Flying Free

I kept a ledger to track my marriage to the most feared man in Chicago. Loyalty started at one hundred. Every time Dante looked through me to stare at his mistress, Isabella, I subtracted one. Every time he left our bed to answer her calls, I subtracted five. The day the score hit zero, I was lying in a secret clinic, bleeding out. I had been in a severe accident. I was pregnant, and the hemorrhage was critical. But the nurse, eyes red with weeping, told me they couldn't give me the blood transfusion I needed. Dante had ordered the clinic's entire supply of O-negative blood to be reserved for Isabella. She had a bruised knee and was "in shock." He prioritized her comfort over his unborn child's life. I lost the baby. I left the ledger on his desk with a final note: *You bought her comfort with your heir’s blood. Score: 0.* Then, I vanished. Two years later, Dante found me at a gala in Seattle. The ruthless Capo dei Capi, a man who never bowed to anyone, fell to his knees in front of hundreds of people. He begged, tears streaming down his face, claiming he had made a mistake, that I was his only true love. I looked at him, then at Julian, the man standing beside me who treated me like a queen. I pulled my hand away from Dante’s grip and smiled coldly. "Apologies don't fix dead things, Mr. Moretti. Go back to your grave."

Elmore Thomas rushed into the emergency room, clutching his feverish seven-year-old son, Buddy, tightly to his chest. When the privacy curtain was pulled back, the air in Elmore's lungs vanished. The attending physician standing under the harsh lights was his wife, Kendal-the woman everyone believed had burned to death eight years ago. But there was no tearful reunion. Kendal looked at him, and her eyes froze into impenetrable ice. She treated him like a biohazard, strictly referring to him as the family member. Worse, she didn't recognize Buddy. She comforted their crying son with the same gentle warmth she used to reserve for Elmore, completely unaware she was soothing the baby she thought had died. Days later, Elmore watched from the shadows as she picked up another boy outside a prep school, her left hand flashing a massive diamond engagement ring. When his butler accidentally recognized her, Kendal shielded her new stepson with pure disgust in her eyes. "Tell that psychopath to sign the divorce papers immediately. I have a new family now." The words 'new family' echoed in Elmore's skull, tearing him apart. For eight years, he had lived in a hell of guilt and madness, raising their son in the shadow of her ghost. How could she just erase their past? How could she give her tender smiles to a stranger and look at him with absolute revulsion? Standing in a luxury ballroom, Elmore squeezed his hand until his crystal champagne flute shattered, thick blood dripping onto the rug. The murderous obsession in his dark eyes returned as he called his lawyer. "Freeze her divorce application. Use every dirty trick in the book. She isn't leaving."

My little brother's heart monitor was screaming its final warning. I called my husband, Dante Volkov, the ruthless underworld king whose life I'd saved years ago. He had promised to send his elite medical team. "I'm handling an emergency," he snapped, then hung up. An hour later, my brother was dead. I found out what Dante's "emergency" was from his mistress's social media. He had sent his team of world-class surgeons to deliver her cat's kittens. My brother died for a litter of cats. When Dante finally called, he didn't even apologize. I could hear her voice in the background, asking him to come back to bed. He even forgot my brother was dead, offering to buy him a new toy to replace the one his mistress deliberately crushed. This was the man who had promised to protect me, to make my high school tormentors pay. Now, he was holding that very tormentor, Seraphina, in his arms. Then came the final blow: a call from the clerk's office revealed our seven-year marriage was a sham. The certificate was a forgery. I was never his wife. I was just a possession he was tired of. After he left me to die in a car crash for Seraphina, I made one call. I texted a rival mob heir I hadn't spoken to in years: "I need to disappear. I'm calling it in."

