Xiao Mao Mao

I woke up ten days after being reborn, right on the day of my engagement to the ambitious prosecutor, Barrett. Before the ceremony, my illegitimate half-sister, Karly, intercepted my heirloom brooch. Also reborn, she smugly stole my fiancé, desperate for the glorious future of a powerful politician's wife. "He needs a wife who can help him rise, not an empty porcelain doll." She didn't know that in our past life, Barrett had ruthlessly traded me to a terrifying Mafia Don just to secure his political future. I happily let her take my nightmare, but my brief taste of freedom shattered instantly. To maintain power, my family's Matriarch ruthlessly married me off to the notorious Carney mafia family instead. On my wedding night, my playboy husband abandoned me for his screaming mistress, leaving me completely humiliated in front of the entire estate. The next morning, my vicious mother-in-law tried to hand me the family's financial ledgers. It looked like the ultimate power, but I knew it was a gilded trap meant to make me the scapegoat for their rotting, bankrupt syndicate. Karly paraded her perfect new life, waiting for me to be devoured by the underworld. My new in-laws laid deadly traps at every turn, expecting me to quietly drown with their sinking ship. Even the Dark Don of Chicago was stalking me from the shadows, furious that I had been given to another man. Everyone thought I was just a helpless pawn trapped in a monster's cage. But I was no longer the naive girl from my past life. Since they decided to throw me to the wolves, I would make sure I had the teeth to tear this whole world down.

My husband, Dalton, publicly humiliated me for the tenth time, flaunting his pregnant mistress, Justine, at a conference for the company I built. I was trapped, paying for my mother' s endless medical bills. But then Justine took it a step further. She went to my mother' s hospital and cruelly told her everything-all the affairs, all my sacrifices. My mother, in her despair, jumped from the rooftop. At the funeral, Justine crashed the service with a brass band, showering my mother' s casket with confetti. "She's just trying to be thoughtful!" Dalton yelled, shielding her as I lunged forward in a blind rage. He shoved me back, his eyes blazing. "Don't you dare touch her! She's carrying my child!" He raised his hand to strike me, and I braced for the impact, my world completely shattered. But the blow never landed. A chillingly calm, powerful voice cut through the chaos. "I wouldn't advise that, Dalton." My estranged, billionaire father had just arrived.

I flew to London with a custom engagement ring, ready to surprise my boyfriend for our anniversary. Instead, I found him wearing a matching "couple's bracelet" with his "anxious" female best friend, Britney. He even ditched our anniversary dinner because she had a "panic attack" over a chipped nail. Realizing I was the third wheel in my own relationship, I quietly transferred to a university in Berlin to escape. But Graham wouldn't let go. He followed me across the continent, dragging my mother along to guilt-trip me into coming back. When that didn't work, he handed me a "farewell gift." As I opened the box, a sickly sweet smell hit me-he was trying to drug me to kidnap me back to New York. My legs gave out, but I didn't hit the floor. I fell into the arms of Harrison McKee-Britney's terrifyingly powerful uncle and my new professor. "Find another side chick, Graham," Harrison growled, pulling me close. "This one is taken."

I had been dead for a year, my spirit tethered to my daughter, Emma, watching over her in the orphanage. Then, the director called my ex-husband, Elroy, for Emma' s urgent medical treatment, but he coldly refused, telling her, "Then let her die. It would be a convenience. She can go join her short-lived mother." A week later, Emma died at five years old, because her father wouldn' t spare the money to save her. Days later, Elroy arrived at the orphanage, believing I had faked Emma' s death to manipulate him. He pulled back the sheet covering her small body, sneering, "Very realistic. A good prop." He then picked up our daughter' s body, carried her outside, and tossed her into a dumpster, scattering raw meat around it, taunting, "Let's see how long this prop lasts when the stray dogs find it." My spirit screamed, but I was powerless as dogs tore at her. He believed I was alive, orchestrating a sick game, but I was a ghost, a silent, screaming witness to his monstrous cruelty. Why did he hate us so much? Then, I saw him with Ivonne, his childhood sweetheart, heavily pregnant, and the horrifying truth clicked: he had a new family, and he wanted Emma' s heart for his new daughter.

