Jun Wen

Tomorrow, I am supposed to walk down the aisle and marry the most lethal mafia boss on the East Coast. But right now, I am trapped inside a locked glass conservatory. His childhood friend turned on the industrial ceiling sprinklers, laughing as the cold water rapidly filled the room. She knew about my crippling phobia of drowning. I looked through the glass at my fiancé, Fabiano, begging him to save me. Instead of helping, he just leaned against the terrace railing, sipping his bourbon while his men recorded my terror on their phones. “Stop making a scene and embarrassing me,” he warned through the intercom, annoyed by my panic. Then, his childhood friend smiled and whispered a truth that froze my blood. “I didn't just guess your little phobia. Fabiano gave it to me.” For three years, I laundered his dirty money, secured his legitimate supply chains, and loved him with my life. I had confided my deepest trauma to him in the dark, and he had turned it into a parlor game for his mistress. How could the man who promised to be my shield watch me drown without an ounce of pity? The fear of the rising water was suddenly burned away by a cold, clarifying rage. I picked up a heavy iron stand, smashed the bulletproof glass with my bleeding hands, and triggered my private tactical team. Since he thought I was just a disposable accountant, I would show him what happens when you cross the woman who actually owns his empire.

I was the heiress of the Randolph family, about to marry Brennan to secure a massive pack merger and my own future. But on the night of our engagement party, I caught him pinning my own cousin, Dasia, to a hotel bed. I stood in the dark hallway and heard him laugh, calling our marriage "just business" to steal my family's industry shares. "To think, tonight you almost belonged to that wolfless little charity case," Dasia purred. When I confronted him the next morning and officially broke off the engagement, Brennan raised his hand to slap me right in my grandmother's house. When that failed, his family tried to buy my silence with a million-dollar deposit, while he sneered that a ruined, wolfless Omega like me would be an absolute pariah without his protection. I had spent two years playing the perfect, obedient fiancée, suppressing my own voice for the sake of our families, only to be treated like a disposable stepping stone by the man I trusted and my own blood. He really thought I would just swallow the humiliation, take the money, and eventually crawl back to him. But what Brennan didn't know was that while he was busy betraying me in that hotel room, I had blindly run into the chest of Griffith McMahon, the most powerful and ruthless Alpha in our world. And I had already paid the ultimate price to accept his devil's bargain, ready to watch him burn Brennan's entire life to the ground.

Jaden's abusive foster parents forced her to marry a 62-year-old criminal to pay off their underground gambling debts. They treated her like human trafficking merchandise with a price tag. But the old man never made it to City Hall. Due to a chaotic mix-up in the lobby, Jaden accidentally signed the marriage certificate with the wrong man—Constantine Kensington, the ruthless billionaire CEO of the Kensington Group. When Constantine discovered the error, his eyes burned with absolute contempt. He assumed Jaden was a pathetic, gold-digging scammer who had deliberately swapped places to trap him. Instead of an annulment, he dragged her into his manor to lock her in and make her regret ever learning his name. He cut off her credit lines, threw a degrading minimum-wage internship contract at her face, and demanded she follow his draconian rules. "We sleep in separate rooms. You do not touch me. You do not cross the line," Constantine warned, his voice dripping with venom. He looked at her like she was a desperate, uneducated orphan begging for scraps. He truly believed she was just a worthless pawn entirely at his mercy, struggling to survive in his elite world. What the arrogant CEO didn't know was that the girl in the oversized hoodie was actually "King," the legendary dark web hacker who had just shorted a global conglomerate for five billion dollars right from his own guest room. Jaden looked at the pathetic ten-million-dollar divorce payoff he offered, let out a mocking smirk, and signed the contract. She would gladly use his ridiculous billionaire title as her perfect invisible shield.

Six years ago, my father tore up my mother's trust fund and threw me out into a freezing New York storm. Crawling in the mud with a high fever, I was nearly run over by a massive Rolls-Royce. The man in the backseat, ruthless billionaire Hiram Houston, looked at my bleeding face with absolute disgust. "Throw her in the trunk." He coldly ordered his driver to lock me in suffocating darkness and dump me behind a sketchy private clinic in Queens like garbage. I survived that night, completely abandoned by my family. But the ultimate cruel joke came when I realized the anonymous sperm donor I later used from that exact same clinic gave my son a pair of piercing, ice-blue eyes. For six years, I clawed my way up to become an untouchable lawyer and designer. I raised my son Julian alone, publicly humiliated my abusive father, and thought I had buried the monster of my past forever. But today, during a tense corporate negotiation, my uncle accidentally showed Hiram a picture of my little boy. The ruthless corporate butcher stared at a child who looked exactly like a mirror reflection of his own youth. "Boss... he looks exactly like you." I locked my apartment door, my body shaking with silent sobs as I slid down to the floor. He ordered a full background check on me, and now he knows the truth. The man who once left me for dead is coming for my son.

