Kattie Eaton

My twin sister Haleigh returned with a fake diagnosis of Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and a "dying wish" to marry my fiancé, Jameson Blair. Without a second thought, Jameson, the most feared Underboss in New York, took the three-carat diamond meant for me and slid it onto her finger. I became the spare. The obstacle standing in the way of a tragedy's happy ending. When Haleigh planted a brown recluse spider in my room, I was the one bitten and poisoned. Yet, my brothers kicked me while I was delirious with fever, accusing me of trying to terrorize their "dying" angel. On her birthday yacht party, a grill tipped over during a storm. My synthetic dress caught fire instantly. As flames seared the skin off my legs, I screamed for help. But Jameson and my brothers formed a human shield around Haleigh, frantically checking her hand for a single speck of ash while I burned alive just ten feet away. The final straw came at the cliffs. Haleigh staged a suicide attempt to frame me for bullying her. To teach me a lesson, Jameson bound my wrists and hung me over the edge of the abyss on a rope, leaving me dangling helplessly over the churning ocean. They thought they were punishing a monster. They didn't know I had a jagged rock in my hand. As they drove away to comfort the liar, I didn't wait for them to come back. I sawed through the rope myself and let the ocean take me. Three years later, after discovering Haleigh never had cancer, my brothers and Jameson found me alive in Florence. They knelt on the cobblestones, weeping, begging for a second chance. I looked at the men who had watched me burn. "You aren't sorry you hurt me," I said, turning to walk away with another man. "You're just sorry you bet on the wrong sister."

My father died because a drunk socialite, Kenya Cline, blocked the ambulance carrying him to the hospital. She laughed while filming the chaos for her followers. When I tried to bring her to justice, my husband, Cornell, drugged me and deleted the video evidence from my phone. Just because Kenya Cline is the daughter of his primary investor. He let her move into our house, where she mocked my father's death. He held me down while she poured scalding coffee on my neck. "An eye for an eye," he said calmly. At Kenya's birthday party, they framed me for stealing a necklace and forced me to walk across burning coals to prove my innocence. The final straw came when Cornell had my father's body thrown into the ocean, just to protect the killer, Kenya Cline. He thought he had broken me. But my father, a cautious lawyer, had left me two gifts: an ironclad post-nuptial agreement that entitled me to half of Cornell's billion-dollar empire, and a secret, encrypted copy of the video he thought he'd erased. He had no idea he hadn't just destroyed his wife; he had created his executioner.

Tonight was my engagement party, the beginning of the perfect life my fiancé, Mark, had promised me. The ballroom glittered, filled with white roses and the smiling faces of our friends and family. But just before my grand entrance, I overheard him talking to his sister, Isabella. "She's so ridiculously naive," he laughed. "Swallowed every lie. This sham of an engagement secured it all. Her family's company is ours now." I threw the door open, only to find them locked in a passionate, desperate kiss. He just smirked at me, his eyes cold. "The act is over," he said. "Did you really think I could ever love someone as pathetic as you?" When I ran to my father for help, he called me hysterical and sided with Mark, the man who had just destroyed my life. A text message confirmed the nightmare: Mark had frozen all my accounts. He'd taken everything. My only hope was a desperate one: Julian Thorne. A ruthless corporate predator and Mark's biggest rival. I went to him to beg for help. He looked at me with cold, calculating eyes and revealed a shocking secret. My family's company had already belonged to him for weeks. Then he made his offer. He would give me my revenge. In return, I had to sign a marriage contract and become his wife.

For five years, I was the steady paycheck that funded my boyfriend Mark's musical dreams. I paid the rent, I believed in his genius, and I thought our future was finally about to begin. He begged me for one last ride for him and his wealthy patron, Daniel. That favor ended in the screech of tires and the shattering of glass. I came to in a haze of pain, my right arm shattered and my career as an architect over. But Mark ignored my injuries, screaming at the paramedics to save his patron's precious hands. Then, at the hospital, Daniel's terrifyingly powerful brother, Julian, loomed over my gurney and promised me I would pay for what I'd done. While I was lying in a hospital bed, Mark changed the locks on the apartment I paid for and gave a false statement to Julian's lawyers, ensuring I would be blamed for everything. Broke, homeless, and facing prison, I was summoned to Julian Thorne's office. He didn't offer mercy. He offered a contract. He slid a document across his desk and gave me a choice: ruin and prison, or marriage and revenge. "You will marry me for one year," he said, his voice like ice. "In return, I will not only drop the lawsuit, but I will personally ensure the man who betrayed you is utterly destroyed."

