Alfred

For five years, I lived a beautiful lie. I was Aliana Hughes, the cherished wife of the city's most feared Mafia Capo and the beloved daughter of the Don. I believed my arranged marriage had blossomed into love. On my birthday, my husband promised me the amusement park. Instead, I found him there with his other family, celebrating the fifth birthday of the son I never knew he had. I overheard their plan. My husband called me a "naive fool," a placeholder to legitimize his secret son. The ultimate betrayal wasn't his affair, but the sight of my own father's car parked across the street. My family wasn't just aware; they were the architects of my ruin. Back home, I found the proof: a secret photo album of my husband's other family posing with my parents, and records showing my father had bankrolled the entire deception. They had even drugged me on weekends so he could play happy family. The grief didn't break me. It turned into something cold and sharp. I was a ghost in a life that was never mine, and a ghost has nothing to lose. I copied every damning file onto a USB drive. As they celebrated their perfect day, I sent a courier with my parting gift: a recording of their treachery. While their world burned, I walked toward the airport, ready to erase myself and start over.

I was the dust beneath the pack's feet, an Omega nobody wanted. Yet, the Moon Goddess paired me with Ethan Reed, the Alpha heir. He told me he had amnesia, that he couldn't feel our bond. I was foolish enough to wait for him. Until I saw him running away with his mistress, Chloe. When their SUV flipped and caught fire on the highway, I didn't hesitate. I dragged Ethan from the wreckage, my hands bleeding, my heart racing. But as soon as he was safe, he didn't check on me. "Save her!" He roared, his eyes flashing gold. He used the Alpha Command. My body locked up, forced to obey against my will. I dove back into the burning car to drag Chloe out, shattering my leg as the fuel tank exploded. I lay in the dirt, dying, while Ethan cradled Chloe—who had barely a scratch. When the healers arrived, Ethan stood over me, cold and indifferent. "Do not touch the Omega until Chloe is treated," he ordered. He looked me in the eye and called me weak. He left me to bleed out in the cold night air for the sake of a woman who smirked at my pain. Something inside me snapped. With my last breath, I didn't beg. I rejected him. They buried an empty coffin the next morning. Three years later, I walked back into the Blood Moon Pack. I wasn't Ava the servant anymore. I was the White Wolf. And I was ready to burn his kingdom to the ground.

I was Grayson Warren’s "broken doll," a disgraced socialite kept on a short leash to pay off my family’s debts. To the world, I was a fragile liability; to Grayson, I was a pet he could humiliate for sport, forcing me to play the role of a mentally unstable girl while I secretly gathered evidence against his empire. The cruelty peaked when Grayson forced me to break three years of sobriety in front of his investors, mocking my struggle before making me kneel on a golf course to scrub his shoes. He treated my life like a game, literally betting my sanity against a corporate board seat while he soft-launched a new relationship with a high-profile PR queen. When the pressure triggered a massive panic attack, Grayson abandoned me in a private clinic just so he wouldn't miss a dinner reservation. Even my own mother turned against me, threatening to leak my psychiatric records and brand me a "violent delusional" if I didn't beg for Grayson’s forgiveness. I was trapped between a man who owned my debt and a mother who valued her estate over my daughter’s life. I realized then that they would never let me go; they would only break me until there was nothing left. They thought they had erased my soul, but they forgot I was the only witness to the night my true love, Felix, was murdered. I was done being the victim. I faked a suicide jump off the Queensboro Bridge to go off the grid, then crashed Grayson’s elite gala in a dress that signaled his downfall. Just as Grayson tried to physically crush me one last time, the room went silent. Felix Law, the man the world thought was dead for three years, walked out of the shadows with a federal warrant in his hand. "Take your hands off her, Warren." The game didn't just change; it ended. Felix was back from the dead, and this time, we were burning the empire to the ground together.

