Michelle

The night before my alliance ceremony to Don Vincenzo Moretti, I discovered that my hands had been destroyed on purpose. I was in our bedroom, the heavy silence of the compound pressing against the windows, when Vince's phone buzzed on the nightstand. He was in the shower. The screen lit up with a message from Gianna Rossi: *"The cream worked perfectly. She'll never authenticate again. The Cartelli elders will have no choice but to accept me. You owe me, Vince. Don't forget what the Rossi family knows about 2011."* I read it four times. Then I took a photograph of the screen with my own phone. When Vince emerged from the bathroom, towel around his waist, I was sitting in the armchair by the window, my bandaged hands folded in my lap, my face arranged into the placid mask I had perfected over five years in this house. "Tired?" he asked, not really looking at me. "Just thinking about tomorrow," I said. My voice was steady. I had learned to make it steady. He nodded, already bored with the conversation, and turned off the light. I lay awake in the darkness beside him, cataloguing everything I knew. The offshore accounts. The FBI agents on the Moretti payroll. The body of the man who'd crossed Vince in 2013, buried under a construction site in Jersey. Five years of secrets, and I had just been given the one piece I was missing: proof that Gianna Rossi and Vincenzo Moretti had conspired to destroy me. I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. I began to plan. The burns on my hands were permanent. The Cartelli pipeline was collapsing. The Moretti family was about to cast me aside like a broken tool. But I had something they didn't know about: a photographic memory for numbers, five years of unrestricted access to Vince's private files, and a patience they had mistaken for weakness. I was the best blood diamond authenticator on the East Coast. But that was never my real talent. My real talent was surviving among predators while they mistook my stillness for submission. Tomorrow, I was supposed to become Carmela Moretti, the don's wife, the silent ornament at the head of the table. Instead, I was going to become the woman who brought down the Moretti empire from the inside. I just needed to stay alive long enough to do it.

At the absolute summit of her pop-star career, the stage collapsed beneath Catherine's feet, plunging her into a mechanical black hole. When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in a hospital, but a savage, primitive forest. Before a fire-breathing beast could tear her apart, a massive black snake crushed it with a single strike. The terrifying serpent then transformed into Amon, a towering, heavily scarred man with golden slitted eyes, who swore his life to protect her. He brought her to his tribe, but instead of safety, they were met with ravenous hunger and disgust. The tribe's males stared at Catherine's fragile human body like a rare breeding prize, while treating Amon like garbage. "He's a cursed, cold-blooded freak! His rut will tear you to pieces!" The Chief sneered, pointing a thick, accusing finger at Amon. "By tribal law, you must mate with our strongest tiger and bear shifters to give us powerful cubs!" Humiliated, Amon's broad shoulders slumped, his fists trembling in suffocating shame as he prepared to back away. Catherine's heart pounded with fierce, burning anger. When she was about to be eaten, Amon was the only one who bled for her. Where were these arrogant bullies then? Why should she let them treat her savior like a monster? As the tribe's strongest warriors swarmed forward to claim her, Catherine stepped directly in front of Amon's lethal claws. "I don't need any of you," she declared, her voice cutting through the chaos. "I will mate with Amon and take his beast mark today!"

I saved a poisoned, blind man in a dark hotel room, only to be forced by my abusive adoptive family into an arranged marriage the very next day to pay off their massive debts. The ruthless, crippled billionaire I was sold to turned out to be the exact same man I had saved the night before. To protect my grandfather's land, I had to hide my true identity as a top-tier neurosurgeon and hacker. I wore cheap clothes and played the role of a pathetic, stuttering country girl. He was thoroughly disgusted by my fake persona, treating me like trash and ordering me out of his sight. Worse, he was obsessively tearing the city apart to hunt down the "mysterious woman" from that night, holding my lost St. Christopher medal as a deadly bounty. "Find the owner of this medal, whatever it takes." I was trapped in his penthouse, enduring his cruel insults while dodging his paranoid grasp every time he caught a familiar scent on my skin. But the real shock came when I hacked his private servers. His blindness wasn't permanent. His own trusted medical team was deliberately feeding him a false diagnosis to keep him disabled and vulnerable. Why was someone trying to destroy him from the inside? I decided not to run. Instead, I locked my guest room door, booted up my encrypted laptop, and began synthesizing the cure to restore my tyrant husband's vision right under his nose.

