Guo Er

I walked out of the federal penitentiary with a terminal cancer diagnosis and exactly six months to live. Desperate for money to pay for a sky burial, I returned to the Vitiello family, the people who now wanted me dead. Dante, the man I had loved since childhood, looked at me with pure hatred. He thought I was the monster who killed his mother. He didn't know I had confessed to a crime I didn't commit to hide the ugly truth—that she had taken her own life. To punish me, Dante became cruel. He forced me to work as a servant, making me stand guard outside his bedroom door while he was intimate with his fiancée, Sofia. When the estate caught fire, I didn't hesitate. I ran into the inferno. I dragged Dante to safety, my back burning as debris fell on me, scarring me forever. But when he woke up, I hid in the shadows and let Sofia take the credit. I couldn't let him feel indebted to a "murderer." I thought that was the worst of it. I was wrong. On the eve of his wedding, Sofia had an accident and needed a blood transfusion. I was the only match. Dante didn't know my body was already shutting down. He didn't know my blood was poisoned with cancer markers. "Take it all," he roared at the doctors, ignoring my frail, trembling body. "Just save my wife." I died on that table, drained dry to save the woman who stole my life. It wasn't until the monitor flatlined that his right-hand man finally threw a file onto Dante's lap. "She didn't kill your mother, Dante. And she didn't just leave town. You just executed the only person who ever truly loved you."

I was Haylee Velasquez, a real estate heiress and Juilliard pianist, engaged to tech genius Joshua Cunningham. My life was a fairytale written in gold. Days before our wedding, I was kidnapped. The ransom was fifty million dollars. My fiancé refused to pay. Instead, he and my best friend, Giselle, used that exact amount to close a business deal, leaving me to be tortured for fifteen days. I lost our unborn child and the use of my hands forever. When I finally escaped and ran to him, bleeding and terrified, he accused me of being dramatic. "What in God's name are you doing?" he hissed. "Are you trying to ruin everything?" He had me committed to a mental institution for three years, stealing my inheritance and my sanity. Now, I'm out. A viral article celebrating their success just popped up on my phone, with a cruel comment from Giselle meant only for me. They think I'm still the broken girl they locked away. They're about to find out how wrong they are.

I gave up my twenty-billion-dollar inheritance and cut ties with my family, all for my boyfriend of five years, Liam. But just as I was about to tell him I was pregnant with our child, he dropped a bombshell. He needed me to take the fall for his childhood sweetheart, Sophia. She'd been in a hit-and-run, and her acting career couldn't handle the scandal right before his company's IPO. When I refused and told him about our baby, his face went cold. He told me to terminate the pregnancy immediately. He didn't know the scars on my own back were from that same fire. He didn't know I was the one who pulled him out, not her. He had his assistant schedule the appointment and sent me to the clinic alone. There, the nurse told me the procedure carried a high risk of permanent infertility. He knew. And he still sent me. I walked out of that clinic, choosing to keep my child. At that exact moment, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a glowing article announcing that Liam and Sophia were expecting their first child, complete with a photo of his hand resting protectively on her stomach. My world shattered. Wiping away a tear, I found the number I hadn't called in five years. "Dad," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I was wrong. I'm ready to come home."

To save my father and our family's gallery, I was forced to marry the ruthless Caleb Wiley. He treated me like a commodity, his heart belonging only to another woman, Eva. When my father needed a life-saving surgery, Caleb made me a cruel offer. To get the money, I had to drink a fatal allergen during a high-stakes poker game. I drank it and nearly died. I woke up in the hospital to learn the money was never sent. My father was dead. Caleb had abandoned me to chase after Eva, later trading me to a lecherous judge like a piece of property. My life, my father's life-it was all worth less than his obsession. But then I found the proof. His mother had orchestrated everything-my family's ruin, my father's murder. My grief turned to ice. From the shadows, I began to broadcast every one of the Wiley family's crimes to the world.