For twenty years, all Ava Lewis wanted was to find her biological family, the missing piece of her identity. When her adopted sister, Brittany Miller, beamed and said, "Almost there, Ava. You're going to love our old town. It's where all the family traditions started," Ava believed it was the start of something beautiful. But the moment they stepped out of the car at a secluded, dark cabin, the loving facade shattered. Two burly men appeared, seizing her arms as her "parents" stood by, their faces blank, their smiles gone. "Don't fight it, Ava," Brittany's voice was chillingly cold. "It'll be easier if you just cooperate." Dragged inside, bound to a chair, Ava watched in horror as Brittany approached with a strange, ancient device, a needle glinting. "This is our family tradition," Brittany explained, piercing Ava's chest. "We are connecting your life force to this ancient family relic. It will bring us good fortune and health." Her "parents" chimed in, "It's your duty as our daughter." Ava' s life force drained away with each transfer, leaving her hollow and weak, while her biological family seemingly thrived. But after the forty-ninth transfer, the truth, colder and crueler than any physical pain, was revealed: "That's the point," Brittany whispered, a malicious smile twisting her lips. "This was never about health. It was about your death." Bound, exposed, bleeding, Ava realized she was merely a product, auctioned off to the highest bidder for their depraved entertainment. Then he appeared, "the Master," a man who seemed to stop the horror, only to brand her with her own essence, making her a monument to his family's generational vendetta. But from the depths of betrayal and despair, a burning rage ignited. She might be broken, but she would not be silenced. She was Ava Lewis, and she would make them pay.

The scent of gasoline and burning silk was the last thing I knew on my wedding day. Flames danced around me, illuminating my new husband, Liam Thompson, my stepbrother, as he clutched a locket with my stepmother Sarah' s picture. "You ruined it all, Ava," he sneered, his face contorted with a hatred I' d never imagined. He carved Sarah' s name into my skin and then forced the locket down my throat, piece by agonizing piece. The suffocation, the searing pain, the betrayal-they were a twisted sacrament to a love I was only just beginning to comprehend, a love that would consume us all. Then, darkness. I awoke to the antiseptic smell of my familiar bedroom, sunlight streaming through the window. Downstairs, Liam' s frantic yelling and Sarah' s feigned sobs echoed from below, a chilling replay of the day my life ended before. It was real. I was back. Back to the day of the incident, the day my father signed away my future to protect his pride, the day I walked like a prisoner to my own execution. The humiliation, the pain, the fire-never again. A sharp knock on my door. It was Sophia, my "best friend," feigning concern, ready to lead me into the trap. "Ava? Are you in there? Something terrible is happening downstairs!" she called. But this time, I wouldn't be the victim. I smiled, a cold, sharp curve on my lips. "A Céleste purse like that is more important. You deserve it." As her footsteps faded down the hall, racing for a status symbol, I knew this was my chance. Let the real performance begin.

They threw me out of this city three years ago, calling me crazy, an obsessed medical student trying to ruin a business heir' s life because he chose someone else. Now I' m back, a doctor, ready to face the judgment all over again. But at my parents' suffocating welcome-home party, the news blared, announcing the brain death of renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carter. My world shattered. My glass hit the floor, and a raw, guttural sob tore through me. Everyone stared, not with judgment for Ethan, but with confusion for a grief I couldn' t name for a man I didn' t remember. They thought I was breaking over Ethan Hayes' engagement to Emily Vance. But I hadn't shed a single tear for him. Instead, I was destroyed by the death of a stranger on the news. That moment, kneeling amidst broken glass and a grief too immense to comprehend, was the beginning. It ignited a desperate, burning need to understand who Dr. Ben Carter was and why his death felt like the end of my world.

My daughter Maya' s ragged breath was the only sound in our quiet, dusty home, her small body wracked by fever. I begged my husband, Caleb, to take her to a doctor, but his eyes were cold and his voice flat as he refused, prioritizing his sister-in-law Brenda' s son over our dying child. My mother-in-law, Mary-Ann, handed me old, expired antibiotics, saying they should be "good enough," sealing Maya' s fate. For two agonizing days, I watched her fade, desperately clinging to a miracle that never came. On the third night, my world shattered as Maya went still in my arms, her silent passing tearing a primal scream from my throat. In my grief and rage, I confronted Caleb and Mary-Ann, only for Caleb to silence me with a violent fist, leaving me bleeding and abandoned in the darkest national forest. As I lay dying, I saw a chilling vision: Brenda, wearing my locket, stealing the life my long-lost Army Colonel father had come to claim for me. They took everything-my daughter, my life, my future-and gave it to my worst enemies. But then, I woke with a gasp, the silver locket cool against my skin, Maya sleeping soundly beside me. It was three days before her illness, three days before her death, and this time, I wasn't just a mother. This time, I was an avenger.

