Ola Wilde

My husband, the ruthless Don of Chicago, forced me to kneel in the freezing mud to apologize to his mistress. He believed her fake tears over my dignity. While the icy rain soaked through my dress, a sharp, jagged cramp seized my body. I screamed for him, begging for help as I felt the life slipping out of me. But Dante didn't move. He just lit a cigarette, his eyes cold as steel. "Get up when you are ready to learn respect," he said. He walked inside with her, locking the door and leaving me to bleed out in the storm. I lost the baby that night. The doctors told me the damage was permanent—I was barren. I thought that was the bottom, but I was wrong. When I returned to the estate, a ghost in my own home, he threw me into a flooded cellar full of rats because Elena accused me of poisoning her son. He tortured me for days to protect a child that wasn't even his. That was the moment the love died. So, while he was away on business, I didn't just pack a bag. I executed a plan three years in the making. I vanished. But before I disappeared, I left him a gift on his desk. A USB drive containing the security footage of Elena’s lies, the medical report of the miscarriage he caused, and a paternity test proving he had destroyed his true family for a stranger's bastard. By the time he fell to his knees screaming my name, I was already gone.

I sat in the front row of the theater, my hand in my fiancé' s, waiting for the premiere of the true-crime podcast he' d been consulting on. But when the host' s voice filled the room, it wasn' t telling the story of how I survived a brutal kidnapping-it was accusing me of faking it for attention. And the "anonymous source" who provided my private therapy tapes was the man sitting right next to me. Dr. Erik Nichols wasn't just the psychiatrist who "saved" me; he was the mole who handed my darkest traumas to his ex-girlfriend for a viral hit. On stage, they played my weeping confessions, edited to sound like manipulation. The audience turned on me, jeering at the "Girl Who Cried Wolf." Erik grabbed my arm, whispering that this public humiliation was just "exposure therapy" for my own good. I was drowning in panic until a booming voice cut through the crowd. "Let her go." FBI Agent Ewing Oconnor, the man who actually found me in that cabin years ago, stepped onto the stage with his badge raised. He didn't just rescue me from the mob; he handed me the weapon to fight back. Now, I' m not just the survivor. I' m the plaintiff, and I' m coming for everything they have.

My husband left me to die in a fire, choosing to save his mistress while I lost our baby in the flames. But my suffering had only just begun. He and his lover then tried to poison me, swapping my life-saving medication for tranquilizers. When that didn't work, he orchestrated a car crash that shattered my legs, leaving me crippled and helpless. His final act of cruelty was on his yacht. He watched as his mistress framed me, then locked me in a room with a group of thugs who left me for dead. I threw myself into the ocean that night, choosing the cold, dark water over the monsters on that boat. I survived. I rebuilt my life, found a man who cherished my broken pieces, and was about to get married. Then, August crashed my engagement party. He told me he'd destroyed his mistress and was giving me his entire fortune. He thought he could buy his way back into my life. He was about to learn that some things can't be fixed with money.

For twenty years, I, Sarah Miller, played the perfect adoptive daughter, quiet and grateful, believing it was enough to earn their love. Then Chloe, their biological daughter, returned from abroad, and my carefully constructed world began to shatter. First, they pressured me to sign away the inheritance my grandmother left me, claiming Chloe "needed a strong start." Then, my fiancé, Liam, the man I was supposed to marry in three months, abandoned me, confessing "Chloe needs me." The ultimate betrayal came when my adoptive parents commanded me to marry Ethan Blackwood-a recluse rumored to be disfigured, disabled, and monstrous-to secure a business deal they refused their precious Chloe. I became a tool, a spare part to be used and discarded, my purpose reduced to being sacrificed for their real daughter. But what they saw as my defeat was merely the beginning. I walked into that arranged marriage to a supposed monster, ready to lose everything, without realizing I was about to gain more than I ever imagined.

The world was a blur, then nothing. I woke up to blinding darkness and a chemical stench, my eyes replaced by thick bandages. Panic set in fast. Then, Liam, my fiancé, was there, his voice a balm. "What happened? Our wedding is tomorrow." He soothed me, but a cold dread seeped in. I was blind. I overheard Liam' s hushed, chilling conversation. He told the doctor, "Ashley Green… The donation is coming from Chloe. It's a perfect match." My blood ran cold. They wanted my eyes, while I was alive. Then, the final blow. "I want her uterus removed." The man I was to marry was systematically carving me up for his true love, my protégé, Ashley. They thought me a broken thing. They were wrong. They had given me a new reason to live. Revenge. I would play the part of the devoted, broken fiancée. And I would make them pay for everything. My family, the powerful Davis clan, had no idea what had become of their secretly wealthy daughter. Little did Liam know, he was inviting my eldest brother, Ethan Davis, to officiate our wedding. My undoing would become their demise.

