Light_ray

"You and your baby are mine whether you want it or not." Renata Neroni's life was shattered the moment she discovered her boyfriend and stepsister's betrayal. In a rare lapse of judgment fueled by grief and alcohol, she spent a single, anonymous night with a stranger, unaware that she had just surrendered herself to Domenico Veronesi, the most formidable figure in the global underworld. That night left Renata with more than just a memory; she was pregnant with the heir to a mafia empire. As her father, desperate to free himself from the debts, prepares to marry her off to a man nearly his own age, Renata finds herself trapped. Her only escape arrives in the form of Domenico himself. Asserting his claim, he interrupts the arrangement and brings Renata to his secluded estate. Within the fortified walls of the Veronesi estate, the man known for his cold, merciless exterior reveals a singular obsession: the protection of Renata and their unborn child. However, Domenico's readiness to provide is met with a wall of ice. Despite his efforts to provide for her, Renata's resentment initially hardens into a wall of silence. To her, Domenico is simply another powerful man attempting to control her fate. However, as she is forced to navigate the inner workings of his life within the mafia world, she begins to see the man behind the fearsome reputation. Renata discovers the deeper layers of Domenico, a loyalty and a hidden vulnerability regarding their child, and the fear that once defined her begins to dissolve.

**Mature Content** "For you, I can burn the very pack that gave you nothing but pain. I can kill my own nephew for breaking your heart. I vow, Reina, with me by your side, you will believe in love again." ~~~~ Reina Ashfall was born an omega into a prestigious family of powerful Alphas. As the illegitimate daughter of a noble Alpha, she was denied recognition and raised as a servant in her own home. Ignored by her father and despised by her stepmother, Reina endured years of humiliation and cruelty for a sin she never committed. Her only comfort was Zayne Kingsley, her childhood friend and secret protector. He promised to stand by her and shield her from harm. But her happiness shattered the day Zayne was declared Alpha of the Pack. On that same day, Reina discovered him cheating on her with her half-sister. Broken and rejected, Reina decided to flee the pack. However, that was when fate intervened. A mysterious and powerful man appeared at her doorstep, Damon Kingsley, an Alpha feared across territories, known for his golden eyes and unmatched strength. Nearly ten years older, Damon claimed Reina as his destined mate. Forced by her family's threats, she agreed to marry him, entering the union with no hope of love. What she didn't know was that Damon was Zayne's uncle. For twelve years, Damon had searched relentlessly for his mate, defying destiny itself. With the help of a powerful witch, he finally found Reina, hidden in his nephew's pack. From the moment he saw her, he knew she was the one he had waited for. Determined to protect her, Damon claimed her as his mate and vowed to give her the devotion, respect, and love she had never known.

[Mature Content] "He fell first and he fell harder!" A day before her engagement, Renée Findlay is rejected by her boyfriend. On top of that, she discovers that he has been cheating on her with her best friend. Her distress doesn't end there; Renée is thrown out of her own house after her ex transfers it into his name. Renée feels trapped in darkness until her ex's boss, Killian Morrison, enters her life. Killian Morrison is the CEO of Morrison Group. He is renowned for his icy demeanor, with a reputation cemented by his cold, heartless, and arrogant attitude. When he proposes to Renée to be his wife, she can't refuse because she wants revenge on her ex! But what came as a shock to Renée when she finds out Killian already has a girlfriend despite that he wants to marry her and keep her as his wife for one year. Why? Check out to find out in the story. **COVER IS MINE**

Adolphus Osbourne, the Alpha and Crown Prince of Arcaria, carries a heavy price for his ambition. While attempting to seize the forbidden Moon Crystal, he was struck by a witch's curse: he would be forever denied the bond of a fated mate. For years, he lived in that cold void, until Iris Vinsant crossed his path. Now, he is drawn to her, ignoring the dark consequences that loom over his kingdom and his life. Iris, a human girl who endured fifteen years of her stepmother's cruelty, chose to risk the unknown rather than suffer another day. But her midnight escape led her straight into the heart of the Forbidden Forest, where humans are never permitted. Captured by werewolves and forced into servitude at the royal palace, her world shifted from one nightmare to another. Yet, amidst the terrors of the court, she found herself haunted by a pair of predatory, green eyes. The Alpha Prince has noticed her, and in Arcaria, his attention is both a gift and a death sentence. ~~~~~ Iris's back pressed painfully against the cold stone wall as Adolphus's towering frame loomed over her. "You took your time returning, Iris," he murmured. The sharp, heady scent of wine clung to his breath, mingling with the earthy musk of his wolf. "His Highness is intoxicated. I... I should take my leave," Iris whispered, her voice trembling as she tried to shrink away from his heat. "You are the sole reason of my condition," Adolphus countered, his gaze locking onto hers with a terrifying intensity. Iris blinked rapidly, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Me?" Adolphus gave a slow nod. "The way you smiled at my younger brother... The way your fingers brushed his as you handed him that drink. It made me want to tear his throat out," he confessed, the casualness of his threat making Iris gasp. "I never-" Her protest was cut short as Adolphus pressed his index finger firmly against her lips, silencing her. "So, it was my brother today," he whispered, a dark, dangerous smirk tugging at his mouth. "Tell me, Iris, shall I kill him simply for smiling back at my woman?"

