only to be saved by a mysterious man, Kai Noble, who found me amnesiac. Branson, discovering the video of my assault and the truth about Leo, was consumed by guilt. He tried to win me back, but Chandler's taunts restored my memories, fueling an unyielding hatred. With Kai's help, I systematically dismantled Branson's empire, driving him to suicide. In a final, explosive act, Chandler detonated a bomb, killing Branson and severely injuring Kai. My revenge was complete, but the cost was immense. Now, with Kai by my side, I face a future forever marked by the past.

My life was a carefully constructed facade, built on obligation and unrequited promises. I was about to abandon it all for a new identity when I saw the photo: my fiancée, Chloe, beaming on a sun-drenched beach, wrapped in the arms of Leo Sterling, her childhood sweetheart. The date stamp was from the very afternoon she' d claimed a "spa day" with friends. Her engagement ring, the one I' d worked double shifts for a year to buy, was conspicuously absent in another photo of them clinking champagne glasses. Not pain, but a chilling clarity settled in. It wasn't just the cheating; it was the casual, smiling deception. I thought back to her father, Mr. Davis, who' d sponsored my medical school and, on his deathbed, made me promise to care for her. That promise had morphed into a relationship, then an engagement-a life bound by duty, not love. I' d paid off her six-figure debt, bought her apartment, and endured her every whim, while she kept old photos of Leo in a box under her bed and ignored my near-fatal allergy to asparagus. Now, he was back, openly claiming her, and she was betraying me with a smile. Disgusted, not angry, I made a decision. Africa was no longer an escape; it was a destination. I would give them each other, and I would take my freedom back.

The twisted metal was the last thing I remembered before darkness took over. When I woke, the hospital air hung heavy with antiseptic, and my body screamed with fresh injuries. My first thought was of Mark, my husband, the man I' d sacrificed my brilliant career for. My phone, cracked but miraculously working, trembled in my hand as I called his number, a number I knew better than my own. It rang. And rang. Then, voicemail. Panic clawed at my drug-induced calm. He always answered. An hour later. Voicemail. Again? Voicemail. My last hope was our son, Liam, glued to his phone. "Liam, honey, it' s Mom. I can' t reach your father. Can you please tell him I' m in the hospital? I was in a car accident." His voice was cold, impatient. "What?" Then, the sickening scoff. "A car accident? Is that your new strategy to get Dad' s attention? He' s busy, Mom. He' s with Chloe, closing a big deal. He doesn' t have time for your drama." Chloe. The name hit me harder than the car had. "Liam, I' m not lying. I' m at City General. I' m hurt." "Whatever," he drawled, bored. "Stop calling and bothering us. You' re just embarrassing yourself." The click echoed in the sterile room. A notification flashed on my cracked screen: You have been blocked by this number. The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering to the floor. The physical pain was nothing compared to the shattering agony in my heart. Betrayed by my husband, abandoned by my son. In that moment something inside me broke. But something else, hard and resolute, began to form.

I was cramming formulas for the National Innovators Scholarship exam, our ticket to Caltech' s engineering program. Ethan Hayes, my best friend since kindergarten, and I had dreamed of this for years. We were supposed to be a team. But Ethan wasn't here. He was with Jessi Vance, the new, rebellious girl. I overheard her chilling plan: she wasn't just distracting him; she was sabotaging him, plotting to get him wasted so he'd fail the exam. Naive, I interfered, dragging him back to the exam. He got into Caltech, but Jessi soon died in a drunk driving accident. He twisted it, blaming me. His revenge was meticulous: a framed sexual assault, wiping out my future. The public humiliation, amplified by his powerful family, drove my parents to despair. Their car went off the Blackwood Bridge, a tragic 'accident' . My heart, already fragile, couldn't bear his venomous words. He visited me in my cold cell, holding a newspaper headline of my parents' 'tragic accident.' "This is what you get for ruining my life," he hissed. "You and your family paid for Jessi." The pain, the injustice, consumed me. Then, darkness. My eyes snapped open. I was in my own room, my own bed. The clock read 7 PM, the eve of the exam. I was back. This time, Ethan Hayes could make his own damn choices. I' d protect myself. And above all, my family.

Catherine loved Marco with all her heart. Until she discovered that he had betrayed her with her own sister. Instead of defending Catherine, her family blamed her for standing in the way of their happiness. To them, she was nothing more than an unwanted daughter who had ruined the love story between Marco and the sister they had always favored. So Catherine gave them exactly what they wanted. She gave up Marco. She gave up the family that had never truly seen her as one of their own. Just when she thought her life couldn't get any worse, her parents sold her for twenty thousand dollars to an old, ugly man who had already been married once. Catherine thought her life was over. Then a stranger appeared and offered her a way out. His name was Lorenzo. He offered Catherine a contract marriage. He needed a wife. She needed protection. It seemed like a simple arrangement, and Catherine never expected it to change her life forever.Because she didn't know who Lorenzo really was. To the world, Lorenzo was a ruthless billionaire and the heir to one of the country's most powerful business empires. Behind closed doors, he was far more dangerous. He was the heir to a Mafia dynasty, a man who controlled an empire built on blood, fear, and absolute power. When Lorenzo offered Catherine a marriage of convenience, she accepted without hesitation. He needed a wife. She needed protection. Neither of them wanted love. At least, that was what they told themselves. But after Catherine became Mrs. Romano, Lorenzo's rules began to change. He wanted to know where she went, who she spoke to, and which man dared look at her for too long. The more Catherine tried to keep their marriage strictly business, the more possessive Lorenzo became. He no longer wanted a temporary wife. He wanted Catherine completely. Then Marco finally realized he had made the biggest mistake of his life and came back for her. He expected Catherine to still be the woman who waited for him, forgave him, and accepted whatever affection he was willing to offer. But Catherine was no longer that woman. The daughter her family discarded had become the wife of the most dangerous man in the underworld. And Lorenzo Romano would burn the world down before he let anyone take his wife away.

