Priorities

I spent a year scrubbing floors in my fiancé’s club, hiding my identity as the daughter of the Capo dei Capi. I needed to know if Connor Bishop was a King worth merging empires with, or just a puppet. The answer came walking in wearing a neon pink dress. Jaden Juarez, a civilian he was infatuated with, didn't just treat me like a servant; she deliberately poured scalding espresso over my hand because I refused to be her valet. The pain was blinding, my skin blistering instantly. I video-called Connor, showing him the burn, expecting him to enforce the code of our world. Instead, seeing his investors watching, he panicked. He chose to sacrifice me to save face. "Get on your knees," he roared through the speaker. "Beg her pardon. Show her the respect she deserves." He wanted the daughter of the most dangerous man on the East Coast to kneel to his mistress. He thought he was showing strength. He didn't realize he was looking at a woman who could burn his entire world to ash with a single phone call. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I simply hung up the phone and locked the kitchen doors. Then, I dialed the one number everyone in the underworld feared. "Dad," I said, my voice cold as steel. "Code Black. Bring the papers." "And send the wolves."

The crisp Stanford acceptance letter felt like a cruel joke in my hands, a ghost from a life that ended in betrayal. I stared through it, past the promises, seeing Chloe and Brooke' s smiles, and the sterile white of the hospital room where my grandmother lay still. I remembered the twisted metal, the rain on my face, and Brooke running-not to me, bleeding on the pavement, but to Zoe, who had a mere scratch. My spirit lingered just long enough to hear their laughter, their celebration of sterilizing me, willing all my assets to Zoe. My life, my love, my trust – all a long, cruel punchline. Reborn into this sunlit room, with the future in my hand, I felt only a cold, clear purpose. Paper tore, then tore again, until the Stanford dream was confetti falling into the trash. Silicon Valley could wait. My phone buzzed with their fake concern: Chloe' s "Love you! 😘" and Brooke' s "So proud of you, Alex." I deleted them without a reply. Their words were poison, and I was finally immune. My grandmother, Susan, found me later, confused about my rejection of Stanford, Google, and Apple. I told her I wanted to stay, to protect her. The next day, whispers of "crazy" and "waste" followed me. Then they walked in: Chloe, Brooke, and the architect of my destruction, Zoe. She looked so plain, but her voice was pure venom, painting herself as the victim, accusing me of arrogance, of having everything handed to me. My fists clenched. Chloe and Brooke, who knew the truth, chose the lie. They weren't my friends. They were my enemies. I walked out. The game was on. This time, I knew the rules. And I was not going to lose.

For ten years, I was Liam O' Connell' s shadow, the architect of his dark web empire. I chose him over everything, believing our bond was unbreakable, forged in the fires of the underground world. Today, he was going legitimate, hosting a party to celebrate his new beginning. I waited, expecting to finally be introduced as the woman who stood by him through it all. Instead, I watched as Liam announced his engagement to Ava Sterling, a woman who looked like she was born for the daylight. He framed our decade together as a dirty secret, something he was ready to discard, claiming I was "okay with the risks" and "understood the game," unlike pure Ava, who deserved "a clean slate." He even offered me a black card as a severance package, then asked if we could still be friends. The ultimate insult. The night before, he had casually asked, "What if... what if we broke up? What would you do?" A perfectly calculated conversational trap. I walked away, drenched and humiliated, into a storm that mirrored the one in my heart. But it wasn't an ending. It was a declaration of war. What Liam didn' t know was I had a family, a legitimate tech dynasty waiting, and a man, Ethan Vance, who had spent a decade waiting for me to come home.

I am a maid in the minister's residence and was sent to the study because of my lack of education. Just because the minister was in a good mood one day and talked to me more, and even gave me a sachet as a reward, the jealous Theresa, who is also a minister, thought that I had an affair with him. She pretended to arrange for me to marry into a good family, but actually sold me to a whorehouse. I suffered torture and contracted a serious illness, died with resentment and pain, but found myself reborn on the day I was assigned to be a maid again. Since heaven has given me a chance to live again, I will not be polite and will definitely make Theresa, the minister, taste the feeling of being trampled by thousands of people!