Adeline had just endured the agonizing pain of giving birth to her daughter. But when she woke up, the bassinet beside her hospital bed was completely empty. Her husband, Jeremey, stood at the foot of the bed with his female friend, Hayden, tossing divorce and sole custody papers onto her lap. "You're leaving. And she's staying," Jeremey said coldly. He accused Adeline of being a jealous monster, claiming she had poisoned Hayden's tea and permanently destroyed Hayden's chances of ever having children. Using a manipulated security video as blackmail, Jeremey forced Adeline to sign away her parental rights to protect her newborn from being branded the daughter of a convicted felon. Stripped of her assets and her dignity, she was thrown out of the Castillo estate and exiled to a nowhere town, forced to leave her baby in the hands of the very woman who framed her. The despair of having her child stolen by such a vicious lie nearly broke her soul. How could the man she loved be so utterly blind? Three years later, the grand doors of the Castillo ballroom swung open at her daughter's lavish fourth birthday party. Adeline stepped in, wearing a scarlet gown and a mocking smile, backed by the untouchable Garrett family. She was no longer the weak, discarded wife. The war to ruin them and take her daughter back had just begun.

Erich died in a freezing cabin, abandoned by the powerful Hollywood actor who had kept him as an abused, captive pet. But instead of finding peace, his eyes snapped open in a rundown bedroom. He had been reborn into the body of a suicidal stranger. The original owner, who shared his exact name, had swallowed a bottle of pills after being framed for plagiarism and destroyed by cyberbullying. Now, his new family was drowning in medical debt and facing foreclosure. Meanwhile, Erich was still paralyzed by the severe PTSD of his past life, suffocating at the mere memory of his ex's footsteps. Desperate to shed his trauma, he went to a barbershop to cut off the greasy hair hiding his new face. But when the barber removed the cape, a wave of pure, unadulterated terror crashed over Erich. Staring back in the mirror was his exact original face, complete with his signature teardrop mole. He knew if his psychopathic ex saw this face, the man would tear the world apart to drag him back to his personal hell in Malibu. But Erich refused to be a victim again. He grabbed a flyer for a prestigious art competition and looked at his stunned new sister. "I'm going to New York." This time, he wouldn't hide. He was going to use his art to save this broken family and declare war on everyone who had ruined them.

On my wedding night, while unbuttoning my new husband's shirt, I found a fresh tattoo over his heart. A bold, jagged letter 'C'. It stood for Caren—my best friend, the girl I had raised from the servant's quarters like a sister. Jameson was the Prince of Philadelphia, and our marriage was a blood pact between mafia families. But looking at that ink, I realized he had already signed a different contract with the help. The betrayal didn't stop at infidelity. Weeks later, Caren crashed a family dinner with a "peace offering"—a cake laced with peanuts. She knew I was deathly allergic. As my throat closed up and I clawed at Jameson for the EpiPen in my purse, he didn't move. He stood there and watched me turn blue. For three eternal seconds, he hesitated, weighing the life of his mistress against the life of his wife. He wanted me to die so he wouldn't have to expose her. But I didn't die. I woke up in the hospital with the Dons of both families standing over me, waiting for an explanation. Jameson begged me with his eyes to keep his secret, whispering that he loved me and our unborn heir. I didn't cry. I simply connected my phone to the speaker and played the recording of him mocking me with Caren. Then, I looked at the man who had hesitated to save my life. "There is no heir, Jameson," I said, my voice cold as ice. "I removed it. I will not incubate the legacy of a traitor."

