Little Red Riding Hood

As I lay dying in a pool of my own blood, the deafening gunshots faded, leaving only the ugly truth. My "best friend" Cherie had planted a GPS tracker in my jacket. "This way Blaze can always find you, darling." A few feet away stood Blaze, the man I thought I loved, embracing my cousin as they watched me bleed out with cold triumph. Just as my vision blurred, a motorcycle ripped through the chaos. It was Axel Beaumont, the ruthless MC President and the "monster" husband I had spent my life trying to escape. He charged into the hellfire to protect me, his bike exploding as he took the fatal hit. His large frame slammed onto the pavement, his normally cold eyes filled with desperate love as he used his last breath to whisper my name. I had spent years treating him like a prison, throwing tantrums and hating him, all for a punk who just wanted me dead. Because of my incredible stupidity, I threw away a diamond to chase after snakes, getting the only man who truly loved me killed. My soul sank into an endless abyss of agonizing regret and burning hatred. But then, I opened my eyes to the familiar scent of leather and engine oil. I was pristine and untouched, lying beside Axel a full year before that fatal firefight. This time, I will protect him with my life, and those who betrayed me will pay in blood.

I was reviewing the laundering accounts when my husband asked for a hundred thousand dollars for the nanny. It took three seconds for me to realize the woman he was trying to pay off was wearing my missing vintage Chanel earrings. Damian looked me in the eye, using his best doctor's voice. "She is struggling, Ainsley. She has five boys to feed." When Casey walked in, she wasn't wearing a uniform. She was wearing my jewelry and looking at my husband with intimate familiarity. Instead of apologizing when I confronted them, Damian protected her. He looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. "She is a good mother," he sneered. "Something you wouldn't understand." He used the infertility I had spent millions trying to cure as a weapon against me. He didn't know that I had just received the investigator's file. The file that proved those five boys were his. The file that proved he had gotten a secret vasectomy six months before we started trying for a baby. He had let me endure years of painful procedures, hormones, and shame, all while funding his secret family with my father's money. I looked at the man I had shielded from the violence of my world so he could play god in a white coat. I didn't scream. I am a Pierce. We execute. I picked up my phone and dialed my enforcer. "I want him ruined. I want him to have nothing. I want him to wish he was dead."

I died once. Alone. Forgotten. Exiled to a tiny cottage while my fiancé built his empire without me. But the Moon Goddess gave me a second chance. When I nearly drowned in my own family's lake, the memories came flooding back-every tear, every humiliation, every slow, bitter year of my first life. And I woke up different. Now I see the truth: Alpha Darius Vanderbilt never wanted me. He saw me as a treaty, a duty, a piece of furniture to be ignored. While I pined for his attention, he gave his heart to another woman. Not this time. I'm done begging. Done hoping. Done being the quiet, obedient fiancée who fades into the background. Now I train with the bow until my fingers bleed. I compete in the Royal Archery Tournament-not to impress him, but to claim my own glory. I send him a book filled with my private annotations, showing him the strategic mind he never bothered to notice. I charm his mother with knowledge no one knew I had. And when he finally looks at me with those cold blue eyes, confused and captivated? I look away. Let him wonder. Let him chase. Let him realize that the woman he dismissed is now the one thing he can't have. They wanted a pawn. They got a queen. And this time, I'm writing my own fate. "I will not be a gift given to a man who doesn't want me. I will be a force he can never ignore."