I woke with a gasp, the Southern sun blazing. Today was my debutante ball, the pinnacle for any young woman of the Ashley dynasty. But the date, the gown, the very air in my room, triggered a flood of memories from a lifetime ago-the same ball, the same stolen heirloom dress on Babs, my family's charity case. I watched passively as she paraded in my priceless gown, public outrage engulfing me, until Father' s sudden, suspicious death and my brother Tom Jr., infatuated with Babs, seized power. They sent me away, to years of hell in a "behavioral correction institute," where I eventually faded, learning Babs orchestrated it all for revenge, announcing her engagement to Tom Jr. as my life ended. The cruelty of that past life, the utter betrayal by Beau, my fiancé, Tom, my brother, and the sheer injustice of Babs's deceit, surged through my veins. How could they have been so blind, so easily swayed by a viper in our midst? No. Not again. This time, I sat up, my spirit forged in the fires of that hell. My gown was missing, but I remembered another: Mother's legendary debutante dress. This time, I would not despair. This time, I would be in control. This time, Babs would not win. This time, they would all pay.

I woke up in a stale motel room, the memory of my brutal murder, orchestrated by my fiancée Seraphina Vance and her cousin Julian Thorne, searing everything. This was my second chance, a fresh start. I tried to escape their glittering, poisonous world again, but they dragged me back, trapping me in a sadistic game. They made me Seraphina' s pet, then Julian' s punching bag, a living target for their physical and emotional abuse. Then, in a horrific twist, Julian brutally murdered my loyal dog, Buster, before my eyes, accusing me of madness. But the ultimate betrayal came when he ruthlessly orchestrated a fire, consuming my innocent parents and little sister. My family was gone. Annihilated because of them. How could such monstrous cruelty exist? Why was I doomed to relive this nightmare, only to lose everything again? As grief hardened into an icy, unyielding rage, an unexpected ally emerged: Veronica Shaw, the Senator's enigmatic Chief of Staff. She saw their evil. Together, we would expose them. This time, the Vance empire would burn, and the flames would consume their lies and crimes, bringing justice for my shattered life.

Every time it rained, Hans would wake up from the nightmare that had haunted him for the past eight years. The picture that his love died in his arms closed the door on others. Another rainy night, a car accident brought Moira into his life. This girl had the same features as his beloved. Now that she had lost all her memory after waking up, she was the perfect substitute for his lost lover. However, fate had another plan and their sweetness was replaced by the cruel truth. She was none other than the daughter of his sworn enemy. Where would their story go? Would love still survive in hatred?

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

"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?

Tomorrow was my wedding day to Jason Brennan, the heir to a powerful Mafia family. My family, the Falcones, had even taken in an orphaned girl, Elena, treating her like my own sister. But in my nightmare of a past life, I choked on my own blood, poisoned by the arsenic Elena slipped into my food every day. As I lay agonizingly close to death, Jason stood over me with a cold laugh, holding Elena in his arms. "We just needed the Falcone wealth, Bella. And the docks." Then came the gunfire. I was forced to watch them slaughter my father and my brother, tearing my family out by the roots. After my death, Elena even spread vicious rumors that I was a barren spinster, twisting their foul betrayal into a tragic tale of noble sacrifice to completely destroy my legacy. The metallic tang of my own blood was so real I could still taste the ash. I didn't understand why the girl my family sheltered for eight years would repay our charity with such venom. And I understood even less how the man who swore to love me could orchestrate my brutal murder without a shred of hesitation. Bolting upright in bed, drenched in cold sweat, I realized I had returned to the night before my wedding. This time, I wouldn't just cancel the engagement. I would hand their treason directly to the Mafia's most terrifying Enforcer, and watch them burn.