My best friend, Emily, and I married into the powerful Thorne family on the same day. We thought we had it all, living a dream life as two of the luckiest women in the world. That illusion shattered on a Tuesday afternoon when Emily burst into my sunroom, her face pale, shoving her phone at me. The screen showed paparazzi photos of her husband, Liam, with another woman – his "childhood sweetheart," Olivia Hayes. Before I could process Emily's fury, my own tablet lit up. A press release from my husband Ethan' s company announced Olivia as the new face of his lifestyle brand, complete with a smiling photo of her next to him. Not only was Olivia the source of my best friend's pain, but my own husband, who had been distant and forgotten our anniversary, had made her our company's public face without a word to me. All my grievances, the neglect, the loneliness-they all flooded back. He didn't even think to mention it, treating me like just another asset to manage, not a wife to love. A cold resolve settled over me. Emily, still raging about her post-divorce plans, saw the press release on my tablet. A dangerous smile spread across her face. "Well," she said, "Looks like we' re both in the market for an upgrade." "Okay," I declared, a hysterical laugh bubbling up. "I' m in. We' re getting divorced. And I' ll find male models who are better than Ethan." Our laughter, wild and unhinged, was cut short by a low, cold voice from the doorway: "Better than me?" My husband, Ethan, stood there. He must have heard everything.

The scent of lavender and old books filled my dorm room, a stark contrast to the black void I' d just clawed my way out of. Then my phone buzzed, displaying a name that froze my blood: Chloe. Her text, "`Hey sis! Girls' night! Let's celebrate our bday tonight at Club Neon! Can't wait! xo`," was an invitation to my own destruction. I remembered the last time, walking into Club Neon full of hope to mend things with my half-sister, only for her to frame me for drug possession. My parents, who always adored Chloe, believed her over me, their "ambitious" but seemingly unlovable daughter. I lost everything: my prestigious internship, my reputation, my family' s trust, and eventually, my will to live, dying in a cold prison cell. But in the void, the truth shattered the darkness: Chloe and her boyfriend Brandon planned it all, laughing about ruining my life because of her vicious envy and his need to escape his own drug charges. Now I was back, breathing, the sun warm on my skin, with their fatal invitation buzzing in my hand. The naive Olivia was dead; the woman now holding this phone was a ghost with a second chance, her resolve a cold, hard diamond. "Okay."

The old engine purred under Alex Stone' s skilled hands, a familiar comfort in the dusty garage that was his sanctuary. Suddenly, a sleek Bentley pulled up, an unwelcome intrusion, and two impeccably dressed strangers, his biological parents Richard and Catherine Davies, stepped out. They claimed to have finally 'found' him, expressing a theatrical agony over his humble life, then promptly exiled him to the servants' quarters of their opulent mansion. He watched them defend their adopted son Mark, a charming fraud, over their own flesh and blood, showering Mark with affection while treating Alex with open disdain and snobbery. Why had they waited decades to seek him out, only to treat him with such calculated contempt? Driven by a cold curiosity and a need for answers, Alex walked away from their pretense, but not before issuing a cryptic warning that would shatter their carefully constructed world.

The day began like any other. I, Ava Hayes, lived a fairytale life, the ballerina wife to tech mogul Mark Thompson. Our world, seemingly perfect, was a carefully constructed illusion. Then, a car accident stole my sight, plunging me into a suffocating darkness. Mark became my devoted shadow, my "eyes," his absolute love a fortress against my fear. But six weeks later, my sight miraculously returned in the dead of night. And through the sliver of moonlight, I saw my "devoted" husband whispering "I love you" to my stepsister, Chloe. The air rushed out of my lungs, the joy of recovered sight replaced by world-shattering pain. My perfect husband, my devoted protector, the man who' d promised to shield me from every shadow, was building a future with someone else. He thought I was blind, helpless, and broken. They were both counting on it. A cold, hard decision formed in the wreckage of my heart. If he wanted me blind, then blind I would be. I lay back down, pulling the covers up, my body still, my eyes wide open, now truly seeing everything for the first time. My plan began to take shape, turning assumed weakness into my greatest weapon.

