Bei Ke

On our ninth anniversary, my husband Dominick didn't toast to us. Instead, he rested his hand on his mistress's pregnant belly in front of the entire crime family. I was just a debt payment to him, a ghost in a forty-thousand-dollar gown. But the humiliation didn't end in the ballroom. When his mistress, Chastity, started hemorrhaging later that night, he didn't call an ambulance. He dragged me to the family clinic. He knew I had a serious heart condition. He knew a transfusion of that magnitude could trigger a fatal cardiac event. "She is carrying my son," he said, his eyes devoid of any humanity. "You will give her whatever she needs." I begged him. I bargained for my freedom. He lied and agreed, just to get the needle in my arm. As my dark red blood flowed through the tube to save the woman destroying my life, my chest tightened. The monitors began to scream. My heart was failing. "Mr. Reyes! She's crashing!" the doctor shouted. Dominick didn't even turn around. He walked out of the room to hold Chastity's hand, leaving me to die on the table. I survived, but Annis Myers died in that clinic. He thought I would return to the penthouse and continue being his obedient, silent wife. He thought he owned the blood in my veins. He was wrong. I went back to the penthouse one last time. I struck a match. I let the room burn. By the time Dominick realized I wasn't in the ashes, I was already on a plane to London. I had left my wedding ring in an envelope, along with the medical records that proved his cruelty. He wanted a war? I would give him one.

On our fifth anniversary, instead of a ring, I gave Elena a death sentence. I believed her father killed mine. So, I spent five years making her fall in love with me just to break her. I replaced her with Sofia, the woman I thought donated her kidney to save me. I stripped Elena of her dignity, forced her to crawl over hot coals, and locked her in a freezing cellar until her artificial heart gave out. She died alone in the mud, pulling the plug on her own life to escape me. It was only when I saw her body on the autopsy table that I found the truth. Sofia’s skin was flawless. It was Elena who had the scar. Elena gave me her kidney. Elena saved me while I destroyed her. Broken by the truth, I drove a knife into my own chest to join her in hell. But I didn't die. I woke up ten years in the past, back in high school. I thought God gave me a second chance to fix it. I saved her father. I cleared the path for our love. I walked toward her in the school courtyard, ready to be the hero she deserved. But she didn't look at me with love. She looked at me with absolute, freezing terror. I wasn't the only one who remembered the previous life.

For five years, I was the loving Mrs. Clayton, enduring painful fertility treatments to give my husband, Bronson, the heir he deserved. He was my rock, my protector since a college hazing incident left me barren. Then I overheard the truth from behind his study door. Our marriage was a sham, never legally filed. He' d had a vasectomy before our wedding. It was all an elaborate lie to protect Bridgett-his childhood love and the very woman who orchestrated the assault that destroyed my future. He wasn't my savior. He was her accomplice, and I was just his compensation. Every gentle touch, every reassuring word, was a performance. He thought I' d never find out. He thought I' d always be his devoted, clueless wife. But when his precious Bridgett harmed my sick brother, my grief turned to ice. I smiled sweetly, played the part of the forgiving wife, and began gathering the evidence that would burn their entire world to the ground.

I was the "Ice Queen," the perfect Mafia wife who managed the De Luca empire's millions while my husband, Alessandro, played the part of the feared Underboss. I thought my silence and competence earned me respect. That was until I woke up in the estate's medical bay with a shattered leg. My saddle had snapped mid-jump. It wasn't wear and tear; it was sabotage. Lying in the dark, feigning sleep, I heard Alessandro whispering outside my door with his enforcer. "The buckle was filed down," the enforcer said urgently. "Aria tampered with it. She could have broken her neck." I waited for Alessandro’s rage. I waited for him to execute the mistress who tried to kill his wife. Instead, his voice was cold and dismissive. "Bury it," Alessandro ordered. "It’s just a broken leg. Aria was upset about the credit cards. She just wanted to teach Katarina a lesson." A lesson. My husband wasn't just cheating on me; he was protecting the woman who tried to cripple me. Three days later, at the Family Charity Gala, he humiliated me publicly. He outbid me for my grandmother's heirloom necklace and clasped it around Aria's neck while I watched from my wheelchair. He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a piece of furniture to be rearranged. He didn't know I had bugged the entire villa while I was recovering. He didn't know I had the recordings of what Aria was really doing when he wasn't looking. I gripped the USB drive in my pocket and signaled the tech team to lock the doors. The statue was broken, but he was about to learn that shattered ice is sharp enough to slit a throat.

