Marnie Nomura

I woke up gasping for air, expecting to feel the crushed ribs and shattered glass from the fatal car crash. Instead, I found myself in the cavernous bedroom of the Franco Estate in 1928 Chicago. In my past life, my stepmother forced me to marry a golden-boy politician, while throwing my stepsister Clara to Damien Franco, the ruthless mafia boss. But Clara became the Mafia Queen, and Damien destroyed my husband's career, leaving me to die in disgrace as a sacrificed pawn. This time, the script was flipped. My stepmother kept the "clean" politician for Clara and threw me to the monster. Just three days after my wedding, my family arrived at my new home. Not to comfort me, but to strip me of my late mother's trust fund. They rigged my assets, leaving me with toxic, gang-tied warehouses designed to bankrupt me and get me killed in an Irish mob turf war. "She's not a wife, she's collateral meant to absorb the mafia's bullets. She'll be dead within a year." Clara's mocking words reached my ears, confirming my darkest fears. I spent my entire last life bleeding my soul dry for their approval, only to be betrayed. I couldn't fathom how my own father and brothers could gleefully orchestrate my murder just to line their pockets. But they had no idea they had just handed me the keys to the underworld. I wasn't that naive girl anymore. I slammed the ledgers of their embezzlement onto the mahogany table, looked my arrogant brothers in the eye, and invoked the absolute, bloody laws of the Cosa Nostra to collect their debts. This time, I would tear their empire to the ground.

To save my husband, the crime lord of this city, I took a bullet to the gut. As I lay dying, Dante didn't even glance my way. He was too busy shielding his mistress, Camilla, checking her for scratches. When I woke in the hospital, I found out that while I was unconscious, my brother had called, screaming for help. Camilla answered my phone. She told Dante it was just a prank. The next morning, my brother was found dead in a dumpster. When I confronted Dante, he defended her innocence, told me not to make a federal case out of it. He forcibly removed my grandmother's heirloom ring from my finger and slipped it onto hers. He mocked me for being unable to bear his heir, completely disregarding the fact that I'd lost that ability five years ago, taking shrapnel for him. Camilla delivered the final cut: our marriage license was never registered. Ten years. I was never his legal wife. He thought I was trapped. He thought without the Moretti name, I was nothing. But I didn't cry. I went to the guest room and packed my knives, not my clothes. Two years later, I run the only security firm that can rival his. When a man, his face a ruin, appeared at my brother's grave begging for forgiveness, I felt neither love nor hate. "I'm free," I said.

I lay broken in a hospital bed after a brutal car crash, but my family never came. My father and brother were too busy preparing for my manipulative half-sister Ainsley's wedding. The groom was my fiancé, Clayton. While I fought for my life, his last words to me over the phone were a cold command. "Go to hell for all I care." They abandoned me, told the world I was dead, and even carved my name on a tombstone. They buried me under a mountain of lies so Ainsley could steal the life that was mine. But I didn't die. I was reborn. Five years later, I returned as Ivy Richardson-a bestselling author, married to a tech CEO, and backed by a family with unimaginable power. I only came back to settle my mother's estate. But the first person I met was Clayton, standing in front of my grave, mourning the girl he helped kill.

I was his possession. The entire world knew that Jackson Walters, the ruthless tech mogul, had destroyed my life to claim me. Then he brought home his new intern, Kaila, and sat me down. "I've decided," he said casually, "I want you both." When I fought back, he dragged me to a remote warehouse to teach me a lesson. My parents were bound and gagged, suspended by ropes over a massive, grumbling wood chipper. He gave me ten seconds to accept Kaila, or he'd drop them. "I agree!" I screamed in surrender. But it was too late. A frayed rope snapped, and I watched my parents plunge into the machine's grinding teeth. The horror of it all killed me. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back in his bed. The date on my phone was the day he brought Kaila home. This time, I wouldn't fight him. I would be his perfect, obedient wife. And while he was distracted, I would fake my own death and disappear forever.

My fiancé, tech CEO Cohen Burgess, took me to the city's most exclusive restaurant for our three-year anniversary. Then his high school sweetheart, Kiera, reappeared, claiming amnesia. To help her "recover," Cohen started a viral "100 Dates Challenge" with her, turning their reunion into a national spectacle. I became the villain in their love story. When I objected, Cohen locked me in a wine cellar, knowing my severe claustrophobia. He let Kiera wear my deceased mother's priceless dress, and when she deliberately tore it, he tossed his credit card at me and told me to buy a new one. I finally decided to leave, only to overhear his true plan: he would marry me for my family's status, but keep Kiera as his mistress. I was never his love; I was a beautiful, high-class tool for his ambition. The final act came when Kiera set my room on fire and framed me. Cohen screamed I was a psycho and left me to burn. As the roof collapsed, a stranger kicked down the door. He carried me from the inferno and said, "I'm Case Browning. Your husband."