The air in the New York City Hall clerk's office was thick with stale paper and cheap coffee. I, Aurora "Rory" Sterling, heiress to Sterling Global, stood beside my fiancé, Pres Hayes, seconds away from signing our marriage license. This document was key to my grandfather' s will, granting my spouse controlling influence on the company board. Then Pres' s phone vibrated, a frantic, insistent sound. He stepped away, his face pale, muttering, "It' s Tiff. Tiffany Larson. An emergency. I have to go." He didn't look back. He just left, abandoning me at the counter, a fool in my cream dress. Moments later, a text from him popped up: "Tiff needs me. Look, Rory, this Sterling Global thing… it' s still on. Tiff' s generous. She said she' s okay with you being a sister-wife, you know? Or maybe you could be a surrogate for our kids. Once I' m on the board, we can make it work. I' ll schedule time for you." Sister-wife. Surrogate. Schedule time. The audacity, the cruelty, was breathtaking; he wasn't just manipulative, he was a monster. The naive part of me shattered, replaced by something cold and hard. He thought I was weak, broken bait. He was wrong. My grandfather' s will said "spouse," not "Pres." My fingers, surprisingly steady, scrolled through my contacts. "Ethan," I said, my voice clear, "I need you. Marry me. Right now."

The crystal chandeliers of the Reed family mansion dripped light onto the polished marble floor. It was my first wedding anniversary, a grand affair designed to broadcast stability to the business world. But the guest of honor wasn't me, the legal wife. It was Chloe Evans, my husband Ethan's publicly known mistress, her hand possessively resting on her rounded belly. "Ethan and I are so thrilled to announce that we're expecting. Our baby is a true blessing." Chloe's voice echoed, shattering the silence and my carefully constructed composure. All eyes turned to me, standing alone near the grand staircase, as the whispers of shock and pity washed over the room. My face was a mask of calm, but inside, a storm raged. After a year of marriage that was nothing more than a business contract, a foolish part of me had still hoped. That hope died a final, quiet death as I watched Ethan shield Chloe from the flashing cameras, confirming to the world I was just an obstacle. I took a slow sip of champagne, then walked towards them, my steps measured and confident. "Ethan," I said, ignoring Chloe. "Congratulations. I have a gift for you. For our anniversary." He looked surprised by my composure. "What is this?" he asked, suspicion lacing his tone. "Divorce papers," I announced, loud enough for those nearby to hear. "Signed by me. And a transfer of all my shares in Miller Corp, as stipulated in our prenuptial agreement. You' re free." A collective gasp filled the room. His arrogant smirk finally faltered. He had expected tears, a scene, a fight. He had not expected this clean, decisive severing. "You're giving it all up? Just like that?" he questioned, searching my face for a trick. A sharp pain stabbed through my abdomen-a secret I had been carrying for weeks. Pancreatic cancer. Late stage. Inoperable. The doctor's words from that afternoon echoed. The public humiliation, the betrayal, was nothing compared to the true devastation. I straightened, forcing down the pain. "Just like that. Because I'm tired of this game. You win." I turned to leave, but another wave of pain buckled my knees. "I'm fine," I breathed to my rushing assistant. "Just a little tired. I'm going home." But my destination wasn't home. It was the hospital. I was dying, and the man I loved was trying to torture me in my final days. He had brought his mistress into my childhood sanctuary, smashed the physical representation of my secret, cherished memory for him, and then publicly auctioned my wedding ring for a dollar. He was confirming I was nothing more than garbage to him. I stared at his cold, mocking eyes across the hospital room. He wanted a quick, clean divorce? No messy legal battles that could drag Reed Industries through the mud? I had a proposition. "You will spend the next seven days with me. Every minute. You'll do everything I say, go wherever I want you to go. You'll be my husband, for one last week." My voice, surprisingly strong, dropped to a challenging whisper. I had three months to live. Three months to fix him. I couldn't die and leave him like that.

