Edilaine Beckert

I was sitting in the Presidential Suite in my heavy silk wedding dress, waiting to marry the heir of the Moretti syndicate to save my family from insurmountable debt. Then, my assistant handed me the morning tabloid. My fiancé, Marco, had fled to Paris with a half-dressed chorus girl, declaring to the world that he was breaking his chains. My father burst into the room, terrified that rival families would slaughter us by midnight, and demanded I go beg the Morettis for mercy. But the Moretti family's ruthless matriarch and their 'Fixer' had a different plan. To cover up Marco's cowardice and protect their syndicate's reputation, they decided to tell the press that my bloodline was "impure" and cancel the wedding. Even Marco's slimy cousin tried to grope me, offering to take me off their hands as his leftover prize. They were going to nail me and my entire family to a cross of public shame just to save their own pride. I was nothing but collateral, surrounded by cowards, pawns, and opportunists who were ready to devour me to save their own necks. But I refused to be the scapegoat for a spineless boy. If I was going to be a piece on the board, I would be played by the hand of the King. I gathered my heavy skirt, walked straight into the private parlor of the apex predator himself—Don Dante Moretti—and slammed the tabloid on his mahogany desk. "Don't cancel the wedding." I looked the most dangerous man in New York dead in the eye. "Marry me."

The night I met my Fated Mate was supposed to be a dream. Instead, the sacred bond became a one-way ticket into his twisted mind. I heard the truth: Alpha Kade Vargr only wanted my family’s money, and his heart belonged to his manipulative sister, Lila. He tried to break me, orchestrating an “accident” that left me bleeding in a ravine just to teach me a lesson. Then, at my own party, he humiliated me by broadcasting my most shameful memory for everyone to see. My soulmate was a monster, and I was his plaything. But when I confronted him, he swore a sacred oath on his soul that it wasn't him. Then, to protect his guilty sister, he stood before our people and confessed to the crime anyway. He made his choice. And I made my vow: I would destroy them both.

They call me the "invisible wife," the domestic servant with a title. For eighteen years, I played the role of the weak, submissive Luna to my Alpha husband, Anthony. But the scent of overripe peaches and another wolf's musk on his custom suit shattered my illusion. He wasn't just cheating; he was popping illegal Bond-Blockers to numb our sacred connection, hiding his betrayal while I catered to his every whim. Desperate for the truth, I tracked him to the Moonlight Hotel. I expected to find him in bed with his mistress, Katia. I didn't expect to hear my own teenage son, Jacob, laughing with them. "Mom is just a human in a wolf's skin," he sneered through the door. "I'm ashamed she's my mother. Katia is what a real Luna looks like." His words cut deeper than any blade. They mocked my lack of scent. They called me a defect. They didn't know the jagged scar on my chest exists because I poured my entire essence into Jacob's dying lungs the night he was born. I became "weak" solely to keep him alive. And this is how they repay me? By plotting to replace me with the woman spending my inheritance? They want a powerful Luna? They're about to get one. I wiped my tears and looked in the mirror, my hazel eyes flashing a blinding, predatory silver. The White Wolf has been dormant for sixteen years, but tonight, at the Pack Gala, she wakes up to hunt.

The first time I kidnapped my lover's mistress, he had me killed for it. I gave him eight years, built his empire brick by bloody brick, and was secretly carrying his child. But for a fragile art student, he had me drugged on a gurney. I was awake as a back-alley doctor cut our baby from my womb. I heard our child's single cry, then silence. "Anything that threatens her, I will destroy," he whispered, his voice void of all emotion. "Even you. Even our child." He then left me for his men to violate and discard. My last thought was that I was just a queen he was willing to sacrifice for a pretty new pawn. But then my eyes snapped open. I was in my car, my stomach flat, my hands gripping the steering wheel. The date on my phone seared itself into my brain. I was back on the day of the first kidnapping. This time, I wouldn't be a sacrifice. This time, I would survive.

I donated my kidney to save my fiancé's sister. For three years, I loved him, cared for her, and planned our future, never knowing the life I was building was a lie. Then, a text from an unknown number arrived. It was a picture of a marriage certificate from two years ago. Groom: my fiancé, Dock. Bride: his "sister," Brianna. He admitted it all when I confronted him. He was already married to her when he proposed to me. My love, my sacrifice, was just a way for her to get on his insurance to cover the transplant. He told me she was coming home from the hospital, and I needed to pack my things and leave. Just hours before, my own doctor had called. The donation had put me at high risk, and now I had aggressive, terminal cancer. As I drove away from the house we shared, my phone buzzed again. Pictures from Brianna. Them kissing on a beach. A positive pregnancy test. I had given them my health, my future, and my heart, and they had left me with nothing but a death sentence. The world spun into a blur of headlights and screaming metal. But when I opened my eyes again, I wasn't in the wreckage. I was in a hospital bed, a dull ache radiating from my side. The anesthetic from my kidney donation surgery was just wearing off. Through the door, my fiancé walked in, his face a perfect mask of concern. This time, I knew the truth.

