No More Handyman: His Last Stand

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 was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history. But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me. He swam past me. He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water. When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl. "You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home." Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her. I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife." He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps. He was wrong. While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room. I was packing his ring into a cardboard box. I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead. By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.

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.

Five years ago, I saved my fiancé' s life on a mountain in Aspen. The fall left me with a permanent vision impairment-a constant, shimmering reminder of the day I chose him over my own perfect sight. He repaid me by secretly changing our Aspen wedding to Miami because his best friend, Annmarie, complained it was too cold. I overheard him call my sacrifice "sentimental crap" and watched him buy her a fifty-thousand-dollar dress while scoffing at mine. On our wedding day, he left me waiting at the altar to rush to Annmarie' s side for a conveniently timed "panic attack." He was so sure I' d forgive him. He always was. He saw my sacrifice not as a gift, but as a contract that guaranteed my submission. So when he finally called the empty Miami venue, I let him hear the mountain wind and the chapel bells before I spoke. "My wedding is about to start," I told him. "But it' s not with you."

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."

Linsey was stood up by her groom to run off with another woman. Furious, she grabbed a random stranger and declared, "Let's get married!" She had acted on impulse, realizing too late that her new husband was the notorious rascal, Collin. The public laughed at her, and even her runaway ex offered to reconcile. But Linsey scoffed at him. "My husband and I are very much in love!" Everyone thought she was delusional. Then Collin was revealed to be the richest man in the world. In front of everyone, he got down on one knee and held up a stunning diamond ring. "I look forward to our forever, honey."

Lyric had spent her life being hated. Bullied for her scarred face and hated by everyone-including her own mate-she was always told she was ugly. Her mate only kept her around to gain territory, and the moment he got what he wanted, he rejected her, leaving her broken and alone. Then, she met him. The first man to call her beautiful. The first man to show her what it felt like to be loved. It was only one night, but it changed everything. For Lyric, he was a saint, a savior. For him, she was the only woman that had ever made him cum in bed-a problem he had been battling for years. Lyric thought her life would finally be different, but like everyone else in her life, he lied. And when she found out who he really was, she realized he wasn't just dangerous-he was the kind of man you don't escape from. Lyric wanted to run. She wanted freedom. But she desired to navigate her way and take back her respect, to rise above the ashes. Eventually, she was forced into a dark world she didn't wish to get involved with.

Eliana reunited with her family, now ruined by fate: Dad jailed, Mom deathly ill, six crushed brothers, and a fake daughter who'd fled for richer prey. Everyone sneered. But at her command, Eliana summoned the Onyx Syndicate. Bars opened, sickness vanished, and her brothers rose-one walking again, others soaring in business, tech, and art. When society mocked the "country girl," she unmasked herself: miracle doctor, famed painter, genius hacker, shadow queen. A powerful tycoon held her close. "Country girl? She's my fiancée!" Eliana glared at him. "Dream on." Resolutely, he vowed never to let go.

Rosalynn's marriage to Brian wasn't what she envisioned it to be. Her husband, Brian, barely came home. He avoided her like a plague. Worse still, he was always in the news for dating numerous celebrities. Rosalynn persevered until she couldn't take it anymore. She upped and left after filing for a divorce. Everything changed days later. Brian took interest in a designer that worked for his company anonymously. From her profile, he could tell that she was brilliant and dazzling. He pulled the stops to find out her true identity. Little did he know that he was going to receive the greatest shocker of his life. Brian bit his finger with regret when he recalled his past actions and the woman he foolishly let go.

After five years of playing the perfect daughter, Rylie was exposed as a stand-in. Her fiancé bolted, friends scattered, and her adoptive brothers shoved her out, telling her to grovel back to her real family. Done with humiliation, she swore to claw back what was hers. Shock followed: her birth family ruled the town's wealth. Overnight, she became their precious girl. The boardroom brother canceled meetings, the genius brother ditched his lab, the musician brother postponed a tour. As those who spurned her begged forgiveness, Admiral Brad Morgan calmly declared, "She's already taken."

Since she was ten, Noreen had been by Caiden's side, watching him rise from a young boy into a respected CEO. After two years of marriage, though, his visits home grew rare. Gossip among the wealthy said he despised her. Even his beloved mocked her hopes, and his circle treated her with scorn. People forgot about her decade of loyalty. She clung to memories and became a figure of ridicule, worn out from trying. They thought he'd won his freedom, but he dropped to his knees and begged, "Noreen, you're the only one I love." Leaving behind the divorce papers, she walked away.