Bone Possolo

Tomorrow was my wedding day to Jason Brennan, the heir to a powerful Mafia family. My family, the Falcones, had even taken in an orphaned girl, Elena, treating her like my own sister. But in my nightmare of a past life, I choked on my own blood, poisoned by the arsenic Elena slipped into my food every day. As I lay agonizingly close to death, Jason stood over me with a cold laugh, holding Elena in his arms. "We just needed the Falcone wealth, Bella. And the docks." Then came the gunfire. I was forced to watch them slaughter my father and my brother, tearing my family out by the roots. After my death, Elena even spread vicious rumors that I was a barren spinster, twisting their foul betrayal into a tragic tale of noble sacrifice to completely destroy my legacy. The metallic tang of my own blood was so real I could still taste the ash. I didn't understand why the girl my family sheltered for eight years would repay our charity with such venom. And I understood even less how the man who swore to love me could orchestrate my brutal murder without a shred of hesitation. Bolting upright in bed, drenched in cold sweat, I realized I had returned to the night before my wedding. This time, I wouldn't just cancel the engagement. I would hand their treason directly to the Mafia's most terrifying Enforcer, and watch them burn.

On my wedding day to Julian Moretti, the future Mafia Don, I was deliberately sent to the wrong penthouse. My half-sister Sofia had crawled into my fiancé's bed, leaving me to be discovered by the family's exiled, alcoholic cousin. In my past life, I was shattered by this orchestrated betrayal. I cried and begged when Julian publicly humiliated me, choosing his illegitimate mistress over his rightful bride. I played the perfect, dignified Mafia wife for years. I swallowed his insults, ignored his infidelities, and accepted my ruined reputation to keep the peace. But my blind obedience only paved the way for my murder. Julian discarded me, and I was poisoned to death so Sofia could steal my crown as the Mafia Queen. Until my agonizing last breath, I didn't understand. I had honored our families' blood alliance flawlessly. Why was I the sacrificial lamb while they were rewarded for their treason? Opening my eyes again, I was back on the dark leather sofa, suffocating in my heavy silk wedding dress. This time, I didn't shed a single tear. I grabbed a heavy brass letter opener, marched straight into the Don's main study, and slapped the Underboss across the face in front of the entire family. "A Valdez woman does not share her husband," I declared coldly. "To honor the alliance, I will marry Dante." If they wanted to make my humiliation a fact, I was going to make it a funeral.

For years, I believed my unique blood was a gift to save the man I loved. Now, he saw it as a poison. At the urging of his venomous new lover, Kim, he believed I was a family enemy trying to destroy him. He subjected me to endless torture, draining my life force to treat Kim' s fake pregnancy. Each extraction, which he saw as me faking my pain, was actually pushing my body toward total collapse. I endured it all for one reason: to protect my innocent brother, Benny. But how could the man whose life I'd secretly preserved be so blind to the truth? When they captured Benny and threatened his life, I offered my final sacrifice. I gave Cliffton my entire remaining life force, dissolving into light before his very eyes. And in that instant, as his cured parents appeared to reveal every lie, he finally understood: he had just murdered his own salvation.

My engagement to Ethan Hayes was a decade-long silent contract, a symbol of a love I held with quiet desperation, though his light never truly shone on me. Then Chloe Davis appeared, all sweetness and light, and Ethan, who' d been indifferent to me, fell completely for her. In my first life, that look drove me mad, leading me to uncover Chloe' s dark secret: she was the daughter of the man who ruined Ethan' s family, driving his parents to suicide. My attempt to save him backfired catastrophically. During a heated confrontation, Chloe pushed Ethan's uncle, David Hayes, who died instantly. Ethan walked in, seeing only me standing over the body with a terrified Chloe pointing a trembling finger. He refused to listen, convinced I was a jealous fiancée eliminating a rival. I was wrongly imprisoned for his uncle' s death, dying alone and forgotten, while Ethan and Chloe' s twisted tragedy bound them together in a life I couldn't share. All my love, my loyalty, my sacrifices, meant nothing. But then, I opened my eyes. I was back in the university library, a full year before the tragedy unfolded. My past life was a finished story, but this was my second chance. I swore a cold, hard resolve: I would not interfere. I would not save him. I would watch their great love story play out to its inevitable, disastrous end. My first act? Terminating our engagement.

