Sophie Abou

"Don't die on me, Tom, I can't lose you for the second time. It will ruin me." Vivienne said desperately, holding his sweaty face in her hands. Tom hid his pain and smiled up at her. "There are too many filthy fantasies of you and I in my head that I'm yet to carry out. I won't forgive myself if I die, Vee." She couldn't look away... ~ For Eight years, Vivienne lost her light after the death of her teenage lover, Tristan Bennett. Forced to engage his cruel stepbrother based on based on family's agreement, she made the decision to flee on their wedding day. Now, hidden in a city where no one knows her name, she sort for a new job only for her to discover that her new billionaire boss was her lover who died eight years ago. He doesn't remember her. He bears another name. And he has another woman now? Not any ordinary woman-A dangerous mafia lord's daughter who happens to be obsessed with him. But Tristan, now known as Tom in his new mafia world wants to bail out, and he needs a contract marriage with a new woman to leave his obsessive girlfriend. Vivienne agreed to the marriage contract with every intention to help him get back his past memories. But what happens when all circumstances surrounding them threatens to sabotage her efforts? Tom's cruel stepbrother who wanted Vivienne than breath itself-His Mafia boss, and his obsessive girlfriend. Vivienne must risk danger and death to be with her lover again. But some problems are far too complicated with many secrets to solve, and Vivienne is about to find out.

"You make me want to risk it all," Lenora confessed nervously to her boss. "Then risk it all, cos I already have." The ever enigmatic billionaire CEO-Astor Parker, assured her with a kiss to her forehead. -- All Lenora Albert did in her past life was love the wrong man completely, blindly, and to her own destruction. She overlooked Lucian's constant disrespect, convinced that one day, he'd soften toward her. But Lucian never changed. Instead, he got her best friend pregnant, and together, they laughed at her. As if the betrayal wasn't cruel enough, her best friend ended it all by murdering her. But fate isn't done with Lenora. She's brought back in time, given a second life to rewrite her story. When she's wrongfully fired at work after being implicated in a scandal, Lenora lands an unexpected role at a billion-dollar fashion firm as the personal secretary to its powerful CEO, Astor Parker. Cold, brilliant, and dangerously alluring Astor falls for her fast. One that he reveals with actions rather with words. But Lenora no longer believes in love. All she seeks is revenge. Then comes the cruel twist-Astor is Lucian's brother. Astor is willing to burn the world to keep her safe. But beyond Lucian, beyond her traitorous best friend, lurks a darker force. A stalker, who tends to be a greater threat to her life and won't stop until she's dead again. Will she survive again in this second life?

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

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."

Three days before the wedding. I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman. Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress. The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem. It didn't spell Elena. It read Sofia. He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name. Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife. He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance. I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared. "The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?" "Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport." "Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys." I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday. He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead.

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

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.

For seven years, I scrubbed floors, cooked books, and hid my identity as the Vitiello heiress just to test if Dante Moretti loved me for me, not my father’s power. But the massive digital billboard in Times Square froze the blood in my veins. It wasn’t my face next to his under the headline "The King and his new Queen." It was a cocktail waitress named Lola. When I walked into the lobby to confront him, Lola slapped me across the face and crushed my late mother's locket under her stiletto heel. Dante didn't defend me. He didn't even look sorry. "You’re useful, like a stapler," he sneered, checking his watch. "But a King needs a Queen, not a boring clerk. You can stay on as my mistress if you want to keep your job." He thought I was a nobody. He thought he could use me to launder his money and then discard me like trash. He didn't realize that the only reason he wasn't in federal prison was because I was protecting him. I wiped the blood from my lip and pulled out a secure satellite phone. Dante laughed. "Who are you calling? Your mommy?" I stared him dead in the eyes as the line connected. "The pact is void, Papa," I whispered. "Burn them all." Ten minutes later, the glass doors shattered as my father’s military helicopters descended onto the street. Dante fell to his knees, realizing too late that he hadn't just lost a secretary. He had just declared war on the Capo dei Capi.

I didn't mean to call my boss. I definitely didn't mean to leave a seven-minute voicemail of dirty secrets about him. Working for Ruslan Oryolov is the job from hell. The man is impossible-demanding, arrogant, and way too gorgeous for his own good. After eighteen months of fetching his coffee and swallowing my pride, all I wanted was one night of stress relief. But the billionaire CEO of Bane Corporation isn't just a boss from hell. He's the head of the Oryolov Bratva-and now that he's heard every secret I never meant to share, he's decided to claim me. His contract. His rules. His protection for my three orphaned nieces and nephews-the only reason I'm signing my life away to a man I should fear. He owns my signature. He owns my safety. Now he wants my soul.

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."

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.

On our first wedding anniversary, my husband walked out the door. Not for business. For her. I left the divorce papers on the table, my wedding ring next to his untouched champagne, and I disappeared into the night. For a year, I watched Dominic Rossi—the ruthless Underboss of the New York syndicate—drop everything the moment his phone buzzed with another crisis from Sophia. A panic attack. A sleepless night. A lie. I was his wife, the woman he’d promised to cherish, but I was never his priority. So I chose myself. Now he’s tearing the city apart trying to find me. But I’m already gone—building a new life with a job that’s mine, an apartment that’s mine, and a name that doesn’t belong to him. The girl who waited in that penthouse is dead. The woman who walked out isn’t looking back. When Dominic finally corners me, I see the cracks in his armor. He says he’s sorry. He says he loves me. He says he finally understands. But some words are too late, and some promises can’t be fixed. He made me guess for a year. Now it’s his turn to wonder if I’ll ever come back. A heart-wrenching, standalone mafia romance about a woman who refused to be second choice, and the man who learned too late what he’d lost.