Jill Frevert

For six years, I played the perfect, compliant Mafia wife to the ruthless Boss of the New York underworld. Until I discovered he had secretly gifted my fifth-anniversary present—a custom armored car—to Isabella, a Capo's beautiful widow. He drained our personal escape funds of millions to buy her a heavily fortified luxury safehouse. He even publicly humiliated me, demanding I lend her the Vitiello family's heirloom diamond necklace so she could play the boss lady in front of his men. The final blow came when I needed life-threatening surgery to remove an old piece of shrapnel from a bullet meant for him. The underground doctor needed Dante's verbal authorization and the vault code to proceed. "Stop being so dramatic, I can't leave Isabella right now, she's having a panic attack," he snapped and hung up the phone. I had to force the terrified doctor at gunpoint to operate on me. I flatlined twice on that filthy operating table, bleeding out in agony while the man I loved held another woman's hand. Lying there, I finally understood that my absolute devotion and silent sacrifices meant absolutely nothing to him. So, I survived, left my blood-oath ring on his mahogany desk, and walked out of the penthouse forever. I dialed a secure line to his greatest rivals, the Chicago Outfit. "I'm breaking my ties to the Vitiello Family, and I have your East Coast port strategies."

To save my family's dying company, I was forced to marry a billionaire I hadn't seen in fourteen years. But right outside the City Clerk's office, he tossed our marriage certificate at me like a cheap receipt and shoved a four-year-old boy into my arms. "Your new life has begun. You're on babysitting duty now." He sneered and left me stranded on the sidewalk. I realized with absolute horror that my new husband was Ellsworth Marshall, the sickly boy I had relentlessly bullied in middle school. He didn't spend five billion dollars to save the Bradford family. He bought me to execute a slow, suffocating revenge. He used his orphaned nephew as a pawn, explicitly threatening my father that if I failed to play the perfect, compliant nanny, he would instantly destroy our family's legacy. He even had his guards lock me out of his Long Island estate on my first night, forcing me to stand in the cold dark just to prove he owned me. I was trapped in a gilded cage, suffocated by the guilt of my past and the terror of my present. Why did he involve an innocent child in his twisted vendetta? How much humiliation was enough to pay for my childhood cruelty? Looking at the terrified little boy clinging to my skirt, I tightened my grip on my suitcase. If he wanted to destroy my will piece by piece, I had to find a way to survive the monster I created.

For five years, I was a ghost in the Spencer Pack, a placeholder wife for an Alpha who couldn't stand the sight of me. I endured the neglect, believing my loyalty would eventually win him over. But at the Moon Ball, when his mistress mocked my disabled mother and I finally stood up for myself, Easton didn't defend me. Instead, he used his Alpha Command to force me to my knees in front of the entire pack. "Submit," he growled, stripping away my dignity. The humiliation didn't end there. He forced me to chauffeur him and his mistress to their romantic getaway. He watched silently as they fed me raw meat like a feral dog. And when his mistress framed me for stealing the Luna necklace, he didn't check the cameras. He looked at me with pure disgust and threw me into the silver cells. He didn't know I was the "Ghost Designer" behind his company's massive success. He didn't know I had lost our child alone on the bathroom floor three years ago while he was on vacation with her. He only saw a wolfless Omega he could use and discard. Standing in that cold cell, the love I held for him finally turned to ash. I realized I wasn't waiting for him to love me; I was waiting for permission to leave. I looked at the man who promised to protect me and spoke the words that would destroy him. "I, Brooke Rollins, reject you, Easton Spencer." As he clutched his chest in agony, the bond snapping like a whip, I walked out of the cell and into the arms of the rival Alpha who saw my true worth.