"I do." The words sealed my fate. My wedding day, finally, after years of wanting this quiet happiness with Andrew. But then, the doors burst open, and Ryan Clark, my childhood friend, my first love, strode down the aisle. "Gabrielle, don't do this! You can't marry him, it's always been me!" he declared, grabbing my hand amidst gasps from the guests. I let him pull me away, past the shocked faces of friends and family, and out of the venue. Once outside, the mask dropped. His cruel laughter echoed, "She actually did it! She ditched her own wedding for me!" That's when I heard it, the words that shattered my world like ice: "One hundred bucks. I honestly thought she'd finally grown a spine." It was all a bet, a calculated humiliation, a performance designed to prove I was his pathetic puppet. He just laughed and told me to go back inside, "If he'll even have you." How could someone I loved so deeply be so utterly heartless, so devoid of real emotion? Was my entire life with him a lie, a cruel joke for his twisted amusement? But then, as I walked back, a loud POP, confetti, and Andrew's warm smile awaited me, ready to begin our future. Little did Ryan know, he wasn't crashing my wedding; he was performing an act in my meticulously planned revenge, a performance that would expose his monstrosity and free me for good.

It ended in a tub of cold, red water, inside the luxurious cabin on Puget Sound Julian called our "gilded cage." For a year, he had tortured me, his wife, driven by the belief my family murdered his high school sweetheart, Summer Hayes, so I could have her heart. My final act was an escape. But death brought no peace. Instead, I hovered, a translucent spirit, watching Julian find my body. I waited for shock, for panic. Instead, a slow, cold smile spread across his handsome face. He didn't rush to my side; he laughed. A guttural sound of pure triumph, tears of victory streaming down his face. My death wasn't a tragedy to him; it was the final act of his revenge. From the shadows, I watched as he scattered my ashes to the wind, declaring me "trash," dismissing my last handwritten note about a chocolate cake without a second glance. I died thinking this was his ultimate victory. But as a silent, weightless shadow, something shifted. I felt his thoughts, intrusive and unwanted, turning from his lost love to me. A terrifying doubt began to blossom: What if his entire crusade, his all-consuming hatred, was built on a horrifying lie? What if his Summer hadn't been murdered at all? I, Elara, the woman he swore was a thief, his greatest enemy, became a prisoner even in death, bound to witness the unraveling of the monster I had foolishly loved. He thought he won, but he was about to learn that my passing wasn't the end of his torment. It was just the beginning. And I would be there, a silent witness, to his agonizing, self-inflicted destruction.

I was blinded by love, pouring every spare cent and endless late nights into his dreams, even passing on a scholarship to stay by his side. Graduation day was meant to be my triumph, valedictorian honors awaiting, my future with Ethan stretching bright before us. But instead, the Dean's grave voice announced an accusation of academic fraud, and my name was tragically linked with Chloe' s, Ethan' s 'childhood friend,' who feigned innocence. "It was mine," Chloe sobbed, loud enough for the microphone, "Sarah stole my work." Then, the man I loved, my everything, stepped forward, not for me, but to embrace her, publicly declaring his belief in Chloe' s lies, accusing me of bullying. My world didn't just crumble; it turned to dust. My diploma was instantly withheld, my honors stripped, and my future, painstakingly built, evaporated into thin air. Every eye in that auditorium judged me, condemned me, while the man who once swore to build an empire with me watched my humiliation, his face a mask of cold righteousness. How could the man who promised eternal love betray me so easily, abandoning me to public ruin for a fabricated story? The searing pain of that injustice fueled every step as I fled, leaving behind my shattered past. Five years later, I returned to a college reunion, a woman transformed, only to find Ethan on one knee, holding a diamond, naively believing he could reclaim the girl whose life he ruthlessly destroyed.

The sunlight hit my face, bright and familiar. The scent of Mark' s pancakes drifted upstairs, and I could already picture Emily' s excited squeal. It was going to be a big day, a theme park adventure. A perfect family morning. But then the memory hit me like a sledgehammer. This wasn' t just a morning; it was that morning. The day Emily died. Last time, my husband Mark and his mistress Chloe had dismissed my daughter Emily' s sudden illness as "faking it." They wanted their perfect weekend. They waited too long. Peanuts. An allergic reaction. My sweet girl died because they prioritized their illicit affair over her life. My heart hammered, a drumbeat of terror and rage. It wasn' t a nightmare. It was real. Again. How could fate be this cruel, this twisted, giving me this tormenting déjà vu? But a cold, steely certainty settled over me: not this time. Not ever again. I flung back the covers, hands shaking, but my resolve was iron-hard. I had been given a surreal, terrifying second chance. Emily would live. And as for Mark and Chloe? They would learn that a mother' s fury, born from unimaginable loss, would make them wish they' d never seen this day. This was a new game, and I was playing to win.

