Zaccaria Linn

Seventeen years after going missing, Brooklyn was finally brought back to her ultra-wealthy biological family. But instead of a tearful reunion, her parents and sisters treated her like infectious garbage, mocking her cheap clothes and calling her a country bumpkin. They dumped her into a remedial class to hide her away, cut off her allowance, and threatened to lock down her trust fund to force her into absolute submission. One night, Brooklyn stood in the shadows of the estate and overheard a conversation that shattered everything. She hadn't wandered off as a child. Her parents had deliberately thrown her away because a fake fortune teller claimed her birth chart was a jinx to the family's wealth. They felt zero remorse, only plotting to banish her again the moment she turned eighteen. Her biological father thought he was putting a leash on a helpless, uneducated girl by cutting off her pocket change. He had no idea that Brooklyn was the anonymous VIP who casually dropped sixty million dollars on an emerald at the city's most exclusive auction. He didn't know she was the elusive medical genius that the world's most powerful billionaires were currently tearing the city apart to find. The last microscopic shred of hope for a family withered into cold ash in her chest. "Lock down my trust fund?" She pulled out her encrypted phone and activated her shadow networks, severing herself entirely from their pathetic surveillance. Since they believed she was a jinx, she was going to show them exactly what a real curse looked like.

Adina Miller was the darling of New York society, a brilliant designer with a loving family and a fiancé she adored. But her perfect life was a carefully orchestrated lie. Her fiancé, Zane, and her best friend, Ashlyn, betrayed her. They melted her face with acid, shattered her leg, and tricked her into signing away her family's entire corporate legacy. Trapped in a grimy warehouse, Adina choked on her own blood as Zane calmly explained how he had weaponized her trust to destroy her family. Ashlyn laughed, flaunting a massive diamond ring bought with Adina's stolen fortune. When Adina desperately clawed at the floor, silently pleading for her baby daughter's life, Ashlyn just smiled. "Don't worry about that little bastard. She'll be joining you very soon." Zane kicked her broken ribs, and Ashlyn plunged a lethal syringe into her neck. They kissed over her dying body before throwing her into the freezing Hudson River. As the dark water swallowed her, a white-hot rage consumed her soul. Why had she been so blind? She swore a vow forged in agony: if there was another life, she would make them pay in blood. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open. The icy river was gone. She was sitting in front of a brightly lit mirror on the day of her college graduation—the exact day Zane had publicly proposed to her. This time, as Zane got down on one knee in front of the cheering crowd, Adina walked right past his hopeful face. She stopped directly in front of Caden Sinclair, the most ruthless billionaire in New York, and gave him a calculated smile. "Take me away."

Serena was pulled out of a filthy Appalachian trailer park by the wealthy Sinclair family, expected to be their perfectly obedient daughter. But to secure a pharmaceutical supply chain, her adoptive father demanded she sign a marriage contract with a known predator in the Manhattan social scene. When she flatly refused, the family she had tried to please for twenty years instantly turned on her. "You are nothing without us!" her father roared, threatening to freeze her accounts and throw her back on the streets. Her adoptive mother looked at her with pure disgust, praising her perfect sister before screaming at Serena to get out and never come back. Stripped of her jewelry and kicked out into the freezing night, she was treated like a disposable stray dog. To make matters worse, a vindictive socialite immediately hired four syndicate thugs to break her legs in a dark alley. They all thought she was just a helpless, penniless orphan who would eventually crawl back and beg for their mercy. They had no idea she was actually the elusive master pharmacist Elara, a genius with a massive underground bounty on her head. And they certainly didn't know she was already secretly, legally married to Lucas Sterling-the most ruthless and powerful billionaire in New York. As the thugs lunged at her, a black Maybach violently blocked the alley, and her fiercely protective husband stepped out into the shadows. Tearing her adoptive mother's hush-money check into tiny shreds, Serena looked at the man who had just offered her his entire estate. She wasn't leaving this city; she was going to stay right here and watch the Sinclair family completely fall apart.

On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table. Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen. "Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over." I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward. Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant. She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest. As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me. He hugged her. "It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you." The betrayal didn't stop there. When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police. When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line—the one meant for life-or-death situations. He declined the call. He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife. That was the moment the chain broke. As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come. I opened the door and jumped into the dark. Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement. Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one.