Standing on the edge of a limestone quarry in the pouring rain, I thought we were just having another family argument. Then my mother, Ardell, screamed that I’d let the life insurance lapse, and my brother, Hakeem, stepped out of the shadows with a cold, calculating look in his eyes. I told them I knew the truth—that Hakeem had cut the brake lines on my father’s car—but they didn't flinch. Instead, Hakeem shoved me hard, sending me tumbling into the abyss. I hit a jagged ledge thirty feet down, the sound of my spine snapping like a dry branch echoing through the rain. As I lay paralyzed and broken, my mother watched from above, asking if I was dead yet, before Hakeem whistled for the starving wild dogs that lived in the quarry floor. "Nature will clean up the mess," Hakeem said, walking away while the first set of teeth sank into my throat. The agony was a tidal wave, but the rage was hotter, a nuclear hatred for the family that stole my future and the daughter I’d never see grow up. I died in that dirt, consumed by fire and teeth, wondering how a mother could choose a car payment over her own child's life. But then, I gasped for air, sitting bolt upright in my old trailer bedroom. I looked at the calendar: May 12, 2014. I was seventeen again, but I wasn't the same girl. Inside this malnourished body was the mind of a world-class trauma surgeon and the elite hacker known as 'Phantom.' This time, I wasn't going to the quarry; I was going for their throats.

My husband studied the fertility report on his desk with the same cold precision he used to order executions. On our fifth anniversary, he didn't give me diamonds. He checked his Rolex and delivered the sentence that ended my life. "Your genetic profile is defective, Catarina." He didn't just ask for a divorce. He pressed a button on his intercom, and a woman walked in. She was loud, chewing gum, and wearing a dress that was too tight. "This is Aria," Alex said, his voice flat. "She is a vessel. She will carry the heir your body cannot produce." He claimed it was just business, that she would be exiled once the child was born. But at my birthday gala, when Aria tripped into a champagne tower, the truth shattered along with the glass. I was the one bleeding, a jagged shard slicing my arm. But Alex didn't look at me. He threw his body over her. He cradled his mistress, screaming for a doctor to check the baby, while I stood there with blood dripping onto the marble floor, completely invisible. I watched him give his own blood to save her in the clinic later that night. I saw the way he looked at her—not like a vessel, but like a prize. He thought I would stay. He thought I was the obedient Mafia wife who would raise his mistress's child to save the family image. So when he handed me a stack of papers to "protect the assets," he was too arrogant to read them. He didn't notice the header read *Decree of Divorce*. While he was busy buying baby clothes for a child that didn't even exist, I wiped my identity from the servers, signed the papers he blindly authorized, and boarded a one-way jet to Paris. By the time he realizes his "heir" is a fraud, I will already be a ghost.

I sold my vintage Fender bass to pay for Jarvis' s med school tuition, believing his promise that we would conquer the world together. Ten years later, I found a hidden folder on his laptop titled "Exit Strategy," detailing exactly how to leave me homeless while he moved our daughter's tutor into my house. He wasn't just cheating; he was systematically erasing me. On the nanny cam, I watched him laugh as Chrissy, the "angelic" tutor, wore my silk robe and mocked my music as childish noise. He told her I was nothing but a stepping stone, a connection to my father's influence that he had finally outgrown. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I quietly gathered the evidence, secured my assets, and served him divorce papers that shattered his carefully curated reputation. But when Chrissy, driven mad by his lies, dragged our daughter to a snowy cliff' s edge, Jarvis finally fell to his knees. He wept, begging for a second chance, swearing I was the only woman he ever loved. I looked at the man who had plotted my ruin, then down at my daughter who saw right through him. "It's too late, Jarvis," I said, my voice colder than the wind. I walked away into the snow, holding my daughter tight, leaving him alone in the cold with nothing but his regrets.

