The Edge

At my boyfriend's poorest moment, I suddenly broke up with him. Later, he became a Don in the Mafia and married me by any means necessary. Everyone said he loved me to the bone. But every night, he brought different women home, deliberately trying to provoke me. I asked no questions, shed no tears, and never disturbed his trysts with his mistresses. He went crazy with rage instead, kissing me fiercely and demanding, "Why aren't you jealous?" He didn't know I was sick. Dying. While he was furiously taking his revenge on me, I was slowly walking toward death.

I woke up with a throbbing pressure behind my eyes and the taste of metallic champagne in my throat. Instead of my cramped apartment, I was draped in expensive silk under a ceiling the color of a storm cloud. A pear-shaped black diamond sat heavy on my finger, and a document on the nightstand confirmed my worst fear. I was married to Arnulfo Bond, the shipping magnate whose previous eight fiancées had all vanished or died in "accidents." My sister, Verity, had drugged me at the Met Gala and sold me to cover our father’s fifty-million-dollar debt. "You do this, or I pull the plug on Aunt Meredith," she warned me over a burner phone. Arnulfo didn’t look at me with lust; he looked at me like an auditor checking a spreadsheet for defects. He sealed the estate with titanium shutters, turning the mansion into a high-tech fortress. When a doctor saw the whip scars and cigarette burns on my back—reminders of the childhood abuse Verity never faced—Arnulfo realized I wasn't the pampered socialite he’d bought. I was a line item, a transaction, a mute girl trapped between a husband who treated me like property and a family that wanted me dead. I didn't understand how my own sister could be so heartless, or why Arnulfo was suddenly looking at my broken skin with a terrifying, possessive interest. But they all made a fatal mistake. They thought I was just a helpless victim. They didn't know I was "The Ghost," a forensic accountant for the SEC who lived on the dark web. As Arnulfo walked away, I opened a hidden terminal on my phone. I wasn't running anymore; I was infiltrating. I was going to find every cent of his blood money and use it to buy my freedom.

I spent three years playing the perfect "placeholder" boyfriend for a billionaire’s rebellious daughter. I was the safety net, the companion, and the professional distraction paid to keep her out of trouble until she reached her "real" future. But the moment she turned twenty-one, her father slid a fifty-thousand-dollar check across a polished mahogany desk and told me I was a defective appliance being disposed of. He demanded I sign a non-disclosure agreement and disappear forever, treating my years of service like a common trash pickup. I walked out of the estate with a face full of tragic longing, making sure the security cameras caught my wet eyes. But the second the iron gates slammed shut, I wiped my face and opened "Proxy," a high-end app for the 1% who need hired bodies for their dirty emotional work. I didn't have the luxury of a broken heart; I had a foster home to roof and dialysis bills to pay. My next gig was a "hazard pay" nightmare with Antoinette Lowe, a cold-blooded professor who used me as a vessel for her grief. One hour I was wearing a five-thousand-dollar tuxedo while she hurled porcelain vases at my head, screaming about the man who left her at the altar. The next, she had me in a French maid outfit, scrubbing her kitchen floors on my hands and knees while she mocked my dignity. I became her ghost, her servant, and her scripted lover, whispering "you are breathtaking" for a five-hundred-dollar bonus while a silent timer vibrated on my wrist. I lived my life in fragments: a silent audience for a violent cellist by night, and a commanding voice on a headset for a girl who couldn't sleep. I was everyone’s everything, yet I was becoming a man with no face of my own. I realized then that these people didn't want a human; they wanted a mirror that didn't bleed. Antoinette started believing the lies I sold her, convinced she was my muse instead of my paycheck. She didn't see the calculation in my eyes or the way I analyzed her every weakness just to stay in character. "I am whatever you need me to be, Ms. Lowe," I told her, my voice a perfect mask of devotion. The obsession is growing, the roles are bleeding together, and the danger is peaking. But as long as the deposit clears, I’ll keep playing the game until there’s nothing left of me to sell.

Everyone in Seavelt knew that Dr. Ethan Caldwell, the city's top gynecologist, never got close to women. No matter how many youthful figures stood before him, he never so much as glanced their way. I always thought I was different, even after ten years together, when he wouldn't let me touch him. If my fingertips accidentally brushed his sleeve, he'd snap, "Don't touch me." After another failed attempt to climb into his bed, he sent ten men to sleep with me. Afterward, when I cried and lashed out at him, he said flatly, "I can't let you live like a nun forever." The eleventh time he arranged for someone to pin me to the bed, I lost it and swallowed two hundred sleeping pills. When I woke up, Ethan, for the first time ever, allowed me to touch him. I thought I could slowly win him over. But the next day, at his private villa, I caught him holding another woman in his arms. He kissed the top of her head, his eyes burning with a passion I'd never seen. When I confronted him, Ethan looked at me coldly. "Clara's not like you. She doesn't have those filthy thoughts or try to seduce men." I bit my lip until I tasted blood. "Fine, Ethan. Let's break up."