Haven was escorted out of her office by security like a common criminal. Her corrupt boss had just fired her without cause, denying her severance and threatening to permanently blacklist her. Desperate, she turned to her ex-husband Clayton, a ruthless top-tier corporate lawyer, begging him to represent her. But instead of helping, he stared at her with absolute ice. "You thought you could pay for my billable hours by opening your legs? Find a public defender." Left destitute and facing eviction, her life spiraled further into hell. A prestigious newspaper offered her a dream job, only to instantly rescind it. Her vicious stepsister, Bettye, had maliciously tipped them off about a ten-year-old grand larceny conviction—a crime Bettye had actually committed but framed Haven for. To make matters worse, Haven discovered Clayton's law firm was actively defending the very boss who had just ruined her life. The injustice and betrayal suffocated her. She couldn't understand how the boy she once loved had become such a soulless monster, perfectly willing to protect her abusers while watching her drown. While packing her meager belongings in despair, she stumbled upon Clayton's old high school diary from exactly ten years ago. Out of petty rage, she grabbed a pen and scribbled an insult on the yellowed paper. To her horror, the ink vanished. Seconds later, sharp, aggressive handwriting bled through the blank page. "Who are you? How are you writing in my book?" Staring at the impossible text from a 17-year-old Clayton, a manic spark of hope ignited in her eyes. She was going to rewrite her destiny.

Catalina had just won the Best Actress Golden Globe. It was supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of her acting career. But a broken heel on her way backstage sent her crashing right into the arms of Brogan Cohen. He was Hollywood's most untouchable A-lister, and the man she despised most. A hidden paparazzo snapped a perfectly timed photo of him kneeling to untangle her dress, making it look like a deeply intimate, secret romance. The internet instantly exploded. Brogan's rabid fanbase tore Catalina apart, branding her a shameless clout-chaser. To make matters worse, a rival actress weaponized the scandal, accusing Catalina of sleeping her way to the top to steal roles. Within days, Catalina's world collapsed. Her upcoming lead role in a major indie film was suspended. Two luxury fashion houses unilaterally terminated her contracts. Meanwhile, Brogan simply hopped on his private jet and fled to the South of France, leaving her trapped in her apartment as a mob of screaming paparazzi battered her front door. She had spent years proving her talent, only to be blacklisted and labeled a manipulative homewrecker over a stupid accident. The sheer injustice of it suffocated her. She hated Brogan with a fiery, visceral passion for destroying her reputation and running away like a coward. With her career bleeding out, her manager slammed a contract on the desk: an unedited, live-streamed survival dating show on a private Caribbean island. "You need to prove you are entirely repulsed by Brogan Cohen." Catalina grabbed the pen and signed her name with aggressive, sharp strokes. She was going to flirt with every model on that island, burn this false narrative to the ground, and make Brogan choke when he turned on his TV.

I was seven years into a perfect relationship, engaged to the man who helped me overcome my fear of commitment. I was even secretly pregnant with our first child. A pet-sitting gig led me straight into the heart of his betrayal-a luxury apartment he shared with his mistress of a year. She had hired me personally to discover it all. She then framed me for stealing the family ring he had promised me. At the police station, my fiancé rushed in not to defend me, but to shield her. When I confronted him, he shoved me. Hard. I hit the floor and lost our baby. In the hospital, he had the audacity to beg for forgiveness, promising we could just "try again." I saw the guilt in his eyes and used it. I made him sign over every asset we owned as penance. The moment the money was mine, I vanished. He thought he was buying my forgiveness. He was funding my revenge.

For three years, Elodie gave her heart and soul to her startup founder boyfriend, Fletcher. Despite being a wealthy heiress, she never cared about the massive financial gap between them. But everything shattered the night her father violently kicked her out into the freezing rain. His illegitimate daughter had just framed her by stealing her late mother's sapphire necklace. And that illegitimate daughter was Dani, the new front-end developer at Fletcher's company. Penniless, soaked, and sporting a bruised cheek from her father's slap, Elodie sought refuge at Fletcher's rundown apartment. She begged him to fire the girl who had just ruined her life. Instead, Fletcher looked at her with absolute disgust. He accused her of being an arrogant princess trying to destroy a poor girl's livelihood. Even when Dani answered his phone late at night and flaunted her victory, Fletcher physically defended the intern. "If you can't handle the reality of the real world, pack your bags and go back to your mansion." He chose his startup, and he chose Dani. Elodie couldn't understand why her three years of devotion were worthless against a manipulative liar's cheap tricks. She didn't understand why he always looked at her wealth with such venomous resentment, treating her love like a toxic leash. She didn't shed a single tear as she walked out of his door forever. It wasn't until she sat in an exclusive underground club that her best friend revealed the chilling truth. Fletcher didn't just hate the rich. He was deeply, dangerously obsessed with a girl from his past. And now, he was about to realize what happens when the heiress he threw away truly disappears.