My fifth wedding anniversary gift was a call from my husband's publicist. He told me to come down to the 5th Precinct because there was a "situation." With my billionaire husband, Elijah, there was always a situation. When I got there, I saw a young influencer accusing him of kidnapping. But the real shock wasn't the accusation. It was her face-she looked exactly like me, five years younger. Elijah arrived, but instead of being angry, he showered her with affection, calling her "Kiley" and gifting her a diamond necklace. He treated the kidnapping claim like a lover's quarrel. When his eyes finally met mine, the warmth vanished, replaced by ice. He looked at me like I was a piece of furniture. A cop muttered to his partner, "That's Mrs. Peters. The real one. Or, well, the first one." He hates me. He blames me for his sister's death five years ago, believing I ran away and left her to die. He doesn't know I collapsed while running for help. He doesn't know about my terminal heart condition. So he tortures me with my living replica, slowly killing the woman he vowed to love "till death do us part." The irony is, he doesn't have to try so hard. My doctor just told me I only have a few weeks left to live.

I flew back from London, eager to surprise Sarah, my childhood sweetheart and the woman I was set to marry. I drove straight to her house, imagining her joyful expression. But then I saw her through the window, cradling a baby, with my best friend, Mark Stevens, his arm possessively around her. My world stopped. Their voices drifted out: "He's just an immature nuisance," Mark agreed, "We don't need him disrupting our perfect family." "God, he can be such a child. Can you imagine if he came back and saw this?" Sarah laughed bitterly. They were talking about me-the man who was counting the days until he could come home to them. They hadn't just moved on; they had conspired against me, hiding their marriage, their child, for over a year. I felt like a fool, a punchline to a joke I was the last to hear. The love I believed was waiting for me was a phantom. The friendship I cherished was a lie. I showed up to her house, hoping for an explanation, only to be met with feigned innocence and gaslighting. I realized she was wearing her wedding ring, hidden in plain sight on a necklace she' d worn in every video call. The cruelty was breathtaking. I couldn't endure the lies. The person I loved didn't exist. She was a cruel, manipulative stranger. There was nothing left but the cold, hard truth. So, I walked away from the house, from the yard, from twenty years of memories that now felt like they belonged to someone else.

The antiseptic smell of the hospital clung to me as I watched my brother, Leo, fight for every shallow breath-his life fading, his only hope an experimental surgery with an impossible price tag. My art, once my passion, gathered dust, while my father' s legacy, his architectural masterpiece, was brazenly stolen. Julian Vance, my father' s apprentice, stood before the towering Skyline Spire, a perfect replica of my dad' s unpatented dream, "Helios." He smiled, sharp and confident, taking all the credit at its grand unveiling. Rage, hot and sharp, coursed through me. He had stolen my dying father's masterpiece, building an empire while Leo lay dying. I confronted him, shouting the truth amidst flashing cameras. He dismissed me as distraught, a hysterical girl consumed by grief, his hand on my shoulder a public brand of instability. The crowd believed him, the powerful mogul, not the desperate girl in frayed denim. His eyes, though, flickered with a fleeting, inner turmoil that I inexplicably heard, a frantic whisper of guilt and terror. Humiliated, abandoned by my own family who valued Julian' s influence over my truth, I stumbled into the cold night. A sharp pain seized my chest, and blood stained my palm. It wasn't just Leo who was sick; I was too, and time was running out. He bought my silence, evicted me, and forced me into his gilded cage. I was now his servant, subjected to endless degradation by his cruel lover, Isabella, and Julian himself, whose every action, though outwardly cold, seemed driven by a terrifying internal war. I found myself trapped, desperately trying to survive, with a new life unexpectedly growing inside me, a secret I couldn't keep.