My husband and coach hadn't answered my calls in five days. I was home, sick and nursing a career-ending injury, when I found him on another woman's social media, his arm draped around her shoulders, a smile on his face I hadn't seen in years. The next time I saw him was at the hospital. She was with him, pregnant with his child. When my bad ankle gave out and I collapsed, he ignored me on the floor to protect her. My medical reports scattered across the tiles, and she deliberately stomped on them with a smirk. He didn't defend me. He just called me pathetic for making a scene. "You got injured, Aria," he sneered, his voice cold. "You fell apart. You're a mess." But that report she stomped on held my terminal diagnosis. I had months, maybe a year, left to live. With nothing left to lose, I filed for divorce and booked a one-way ticket to see the world. My life was ending, but for the first time, I was going to live it for myself.

My father's routine heart surgery went horribly wrong, leaving him in a coma. The surgeon was Fabiola, my husband Julian's celebrated childhood friend. When I begged Julian to use his immense resources to save him, he gave me a chilling ultimatum: my father's life for Fabiola's career. To protect her, he stood by as she deliberately scalded my hand with boiling soup. He locked me in a rat-infested wine cellar to "teach me a lesson." He even force-fed me peanuts, knowing I had a deadly allergy, and had me committed to a psychiatric hospital when I still wouldn't break. I didn't understand how the man who once promised to build a fortress around me had become the one launching the attack, all for a woman he claimed was just a friend. So, as Fabiola shoved me from the deck of our yacht into the dark water below, I didn't fight. I let myself fall, because faking my death was the only way to destroy them both.

For seven years, I was the perfect husband, or rather, the perfect live-in help, trapped in a gilded cage after the Davies family took me in following my parents' death and arranged a marriage to their daughter, Olivia. I gave up my dreams, working a stable job and tending to their every need, becoming a well-dressed butler to a wife who treated me like a convenience and a daughter who called me Ethan. But then, one night, after celebrating a major promotion, I returned home to find the smart lock code changed. Access denied. My own daughter, Lily, saw me through the frosted glass and walked away, refusing to open the door. Olivia's phone went straight to voicemail, the house line just rang. A profound cold settled in my bones as I realized one small deviation from seven years of perfect service meant I was literally cast aside. The next morning, I drove to a diner and called a divorce lawyer. When Olivia finally called, annoyed I wasn't home for Lily's school ride, I simply said, "I'm with my lawyer. I'm filing for divorce." She laughed, bewildered, asking if one night outside was worth it. I thought of the endless chores, my abandoned art, Lily calling me Ethan, the cold silence of the house, and the shadow behind the glass. "Absolutely," I replied. Her tone shifted, sharp and authoritative. "Fine. You can divorce me. But you can't take Lily. She's a Davies. She stays here." I smiled grimly. "Don't worry," I told her, "I'll waive my parental rights. You can have full custody." I then quit the job, gave up the car, and hung up, feeling a wave of liberation I hadn't known in years. I shed the role of their dutiful servant, moving back to my dilapidated childhood home. I rebuilt it with my own hands, filmed the process, and watched in stunned silence as my online channel, "The Rebuilder," exploded, bringing me more success and peace than I'd ever known. This was my life now, simple, honest, and truly mine.

The acrid smell of antiseptic and fear hit me first, a phantom scent from a life I' d already lost. I was back, standing under the buzzing fluorescent lights of the 24/7 animal emergency hospital, on the same exhaustion-laden shift I' d worked before. My phone buzzed with a text from Molly, my best friend: "Thanks again for covering, Gabs! You' re a lifesaver. Brian and I owe you one!" Brian. My husband. Molly. My best friend. The names twisted in my gut, bringing back the crushing weight of their betrayal, the public shame, the cold click of a bathroom door. I remembered the screaming, the accusations, and Duchess, the champion show dog, lifeless in her kennel. I remembered Brian' s cold eyes, Molly' s fake concern, and the news of their luxury car business, bought with my life insurance money. They didn' t just ruin my life; they murdered it. But they failed. I was back, at the exact moment my universe began to unravel. This time, I wasn' t the broken woman who ended it all. My name is Gabrielle Fuller, and this time, things would be different.

