Mu Xiaoai

I stood in the center of the ballroom, watching my husband accept credit for the massacre I had meticulously planned. To the underworld, Craig Snyder was the King, a strategic genius who had crippled the Russian mafia. To me, he was the man who had just re-gifted my anniversary present—a Patek Philippe watch—to match the diamond bracelet dangling from his mistress’s wrist. The Senator’s daughter, Chanel, laughed at a joke only he could hear, wearing a red dress and a look of naive adoration that used to be mine. When I confronted him, expecting an apology, Craig didn't just dismiss me. He slapped me across the face in front of the city's elite, the sound echoing like a gunshot. He yanked the wedding ring off my finger, drawing blood, and placed it into Chanel’s palm, calling me a hysterical, barren relic. Later, I found the forged documents. He had signed my name to transfer every asset we built together into his sole possession, leaving me with nothing but a hush-money check. He thought I was just a scorned wife. He forgot that I was the architect of his empire. So, I drove my car off a bridge. I let the world believe I was dead. I let him mourn the woman he destroyed while I watched from the shadows, erasing his existence from my accounts. Six months later, at the Global Crime Summit, Craig stood up with a diamond ring, ready to beg my memory for forgiveness. But the doors opened, and I didn't walk in alone. I walked onto the stage holding the hand of his deadliest rival, Felix Tyson. I wasn't there to take him back. I was there to take his kingdom.

For years, I was the perfect, quiet wife to Dante Moretti, the most feared Mafia Don in New York. I mistook his lavish gifts for affection and his cold protection for care. The ninety-ninth time I asked for a divorce, he laughed. An hour later, his mistress, Isabella, called him. "Get out," he ordered, leaving me on a dark street corner in the pouring rain so he could rush to her side. As I watched his armored car vanish, I finally understood the truth. Our marriage was a transaction, a pact made to settle my father's debts. I was just a placeholder, a substitute living a life designed for Isabella. Every gift, every gesture, was an echo of her tastes. He never saw me. To him, I wasn't his wife; I was a possession. An obligation he could discard at will. He thought I was too weak, too dependent to ever fight back. He believed I couldn't survive without him. He thought I would just run and hide. He was wrong. You don't escape a man like Dante Moretti. He would hunt you to the ends of the earth, not out of love, but out of pride. To break a pact with a Don, you can't just run. You have to be prepared for war. And standing there, drenched and abandoned, I made a new vow: I wouldn't just leave him. I would burn his entire world to ash.

My world revolved around Brittany, so when her ex-boyfriend Chad messed up, I sacrificed everything, even my reputation, to take the fall for his hit-and-run. Then came the call that fractured my reality: Brittany was pregnant, but she wanted to tell the world the baby was Chad's, and for his career, she wanted me to agree to a horrifying abortion. I watched, numb and helpless, as she openly embraced Chad, planning a fake future with our unborn child while orchestrating my public humiliation, costing me my job and turning me into a national pariah. I endured public assaults and relentless smears, branded a "cowardly drunk driver" and an "unstable stalker," while the woman I loved actively helped destroy everything I had. How could the woman I'd built my simple life around so cruelly extinguish our future, betray our child, and conspire with the very man I covered for, all to ensure my utter ruin? The love I clung to turned to ash, leaving me stripped bare of everything I knew, an empty shell staring at the indifferent Austin sky. But reaching the absolute bottom ignited a forgotten flame. With nothing left to lose, I dialed a number I hadn't touched in years, summoning Scarlett, the fierce heiress to a vast Texas oil fortune, ready to unleash the sleeping giant of my family's power. It was time for the Walkers to remind everyone exactly who they were.