Cari Butler woke up in a damp, smelly dorm room, realizing she had transmigrated into the body of a disgraced fake daughter who had just been kicked out of a wealthy family. Before she could even process her reality, the real daughter's friends kicked her door open to mock her, flaunting a custom Tiffany necklace that supposedly cost a mere eighty cents. Cari thought they were crazy, until she saw the news: a top Manhattan mansion had just sold for a record-breaking $3,500. The entire world's currency value had shrunk by ten thousand times! This meant the original owner's bank balance of $854,000 gave Cari the purchasing power of eight and a half billion dollars. But a mysterious system froze her funds, forcing her to work demeaning gig jobs to unlock the money bit by bit. While working as a hotel server for twenty cents a day, she caught her ex-boyfriend kissing up to the real daughter, mocking Cari for being a desperate beggar. Even her snobby roommates laughed at her, claiming she couldn't afford a ten-cent iPhone. What truly angered Cari wasn't the humiliation, but receiving a five-cent transfer from her poor biological brother, who was starving himself just to keep her fed. Yet, the system strictly forbade her from giving her unlocked billions directly to her family. Looking at the restrictive system and the arrogant elites who thought they owned the city, Cari's eyes turned icy cold. "If I can't just hand them the cash," Cari sneered, pulling out her phone to outright buy the luxury hotel and fire everyone who wronged her. "Then I will just buy the entire world and place it at their feet."

Clifton, the god of esports, was secretly battling a career-ending wrist injury to protect his team. A year ago, he kissed his duo partner, Justice, only to be met with violent disgust. Justice shoved him away and dry-heaved in the rain, looking at him like a monster. Humiliated by the straight man's raw revulsion, Clifton cut him out of his life. But now, Justice suddenly appeared at Clifton's club as a rookie tryout. Instead of an ambitious climber, Justice played the perfect, pathetic victim. He cowered, trembled, and acted terrified whenever Clifton was near. He even signed a bloodsucking contract with a toxic teammate, sparking rumors he was brought in to replace Clifton as captain. During a scrimmage, Clifton hesitated to shoot because he remembered Justice had just severely burned his hand. Justice showed no mercy. He ruthlessly gunned Clifton down, humiliating the captain in front of the entire coaching staff. Clifton was consumed by blinding rage and betrayal. If Justice was so disgusted by him, why did he fake his devotion for six months just to use him? Why was he acting like helpless prey now, after trampling all over Clifton's pride? Determined to rip off the liar's disguise, Clifton dragged Justice into a live stream in front of sixty thousand viewers. "He's asking if you are in love with me." Clifton smiled cruelly, waiting for the public execution. But just as the trap snapped shut, a choked, terrified gasp came through the headset.

For three years, Breanna gave up her brilliant career as a top-tier perfumer to be the perfect housewife for her billionaire husband, Hartwell. But when he finally returned from a three-month business trip to Paris, he didn't even glance at the dinner she had carefully prepared. Instead, he threw a divorce agreement on the table. He gave her thirty days to move out and offered a ridiculously low settlement. When she cried and asked if there was someone else, he looked at her with absolute disgust. "You used to smell like ambition and possibility. Now you smell like cooking oil and the desperation of a woman who has nothing outside her husband. You're a trap." He threatened to bury her in legal fees if she didn't sign. Heartbroken and confused, Breanna forced his assistant to reveal what really happened in Paris. The truth was humiliating. Hartwell had been spending all his time with a twenty-six-year-old genius perfumer—a girl who was the exact mirror image of who Breanna used to be before she sacrificed everything for him. He didn't just want a new woman. He wanted a younger, untainted replacement of her past self. Wiping away her tears, Breanna's grief instantly hardened into cold, calculated rage. She tore up his insulting settlement and prepared to fight back, completely unaware that her cruel husband was currently hiding in a hotel room, coughing up blood, deliberately playing the villain to force her to survive his impending death.