My fiancé sent me a text ordering me to serve his mistress, unaware that the waitress holding the tray was actually the daughter of the man who owned his soul. I was working undercover at his club, playing the role of a poor nobody to test his character before our wedding. But tonight, the test ended in disaster. His mistress, Jaden, walked in and treated me like dirt. When I brought her drink, she slapped the tray, spilling scalding coffee all over my hand. The pain was white-hot. My skin blistered instantly, peeling away in angry red patches. I showed Connor the injury on a video call, expecting protection. Expecting him to be a man. Instead, he looked at my burned hand and then at his investors. Panic filled his eyes. "Fix it, Blake," he roared. "Apologize to her." "She burned me," I said quietly. "I don't care! Kneel if you have to. Kiss her ring. Just make her happy so I can finish this deal!" He told the Principessa of the Shaw crime family to kneel to a woman who meant nothing. He sacrificed his future wife to save face. Something inside me snapped. It wasn't my heart; it was the leash I had placed on myself. "Okay," I whispered. I hung up the phone and dropped it into a pot of boiling pasta water. Then I turned to the Executive Chef, a former hitman who recognized the lethal shift in my eyes. "Lock the doors," I ordered. "And tell my father I'm ready to burn this place to the ground."

My Broadway dreams died with a fall on stage. For three agonizing years, my husband Hudson was my rock, nursing me through what doctors called a career-ending injury. Then I discovered the truth. My "injury" was a lie, a conspiracy orchestrated by my husband and our doctor, Bethany. They had been slowly poisoning me to keep me crippled and dependent. When I confronted them, they tried to silence me with an overdose. In the hospital, Bethany carved up my body with a scalpel. To complete their twisted fantasy, they decided she would carry my child, forcibly harvesting my embryos while I was awake on a pain-enhancing drug. Hudson just watched. "Just endure it, Emmy," he murmured. But they didn't break me. I escaped and meticulously erased myself from his world. My final act before disappearing was pressing 'send'-unleashing every piece of evidence to the entire world. "You took everything from me," I wrote. "Now, I'll take everything from you. Tenfold."

When I discovered my husband's safe combination was my stepsister's birthday, my world tilted. Inside, I found the blueprint for how he planned to erase me. He would claim my unborn child for his true love. The postnup was cold and calculated: billions in assets, all designated for Kaleigh. Not a penny for me, his wife of ten years. He tore up the divorce papers I offered, threatening to use his power to take my baby. Kaleigh showed up at my door, taunting me, calling me a "convenient placeholder." She wanted to raise my child as her own. I realized I wasn't just a wife. I was a surrogate. A fertile womb he married because his true love was barren. Our entire marriage was a grotesque lie designed to produce an heir for them. Then, an anonymous email landed in my inbox. It contained a recording of my husband calling me his "incubator." That's when I knew I couldn't just leave. I had to die.

My father raised seven men to be my protectors, my companions, and one day, my husband. As the heiress to a Texas empire, they were sworn to protect me above all else. But they were all in love with my adopted sister, Savannah. I discovered their secret in the shadows of a stable, listening to the man I loved, Sterling, tell Savannah that marrying me was just a "small price to pay" to give her the world. My entire life was a lie, a performance for her benefit. They weren't my family; they were parasites, and I was their host. Their cruelty escalated. Savannah sabotaged my saddle, causing an accident that nearly killed me, and Sterling covered it up. Then, at my 21st birthday party, they broadcast a secret video of me sobbing over him for all of high society to see, completing their campaign to utterly humiliate me. They wanted to break me down until I was nothing more than a prize to be won. They thought I would shatter. But as the room descended into chaos, my childhood friend Preston stepped onto the stage, pulling me to his side. His voice cut through the noise, clear and decisive. "Tonight is about a new beginning," he announced, looking directly at Sterling's stunned face. "Because Clara Beaumont has agreed to be my wife."

The dream always started the same way: my sister, Sarah, screaming my name, her face twisted in pure terror, pointing at a world where the dead walked. This time, the screaming wasn't a dream. It was real, coming from down the hall. "They're coming! I saw them!" Sarah shrieked, convinced her nightmares were prophecies. My parents rushed to her, cooing about a bad dream, but Sarah insisted it was real, clearer this time, a prophecy of rotting flesh and dead eyes. I lay in my bed, heart a slow drum, remembering my first life: the foolish concern, the attempts to reason that always ended with their blind siding of Sarah. My logic was met with her tears, my calm with her hysterics, and our parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, labeled me "insensitive," not understanding how "special" Sarah was. My efforts to save their retirement, to hide car keys from her "prepper" conventions, led to slaps and silent treatments, to accusations of sabotaging her "survival instincts." The family crumbled around her delusion, losing their house, savings, everything, and when the apocalypse never came, they blamed me for not believing, for not supporting their perfect, unified front of madness. They cast me out, and I died alone in a homeless shelter, not from a zombie, but from pneumonia. Now, I was 22 again, lying in my childhood bed, listening to the prelude of that same disaster, a second chance at a test I' d failed spectacularly. This time, I knew the answers. "It' s going to start with the birds!" Sarah yelled, predicting a mass blackbird death event, completely unaware I knew about the city' s planned fumigation. My parents leaned into her every word, their faces a mix of worry and excitement, while a bitter taste filled my mouth. I wouldn' t stop her. I wouldn' t save them. This time, I would watch them burn. And I would bring the gasoline.