The biting cold was the last thing I felt, a numbing seeping into my bones as I lay dying in our remote mountain cabin. My husband, Mark, had left me here to freeze and starve, locking the door and cutting the phone line, his eyes devoid of any love. He did it for my groundbreaking eco-city designs, which he planned to steal and present as his own, aided by my own sister, Chloe. I had confronted them, screaming and crying, showing them the printed evidence of their betrayal, but Mark merely looked at me with terrifying calmness. "You can't prove anything, Ava," he' d said, "It's your word against mine. And Chloe's." Then, like a fool clinging to the last sliver of hope, I had agreed to his suggestion of a trip to the cabin to "talk things out." The same cabin where he' d previously dismissed our miscarriage as "bad timing," letting our baby die for his ambition and covering his tracks with Chloe's scent. Now, shivering under a flimsy blanket, my fingers numb, all I could think of was the hidden hard drive containing irrefutable proof of their treachery. But what good was it? I was about to be just another tragic story, while they would have everything. Then, a sudden, violent jolt. My eyes snapped open. I wasn't in the cabin. The air was warm, stuffy, and smelled of stale coffee. I was at my desk at the firm. It was two weeks before the confrontation, before the blizzard, before my death. Impossible. A dream? A hallucination? Yet, it was undeniably real. A miracle. I was back. And this time, there would be no foolish hope. No direct confrontation. A slow, cold smile spread across my face. Mark and Chloe thought they could destroy me. They were about to find out how wrong they were. This time, I' d be setting the trap. This was for revenge.

The cold concrete walls of the visitor' s room blurred. My wife, Sarah, sat opposite me, her eyes burning with contempt, dressed in a sharp business suit. "Ethan, that data-exfiltration device was clearly planted by you," her voice, a venomous echo, replayed. "You were just jealous of Alex and wanted him dead! I truly regret leaving Alex for a simpleton like you; you deserve to rot in prison for what you did to him!" That was the last time I saw her before the life sentence. Before everything went black. The betrayal was so fresh, it felt like it happened only a second ago. Alex Thornton, her charismatic tech mogul mentor, gifted her a sleek, black smart ring. As an FBI agent, I recognized it immediately: a sophisticated data-exfiltration device. I tried to warn her, even reported it to the Bureau, cushioning the blow to protect her, sacrificing my own promotion. It was a fatal mistake. Alex died in a suspicious car accident as the FBI closed in. My grieving, loving Sarah then wove a web of digital lies, leaking classified intel and manipulating logs, pointing every piece of evidence directly at me. The jealous, jilted husband. The perfect story. Then, a jarring, insistent beeping cut through the darkness of my prison cell memory. I gasped, my eyes flying open. I wasn' t in a cell. I was in my own bed. My alarm clock. 7:00 AM. My heart hammered. Sarah was still asleep. On her nightstand, gleaming, was the smart ring. It was today. The day it all began. A cold dread washed over me, followed by something hot and sharp: a second chance. The humiliation, the cold slap of betrayal, her mocking words. My colleagues' faces, pity mixed with confusion, as they cuffed me. I had sacrificed everything for a woman who saw me as a simpleton. The love I felt for her was now a black hole. In the quiet of the morning, with the woman who would destroy me sleeping peacefully beside me, I made a new vow. Not of love, or loyalty, but of self-preservation. And justice.