I' ve been dead for three years. From the quiet place I existed, I watched my family's tech company crumble, my father's health fail, and my mother turn into a ghost of her former self. My beautiful sister, Brittany, had five fiancés, each dying before their wedding day, a tragedy the papers called a curse. Desperate, my father hired Madame Zelda, a spiritual medium, to banish the "restless spirit" causing their misery. She walked in, took one look, and declared, "The problem isn' t a curse on this house. It' s a spirit. Your youngest daughter, Chloe." My mother' s reaction chilled me to my core: "That little brat. Even dead she' s causing trouble! Always bringing us misery! She was a jinx from the day she was born!" That night, I watched her drag every last one of my belongings into the backyard and set them ablaze. If I could go back, she screamed, she' d make sure I never saw the light of day. I always knew no one loved me, but I never understood why. They were so worried about ghosts, yet the real monsters lived right there, down the hall. When Miller Innovations finally collapsed, my father' s heart gave out again. More desperate, they called Madame Zelda, begging her to banish me for good. "The energy is not coming from your current home. It' s stronger elsewhere. The old family estate. The place she was last seen. That is the source." My mother, frantic, shouted, "We have to dig her up! We have to burn her bones!" Brittany, ever the angel, rushed to comfort her, "Poor Chloe… she must be in so much pain to lash out like this. We have to help her find peace." But I saw the cold, calculating satisfaction flash in her eyes. They were coming for me, convinced they were victims fighting a monster. At the estate, as my father and uncles dug into the earth, Brittany sobbed, "I was the one who convinced her to come here that day. She said she wanted to bury a time capsule." A phantom pain hit me. I wasn' t excited; I was terrified. Their shovels struck something hard-a small, cheap wooden box. Not a coffin, just a crate. They pried it open, expecting bones. But the coffin was empty. Panic erupted. My aunt shrieked, "The demon has taken her body!" Madame Zelda picked up a mud-caked digital photo frame from the bottom of the box. "The spirit is not in the ground. It is in the truth." She powered it on. The screen flickered to life, showing me as a happy child, then as a teenager, full of trust, thanking Brittany. Brittany collapsed, sobbing, "I just wanted her to be happy!" My parents comforted her, then looked at the empty coffin and the frame with renewed anger. They still thought I was mocking them. But I saw Brittany' s eyes turn cold and hard. Her grief was a performance.

My life with Ethan, a wealthy real estate mogul, was perfect. Five years married, his adoring gaze never wavered, and our first baby, a girl, was eagerly anticipated. I truly believed he loved me. Then came the crash. From my hospital bed, a shocking headline jumped out: "Philly Mogul Ethan Reed's Secret Proposal in New Orleans?" The accompanying photo confirmed my worst fear: Ethan, on one knee, proposing to my own sister, Olivia. He rushed to my side, seemingly distraught, but I sensed the lie. I found hidden love letters and photos in his safe-proof of his long-held obsession with Olivia. Her private journals revealed she'd sacrificed her love, pushing him to me as a "placeholder" for my happiness. Every tender word from Ethan now felt like a taunt. I overheard him confess: our marriage was Olivia's idea, a misguided charade for my benefit. My "perfect" marriage was a cruel, meticulously crafted deception. He never loved me, only her. The ultimate betrayal solidified at a charity gala: a fire broke out, and he instinctively shielded Olivia, abandoning his pregnant wife in the chaos without a second glance. That was my breaking point. I sent him the divorce papers he' d unknowingly signed, shattered my SIM card, and quietly terminated the pregnancy. I vanished, leaving him in his opulent, empty world to face the solitary consequences of his deceit.