I am blind, but the darkness in my marriage was far worse than my lost vision. When my brother’s kidneys failed, I needed two hundred thousand dollars to save his life within forty-eight hours. But that same day, my wealthy husband’s mother and his childhood sweetheart, Kassidy, framed me for pushing the old woman down a flight of marble stairs. "Pack your trash and get out of my house." Chase didn't listen to my desperate pleas. He kicked me out without a single cent and demanded an immediate divorce. Driven to a dead end, I was tricked by Kassidy into signing a high-end escort contract and given a spiked drink. Drugged and terrified, I stumbled into Chase at a hotel. Seeing the transaction Kassidy had orchestrated, he believed I was actually selling my body for the surgery money. In a fit of possessive rage, he brutally took me, leaving me battered with a check on the nightstand the next morning as the ultimate insult. But the nightmare didn't end there. When I finally borrowed the money and rushed to the hospital, I found out Kassidy had already paid the bill anonymously, taking my brother's life hostage. She even found my torn clothes from that night, twisting the truth to convince Chase's family that I was a manipulative whore who deserved to die. I lost my dignity, my marriage, and my freedom to a web of perfectly orchestrated lies. Why did the man I loved always choose to believe their flawless acts over my real tears? Clutching his broken black onyx cufflink in my bleeding palm, my despair finally died, leaving only a cold, burning resolve.

My father bailed a violent ex-con out of prison just to force me into a marriage with him. I stood in a filthy Bronx hallway, my Vera Wang gown dragging through the grime, knowing this was the price for my mother’s life. If I didn't marry the man behind the steel door, the wire transfer for her hospital ventilator wouldn't go through the next morning. The man, a scarred giant named Dock, treated me with cold contempt, telling me he didn't touch things he didn't want—and he didn't want a "Jacobson." I thought I had hit rock bottom, tied to a criminal while my family lived in luxury. But the nightmare was just beginning. When I tried to return my wedding dress to pay for rent, my sister Janie and stepmother found me. They laughed as security dragged me out of the boutique, calling me a "charity case." When I finally crawled back to our family manor to beg for the money my father had promised, Janie revealed the horrific truth. She had liquidated my mother’s medical trust to fund a waterfront real estate project. "Get out and let your mother rot," she screamed, throwing a glass of ice water in my face before having guards dump me in the dirt. I knelt on the gravel, wet and bleeding, realizing my own flesh and blood had signed my mother's death warrant for a profit. I had nothing left—no money, no home, and a husband who was supposed to be a monster. I didn't understand why they hated me so much, or how I would survive the night. But then, a black car screeched to a halt in front of me. Dock pulled me inside, his eyes burning with a lethal coldness I’d never seen in a common thug. As he wiped the blood from my hands, he picked up a encrypted phone and gave a single command. "Initiate Project Titan. I want the Jacobson Group insolvent by Friday." I looked at the man I thought was a broke felon, realizing I hadn't just married a stranger—I had married the most dangerous man in the city, and he was about to burn my family's world to the ground.

I was twenty years old and dying of ALS, my body wasting away into a pile of twitching muscles and lead-heavy limbs. With only a month left to live, I took my parents' entire fifty-thousand-dollar inheritance to a rain-slicked alley and gambled it all on a single vial of "unregistered" blood. The liquid tasted like battery acid and stopped my heart cold, but when I woke up, the paralysis was gone. My skin was pale, my eyes had turned into glowing molten silver, and the only thing that could satisfy my agonizing hunger was the sound of silver jewelry shattering between my teeth. But the cure came with a terrifying new vision: I could see the blue, parasitic shadows living inside everyone around me. My neighbors, my teachers, and even the little girl next door were being hollowed out by monsters with needle-teeth and lashing tentacles that no one else could see. When the school went into lockdown and the halls filled with the scent of rotting fish, I realized an invisible invasion had already claimed the city. The military didn't come to rescue us; they came to "sanitize" the zone, turning their miniguns on the terrified students to bury the evidence of the outbreak. I was trapped on a roof with a handful of survivors and a mysterious girl named Elise who looked at me like I was a genetic mistake. "No one is coming to save us," I whispered, watching the helicopters circle like vultures. I grabbed Elise’s enchanted silver dagger, ignored her warnings, and crunched the blade into a savory paste. As a wave of dark, forbidden power turned my skin into a Vantablack void, I stopped being a dying kid and became the only thing the monsters were afraid of.