For seven years, I was his eyes. But the moment he regained his sight, he decided to marry someone else. Seven years of devotion couldn't buy his heart. I gave him back his dignity. Now that he was restored as the Godfather of the New York Mafia, he laughed with others, degrading me to the status of a mere "mistress." He thought I didn't understand Italian, but I heard him loud and clear: he was going to marry his first love. He arrogantly believed I would always love him, willing to stay in his penthouse like a caged bird. But he was wrong. I boarded a one-way flight to Australia. Dante, I don't want you anymore. By the time he returned home, he would have lost me forever. But a sore loser refuses to concede. Even if he had to burn the world to the ground, he would search for me and beg for my forgiveness.

I was dying from a terminal illness, but my husband, Broderick, thought it was just another one of my games to get his attention. He hated me, convinced I had betrayed him years ago for money. As I collapsed in agony, begging him to take me to the hospital, he grabbed my chin and whispered the words that shattered my world. "I will never forgive you. I hope you just… die." He then left me on the cold floor and rushed to the hospital to be with his true love, Kacey-my best friend. She was the one he worried about, the one whose own heart was failing. He never knew that the "betrayal" he despised was actually my sacrifice to save his family from ruin. He never knew the depth of my love, a love so absolute that even his cruelty couldn't extinguish it. So, when the doctors told me I was a perfect match, I made my final choice. I would grant his wish and give my heart to the woman he loved.

I was reviewing the laundering accounts when my husband asked for a hundred thousand dollars for the nanny. It took three seconds for me to realize the woman he was trying to pay off was wearing my missing vintage Chanel earrings. Damian looked me in the eye, using his best doctor's voice. "She is struggling, Ainsley. She has five boys to feed." When Casey walked in, she wasn't wearing a uniform. She was wearing my jewelry and looking at my husband with intimate familiarity. Instead of apologizing when I confronted them, Damian protected her. He looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. "She is a good mother," he sneered. "Something you wouldn't understand." He used the infertility I had spent millions trying to cure as a weapon against me. He didn't know that I had just received the investigator's file. The file that proved those five boys were his. The file that proved he had gotten a secret vasectomy six months before we started trying for a baby. He had let me endure years of painful procedures, hormones, and shame, all while funding his secret family with my father's money. I looked at the man I had shielded from the violence of my world so he could play god in a white coat. I didn't scream. I am a Pierce. We execute. I picked up my phone and dialed my enforcer. "I want him ruined. I want him to have nothing. I want him to wish he was dead."

For three years, I was Keagan Steele's passionate secret, the "Wild Rose of Beverly Hills" who finally tamed the city's coldest billionaire. I thought our love was real, a quiet world built away from the glitz. Then I overheard him call me a "placeholder," a three-year experiment until his true love returned. That true love? My vicious stepsister, Alba. He abandoned me after a car crash, choosing to save her while I bled in the wreckage. He watched as my stepmother beat me with a horsewhip, even suggesting she use it to break my spirit. He even broke my wrist to give Alba a locket that belonged to my dead mother. When a falling light fixture threatened Alba, he dove to save her, taking the hit himself. His body, shielding hers, was the final, brutal proof: I was nothing. But as I lay broken, a chilling thought took root. If I was going to be the villain of their story, I might as well play the part. And this time, I would burn their world to the ground.