Ten years. A decade of my life, meticulously built into a future with Liam, complete with a secret I was about to reveal: two thin blue lines on a test stick. Then my phone buzzed, a live video from Chloe-his old muse, the ghost I could never banish. And there he was, leaning against his Mustang at an illegal street race, Chloe' s arm looped through his, her voice purring, "Look who I've got with me… He said he' d win this race for me." My carefully constructed world shattered, the beautiful dinner, the white rose, the secret blooming inside me, all felt like a cruel joke. Every therapy session, every late-night talk, every time I' d pulled him back from the brink, mocked by her triumphant smirk as she declared, "Some people just spend their lives cleaning up messes... We make the beautiful messes." The subtle scent of her cloying perfume clung to him when he finally came home, a stark contrast to his flimsy excuses. And then, the next morning, I found it – a pot of beef soup simmering on our stove, made with peanuts, an ingredient that could kill me, prepared for her. The final insult came in the form of a field of white roses, delivered to our home, a grand gesture of apology meant not for me, but for his "wildfire" Chloe. He had called me "Ava," someone who "takes care of things," a mere housekeeper to his grand, destructive passion. But I was done burning. With a single, one-way ticket in hand, and the sound of his whispered endearments to Chloe echoing in my ears, I made a choice that morning: I wasn't just leaving him, I was reclaiming myself.

My brother Julian, driven by family image, left me abandoned in a remote, dangerous hunting cabin, forcing me to give up my fiancé so his perfect fiancée could have him. Cornered by dangerous squatters, with no hope left, I screamed a desperate plea into the darkness, a forgotten bayou pact. A week later, I calmly walked out, seemingly compliant, only to be subjected to further humiliation and emotional torture by the Sinclairs, culminating in being thrown from their car and forced to drive despite my crippling fear from a childhood accident that killed my foster parents. They locked me away, berated me as ungrateful, a stain on their name, and openly sided with the "perfect" sister who feigned injury to ensure my isolation. But they didn't know I wasn't just surviving; I was preparing my true wedding gown, ready to sever ties and claim the mystical groom who had answered my desperate plea.

Thanksgiving Day in our brand-new, dream condo, and my wife Sarah and I were finally settling into our freshly renovated home. Everything felt perfect, a fresh start. But the holiday cheer vanished when an HOA email popped up: "Improperly parked vehicle." My car. In my own deeded parking spot. Then I saw the neighbor's post on Nextdoor, claiming my spot even though he had no right to it. The guy, Kevin, was instantly entitled and rude. The very next morning, my car had a deep, deliberate scratch running down the side, and the HOA cameras were "conveniently" offline for maintenance. This wasn't random; it was a brazen act of vandalism. Then Kevin's mother tried to physically block me from my own spot, followed by his father, who smashed my taillight with a sickening crunch. Even after police got involved, Kevin' s family staged a chaotic scene, and Kevin himself destroyed my phone. What started as a parking dispute quickly escalated into outright war: while we were away, my condo was intentionally flooded, and Sarah' s jewelry stolen. My home, violated. I stared at the water damage, a knot of cold fury twisting in my gut. How could a simple parking disagreement lead to such malice, such calculated destruction of our property and peace? The perpetrators were clear, yet the system seemed to turn a blind eye, allowing their escalating vendetta to spiral out of control. This wasn't merely about property anymore; it was about our safety, our sanity, and fighting back. With my influencer friend Mike, I decided to take this fight public. The gloves were off, and I vowed to expose every single one of their twisted acts, no matter the personal cost.

My life as a promising architect shattered two years ago by a "skiing accident" that left me paralyzed. My charismatic husband, Ethan, installed smart home devices "for my safety," always smoothing over my dependence with a loving smile. Then, a blinking red light from a new smoke detector revealed his true intentions. It was a camera, and he was watching my every move. My stomach twisted when I found more, hidden everywhere, even as he was betraying me with his young marketing associate, Chloe-who was pregnant. He wasn't just watching me; he was planning to make me adopt their child, his "heir," leveraging my supposed inability to conceive after the "accident." He even brought Chloe into our home as my "personal assistant," her smug smile a constant torment. The surveillance wasn't for safety; it was to ensure my captivity. But the real horror struck at a gala when I stumbled, stood, and then overheard Ethan railing at a doctor about medication and therapies designed to keep me disabled. My "accident" wasn't an accident. He caused it, then actively sabotaged my recovery for two years. He wanted me broken, dependent, so he could control me and parade his mistress's baby as his own. My fury ignited into an undeniable resolve. He wanted a helpless wife? He got a woman ready to dismantle his entire world. I pulled out the burner phone I' d hidden for this very moment. My escape wasn't just a fantasy anymore; it was my next step.

My body was taken over by another woman, she pursued a scumbag, willingly degraded herself, causing me to cut off ties with my parents, and even caused Felix to have a car accident and become a vegetable. After reclaiming control of my body, I designed a plan to expose the true nature of the scumbag. His identity as a movie star was not preserved, and he begged me desperately. I did not divorce him, but he wanted to hire someone to kill me. After careful calculation, the true identity of the scumbag was exposed, not only losing fame and fortune, but also being sentenced to life imprisonment. I also got rid of the woman who had always been in my mind and welcomed a new life.