Ten years after leaving Harmony Creek, I returned to my quiet Midwest hometown, a Silicon Valley success story ready to settle my parents' estate and close a chapter. But the moment I walked into the bank, preparing to handle their accounts, my carefully constructed world shattered with two words: "Outstanding loan." A $400,000 loan, in my name, secured by my childhood home, backed by a forged signature and an even more shocking forgery: a marriage certificate to a woman I' d never seen. Before I could even process the absurdity, I found a party in full swing at my parents' house, celebrating the new owners-the very people who had defrauded me, now publicly accusing me of abandoning my "wife" and "son." My phone exploded with a coordinated online smear campaign, labeling me a "deadbeat," followed by a fake resignation email sent to my company, trying to strip me of my career. Who was behind this intricate web of lies, and why were they so determined to erase me from existence, from my own life? Stripped of my identity, my property, and my reputation, a cold clarity settled in; I wasn' t just a victim-I was being systematically dismantled, and I would use every skill at my disposal to fight back.

The acceptance letter to my dream university felt heavy in my hands, a tangible symbol of not just my future, but the perfect life I was building with Lucas Reed. Then, everything shattered; drugs, a blurry night, and the horrifying realization that I had been violated, photos and videos spread like wildfire across every platform. My scholarship vanished, university admission rescinded, and my world crumbled as the public shame led to my father's fatal heart attack and my mother's desperate jump from the library roof-all because of Lucas's twisted revenge. How could the boy I loved, who claimed to love me, orchestrate such a monstrous plot? Four years later, encountering Lucas on a dirty street corner while barely surviving, an insidious plan began to brew, turning my survival into a calculated weapon for absolute destruction.

My thumb hovered over the screen, then I tapped the little heart. It was a beautiful, honest architecture project from an old friend, the kind I used to dream of doing. Then the comment popped up from another classmate: "Ethan Miller! Good to see you' re still keeping up with real architecture. Thought you' d be lost to the dark side by now." The "dark side" was Vance Development, my wife Olivia' s company, where I was the head architect, designing sterile luxury condos. I closed the app, the familiar dull ache starting in my chest, and watched Olivia prepare for the Urban Development Gala in our opulent penthouse. She needed to project success for the mayor and investors, especially with the Greenleaf Park deal-a small beloved park in a working-class neighborhood she planned to destroy for our most luxurious development yet, The Pinnacle. "Try to look happy tonight, Ethan," she' d said, not looking at me. "It doesn' t look good if my own husband seems miserable." I was miserable. And people were talking about her and Leo Maxwell, her new star project manager. Her calendar, carelessly left open on the kitchen tablet, confirmed my fears: "2 PM - 5 PM: Site Immersion w/ Leo - The Pinnacle." A secret meeting, not the kind she told everyone about. I watched her black town car pull away. The anger and jealousy were gone, replaced by a chilling clarity. The foundation was cracked. It had to come down. My phone buzzed. Olivia. She knew about the social media like. "Ethan, what the hell was that?" Her voice was sharp, panicked. "Are you trying to sabotage me?" "It was a post from a friend, Olivia. I liked it." "A friend who builds non-profit shacks out of garbage! Leo was just saying how important a unified front is right now." Leo. Of course. She softened her tone: "Once the Pinnacle project is greenlit, we' ll take that trip to Italy, the one we talked about. Just us." The promise was hollow, a worn-out coin she offered whenever she needed my compliance. "Okay, Olivia," I said, my voice flat. "I have to go. Leo is waiting. Don' t be late for the gala." She hung up. I walked to my study, opened the drawer, and looked at the divorce papers my lawyer had drawn up a month ago. The decision was no longer a question. It was an answer.