My boyfriend, Finn, and my best friend, Carly, were my entire world. After a childhood drifting through foster homes, they were the family I' d always craved, my anchors in a stormy sea. I thought I was the luckiest girl alive. Then, on the morning of my 23rd birthday, I stumbled upon a private video on Finn' s laptop. It was titled "My Confession." He wasn't confessing his love for me. He was crying, his voice cracking as he admitted he was in love with Carly. He called her a vibrant supernova, an electric current. He described our relationship as a comfort, and me as a fragile burden he couldn't bear to hurt. My found family had found each other, and I was the inconvenient truth standing in their way. The two people who had pulled me from the shadows were now the ones casting me back into them. They had given me so much; this was the one thing I could give back. Their freedom. So while they planned my surprise party, I quietly accepted a multi-year research contract at the ends of the earth. I was going to the Arctic to disappear.

Tonight was our tenth wedding anniversary. My husband, tech mogul Damon Ayers, booked the city's most expensive hotel for a lavish party. He pulled me close for the cameras, whispering how much he loved me. A moment later, I watched him use the private code we developed together to flirt with his mistress, Kandy, right in front of me. He left our party, lying about a work emergency, to meet her. The anniversary fireworks he set off? They were for her. The next day, she showed up at our house, pregnant. I watched through the window as a slow smile spread across his face. A few hours later, she sent me a photo of him on one knee, proposing to her. He had always told me he wasn't ready for a child with me. For ten years, I was the perfect, supportive wife. I was also the cybersecurity expert who built the architecture that saved his company. He seemed to have forgotten that part. As my car headed to the airport for my planned disappearance, we stopped at a red light. Next to us was a Rolls-Royce, decorated for a wedding. Inside were Damon and Kandy, in a tuxedo and a white dress. Our eyes met through the glass. His face went pale with shock. I simply threw my phone out the window and told the driver to go.

My wife, Olivia, and I had what I thought was the perfect life, a vibrant canvas of shared dreams and artistic ambition. But beneath the surface, a shadow lingered: her unexplained infertility, a result of an accident years ago-my fault-that filled me with a guilt I carried like a stone. I watched her endless cycles of hope, the IVF treatments we endured, believing we were fighting for our miracle baby together. Then, a single photograph arrived, shattering my world: Olivia, glowing with maternal pride, kneeling before a three-year-old boy who was undeniably hers. On the back, two words scrawled in messy handwriting: Our son. The fertility struggles, my guilt-it was all a monstrous, suffocating lie, a performance designed to keep me blind. I couldn' t breathe, trapped in her beautiful deception, so I planned my escape, a desperate attempt to vanish from a life that was never truly mine. After I "disappeared," a new life began, quiet and anonymous, painted in the solitude of the Oregon coast. But the past refused to stay buried, returning with the salt on the wind, a ghost with haunted eyes and the cruel truth of consequences. Now, she stands before me, broken and desperate, having lost everything-her child, her lover-in the wake of my strategic vanishing act. She believes my "death" was her fault, the ultimate price for her lies, unaware that the real architect of her downfall was closer than she ever imagined. I am not the man she married. I am a stranger forged in betrayal, ready to confront the wreckage she created.

The piercing wail of an ambulance siren was the first thing I heard. I was lying on the living room carpet, the scent of dust and cheap air freshener in my nose. A few feet away, my younger sister, Chloe, clutched an empty bottle of pills, feigning unconsciousness. It was a pathetic performance, but it had destroyed my life once before. This was the day I received my acceptance letter and full scholarship to the nation' s most prestigious art school-the day my life was supposed to begin. Instead, guided by my mother' s frantic sobs and my father' s angry accusations- "Ava, how can you be so selfish? Your sister is trying to kill herself because of you!" -I buckled. My fiancé, Mark, whispered poison: "What' s a scholarship compared to your sister' s life?" I believed them. I gave it all up, watching as my scholarship was transferred to Chloe. The betrayal festered. A month later, I discovered Mark hadn' t failed his exams; he and Chloe had plotted to steal my future. When I confronted them, they locked me in my art studio and set it on fire. I survived, disfigured and broken, only to be forced into a brutal marriage where I eventually died. But now, I was back. Seventeen again. Whole. The future they stole, once again within my grasp. Chloe fluttered her eyelids, a flash of triumph in her eyes as they met mine. This time, the burning rage had cooled into something harder, sharper. They thought this was their victory. They had no idea it was just the beginning of my revenge.