On our seventh anniversary, my husband Dante tossed divorce papers onto the desk. He looked at me with cold indifference, his hand resting on the swollen belly of his nineteen-year-old mistress. "You are barren, Seraphina," he spat. "She carries my legacy. You carry nothing but ghosts." When I tried to argue, he shoved me. I fell hard, my back slamming against the concrete floor of the studio. Pain tore through my abdomen, and warm blood began to pool beneath my red dress. The tragedy wasn't just the violence; it was the truth he didn't know. The IVF hadn't failed. I was pregnant with the son he had desperately prayed for. And in his rage to protect a mistress carrying a stranger's baby, he had just killed his own flesh and blood. He stepped over my bleeding body and took her to the Commission Auction to celebrate. He thought I was broken. He thought I was finished. But he forgot that I knew all his secrets. I woke up in the hospital, signed the papers that froze his entire fortune, and walked straight into the gala. I stood before the most dangerous men in New York and threw a medical file onto Dante's table. "You killed your real son today when you pushed me," I said, my voice slicing through the silence. "As for hers? It can't be yours, Dante." "Because according to this, you have been sterile for seven years."

My daughter Jodie died in my arms. The doctor' s words were a death sentence: "Severe neglect. Malnutrition. Multiple internal injuries." But my husband, the famous life coach Julian Maynard, didn't mourn. He issued a public statement. He called Jodie a "challenging child" and twisted her death into a tragedy about mental health, all to enhance his compassionate image. He even publicly forgave the boy who had tormented her, the same boy he brought into our home to teach Jodie "resilience." My own life ended in a fire, a final, violent release from a world of his making. As the flames consumed me, I couldn't understand. How could the man I loved build his legacy on the grave of our daughter and the ruins of my life? Then, I opened my eyes. The divorce papers sat on the table, his signature a stark black stain. It was years earlier. Before the fire. Before Jodie died.

For ten years, I was the invisible architect of my husband's tech empire, forced to manage his parade of publicly funded mistresses. But he crossed a line when he destroyed my father's last legacy-a priceless block of marble-to carve a statue for his new obsession, Isla. When I confronted him, he had me shot, poisoned, and left for dead in a basement. He framed me for attempting to murder Isla, turning our entire world against me. He chose her, always her, even as she dragged me to a cliff's edge, ready to push me into the ocean below. "Choose, Elliott!" she screamed. "Her or me!" "You," he choked out, his eyes on Isla. "I choose you." With his betrayal echoing in the wind, Isla threw my father's sculpture into the sea. And as the last piece of my heart sank into the abyss, I smiled. Then, I jumped.

For five years, my husband, Courtland Johnson, had me locked in a rehabilitation center, telling the world I was a murderer who had killed my own stepsister. On the day of my release, he was waiting. The first thing he did was swerve his car directly at me, trying to run me down before I even left the curb. My punishment, it turned out, was only just beginning. Back at the mansion I once called home, he locked me in a dog kennel. He forced me to kowtow to my "dead" sister's portrait until my head bled onto the marble floor. He made me drink a potion to ensure my "tainted bloodline" would end with me. He even tried to give me to a lecherous business partner for the night, a "lesson" for my defiance. But the cruelest truth was yet to come. My stepsister, Kinsley, was alive. My five years of hell were all part of her sick game. And when my little brother Aspen, my only reason for living, witnessed my humiliation, she had him thrown down a flight of stone steps. My husband watched him die and did nothing. Dying from my injuries and a broken heart, I threw myself from a hospital window, my last thought a vow of revenge. I opened my eyes again. I was back on the day of my release. The warden's voice was flat. "Your husband has arranged it. He's waiting." This time, I would be the one waiting. To drag him, and everyone who wronged me, straight to hell.

