Cornelia

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god. Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires. He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family. In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet. Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it. That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed. I finally understood the promise he’d made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property. After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash. So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good. A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father—his greatest enemy.

I was a foster kid with a talent for art. My benefactor, Declan, gave me everything: an education, a home, and a future. I loved him, and I agreed to be his wife. Then his adopted sister, Faye, decided she wanted my brother. When my brother rejected her, Declan had his hands broken, destroying his future as a musician. Faye framed me for kidnapping her, and Declan believed every word. He had me thrown into an abandoned mine pit filled with snakes as punishment. Then, to teach me a "permanent lesson," he had his men drag me to a clinic. They took one of my kidneys. The man who promised to protect me, who I thought was my savior, carved a piece of me out for a crime I didn't commit. The love I felt for him died on that operating table. When I woke up, he sat by my bed and told me our wedding was still on. He thought he had broken me. He was wrong. He doesn't know I have a plan. He doesn't know I'm leaving. And he'll never see me again.

I sat on the edge of the examination table, the crinkle of the sanitary paper sounding like thunder in the sterile room. The doctor didn't even look at me as he confirmed the news: the pregnancy was over. My husband, Keyon, didn't answer my call. He just sent an automated text: "In a meeting." When I returned to our cold mansion, I found his iPad glowing with a message from his "muse," Katina. He was throwing her a secret gala tonight-on our third wedding anniversary. He told her he couldn't wait to escape the "boring" and "draining" atmosphere I created at home. Keyon didn't stumble in until 3 AM, smelling of Katina's perfume with a smear of red on his collar. When I handed him the divorce papers, he laughed in my face. He called me a "glorified housekeeper" with no skills and no future, promising I'd be back in three days begging for a subway ticket. He even bet his friends ten thousand dollars that I wouldn't survive a week without his name. He had his assistant cancel my credit cards and block my gate access before I even reached the end of the driveway. He wanted me to starve. He wanted me to crawl. He sat in his office, mocking the "desperate" woman who pawned her three-million-dollar wedding ring for scrap metal just to pay for a meal. I stood on the rainy curb, watching the man I had protected for three years treat my life like trash. He didn't know about the ultrasound I just threw in the bin. He didn't know that while he was calling me "dull," I was the one secretly writing the code that kept his billion-dollar empire from collapsing. As I slid into a cheap Uber, I opened a hidden, encrypted app on my phone. The screen refreshed to a dashboard for an account Keyon didn't know existed. The balance was ten figures long-the accumulated wealth of "Solaris," the world's most elusive tech genius. Keyon thinks he just evicted a parasite, but he's about to find out he just declared war on the only person who can hit "delete" on his entire life.

My husband, Clark, gave me a choice: save the mother of the woman who killed my own, or he would destroy my sister's life. He held a fabricated video over my sister Anissa's head, a cruel lie that would ruin her future. I performed the surgery, saving the life of my enemy's mother, but the blackmail drove Anissa to take her own life. When I confronted him, he didn't just break my heart. He had his Dobermans maul my hands, the ten-million-dollar hands that had saved countless lives, shattering the bones and ending my career forever. He then threw me out, leaving me for dead on a deserted road after I was brutally attacked. I had lost my mother, my sister, and my life's work, all at the hands of the man who swore to love and protect me, the man I once saved on the operating table. But as I lay in a hospital bed for the last time, a cold, calculated resolve settled deep in my bones. I made a single phone call to a man from my past. "Apollo," I whispered, my voice raw but steady. "I'm ready. I want him destroyed. Every last piece of him."

The warning chimed at noon, not from a guest or the wedding planner, but a sterile blue pop-up in my vision: [System Warning: Marriage to Mark Turner not detected. Seven days remaining until digital erasure.] My phone buzzed. A trending story: "Tech Mogul Mark Turner Weds Socialite Olivia Crest in Surprise Ceremony!" My Mark, in his custom-tailored suit, was slipping a ring onto Olivia Crest' s finger – his mentor' s daughter, who he' d called a "business acquaintance." My world went silent-the wilting roses, the empty chairs, the mocking blue notification. His call came. "Ava? Where are you? The press is going crazy." He sighed. "Olivia and I... it just happened. It's better for the company this way. Be reasonable." "Reasonable?" The word shattered in my mouth. He told me he' d wire money, then dismissed me like a fired employee as Olivia' s sweet voice called, "Honey, come cut the cake!" I stood in my heavy white dress, a joke in a room of dead flowers. The hollow echo of his words-"be reasonable"-bounced around the empty hall. My hand found cigarettes, something I' d quit for him ten years ago. It took three tries to light one, my hands shaking. I watched the smoke curl. Comments on the livestream jabbed: "She deserves a man like Mark, not some behind-the-scenes nobody." "I heard his ex was some clingy programmer." They didn't know I wrote the code for their app, that my AI patent was their fortune' s foundation. Then Mark pulled Olivia close, eyes gleaming into the camera: "She walked in and brought the color. She is my life's greatest acquisition." He never said things like that to me. Digital erasure. Seven days. A bizarre, romantic pact I had coded into my AI – a digital soul-bond to a legal marriage with Mark. My ultimate proof of devotion. Now, a death sentence. I crushed the cigarette under my satin shoe. Fine. If I was going to be erased, I wasn't going quietly. I wasn't going home to cry. I was going to his wedding reception.