The roar of the crowd was the last thing I heard. I died on a dirty city street, falsely accused, a monster in their eyes. It all started with a gift for my 25th birthday-an antique smartwatch from Eleanor, my adoptive mother. It wasn't just a heavy, ornate trinket; it was a life-drainer. Weeks after I clasped it on, my vibrant youth withered, my hair thinned, my mind fogged. As I became a frail old woman, Eleanor, terrified of aging, grew younger, radiant with my stolen vitality. She locked me in the dusty attic, telling the world I' d had a breakdown. My only hope, Bethany, my ex-boyfriend' s fiancé, found me. She helped me escape, or so I thought. She live-streamed my chaotic flight, twisting a narrative: I was a fraud, mentally unstable, stealing from Eleanor. The crowd, incited by her online posts, saw a villain, not a victim. They closed in, their rage contorting their faces. Bethany watched, a triumphant smile on her face, as my life drained away for the second, and final, time. But death was not the end. Floating in a void, I saw Eleanor and Bethany toasting with champagne, celebrating my demise. The injustice burned through me, a rage so pure it could tear the universe apart. They had taken everything. Then, I woke up. Gasping for air, my skin smooth, my hair thick and dark-25 again. It was my birthday, the day it all started. This time, the watch wouldn' t be for me. This time, I was going to offer the "life-drainer" to Bethany. I would watch Eleanor and Bethany, two predators bound by vanity and greed, tear each other apart. This time, I would not be the victim.

The polo match shimmered with Hamptons elite, a cruel contrast to my jazz singer soul. Julian, my husband, was, as always, obsessed with his "white moonlight," Scarlett Vance, and her daughter Penelope. My twin sons, Leo and Noah, just five years old, were the only music in my gilded cage. Then Penelope, Scarlett's daughter, had a medical crisis, aplastic anemia, needing a bone marrow transplant. Julian' s words froze my blood: Leo and Noah, my babies, were perfect matches. He ignored my pleas, dismissing their age, proclaiming them "useful to the family." He ripped my sons from my arms, forcing them into a dangerous, excessive donation for Penelope, leaving them bleeding and feverish. While my sons lay dying, he was at a gala celebrating Penelope' s "miraculous recovery." He called my desperate calls for help "dramatic," then hung up. With no drivers, no one to help, I scooped my fading boys into my arms, rushing into the pouring Manhattan rain. I begged a public hospital for help, drenched in their blood, only to be met with news reports of Julian lighting up the Empire State Building in celebratory pink, and witnesses whispering, "Negligent mother." Then the doctor came. "They're gone." My sons, my world, brutally taken by a cold, calculating man who saw them as a resource. But Julian didn't know his mother, Eleanor Thorne, was about to expose the monstrous lie he' d sacrificed our children for. He didn' t know this was just the beginning of my reckoning.

People suddenly appeared on the street cutting and eating each other's flesh. In order to find out the truth, a group of reporters went deep into the White Mountain area based on the diary of the deceased. "They ate what they shouldn't have eaten, saw what they shouldn't have seen, and will pay the price for it."

When is the worst time to tell someone he's going to be a father? Probably the day of the wedding... When he is getting married to someone else. Well, that is exactly what I did. But my hands were tied. Literally. Matvey Groza is a dangerous man. And nine months ago, he strolled into my shop looking for a custom suit. But when I accidentally walked in on him in the changing room, *I* was the one that ended up needing a new set of clothes. It was a one-time mistake. After that... good riddance. But the pregnancy test I took a month later had other plans. I kept it a secret from everyone. Or so I thought. But when Matvey's enemies learned that I was pregnant with his child, they kidnapped me and held me hostage. Until I broke free and ran as fast as I could. And I had no one else to turn to but the devil himself. What better time for me to enter the church... ... than as the pastor says, "Speak now or forever hold your peace"?

I spent the night with a stranger... Who got me pregnant... And turned out to be my boss... Whoops, sorry, did I say "boss"? I meant a MOB boss. To be fair, I didn't know he was my boss when I slept with him. I thought he was just the kind stranger offering me a place to stay. But one night in Misha Orlov's hotel room got me way more than I bargained for. It got me champagne that tasted like starlight. Satin sheets as soft as a dream. And a man with silver eyes who showed me how it felt to come undone. And then, in the morning... He was gone. That's I needed to get my life together anyway. After all, my ex-not-quite-husband (it's a long story) just emptied all our bank accounts and disappeared, taking my home and my money and my job with him. So I'm starting from a blank slate. I find myself a new apartment. A new job. And I put both Misha and my husband behind me. At least, I thought I did. Until Day 1 of orientation. When I learn that Misha Orlov is my new boss. That's bad enough. What's worse is what came next. A car crash. A doctor's appointment. And two pieces of unsettling news. Congratulations, the doctor says. You're pregnant. Congratulations, Misha says. You and I are getting married.

