Out Of Town

I was eight months pregnant with the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. My husband, Austen, told me he was hosting a private celebration to honor me and the baby. But when I walked into the warehouse, the steel doors slammed shut behind me. I wasn't in a ballroom. I was locked inside an industrial glass freezer. Through the thick glass, I saw Austen standing with his assistant, Deb. They were laughing. He told me he didn't care about his son; he only cared about the trust fund that would unlock upon my father's death. "Cool her off," he ordered. His men dumped buckets of ice water onto me. The shock was instant. I begged him to stop, screaming for the life of our child, but he just watched with cold eyes. As I collapsed into a slush of ice and my own blood, I felt the baby fade away. Austen thought he had won. He thought my father, the Don, was dead and buried. He thought I was just a helpless, spoiled princess he could dispose of to seize the throne. He was wrong. With my last ounce of strength, I looked through the glass and mouthed three words: "He is coming." Before Austen could react, the warehouse doors didn't just open—they exploded inward. And through the smoke walked the man Austen thought was worm food. My father wasn't dead. But my husband was about to wish he was.

To save her family's empire, CEO Eliana King, known as the "Ice Queen," entered an arranged marriage with the rebellious artist Garrett Wolf. She saw him as a chaotic variable to be managed, a business deal. She never expected to be a pawn in his game of love. The devastating truth was that her husband was desperately in love with his childhood friend and muse, Serena Vance. Their entire marriage was a sham, a shield to protect Serena from his family's judgment, and a tool to make her jealous. When Eliana tried to divorce him, her own family, who knew the secret all along, had her brutally punished. Later, Garrett publicly forced a kiss on Eliana to provoke his lover, an act that ended with Serena attacking Eliana in a fit of jealous rage. In the hospital, Garrett's only concern was protecting Serena, proving Eliana's pain meant nothing next to his obsession. She was a tool, utterly disposable. This final betrayal ignited a fire in the ice. After a violent retaliation, she cut ties with her past and began celebrating her freedom. But the party came to a dead stop when Garrett appeared, his eyes burning with a rage meant only for her.

I was kidnapped by the rival tribe of my Alpha. When it happened, my Alpha was watching the sunrise with his destined mate. When he got the call, he spoke to the kidnappers in a detached tone. "Keep her tied up. Let her learn her lesson and stop pestering me." In that life-or-death moment, I had no options left. I clung to the rival tribe's Alpha, my voice shaking. "Please... don't kill me. I'll do anything you say." By the time my Alpha finally remembered me, the rival tribe's Alpha looked down at my sleeping face in his arms and chuckled. "Too late. She doesn't have the strength to leave with you now."

I was a rising architect, deeply in love with Ethan Miller, my charismatic colleague who promised me a future. He called me his muse, swore he' d make me his wife. I believed him. Then came the crisis: a critical error in our biggest project, threatening the whole firm. In the packed conference room, under harsh lights, Ethan pointed directly at me. "Yes, it was her fault," he stated, clear and steady. The entire room turned. I became a pariah overnight, accused of fraud and disgrace. Colleagues whispered, mentors condemned me. The pain was unbearable, but Ethan only offered cold indifference, his attention now solely on Sarah Jenkins, his junior assistant. I collapsed in a forgotten office, suffering for days. When I finally found Ethan, he was tenderly bandaging Sarah's minor cut, just as he had in our previous life while I fended for myself. He dragged me away, his fingers digging into my arm. "Sarah' s injury is more pressing, Olivia. Why do you always have to compete with her? She' s delicate." I tried to leave the firm, but Ethan and the executives forced me to take the fall, signing a brutal severance and an NDA to protect Sarah' s career. Sarah flaunted Ethan' s mother' s watch, the one he' d given me when he proposed in our previous life, and announced their engagement. "Ethan and I are getting married. You'll wish us happiness, won't you?" Why was he doing this to me again? And why was I so readily accepting my ruin? My spirit was shattered, my body broken, yet I couldn't comprehend the depths of his betrayal, or the sinister logic behind his actions. But this time, I wouldn't just accept it. The memory of his cruelty, intertwined with the desperate kindness of a childhood friend, would soon chart a new course, away from the torment and into a fight for peace.