The social worker cleared her throat, her voice tight with forced professionalism. "Jocelyn, Stella, we have some incredible news." I looked at my sister, Stella, and a cold dread crept up my spine. This was the beginning of the end; I had lived this moment before. In my last life, this was the day our biological families found us, only to tear us apart and send us to separate hells. I remembered the Clarks, my so-called family who let my "sister" Nicole frame me, break my leg, and destroy my track career, then threw me away into a life of abuse. Stella remembered the Lawrences; her jealous cousin Debra drugged her, stole her recipes, and had her locked away to rot in a mental institution. We both died, in our own ways. And now we were back, high school seniors, with the full, horrific memories of that future burned into our souls. "Your biological families have been located," the social worker chirped, her smile not reaching her eyes. "They' re waiting downstairs to take you home." My stomach churned, but Stella' s hand found mine under the table, her grip an iron promise. This time, no one was separating us. This time, we would fight back.

My son Leo, valedictorian, MIT-bound. On his graduation day, my heart swelled with pride as I ironed his gown. He was my entire world, the only light left in it. Then, my ex-wife Victoria called, her voice flat: "Problem at the old industrial freezer. Go now." Dread seized me. I ran. The massive door creaked open to darkness and a metallic scent. My phone's light revealed the horror: Leo, grotesque, hundreds of construction spikes pinning him. "Dad?" he whispered. Then he was gone. Trapped with his body, I called Victoria. She scoffed, dismissing his death as a "prank." My own father only wanted money. At the hospital, Victoria' s security blocked Leo' s ambulance while she discussed a new family with Chad. He then tricked me into a "miracle procedure" to save Leo – actually, to dissolve his body and destroy evidence. I burst into the OR: hazmat suits, acrid chemicals, Leo' s desecrated remains. They were dissolving my son. My grief transformed into pure, black rage. Victoria then called this unspeakable horror a "prank that got carried away." The profound betrayal and boundless cruelty were incomprehensible. Something inside me snapped. As Victoria's men dragged me away to a forced psychiatric committal, her mocking words echoed. I looked at her, at Chad, at the vile scene. My voice, flat and emotionless, was a vow: "You will pay. Both of you. You will pay for this." This was no longer just sorrow; it was a chilling promise.

My sister Tiffany, an aspiring Instagram model, stood before me, her eyes glittering with ambition. News of tech billionaire Elijah Vance's wife, Anna Reid, first missing, then found dead in what was called an accident, had shaken our small town. "Chloe," she whispered, her voice low and urgent, "you're a forensic reconstruction artist, right? I need you to make me look exactly like Anna Reid." Then came the chilling confession: "I arranged her little 'accident,' sis. It was easy." My refusal was met with a terrifying snarl as she lunged, brutally assaulting me until darkness swallowed everything. I gasped, jolting upright, back in the exact moment before her deadly attack, the horrifying memory of my own murder by my sister still searingly fresh. The naive, kind-hearted Chloe was gone, burned away by betrayal and the cold reality of my family's capacity for evil. I realized my own parents, in that brief glimpse of a future, had covered up my death, protecting their precious Tiffany. A bone-deep chill settled in me, replacing the disbelief with a hardened, calculated fury. How could my own sister, my own flesh and blood, be so utterly monstrous, willing to commit murder and then attempt to extinguish me for her twisted ambition? The profound injustice of it all fueled a chilling resolve I'd never known. Meeting her impatient gaze, I managed a neutral expression. "Yes," I said, the single word a quiet promise of a future Tiffany couldn't possibly imagine. She wanted to walk into the fire, and I, reborn from the ashes of her betrayal, would be the one to light the match. I would become the architect of her destruction, using my very skills to set the stage for her downfall, turning the fearsome Elijah Vance into a weapon against her.