On my wedding day, my father sold me to the Chicago Outfit to pay his debts. I was supposed to marry Alex Moreno, the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. But he couldn't even be bothered to show up. As I stood alone at the altar, humiliated, my best friend delivered the final blow. Alex hadn't just stood me up; he had run off to California with his mistress. The whispers in the cathedral turned me into a joke. I was damaged goods, the rejected bride. His family knew the whole time and let me take the public fall, offering me his cousins as pathetic replacements-a brute who hated me or a coward who couldn't protect me. The humiliation burned away my fear, leaving only cold rage. My life was already over, so I decided to set the whole game on fire myself. The marriage pact only said a Carlson had to marry a Moreno; it never said which one. With nothing left to lose, I looked past the pathetic boys they offered. I chose the one man they never expected. I chose his father, the Don himself.

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

I'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body. My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in. I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then- I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses. Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down- He's still hard. Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance. "You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless. "I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake. "Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat. And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm. "Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine. *** Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge. She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez. He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her. What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated. Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty? And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?

Andrew Hebert, the man who promised to protect me, stood on a stage and announced his engagement to my tormentor. It wasn't just heartbreak; it was a business deal. He was selling me to a creditor to cover his gambling debts. The applause of the powerful families was a death sentence, each clap sealing my fate as collateral. Andrew had paraded me here just to show everyone I was an asset to be liquidated, while his new fiancée smirked at me from the stage. I was trapped, with no money and no one to turn to. The man I loved was leading me to the slaughter. But as I fled into the library, a voice emerged from the shadows, deep and dangerous. Damien Maddox. The Dark Don. The only man Andrew feared. He offered me a different kind of cage, one with the power to burn Andrew's world to the ground. With nothing left to lose, I looked the devil in the eyes. "Take me with you."

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.

My family sent me to marry into the enemy, a ruthless Don in Chicago. From the moment I arrived, I was treated like a common whore, a pawn to be humiliated and discarded. But they made one fatal mistake: they thought I was a lamb, when I was really a wolf in disguise. Sent to Chicago for an arranged marriage with Don Vincenzo Moretti, Isabella Falcone arrived at his hostile estate, instantly an unwelcome outsider. Hostility turned personal. Publicly shamed and trapped in Vincenzo's bed by his cousin, the Don accused me of whoring for family favor. I faced constant humiliation. Family insulted me, staff trapped me. Vincenzo was cold. A rival framed me with a planted diamond, and the Consigliere declared me a thief, ordering soldiers to drag me away. Branded a criminal by a rigged game, injustice fueled a cold, clear rage. I was a pawn, but I would show them a queen. My fear hardened into lethal resolve. Alida Savage thought she'd destroyed me, but only declared war on the wrong woman. I would tear down all who dared to underestimate me.

On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table. Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen. "Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over." I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward. Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant. She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest. As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me. He hugged her. "It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you." The betrayal didn't stop there. When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police. When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line—the one meant for life-or-death situations. He declined the call. He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife. That was the moment the chain broke. As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come. I opened the door and jumped into the dark. Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement. Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one.

I replaced my twin sister in a marriage contract to the ruthless Mafia Don, Donovan Blackwood. For three years, I was a ghost in his home, silently enduring his coldness while he flaunted his mistress, Chloe. On the very last day of our contract, Chloe staged an accident. Donovan didn't hesitate. He forced me to drain my blood to save her life. Then, to prove his loyalty to her, he drove me to the cliffs and pushed me into the freezing ocean. He even locked me in a cellar infested with spiders—my deepest phobia—because she lied and said I threatened her. He thought he was punishing the spoiled, arrogant Isabella. He didn't know he was breaking Ava, the woman who had silently memorized his allergies and waited up for him in the dark every single night. When I finally took my fifty million dollars and vanished, I left behind nothing but the divorce papers and a photo revealing the truth. He tore the city apart, destroying my family to find me, only to realize he had tortured the wrong woman. Now, he is standing on my porch in the pouring rain, staring in horror at the simple wooden ring on my finger given to me by another man. He falls to his knees, begging for a chance to love the wife he tried to destroy. I look at him, feeling absolutely nothing. "It's too late, Donovan," I say, locking the door. "You killed her."

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.

I sat at the head of the mahogany table, the heavy heirloom emeralds around my neck marking me as the future Queen of the Cosa Nostra. But the man beside me—Jax Viles, the most feared Don in New York—had his hand resting possessively on the thigh of the woman sitting to his right. She wasn't his fiancée. I was. The humiliation didn't stop at dinner. Jax moved her into my home, turned my dance studio into her closet, and when she pushed me down a flight of stairs, he stepped over my broken body to comfort her because she was "shaken up." He started a bloody gang war just to defend her honor, yet ignored my desperate calls warning him of an ambush. To him, I wasn't a partner. I was furniture—a fixture that was expected to be silent and useful. He would burn the world to ash for her, but for me, he wouldn't even skip a meeting. So, while he was out celebrating his victory for her, I didn't wait for him to come home. I left the engagement ring in the trash can next to the toilet. On his desk, I left a single note: "I release you from the oath. I hope she's worth the war." By the time he realized his mistake and came looking for his shadow, I was already gone, ready to become the Queen of my own life.