"I don' t want to marry him, Mom." The words were a whisper, a desperate plea from the master suite that was supposed to be my bridal sanctuary. My wedding was tomorrow, everything paid for, hundreds of people coming. Yet my mother, steady as ever, offered a way out: a ticket to Florence. Just hours before my dream wedding, I stumbled upon a nightmare. From my balcony, soft lights illuminated the shocking truth: my fiancé, Liam, the celebrated tech genius, was locked in a deep, familiar kiss with my stepsister, Chloe. It wasn' t just a stolen moment; it was a betrayal that shattered eight years of my life. I confronted my father, seeking solace, but he sided with Jessica, Chloe' s manipulative mother, who mocked my pain. He dismissed my feelings, accused me of hysteria, and finally, tragically, raised his hand to me in defense of his new family. The sting on my cheek burned, but it was nothing compared to the agony of knowing my own father chose them over me. Later, I discovered the true depths of Liam' s deceit. Security footage revealed him admitting I was merely a "ticket in," a stepping stone for his career, while his heart had always belonged to Chloe. He wore her picture in a locket, planning our future while loving her. The man I knew was a carefully constructed lie. The grief hardened into a cold, fierce resolve. I wouldn' t just disappear. My wedding day would still happen, but it wouldn' t be a celebration of love. It would be my stage for justice, a meticulously planned takedown. I was no longer the victim; I was the architect of their destruction, ready to pull the cornerstone from the empire Liam had built on my lies.

My fiancée, Vivian, looked radiant in her white dress, laughing with another man at our engagement party. This was the tenth time. Each prior time, after I caught her betraying me, she would erase my memory of it, leaving me clueless, trapped in a cycle of her infidelity and my manufactured oblivion. But this time, it was different. I overheard her bragging to her lover, Kyle, that I, Ethan Miller, would forget everything, and still show up at the altar begging to marry her. It wasn't just the affair; it was her absolute, casual cruelty. My doctor had warned me: one more erasure and I risked losing all memories of Vivian, good or bad, forever. As I stood there, watching her and Kyle, the reality of her manipulation shattered my world. I confronted them, and in the ensuing chaos, I was left bleeding on the floor as Vivian rushed to Kyle's side, showing him the genuine concern she denied me. My last hope died that night. In the hospital, as Vivian prepared to erase my memory again, flashes of all nine past betrayals surged through my mind, a tidal wave of suppressed agony, and then darkness. I woke up at my own wedding, in a suit I didn' t recognize, with no memory of the woman walking down the aisle. When Kyle burst in, exposing Vivian' s betrayal, she abandoned me at the altar, running into his arms. I collapsed, feeling betrayed by a stranger, utterly lost. I had no idea who Vivian Hayes was, but a powerful, instinctual aversion told me I wanted nothing to do with her. Refusing to be her victim any longer, I walked away from everything, leaving my old life and her behind. I found a new path, a new identity in the boxing ring. But just as I reached the pinnacle of my new career, Kyle reappeared, revealing Vivian once again manipulated my life, ensuring my championship win was a staged farce. My rage, the phantom pain of nine forgotten betrayals, finally found its true target. I slammed the championship belt to the floor, telling her it was all a lie, and banished her from my life forever. I don't need to remember the details. I know, in my bones, what she is. Now, a legendary trainer has offered me a fresh start in Italy, a place where her ghosts can't reach me. This time, I' m building a life for myself, by myself, on my own terms.

The air in my tiny apartment was heavy with the scent of lavender and burnt toast, a comfort that would soon become a sickening memory. My vintage Gibson, a direct link to my family' s musical legacy, rested on my bed – destined to be sold to save the woman I loved. "Are you sure about this, Alex?" Chloe asked, her voice laced with what I, foolishly, believed was genuine concern for her supposed terminal illness. But the moment the camera started rolling, the painful truth became devastatingly clear. Mark Johnson, Chloe' s ex, swaggered in, her hand intertwined with his, their faces twisted in triumphant sneers. "He' s such a pathetic loser," Chloe laughed, her voice bright and utterly devoid of the weakness she had been faking for a month. Every loving glance, every shared secret, every sacrifice I' d made for her was just a calculated move in their cruel game of revenge for a two-year-old scholarship. They wanted to humiliate me, to shatter my music, and to break my spirit for their twisted amusement, and they wanted it all on camera. They beat me, left my arm broken and my heart in ruins, filming every agonizing second for their viral masterpiece. Why would anyone, let alone the woman I' d given everything to, orchestrate such a monstrous betrayal? How could I have been so blind? But as I lay there, broken and bleeding on the cold studio floor, my phone buzzed with an unknown London number. A single call, a deceased grandfather, and a substantial inheritance became my unexpected lifeline, a way out of the abyss. I was broken, but not defeated. I would clean up their mess, not for revenge, but for my own survival. The desperate fool they knew was dead. And the man who rose from his ashes would burn their world to the ground.