The first thing I noticed was the ultrasound picture on my kitchen island, a grainy image signaling a future I never saw coming. My husband, David, looked pale, and beside him, his intern, Lily, barely legal and with a hand protectively over her flat stomach, smiled triumphantly. "I' m pregnant," Lily announced, "It' s David' s." The words shattered 15 years of my life. David, the man I' d sacrificed everything for, couldn' t meet my eyes. He mumbled about it "just happening." Then my fifteen-year-old adopted son, Alex, walked past me and handed Lily a glass of water, telling her, "You should sit down." He looked at me, his young face hard. "Mom, just listen. Dad made a mistake. Lily is scared. We need to be adults about this." The shock was a physical blow. Not just my husband, but my son, my Alex, was against me. Lily, seeing her advantage, spoke with false sincerity. "Sarah, I don' t want to break up your family. We can make this work. I can live here. You can help me with the baby." The audacity left me breathless. She wanted me to raise my husband' s illegitimate child in my home. My perfectly curated world dissolved into chaos. David, Lily, and Alex stood there, a new family, and I was the inconvenient, old piece. A profound cold dread spread through me. This wasn' t a crack; it was a demolition. Seven years ago, I had taken the fall for David' s career-ending mistake, losing my architectural license and, due to the stress, an ectopic pregnancy that left me unable to have children naturally. David had promised, "You are all the family I will ever need." Now, he fawned over Lily. My sacrifices, my body, my love-none of it was enough. Alex admitted he' d been covering for David and Lily for months, helping them meet. "Maybe if you were a better wife, none of this would have happened," Alex declared, his eyes full of contempt. "Maybe if you paid more attention to Dad instead of your work, he wouldn't have needed someone else." That was the final blow. I looked at their united faces. My heart didn' t just break, it turned to dust. "Get out of my house," I said, my voice dead. "All of you. I want nothing to do with you, or with it." David was speechless. I calmly opened the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out a manila envelope. "I want a divorce," I stated, placing the papers on the coffee table. The words were final. Alex scoffed, "You have nothing without him. Where would you even go?" David tried to placate me, then offered me the house, asking me not to fight for the rest of the assets-for the baby' s sake. Then came the ultimate insult. "I think it would be best if you found somewhere else to stay," he said. "Lily' s pregnancy… all this stress isn' t good for her. Or the baby." He was kicking me out of my own home, the sanctuary I had built, to make room for his mistress. A bone-deep sadness settled over me. It wasn' t my home anymore; it was a house full of strangers. "Fine," I whispered. "I' ll be gone by the end of the week." My choice was made.

The sterile scent of antiseptic always brought me back. It was the smell of my last death – broken and bleeding in a dark alley. But this time, I wasn\'t dying; I was walking into Senator Maxwell' s garden party, my husband, Professor Ethan Thorne, adjusting his tie beside me. To the world, he was a rising academic star. To me, he was my future murderer. Just hours ago, in a lifetime I' d miraculously escaped, his accomplices left me for dead after his brilliant scheme to have his lover, Holly Summers, "save" the Senator' s granddaughter backfired, permanently disfiguring little Lily Maxwell. His last words echoed in my mind, "Make sure she doesn' t talk." I\'d loved him, trusted him with my life, and he' d thrown it all away for power and wealth. Now, he asked, his smile perfectly crafted but his eyes calculating, "Liv, are you ready? Holly is already in the garden." He saw his naive wife, the talented musician. He couldn\'t see the ghost in my eyes, the cold resolve that now fueled me. He had no idea he was looking at the woman who would orchestrate his ruin. I had been given a second chance. Not for love, not for happiness, but for justice. The game had just been reset, but this time, I was writing the rules.

My life was a monument, built brick by brick on my mother' s legacy, dedicated to a name that meant integrity, quality, and family. Then, in a sterile hospital room, it all ended. The man I married, Mark, took everything: my company, my home, my inheritance, and the future of my unborn child. I had saved him from ruin, pulling him from the wreckage of his own failed ventures, using my funds and company resources to clear his name. In return, he promised me the world, and like a fool, I believed him. I invested my expertise, my connections, my family' s capital into him, helping him climb the corporate ladder, all while he climbed on my back. At my most vulnerable, six months pregnant, he stole my designs and sold them to our biggest rival. When I confronted him, he stood with Emily, the woman from that rival firm, sneering, "Even if Emily is ruthless, she loves me and would never betray me!" He twisted the knife, "You\'re just a pawn, Sarah. Bound by our family\'s contract. A tool. If it weren\'t for avenging what your family did to Emily\'s years ago, I wouldn\'t have even bothered with you!" He unraveled everything, funding Emily\'s projects with my firm\'s assets, selling off my child' s future. The hatred consumed me, a fire that burned away every last ounce of love. Then, the world went dark. I woke up, not in that hospital, but in my own bed, two years earlier. My stomach was flat, no baby, no pain. The digital clock showed the exact day Mark first brought Emily home. I heard his voice downstairs, her laugh. He knew. He had come back too. A cold smile spread across my face. "Grandfather," I said, my voice clear and steady as I joined them. "Since Mark likes this woman so much, let\'s welcome her into the family." He had expected tears, not this. My hatred, reborn, was a razor\'s edge. He had just welcomed a viper into his home, a corporate raider I knew would drain him dry in less than ten days.

