Edilaine Beckert

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."

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 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."

One casual visit to her father's study; an unplanned collision with the malevolent Russian Bratva mafia boss plunged her life into a downward spiral. Forced to marry him for an alliance that bordered on keeping her family's business stronger, she had no choice but to accept her fate after an unsuccessful attempt at absconding right before the wedding. But with each new discovery about him, she realized that the masked husband she despised so much had several layers that tugged at her heartstrings, giving her no choice but to fall deeply for him. However, what happens when the dreary and dark secrets from his past resurfaces and threatens to disrupt not just their blooming relationship and his position as Capo, but their existence as well?

I was three days away from marrying the Underboss of the Fazio crime family when I unlocked his burner phone. The screen glowed toxic bright in the dark next to my sleeping fiancé. A message from a contact saved as 'Little Trouble' read: "She is just a statue, Dante. Come back to bed." Attached was a photo of a woman lying in the sheets of his private office, wearing his shirt. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. For eight years, I believed Dante was the hero who pulled me from a burning opera house. I played the perfect, loyal Mafia Princess for him. But heroes don't give their mistresses rare pink diamonds while giving their fiancées cubic zirconia replicas. He didn't just cheat. He humiliated me. He defended his mistress over his own soldiers in public. He even abandoned me on the side of the road on my birthday because she faked a pregnancy emergency. He thought I was weak. He thought I would accept the fake ring and the disrespect because I was just a political pawn. He was wrong. I didn't cry. Tears are for women who have options. I had a strategy. I walked into the bathroom and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in a decade. "Speak," a voice like gravel growled on the other end. Lorenzo Moretti. The Capo of the rival family. The man my father called the Devil. "The wedding is off," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "I want an alliance with you, Enzo. And I want the Fazio family burned to the ground."

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.

For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York. I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him. But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash. In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress. He forced me to watch him court her. At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her. He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain. He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life. I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god. I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole. He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps. So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother. I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars. I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia. By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost.

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.

"Fifty strikes," Floyd ordered, his voice devoid of warmth. I knelt in the freezing snow, watching the man I had taken a bullet for five years ago stand beside his new fiancée, Jaylah. Because Jaylah tore her engagement dress and blamed me, Floyd let his men beat me until my face was unrecognizable. But that was just the beginning of my hell. To save his alliance with Jaylah's family, he drained my blood to save her mother, ignoring my own fading pulse. When Jaylah lied that I tried to burn her, Floyd forced me to thrust my hands—my architect's hands—into glowing coals until the flesh melted. He stripped me of my name, my protection, and finally, my life. "You are a liability," he said, pushing me into the freezing pool with a skimmer pole. He watched me drown with the same detached interest he used to inspect firearms. My lungs burned, and my heart turned to ice. I died hating him more than I ever loved him. I thought it was the end. But then, I gasped. Air rushed into my lungs. I wasn't in the water. I was sitting at a drafting table, five years before the nightmare began. My hands were smooth. No scars. No burns. And when Floyd Meyers approached me on the quad, smiling like the boy I used to love, I didn't smile back. I ran.

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."