For three years, I poured my soul into Cade, forgiving him 99 times. I was a struggling art student, paying for our shared dreams and caring for his fragile heart. But the 100th time, he let his cruel mistress, Alessandra, try to kill me in an old boathouse. He called it an "accident," his eyes already choosing his ambition over my life. I woke up in the hospital to hear him call me a "disposable stepping stone" and announce his engagement to the woman who had just tried to murder me. The doctor then confirmed the worst: his betrayal had cost me our unborn child. I had been a fool, a victim in their sick game. But as I lay there, broken and bleeding, I realized something. They thought I was a poor, orphaned artist. They had no idea I was Blaire Madden, the sole heiress to a global corporation. And I was finally ready to come home and make them pay.

My husband, Blake Wallace, was a hero who sacrificed his motocross career to save my life. His vow-"I can't lose Ellen Strong once"-was famous across the city, the cornerstone of our marriage. Then a charlatan mystic named Celesta entered our lives. The man I loved was replaced by a monster who worshipped her, forcing me to become her servant in my own home. He stood by as she humiliated my father to death on our marble floor. He forced me to become her living organ bank, having my kidney removed without my consent while I was unconscious. He even let her desecrate my father's grave, pouring his ashes on the ground for her new puppy to lick. The love I had for him died with my father, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. The hero who once saved me was gone, leaving a man who would threaten my father's grave to keep me in line. So when Celesta handed me a plane ticket for a "pilgrimage," I saw my chance. I faked my own death. The world believes Ellen Strong died in a plane crash. Five years later, my billionaire ex-husband, consumed by guilt, finally discovered the truth. He found me.

For five years, I was my husband's most prized possession. Not because he loved me, but because I carried the heart of his dead first love, Fallon. On our fifth anniversary, a ghost walked through our front door. Fallon was alive. She laughed and told my husband her "death" was a five-year test of his love. "And the heart inside you?" she sneered, looking at my chest. "Oh, darling. That's not my heart. It must have belonged to some other poor soul." The foundation of my life, the entire reason for my gilded cage, was a lie.

At eight months pregnant, I thought my husband Derek and I had it all. A perfect home, a loving marriage, and our miracle son on the way. Then, while tidying his office, I found his vasectomy certificate. It was dated a year ago, long before we even started trying. Confused and panicked, I rushed to his office, only to hear laughter from behind the door. It was Derek and his best friend, Edison. "I can't believe she still hasn't figured it out," Edison chuckled. "She walks around with that giant belly, glowing like some kind of saint." My husband's voice, the one that whispered words of love to me every night, was full of contempt. "Patience, my friend. The bigger she gets, the bigger the fall. And the bigger my payout." He said our entire marriage was a cruel game to destroy me, all for his precious adopted sister, Else. They were even running a bet on who the real father was. "So, the bet is still on?" Edison asked. "My money's still on me." My baby was a trophy in their sick contest. The world tilted on its axis. The love I felt, the family I was building—it was all a sham. In that moment, a cold, clear decision formed in the ruins of my heart. I pulled out my phone, my voice surprisingly steady as I called a private clinic. "Hello," I said. "I need to schedule an appointment. For a termination."

Amelia Miller had built her life with Ethan Hayes over a decade, a foundation as solid as the buildings she designed. Until a phone call shattered it all. He demanded she withdraw her bid for the monumental riverside project, her career's culmination, for Chloe Davies, a socialite he claimed was guiding him to "unlock his full potential." What followed was a nightmare. Ethan publicly declared their love a "test" holding him back, while Chloe flaunted their "power couple" status. He sabotaged Amelia's career with false plagiarism accusations, leading to her suspension. Then, he physically assaulted and imprisoned her in their home, allowing Chloe to mock and torment her. When Amelia, recovering from the assault, returned home, she found the apartment infused with a sickeningly sweet smell. Ethan, with Chloe's smug approval, revealed he had cooked and fed their beloved golden retriever, Sunshine, to Amelia, claiming it was a "cleansing ritual" to sever old attachments. This monstrous act ignited a furious outburst from Amelia, leading to her severe injury. The horror escalated in the hospital when Ethan, completely deluded, ordered doctors to take a skin graft from Amelia's thigh to repair a superficial wound Chloe had self-inflicted. He saw her as "selfish" and "pathetic" for resisting his "mission." Why was he destroying her, piece by piece, under the guise of some twisted self-improvement? Broken and desperate, Amelia, infected and frail, chose to end her agony, plummeting from the Zenith Tower-the very project he had stolen from her. But fate, in a cruel twist, gave her a second chance. She miraculously awoke in a parallel reality, whole but without memory, destined to cross paths with a repentant Ethan, desperate to atone for sins she couldn't recall.