The crystal chandeliers sparkled, reflecting the perfect white dress I wore. My hand was tucked into Mark's arm; this was our engagement party. Then, his voice, smooth and charming just seconds before, twisted into a lie. "Sarah is not well," he announced to the silenced room, my mentee Chloe by his side. My world shattered. He branded me "unstable," a "liar," destroying my reputation, my life, right there on the ballroom floor. For five years, I struggled, the whispers haunting me. Five years later, at a high-profile gala, they found me. Mark Olsen, now a celebrated visionary, and Chloe, draped in diamonds. They dragged me, still in my plain catering uniform, back to the public eye. He called me a "deranged stalker," ridiculed my every claim, then put his foot down – on my hand – to silence me forever. The agony was blinding, the humiliation absolute. How could they be so cruel? Was this truly my fate, to be forever labeled, discarded, and broken? Then, just as the darkness swallowed me, a voice colder than ice cut through the stunned silence. "Get your foot off my wife."

I was seven months pregnant, excitedly awaiting the arrival of our child. My husband, Ethan, the brilliant CEO of VanceTech, seemed utterly devoted. Our life was perfect. Then, a sudden fall. A blinding pain, then a hollow emptiness where my baby used to be. But the worst was yet to come. I woke up paralyzed, my body aching with a profound loss, only to overhear Ethan's chilling conversation. He was discussing not just my forced hysterectomy, but discreetly arranging "permanent lower-body paralysis." And then, the gut-wrenching truth: his "partner" Chloe, also pregnant, was his mistress. She was there, in our home, holding a newborn named Gabriel, the very name Ethan and I had chosen for our first lost child. My world shattered. I later found his hidden tablet, a digital archive of his monstrous betrayal. Photos of Chloe, pregnant. Chat logs detailing six "Project Nightingale" events – my previous miscarriages, each an "accident" orchestrated by them. Videos of him and Chloe in our bed. The man I loved, planned to destroy me, to keep me "easier to manage." The ultimate insult came when Chloe, holding his child, deliberately scratched herself and screamed I had attacked her, and Ethan, without hesitation, condemned me. My pain was unimaginable, but a cold, hard resolve began to set in. He thought he had broken me. He was wrong. This wasn't just betrayal. This was war. Sarah Miller, the quiet software architect, was gone. In her place, a woman bent on justice, armed with secrets and code, was rising from the ashes.

"Maya, we need to talk about the Nova Fellowship." Ethan’s voice was smooth, but his eyes held a look I knew well before he asked for something big. The final interviews for my dream fellowship were just next week. He sighed, running a hand through his perfect brown hair, then dropped the bombshell: Chloe, the Harrisons’ "lost" daughter, suddenly wanted to apply. I stared, my heart pounding, realizing the application deadline had passed months ago, and Chloe knew nothing of astrophysics. He quickly explained they were making an exception for Chloe due to "hardship," courtesy of the Harrisons’ pulled strings. A cold feeling started in my stomach when he gently suggested I withdraw my application for "family goodwill." He squeezed my hands, urging me to "give Chloe a fair shot" because she was "fragile." I pulled my hands away, reminding him this fellowship was my entire future. He insisted I’d find other opportunities, painting my sacrifice as a "gesture for family." His words felt like cotton, trying to smother the fire of my lifelong dream. He believed this was reasonable, that I should sacrifice everything for a girl he barely knew, who had appeared out of nowhere. My carefully built world, with Ethan at its center, felt like it was tilting, as I realized I was just in the way. Then, he left me stranded in a furious Nor’easter, sick and alone, rushing off to comfort Chloe’s "panic attack." Weeks later, the Harrisons, with Ethan’s complicity, publicly branded me a plagiarist, expelled me from Blackwood, and stole my groundbreaking dark matter algorithm. I saw Chloe presenting my life’s work as her own, celebrated as a "rising star." My reputation was in ruins, my academic dreams destroyed, my love for Ethan shattered into a million pieces. How could Ethan, the man I loved, betray me for an imposter, and why did the family treat me as expendable after years of devotion? Publicly shamed, injured in an angry crowd, I truly hit rock bottom, lying feverish and abandoned in a hospital bed. Just as despair threatened to consume me, I remembered the private investigator’s card, tucked away in my wallet, leading to the biological family I thought were dead. That night, lying shattered and alone, I reached for my phone, found the investigator’s number, and made the call to choose myself and reclaim my life.