I spent hours preparing Thanksgiving dinner, the turkey golden and perfect, a silent testament to the quiet life in our upscale suburban home. My wife, Izzy, was supposed to be home, but her booming lifestyle brand, Elysian Living, always came first. I was the unacknowledged foundation, the silent partner in a world she claimed to have built alone. Then I saw it—an Instagram story from Kev, her slick "Brand Strategist." He was grinning next to a brand-new Aston Martin, with Izzy by his side, her ring finger conspicuously bare. His caption, "Izzy knows how to treat her MVP," twisted the familiar knot in my stomach tighter. Moments later, Izzy called, not with an apology, but a sharp accusation about company gossip, hanging up before I could even defend myself. My phone buzzed again, this time a direct message from Kev, a taunting video tour of the car's interior. His voice smugly called me "old man." While her calls relentlessly flooded my screen, I thought of every late night. I thought of every bit of seed money, every crucial contact I leveraged to build "her" empire. None of which she ever acknowledged. The weight of her ingratitude, the blatant affair I was too "stupid" to notice, and the constant disrespect finally hit me with a chilling clarity. I was tired of being her silent safety net, her unappreciated fool. Something inside me snapped. I recorded an audio message for Kev, cold and precise. It exposed him as the parasite he was. Then I blocked him and turned off my phone. A new, definitive strategy for my own life was finally forming.

I'm Sarah Miller, a highly-paid "Soul Weaver" specializing in unique and often unconventional final rituals to bring closure to grieving families. My latest lucrative assignment, an $80,000 overnight "final companionship" at an isolated upstate New York estate, was meant to be purely symbolic for a wealthy young man named Ethan. As I prepared for the intimate ritual, ensuring his body stayed suitably pliable with electric blankets, I noticed something profoundly unsettling. My "deceased" client, Ethan, was alive, his chest rising with a faint, steady breath. The truth unfurled in terrifying whispers: he was Marcus Thorne, the scion of a tech empire, kidnapped by the seemingly grief-stricken Jenkinses, who were now my captors. Their monstrous plot was far beyond ransom; they intended for me to conceive a child with Marcus, then brutally murder us both to secure his family' s immense fortune. Trapped and utterly isolated in the dimly lit viewing room, my cell phone mysteriously ruined and the heavy doors locked from the outside, I realized my professional expertise in the ceremonies of death had become a meticulously crafted trap for the living. The sickening realization struck me: I, the pragmatic Soul Weaver who navigated grief for a fee, was now a pawn in a cold-blooded scheme, facing a fate far worse than any ritual I had ever performed. I was no longer an impartial professional but a direct participant in a nightmare, facing murderous criminals rather than mourning loved ones. But as terror threatened to paralyze me, a new resolve ignited, fueled by deception and an urgent need for survival. With Marcus, my "client," by my horrified side, we formulated a desperate, insane plan to turn my unique skills against them. We would harness the very superstitions that led them to hire a Soul Weaver, conjuring a terrifying 'ghostly' haunting within their own mansion to fight for our escape.

My life was always a supporting role to my brother, Caleb – a "spare part" for his childhood illness, my parents' love a finite resource entirely consumed by him. As "E," I finally felt seen, connecting deeply with Olivia after her accident-induced blindness. But my world shattered when Caleb, orchestrated by our parents, impersonated "E," stealing Olivia's trust and leading to their engagement. They humiliated me, twisting my gentle attempts at truth into jealous sabotages. The final blow came after a brutal car crash: bleeding and near death, I heard my parents and Olivia explicitly prioritize Caleb, caring only for his minor scrapes, not my life. Lying there, abandoned, a chilling clarity washed over me. This wasn't just neglect; it was active erasure. How could they be so utterly cruel? How could Olivia choose the lie so easily? In that moment, a quiet resolve ignited. Enough. This was my second chance – not to fight, but to finally cut the rotten cord. I would walk away, but not before delivering one final, devastating wedding gift that would shatter their perfect facade and set me free.