My name is Sarah Miller, and at twenty-two, my suburban New Jersey life felt like it was shrinking daily. The reason? Brenda Hayes, my father's "executive assistant," a title as flimsy as her tight dresses, who was steadily dismantling our family. She was younger than my mom, Carol, and my father, Rick, was completely under Brenda's spell, treating my kind, gentle mother like a faded photograph. I watched my mother's spirit dim, powerless, full of a quiet sadness that broke my heart. I saw the truth about Brenda and Rick' s affair, but my desperate protests only made my father angry and defensive, and earned me Brenda's chilling, venomous glare. One evening, driving home from my part-time library job, blinding headlights and screeching tires suddenly filled my vision. A monstrous crash. Pain, then utter darkness. My life, systematically destroyed by what I instinctively knew was Brenda' s work, became a body in a hospital bed, entangled in wires and tubes, in a persistent vegetative state. They called it a hit-and-run, convenient, but I was a prisoner in my own skull, aware of the injustice, burning with a helpless rage. Then, a flicker. I woke up. But it wasn' t my own body, nor was I in my sterile hospital room. My consciousness had inexplicably lodged itself inside my grandmother Esther' s body, recovering from a minor heart procedure in a different hospital. And when I saw the newspaper on the bedside table, a chilling realization hit me. The date was three months before my accident. I was in the past, in my grandmother' s aging body. This wasn't just impossible; it was a miraculous, terrifying chance. A chance to save my mother from her slow demise. A chance to stop Brenda Hayes before she could ruin everything. A cold, unyielding fury, sharpened by my previous helplessness, solidified within Esther' s frame. Brenda Hayes was finally going to pay, and this time, I had a plan.

Olivia stood in our penthouse, divorce papers clutched in her hand. New York City lights glittered outside, a familiar backdrop. But for me, this wasn't just déjà vu; it was a living nightmare I' d already survived. My heart didn't race, my hands didn't shake. I knew this scene too well. The last time, she came with tears, begging me to save Liam, her dead best friend' s brother, from a minor scandal. I refused, convinced she' d choose me. That choice led to my utter destruction: a framed accusation, a mysterious illness dismissed as "stress," and eventually, the pills that almost ended it all. Now, the cycle was spinning again. Liam, a rising influencer, caught in yet another scandalous "intimate moment" with Olivia. Her sustainable fashion brand' s IPO was on the line, and #OliversBoyToy was trending. My wife stood before me, trembling, just as I remembered, "Ethan, we need to do this. For Liam. For Aura. It' s just strategic." Liam stood behind her, a triumphant smirk on his face. He' d won again. A strange calm settled over me then - the calm of a man who had faced the absolute worst and survived. The sheer audacity, the blatant replay of a script that nearly killed me, filled me not with anger, but with a cold, clear recognition. How could I ever be enough for someone who constantly chose this parasitic man over me? When I said, "Okay, I' ll sign them," Olivia stared, her mouth agape, expecting a fight. But I had one crucial condition, a non-negotiable term for this final act: "Once this is done, you never contact me again. We' re done. For good." This time, I choose my own ending. This time, I walk away.

One minute, I was burning alive, choking on thick smoke, watching my little girl Lily whimper beside me as Ethan’s hate-filled face glowed against the inferno. The next, my eyes snapped open, and I was back at the lake house party, the very nexus where my tragic first life began, with my brother Mike approaching, red cups in hand, ready to unknowingly poison my future. Every horrifying detail of my past life flashed before me: the spiked drink, the forced marriage, the birth of my sweet Lily, and then Ethan’s chilling accusation – "This is for Olivia. You and her, you’re why she’s gone." – moments before he condemned us to the flames on Lily’s third birthday. My entire existence was a brutal, fiery brand seared into my very soul, all ignited by this one night, this simple, seemingly innocent red cup. He blamed *me* and my innocent three-year-old daughter for his perfect Olivia’s car crash, orchestrated my destruction, and now I was back, staring into the face of my impending doom. An unbearable terror twisted my guts, pleading for a way to break this agonizing loop. "No," I whispered, panic clawing at my throat as I backed away from the offered drink, my hands shaking as I fumbled for my phone. I devised a desperate, selfish lie to send Olivia – anything to disrupt this timeline and carve out a new, free future for myself. I had to save myself.

The acrid smell hit me first, then our fourth-floor apartment shook. My boyfriend, Mark, was already at the door, his eyes wide. "Chloe," he muttered, and just like that, he was gone – running through the chaos, not to check on me, but to his childhood friend, Chloe. I stumbled out into the smoke-filled hallway alone, my heart pounding. When I found them, he was stroking her hair, murmuring reassurances while she leaned heavily on him, perfectly fine. He hadn't even looked for me. No guilt, no panic for my safety, just a flicker of… annoyance as our eyes met. Later, she’d chirp, “Mark was so worried about you!” A blatant lie. Then his friends revealed the crushing truth: I wasn't just second choice; I was a placeholder, a consolation prize, only good enough for him when Chloe was unavailable. I felt a cold rage. This wasn't just a spat; it was a pattern of neglect, of being unseen, unheard, always playing second fiddle to his “duty” and “obligation” to her. The ultimate insult came when Chloe staged a panic attack in our shared apartment, wearing his robe, scattering their "memory jar," and he rushed to her side, utterly dismissing me again, her fragile act once more trumping *everything*. That was the absolute end. I walked away from the apartment, from him, from that suffocating life. I threw myself into my career, transforming betrayal into fierce independence. But just as I started to breathe again, building my own empire, he reappeared, asking for "one more chance." Will I finally break free, or will the weight of our past pull me back into his orbit?