Mr. Henderson' s smile, wide and greasy, never reached his eyes. "What is it now, Sarah?" he' d asked, after ignoring my pleas for two weeks to fix the heater in my drafty apartment. He dismissed the strange, sweet smell coming from the vents as just an "old building" problem, scoffing that "You women are always worried about something." But the real insult came when my 72-year-old mother, who' d arrived for the holidays, collapsed, pale and confused, her words slurring, from what I suspected was that very smell. "She' s probably faking it to get some attention," Henderson sneered when I banged on his door in a panic, calling for an ambulance. "You' re a single mom, right? Always struggling. Maybe this is some kind of scheme to get a discount on your rent. A sick old mother, a dangerous apartment. It' s a classic." His cruelty hit me like a physical blow, leaving me reeling and powerless as paramedics wheeled my barely conscious mother from our apartment, declaring the CO levels "off the charts" and the place a "death trap." My mother was fighting for her life in the ICU, while Henderson was on the phone, his voice warm and accommodating, promising to immediately fix a torn window screen for "my best tenant," Dave. "Are you serious?" I whispered, trembling with fury. "You' re going to fix his window screen right now, but you couldn' t be bothered to fix the heater that almost killed my mother?" His voice dropped, menacing. "That\'s none of your business. Dave is a model tenant. He understands how things work. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from him." He hung up, confident in his power over "hysterical women." But as my mother' s doctor grimly told me she was being moved to the ICU, and I recalled every ignored complaint, every dismissal, every woman Henderson had mocked and endangered, the helplessness burned away, replaced by a roaring, determined rage. He thought I was just an emotional woman. He was about to find out just how hysterical I could be.

The bitter wind howled, a physical assault as I clung to the side of the mountain. Every breath burned, a painful reminder of the treacherous climb. Just yards away, my husband, Ethan, knelt beside Sarah, his childhood sweetheart, his voice a low, soothing murmur that reached her but not me. "Ethan!" I screamed, my voice raw and thin, "I' m hurt! My ankle…and my stomach…" He turned, his face a mask of irritation, a cold dismissal in his eyes as he snapped, "Stop being so dramatic, Chloe. Sarah is fragile. You' re strong enough." I fell to my knees in the deep snow, the pain in my abdomen intensifying. "Ethan, the baby! Our baby!" I cried out, the words tearing from my throat. He froze for a second, a flicker of something in his eyes before Sarah whimpered, and his expression hardened. He thought I was lying, trying to manipulate him. He pried my numb fingers from his pant leg, his touch rough, then shoved me. My head hit the jagged rock, the world exploding in white-hot pain. My last clear sight was of Ethan scooping Sarah into his arms, turning his back, and walking away, leaving me bleeding and broken in the storm. I tried to call out again, to scream about the ultrasound in my wallet, the one I was going to show him, but he barely paused as Sarah whispered something to him, pointing back at me with a dismissive gesture. He walked on, his pace quickening, a shrinking dark spot in a world of white. That was the moment I knew. I wasn' t just abandoned; I was erased. My body was found, and the truth of my pregnancy was revealed, shattering his meticulously crafted lies. His career, his reputation, everything crumbled. Then, he learned Sarah's vile secret: she had known I was dying and had deliberately made sure I couldn't be found. The monstrous truth ignited a primal rage in him. He found her, his wife's killer, and exacted a brutal, watery vengeance without a single moment of pity. He left her drowned, just as he had left me to freeze. He survived, living with the ghost of his actions until my father, with a quiet, terrifying resolve, finally delivered his own brand of justice. My father trapped him, just like I was, in a concrete pit. I watched, a detached soul, as he descended into the earned darkness, his screams echoing. He would not follow me. Finally, I was free.

Six months ago, our perfect family shattered. My son, Leo, suffered a profound brain injury, and I lost a kidney in a traumatic hit-and-run. My husband, Andrew, was my rock, always there with a soothing hand, a comforting word. But then, I heard it. A whispered confession from his office. Andrew, my loving husband, orchestrated Leo' s accident to gain an inheritance for his secret son. My hit-and-run was a setup, designed to harvest my kidney for his mistress, who needed a transplant. The man I married, the father of my child, tried to murder our son and carved me up like an animal for his other woman. He forced me to be a human blood bag for her, then threatened to bleed Leo dry and replace him with his illegitimate child. The ultimate horror struck at a party, when Andrew, consumed by rage, shoved Leo, causing a severe head injury. His ultimate act of betrayal? Leaving our bleeding son to fuss over his mistress' s minor scratch. How could the man I loved be such a monster? How could he betray us so utterly? The rage, the grief, the sheer disbelief threatened to consume me. But as he walked away, abandoning our child on the floor, something within me snapped. I would not break. I would play along, biding my time. My son was not an accident; he was a target. And now, so was I. But they had underestimated this mother' s rage. I was going to fight back.

