Shu Yu

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.

The last thing I saw was the Chicago skyline rushing up to meet me. Then, merciful darkness. Now, blinding sunlight streamed through a window, hitting my face as I lay in my university dorm room. My head throbbed with a pain far deeper than a physical fall. It was the brutal, horrifying memory of my parents, David and Susan Miller. Their kind faces, now hauntingly overlaid with images of their blood on the polished floors of our beautiful Chicago home. They were murdered. And the architect of that devastation? Brittany Evans, the very scholarship student my generous parents had taken under their wing, hailed as their "charity case." Her smile, so sickeningly sweet and fake, her boyfriend Spike's cruel, calculating eyes, haunted my every waking thought. She had meticulously orchestrated their downfall: the forged will, the baseless accusations leveled against me. I endured the looks of disgust, the complete abandonment from everyone I had ever known. The crushing despair consumed me, pushing me to the desperate, final leap. How could such an act of profound kindness be repaid with such heinous betrayal and wanton violence? How could I have been utterly blind, so incredibly naive, to allow my entire family, my entire life, to be so mercilessly dismantled, ending in that horrific, unjust way for all of us? The injustice burned. But then, I sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for air. My hands flew to my throat, my chest. I was whole. Alive. It was the first week of freshman year. Again. I had been granted a second chance, and this time, a cold, unyielding rage, something I' d never felt in my first, naive life, settled deep in my bones. Brittany Evans would not win.

My head throbbed as I cooked Marcus's favorite meal. It was our tenth anniversary, a milestone I' d hoped would bring some semblance of peace to a decade marred by his growing distance. But Marcus never came home. Instead, an Instagram notification flashed: Skyler Reed, beaming beside my husband, champagne in hand, captioned: "Celebrating new beginnings with Mr. T!" When I finally reached him, his voice was dismissive, cold: "You've let yourself go, Ellie. Skyler's a breath of fresh air." The casual cruelty was a physical blow, leaving me reeling, a sudden nosebleed staining the anniversary tablecloth I' d prepared for a dinner that would never happen. Who was this woman I had become, a ghost of my former self, constantly tired, always bleeding? Why did I allow myself to be chipped away, humiliated, while he flaunted his affair so brazenly? Then, the final, devastating cut: my only comfort, my loyal dog Gus, brutally run down after Skyler maliciously kicked him into the street. My world went black, only to be replaced by the harsh hospital lights and a grim diagnosis: glioblastoma. Marcus, now belatedly awake to his ruin, would beg me to fight. Yet, the profound irony was a bitter pill: his decade of calculated cruelty had left me with no fight left. But though I was dying, this story was far from over-just not in the way anyone expected.

I was an artist who gave up my career for my tech CEO husband, Jakob. Pregnant with our child, I believed our life was a perfect dream built on his genius. That dream shattered when I discovered his genius was a lie, built on stolen code. Then I overheard his real plan: to drug me, publicly ruin me, and auction off my body after murdering our unborn child. At our anniversary gala, he forced drugged champagne into my hand. I watched him destroy my art-my last dream-before I collapsed, losing our baby on the cold museum floor. They left me for dead, having taken everything-my love, my art, my dignity, and my child. After I survived, I walked into the interrogation room where he was being held. I showed him a fabricated DNA report proving the baby was his, alongside a real document proving he'd had a secret vasectomy. He broke down, believing he'd murdered the son he never knew he could have. "I'll do anything," he sobbed. "Then sign these," I said calmly, pushing the divorce papers and a full transfer of his billion-dollar empire across the table.

I am Joanna Haney, heiress to a New York real estate empire. I had a perfect life with my husband, Brad, and our three-year-old daughter, Chloe. Then, a single sentence from a doctor shattered my world. "Chloe isn't your daughter." The truth was a nightmare. My husband and my best friend, Carla, had swapped our babies at birth. My real daughter was abandoned while I unknowingly raised theirs. They plotted to have me declared insane and locked away. At Chloe's birthday party, they publicly humiliated me, turning the child I raised against me until she screamed that she wished Carla was her mother. My husband and best friend saw me as nothing more than an obstacle to be permanently removed. But they underestimated me. With the secret help of Brad's own mother, I orchestrated my escape to Paris. Now, I will find my real daughter, and they will pay for every single lie.

The world turned into a twisted metal scream. One moment, I was humming along in the car with my son, Ethan, in the back. The next, a violent jolt, a blinding pain, and then - silence. Too much silence. My son was gone. My husband, David, pulled me from the wreck, a mask of panic on his face. But in the emergency room, as I drifted in and out of consciousness, his voice from the hallway cut through the fog: "Just make sure it' s done. No loose ends. The problem is solved. Now I can finally move forward without any… distractions." A distraction? Was our son just a problem to him? The man I loved, the father of my child, had orchestrated his death. And when I woke from surgery, he delivered another cruel blow, a lie that ripped away my ability to ever be a mother again. He buried Ethan without me, dismissed his toys, and called my love for our child an "obsession." The grief I felt became a chilling clarity. He hadn't just lost our son; he had murdered him. And then, at night, I found his hidden life-another woman, Victoria, and another son, Alex. An email from David, dated the day Ethan was born, called my son an "error." How could he have done this? How could his hate run so deep? Every moment, every memory, was re-framed by this horrific betrayal. The man I married was a monster, his grief a sickening performance. My son's last drawing, a simple wish for his daddy to play catch, solidified my purpose. I was no longer a grieving mother; I was an instrument of justice. My work was just beginning.