Ava Reed was at the pinnacle of her career, overseeing the groundbreaking Nexus Tower, a testament to her vision and her late father' s legacy. Then, the blueprint for her dream project, her future-and her trust-shattered into a million pieces. Her live-in assistant, Liam Stone, the man who shared her home and her dreams, the man she loved, had betrayed her. He leaked her confidential designs to the cutthroat Sterling Group, their biggest rival. The city, once her canvas, now twisted into a landscape of public humiliation. Sterling Group retaliated, suing Ava for intellectual property theft, painting her as the villain, and her board members-once her staunchest supporters-began to question her leadership, her judgment, and her very sanity. How could the man she trusted with everything orchestrate such a devastating attack? Was it all a lie? Every shared laugh, every quiet moment? The betrayal was a physical ache, a wound that ripped not just through her company, but through her soul. Just when all hope seemed lost, a cryptic call from Liam offered a tantalizing, dangerous possibility: a deeper conspiracy, a mole within her own company, and a chance for her to fight back.

My biological parents were tech billionaires, yet for me, Sarah Miller, every penny was a battleground. They preached "character" and "tough love," while lavishing everything on Ashley, their "perfect" adopted daughter, who got whatever she wanted. On SAT day, a torrential storm hit. I desperately needed $50 for an Uber to reach the crucial exam on time. My father, flaunting his self-made fortune, snatched my emergency cash – saved from months of skipping lunch – and sneered, "Spoiled brat! Build character." I arrived soaking wet and an hour late, my SATs a blur of cold and despair. Then, on a classmate' s phone, I saw it: A live social media feed of my parents hosting a multi-million dollar bash for Ashley. The reason? She'd won a minor school debate. My mother' s caption gloated, "So proud of our Ashley! #ProudParents #HarrisonLegacy." Millions for Ashley' s 'tests' were fine, but $50 for my future was an exorbitant luxury. Every hope, every scraped-together crumb of affection I'd ever craved, evaporated. Why did they despise their own daughter so much? What had I, their flesh and blood, ever done to earn such icy disdain? In that moment, something inside me snapped. The desperate girl who clung to their approval died. My local college applications lay torn. My illusions, finally, shattered. And I knew: I was done.

My entire life revolved around Ashworth Creatives, the agency I poured my soul into building, and my fiancé, Ethan. Tonight was meant to be my crowning achievement, sealing a colossal client deal and my future within the powerful Ashworth family who' d adopted me. Then, I saw Ethan' s phone. A text from my manipulative adoptive sister, Chloe: "Heard you' re taking Ava to the gala tonight. Don' t forget our little after-party, just us. ;)" Beneath it, a damning video: Ethan and Chloe, laughing, intertwined in my private guesthouse. Chloe was draped in my deceased mother' s diamond necklace, a "gift" from Ethan, according to his text. My blood ran cold. They weren't just having an affair; they were plotting to use my marriage to secure my assets, then throw me aside, giving my agency to her. The Ashworths had groomed me, controlled me, and now, they planned to discard me like trash. I was a means to their end, and Ethan, their willing, despicable pawn. The gala-my moment of triumph-threatened to become my public humiliation. But a cold, unyielding rage ignited inside me, far stronger than any despair. I wouldn't be their victim; I would dismantle them all, piece by agonizing piece. My fingers flew across my own phone, dialing a number I' d heard whispered about, for "companions." "I need an escort," I stated, my voice flat, holding back a torrent of fury. "Tonight. For the industry gala. For a performance. You need to act like my devoted boyfriend." My revenge would be calculated, public, and absolute.

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.

My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine. Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family. To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset. They both thought I was a broken doll they could control. I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice. She sang it, and now her career is over. Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground.

