Poisoned Love, A Friendship's Deadly End

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.

For three years, I documented the slow death of my marriage in a black journal. It was my 100-point divorce plan: for every time my husband, Blake, chose his first love, Ariana, over me, I deducted points. When the score hit zero, I would leave. The final points vanished the night he left me bleeding out from a car crash. I was eight weeks pregnant with the child we had prayed for. In the ER, the nurses frantically called him-the star surgeon of the very hospital I was dying in. "Dr. Santos, we have a Jane Doe, O-negative, bleeding out. She's pregnant, and we're about to lose them both. We need you to authorize an emergency blood transfer." His voice came over the speaker, cold and impatient. "I can't. My priority is Miss Whitfield. Do what you can for the patient, but I can't divert anything right now." He hung up. He condemned his own child to death to ensure his ex-girlfriend had resources on standby after a minor procedure.

I spent a year scrubbing floors in my fiancé’s club, hiding my identity as the daughter of the Capo dei Capi. I needed to know if Connor Bishop was a King worth merging empires with, or just a puppet. The answer came walking in wearing a neon pink dress. Jaden Juarez, a civilian he was infatuated with, didn't just treat me like a servant; she deliberately poured scalding espresso over my hand because I refused to be her valet. The pain was blinding, my skin blistering instantly. I video-called Connor, showing him the burn, expecting him to enforce the code of our world. Instead, seeing his investors watching, he panicked. He chose to sacrifice me to save face. "Get on your knees," he roared through the speaker. "Beg her pardon. Show her the respect she deserves." He wanted the daughter of the most dangerous man on the East Coast to kneel to his mistress. He thought he was showing strength. He didn't realize he was looking at a woman who could burn his entire world to ash with a single phone call. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I simply hung up the phone and locked the kitchen doors. Then, I dialed the one number everyone in the underworld feared. "Dad," I said, my voice cold as steel. "Code Black. Bring the papers." "And send the wolves."

The ninety-ninth time Jax Little broke my heart was the last time. We were the golden couple of Northgate High, our future perfectly mapped out for UCLA. But in our senior year, he fell for a new girl, Catalina, and our love story became a sick, exhausting dance of his betrayals and my empty threats to leave. At a graduation party, Catalina "accidentally" pulled me into the pool with her. Jax dove in without a second's hesitation. He swam right past me as I struggled, wrapped his arms around Catalina, and pulled her to safety. As he helped her out to the cheers of his friends, he glanced back at me, my body shivering and my mascara running in black rivers. "Your life isn't my problem anymore," he said, his voice as cold as the water I was drowning in. That night, something inside me finally shattered. I went home, opened my laptop, and clicked the button that confirmed my admission. Not to UCLA with him, but to NYU, an entire country away.

I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

In the previous life, Maggie Johnson was so cowardly, gullible and stupid that she was coaxed by her fiance and stepsister and then broke her legs and lost everything including her fortune, love and even life. However, she was so lucky that she was reborn in the year before everything happened. Since her life restarted, how could she repeat a previous tragedy? Therefore, in this life, she took the opportunity to improve herself and take revenge on the ones who had ever insulted her. Facing the people who had humiliated her previously, she became smart and experienced to break their frames and tricks that had caused her to hurt in the previous life. Finally, no one could stop her pace to amaze the world any more.

In her previous life, Kimberly endured the betrayal of her husband, the cruel machinations of an evil woman, and the endless tyranny of her in-laws. It culminated in the bankruptcy of her family, and ultimately, her death. After being reborn, she resolved to seek retribution against those who had wronged her, and ensure her family's prosperity. To her shock, the most unattainable man from her past suddenly set his sights on her. "You may have overlooked me before, but I shall capture your heart this time around."

Kristine planned to surprise her husband with a helicopter for their fifth anniversary, then learned the marriage had been a setup from day one. The man she called a husband never loved her-it was all one hell of a lie. She dropped the act, shed a lot of weight, and rebuilt herself, ready to make every bastard eat their words. After an impulsive remarriage, she accidentally exposed who she really was: a star designer and heir to a billion-dollar empire. And the bodyguard she'd hired was him all along! Who would've known, the "college student" she married turned out to be a feared underworld kingpin.

To most, Verena passed for a small-town clinic doctor; in truth, she worked quiet miracles. Three years after Isaac fell hopelessly for her and kept vigil through lonely nights, a crash left him in a wheelchair and stripped his memory. To keep him alive, Verena married him, only to hear, "I will never love you." She just smiled. "That works out-I'm not in love with you, either." Entangled in doubt, he recoiled from hope, yet her patience held him fast-kneeling to meet his eyes, palm warm on his hair, steadying him-until her glowing smile rekindled feelings he believed gone forever.

Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé. Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now-billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn't mind. I'd crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one? Wrong. One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That's when it hit me-he didn't love me. He didn't even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn't even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup. So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster-my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise. Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol. Enter him. Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I'd met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised. But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life. And, as it turned out, the best decision I'd ever made. Because my one-night stand isn't just some random guy. He's richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with. And now, he's not letting me go.

"Let's get married," Mia declares, her voice trembling despite her defiant gaze into Stefan's guarded brown eyes. She needs this, even if he seems untouchable. Stefan raises a skeptical brow. "And why would I do that?" His voice was low, like a warning, and it made her shiver even though she tried not to show it. "We both have one thing in common," Mia continues, her gaze unwavering. "Shitty fathers. They want to take what's ours and give it to who they think deserves it." A pointed pause hangs in the air. "The only difference between us is that you're an illegitimate child, and I'm not." Stefan studies her, the heiress in her designer armor, the fire in her eyes that matches the burn of his own rage. "That's your solution? A wedding band as a weapon?" He said ignoring the part where she just referred to him as an illegitimate child. "The only weapon they won't see coming." She steps closer, close enough for him to catch the scent of her perfume, gunpowder and jasmine. "Our fathers stole our birthrights. The sole reason they betrayed us. We join forces, create our own empire that'll bring down theirs." A beat of silence. Then, Stefan's mouth curves into something sharp. "One condition," he murmurs, closing the distance. "No divorces. No surrenders. If we're doing this, it's for life" "Deal" Mia said without missing a beat. Her father wants to destroy her life. She wouldn't give him the pleasure, she would destroy her life as she seems fit. ................ Two shattered heirs. One deadly vow. A marriage built on revenge. Mia Meyers was born to rule her father's empire (so she thought), until he named his bastard son heir instead. Stefan Sterling knows the sting of betrayal too. His father discarded him like trash. Now the rivals' disgraced children have a poisonous proposal: Marry for vengeance. Crush their fathers' legacies. Never speak of divorce. Whoever cracks first loses everything. Can these two rivals, united by their vengeful hearts, pull off a marriage of convenience to reclaim what they believe is rightfully theirs? Or will their fathers' animosity, and their own complicated pasts tear their fragile alliance apart?