The two pink lines on the pregnancy test glowed back at me, a beacon of hope after two years of trying. My first thought was David, my husband, away at a tech conference. This was everything we wanted for our future. But when I video-called him, eager to share the joyous news, it wasn't his face that filled the screen. I heard his voice, cold and dismissive, telling someone, "I' ll tell her I want a divorce tomorrow." Then came the husky, triumphant voice of Emily White, his head of marketing: "You promise, David? You' ll leave her for me?" My phone slipped from my trembling hand as he promised Emily, "Tomorrow, it' ll be over. Then it' s just you and me. And our baby." The words "Divorce" and "Our baby" echoed in the silent bathroom, each a cruel twist of the knife. I stood there, stunned, the positive pregnancy test in my hand a mockery of my shattered reality. Returning home, I found David and Emily in our bed, in our perfect suburban home. Not only was he unapologetic, but he also physically shoved me, then stood there, naked and defiant, declaring our marriage over. When I, shaking, revealed my pregnancy, he snatched the test, snarled, "It doesn' t matter. I don' t want it. I don' t want you," and snapped the test in two, throwing the broken pieces at my feet. How could the man who promised me the world, the man I poured my life into, become this cruel stranger? How could he deny his own child, especially after knowing my struggles to conceive? The betrayal was compounded when I discovered, through a chilling message, that he had been with Emily, celebrating their "first big deal," on the day of my father' s funeral. The man I loved had desecrated my deepest grief. Now, a cold, hard resolve clicked into place. He would pay for every lie, every betrayal, every tear.

The world was broken, but Ava and Chloe had carved out a sanctuary, a humming city built on their code and trust. Then Jake and Noah arrived, charming visionaries promising to restore everything, and swept them into a future where love and sacrifice felt like the ultimate currency. Ava gave her heart, her expertise, and even her unborn child to Jake' s grand project, believing in a quiet life for them both after the chaos. But the day she nearly died saving Jake, and Chloe was brutally violated on Noah' s mission, Ava began to sense a discordant note in their heroic narrative. "We can restore everything," Jake had said, "Not just this city. The whole system." The truth, whispered in a dark hallway, ripped Ava's reality to shreds. "It's all for Olivia." Her love, her lost child, Chloe' s suffering-all meticulously planned sacrifices for Olivia Reed, a socialite they were installing on a new throne. The betrayal was an icy hand around her heart. The rage that replaced her grief was too raw, too dangerous to show. She had been a loyal soldier, Chloe a lab rat, and their every pain a strategic chess move. Now, with her children gone and Chloe dying in her arms, sacrificed again, one last time, to protect her, Ava heard the final, chilling whisper from Chloe's lips: "Go... home... Ava." There was no home left for Ava in this fake world. Not unless she burned it all down. And the monster who orchestrated it all was about to see just how alone he really was.

It was our ten-year anniversary, a celebration of the life Chloe and I had built, a life where her gallery thrived on the back of my secret, unique artistic ability. But then, I saw the name "Mark" flash across her phone, a ghost from her past that she claimed was long gone, and a cold dread settled in my stomach. Minutes later, Mark-pale, sickly, and utterly unwelcome-was being paraded into our party by Chloe, who then, to my horror, demanded I use my life-draining power to create a spectacular light show for his band's performance. I watched, hidden backstage, as my essence poured out, illuminating the man she adored, while she waved away my pleas to stop, her eyes fixed on him, a tenderness for him that she hadn't shown me in years. Left crumpled on the floor, my power spent, Chloe abandoned me for him, and I knew with a chilling certainty that the decade we' d shared was a lie, and there was nothing left but to walk away. But even fleeing her apartment, stripped of everything, wasn't enough to escape her cruel control. Mark, her "soulmate," staged elaborate deceptions, framing me for poisoning him, turning Chloe' s coldness into outright malice, and leading her to expose my deepest secret and imprison me for torturous "studies." Beaten, stripped, and emotionally ravaged, my only hope lay in a small, symbolic hearthstone from my true home back north, a stone Chloe had once dismissed as junk. When I crept back to reclaim it, only to be trapped and mercilessly tormented with ice-cold and scalding water, then forced to watch as she deliberately burned my painting and cast the stone, my last link to sanity, out the window, I understood: she owned me, and she was determined to break me completely. On her wedding day, Chloe still insisted I illuminate her triumph, only to find my hidden cell empty, and as she spiraled into a furious hunt for me, the truth about Mark' s cruel manipulations finally unraveled before her. Two years later, I found my new life, a new love, and a quiet strength she could never touch, and when she finally tracked me down, hoping for forgiveness, my calm, indifferent gaze was her final, crushing punishment: I was free, and she was utterly, unforgivably alone.