The acceptance letter from Atheria Art Academy was heavy in my hands, promising a future I' d dreamed of with my childhood friends, Jake and Noah. We all got in, scholarships secured. But then, Jake' s smile faltered. He and Noah dropped a bombshell: they weren' t going to Atheria; they were choosing community college, all for the new girl, Emily, who' d appeared just months ago. "It' s because of Emily," Jake stated, his voice filled with a righteousness that grated on my nerves. "She needs us. She' s going to Northwood, so we' re going with her." I wanted to scream, to shake them, but then shimmering, golden letters appeared before my eyes, a phantom message only I could see: "If the supporting character continues to hinder, the male leads will design to lose her scholarship documents. She will then fall down the stairs while looking for them, resulting in permanent leg paralysis, spending the rest of her life in a wheelchair." More words appeared: "She deserves it! Anyone who obstructs the plot will face consequences!" The world spun. Supporting character? Male leads? This was a cheap novel come to life, and I was slated for paralysis. My blood ran cold, the words I was about to say dying on my lips. They weren't just making a stupid choice; they were agents of a predetermined, horrifying destiny. My family had given them everything, treated them like sons, and this was their repayment? Becoming pawns who would see me crippled? No. I refused. I choked down the bitter taste of betrayal and forced a calm over my face. "If you' ve made up your minds, then go to community college." They looked surprised, then relieved, completely missing the quiet fury in my eyes. They thought they were choosing a different path. They had no idea they had just chosen to walk off a cliff.

The call came on a Tuesday, shattering my world: my parents, gone. My startup, built on their dreams, imploded soon after, leaving me with crushing debt and hollow ambition. Friends vanished, family offered dismissive condolences, and I was left a failure, a walking tragedy they wanted no part of. Then, Emily Vance appeared. She organized my parents' funeral with quiet grace, held my hand as their caskets were lowered, and publicly defied her powerful family, declaring, "I' m marrying him. He needs me." For five years, she was my rock as I launched and shuttered ninety-nine ventures, each ending in failure. Tonight, our fifth anniversary, I was ready to celebrate her unwavering belief. But through the quiet hum of the restaurant, I heard Chloe' s cynical voice slice through the air: "Ninety-nine failures, Em. When are you going to drop the charity case?" Emily' s familiar laugh, once my comfort, now twisted into a chilling sound. "Patience, Chloe. It' s almost over. Mark' s company just secured another round of funding. All thanks to Liam' s latest 'failure' ." Mark Turner. Her ex. My rival. The man whose company eerily mirrored my own failed concepts. My roses felt like lead. "You' re still feeding him Liam' s data?" Chloe asked, awe in her voice. "Of course," Emily purred, dripping with satisfaction. "Every core algorithm, every business plan. Liam' s a genius at ideas, but a terrible businessman. Mark is brilliant at execution. It' s the perfect partnership, really. They just don' t both know they' re in it." My salvation was a lie. Our marriage, a business transaction. My grief, my struggle, my desperate hope-all harvested and fed to another man. "I' m proposing to Mark tonight," she continued, delivering the final blow. "This anniversary dinner is the last one, I promise. A final goodbye to five years of wasted time." The world dissolved around me. My entrepreneurial dreams, killed not by incompetence, but by the most intimate betrayal imaginable. I wouldn't go quietly. Not as the broken man she thought I was. I stepped away, the plan already forming to collect every piece of evidence. My salvation had been a lie. Now, my ruin would be her truth.