I was discarded the moment my husband gained power. Divorced, Humiliated and left with nothing...while my mother lay dying. Serena Black believed loyalty and sacrifice would be enough to secure her place beside Antonio Romano. Instead, she discovers she was only ever a stepping stone. He replaces her with a pregnant woman claiming to be the legendary Black family heiress and erases Serena from his life without mercy. Broken and desperate, Serena's fall should have ended there. Instead, it places her directly in the path of Dante Romano,the ruthless Don of the Romano Mafia empire, and the father of the man who destroyed her. Cold, powerful, and untouchable, Dante recognizes something no one else does: the scar on Serena's neck, and the truth it might hide. A contract marriage binds them together. Protection for obedience. Revenge for her name. But as secrets surface and bloodlines are questioned, Serena realizes she may not be the powerless woman everyone believes her to be. And Dante finds himself risking his empire for a woman he was never meant to touch. In a world ruled by violence and betrayal, one wrong choice could cost her life... Or crown her the most dangerous queen the mafia has ever known.

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.

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 world is a mess; you want nothing to do with this" "You don't have the right to decide that for me." Her chest was heaving, harsh breaths scraping the walls of her nose. "I am your wife, and I am choosing to be in your mess." He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her closer. "This is your last chance. Once you step in, I can never let go." "I'm not planning on it." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jade Saint, who was switched at birth, is coerced into an arranged marriage after returning to the Sterling home. That is, until Roman Volkov – the richest and most dangerous man in the city – claims her as his bride. Desperate to save her dying adoptive mother, she willingly enters into a contract marriage with the devil himself. But marriage to Roman is not what she thinks it is – not the enemies lurking in the shadows. Not the dangerous world he refuses to explain, and certainly not the way his cold touch begins to feel like a promise instead of a warning. Because the more she tries to understand him, the more she realises he didn't choose her by accident. And the truth behind it all may destroy her.

Seventeen years after going missing, Brooklyn was finally brought back to her ultra-wealthy biological family. But instead of a tearful reunion, her parents and sisters treated her like infectious garbage, mocking her cheap clothes and calling her a country bumpkin. They dumped her into a remedial class to hide her away, cut off her allowance, and threatened to lock down her trust fund to force her into absolute submission. One night, Brooklyn stood in the shadows of the estate and overheard a conversation that shattered everything. She hadn't wandered off as a child. Her parents had deliberately thrown her away because a fake fortune teller claimed her birth chart was a jinx to the family's wealth. They felt zero remorse, only plotting to banish her again the moment she turned eighteen. Her biological father thought he was putting a leash on a helpless, uneducated girl by cutting off her pocket change. He had no idea that Brooklyn was the anonymous VIP who casually dropped sixty million dollars on an emerald at the city's most exclusive auction. He didn't know she was the elusive medical genius that the world's most powerful billionaires were currently tearing the city apart to find. The last microscopic shred of hope for a family withered into cold ash in her chest. "Lock down my trust fund?" She pulled out her encrypted phone and activated her shadow networks, severing herself entirely from their pathetic surveillance. Since they believed she was a jinx, she was going to show them exactly what a real curse looked like.

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 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."

Tomorrow, I am supposed to walk down the aisle and marry the most lethal mafia boss on the East Coast. But right now, I am trapped inside a locked glass conservatory. His childhood friend turned on the industrial ceiling sprinklers, laughing as the cold water rapidly filled the room. She knew about my crippling phobia of drowning. I looked through the glass at my fiancé, Fabiano, begging him to save me. Instead of helping, he just leaned against the terrace railing, sipping his bourbon while his men recorded my terror on their phones. “Stop making a scene and embarrassing me,” he warned through the intercom, annoyed by my panic. Then, his childhood friend smiled and whispered a truth that froze my blood. “I didn't just guess your little phobia. Fabiano gave it to me.” For three years, I laundered his dirty money, secured his legitimate supply chains, and loved him with my life. I had confided my deepest trauma to him in the dark, and he had turned it into a parlor game for his mistress. How could the man who promised to be my shield watch me drown without an ounce of pity? The fear of the rising water was suddenly burned away by a cold, clarifying rage. I picked up a heavy iron stand, smashed the bulletproof glass with my bleeding hands, and triggered my private tactical team. Since he thought I was just a disposable accountant, I would show him what happens when you cross the woman who actually owns his empire.