I lay dying on the cold Chicago asphalt, Nightfall's attack tearing through me. My last hope, the Heartstone Amulet, was clutched in my hand, meant for Mark, our fallen leader, the one the Order truly needed. Then Olivia, the orphaned girl I' d raised and loved like a sister, knelt beside me. I gasped, holding out the Amulet: "Give it to Mark, he needs it!" Her hand reached for it… and then tightened, not gently, but with a bone-chilling strength. She ripped the Amulet from my grasp. "I need him to live, Ethan!" she whispered, her eyes fixed solely on Mark. She scrambled away, leaving me to the cold embrace of death as she revived him. She never looked back. The betrayal, from her, was a physical blow, worse than any wound. My selflessness, my sacrifice… wasted on a fool. It wasn't for the Order, but her desperate desire for him. Mark always got what he wanted. How could I have been so blind, so utterly foolish, to die for someone who could betray me with such chilling indifference? But then, darkness faded into a blinding flash. I stood, years earlier, in the grimy Chicago alley where I'd first found Olivia. The skirmish was ending, she was there, injured. Before, I would have rushed to her side, full of compassion. But this time, I felt nothing but ice. I remembered. And this time, the illusionist would play a different game.

My life with Ethan Hayes was a true New York fairytale. He was devastatingly handsome, a brilliant tech CEO, and our engagement was the stuff of lifestyle blogs and glittering society columns. I poured my heart into our eight years together, building a perfect future, a "Golden Couple" image people envied. Until I found the texts: "Can't wait until she's out of the picture for good. You promised." And then the photos, the eggplant emoji, the casual cruelty of a Cartier bracelet – "one-of-a-kind," he'd said – glinting on *her* wrist, identical to mine. Chloe Vance, an old college acquaintance, was his secret "escape," his "excitement." Not just a fling, but a long-term, calculated betrayal. He lavished gifts on me, charming me even as he publicly defended her, dismissing my concerns. He even gave his pregnant mistress his family heirloom, the one he swore was meant only for me. My birthday ended with him ditching me for her manufactured crisis, only for me to receive a photo of Chloe's pregnancy report. Eight years. A lifetime of promises. All built on his lies. How could someone be so utterly, flawlessly deceptive? My love for him turned to ice, replaced by a searing ache of betrayal and a cold, quiet rage. I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't scream. I pressed call on Liam Walker's name, a man from a past I’d left behind, and uttered four words that would change everything: "Marry me, Liam." It was time for a reckoning. And I knew just how to deliver it.

Their love was innocent but touching. She swallowed down all the frustration in life when she was with him. All she wanted was that this love would be last forever, but reality taught her a hard lesson. She thought she made the right choice for each other. However, when they met again, tears welled up her eyes. Love was complicated, but she would always choose him no matter what.

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 Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me. But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest. The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me. They didn't. Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her. They let me burn to keep her warm. When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages. That was the moment Elena Vitiello died. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York. By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring. "You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them. "Burn for it."

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.

MAFIA RUTHLESS: BOOK ONE ************* ************ *********** The devil's captive became his heart's keeper. *************** *********** *********** Revenge! The only thing the strong ,powerful and ruthless mafia don Alessandro Moretti has harboured for years. When he discovers the identity of his mother's killer,he doesn't go after the man alone. He wants everything belonging to Giovanni Conti burnt to the ground,including his most valuable possession-his daughter. Auctioned off by her uncle to the highest bidder,Isabelle Conti's fate is sealed. Not until masked gunmen crash her wedding,and she wakes up in the don's den. She becomes his captive. His obsession...His willing prey. His weapon of vengeance. Isabelle Conti turns out to be different from the others,this time around she doesn't want his affection...she needs his downfall. And when she finally has him where she wants him and she's torn between her feelings and surrendering to the ruthless don. One question threatens to destroy everything, Have you ever loved me?