My five-year mission to make Ethan Scott love me ended in failure, leaving my heart empty, my personality sacrificed to a system designed to make me the "perfect wife." My only directive: ensure his happiness. So, when the news broke that his strategist, Sabrina Chavez, was pregnant with his child, I smiled serenely. Ethan, the man I' d spent half a decade trying to win, rushed to Sabrina' s side, leaving me bleeding on the kitchen floor after she staged an attack, blaming me. He didn' t even look at my foot, deeply sliced open by shattered ceramic. He just spat venom, calling me "insane," "pathologically jealous," and carried her away. I drafted divorce papers, convinced this was the ultimate supportive act, the logical step to secure his happiness. Yet, when he saw them, his rage collapsed into a primal panic. "I wanted you obedient, not a heartless robot! Is this your revenge? To show me you never cared?" He saw a stranger, but all I could ask was, "Isn't making you happy my only purpose?" Then, Sabrina had a miscarriage. The doctor said it was an old condition, unrelated to the burn. Ethan' s face wasn' t grief-stricken; it was pure relief. "The problem is solved. We can finally be happy." The system, unable to reconcile his monstrousness with its primary directive, began to short-circuit, and my body began to give out. But as I lay dying, a strange thing happened. Ethan, stripped of his political ambition and reputation, finally loved me. His affection meter, dormant for years, soared. He begged me to stay, promising a new life. But a broken vase, once glued, always shows its cracks. I didn' t want a love built on cracks. With my last breath, I told the system: "Send me to the new world."

For seven years, my life with Marcus, the charismatic tech CEO, was a dazzling performance; our Malibu beach house, the galas, the constant cameras, all painted a picture of the perfect marriage. Then, a small, red lipstick, a brand I recognized as belonging to his ambitious young marketing associate, Chloe, fell from behind a nightstand in our guest casita, turning my world instantly cold. Marcus' s booming laugh when I confronted him, too quick and too smooth, failed to erase the chilling reality that his "inspirations" and "public gestures" were merely a smokescreen for a calculated betrayal aimed at my family's influence and wealth. The carefully constructed facade of my perfect life crumbled, revealing a suffocating lie where my husband saw only an asset to exploit, leaving me caught between bewilderment and a searing sense of injustice. But a forgotten whisper from my father and the ironclad infidelity clause in our prenup suddenly illuminated a path towards freedom, giving me the resolve to gather the undeniable proof and unlock the gilded cage I had unknowingly lived in.

I once believed in love, in forever. I was an architect, building a life, a future, with the woman I adored, Olivia. She was my world, my wife. But then her past, in the form of Julian, her "true love," re-emerged. They framed me for his "death," sending me to prison. Now, years later, Olivia stood over me, her face a mask, while doctors prepared to take my last kidney. It was for Julian. The man I supposedly killed. The man who was very much alive, waiting in the next room for my organ. Her eyes, utterly cold, met mine. She knew this would kill me. This very kidney was the one I' d secretly given her years ago, when she needed it in prison. The irony was a bitter, metallic taste. My life was being stolen, piece by brutal piece, by the woman I loved. Betrayed. Stripped of everything. Murdered on an operating table by the woman who promised me forever. Was this my end? Was this justice? No. This was a lie. A meticulously orchestrated execution. Then, darkness. But just as I thought I was gone, I gasped awake. Back in my penthouse, my bed – exactly three years ago. Julian' s voice, "Olivia! Help me! He pushed me!" echoed from the balcony. The same lie. The same frame-up. But this time… this time, I knew the script. And this time, I wasn't playing the victim. I wasn't dying today. I was just getting started.