For ten years, I gave up everything for my boyfriend, Damien. After a family scandal left him ostracized and broken, I worked two jobs to send him to a prestigious university, believing in the genius everyone else had abandoned. But the moment he became the tech innovator I always knew he could be, he fell for someone else—a wealthy, brilliant colleague named Carson Wall. Suddenly, I was an embarrassment. His new friends whispered about the "waitress" dragging him down. He started forgetting me, too. He forgot my birthday. He forgot my favorite food. During a fire alarm at a restaurant, he ran right past me to save her, leaving me to fall in the panicked crowd. I was the one who pulled him off a rooftop when he wanted to die. I sacrificed my own dreams so he could have his. I thought he loved me, but I was just a debt he felt obligated to repay. After he left me in that fire, I finally gave up. I booked a one-way ticket home, ready to disappear from his life. Then, I received a video from Carson—her tearful love confession to him. I took a deep breath, sent him one last message telling him we were over, and blocked his number forever.

The call from the police station was a splash of ice water in the face: an accident, they said. My daughter, Lily, was gone. The words "We did everything we could" shattered my world, made worse by the cold, clinical police report: the other driver, Olivia Hayes, my ex-husband Ethan's new girlfriend, was intoxicated. Ethan Vance, perfect as always in his tailored suit, smooth and controlled, called it a "terrible tragedy." Days later, his lawyers offered a settlement with too many zeros. When I refused, Ethan himself came, effortlessly opening my door with his old key. He threatened my frail grandmother, Rose, the only family I had left, with a "little fall," forcing me to sign the papers. He was erasing all trace of me from his life. Just two hours after I signed, the phone rang again: Grandma Rose had fallen, critically injured. At the hospital, the same one where I'd lost Lily, she pressed a key into my hand, her last act of protection. My grandmother was gone. I stood over her grave, her words, "Live," echoing in my head. Then Olivia Hayes, pristine in white, walked in, dripping false sympathy. "You must be cursed," she sneered. Rage, raw and pure, surged through me. Ethan, who had once been my knight, pulled me back, commanding me to apologize to the woman who had already stolen everything. His face, once filled with love, was now cold, cruel, and unforgiving.

Thanksgiving at my fiancé Ryan' s family home should have been a celebration. Instead, I watched him dote on his widowed sister, Nicole, ignoring me completely. The final straw wasn't the pecan pie Ryan, my own fiancé, gave to her, claiming it was her favorite, even though it was my late mother' s recipe and "our thing." It was the quiet conversation I overheard: Ryan telling his dad he was signing the deed to our shared home – the one I poured my entire inheritance into – over to Nicole next week. When confronted, he showed no remorse, dismissing my feelings and arguing Nicole "needed" it. He and his mother then brazenly called me selfish for daring to react. His family' s audacity reached its peak when Nicole, uninvited, ambushed me at my office, staging a dramatic scene where she publicly branded me a cruel monster attempting to evict a grieving widow and her child. Then Ryan stormed in, pointing a finger, threatening my boss with financial ruin for supposedly enabling my cruelty, and daringly declaring I had "no heart." He had no idea who he was talking to. The smug look on his face vanished when my boss introduced me: not just Stella Anderson, but Stella Chadwick Anderson, heiress to one of the country's largest fortunes. That's when I cut him off, professionally and financially. It was time for him to understand the true cost of underestimating me.

"I\'m sorry, Ms. Fuller, but this marriage certificate is a forgery." The county clerk's words crushed me, revealing the flimsy paper from our Las Vegas wedding five years ago was a lie. Then came the second blow: Ethan Lester, the man I' d spent seven years with and was raising a son with, was already legally married. To Maria Roberts. The name Maria, who Ethan claimed was a distant memory from his amnesia days, now haunted me, along with the chilling truth that Leo, our sweet five-year-old, wasn't mine at all. He was Maria' s biological son. My world shattered completely when I overheard Ethan confessing his ultimate betrayal: he had deliberately caused my miscarriage years ago by switching my prenatal vitamins, all so I would be unable to have children and would agree to adopt Leo. The man I loved orchestrated my deepest pain and greatest joy through a web of calculated, monstrous lies, turning my very life into a weapon against me. Lying bleeding after being betrayed and abandoned at a gala, I whispered for a "Protocol Zero" exit. Jocelyn Fuller was dying – but a soldier was about to be reborn.