The dusty box held my father' s medal, a cold, heavy relic of a life shattered too soon. Then the call came – a hospital, an unfamiliar number, and the dreaded news: my brother, Michael, was brutally attacked, barely clinging to life. Memories flooded me: my father's dying wish to protect Michael, the years I spent raising him, only for this monstrous injustice to strike. General Sterling, my father's esteemed colleague, watched with unreadable eyes, while Thorne, the man responsible, sneered about a "bar fight" and sent me chilling threats. Police dismissed my pleas, the media shut down my story, and even Sterling' s socialite fiancée, Victoria, joined the chorus of dismissal, forcing me to confront Thorne alone and sparking a silent battle within me to unveil the truth my brother nearly died for.

I gasped, air burning my lungs, and woke up in my boyhood room, fifteen years in the past. My nightmare, my first brutal life at the hands of my venomous wife Tiff and her associate Marcus Thorne, was seemingly over. But then, my adoptive brother Kyle, with a greedy glint in his eye, declared at breakfast, "I want Tiff!" He remembered. Kyle, the arrogant fool, was reborn too, still chasing the very woman who had orchestrated my destruction. A cold, fierce joy ignited in me as I considered the drugs, the abuse, the helplessness I' d suffered in my past life at Tiff' s command. He was blindly walking into the same web of torment, envious of a "glamorous" life that had been my personal hell. The injustice of it, the sickening realization that he desired the very chains that had bound me, fueled a grim resolve. I died believing I was discarded trash, and Kyle' s casual disdain for everyone else had festered in my first life. But never again would I be a victim; this was my chance for justice, for everyone she' d hurt. "If Kyle prefers Tiffany," I said, meeting my adoptive father' s surprised gaze, "I have no objection to marrying Olivia Vance." My first move in a game of fate and vengeance had just been played.

My name was Seraphina, Guardian of the Veil in Aethelburg, blessed with a loving husband, Malakor, and our son, Kael. My sacred duty was to ensure souls found serene passage into their next lives, maintaining cosmic balance. But then, something unthinkable happened: the Draught was secretly replaced, unleashing chaos upon Earth as souls were reborn remembering ancient pains. I, the Guardian, was blamed for this "Calamity" and unjustly banished to the harrowing Wailing Chasm for five torturous centuries. When I finally returned, a shadow of my former self, clinging to hope, my dearest husband and son greeted me with what seemed like true sorrow and unwavering belief. Yet, a horrifying secret, overheard by chance, tore my fragile world apart. It was revealed that Malakor sacrificed me to protect his ambitious sister, Lyra, who had orchestrated the entire catastrophe, using our own son, Kael, as her unwitting pawn. The family I adored had betrayed me, allowing me to suffer unimaginable torment just to preserve their status and shield Lyra' s cruel games. The shock, the sheer injustice, transformed my despair into a scorching rage as I saw the true depths of their calculated cruelty. I realized their reunion was a calculated lie, designed to break me further, and Lyra even stole my sacred ancestral robes, gloating in her victory. My only escape, my last hope, lay in the ancient Cipher of Thresholds, an artifact passed down through my lineage. I meticulously prepared my escape, leaving behind every last vestige of the life they had so casually destroyed. With the Cipher, I opened a gateway, choosing freedom and a new beginning over lingering in the ashes of their betrayal. I stepped through, severing every tie to Aethelburg, determined to rebuild a life where their shadows could never reach me again.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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 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."

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 watched my husband, the most feared Capo in New York, sign away our marriage with the same cold indifference he usually reserved for ordering a hit. The nib of his Montblanc pen scratched against the paper, drowning out the rain hitting the coffee shop window. He didn't bother to read a single word. He thought he was signing routine shipping manifests for the family business. In reality, he was signing the "Dissolution of Union" papers I had hidden beneath the cover sheet. He was too distracted to check. His eyes were glued to his encrypted phone, frantically texting Sofia—the widow, the tragic beauty, the woman who had haunted our marriage for three years. "Done," he grunted, tossing the stack into his armored SUV without even glancing at me. "Business is concluded, Elena. We leave." Moments later, his phone rang with her special emergency tone. His demeanor shifted from cold boss to frantic protector instantly. "Driver, divert. She needs me," he roared. He looked at me with zero affection and ordered, "Get out, Elena. Luca will take you home." He kicked me out of the car into the pouring rain to rush to his mistress, completely unaware he had just legally granted me my freedom. I stood on the curb, shivering but smiling for the first time in years. By the time the Don realizes he just signed his own divorce, I will be a ghost in San Francisco. And he will have nothing left but his shipping logs and his regret.