The last thing Melissa had expected was that she would travel into the novel, which she just rated the lowest star. She became the miserable character who fell into the heroine’s trap and was driven out of her home. Now that she knew well where this story would go, she had to take destiny under her control. However, she got herself into another trouble. Jasper, the big film star, fell for her when she worked as his assistant.

I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair. They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves. Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment. But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger. In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.

On my wedding day to Julian Moretti, the future Mafia Don, I was deliberately sent to the wrong penthouse. My half-sister Sofia had crawled into my fiancé's bed, leaving me to be discovered by the family's exiled, alcoholic cousin. In my past life, I was shattered by this orchestrated betrayal. I cried and begged when Julian publicly humiliated me, choosing his illegitimate mistress over his rightful bride. I played the perfect, dignified Mafia wife for years. I swallowed his insults, ignored his infidelities, and accepted my ruined reputation to keep the peace. But my blind obedience only paved the way for my murder. Julian discarded me, and I was poisoned to death so Sofia could steal my crown as the Mafia Queen. Until my agonizing last breath, I didn't understand. I had honored our families' blood alliance flawlessly. Why was I the sacrificial lamb while they were rewarded for their treason? Opening my eyes again, I was back on the dark leather sofa, suffocating in my heavy silk wedding dress. This time, I didn't shed a single tear. I grabbed a heavy brass letter opener, marched straight into the Don's main study, and slapped the Underboss across the face in front of the entire family. "A Valdez woman does not share her husband," I declared coldly. "To honor the alliance, I will marry Dante." If they wanted to make my humiliation a fact, I was going to make it a funeral.

I was the brilliant money launderer for the most feared syndicate on the East Coast, and the fiercely loyal wife of its Underboss, Dante. While I worked sleepless nights to build his underworld dominion, he secretly diverted my operations to fund a luxury club for his naive barista mistress. When I confronted them and publicly exposed her, Dante didn't show a shred of guilt. Instead, he slapped me across the face in front of the entire syndicate. He draped his tailored jacket over his crying mistress to shield her, then turned his cold eyes on me. "Apologize to her right now, or I will send every single soldier in your crew to the slaughterhouse." He then weaponized the mafia's whisper network to destroy my reputation, painting me as a hysterical, paranoid woman just to legitimize his affair. For years, I had blindly endured his psychological torture, believing my devotion would eventually earn his respect. But looking at the brutal purple handprint on my cheek, and the ninety-nine dried bouquets of white roses he kept in the attic to carelessly patch over his toxic abuse, my heart finally turned to ice. I didn't throw a tantrum, nor did I beg for his love anymore. I left his apology blood diamonds on the table, drafted my mafia severance papers, and walked out of his territory for good. This time, I would build my own empire, and let him drown in the ruins of his.

On my birthday, my husband Dante asked for a divorce over a plate of cold lasagna. He held my hand, tears in his eyes, and told me his mistress was pregnant. "It’s a miracle, Elena," he wept. "God has finally given me a son." He looked at me with pity, calling me "broken" because I hadn't given him an heir in eight years. He moved his pregnant mistress into the penthouse I paid for, and his mother mocked me as a "dry vine" while cooking tonic soups for the new woman. They didn't know the truth I had buried three years ago. I remembered the day the doctor slid the file across the desk: *Azoospermia. Zero sperm count.* Dante was the sterile one. I had burned the results to protect his fragile ego as a Mafia Don. I took the blame. I drank his mother's vile herbal poisons every morning until I vomited, just to keep his secret. Now, he was discarding me for a "miracle" that was biologically impossible. I signed the divorce papers without a tear. Then I bought the debt of his company, put on a blood-red dress, and walked into his heir's Christening. I didn't come to object. I came to plug a USB drive into the projector and show the entire underworld exactly whose "miracle" that baby really was.