'His words weren't mere rules, but the laws.' Julia Sanchez wants to be a drama writer. But life took a strange turn for her when she was told to marry the most influential businessman, Marimo Martinez. However, there exists a problem. Marimo Martinez has been in a vegetative state for four years. His chances of survival are limited, yet Julia is forced to marry him. On the wedding day, Julia waited for Marimo to come on a wheelchair. To her surprise, Marimo came in a black tuxedo and was on the aisle, waiting for her. His features were breathtaking and stole her heart in a second. ****** "Wifey, let's make this night beautiful," Marimo said as he advanced to her. Julia gulped and slowly took backward steps. Her breath hitched when her back hit the pillar of the poster bed. Before she could run away, her petite figure landed on the soft mattress and those icy blue orbs fell onto hers. "Mr. Martinez, we don't know each other yet. Could you please—" she paused when she felt his cold fingers on her leg. The next second, she kicked him and Marimo fell to the floor with a loud bang.

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."

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.

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.

I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me. But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest. The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me. They didn't. Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her. They let me burn to keep her warm. When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages. That was the moment Elena Vitiello died. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York. By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring. "You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them. "Burn for it."

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

I waited eleven years to marry the Syndicate Underboss. But on the final night of the Old Ways, Silas laughed with his men and announced he would never claim me. Instead, he elevated his adopted sister, Serena, to his side. He left me standing entirely alone at the ceremonial altar, letting the whole mafia family mock me with vulture‑like pity. When I tore Serena's dress in a blind rage, he locked me in an underground fighting cage for his soldiers to jeer at, calling it a fair punishment. His mother openly called me damaged goods, and Silas threatened to give my entire dowry and family territories to Serena if I didn't bow down and apologize to her. For a decade, I endured his emotional abuse, only to realize I was just a convenient shield for his sick obsession with his sister. My heart finally went completely dead. I dropped his blood‑ruby engagement crest into the trash and burned eleven years of memories to ash. Then, I invoked the ancient laws of severance right to his face. "I'm breaking the arrangement." When Alessandro, the lethal Warden of the North, arrived with an armored motorcade to claim me as his Queen, Silas finally panicked. He chased my car, pounding on the glass with bloodshot eyes, begging me to come back. I just looked at him with flat, dead calm and rolled up the window.

Three days before the wedding. I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman. Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress. The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem. It didn't spell Elena. It read Sofia. He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name. Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife. He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance. I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared. "The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?" "Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport." "Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys." I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday. He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead.

The Crimson Throne By Eva Obrien In a world where loyalty is lethal and love is a weakness, she must choose between vengeance and survival. When Adriana De Luca's father-the powerful leader of the De Luca crime family-is assassinated, she is left with two options: run and die in hiding or fight to claim the throne that was never meant for her. But in the ruthless world of the mafia, power is taken, not given. To secure her survival, she is forced into an arranged marriage with Lorenzo "Enzo" Moretti, a feared and merciless mafia kingpin who trusts no one. Their union is meant to bring peace between warring families, but when hidden enemies start striking from the shadows, Adriana realizes the real threat isn't outside-it's within. As betrayals unfold and a war erupts, Adriana must decide: ✔ Trust the man she was forced to marry, or destroy him before he destroys her. ✔ Hunt down her father's killer, or become the next target. ✔ Rule with blood, or risk being buried by it. In a game where love is dangerous and power is deadly, will she survive long enough to take what's hers?

I was the wife of Brennan Johnson, the head of the Sterling Syndicate. For years, I was the perfect partner, helping him climb from a young enforcer to the undisputed boss, believing he was the man who had once saved my life and promised to protect me forever. That illusion shattered when I overheard him promising that same protection to a young art student he was sleeping with. When I confronted him, he called me tainted and complicated. When I asked for a divorce, he cut my cheek with shattered glass and snarled that I belonged to him. He publicly gave my foundation and a necklace meant for me to his mistress, declaring her his "one and only" in front of the entire city. The ultimate betrayal came when we were both kidnapped. The kidnappers held a knife to each of our throats and told him to choose. He looked at me, his wife, and said, "I choose her." He abandoned me to be assaulted and killed, walking away with his new love without a backward glance. But I didn't die. An old family loyalist saved me. I faked my death, escaped the country, and built a new life from the ashes of the old one. I was finally free. Until tonight, when he walked into my restaurant, a ghost from a life I had buried. He found me. And he wants me back.

I woke up freezing in a dark alley with no memory of the last five years, only to stumble back to my powerful mafia family. They wept and told me I had been murdered on my sixteenth birthday. But the real nightmare wasn't my death—it was the man who refused to let my corpse go. Damien Moretti, the ruthless Don of Chicago, went completely mad. He locked my lifeless body in a secret vault, dressing me in pristine silk and worshipping my ghost in the dark. My brothers had to risk their lives to steal my "body" back just to give me a proper burial. Now, he has discovered my tomb is empty, and his hounds are tearing the city apart to find the thieves. "If the Wraith finds out she is breathing, he will lock her in a gilded cage forever." My father's terrified warning rings in my ears. I am trapped in my own home, shivering as fragments of my coma return. I can still feel Damien's phantom kisses and hear his obsessive, necrophilic whispers in the pitch black. Tonight, he forced his way into our estate and stood in my bedroom, desecrating my clothes while I hid breathless in the closet. Tomorrow is the charity gala. My family is risking a mafia war to smuggle me out of the city, and I must escape before the dark king drags me back to my grave.