While I was pregnant, my husband held a party downstairs for another woman's son. Through a hidden mental link, I overheard my husband, Don Dante Rossi, tell his consigliere he was going to publicly reject me tomorrow. He planned to make his mistress, Serena, his new mate. An act forbidden by ancient law while I carried his heir. Later, Serena cornered me, her smile venomous. When Dante appeared, she shrieked, clawing her own arm and blaming me for the attack. Dante didn't even look at me. He snarled a command that froze my body and stole my voice, ordering me from his sight as he cradled her. He moved her and her son into our master suite. I was demoted to the guest room at the end of the hall. Passing her open door, I saw him rocking her baby, humming the lullaby my own mother used to sing to me. I heard him promise her, "Soon, my love. I'll sever the bond and give you the life you deserve." The love I felt for him, the power I'd hidden for four years to protect his fragile ego, all turned to ice. He thought I was a weak, powerless wife he could discard. He was about to find out that the woman he betrayed was Alessia De Luca, princess of the most powerful family on the continent. And I was finally going home.

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."

I was happily pregnant through IVF, thinking I had finally built a perfect life with my billionaire husband, Dante. Then, an anonymous photo led me to a hidden drawer in his study, where I found a vasectomy confirmation dated a full year before we even started trying for a baby. My world shattered when I went to his office for answers and overheard him talking to his assistant. "This marriage, this child... it's all a sacrifice. I needed the perfect substitute to build up and destroy, just to prove my loyalty to Elara." The painful IVF injections, my precious pregnancy, our entire marriage—it was all a meticulously crafted performance for his childhood sweetheart. He even planned to publicly humiliate me at an upcoming gala as a welcome gift for her return. I wept for the years I had wasted and for my innocent unborn child, conceived merely as a pawn in their sick, twisted game. They thought they could discard me like trash because they believed I was just a helpless orphan with no one to turn to. But they didn't know I had spent the last three years hiding my true identity for the sake of this marriage. Wiping away my tears, I picked up my phone and called my father, the most feared underground king in the world.

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.

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."

I was sold to pay off my father's debt. But instead of freedom, I found myself owned by a monster in a suit. Emilia never expected her life to be torn apart overnight. Quiet, soft-spoken, and painfully naïve, she was handed over like a transaction, to the most feared Mafia Lord in the city. Lucien Moretti is powerful, ruthless, and cold as ice. He doesn't need her love, just her obedience. But Emilia isn't prepared for the way his eyes burn when someone else touches her. Or the way her heart races when he lowers his walls, if only for a second. Everyone says Lucien has no soul. But monsters don't protect girls like her. And they definitely don't bleed. As secrets unravel and blood debts resurface, Emilia must decide: is Lucien her captor... or her only chance at survival? In a world of betrayal and danger, she was sold to the devil. But the devil might just be falling for her.

One wardrobe malfunction. Two people who don't belong together. Three awful "Be my wife." Everyone else is at this party to marry the host. I'm only here until I can get a ride home. When my dress rips in the world's worst-timed wardrobe malfunction, I go find somewhere quiet to fix it. So I'm standing there in nothing but my heels when, As my luck would have it, the door opens... And the man of the hour walks in. I wish I could say I played it cool. But it's been a looong time since anyone has seen me in my birthday suit... Much less the hottest man I've ever laid eyes on. All I want to do is fix my dress, click my heels three times, and be back on my couch in fuzzy slippers. But Ivan has other ideas. He's decided who he's taking to the altar... And I don't have a choice but to say "I do."

My father arranged a marriage for my half-sister, Emmalee, with Don Damian Griffith, the ruthless "King of New York." But Emmalee, in love with a penniless lawyer, refused and, weeping, pointed at me, the illegitimate daughter, offering me as the sacrifice. My stepmother packed cheap plastic pearls and copper chains, and my father coldly told me to "bleed quietly" if the Don decided to cut me. "Don't think you've won, Isabell," Emmalee hissed, handing me a shimmering emerald gown, the signature color of the Don's volatile mistress-a clear death trap. Why did my own family want me dead? As the armored car pulled away, I dumped the green silk, put on a dress of pure ivory, and fastened our family's stolen midnight-blue sapphires around my neck. They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter, but I was walking into the lion's den with a hidden blade.

She entered his world as prey. Now, she's learning to bite back. After her mother's death, Annabelle Gracia seeks fragile solace in the flower shop-until her father trades her to Antonioni D'Angélo, the ruthless mafia billionaire known as The Shadow King. Nights with him burn with pain, pleasure, and control. His coldness shields a heart hunted by a dangerous fraternity, one that will not forgive tenderness-love is a risk he cannot afford. Yet desire refuses to be silenced. In their world, love is weakness, and weakness could destroy them both. Antonioni is not just another mafia heir; he is a force who commands the world's shadows. Beyond the empire most will never see: high-stakes deals in European marketplaces, clandestine arms trades, and the quiet power of a man who moves money, influence, and danger across continents. Once fragile, she rises. No longer a pawn, she becomes his fiercest ally and mafia queen, his quiet hope. But betrayal is never far, and enemies wait in the shadows. When Nora, the daughter of one of their deadliest rivals, enters their world, alliances shatter, and danger multiplies. In a world ruled by secrets and scars, can love save them... or destroy them?