I was dragged back from the countryside by my father for one purpose: to be a sacrificial lamb. He ordered me to marry the mafia Don Damien Valachi in place of my sister. Everyone in the underworld knew that this Don's brides never saw the light of the next day. My stepmother put on a fake smile and took my hand, calling it an "honor"; my sister hid behind her, unable to conceal the gleam of triumph in her eyes. I smiled coldly and held up two fingers: "Twenty million dollars. Now." My father tried to play tricks, planning to take back the money from my trust fund after I died, but I had someone transfer every cent out before the wedding, leaving him a zero balance. The next day, the wedding car pulled up to the Valachi estate. The butler ordered the driver to use the service entrance-it seemed my groom didn't think I was worthy of the front gate. I got out and switched to an armored vehicle. I floored the accelerator, crashing straight through the estate gates. The gates shattered, and I didn't stop until I reached the main steps. I jumped out, the heel of my shoe crushing a broken iron railing, and shouted: "The bride is here." I looked up, scanning every window until my gaze stopped on one dark pane. I knew Damien was watching. I brushed the dust off my skirt, raised my voice a notch, and smiled: "What, the Don of the Valachi family doesn't dare come out to meet his new wife?"

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."

My mother is marrying a monster tomorrow. I'm the only one who remembers. My widowed mother was arranged to marry Lorenzo, a powerful Mafia Capo. I thought his status would finally bring us protection. But on the third day of their marriage, Lorenzo moved his pregnant mistress, Camilla, into the estate's master suite. She loudly claimed the child in her womb was the orphaned blood of a fallen soldier. "A Capo of Lorenzo's stature is doing your mother a service," the Syndicate wives mocked me, demanding we accept our place. Camilla systematically seized my mother's territory cuts and subjected her to endless psychological torture, while Lorenzo simply turned a blind eye. When the baby was born, it bore the exact same distinct birthmark on its neck as Lorenzo. Only then did we realize Lorenzo had used my mother as a convenient shield for his illicit affair, stealing my dead father's legacy and slowly draining our lives away. I didn't understand why the Family's brutal justice allowed a thief to siphon funds under the guise of caring for a martyr's widow, leaving us to die in absolute disgrace. Opening my eyes again, I was back to the day before the mob wedding. Looking at my six-year-old hands, I grabbed the torn marriage petition and stole the secret trust documents. This time, I ran straight to the heavily guarded gates of Don Salvatore, the most ruthless executioner in the city.

For two years, my world was circumscribed by the biometric lock on our penthouse and silent prayers for my husband, Vincenzo, the most feared Underboss of the Cosa Nostra. But when he finally returned from a brutal three-week smuggling route, he tossed me a cheap five-dollar tourist scarf, while his ex-lover Camilla flaunted the flawless pearl necklace he had just bought her. He abandoned me with a bleeding hand to rush to her side, ignored my severe medical emergencies to comfort her over trivialities, and publicly humiliated me at a Syndicate banquet by seating her in my rightful place at the head of the table. Camilla cornered me in the powder room, her fragile victim facade dropping instantly as she smirked at my reflection. "The thing a powerful man fears most isn't a wife who screams. It's a useless one who refuses to bow out gracefully." I endured his blatant disrespect and broken Omertà, wondering why my unwavering loyalty meant nothing compared to the manipulative tears of a woman who was actively leaking his classified safehouse coordinates. I didn't understand why he treated his sacred vows like garbage, eagerly feeding her Syndicate intel just to play the big, strong hero while leaving me to face cartel death threats entirely alone. But I was done being the neglected mafia wife waiting in the shadows. I calmly activated the covert audio recording device hidden inside my designer clutch. It was time to present this irrefutable evidence to the Don's Tribunal, strip my husband of his title, and build my own empire.

On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes. She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia." Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours. He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity. But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture." I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her. And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm. Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite. He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet. He is wrong. I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door. And I changed the groom. As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears. The Reaper.

"It was just one night stand, and now I'm pregnant with triplets? Gosh!" Josephine Jade never thought that she would have to run away from her own family while pregnant. She was alone, without money, without connections, with three fetuses in her stomach. How can she survive? However, Josephine couldn't give up now, until she managed to reclaim her arbitrarily seized property and get back at everyone who tried to get rid of her. A sick child, a past crush that comes back, a mysterious eccentric man, and a family that hates her, will weave together the journey of Josephine Jade's new life. "You have no right to separate me from my children, you bastard! I will survive and you will submit to me. Just watch!"