The private jet' s hum was supposed to drown out the silence, but it only amplified the heavy dread in the cabin. Across the table, my husband, Ethan Vance, watched me with cold, unblinking eyes, his once-loved face a mask of cruelty. "Sign it, Chloe." His low, calm voice cut through the air. The document lay between us, a single sheet of paper that would transfer my half of our billion-dollar company to him-and to her, Scarlett Hayes, his long-lost ex, the ghost haunting my marriage. My hands trembled, but it wasn't just the document. Through the open jet door, his bodyguards held my sixteen-year-old sister, Lily, her face pale with terror, thousands of feet in the air. "Scarlett needs this," he' d said when I begged, "You were just holding her place, Chloe. It's time to give it back." His words were a physical blow, shattering illusions of the life we'd built. My love, my security, my entire world-all just a temporary placeholder. Watching Lily' s silent tears stream down her face, I knew he was using my deepest love as a weapon. My signature was a shaky scrawl, a testament to my broken spirit. "There. It's done. Now let her go." A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. Then, the guards tightened their grip, and with a brutal shove, pushed my sister out the open door. Her scream tore away with the wind, leaving only a horror too profound to process. He had promised to let her go, and he had murdered her instead. In the ensuing darkness, as my world fractured, a terrible clarity sliced through the pain: I was never the love of his life; I was just the bandage for a wound he never wanted to heal. But as the jet descended, a defiant spark ignited in the ashes of my heart. I would survive. I would escape. And he would pay.

My life was a perfectly tailored garment, every seam in place, my marriage to tech mogul Ethan Vance the central, flawless stitch. Then, at my triumphant New York Fashion Week debut, I found him with a woman I didn' t know, his arm around her, her hand clutching his. She was Willow Vance, his long-lost cousin, a fragile waif who, he explained, had nowhere else to go. She moved into our penthouse, a subtle manipulator who turned every minor mishap into a dramatic performance of victimhood, always with Ethan as her loyal defender. I watched, helpless, as my husband dismissed my concerns, publicly shamed me, and defended her manipulative acts, making me the villain in my own home. When a package of provocative lingerie arrived, addressed to me but with a note clearly meant for Ethan, I knew it was Willow' s ultimate power play to shatter our trust. I confronted her, exposing her performance, and for a moment, Ethan finally saw through her act. But nothing truly changed. My family, my life' s work, everything I held dear was weaponized against me, twisted and contorted until I was left with nothing but emptiness. I finally walked away, choosing freedom over a life built on lies and betrayal. Little did I know, the fight was far from over.

I rushed home, excited for our anniversary, my mind full of plans for our perfect life, our growing family. Then the fall happened. The hospital confirmed the miscarriage. But the real blow came when I saw my husband, Ethan, not by my side, but tenderly looking at another woman, his ex, Liv, in the very same hospital. Worse, the anniversary ring he'd promised me shone brightly on her finger. He covered his tracks with casual lies about "late client meetings" and a fabricated "startup" with his friends, who all gleefully participated in his deception. His mother even called Liv his "honorary little sister," while telling me I was "too suspicious." He came home, oblivious, asking for snacks and telling me to rest because I was pregnant—the baby I'd just lost alone. How could the man I loved, the father of our lost child, be so utterly blind, so heartless? The truth settled in, cold and sharp. All their lies, the endless gaslighting, the twisted loyalty of his family and friends—it was an entire world built on my pain. I packed my bags. My new job in Austin was calling. I left him the divorce papers, the rings, and a voicemail revealing the truth: there was no baby for him to be a father to. Not anymore. I was free.