For seven years, I poured my soul into "Pixelated Promises," a game that was meant to be the living embodiment of my love story with Liam. I envisioned it as the grand finale, the pixelated masterpiece that would finally lead to his proposal. But at the biggest gaming convention of the year, my world shattered as I watched him on the main stage, showcasing my game, rebranded as "Digital Destiny," with his ex-girlfriend, Sophia, at his side. My characters, my art, my life's work-all presented as her vision, while Liam stood by, beaming, completely oblivious to the dawning horror on my face. He dismissed my pain, my betrayal, and every question I had, brushing it all off as "just a rebranding" for "the good of the project" because Sophia had a "huge following." He even had the audacity to suggest that since I "hated the spotlight," I should just "lend" her my life' s work. Later, I overheard conversations confirming my worst fears: Liam and Sophia' s collaboration wasn't new; it was a premeditated plan spanning years, and I was just a temporary placeholder until his "real love" was available. My seven-year relationship, my dreams, my very identity-all crumbled into dust, proving I had been nothing more than a convenient tool. Adding insult to injury, he exploited my critical illness, diagnosed just weeks prior, to manipulate me into continuing to provide technical support for their game. Then, I stumbled upon a file on our shared server: "Sophia_Game_Proposal_V1.docx," a document containing my deeply personal design notes from five years ago-notes I hadn' t even shared with him-now stolen and claimed as Sophia' s "inspiration." When confronted, Liam, with sickening nonchalance, asked me to "just let it go" for Sophia's sake, utterly oblivious to the fact that I was dying. That night, amidst the hollow celebrations for "Digital Destiny," I sent Liam a final text: "We're done. Don't contact me." The next morning, he showed up at my door, feigning shock at the breakup, and then, in a desperate, performative gesture, knelt and proposed with a diamond ring. But his theatrical display meant nothing; the man I loved had already stolen everything from me. When he stumbled upon my medical report, confirming my terminal illness, he crumbled, blaming Sophia, begging for forgiveness. Yet, his tears were too late; the man I had loved for seven years had left me with nothing but ashes. I was done fighting not for myself, but for the devastated faces of my parents, I agreed to one last, futile treatment. In the faint light of an old arcade, surrounded by the ghosts of our past, I calmly told Liam, "We had a good dream once, Liam. It was a beautiful promise," accepting the end with quiet dignity.

Jack Miller, my big brother and the powerful head of Miller Corp, was presenting university scholarships, a yearly family tradition. He made a simple comment to a young student, Sarah Vance, noting she shared my exact birthday – same day, month, year, even the hour. It was a throwaway line, but for Sarah, it became a spark, igniting a terrifying delusion. In my first life, that delusion grew into a monstrous lie: she convinced herself she was the true Miller heiress, inexplicably switched at birth. That monstrous lie led directly to my murder. I can still feel the damp chill of the abandoned warehouse, Sarah's eyes blazing with feverish triumph, the faces of the two hired thugs, Spike and Knuckles. But nothing cut deeper than seeing Ethan Hayes, my own fiancé, standing by, watching it all unfold. "She deserves it," Ethan had said, his voice devoid of emotion. "For everything she took from you, Sarah." The utter betrayal was a punch to the gut. Liam Hayes, Ethan' s gentle cousin, tried to intervene, but they easily overpowered him. Then, the dark, churning water of the river enveloped my head, Liam struggling beside me before falling still himself. How could this happen? How could I be killed for a fictional claim, abandoned by the man I loved? Darkness. Until now. I jolted awake, gasping, my eyes snapping open to the familiar, faded floral wallpaper. It was the same dusty smell, the exact same day. The day of the kidnapping. I was back. Reborn. My heart hammered, a frantic drum against my ribs. This second chance wouldn't be wasted. I wouldn't be their victim again. This time, I would fight back.

My life with tech billionaire Ethan Hayes, two seemingly perfect children, and a meticulously managed household in New York City, was outwardly flawless, a gilded cage where my tireless efforts remained invisible and unappreciated. I awakened abruptly, not in the sterile care facility of my terrifying premonition where I lay neglected and alone near death, but startlingly, in my own bedroom, vibrant and 35, now burdened with a chilling crystal-clear replay of a future where Ethan' s deep-seated affection for his college sweetheart, Chloe Vance, alongside our children' s gradual alienation, directly led to my abandonment and lonely demise. Recognizing this as a dire warning rather than a dream, I swiftly filed for divorce, deliberately setting the stage for Chloe to replace me, hoping to avert the impending tragedy, a decision that paradoxically accelerated my projected torment. Chloe' s insidious infiltration deepened, turning my children against me, culminating horrifically when my son, EJ, falsely accused me of enabling his severe peanut allergy, prompting Ethan, believing their cruel lie, to forcibly spoon peanut butter into my mouth, and as I choked on the allergen, my children chillingly clapped, proclaiming, "Now she knows!" The excruciating pain of that forced ingestion, quickly followed by EJ's vengeful shove that brutally fractured my ankle-all met with Ethan's callous indifference and Chloe' s feigned concern-left my heart a barren wasteland, utterly consuming every ounce of the love and years of devoted care I had bestowed upon them. With an unwavering, steel-cold resolution, declaring "I' m the nanny. And the nanny quits," I severed every remaining tie, abandoning the mansion and their poisonous presence for a new life, irrevocably free, leaving them to face the consequences of their shocking cruelty.