The stale smell of burnt coffee and dread filled the air. I knew this night. The final, all-night document review for a billion-dollar merger. Last time, my husband, Mark, the senior partner, abandoned his post for his intern mistress, Chloe, after she ruined critical documents. Their negligence cost us the deal and ruined Mr. Thompson, our biggest client. They pinned it all on me. I was disbarred, sued into oblivion, and died poor and alone, while Mark and Chloe thrived, protected by her powerful family. Now, I was back. Reborn on the worst night of my life, with only four hours to save everything. But the past was insistent. Chloe, with her shrill apologies, again spilled coffee-this time directly onto the irreplaceable signature page. Mark, predictably, jumped to defend her, leaving the crucial filing to comfort his "distressed" mistress. "Chloe needs me!" he hissed, as his phone blared with her manipulative threats: "If you don't come to me this second, I'm going to the clinic! I'll get rid of it!" He shoved me aside, spitting, "The firm has malpractice insurance for a reason." And just like last time, he was gone, leaving chaos in his wake. How could a man jeopardize a billion-dollar deal, his reputation, and his client' s legacy for a flighty intern? How could such selfish, incompetent people rise to power while I was destroyed? This time, I wouldn't just watch. I wouldn't break. With pain in my heart and hip, I walked to the head of the abandoned table. The game had changed. This time, I' d take the lead. And this time, I wouldn' t just survive-I' d make sure they burned for it.

My eyes snapped open in the blinding hospital light. A nurse murmured the date: July 15th, 2013. The number slammed into me. It couldn't be. That was ten years ago. Ten years before the crash that supposedly just happened. Ten years before I, Sarah Miller, endured a decade of quiet suffocation married to Ethan Hayes. In my real recent past, just before the crash, I'd discovered gut-wrenching betrayal: Ethan and Olivia Cartwright, his high-school flame, renewed vows in secret. While I was still his wife. The misery, the constant, gnawing neglect, Ethan's emotional energy poured into Olivia like water into sand—it all came rushing back. He had lived a double life, building a separate future with another woman while married to me. My spirit, a withered thing, had accepted it. Now, I was back. Before the suffering, before the constant, soul-crushing betrayal. A cruel irony: my alleged accident had sent me backward in time, to before the misery even began. The quiet misery was a screaming void. I just relived it, and realized I was about to restart it. But not this time. This was it. My second chance. Ethan could have Olivia. He could have her from the start. Sarah Miller was not walking that path again. I was going to orchestrate their "happiness" and secure my own escape into a real life.

I was just a normal college sophomore, studying journalism, living with my roommate, Britt. She was a self-proclaimed social justice warrior online, constantly posting, but sometimes her "activism" felt more like twisting things to make people feel small. This Thanksgiving, I posted a simple, sweet photo of my dad and me, saying how thankful I was for my hero firefighter father. A few hours later, a friend sent a screenshot from CampusWhisper, our anonymous gossip app. It was my photo, my dad, with a vile caption calling me a "pick-me" celebrating "patriarchal figures." My stomach dropped when I saw the edge of my phone in the background. Only Britt could have taken that screenshot from my phone. When I confronted her, she sneered, defending herself as "speaking truth to power," even calling my dad an "oppressive machine." Campus security ordered her to apologize, but Britt retaliated, mocking me on TikTok, painting me as a sensitive, "triggered conservative." Then came the rumors, and a guy, clearly put up to it by Britt, made a disgusting comment implying she' d shown them fabricated, explicit images of me and my dad. My blood ran cold imagining what she created. I charged her, demanding to see her phone, and she screamed, faking an assault. Me, assaulting her? The humiliation was unbearable. I couldn't understand why her hatred was so personal, so extreme. What kind of person creates something like that about someone's father? What was wrong with her? That' s when I called my Uncle Dave, a no-nonsense lawyer. He told me to start gathering every piece of evidence. This wasn't just online drama anymore; this was a war, and I was going to fight back. I had no idea then, how far she would be willing to go, or what I would have to do to stop her before she destroyed my life – and potentially ended it.