The final line of code compiled, my latest multi-billion dollar tech merger project complete. I, Chloe, had delivered. Then my phone buzzed with an urgent neighborhood alert from back home. "Chloe, your mother, is she okay?" Mrs. Gable asked, attaching a shaky video. It showed my elegant mother, a renowned art restorer, rummaging through garbage bins, disheveled and thin. This couldn't be true. I' d set up a trust, paid for everything-even a luxurious round-the-world cruise she was supposedly on. But the next image shattered me: my mother' s custom-made emerald gown and heirloom sapphire necklace on Brenda, our housekeeper, at a "charity gala." The sheer audacity ripped through me. They were symbols of my love, meant only for Mom. My stepfather, Mark, dismissed the video as Mom' s "new hobby" and claimed she' d lent Brenda the treasures. His lies were thin, but when I heard Brenda and Mark plotting to permanently confuse Mom with a "new mixture" in her tea and have her committed to steal everything, my blood ran cold. They had built a house of lies on my mother' s broken mind, and I was 10,000 miles away, powerless. Not anymore. I cancelled everything. I was flying home. They had no idea who they were dealing with.

For three years, I was Annabel Jenkins, the glamorous "personal assistant" to New York's powerful Wall Street Prince, Ethan Lester, living a life most only dreamed of. Then, at a Hamptons charity gala, I saw her: Sabrina Fuller, flashing a massive diamond and bragging about being "the future Mrs. Lester." My world shattered. I unleashed years of pent-up fury, scratching Sabrina' s face and shoving Ethan into the pool, finally fleeing a life I believed was based on a cruel lie. Back home in Ohio, branded a "psychopath" online by Sabrina' s viral victim video, my reputation was destroyed, my food blog ruined, and even my team betrayed me. I thought I' d lost everything, but then came the ultimate blow: a positive pregnancy test. And right after that, a $10 million wire transfer from Ethan, silencing me, confirming his cruel dismissal. So when a black Escalade pulled up to my humble family home, and Ethan Lester himself walked in, I was ready to defend my unborn child from the man who had discarded us.

The poison tasted like bitter almonds and the bitter truth of thirty years. I was Ash Vanderbilt, heir to a fortune, and I lay dying. My husband, Ethan Miller, stood over me, a mask of indifference I'd known for three decades. Thirty years shackled to a man I' d loved with fierce passion, then forced into a marriage he never wanted. Our life together was a wasteland of resentment, his heart always belonging to Brittany Larson. Now, he was finally free. With my last ounce of strength, I lunged, plunging a letter opener into his chest. His gasp was raw, his eyes wide, not with anger, but profound, heartbreaking sorrow. "Ash, no," he choked out, pressing a vial to my lips. "It wasn't me. I was trying to help you. Antidote… someone else…" He slumped beside me, the vial rolling away, his last words echoing as the world went dark. Misunderstanding. A monstrous, colossal misunderstanding. I had just killed the man who had been trying to save me all along. Then, I awoke with a gasp, the scent of salt air filling my lungs. My head throbbed, and the sunlight streamed through the familiar Hamptons beach house window. It was the morning after I had cornered Ethan, leveraging every Vanderbilt debt, forcing him to propose. Thirty years before I died. Rebirth. It was real. I was back. The crushing weight of that final, horrifying revelation pressed down on me. This time, I would break the cycle of misery. I would free him from a marriage he never wanted. And this time, I would choose myself.

Evie Winthrop, a Silicon Valley tech mogul, flew back to Boston after five years. Her return was meant to be purely for untangling a family trust. A quiet, familiar task in the city where her Winthrop lineage ran deep. But a forced social event at the exclusive Atherton Club shattered that peace. There, I watched my younger sister, Chloe, being publicly humiliated. Her fiancé, Bryce, and her stepsister Liv, were auctioning off her private images. They demanded money, turning intimate moments into a grotesque spectacle. Chloe stood ghostly, clutching a precious family heirloom, forced to pay. They mocked her desperate offerings, demanding she get on her knees. My assistant's whispered intel confirmed my worst fears. My mother, Margaret, illegally confined in a dubious "recovery center." Chloe's funds cut off, struggling, reduced to working odd jobs. Our family's legacy, systematically plundered by my stepfather, Arthur Sterling. A cold fury crystallized in my chest. How could my family, the Winthrops, be brought to this? Why was my mother imprisoned, her wealth stolen? My sister, a ghost of her former self, about to be forced into utter degradation. The arrogance of these vultures, picking apart our name. I watched, my blood boiling, as Chloe’s knees began to buckle. Then, a voice cut through the silence. “That won’t be necessary.” My assistant stepped in, placing a sleek black card in Chloe’s trembling hand. An Amex Centurion. No pre-set spending limit. I emerged from the shadows, every eye on me. “You wanted to auction my sister’s life?” I stated, my voice like ice. “I’m about to buy yours. And the price will be everything you have.” This was no longer about a trust; it was about reclaiming everything. And ensuring everyone remembered exactly who the Winthrops were.