The system overload alarm shrieked, sparks flying, monitors flickering. My own algorithm, my miracle cure, was dying, and it was taking me with it. Liam Thorne, facing me, declared, "Bring her back, Ava! You said your algorithm could heal anything!" His face a mask of cold fury over his lost love, Chloe. "It can fix systems, Liam, not resurrect data that's been corrupted for a year!" I cried, tears streaming, a sharp pain shooting through my chest. His voice, a low growl devoid of warmth, accused, "You ruined everything. If it weren't for you, Chloe would have finished her AI, and we would have built an empire. You owe me this." He' d forced me to push my healing algorithm past its limits for a ghost project of Chloe' s, a project she had sabotaged out of jealousy due to an archaic Thorne family tradition: whoever fixed Liam's paralyzed system had to marry him. I had fixed it, naive, desperate for validation, eager to prove my genius. It became my prison. The final alarm blared, screens went black, and darkness consumed me as the pain in my chest exploded. Then, I gasped. My eyes shot open. I wasn' t in my lab. I was in a lavish room, all white leather and chrome, sunlight streaming through a floor-to-ceiling window. Liam Thorne sat in a high-tech wheelchair, younger, but still etched with frustration. I knew this day. This was the day it all began. The day the Thorne family brought me here, the brilliant reclusive tech genius, to fix Liam\'s critically damaged mobility system. In my past life, I would have felt a thrill of challenge. This time, I looked at Liam, the man who would watch me die without remorse, and a faint, knowing smile touched my lips. "Your system is beyond repair," I stated, my voice clear and steady.

My world shattered the day Liam Sterling, the man I'd loved since childhood, turned into my fiercest accuser. His father, my beloved mentor, was dead, and Liam, blinded by grief, believed my own innocent father was a criminal, the cause of his despair. He looked at me, not with love, but with chilling hatred. He threw the engagement ring—our symbol of forever—onto the marble floor, its clatter echoing the definitive punctuation mark on our shared history. He cast me out, suffering from bone cancer I hadn't revealed, believing it yet another one of my family's lies. Now homeless and destitute, my father, falsely imprisoned for embezzlement, suffered a heart attack behind bars. Liam, despite my desperate pleas, denied him bail, sealing his fate. Soon after, the brutal news came: my father died in prison. The cruelty escalated. Liam paraded me at a gala, forcing a grotesque performance of the dutiful fiancée, only to publicly destroy a cherished gift—my bronzed ballet slippers—a relic of my mother and my dreams. When I begged him to believe my terminal diagnosis, he scoffed, accusing me of faking illness. Then his assistant, Chloe Davis, fabricated a monstrous lie: a miscarriage, claiming I was responsible. Liam believed her, swearing vengeance on me for killing a child that never existed. How could he be so blind? How could the man who promised to protect me become this cruel stranger, actively destroying my life? I was accused of harassment and threats, my cancer dismissed as an elaborate trick, and finally, condemned to a psychiatric facility. My mother, consumed by grief and shock over my father's death and my arrest, died shortly after. Alone, broken, and dying, I found myself trapped, unable to prove my innocence, questioning if the love we shared was ever real. But deep down, a flicker of defiance remained—a silent promise that the truth, however brutal, would eventually surface.

My life was perfect, or so I thought. I was Ethan, a former architect, now a devoted stay-at-home dad, happily supporting my ambitious wife, Nicole, a rising city councilwoman, as she chased her mayoral dreams. Our beautiful daughter, Lily, was celebrating her sixth birthday at what was deceptively also a high-stakes political fundraiser in the dream home I designed. Then, the world shattered. A deafening explosion ripped through our home, and in an instant, the smoke and flames consumed everything, including my little Lily. Days later, I woke up in a hospital, horrifically burned, only to hear Nicole, my wife, coldly order the surgeon to perform a vasectomy during my skin graft surgery, not for medical reasons, but to ensure "my real son, Caleb" was the sole heir. As I lay there, paralyzed and helpless, slipping in and out of consciousness, I overheard the monstrous truth. Nicole hadn't just allowed Lily to die; she meticulously planned the "gas leak" explosion with a hitman. Our daughter, her own child, was a "political liability," an "obstacle" to Caleb's inheritance. Lily was merely a "tragic story" to secure her election. My physical pain was a dull ache compared to the pure, hellish agony ripping through my soul. How could the woman I loved, the mother of my child, be such a cold-blooded monster? What kind of twisted ambition sacrifices an innocent life for power? But my shattered world was not the end; it was the beginning. In the silent, agonizing nights, the architect's mind that built structures began to deconstruct, to plan, to plot. I swallowed my screams, feigned unconsciousness, and made a silent vow: she had taken everything from me, and now, I would take everything from her. Justice for Lily, no matter the cost.