My dad vanished four years ago on Widow's Peak, a notorious trail. I thought I'd finally found closure when rangers declared him dead, burying his ruined journal in our backyard. But then, late one night, the back door creaked open, and he was back. Not really. He was a horrifying shell of a man, caked in dirt, radiating a preternatural chill, and grinning with an empty, fixed smile. My mom, Linda, took one look at him and whispered, "That is not your father," before fleeing, leaving me alone with it. Desperate, I unearthed Dad's journal, its water-damaged pages filled with warnings, and a chilling photo of Carol, my biological mother, dead near a cave. His last legible entry, scrawled in what looked like blood, screamed: "MAYA! LINDA ISN'T YOUR MOTHER!" My world shattered. Who was Carol? And if Linda wasn't my mother, then who was she, the woman who raised me, now possibly a betrayer? I had to unearth every dark secret the Appalachian mountains held, from the chilling 'Hollow Man' in my living room to the twisted truth of my family, even if it meant confronting the woman who sacrificed everything for me.

I was Ava Miller, Hollywood's top PR guru, thriving at my firm, happily pregnant with my fiancé Ethan's child. One ordinary evening, Ethan's familiar tea tasted odd. Darkness. I awoke tied to a chair, dimly lit, only to see Rex Donovan, my volatile client, standing there. And Ethan. My Ethan. My blood ran cold as Ethan, with chilling casualness, exposed his betrayal, blaming me for an intern’s past disappearance. He fed Rex a grotesque lie, fueling the rock star's rage. The pain was unimaginable; Rex ensured I knew he was killing my baby first, tearing my world apart. As darkness embraced me, my last sight was Ethan, watching, his face a mask of pure hatred. "Why?" I choked, blood filling my mouth, grappling with this unfathomable betrayal. Then, a jolt. I gasped, bolt upright in my office chair, my stomach flat. The calendar showed it was *that* day – the day Chloe Sanders first walked in, asking for the Rex Donovan case. I was back.

I spent my entire youth supporting Mathias, but when I saw the video of him naked on my best friend's body, I activated the revenge button! I personally pushed him into an irreversible abyss, then manipulated public opinion to force my best friend to jump from the top floor and fall into a pile of flesh. In our entanglement, I became the ultimate winner! But why do I not feel an ounce of joy in victory?

For four years, I secretly poured my family's trust fund into the Schwartz MC, acting as the President's Old Lady and the club's private ATM. But when Daryl returned from his cross-state run, he didn't come back alone. He brought home a blonde mistress and a four-year-old boy with his exact same gray eyes. "She gave me an heir. From today on, she is the official Old Lady of this chapter." He expected me to step down to a shared club girl, demanding I stay in the grease pit to tune their bikes and pay their bills. When I cut off their vendor accounts and demanded my millions back, his family showed their true, parasitic colors. Daryl and his mother locked me inside my own heavily reinforced workshop. Through the ventilation shaft, I heard them plotting their sickening next move. They couldn't kill me because they needed my wealth and my engine patents to survive on the highway. Instead, they planned to slip tranquilizers into my water, force Daryl on me, and get me pregnant so I would be legally tied to him forever. "A woman with a baby never walks away," his mother sneered. They thought locking me in the dark would break my spirit and turn me into their obedient slave. But they had no idea they had locked me inside a fully stocked chemical armory. I grabbed the high-grade racing oxidizers and industrial solvents from my workbench. They wanted a private party tonight, so I was going to make sure they never forgot the fire.