Their story began with a little dangerous game. The rules were simple. If she won, he would do one thing for her; if he did, then she would have to stay with him forever no matter what happens. All she wanted on was to win and then take the life of the man who had betrayed her. Read on to see if she gets her desire for revenge on the man who cheated on her with her sister.

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."

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.

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."

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

I was the wife of Dante Cavalli, the most ruthless mafia Don in the country. But today, his Underboss slid mandatory annulment papers across my hospital bed, ordering me to dissolve our marriage. In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged them not to abandon me. I spent the next thirty years locked in Dante's massive penthouse, waiting for a man who bathed the streets in blood but never gave me a single drop of warmth. My aristocratic mother-in-law stripped me of every cent, leaving me completely isolated. I foolishly threw away a brilliant surgical career to be a submissive, obedient mafia wife. In the end, Dante never came to see me, and I died entirely alone in that massive, empty bed. Until my last breath, my chest was suffocated by a lifetime of regrets. I couldn't understand why I had sacrificed my freedom and my scalpels for a man who would only feel a twisted guilt decades after I was already a cold corpse. Opening my eyes again, Fate had dragged me back to the exact day my nightmare truly began. Matteo stood at the foot of my bed, clearly expecting my usual pathetic tears. "Take your time to think about it." This time, I didn't cry or beg for my life. I just picked up the fountain pen, signed my name, and walked out to reclaim the scalpel I had abandoned.

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 stood behind the velvet curtain, clutching a positive pregnancy test, waiting for the perfect moment to tell Dante our family was growing. Instead, I heard him laugh. "She is not the bride," Dante told his Consigliere, swirling his fifty-year-old scotch. "She is the bulletproof vest I wear until it is safe for Sofia to enter the city. When the bullets stop flying, we throw the vest in the trash." My world shattered. When Sofia arrived that night, she didn't just take my place; she boiled my beloved cat for dinner. Dante didn't defend me. He told me to clean up the mess or face punishment. To prove his devotion to her, he had his men drag me to "The Pit"—an underground fight club. I was thrown into a cage with a starving Doberman. I looked up at the VIP box, begging the man I loved to save me. Instead, Dante pressed the intercom button, his voice booming over the speakers. "One million dollars on the dog," he said. "She won't last three minutes." He covered Sofia's eyes to protect her innocence while the beast tore the flesh from my arm. That night, Elena Vance died in the dirt. One year later, the grieving Dante Moretti attended a gala for a mysterious new artist in New York. He dropped his champagne glass when he saw me on stage, alive, wearing a dress that revealed my ruined, scarred arm. "I didn't leave you, Dante," I said into the microphone, my voice cold as ice. "You killed me. And now, I'm here to collect my winnings."

I was the illegitimate daughter of a powerful mafia Consigliere, forced to scrub their marble floors while my half-sister Cassidy lived like a pampered princess. When Cassidy was ordered to marry a condemned, brutally tortured Underboss in a deadly blood-oath execution, my father dragged me to the underground black site to take her place. They forced me into a cheap wedding dress and locked me in a pitch-black cell with a dying man, expecting us both to catch an executioner's bullet. My stepmother even handed me a small glass vial through the iron bars—the exact same poison she had used to slowly murder my pregnant mother years ago. "The Don is issuing the kill order tonight. Drink this. Save yourself the agony," she mocked. My father simply stood by and watched, willingly throwing me to the wolves just to keep his precious legitimate daughter entirely safe. I stared at the poison in my calloused palm, and then at the bleeding, terrifying mafia boss chained to the concrete wall. They honestly thought I was just a disposable pawn, meant to die quietly in the dirt so they could continue building their glamorous underworld empire on my mother's bones. But they forgot I inherited my mother's underground medical brilliance. I pulled a sterilized scalpel from my hidden trauma kit, looked the deadly Underboss right in the eye, and made a blood vow that would soon burn my family's entire empire to the ground.

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