Days before my picture-perfect wedding to Kevin Davenport, a man as beloved in our tight-knit town as his prominent family, my life stretched before me, an unblemished canvas. But a late-night stroll turned into a nightmare when I was savagely attacked, leaving me battered, disfigured, and my future hanging by a thread. Waking in the sterile hospital room, amidst the beeping machines, the true horror unfolded: my own father and brother, the very men who vowed to protect me, were the architects of my suffering. I overheard them celebrating, their voices chillingly calm, about how my "unfortunate accident" cleared the path for Dad's ambitious intern, Jessica Evans, to become a Davenport in my stead. They deliberately stalled my reconstructive surgery, allowing my severe injuries to worsen, while simultaneously unleashing a venomous smear campaign across social media, painting me as the villain. And then came the doctor's quiet confession: the brutal assault and subsequent neglect meant I might never be able to have children. The ultimate blow landed when Jessica herself glided into my room in my wedding dress, her triumphant smile twisting as she leaned in to whisper that she'd paid the attackers extra to ensure my visible "unforgettable" disfigurement. My father and brother watched, their faces hard with approval, ready to silence my pain. How could the family I loved, the people who should have protected me, orchestrate such a monstrous betrayal, sacrificing my body, my future, and my very identity for their ambition? The physical agony paled in comparison to the searing rage and profound despair that ignited within me, consuming every last shred of my old life. They thought they had broken me irrevocably, that I was a defeated, silenced doll in their cruel game. But as they celebrated their victory, I reached for a hidden burner phone, dialing the number of a woman they had underestimated for years: my formidable, estranged mother, Eleanor Vance, a corporate lawyer in New York. Let them think I was sedated and compliant. My real fight had just begun.

The black SUV pulled up to my childhood D.C. estate after ten years away. I stepped out, expecting a quiet, perhaps strained, family dinner. Instead, a lavish party was in full swing, music and laughter spilling from the open doors. Then I saw her: my cousin, Chloe, wearing my dress, laughing with Julian Vance-my fiancé from a decade ago. My research. My fellowship. She was claiming it all as her own, right in front of me. Just as confusion ripped through me, my mother, Eleanor, appeared, her face hardening into an icy mask. "Ava," she said, her voice a chilling whisper. "What are you doing here?" Before I could demand an explanation, she cut me off, announcing Chloe' s engagement and achievements as if I didn't exist. When I protested, claiming my stolen life, my own mother publicly declared me "unwell" and "confused," a danger under medical care. My father, David, stood silent, then sided with her, allowing security to drag me away and lock me in a secluded wing of my own home. Betrayal ripped through me, a suffocating blanket of disbelief. How could my family do this? Erase me, steal my entire existence, and frame me as insane? But then, my father returned, a tray with sedatives in hand, and a flicker in his eyes-a silent warning, a hidden promise. This wasn't abandonment. This was a staged escape. I took the pills, publicly "dying" as Ava, knowing I was about to be reborn.

The pills sealed my fate, but death wasn't freedom. My spirit lingered, unseen, tethered to a world where my husband, Ethan, flaunted Jessie – the woman who'd driven me to my grave. Three years of silent purgatory passed. Then, Jessie's ambition required my 'skills,' subtly manipulating Ethan to desperately search for 'me.' Ethan found my brother Mike, and his own mother, Eleanor, a woman I'd rescued. But Jessie's lies-claiming I faked my death-twisted his mind. I watched, helpless, as his rage exploded: he ordered my grave exhumed, shoved Eleanor to her death, then coldly ordered Mike shot. My family annihilated, my grave desecrated-all fueled by a woman's ambition and a man's blind rage. How could a son not recognize his own mother? How could Jessie steal my heroism? The injustice was a silent scream in my ethereal throat. Yet, fragments of truth-a locket, my bones, a seashell-shattered Ethan' s delusion, exposing Jessie' s monstrous deceit and his complicity. Consumed by cold fury, Ethan transformed into an avenger. He plotted a fiery reckoning at his father's abandoned factory, luring them all to a final, cleansing inferno. In that blaze, my tether would finally break.

Completely drunk, she entered the wrong room. Since then, her life had changed drastically. He helped her avenge herself. Not only did he fight back the shame and humiliation thrown at her by her stepmother, but he also protected her from her stepsister’s dirty tricks. "Sign this contract and be my wife. I'll give you the whole world," he promised. But promises were made to be broken. When the contract was due, he didn't allow her to leave. "You stole my heart. How could I set you free?" No matter where she went, she couldn't escape from his hands and his heart.