My 21st birthday, meant for celebrating my engagement to Ethan, turned into a nightmare when Brooklyn's "art installation" exploded, disfiguring me. Caleb and Ethan, my brother and fiancé, feigned concern, but a phantom "gossip blog" in my vision exposed their gruesome truth. They weren't protecting me; they were using my injury as an excuse to exile and neglect me, diverting my critical burn medicine to Brooklyn while plotting to steal her tech. The blog revealed their plan: to commit me to a remote facility once their scheme was complete, while they praised my tormentor. They stripped me of my home, sent thugs to "therapy" me, and Ethan shamelessly broke our engagement, leaving me to face violence. The betrayal reached its horrifying peak on my 22nd birthday when Brooklyn desecrated my mother's bracelet, and my own brother and fiancé dragged me into a frigid lake. They repeatedly submerged me, watching my wounds bleed, all for their twisted corporate gains. How could the people who swore to love me unleash such calculated cruelty? My burning pain and utter dehumanization revealed their true faces. Lying bloody by the lakeside, as the phantom blog vanished, I realized the full depth of their treachery-and found my unshakeable resolve to fight back and escape their grasp forever.

My life with Ethan, my architect husband, seemed perfect, a harmonious blend of shared dreams and urban aspirations. But that illusion shattered one terrifying weekend when I suffered a life-threatening allergic reaction, struggling to breathe as I collapsed before his eyes. Instead of rushing my EpiPen, Ethan prioritized a "crisis" orchestrated by Chloe Sanders, his scheming intern, leaving me to suffocate while he secured her coveted project files. I woke up alone in a sterile hospital room, realizing the devastating depth of his betrayal, only to then discover I was pregnant with his child. His ongoing public neglect and Chloe' s brazen flaunting of my stolen family heirloom cemented the horrifying truth: they thought they had succeeded in making me disappear, dismissed as merely an accessory. But they were gravely mistaken; driven by a cold fury and the silent beat of a new life within me, I, Ava Thompson, was about to unleash a meticulously planned reckoning upon them both.

Hollywood's A-list actor, Alex Miller, stood at the altar, ready to marry studio executive Jessica Hayes, convinced it would be the perfect day. But his bride made a grand entrance – not in white, but in a flashy sports car with pretty-boy influencer Ryan Vance, live-streaming her public ditching as "lesson one" in his "cure" for possessiveness. That public humiliation was merely the overture. For months, Jessica orchestrated Alex's systematic dismantling: forcing him to yield coveted roles to Ryan, literally cleaning Ryan's shoes at awards shows, and issuing televised apologies for fabricated incidents. The crescendo hit when Ryan, with Jessica's dark approval, brutally slashed Alex's face and set him ablaze in a studio, as Jessica rescued Ryan and left Alex to burn. Lying in agonizing pain, abandoned to the flames, Alex comprehended the chilling truth: this wasn't love, or even a lesson. It was a calculated, sadistic demolition, designed to break him. The humiliation transformed into an icy, unshakable resolve. What they didn't foresee was Alex's quiet preparation. Already armed with irrefutable hidden evidence, he began a strategic withdrawal, cutting all ties while securing his future. Now, with a new fiancée and a life far from Hollywood's toxicity, Alex is ready to reveal his own "final cut" – a masterpiece of retribution.

Before the wedding, Darin got completely drunk and complained to his brother, "I can't help it; who told that text to go to the wrong person?" "But it's good that Melany knows I'm getting married; she's been so well-behaved and doesn't dare to act up anymore." "She should have been dealt with like this a long time ago!" "Jin, are you really going to marry Jillian? Aren't you the one who hates her controlling you the most?" Darin raised an eyebrow and smiled, "Well, we haven't even gotten the marriage license yet." "Once the wedding is over, won't it be up to me to call the shots?" I clenched my fists and put away the pregnancy test results. Darin, this time, you don't get to decide.

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 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.

On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table. Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen. "Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over." I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward. Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant. She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest. As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me. He hugged her. "It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you." The betrayal didn't stop there. When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police. When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line—the one meant for life-or-death situations. He declined the call. He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife. That was the moment the chain broke. As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come. I opened the door and jumped into the dark. Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement. Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one.

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