I thought I was doing a good deed, helping out an old university acquaintance, Brittany, by investing significantly in her sister Jessica’s coffee shop. I even became their most loyal customer, promoting "The Daily Grind" to all my friends and always paying full price for my lattes. Then, I found out casual customers were getting “VIP” perks like free refills, while I, the primary investor, paid for every single thing. But the real shock came when Jessica’s young son blurted out, "Mommy, is that the lady you said is a sucker? You said she's rich and should pay more!" The air in the café went cold as Brittany emerged, casually telling me, "Kids say the darndest things," then added, "People with means helping out a bit more, it's just part of supporting the community, isn't it?" I was burning with humiliation, fury, and a seething sense of betrayal. How could these women, who received my generous investment and benefited from my constant support, see me as nothing but a "sucker" to be exploited? They had no idea they were about to face a very different kind of "sucker."

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.

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.

Three days after my fiancé publicly dumped me for my stepsister, the Supreme Don issued a command that silenced the entire estate. I wasn't being cast aside. I was being sold to Damien Russo. The "Broken Don." A crippled, scarred monster rumored to have murdered his last two wives. My adoptive mother, Elena, didn't cry for me. She smirked. To her, I was finally being disposed of. She was so confident I was walking to my death that she decided to loot my corpse before I even left. She forged documents to steal my entire inheritance—my biological mother’s trust fund—to pay for my stepsister’s lavish wedding to my ex. "She won't need money where she's going," my stepsister laughed, wearing a dress bought with my stolen funds. They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter. They thought I was too weak, too stupid, and too afraid of the monster to fight back. But they made a fatal mistake. With my aunt’s help, I didn't just find the proof of their embezzlement; I found a weapon. I’m not running from the monster. I’m going to marry him. And when I hand him the evidence that the Herrera family stole from his bride, he won't be my executioner. He will be my vengeance.

I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair. They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves. Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment. But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger. In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.

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."

The man I had a passionate one-night stand with turned out to be my stepbrother…and the mafia boss. "The sweet taste of your lips, your lewd moans, all the times that you begged me to do you harder, and the way your hips moved under me…I remember everything about you and that night, Abigail…" After her fiancé suddenly dumps her to marry her best friend, Abigail decides to drown her sorrows in the passionate embrace of an attractive stranger for the night. Fate plays a game with her again, when she finds out that the man that she spent the night with turned out to be her stepbrother, Raphael. Abigail finds herself living together with Raphael after her mother marries his father. With her mother’s perfect marriage at stake, Abigail does everything to hide her secret affair with Raphael from everyone but how can she escape from his seductive traps when Raphael refuses to let her go no matter how many times she begged. When their parents go on their honeymoon, Abigail is left to fend for herself from the lusty and calculating beast living under the same roof. Just when his heated kisses and seductive caresses tear down her walls of defense, Abigail is shocked to learn of Raphael’s engagement and the dark secret behind his family business. While at the same time, their parents are keen on arranging Abigail’s marriage to secure her future. Through it all, can Abigail gain what she desperately yearns for the most from Raphael: His Love. How can these two lovers who are destined to play ‘House’ overcome their cursed forbidden relationship and create a happy ending for themselves?

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.

For seven years, I was his eyes. But the moment he regained his sight, he decided to marry someone else. Seven years of devotion couldn't buy his heart. I gave him back his dignity. Now that he was restored as the Godfather of the New York Mafia, he laughed with others, degrading me to the status of a mere "mistress." He thought I didn't understand Italian, but I heard him loud and clear: he was going to marry his first love. He arrogantly believed I would always love him, willing to stay in his penthouse like a caged bird. But he was wrong. I boarded a one-way flight to Australia. Dante, I don't want you anymore. By the time he returned home, he would have lost me forever. But a sore loser refuses to concede. Even if he had to burn the world to the ground, he would search for me and beg for my forgiveness.

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.