I spent a year scrubbing floors in my fiancé’s club, hiding my identity as the daughter of the Capo dei Capi. I needed to know if Connor Bishop was a King worth merging empires with, or just a puppet. The answer came walking in wearing a neon pink dress. Jaden Juarez, a civilian he was infatuated with, didn't just treat me like a servant; she deliberately poured scalding espresso over my hand because I refused to be her valet. The pain was blinding, my skin blistering instantly. I video-called Connor, showing him the burn, expecting him to enforce the code of our world. Instead, seeing his investors watching, he panicked. He chose to sacrifice me to save face. "Get on your knees," he roared through the speaker. "Beg her pardon. Show her the respect she deserves." He wanted the daughter of the most dangerous man on the East Coast to kneel to his mistress. He thought he was showing strength. He didn't realize he was looking at a woman who could burn his entire world to ash with a single phone call. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I simply hung up the phone and locked the kitchen doors. Then, I dialed the one number everyone in the underworld feared. "Dad," I said, my voice cold as steel. "Code Black. Bring the papers." "And send the wolves."

On the night of the Full Moon Banquet, I stood in my mother's white silk dress, waiting for my childhood sweetheart, Chace, to finally claim me as his mate. Instead, he stood on stage holding another woman's hand. He didn't just reject me. He humiliated me before the entire pack. "Ember is gentle," Chace announced, his eyes cold. "But a pack needs strength. She will serve Karyn. And because I am generous, she will stay on as a Breeder." A mistress. A vessel for pups he would never acknowledge. To prove his loyalty to his new Luna, Chace forced me to drink Wolfsbane wine. As I convulsed on the floor, he laughed. He even threatened to dig up my dead mother's bones and feed them to wild dogs because Karyn called her a traitor. He thought he had broken me. He didn't know the poison hadn't killed me. It had dissolved the seal on my core, waking up a bloodline thought to be extinct. I wasn't a weak Omega. I was a White Wolf. And I had one card left to play—a debt owed to my mother by the Alpha King himself. I clutched the obsidian token in my pocket and screamed into the mental void. Keith Mosley, I am calling in the debt. A dark, ancient voice answered immediately. I hear you, little wolf. What do you desire? I looked at Chace's smug face one last time. Revenge.

On my birthday, I went to the resort I designed to tell my fiancé, Elias, that I was pregnant with his child. Instead, I found him at the altar, marrying my stepsister in a ceremony officiated by my own mother. When I confronted him, he laughed. "Pregnant? You're delusional, Aubrie. Kallie is dying, and you're here spreading malicious lies." My entire family agreed. They called me a jealous monster. During a wildfire at the resort, he shoved me to the ground to save her, breaking my leg and causing me to lose our baby. They left me there, alone and broken, convinced I was insane. They thought they had destroyed me. But from my hospital bed, I made a single phone call to my lawyer. I didn't just want to disappear from their lives-I wanted to erase them from the world. And I had the evidence to do it.

My plane landed smoothly, yet my heart churned with a nervous hope. I hadn' t told David I was coming, hoping to bridge the growing chasm in our two-year "convenient" marriage-a partnership built more on family connections than genuine affection. But as I watched David Hayes' s assistant, Sarah Jenkins, casually link arms with him at the airport, her "smooth and practiced" voice oozing familiarity, a cold dread began to set in. She looked like a model, not the efficient helper David had mentioned. Her eyes, bright and confident, scanned me from head to toe, making me feel like a specimen under a microscope, an intruder. "You have to be careful, Chloe. Men can get tired of the same old thing. It' s good you came to check up on him," she purred in the car, a thinly veiled warning coated in false sweetness. My husband, David, just gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, and offered a weak, dismissive laugh. He didn't defend me; he managed the situation. That night, alone in his hotel suite, scrolling through a torrent of screenshots Sarah had mysteriously sent, my world shattered. "It' s a convenient marriage, Sarah. You know that. It' s not about passion." "You and me? We' re about everything else." The words, his words, tore through me like a physical blow. He had a whole vibrant life here-concerts, dinners, milestones-a life I was excluded from. My once protective, encouraging husband, the boy who called me pretty, was gone, replaced by a stranger who saw me as a "plain," "boring" obligation. The next day, during a forced shopping trip, he picked out a scarf for me. "Sarah has one just like it. She has amazing taste," he said. Then, he bought an identical one for her, right in front of me, using our "fresh start" as a cover for his infidelity. "People might compare," he fretted, not worried about me, but about what Sarah or his circle would think if we wore the same thing. My humiliation turned to ice. Then, Sarah appeared, melting into tears at the sight of the scarf, claiming they had picked it out. David, without a moment's hesitation, bolted after her, leaving me standing alone on a crowded street, holding the symbol of his betrayal. "He chose her," my mind screamed, the realization a stark, brutal clarity.