My ex-best friend, Chloe, just waltzed back into my life, smooth as honey with a hidden sharp edge, and immediately made herself at home. She ran her perfectly manicured finger over my prized possessions, claiming credit for my life' s work, Harmony, the AI wellness companion I poured my soul into. My boyfriend, Liam, my partner of seven years, stood right by her side, smiling his easy smile, letting her spin her lies and seduce him right in front of my eyes. He didn't see the manipulation, the insidious way she tried to erase my achievements and claim them as her own, because with Chloe, he never did. He even defended her when our son, Leo, in his innocent honesty, exposed Chloe for stealing my presentation and called her a "mean witch." Liam chose her, the manipulative liar, over me and our child, sending us away so she wouldn't be "upset." My heart shattered as I saw her Instagram post – Liam at a dimly lit bar, his arm around her, the caption mocking me: "#RealConnection #Finally." The betrayal was a physical blow, a complete and utter dismantling of my world. But Chloe and Liam just pushed me to the brink, because in that moment of absolute despair, my dormant "Influence Algorithm"-a system I built to subtly sway public opinion-began to hum to life. And I knew, with chilling certainty, that I wouldn' t just survive; I would be ready to fight back.

My freshman year at Green Mountain College was supposed to be about freedom. But my mom, Susan, had other plans for her only daughter. She turned my dorm room into a high-tech prison, monitoring every single video call, scrutinizing my bank account, and even tracking my social media DMs "for my safety." It wasn't safety; it was relentless, suffocating surveillance, a gilded cage I desperately wanted to escape. Then came the ultimate college freshman nightmare: my debit card (tied to Mom' s account, of course) got declined at the crowded campus coffee shop. Total humiliation. A kind senior, Liam, stepped in and paid for my coffee and bagel; a simple, unexpected act of grace. But that small kindness triggered a reaction I never anticipated. Hours later, Liam messaged me, sending a screenshot that made my blood run cold. My mother had instantly found his Venmo payment, tracked him on Instagram, and sent him a chilling message, warning him off her "vulnerable" daughter. Liam, understandably, blocked me instantly, dissolving my only new connection. Mom's video call that night wasn't an interrogation; it was an execution, dredging up every past friendship she' d ever destroyed, every connection she' d severed. She wasn't just protective; she was ensuring I was utterly, completely hers. The shame of that night quickly curdled into a burning, unyielding rage. She wasn't trying to keep me safe; she was systematically isolating me, controlling my finances, my friendships, my entire existence. I finally saw the pattern with terrifying clarity, a sinister obsession veiled as maternal love, one that perhaps even connected to my father' s "factory accident" years ago. The thought that she might have secretly engineered my entire life filled me with a chilling dread. I wasn't just terrified anymore. I was done running. If she wanted to monitor my life, I decided to give her something truly alarming to find. I created Ryder Stone, the brooding musician, everything she' d despise. It was time to stop being her puppet. It was time to turn her own controlling surveillance into my weapon, inviting her into a trap she wouldn' t see coming.

My younger brother, Leo, died in the emergency room, a casualty of our parents'twisted "tests." For years, "system prompts" had controlled our lives, confirming that Leo and I were mere side characters in our adoptive brother Ashton's "golden-boy" narrative. The ultimate test arrived when our parents refused to pay for Leo's emergency treatment after Ashton knowingly gave him a peanut cookie, triggering his fatal allergy. The system grimly confirmed: "Allergen exposure by Subject Ashton: successful. Test parameters met." In the wake of Leo's death, my desperate attempts to raise cremation funds were sabotaged, and family accusations of fraud and dramatization poisoned my name. Ashton publicly smeared me, claiming I faked Leo's death, while my father imposed an impossible financial task that he systematically undermined. I was even abducted, drugged, and forced to sign away my inheritance, every path blocked. But the final, unbearable cruelty struck when Ashton live-streamed an exposé, accusing me of using  "fake ashes"  at Leo's memorial. My own father ripped open the small pouch I'd kept, scattering Leo's last physical trace to the winds as my mother screamed, calling me a "sick, attention-seeking monster." How could they be so cruel, so relentlessly focused on destroying me, even after Leo's death? As I collapsed, shattered, the live-stream viewers finally saw their monstrous deeds, prompting police intervention and ending their twisted game. Now, as the system prompts falter and Ashton faces justice, I am finally free to reclaim my life, guided by Leo's memory.

