JOSSY MAGIC

"You are a cold-blooded psycho! Get your filthy, bloodstained hands off me!" Through clenched teeth, Irma shrieked as she battled to liberate herself from the man's barbarous hold. His eyes were a refulgent inferno. They held an insidious fire of lust as they thrived deeper into her debilitated ones. "How flattering!" The man sneered, and Irma froze.  A ripple of both ice and fire skint in her nerves at the man's vexatious riposte. Before she could amass any little bravery left in her, the man spoke again in a hoarse tremor, erupting a chill down her spinal tube. "But if you don't watch your sweet, dirty mouth, you snoopy, pesky brat, my third leg will shut it for you! Or maybe," he wavered, and fixed his dangerous, lascivious gazes on hers, gently stroking her hair as if petting his sweet, wild pet, "that is what you want, little dove?" A freelance journalist, flaming with ardent desires to unveil the secrets behind the series of mysterious disappearances happening in the city. Her hunch points her to the dark underworld of the mafia, and unfortunately, she crashes into LUCCA DE'MATTHEW-the other name for terror! Their encounter will evoke a catastrophe that only they can solve. But how, if their mere beingness is a menace to each other?

I spent years cleaning up a man. We were in love, or should I better say, I was in love, because in the end, that is what that shit felt. After all that I did for him, he heartlessly broke my heart. Found him in bed with our wedding planner two weeks to our wedding. And he had the balls to take pleasure in my pains. I almost became a murderer that night. Almost killed a man. I put the very first stain on my family's spotless name. My father could not take it. He distanced himself from me and stood a safe distance to watch the whole world rise against me. But in all these difficult and trying moments, one thing remained my solace and my beacon of all the good vibes that I yearned for-Joe Fredrick Montana. My stepbrother. And before we knew it, the connection bloomed into something we both never anticipated. It is wrong, yet so strong! It is forbidden, yet irresistible. For a while, none of us seemed to care about the consequences of our steamy undercover affairs, until something that threatens to tear everything between us and beyond happens. This, is our story!

She was all alone, wallowing in divine grief and lamenting her losses. She had nothing to call her own, and all her wounds had refused to heal. She yearned for just one thing now—to disconnect from the cruel world. In the darkness, she closed her eyes, hoping to awaken in a place of tranquility—in heaven, surrounded by the beautiful souls she had lost. But to her bewilder, she found herself in bed the next morning with someone she would never have anticipated seeing again, especially in the darkest moment of her life—Liam Morgan Adams. Her ex. And he came with his own overflowing bucket of surprisal and sorrows that, for reasons best known to him, only Lynn could help him carry. "Bear me a child, Lynn. The price is yours to name.” He spoke, and everything in Lynn froze. A child! Her head spun some degrees, and when it settled, she squinted as the raw memories of her past pains surged in, fused with the memories of what they once had.  And his constant, desperate plea left her between a rock and a hard place. Can she do this? Can this be her redemption?  And Liam, why would a filthy, married billionaire ask for a child out of wedlock? And why Lynn, of all people?

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.

My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine. Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family. To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset. They both thought I was a broken doll they could control. I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice. She sang it, and now her career is over. Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground.

At my boyfriend's poorest moment, I suddenly broke up with him. Later, he became a Don in the Mafia and married me by any means necessary. Everyone said he loved me to the bone. But every night, he brought different women home, deliberately trying to provoke me. I asked no questions, shed no tears, and never disturbed his trysts with his mistresses. He went crazy with rage instead, kissing me fiercely and demanding, "Why aren't you jealous?" He didn't know I was sick. Dying. While he was furiously taking his revenge on me, I was slowly walking toward death.

Tomorrow was my wedding day to Jason Brennan, the heir to a powerful Mafia family. My family, the Falcones, had even taken in an orphaned girl, Elena, treating her like my own sister. But in my nightmare of a past life, I choked on my own blood, poisoned by the arsenic Elena slipped into my food every day. As I lay agonizingly close to death, Jason stood over me with a cold laugh, holding Elena in his arms. "We just needed the Falcone wealth, Bella. And the docks." Then came the gunfire. I was forced to watch them slaughter my father and my brother, tearing my family out by the roots. After my death, Elena even spread vicious rumors that I was a barren spinster, twisting their foul betrayal into a tragic tale of noble sacrifice to completely destroy my legacy. The metallic tang of my own blood was so real I could still taste the ash. I didn't understand why the girl my family sheltered for eight years would repay our charity with such venom. And I understood even less how the man who swore to love me could orchestrate my brutal murder without a shred of hesitation. Bolting upright in bed, drenched in cold sweat, I realized I had returned to the night before my wedding. This time, I wouldn't just cancel the engagement. I would hand their treason directly to the Mafia's most terrifying Enforcer, and watch them burn.