My cousin Hailey paid a dock worker to assault me just to ruin my engagement. To survive the military-grade aphrodisiac she poisoned me with, I stumbled into a walk-in freezer and threw myself onto the only source of cold I could find-a man paralyzed by unnatural hypothermia. It was a desperate, primal exchange of my heat for his ice just to keep my heart from stopping. But when Hailey threw open the heavy iron door, leading my fiancé and the entire Bolton family to witness my "shame," her triumphant grin instantly vanished. She hadn't caught me with a low-life thug. She had caught me straddling Demetrius Maddox, the ruthless Iron King of Chicago. The air in the room dropped to absolute zero. My grandmother screamed in horror, and my father turned the color of ash. Hailey, blinded by jealousy, tried to double down. She pointed a manicured finger at the deadliest man in the city and called him a "nameless muscle" I picked up to defile the family name. She didn't realize she had just signed her own death warrant. I didn't cower. I realized this was the only chance to survive the family that wanted me dead. I walked up to the Devil himself, my body still humming with the poison, and looked him in the eye. "Kill me, and the cold inside you wins," I whispered, knowing he was dying from the inverse of my own poison. "I am the only doctor who knows how to cure you." Demetrius tightened his hand around my throat, his dark eyes assessing my worth. "Prove it," he growled. I turned back to my trembling cousin and signaled the enforcer to hand me the whip.

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

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

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 was tracing the gold paint on my own tombstone when a hand tapped me on the shoulder. It was Clayton. The same man who, five years ago, had left me bleeding out in a ditch because he didn't want to be late for my sister's engagement party. "Die quietly, Ivy," he had said over the phone before hanging up. Now, standing over my grave, he dropped his cheap plastic flowers in shock. "Ivy? You're... we buried you." They hadn't buried me. They had buried an empty box to save face, mourning a "troubled" daughter they had actually discarded like broken trash the moment I became a liability. Clayton's shock quickly turned to that familiar, arrogant anger. He accused me of faking my death for attention. He told me I was sick for putting the family through such pain. He even reached out to grab my arm, intending to drag me back to my father to apologize. "You're coming with me," he spat. "You owe us an explanation." But he made a fatal mistake. He thought he was talking to Ivy Dillard, the soft girl who cried when she skinned her knees. He didn't notice the town car waiting at the curb, or the man stepping out of it. Before Clayton's fingers could graze my coat, a hand made of steel caught his wrist. Collin Richardson, the most feared Capo in Chicago, stepped between us. "Touch my wife again," Collin whispered, his voice promising violence. "And you lose the hand." I smiled at the terror draining the color from Clayton's face. I didn't come back from the dead to explain myself. I came back to bury them.

Ellie's life changes when she goes on vacation and stumbles on a drug deal that she's not supposed to see. She finds herself kidnapped and and smuggled across the border to Mexico. Her life is now in the hands of Tristan Russo a handsome and powerful cartel leader. Tristan promises to not kill her as long as she agrees to obey him, from the moment he lays eyes on her Tristan is drawn to Ellie and after he gets a taste of her he wants more and Tristan always gets what he wants.

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."

Liana DeLuca grew up in silence, obeying every rule under her uncle's strict church roof. So when he forces her into marriage with a known mafia playboy, her world flips upside down. Matteo Romano is sin in human form and she wants no part of him. But Matteo isn't used to hearing "no." He's tasted every kind of pleasure life offers... except a woman like Liana. She's untouched, unbothered, and completely unimpressed by his power. He wants her. She wants him to beg. In a world full of secrets, violence, and desire, Liana finds herself pulled deeper into the underworld and deeper into Matteo's arms. But can love survive where lies were the foundation? Or will Matteo's past burn down the only good thing he's ever wanted?

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.