My roasted turkey usually brings me joy, but this Thanksgiving, it turned my stomach. My stepsister, Brittany, had cornered my husband, Richard, and was practically living at our house. Knowing my daughter Sophie' s severe nut allergy, I carefully asked Brittany if her son, Leo, had any, before serving my pecan pie. "None at all, Amy. He loves nuts," she lied, smiling sweetly. Minutes later, Leo was gasping, turning blue. Richard rounded on me, his face a mask of fury. "You did this! You knew he couldn' t have nuts!" he roared, shoving pie into my mouth as the guests stared. The public humiliation was just the beginning. My home became a battleground, my husband a stranger. He dismissed my concerns about another nut-laced cookie, leading to our precious Sophie' s near-fatal allergic reaction. But instead of remorse, he jetted off to Aspen with Brittany and Leo, flaunting their "healing trip" on social media while Sophie lay in a hospital bed. Every tag, every beaming photo was a fresh stab, painting me as the villain, the negligent mother, the crazy ex-wife. I endured the whispers, the stares, the viral video portraying me as a monster. My world crumbled, and I felt utterly alone, trapped in a nightmare created by the very people who were supposed to love me. The injustice was unbearable. How could I have been so blind? How could they destroy me so easily? Then, when I was at my lowest, a miracle. My lawyer uncovered a massive, hidden trust fund – fifty million dollars my stepmother had stolen from me. That was when something inside me snapped. Tonight, at Richard' s award gala, they expect me to apologize, to publicly grovel. But I will not break. Tonight, I claim my freedom and burn their perfect lies to the ground. This isn' t an apology; it' s my reclamation.

My brother, Michael, and my fiancé, Ethan Hayes, were my whole world after Mom died. I was finalizing designs for a prestigious architecture fellowship, honoring her legacy. Then Chloe Jenkins appeared, a shadow whispering poison into their ears. At a high-society gala, Ethan publicly humiliated me, ending our engagement and shaming me, while Michael watched silently. They soon gave Chloe our mother’s cherished summer home and her invaluable architectural blueprints, which Chloe used to steal my fellowship and destroy my career. On Mom’s anniversary, they chose a puppy party over her grave, and when I confronted them, Ethan violently assaulted me, Michael defending Chloe. My entire life, my family, my identity, everything was systematically stripped away, bought by a manipulative stranger and enabled by the men who swore to protect me. How could the two men I trusted most turn so utterly against me, for her? The agony of such absolute betrayal consumed me, leaving only a chilling clarity. So, on a stormy night, I meticulously staged my own death in a fire that consumed my past, emerging from the ashes as Anna Reed, ready to forge a new future, free from their toxic world.

The scent of lilies hung heavy, a grim reminder of my father's sudden death. My world was already shattered by his passing, leaving me deep in grief and the chaotic planning of his funeral, with my fiancé Ethan Vance supposedly offering comfort. But then, during that very funeral, I discovered Ethan's cruel betrayal: he'd been extensively unfaithful with his assistant Tiffany, who had just given birth to his child three days prior, and he had the audacity to call me proposing a "modern arrangement" for our future. He scoffed at my pain, publicly flaunted his "perfect family" online, and later, when I went to collect my belongings, he and Tiffany attacked me, smashing my father’s cherished watch and violently shoving me against a wall, leaving me bruised and terrified. How could the man I was meant to marry be so monstrous, so utterly dismissive of my pain, confident I'd return because our families' business interests were intertwined? Bruised and broken, alone on a park bench, I made the only desperate call I could imagine: "Marry me, David," I whispered to an old acquaintance, "Help me protect my father's legacy, and I'll be the partner your family always hoped for."