In the hidden hollows of the Appalachians, my family knew a secret: a spark of life, a whisper of old magic in our blood that could make the barren fruitful. It was just folklore until Eleanor Montgomery arrived, her son Ethan, heir to a sprawling industrial empire, dying. Desperate, my family agreed: I, Sarah-Mae Jenkins, would marry Ethan, save him, and secure our future. My "gift" worked. I conceived twins, and Ethan recovered, vibrant and strong. But on the day our healthy babies were born, he stood over me, cruel and triumphant, and smothered them. "Mountain trash," he spat, then sealed me alive in their cold family crypt. To erase all trace, Montgomery Industries orchestrated a chemical spill, annihilating my entire valley, my home, my people. Every hope, every life, gone. Everything I had, destroyed. Why such monstrous cruelty for a boy' s twisted obsession? Why was my very essence, my gift of life, deemed a curse worthy of such utter annihilation? The pain was a living thing, consuming me. Then, darkness. Then, light. I gasped awake in my own bed, back in the small cabin, on the very day Eleanor Montgomery' s black car would wind its way up our mountain road. This time, there would be no bargain. This time, Sarah-Mae Jenkins was reborn for one purpose: revenge.

My NFL dream was within reach, a scholarship to A&M, a future as a star quarterback. Life felt perfect under the Friday night lights. Then, one night, after a showcase game, I was dragged behind the bleachers. Blinding pain ripped through me, a sound like splintering wood from my throwing arm, then blackness. I woke up in the hospital, my body broken. But the true nightmare began when I overheard my mom and sister, supposedly my heartbroken family, plotting. They had hired the thugs who attacked me. It was all to "slow me down," to "clear the path" for my half-brother, Caleb. They wanted me to miss the combine, to make sure Caleb got his shot. My own mother engineered my brutal assault. Caleb even came to my hospital room and staged a pathetic fake attack, making me look like the monster. The perfect family, the supportive mother, the caring sister—all a grotesque, suffocating lie. My entire future, my identity, shattered by the very people who claimed to love me. How could they do this? Lying there, crippled and utterly betrayed, a desperate memory resurfaced: a crumpled note from my deceased father, a number for a grandfather, an oil baron I’d never met. With trembling fingers, I reached for my phone. It was my only hope.

After being harmed, my soul left my body, and I discovered the truth that my whole family wanted to harm me. So I started to fight back. I began to teach my younger brother, distance myself from my fiancé, take control of the family business, and audit my mother's dowry shop. I forced my stepmother and father to make up for the embezzled money, and then set a trap to catch my stepsister Nora and fiancé Max in the act of adultery, spreading the scandal throughout Eighphia. After seeking treatment from a renowned doctor, my health gradually improved. I exposed my stepmother's actions against me, sought revenge, and gradually revealed the truth that it was my own good father who was behind the harm to me and my mother. Through confrontation and covert investigation, I gathered evidence and uncovered a secret that was enough to destroy my father's entire family... I avenged myself and my mother, and also found a fulfilling marriage.

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."

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.

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."

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.

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.

I was a Vitiello, sold to the Morettis to secure an alliance. For five years, I quietly loved Dante, counting down the minutes until our wedding at St. Patrick's Cathedral. But it ended with a single text three minutes before the ceremony. "Stay at the apartment. Sofia is awake. Don't make a scene." His ex-girlfriend, the love of his life, had woken from a coma with no memory. Just like that, I was erased. For thirty days, I waited in the shadows while Dante played hero to a woman who didn't remember him. He told me he was protecting her fragile mind. But then I found the truth. I stood outside the doctor's office and heard Dante refuse a treatment that would restore Sofia's memory. "If she remembers, she might leave again," Dante told the doctor. "Elena will wait. She's a good soldier. Let me have my fantasy." He wasn't protecting her. He was keeping her broken to feed his ego, banking on my submission. He thought I was furniture he could put in storage. He was wrong. I didn't go back to the apartment. Instead, I dialed a number every made man in New York feared. "Matteo," I said to Dante's lethal older brother, the King of the underworld. "I am done waiting. I want to be a Moretti bride. But not Dante's."

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.