My world was finally clicking back into place. After three agonizing years, my fiancé, Chris Vance, the ex-CIA operative I adored, was finally back from his top-secret mission. Our dream wedding at my Wyoming ranch was set, a perfect life ahead. Until I stumbled upon his old satellite phone. A hidden audio file revealed a woman's voice, and then *his*, casually discussing a 'New York heiress' and a two-year-old son named Leo. That three-year 'mission'? A perfectly crafted lie. He'd been playing happy families, while I counted the days. The ultimate betrayal? His paramour, Maria, soon arrived with their son, Leo, and shamelessly framed me for poisoning the child with an allergy, casting me as the jealous villain right in front of him. His eyes, once filled with love, now held doubt. How could he betray me so utterly, then watch it happen again? The man I loved was a stranger, and I was left with a shattered dream and a public accusation. I took off my engagement ring, left it, and fled. My godfather offered an escape: San Francisco, and a quiet stranger named Noah Chen. Was it a lifeline or another cage? Could I ever trust again after such a devastating lie?

Here’s the translation of the text into English: --- Mother is a fairy from the heavens. For the sake of Father, she stayed in the mortal world, creating a beautiful tale. But only I know that Mother was stripped of her feathered robe, the source of all her powers, and was forced to remain in the human realm. At the age of seven, I knocked on Mother’s door in the dead of night. She was barely clothed, her body limp, lying in the arms of Emperor Father, biting her lip in humiliation. She held me and said, "Ali, go quickly, and never come back." Later, she lay in my arms, covered in blood, laughing with wild abandon. "Ali, Mother can only help you this far." "The rest of the journey, you must walk on your own." I held Mother’s lifeless body, gripping the small knife tightly in my hand. "Mother, don’t worry." "I will soon send them down to accompany you." --- Let me know if you need any further assistance!

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 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.

I didn't mean to call my boss. I definitely didn't mean to leave a seven-minute voicemail of dirty secrets about him. Working for Ruslan Oryolov is the job from hell. The man is impossible-demanding, arrogant, and way too gorgeous for his own good. After eighteen months of fetching his coffee and swallowing my pride, all I wanted was one night of stress relief. But the billionaire CEO of Bane Corporation isn't just a boss from hell. He's the head of the Oryolov Bratva-and now that he's heard every secret I never meant to share, he's decided to claim me. His contract. His rules. His protection for my three orphaned nieces and nephews-the only reason I'm signing my life away to a man I should fear. He owns my signature. He owns my safety. Now he wants my soul.

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.

"You're leaving," Lorenzo said softly. Ivy straightened her spine and raised her chin. "I am. I'm getting out of this place even if it means climbing over the front gates. I can't stay here anymore. I'm leaving!" "You can't," Lorenzo said flatly. "Not now." "Watch me," Ivy hissed, brushing past him. Lorenzo stepped in her way and grabbed her by the arms-not roughly, but firmly. "I mean it, Ivy. You can't leave," he said tightly. She struggled against his grip, her bag falling to the floor with a thud. "Let me go, Lorenzo! I don't belong here. This place is insane. Your family is insane!" "You belong to me," he said sharply, eyes burning into hers. "And it's my job to protect what's mine." "I don't want to be yours," Ivy cried. "I want to be free! I want to live!" Something shifted in Lorenzo's face. He looked at her then, not as an obligation, not as a pawn, but as a person. A frightened, strong, beautiful woman who had been caught in a storm she never asked for. And something in him cracked. Lorenzo reached down and cupped her face with both hands. Ivy flinched at first but didn't pull away. His thumbs wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I never wanted to hurt you," he said quietly. Her lower lip trembled. "Then let me go..." "I can't," he whispered. And then, without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her. *************** Ivy Wesley believed that marrying a wealthy stranger would be her golden escape from a life of struggle. Lorenzo Martinelli was supposed to be her way out: her fresh start, her answer to every prayer whispered in the dark. But the moment the mansion doors shut behind her, Ivy understood the truth. She hadn't stepped into a fairy tale. She had walked straight into the lion's den. The whispers about the Martinelli family's ties to the Mafia aren't just rumors; they're real, and now Ivy is bound to them by a ring on her finger and secrets she can never unlearn. There is no undoing this choice. No clean exit. Not after what she's seen. Not after what she knows. Surrounded by dangerous alliances, ruthless power plays, and truths sharp enough to draw blood, Ivy finds herself caught in a world where trust is a luxury and loyalty can be lethal. Yet in the middle of the chaos, something even more unexpected takes root: a love she never planned for, never prepared for, and may not survive. Now Ivy faces an impossible choice: run while she still can, or stand her ground beside the man who could destroy her as easily as he protects her. In a world where betrayal lurks behind every polished smile and devotion can cost a life, can their love endure... or will it be the very thing that brings everything crashing down?