I waited three long years for Jen, my fiancée, to return from her "deep cover assignment," dreaming of the wedding we' d planned. Then, I overheard her icy voice in my own home office, admitting she' d hidden a pregnancy and given birth to a two-year-old son during her so-called mission, all while plotting to use me to secure a future for her family. The next morning, Jen and her accomplice, Drew, shamelessly brought her son to my house, maintaining their elaborate lie, while Drew set me up for a malicious scheme involving the boy' s severe allergy. Jen watched as I was unjustly accused, choosing to believe Drew over me, and then abandoned me, leaving me injured and alone on my kitchen floor. Drowning in her betrayal and the crushing weight of being a fool, a desperate coldness settled over me. That' s when I picked up the phone, calling my powerful grandfather, ready to accept the arranged marriage offer I' d always rejected, a contract that promised a way out, no matter the cost.

Alex Thompson, the quiet academic decathlon captain, just wanted to escape the loud, lavish graduation party. Surrounded by kids flaunting their Ivy League acceptances, he felt the sting of unspoken judgment. Mark O' Connell, the tech mogul's son, and his popular girlfriend, Brittany, singled him out. They mocked his "empty hands," implying he was a "total bust" with no college acceptance. The taunts escalated quickly, Mark blocking his exit and offering him a hundred dollars to admit he was a "failure." Brittany gloated, waving her USC acceptance, while others showcased their prestigious university logos. Tired of it, Alex quietly presented a small, unassuming metallic medallion. The popular crowd erupted in laughter, dismissing it as a "cheap keychain" or a "weird D&D guild pin." Mark, enjoying his power, then ordered his jock friends to "teach him some manners" and force him out. Why was Alex so unnervingly calm, even as the jocks moved in? What was this mysterious medallion that caused such ridicule, yet held him so composed? Their cruelty was palpable; his quiet dignity hinted at a secret they couldn' t possibly comprehend. Just as they reached for him, Alex's phone buzzed with an urgent, blocked call. "Reroute transport to O'Connell Innovations," he calmly requested. Mark scoffed about his "imaginary escort service," until a convoy of black, federal-looking SUVs suddenly pulled up outside. A sharp woman in a suit, Ms. Hayes, emerged, immediately addressing Alex: "Mr. Thompson, we were expecting you." With icy precision, she revealed his true designation: "The Prometheus Fellowship is a matter of national priority." The party instantly fell silent. Mark and his father, their faces drained of color, realized their petty bullying had just triggered a national incident. Alex, the perceived "loser," calmly walked out, leaving their shattered world behind.

At East Coast University, being Valedictorian wasn't an honor; it was a death sentence. Every year, the top graduate met a horrific end, fueling whispers of a chilling campus curse. Three years ago, my brilliant sister, Claire, delivered her valedictory speech, radiating hope and promising to break this very curse. But just a week later, she was found dead, an alleged suicide, leaving behind a cold, printed note: "Allie, never pursue peak glory." Claire always called me "Allie-cat," never just "Allie;" I knew instantly the note was a fake, a twisted cover-up for her murder. Consumed by grief and an unyielding desire for justice, I spent three years meticulously climbing the academic ladder, earning the top spot, becoming this year's Valedictorian to expose the truth and lure her real killer into the light. The night before graduation, I went live online, publicly challenging the murderer, declaring Claire was slain and not the first victim of this academic reckoning. But instead of catching *them*, the police stormed my dorm, arresting *me*, accusing me of being the serial killer responsible for all the other Valedictorian deaths. Then my own mother, face masked and frantic, burst in, screaming a desperate confession, trying to take the fall for *my* alleged crimes, hinting at a horrifying family secret far deeper than I could ever comprehend. How could I, the one tirelessly hunting the truth, suddenly become the monstrous subject of a nationwide witch hunt, framed as the cold, calculating killer I sought to unmask? Shoved into the back of a police car, the only image seared into my mind was my mother's face—pale, terrified, a silent plea begging me to finally unravel the devastating truth she couldn't speak aloud. Then, chaos erupted: a deliberate, violent car crash, my chance to escape the clutches of a corrupt system and dark accusations. Now, on the run, I chase the elusive whispers of Mom’s hidden fears and a mysterious clue from my long-dead father’s past, determined to unearth the real answers that lie buried beneath the surface of my sister’s tragic death.

Sawyer, an indifferent CEO, returned to exact his revenge and was determined to lay his hands on what he was entitled to. Nora, an illegitimate daughter, got set up by her own cousin. While seeking help, she ran into his arms and got rescued. That eventful night, she was being smothered by his unending saga of kisses. She had no way to escape since she had effectively become a prisoner of his love. “Ever since the moment we shared a bed, there has been no turning back,” he whispered in her ear like a sly devil.

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'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 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 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!"

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.

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."