Three days after my fiancé publicly dumped me for my stepsister, the Supreme Don issued a command that silenced the entire estate. I wasn't being cast aside. I was being sold to Damien Russo. The "Broken Don." A crippled, scarred monster rumored to have murdered his last two wives. My adoptive mother, Elena, didn't cry for me. She smirked. To her, I was finally being disposed of. She was so confident I was walking to my death that she decided to loot my corpse before I even left. She forged documents to steal my entire inheritance—my biological mother’s trust fund—to pay for my stepsister’s lavish wedding to my ex. "She won't need money where she's going," my stepsister laughed, wearing a dress bought with my stolen funds. They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter. They thought I was too weak, too stupid, and too afraid of the monster to fight back. But they made a fatal mistake. With my aunt’s help, I didn't just find the proof of their embezzlement; I found a weapon. I’m not running from the monster. I’m going to marry him. And when I hand him the evidence that the Herrera family stole from his bride, he won't be my executioner. He will be my vengeance.

I watched my husband, the most feared Capo in New York, sign away our marriage with the same cold indifference he usually reserved for ordering a hit. The nib of his Montblanc pen scratched against the paper, drowning out the rain hitting the coffee shop window. He didn't bother to read a single word. He thought he was signing routine shipping manifests for the family business. In reality, he was signing the "Dissolution of Union" papers I had hidden beneath the cover sheet. He was too distracted to check. His eyes were glued to his encrypted phone, frantically texting Sofia—the widow, the tragic beauty, the woman who had haunted our marriage for three years. "Done," he grunted, tossing the stack into his armored SUV without even glancing at me. "Business is concluded, Elena. We leave." Moments later, his phone rang with her special emergency tone. His demeanor shifted from cold boss to frantic protector instantly. "Driver, divert. She needs me," he roared. He looked at me with zero affection and ordered, "Get out, Elena. Luca will take you home." He kicked me out of the car into the pouring rain to rush to his mistress, completely unaware he had just legally granted me my freedom. I stood on the curb, shivering but smiling for the first time in years. By the time the Don realizes he just signed his own divorce, I will be a ghost in San Francisco. And he will have nothing left but his shipping logs and his regret.

My fiancé Jaret Frazier promised to protect me on my nineteenth birthday. By the next year, he had married a Mafia Princess for power and locked me in a hidden apartment as his secret mistress. When his new wife discovered I was pregnant, she didn't file for divorce. She sent her enforcers to my bedside. They held me down while a back-alley butcher tore my unborn son from my womb. Jaret never came to save me. For ten years, I rotted in that gilded cage, watching him use my money to become an Underboss while I faded into a ghost. I died alone, completely erased. Then, I opened my eyes. I was back in my own bed, unscarred, the calendar turned back to the year my life was destroyed. Jaret was still just my fiancé, not yet my jailer. And this time, I wouldn't be the one who ended up in a cage.

Becoming a bride to settle a debt was never part of my dreams. Yet, my stepbrother's betrayal and a trap party turned my life upside down, shattering my illusions of a joyful marriage. Now, I'm faced with the harsh reality of being married to a ruthless Mafia boss, Alessio Marino. Can I trust his promises, or will my situation be worse than the abuse I endured from my stepbrother? With love stripped from my wedding vows, all I can do is cling to hope for God's mercy and summon the strength to navigate this perilous new life.

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 three years, I kept a secret ledger of my husband's sins. A point system to decide exactly when I would leave Blake Santos, the ruthless Underboss of Chicago. I thought the final straw would be him forgetting our anniversary dinner to comfort his "childhood friend," Ariana. I was wrong. The real breaking point came when the restaurant ceiling collapsed. In that split second, Blake didn't look at me. He dove to his right, shielding Ariana with his body, leaving me to be crushed under a half-ton crystal chandelier. I woke up in a sterile hospital room with a shattered leg and a hollow womb. The doctor, trembling and pale, told me my eight-week-old fetus hadn't survived the trauma and blood loss. "We tried to get the O-negative reserves," he stammered, refusing to meet my eyes. "But Dr. Santos ordered us to hold them. He said Miss Whitfield might go into shock from her injuries." "What injuries?" I whispered. "A laceration on her finger," the doctor admitted. "And anxiety." He let our unborn child die to save the blood reserves for his mistress’s paper cut. Blake finally walked into my room hours later, smelling of Ariana’s perfume, expecting me to be the dutiful, silent wife who understood his "duty." Instead, I picked up my pen and wrote the final entry in my black leather book. *Minus five points. He killed our child.* *Total Score: Zero.* I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I just signed the divorce papers, called my extraction team, and vanished into the rain before he could turn around.