Their story began with a mistake. Just when Christine thought she could finally stand on her own two feet to take control of her miserable life, her father forced her to marry Darren so he could keep everything Christine's late mother owned. Without a wedding nor any announcement, Christine quietly married the CEO of the number one company in the world. Even though Christine thought there wasn't any sort of affection in their marriage, Darren became addicted to her the very first night he tasted her.

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.

I'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body. My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in. I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then- I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses. Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down- He's still hard. Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance. "You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless. "I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake. "Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat. And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm. "Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine. *** Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge. She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez. He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her. What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated. Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty? And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?

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.

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

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.

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 the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

Elora Griffiths was on her way to drop her daughter off at school when her husband's enemies opened fire in the street. The bodyguard her husband had personally assigned to protect them abandoned the car the instant the shots rang out. Mother and daughter were hit multiple times, teetering on the brink of death. Elora frantically called her husband, Rodger Griffiths, but he didn't answer. Her brother, Hugh Dale, arrived just in time and saved them both. "How could this happen? Didn't Rodger assign someone to protect you?" Hugh asked. Elora sobbed uncontrollably, "The bodyguard ran away!" On the way to the hospital, Elora kept trying Rodger's number, desperate. One call after another... Finally, on the ninety-ninth attempt, the line connected. On the other end was the female bodyguard, trembling, her voice barely holding back tears. "Rodger, it's really not my fault! There were so many assassins. I would've died if I tried to stop them! I was so scared..." Elora held her breath, waiting for her husband's wrath to thunder down. But Rodger just sighed. "Forget it. The important thing is you're safe," he said. Meanwhile, Elora's daughter took her last breath in her arms. The pain was suffocating. She held her daughter close as her body went cold and stiff, teeth gritted in fury, "Hugh, I'm divorcing him! I'll cut off every single arms shipment to the Griffiths family from the largest arms company in Crownport!"

For nine years, I was the perfect mafia wife. I laundered Marcus Thorne’s money through my design firm, smiled at his dinners, and ignored the lipstick stains on his collars. I believed in the Omertà of our marriage. I thought my loyalty was my armor. I was wrong. On the night of our anniversary gala, a car lost control and barreled straight toward us in the parking lot. Marcus didn't look at me. Not once. He lunged for his mistress, Izzy, tackling her to safety behind a concrete pillar. I was left standing in the open. The impact threw me like a ragdoll. I lay bleeding on the cold asphalt, my body broken, watching through the haze as my husband frantically checked his mistress for scratches. "My ankle," she whimpered. Without a backward glance, he picked her up and carried her to his limousine, leaving me to bleed out on the pavement. He didn't leave me because he panicked. He left me because I was just a shield he used to protect what he actually loved. As darkness crept in, a shadow fell over me. It wasn't Marcus. It was Julian Croft, his sworn rival. I looked at the empty spot where my husband should have been and made a choice. "Get me to the hospital," I rasped, staring into the eyes of the enemy. "And then help me burn his empire to the ground."

I stood alone at the center of my art gallery opening, clutching a glass of warm champagne, while the guests whispered behind their hands. My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, wasn't there. A breaking news alert on my phone explained why. It was a high-definition photo of Dante shielding his mistress, Isabella, from the rain. He was touching her with a protective possessiveness he had never once shown me. Then came his text: "Isabella needed me. Go home." That was the moment the cage door unlocked. I didn't go home to cry. I went to his office the next morning with a stack of papers disguised as "gallery insurance forms." While Isabella sat on his desk, mocking me for being a boring housewife, Dante was too annoyed to read the fine print. He just wanted me gone so he could get back to her. He signed the divorce decree. He signed the asset dissolution. Most importantly, without looking, he signed the irrevocable relinquishment of parental rights. I walked out with my freedom, but fate had a cruel sense of humor. That night, I stared at a positive pregnancy test. I was carrying the Sovrano heir he had always demanded. And he had just legally signed away his right to ever know his child. I fled to the Swiss Alps, vanishing into the snow to raise my baby away from his world of blood and bullets. I thought I was safe, until six months later. Dante hadn't just sent men to look for me. He had burned his own shipping empire to the ground, destroying his status as King, just to prove he would trade it all for the wife he threw away.