Ethan Hayes, a Manhattan billionaire, meticulously adjusted his silk tie before the floor-to-ceiling window of his penthouse. For four years, he’d poured his wealth into Maya Rodriguez, funding her lavish life, her family’s endless medical bills, and her brother's elite schooling. He saw her as the living echo of Olivia, his beloved fiancée tragically lost years ago, and tonight, he planned to propose. But hidden by a structural support on a windswept rooftop, he overheard a conversation that tore his carefully curated reality apart. Maya, her family, and her childhood friend Leo Maxwell. “You can’t marry him, Maya. He stole you,” Leo sobbed, his voice cracking. “If you go through with this, I’ll jump!” To Ethan's horror, Maya whispered, "Okay, Leo. I'll leave Ethan at the altar. We'll run away." The illusion, meticulously constructed over four years, shattered into a million pieces. He wasn't just a benefactor; he was a pawn, a source of endless funds, destined for public humiliation. Maya was not only using him but callously planning to jilt him, her family complicit in the cruel charade. A strange, cold calm settled over him, replacing the crushing weight of betrayal. How could he have been so blind, so desperate to resuscitate a ghost, that he fell for such a calculated deception? The woman he'd placed on a pedestal was nothing but a manipulative fraud, willing to exploit his grief. He turned and walked away unseen, pulling out his phone. The wedding, Maya, his entire life in New York – it was all over. He was leaving. He was done chasing echoes; it was time to finally build a life that was truly his own.

The moment she witnessed her fiance’s betrayal, Leah’s heart shattered into a million pieces. She never would have thought that Luciam, the charming CEO of the top company in the world, would propose to her on the spot. She was the girl he had spent all those years missing and looking for, the only one who could bring warmth back to his cold heart. But there was one problem: she didn’t know who he was anymore. Now that he had found her and she was back in his arms, he would never let her run away from him ever again.

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table. Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen. "Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over." I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward. Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant. She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest. As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me. He hugged her. "It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you." The betrayal didn't stop there. When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police. When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line—the one meant for life-or-death situations. He declined the call. He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife. That was the moment the chain broke. As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come. I opened the door and jumped into the dark. Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement. Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one.

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 the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me. But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest. The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me. They didn't. Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her. They let me burn to keep her warm. When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages. That was the moment Elena Vitiello died. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York. By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring. "You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them. "Burn for it."

I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe. On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring. Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger. Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family. When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence. "Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets." My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet. He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts. He was wrong. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use. Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed. *I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.* His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning. *The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?* I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me. I looked down and typed three letters. *Yes.*

For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York. I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him. But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash. In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress. He forced me to watch him court her. At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her. He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain. He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life. I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god. I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole. He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps. So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother. I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars. I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia. By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost.

I was staring at the two pink lines on the plastic stick, trembling with the terrifying joy of carrying the heir to the New York underworld’s most ruthless faction. Then the intercom buzzed, and a voice splintered my world. "The little art student actually thinks I'm going to marry her? It was just a game to pass the time while you were in Europe, Estella." I froze. My boyfriend, Holden, was in the next room, laughing with the daughter of his rival. He explained that I was just a "clean civilian image" he needed to secure a business deal. Now that the deal was signed, he was dumping the "stray" to marry the "Queen." I tried to run, but freedom only lasted forty-eight hours. Holden didn't just break my heart; he turned my terror into content. He kidnapped me, tied me to a chair at the edge of a cliff, and forced me to choose between my life and his new fiancée's. Then, he pushed me off the edge. As gravity snatched me, I heard him laughing. I landed on a stunt airbag. It was just a "social experiment." A sick prank for his amusement. "Don't be so dramatic, Kenia," he called down. "It's just a game." He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a prop in his life. But he forgot that I knew his secrets. I dragged my injured body to a payphone and dialed the one number Holden told me to fear—the rival Don, Gael Simpson. "It's Kenia," I whispered, clutching the receiver like a lifeline. "I'm calling in the debt."

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.

On our ninth anniversary, my husband Dominick didn't toast to us. Instead, he rested his hand on his mistress's pregnant belly in front of the entire crime family. I was just a debt payment to him, a ghost in a forty-thousand-dollar gown. But the humiliation didn't end in the ballroom. When his mistress, Chastity, started hemorrhaging later that night, he didn't call an ambulance. He dragged me to the family clinic. He knew I had a serious heart condition. He knew a transfusion of that magnitude could trigger a fatal cardiac event. "She is carrying my son," he said, his eyes devoid of any humanity. "You will give her whatever she needs." I begged him. I bargained for my freedom. He lied and agreed, just to get the needle in my arm. As my dark red blood flowed through the tube to save the woman destroying my life, my chest tightened. The monitors began to scream. My heart was failing. "Mr. Reyes! She's crashing!" the doctor shouted. Dominick didn't even turn around. He walked out of the room to hold Chastity's hand, leaving me to die on the table. I survived, but Annis Myers died in that clinic. He thought I would return to the penthouse and continue being his obedient, silent wife. He thought he owned the blood in my veins. He was wrong. I went back to the penthouse one last time. I struck a match. I let the room burn. By the time Dominick realized I wasn't in the ashes, I was already on a plane to London. I had left my wedding ring in an envelope, along with the medical records that proved his cruelty. He wanted a war? I would give him one.