My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent. But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress. Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes. "If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you." To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife. When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala. He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent. He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters. He thought he had broken me. He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage. But he made a fatal error. He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign. They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me. And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck. I didn't jump to die. I jumped to be reborn. And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin.

"Don't die on me, Tom, I can't lose you for the second time. It will ruin me." Vivienne said desperately, holding his sweaty face in her hands. Tom hid his pain and smiled up at her. "There are too many filthy fantasies of you and I in my head that I'm yet to carry out. I won't forgive myself if I die, Vee." She couldn't look away... ~ For Eight years, Vivienne lost her light after the death of her teenage lover, Tristan Bennett. Forced to engage his cruel stepbrother based on based on family's agreement, she made the decision to flee on their wedding day. Now, hidden in a city where no one knows her name, she sort for a new job only for her to discover that her new billionaire boss was her lover who died eight years ago. He doesn't remember her. He bears another name. And he has another woman now? Not any ordinary woman-A dangerous mafia lord's daughter who happens to be obsessed with him. But Tristan, now known as Tom in his new mafia world wants to bail out, and he needs a contract marriage with a new woman to leave his obsessive girlfriend. Vivienne agreed to the marriage contract with every intention to help him get back his past memories. But what happens when all circumstances surrounding them threatens to sabotage her efforts? Tom's cruel stepbrother who wanted Vivienne than breath itself-His Mafia boss, and his obsessive girlfriend. Vivienne must risk danger and death to be with her lover again. But some problems are far too complicated with many secrets to solve, and Vivienne is about to find out.

I replaced my twin sister in a marriage contract to the ruthless Mafia Don, Donovan Blackwood. For three years, I was a ghost in his home, silently enduring his coldness while he flaunted his mistress, Chloe. On the very last day of our contract, Chloe staged an accident. Donovan didn't hesitate. He forced me to drain my blood to save her life. Then, to prove his loyalty to her, he drove me to the cliffs and pushed me into the freezing ocean. He even locked me in a cellar infested with spiders—my deepest phobia—because she lied and said I threatened her. He thought he was punishing the spoiled, arrogant Isabella. He didn't know he was breaking Ava, the woman who had silently memorized his allergies and waited up for him in the dark every single night. When I finally took my fifty million dollars and vanished, I left behind nothing but the divorce papers and a photo revealing the truth. He tore the city apart, destroying my family to find me, only to realize he had tortured the wrong woman. Now, he is standing on my porch in the pouring rain, staring in horror at the simple wooden ring on my finger given to me by another man. He falls to his knees, begging for a chance to love the wife he tried to destroy. I look at him, feeling absolutely nothing. "It's too late, Donovan," I say, locking the door. "You killed her."

For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe. On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring. Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger. Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family. When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence. "Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets." My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet. He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts. He was wrong. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use. Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed. *I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.* His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning. *The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?* I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me. I looked down and typed three letters. *Yes.*

I went to the family lawyer for a routine travel clearance. Instead, I was handed a divorce decree. The ink was three years old. While I had been playing the role of the dutiful Capo's wife, Dante had secretly divorced me the day after our fifth anniversary. Twenty-four hours later, he legally married the nanny, Gia, and named her cruel-eyed son as his heir. I returned home to confront him, only for the boy to throw boiling tomato soup on me. Dante didn't check my burns. He cradled the boy and looked at me with pure, drug-fueled hatred, calling me a monster for upsetting his "son." The final blow came in a parking garage. A car sped toward us. Dante didn't pull me to safety. He shoved me into the vehicle's path, using my body as a human shield to protect his mistress. Lying broken on the asphalt, I realized Aria Vitiello was already dead to him. So, I decided to make it official. I arranged a private flight over the Atlantic and ensured there were no survivors. By the time Dante was weeping over the wreckage, realizing too late that he had been poisoned against me, I was already in France. The Canary was dead. The Reaper had risen.