I was just a diligent sales associate, trying to make ends meet in a luxury boutique on Rodeo Drive. After refusing a notoriously cruel socialite's outrageous demands, I was unexpectedly offered a breathtaking new life by charming billionaire Ethan Vanderbilt. No more retail hell, just endless luxury. I accepted, clinging to it as a desperate chance for my family to escape East LA's struggles. But then, a chilling message flashed on his unlocked phone: "How’s our little Cinderella project coming along, E? Is she suitably dazzled yet? Can’t wait for the one-year mark. Payback’s a bitch. ;)" My heart seized. The "fairy tale" wasn't a rescue; it was a cruel, elaborate game orchestrated by the very socialite I’d defied. I was the unwitting star of their 'Cinderella project,' a pawn meant to be adorned, built up, then publicly crushed. Every lavish gift, every forced laugh at their condescending jokes, every demeaning glance from their elite circle felt like a tightening chain. I was just their entertainment, watched by snickering socialites on a private 'countdown' account, cheering for my inevitable downfall. They thought I was easily manipulated, a poor girl blinded by glitz and glamor. How could they be so callously cruel, playing with someone’s entire future? But beneath the shock, a fierce defiance ignited. This wasn't just their bet; it was my fight for survival. A cold, determined smile touched my lips. Okay, Vanderbilts and Van der Woodsens. Let's play. I would use their money, their arrogance, their connections against them. By the time they realized what was happening, I wouldn't just survive their game; I'd build an empire on its ashes. My empire. My rules.

Belle never thought that after her mother?s life time efforts, her father would only end up marrying someone else. The last gift that she would ever want was a malicious step-mother. Blindly drowning in her sorrows and anger, she ends up spending a wild and careless night with Harris, the son of her family?s sworn enemy. They both thought that they would never see each other again, but one month later, Bella found out that she was pregnant. Without any other choice, they got married. But their story is only beginning.

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'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?

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 spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god. Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires. He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family. In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet. Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it. That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed. I finally understood the promise he’d made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property. After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash. So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good. A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father—his greatest enemy.

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.

I stood alone at the center of my art gallery opening, clutching a glass of warm champagne, while the guests whispered behind their hands. My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, wasn't there. A breaking news alert on my phone explained why. It was a high-definition photo of Dante shielding his mistress, Isabella, from the rain. He was touching her with a protective possessiveness he had never once shown me. Then came his text: "Isabella needed me. Go home." That was the moment the cage door unlocked. I didn't go home to cry. I went to his office the next morning with a stack of papers disguised as "gallery insurance forms." While Isabella sat on his desk, mocking me for being a boring housewife, Dante was too annoyed to read the fine print. He just wanted me gone so he could get back to her. He signed the divorce decree. He signed the asset dissolution. Most importantly, without looking, he signed the irrevocable relinquishment of parental rights. I walked out with my freedom, but fate had a cruel sense of humor. That night, I stared at a positive pregnancy test. I was carrying the Sovrano heir he had always demanded. And he had just legally signed away his right to ever know his child. I fled to the Swiss Alps, vanishing into the snow to raise my baby away from his world of blood and bullets. I thought I was safe, until six months later. Dante hadn't just sent men to look for me. He had burned his own shipping empire to the ground, destroying his status as King, just to prove he would trade it all for the wife he threw away.

I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia. The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast. That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water. He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard. But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead. I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival. On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone. "I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city."

For nine years, I was the perfect mafia wife. I laundered Marcus Thorne’s money through my design firm, smiled at his dinners, and ignored the lipstick stains on his collars. I believed in the Omertà of our marriage. I thought my loyalty was my armor. I was wrong. On the night of our anniversary gala, a car lost control and barreled straight toward us in the parking lot. Marcus didn't look at me. Not once. He lunged for his mistress, Izzy, tackling her to safety behind a concrete pillar. I was left standing in the open. The impact threw me like a ragdoll. I lay bleeding on the cold asphalt, my body broken, watching through the haze as my husband frantically checked his mistress for scratches. "My ankle," she whimpered. Without a backward glance, he picked her up and carried her to his limousine, leaving me to bleed out on the pavement. He didn't leave me because he panicked. He left me because I was just a shield he used to protect what he actually loved. As darkness crept in, a shadow fell over me. It wasn't Marcus. It was Julian Croft, his sworn rival. I looked at the empty spot where my husband should have been and made a choice. "Get me to the hospital," I rasped, staring into the eyes of the enemy. "And then help me burn his empire to the ground."