The relentless buzz of my phone announced another rejection, a common melody in the life of a struggling indie filmmaker. Then, my best friend' s panicked face flashed on screen: "Chloe, have you seen the news? It\'s Ethan. His new exhibition. It\'s everywhere." A cold dread washed over me-Ethan, my estranged artist-husband, whose art had always blurred the lines of our life. But what I saw on that major art blog wasn\'t art; it was a violation: intimate photos of me, twisted into a public spectacle, portraying me as his "tragic muse." The comments section exploded: #JusticeForChloe, #CancelEthanMiller, yet it felt like a new form of torment, a public stripping of my privacy. I stormed to his loft, demanding answers, only for him to shrug, "It\'s art, Chloe. It\'s supposed to tell the truth." He stood there, casually threatening to expose painful, private moments to my traditional grandmother if I didn\'t publicly apologize and collaborate in his twisted narrative. Before I could process his cruelty, the phone rang again-the nursing home. My grandmother had fallen. She died in the hospital, her last words a plea for me to be strong, to not let anyone make me feel small, as my humiliated face was plastered across the news. When I returned to the loft, Ethan was there with his new muse, Ava, who, feigning sympathy, accidentally revealed she knew about my grandmother' s death. Then, a charity gala, a public relations stunt, where Ethan unveiled a new sculpture-encasing my grandmother\'s stolen locket, pulled directly from her grave. Ava tearfully accused me, playing the perfect victim, implying I had desecrated her grave for art. Ethan, without hesitation, believed her, his eyes filled with a cold, performative fury, declaring me a monster and having me dragged away. Trapped, discarded, then brutally beaten by Ethan under Ava' s gleeful gaze, I realized the full depth of their monstrous betrayal. My world was shattered, my body broken, but in the ruins of my spirit, a cold, unwavering resolve began to form: Chloe Davis had to die, so Aria Sinclair could rise and burn his world to the ground.

My life with Ethan was a predictable loop: his phone calls about Olivia, his "friend" who always needed him, my forgotten anniversaries, and our shared savings mysteriously funneling into her latest drama. It was exhausting, yet I' d become numb to it, a quiet resignation my constant companion. Then, a stark notification flashed on my sleek, Agency-issued device: "Covenant Term Conclusion: Operative Maya. Extraction Protocol initiated. T-minus seven days." Five years of this life, defined by his neglect and her endless demands, were about to end. Just like that. A profound, almost liberating indifference washed over me. Later, true to form, Ethan called, cancelling our anniversary dinner again because Olivia was having a crisis. He expected my usual quiet frustration, but all I felt was nothing. Every chipped-away piece of me over the years had finally left me utterly empty. He couldn't comprehend my calm "Okay," only that it wasn't the reaction he was used to. He' d barely noticed how deeply I' d funded his dreams, how I' d been the only one holding onto "our" life. What did it all even mean, this existence where I was merely an afterthought, an ATM? But that notification wasn't just an end; it was a beginning. A countdown to an 'extraction protocol' only I understood. The taste of freedom was intoxicating, and I knew, with utter certainty, that the real assignment was just beginning. And this time, it was for me.

For the nearly five years they had been married, Cory had never stayed in their house long. He would come back once a month and ruthlessly pull Susanna into bed as if it was nothing more than routine and what was his to take! She had spent their entire marriage trying to please him and doing her best to be a good wife. And yet, he would still rather enjoy the company of photos and posters of another woman pasted all over the room. Eventually, her hopes were shattered and her stupidity stopped getting the best of her and she signed the divorce agreement. It was only once she had left that he realized he'd lost a piece of his heart when he lost her.

The following day, Nancy had just been released from prison. On the flight back home, she bumped into a man that was all too familiar, Ryan. Long ago, she ended up in bed with him after a cruel trick played by her stepsister. She ended up pregnant after, giving birth to a beautiful baby girl. She had just barely gotten out of the hospital when she was thrown into prison. Now that she was free, she had no other intention in mind but to get her daughter back. Left with no choice, she would have to do everything in her power to get her daughter back whom Ryan had taken away.