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 three days away from marrying the Underboss of the Fazio crime family when I unlocked his burner phone. The screen glowed toxic bright in the dark next to my sleeping fiancé. A message from a contact saved as 'Little Trouble' read: "She is just a statue, Dante. Come back to bed." Attached was a photo of a woman lying in the sheets of his private office, wearing his shirt. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. For eight years, I believed Dante was the hero who pulled me from a burning opera house. I played the perfect, loyal Mafia Princess for him. But heroes don't give their mistresses rare pink diamonds while giving their fiancées cubic zirconia replicas. He didn't just cheat. He humiliated me. He defended his mistress over his own soldiers in public. He even abandoned me on the side of the road on my birthday because she faked a pregnancy emergency. He thought I was weak. He thought I would accept the fake ring and the disrespect because I was just a political pawn. He was wrong. I didn't cry. Tears are for women who have options. I had a strategy. I walked into the bathroom and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in a decade. "Speak," a voice like gravel growled on the other end. Lorenzo Moretti. The Capo of the rival family. The man my father called the Devil. "The wedding is off," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "I want an alliance with you, Enzo. And I want the Fazio family burned to the ground."

On 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 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 stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

On our ninth anniversary, my husband Dominick didn't toast to us. Instead, he rested his hand on his mistress's pregnant belly in front of the entire crime family. I was just a debt payment to him, a ghost in a forty-thousand-dollar gown. But the humiliation didn't end in the ballroom. When his mistress, Chastity, started hemorrhaging later that night, he didn't call an ambulance. He dragged me to the family clinic. He knew I had a serious heart condition. He knew a transfusion of that magnitude could trigger a fatal cardiac event. "She is carrying my son," he said, his eyes devoid of any humanity. "You will give her whatever she needs." I begged him. I bargained for my freedom. He lied and agreed, just to get the needle in my arm. As my dark red blood flowed through the tube to save the woman destroying my life, my chest tightened. The monitors began to scream. My heart was failing. "Mr. Reyes! She's crashing!" the doctor shouted. Dominick didn't even turn around. He walked out of the room to hold Chastity's hand, leaving me to die on the table. I survived, but Annis Myers died in that clinic. He thought I would return to the penthouse and continue being his obedient, silent wife. He thought he owned the blood in my veins. He was wrong. I went back to the penthouse one last time. I struck a match. I let the room burn. By the time Dominick realized I wasn't in the ashes, I was already on a plane to London. I had left my wedding ring in an envelope, along with the medical records that proved his cruelty. He wanted a war? I would give him one.

I was staring at the two pink lines on the plastic stick, trembling with the terrifying joy of carrying the heir to the New York underworld’s most ruthless faction. Then the intercom buzzed, and a voice splintered my world. "The little art student actually thinks I'm going to marry her? It was just a game to pass the time while you were in Europe, Estella." I froze. My boyfriend, Holden, was in the next room, laughing with the daughter of his rival. He explained that I was just a "clean civilian image" he needed to secure a business deal. Now that the deal was signed, he was dumping the "stray" to marry the "Queen." I tried to run, but freedom only lasted forty-eight hours. Holden didn't just break my heart; he turned my terror into content. He kidnapped me, tied me to a chair at the edge of a cliff, and forced me to choose between my life and his new fiancée's. Then, he pushed me off the edge. As gravity snatched me, I heard him laughing. I landed on a stunt airbag. It was just a "social experiment." A sick prank for his amusement. "Don't be so dramatic, Kenia," he called down. "It's just a game." He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a prop in his life. But he forgot that I knew his secrets. I dragged my injured body to a payphone and dialed the one number Holden told me to fear—the rival Don, Gael Simpson. "It's Kenia," I whispered, clutching the receiver like a lifeline. "I'm calling in the debt."

For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York. I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him. But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash. In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress. He forced me to watch him court her. At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her. He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain. He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life. I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god. I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole. He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps. So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother. I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars. I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia. By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost.

For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe. On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring. Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger. Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family. When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence. "Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets." My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet. He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts. He was wrong. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use. Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed. *I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.* His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning. *The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?* I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me. I looked down and typed three letters. *Yes.*

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.