For six years, Ava Miller, a struggling musician in Austin, had shared her life—and her dreams—with Ethan Cole, a charismatic motocross legend. Their home felt comfortable, their routine established; she believed they were on an unspoken path toward forever. But her world crumbled when a drunken confession from Ethan’s closest friend revealed a devastating truth: Ava was merely a carefully chosen understudy, a "practice girlfriend," serving as a convenient placeholder for Ethan’s long-standing, unrequited obsession with his high school sweetheart, Chloe Vance. The betrayal was gut-wrenching. Ethan’s deepening disinterest was palpable, her birthday forgotten while he openly pursued Chloe. The vicious cycle escalated when Chloe’s jealous machinations led to Ava being brutally hit by a car. Yet, even from her hospital bed, Ethan, hopelessly blind to Chloe’s malice, coldly hung up on the nurses, dismissing Ava’s severe injuries as a mere act for "attention." Utterly discarded and bleeding, Ava was left to grapple with the horrifying realization: every tender moment, every song she’d penned for him, felt like a meticulously crafted lie. The man she loved saw her as less than nothing, a disposable echo of another woman. Was her entire existence with him a cruel illusion? With her spirit shattered but an unbreakable resolve forged in despair, Ava made the definitive choice to leave everything behind. She fled Austin for Boston, embracing a new path set by her family: an arranged marriage to a kind, stable doctor. But in a twist of fate, the past refused to stay buried, resurfacing dramatically on the very day Ava sought her new beginning.

I sell a special type of tea in a tea room. This tea, when added to food, makes it incredibly delicious and addictive, like a drug. Countless high-end restaurant owners come to me seeking it out. But I know that this tea is made by watering the plants with the blood of addicted individuals.

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 stood before the altar of the grand gothic cathedral, about to marry Julian Moretti, the grieving adopted son stepping up for the comatose Don. To the hundreds of mafia men behind us, it was a dutiful wedding. But I knew the horrifying truth. Julian and his pregnant mistress, Clara, had orchestrated a brutal plot to steal my dowry and secure his place as the next Don. In my past life, I was completely blind to their betrayal. Julian trapped me in our apartment and set it ablaze. I could still feel the blistering heat of the fire. I could still hear my mother’s agonizing screams and my little brother Antonio’s desperate coughing as the smoke filled our lungs. My entire family was burned alive just so Julian could swap the brides and put his whore in my place. I died in pure agony, filled with hatred and despair, wondering why I had trusted a monster. God hadn't saved me from those flames. The Devil had. And he sent me back to this exact moment at the altar. "Do you, Isabella Rossi, take Julian Moretti to be your lawfully wedded husband?" the priest asked. Julian reached for my hand with a sickeningly gentle smile. I didn't give it to him. I tore back my lace veil and turned to face the crowd. "You are mistaken, Father," I said, my voice like ice. "The man I am bound to marry is your Don. Damien Moretti."

"Happy Anniversary," my husband said, sliding the separation agreement across the mahogany desk. It was the eighteenth time in five years I had signed these papers. Matteo De Luca, the most ruthless Capo in New York, checked his Rolex with cold impatience. "Sign it, Sera. Bianca is on the ledge again. She needs to see we're over, or she jumps." Bianca. The ward. The broken bird. The woman whose fragile psyche dictated every moment of my marriage. I signed my name, and he left me alone on our anniversary to save her. Again. But saving her wasn't enough. When Bianca pushed me down a flight of marble stairs in a fit of jealous rage, shattering my spine and leaving me paralyzed, I thought Matteo would finally choose me. I was wrong. I woke up in the hospital to find him holding her hand, not mine. "The security footage has been wiped," he told me, his voice void of emotion. "We cannot have a scandal. You fell, Sera. That is the story." He erased the truth. He erased my pain. He protected the woman who crippled me over his own wife. Two months later, he wheeled me into a gala, playing the doting husband while I sat in the chair that was my prison. He didn't know I had a burner phone hidden in my velvet dress. He didn't know that tonight, the obedient wife was going to die on the pavement, and a ghost would rise in her place. I looked at him one last time and dropped the phone in his lap. "I hope she's worth it."