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."

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.

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."

The moment I saw my husband massaging his dead brother's pregnant mistress's feet, I knew my marriage was over. He moved her into our home under the guise of "family duty," forcing me to watch as he prioritized her comfort over our vows. The final betrayal came when she stole and deliberately broke my mother's priceless necklace. When I slapped her for the desecration, my husband struck me across the face to defend her. He had violated a sacred honor code by putting his hands on the daughter of another Don-an act of war. I looked him in the eye and swore on my mother's grave that I would bring a bloody revenge upon his entire family. Then I made one phone call to my father, and the demolition of his empire began.

My husband swallowed a ten-year prison sentence to save me from my abusive stepfather. When he got out, he built a mafia empire and made me his Queen. But last night, his encrypted tablet lit up with an ultrasound photo and a text from another woman. "Our little secret is growing." The mistress soon called to mock me. She was pregnant, while I had been barren for four years. When I confronted my husband, he didn't apologize. Instead, he assigned heavily armed guards to protect her and burned my divorce papers with his cigar. "The only exit from this Family is death," he warned. The nightmare deepened when I uncovered her true identity. The mistress was my half-sister, and her mastermind was the mother who had abandoned me at six. My husband knew. He even whispered our sacred vow to her-"I will shield you from the blood"-the exact words he used when I lost our child on a freezing concrete floor for his syndicate. I took bullets for him. I waited a decade outside those prison gates. Yet he used my absolute loyalty to lock me in a cage, handing my crown to the family that threw me to the wolves. He thought I was just a helpless wife, entirely dependent on his mercy. He didn't know I was Vanguard, the shadow billionaire controlling the very lifelines of his empire. I calmly picked up my phone and called my head operative. "Liquidate his supply chains. Let's see whose empire turns to ash first."

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.

My adoptive family, the Castillos, treated their biological children like royalty, but used me as a disposable pawn. To secure a mafia alliance, they forced me to take my beautiful sister's place and marry Don Damien Moretti, a man rumored to be a ruthless, bloodthirsty monster. They thought they were sending me to my execution. At our engagement banquet, my mother and sister deliberately gifted me a cheap, counterfeit gown to humiliate me in front of New York's elite. When I publicly exposed their lie, my father demanded I apologize. My mother even raised her hand to slap me in front of everyone. "You are a vicious curse! You ruin everything!" They eagerly waited for the Don to execute me on the spot for embarrassing them. I had spent years secretly saving their company from bankruptcy and supplying the underground experimental drugs that kept my brother's mafia career alive. Yet, they threw me to the wolves without a second thought, disgusted by my very existence. But they didn't know that just an hour before the banquet, I had saved a bleeding, masked stranger in a dark alley-who turned out to be Damien Moretti himself.

Elena's world takes a wild spin when the rugged Mafia prince, Dante, chooses to wed her over her cousin, Antonia. Facing her abusive family's wrath for allegedly enchanting the mafia prince, Elena's heart remains loyal to her true love, Isaac, whom she plans to escape with. Against her wishes, Dante seals their marriage fate, leaving Elena helpless. Yet, Dante's love for her is boundless, until a sudden twist frames her for betrayal. Unfazed, Dante turns cold and ruthless, opting to marry her cousin. As Dante's cruelty escalates, a shocking revelation unveils the truth behind the false accusation. But it's too late – Elena's heart, once warmed by their love, turns icy. Despite Dante's desperate attempts to mend their shattered connection, the wounds of betrayal threaten to forever shatter their once-promising love story.

"Where do you think you're going, huh? You're mine now, Little Mouse. Get back in the house!" Vincenzo's voice boomed, sending chills down Victoria's spine as her world seemed to crumble. Victoria Washington was shattered-betrayed by her boyfriend who dumped her the day before his wedding, to her sister. She was left humiliated, mocked by everyone. But fate had other plans for her. She's broken, he's lost. She's full of fear, and he's the monster. Yet, somehow, he's her light while he remains in darkness. Vincenzo Dante will stop at nothing to tarnish his family's name for forcing him into a marriage he never wanted. But what he doesn't realize is that his new wife is stronger than she seems-too broken to bend under his cruelty. But when love begins to bloom, and secrets start to unfold, what will happen next?

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.