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?"

"You've been in denial for so long, Addison." His voice was husky and heavy with lust. "Do you really want me to stop?" I could not bring myself to say no. My best friend's stepdad was like the devil, making me find so much pleasure in sin. "You can't even say no," he chuckled, letting go of my hand finally. They moved to my face and he stared into my eyes, while his other hand still worked wonders between my legs. "Don't make me do this," I finally said, moaning the words out. "Please." "Tell me to stop one more time and I will," he mumbled. "Please, st-" I didn't complete my words because he captured my lips with his. *+*+*+*+*+*+* Addison Rodriguez never expected to feel any sexual tension or fall in love with her best friend's stepdad. As she surrenders to the sexual tension, her loyalty to her best friend wavers, especially when she finds out that he is secretly a Mafia Lord trying to hide in plain sight and that her best friend's life is in danger, her loyalty is tested even further. Would she reveal his secret to protect her best friend, or keep it to protect her love?

I wasn't marrying into the Falcone mafia because I was loved. I was being handed over like payment. My parents owed the Falcones a fortune, and I was the daughter they chose to sacrifice. On my wedding day, I was supposed to become the wife of Enzo Falcone, the golden heir of New York's most dangerous mafia family. Then an anonymous message lit up my phone. Want to see your groom? Go to the bridal suite. I went. I found Enzo on my wedding bed with my half-sister. Her dress was pushed up. My lace garter, the one meant for me, was wrapped around her ankle like a trophy. And when the scandal exploded, no one blamed him. His mother called me a lunatic. My half-sister cried pretty, poisonous tears. Then she revealed the final insult. She was pregnant with Enzo's child. They locked down the estate to silence me. They wanted me humiliated, obedient, and disposable. A ruined bride. A convenient scapegoat. A debt paid in flesh and shame. So I gave them a show they would never forget. I walked onto the balcony, set my diamond-studded veil on fire, and dropped the burning silk in front of every elite guest who had come to watch me be sold. Then I went to the true matriarch of the Falcone family and made my own demand. I would not marry a traitor. I would marry Damien Falcone instead. The dead grandson. The fallen Underboss. The legendary God of War. A dead man could not betray me. A dead man could not touch me. A dead man could give me the power to destroy everyone who had tried to bury me. At least, that was what I thought. Until I learned Damien Falcone was not as dead as everyone believed.

I hid my identity as the heiress of a top-tier wealthy family just to build a normal, quiet life with my fiancé, Jefferey. We had just picked out our dream villa, but a sudden bank notification shattered my illusion. The entire $7.8 million from our joint trust fund had been wired to a woman named Jessie Barr. When I hacked into his synced tablet, the truth hit me like a truck. Jessie wasn't just a stranger; she was his secret lover. They even had a four-year-old son who shared Jefferey's exact eyes. "The money is in your account. Our future is secure now. I'll leave her soon." Reading his messages to her, I realized my three years of devotion were nothing but a long con. I was just the final "project" he needed to fund his real family. He used my resources, my connections, and my money to build a life in the shadows with his true love, treating me like a naive piggy bank he could discard at any moment. I had given up my absolute power for a man who fed me nothing but lies. But Jefferey forgot one crucial detail. I wasn't just some helpless woman he could ruin. I calmly closed my laptop and dialed a number I hadn't called in three years. "Mom, I was wrong. I'm ready to accept the Romero family's marriage alliance." It was time to gut his company and take everything he owned.

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.