At my boyfriend's poorest moment, I suddenly broke up with him. Later, he became a Don in the Mafia and married me by any means necessary. Everyone said he loved me to the bone. But every night, he brought different women home, deliberately trying to provoke me. I asked no questions, shed no tears, and never disturbed his trysts with his mistresses. He went crazy with rage instead, kissing me fiercely and demanding, "Why aren't you jealous?" He didn't know I was sick. Dying. While he was furiously taking his revenge on me, I was slowly walking toward death.

Amelia George is given an irresistible offer. Devon Tyler, her brother's best friend and her old crush, offers her the opportunity of a lifetime. A favor for a favor. His offer is simple enough. He needs a name, a single name. The only problem is she'll have to infiltrate the formidable Keller Family and get close and personal with the boss, the condescending Damien Keller. She doesn't expect her life to change so drastically, nor for her ruthless boss to fall in love with her. Desperate, she uses his love for her to extract the information she needs, but everything comes tumbling down when a secret is uncovered that ruins everything.

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention. He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor. I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don. "The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly. An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion. He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement. For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple. "Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her." As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman. Then, the steel door detonated. Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.

Luca DeLuca was never meant to be a king. Born into one of the most powerful mafia families, he was raised in the shadows of blood and violence-protected, sheltered, and kept far from the world his father ruled with an iron fist. But when Don Salvatore DeLuca is assassinated, everything changes. The empire his father built is now crumbling, threatened by enemies within and outside the family. Forced into a throne he never wanted, Luca must learn to navigate a world of betrayal, power, and brutal survival. He isn't a killer. Not yet. But in the mafia, power is earned in blood-and to lead, he must be willing to lose everything, including the last pieces of his soul. But Luca's battle isn't just against the underworld's deadliest players. It's against himself. As he struggles with the darkness seeping into his veins, a forbidden love threatens to shatter everything. Torn between the woman who makes him feel human and the ruthless empire that demands his loyalty, Luca must decide: Is he willing to sacrifice love for power? Or will love be his greatest weakness? In a world where trust is a death sentence and mercy is a myth, Luca DeLuca must either rise as a legend or die as a footnote.

"I know you want me." Damien said in a deep hoarse voice. I turned to look at him. "I can never want a ruthless man like you." "Your eyes are telling a different story Alison." Damien said, taking a step forward. I took a step backward but Damien had stopped me, his hands traveled across my dress. My breathe hitched in my throat as his hands paused. "Your body is saying a different story." Damien leaned closer. "You can't resist me Alison." "I-" my voice cracked. At that moment I realized he was right. I wanted Damien Santos. Right now. In his room. *** Alison had it all-wealth, love, and a perfect life-until her conniving stepsister, Mabel, destroyed everything. Framed for infidelity,Alison's husband throws her out of the house, leaving her penniless and homeless. Just when she hits rock bottom, Alison crosses paths with Damien Santos-a cold and ruthless mafia boss who rules the highlands. Unaware of who he truly is, Alison's brief exchange with him takes an unexpected turn, placing her under his dark, protective shadow. What starts as a chance encounter quickly spirals into a web of secrets and lies. As Alison uncovers the truth about Damien's identity, she realizes their meeting wasn't accidental. Dark revelations from her past resurface, tying her fate to his in ways she never imagined. Can Alison reclaim her life, or will she lose herself in the dangerous world Damien has pulled her into?