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 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.

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?

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.

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.

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god. Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires. He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family. In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet. Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it. That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed. I finally understood the promise he’d made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property. After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash. So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good. A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father—his greatest enemy.

I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

Elora Griffiths was on her way to drop her daughter off at school when her husband's enemies opened fire in the street. The bodyguard her husband had personally assigned to protect them abandoned the car the instant the shots rang out. Mother and daughter were hit multiple times, teetering on the brink of death. Elora frantically called her husband, Rodger Griffiths, but he didn't answer. Her brother, Hugh Dale, arrived just in time and saved them both. "How could this happen? Didn't Rodger assign someone to protect you?" Hugh asked. Elora sobbed uncontrollably, "The bodyguard ran away!" On the way to the hospital, Elora kept trying Rodger's number, desperate. One call after another... Finally, on the ninety-ninth attempt, the line connected. On the other end was the female bodyguard, trembling, her voice barely holding back tears. "Rodger, it's really not my fault! There were so many assassins. I would've died if I tried to stop them! I was so scared..." Elora held her breath, waiting for her husband's wrath to thunder down. But Rodger just sighed. "Forget it. The important thing is you're safe," he said. Meanwhile, Elora's daughter took her last breath in her arms. The pain was suffocating. She held her daughter close as her body went cold and stiff, teeth gritted in fury, "Hugh, I'm divorcing him! I'll cut off every single arms shipment to the Griffiths family from the largest arms company in Crownport!"

For nine years, I was the perfect mafia wife. I laundered Marcus Thorne’s money through my design firm, smiled at his dinners, and ignored the lipstick stains on his collars. I believed in the Omertà of our marriage. I thought my loyalty was my armor. I was wrong. On the night of our anniversary gala, a car lost control and barreled straight toward us in the parking lot. Marcus didn't look at me. Not once. He lunged for his mistress, Izzy, tackling her to safety behind a concrete pillar. I was left standing in the open. The impact threw me like a ragdoll. I lay bleeding on the cold asphalt, my body broken, watching through the haze as my husband frantically checked his mistress for scratches. "My ankle," she whimpered. Without a backward glance, he picked her up and carried her to his limousine, leaving me to bleed out on the pavement. He didn't leave me because he panicked. He left me because I was just a shield he used to protect what he actually loved. As darkness crept in, a shadow fell over me. It wasn't Marcus. It was Julian Croft, his sworn rival. I looked at the empty spot where my husband should have been and made a choice. "Get me to the hospital," I rasped, staring into the eyes of the enemy. "And then help me burn his empire to the ground."

I stood alone at the center of my art gallery opening, clutching a glass of warm champagne, while the guests whispered behind their hands. My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, wasn't there. A breaking news alert on my phone explained why. It was a high-definition photo of Dante shielding his mistress, Isabella, from the rain. He was touching her with a protective possessiveness he had never once shown me. Then came his text: "Isabella needed me. Go home." That was the moment the cage door unlocked. I didn't go home to cry. I went to his office the next morning with a stack of papers disguised as "gallery insurance forms." While Isabella sat on his desk, mocking me for being a boring housewife, Dante was too annoyed to read the fine print. He just wanted me gone so he could get back to her. He signed the divorce decree. He signed the asset dissolution. Most importantly, without looking, he signed the irrevocable relinquishment of parental rights. I walked out with my freedom, but fate had a cruel sense of humor. That night, I stared at a positive pregnancy test. I was carrying the Sovrano heir he had always demanded. And he had just legally signed away his right to ever know his child. I fled to the Swiss Alps, vanishing into the snow to raise my baby away from his world of blood and bullets. I thought I was safe, until six months later. Dante hadn't just sent men to look for me. He had burned his own shipping empire to the ground, destroying his status as King, just to prove he would trade it all for the wife he threw away.