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

Three days after my fiancé publicly dumped me for my stepsister, the Supreme Don issued a command that silenced the entire estate. I wasn't being cast aside. I was being sold to Damien Russo. The "Broken Don." A crippled, scarred monster rumored to have murdered his last two wives. My adoptive mother, Elena, didn't cry for me. She smirked. To her, I was finally being disposed of. She was so confident I was walking to my death that she decided to loot my corpse before I even left. She forged documents to steal my entire inheritance—my biological mother’s trust fund—to pay for my stepsister’s lavish wedding to my ex. "She won't need money where she's going," my stepsister laughed, wearing a dress bought with my stolen funds. They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter. They thought I was too weak, too stupid, and too afraid of the monster to fight back. But they made a fatal mistake. With my aunt’s help, I didn't just find the proof of their embezzlement; I found a weapon. I’m not running from the monster. I’m going to marry him. And when I hand him the evidence that the Herrera family stole from his bride, he won't be my executioner. He will be my vengeance.

Standing at the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral, I waited to marry my wealthy fiancé in front of three hundred of New York's elite. But right before the vows, my phone vibrated in my bouquet. It was a text from my groom: he was backing out because my maid of honor—my supposed best friend—was pregnant with his child. Before the shock of this double betrayal could even settle, his mother dug her manicured claws into my arm and publicly humiliated me. "A woman who can't even attract her own man, how is she worthy of the Doyle name?" She mocked my background, calling me a worthless orphan who only knew how to draw blueprints, turning my broken heart into a public execution of my dignity. The terrified girl inside me vanished, replaced by a dark, burning rage. I didn't understand why I had to let this arrogant family step all over me while they played the innocent victims. I yanked my arm free, tore off my expensive lace veil, and walked straight to the podium to grab the microphone. "The wedding is canceled. The groom is currently busy with my maid of honor." I walked out of the church, leaving them in absolute shock. But as I stumbled onto the street, I fell right into the arms of Damiano Moretti—the exiled, dangerous mafia boss known as the Ghost, who sat in a custom wheelchair. Looking into his cold, storm-gray eyes, I made a reckless, desperate deal. "Marry me."

My husband, Hudson Higgins, used my dowry to buy his way into the Chicago underworld while his family treated me like a servant in my own home. I endured their insults for the sake of my five-year-old daughter, Josie. But then, the unthinkable happened. I found Josie's small, lifeless body by the garden fountain, while my sister-in-law Karly and mother-in-law Eleanor stood by, complaining about their party plans. "She was just too naughty," Karly sneered, adjusting her pearls over my dead child. When I turned to Hudson for help, he looked at me with dead eyes and told me it was just her fate. In that moment of absolute grief, I remembered the words of the ruthless Don Damien Falcone: "Your husband is a man who knows how to close a deal." The truth sliced through me like a blade. Hudson hadn't just ignored the Don's interest in me; he had actively sold me to the Devil of Chicago to buy his seat at the table. He let his family punish me for the very sin he committed. I had lost everything-my dignity, my mother, and now my baby-all sacrificed for a man who traded his wife's body for power. The sorrow in my chest evaporated, replaced by a scorching, blinding thirst for a blood vendetta. After lunging at Hudson and feeling the world explode into white, I opened my eyes to find myself back in the winter of 1928. It was the exact night the nightmare began, and Don Damien Falcone was walking toward me in his penthouse. This time, I won't be the broken bird in his gilded cage. If Hudson wants to use me to climb the ranks, I will use the Don's dark obsession to burn the Higgins family to the ground.

At my boyfriend's poorest moment, I suddenly broke up with him. Later, he became a Don in the Mafia and married me by any means necessary. Everyone said he loved me to the bone. But every night, he brought different women home, deliberately trying to provoke me. I asked no questions, shed no tears, and never disturbed his trysts with his mistresses. He went crazy with rage instead, kissing me fiercely and demanding, "Why aren't you jealous?" He didn't know I was sick. Dying. While he was furiously taking his revenge on me, I was slowly walking toward death.

"Happy Anniversary," my husband said, sliding the separation agreement across the mahogany desk. It was the eighteenth time in five years I had signed these papers. Matteo De Luca, the most ruthless Capo in New York, checked his Rolex with cold impatience. "Sign it, Sera. Bianca is on the ledge again. She needs to see we're over, or she jumps." Bianca. The ward. The broken bird. The woman whose fragile psyche dictated every moment of my marriage. I signed my name, and he left me alone on our anniversary to save her. Again. But saving her wasn't enough. When Bianca pushed me down a flight of marble stairs in a fit of jealous rage, shattering my spine and leaving me paralyzed, I thought Matteo would finally choose me. I was wrong. I woke up in the hospital to find him holding her hand, not mine. "The security footage has been wiped," he told me, his voice void of emotion. "We cannot have a scandal. You fell, Sera. That is the story." He erased the truth. He erased my pain. He protected the woman who crippled me over his own wife. Two months later, he wheeled me into a gala, playing the doting husband while I sat in the chair that was my prison. He didn't know I had a burner phone hidden in my velvet dress. He didn't know that tonight, the obedient wife was going to die on the pavement, and a ghost would rise in her place. I looked at him one last time and dropped the phone in his lap. "I hope she's worth it."

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 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.