REGINA HUTCHINSON

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

My husband, Liam, was the man I literally gave a piece of myself to, a kidney donated to save his life. I loved him with a devotion that ran deeper than blood. But this morning, I discovered the heart beating inside him was now completely unfaithful, and the life I saved had been used to destroy mine. For years, Liam, the empire-builder, was my perfect husband, still making my favorite breakfast. Then his phone buzzed: a text from "Ava Sinclair" – *Can't wait for tonight.* His panicked reaction and cold, fake kiss shattered everything. His betrayal quickly unraveled: late nights, whispered calls, a strange perfume. On our anniversary, he gave Ava the real "Star" necklace, sending me a fake. A hidden photo and ultrasound confirmed it: Liam with Ava and "our baby." He then abandoned me for Ava. Overhearing Liam call me "the brand" and "barren" while I carried his child, I made the agonizing choice to terminate my pregnancy. Hollowed but resolute, I burned with injustice. I had sacrificed a life because of his lies; the man I saved viewed me as a broken asset. When Liam called, oblivious, promising a "real surprise" at his tower, my voice was steel. I would go, not to celebrate, but to walk into the fire and finally be free.

The man who destroyed my life stood over my broken body, but he didn't recognize me. My husband, Carter, was just the lawyer handling the "Jane Doe" found at his client's construction site, worried only about legal complications. As a ghost, I watched him dismiss every part of me. The silver locket I' d clutched in my hand? "Just another piece of evidence," he said flatly. The faded tattoo on my wrist? "An irrelevant detail." He called me a selfish liar when my severe heart condition kept me from donating bone marrow to his manipulative fiancée, Cecelia. He threw me out of his car and left me on a street corner, where her thugs found me. He was consumed with finding justice for a stranger, blind to the fact that he was the one who had sentenced his own wife to death. I thought he'd never know. But then, the police showed him security footage from a community center. He saw my face, alive and smiling. And in that instant, the man who refused to see me in life was forced to see me in death.

For three years, I, Hollywood's unbreakable star Aliza Cabrera, chased the one man I couldn't have: the brilliant, cold surgeon Dr. Etienne McCarthy. My relentless pursuit was a public spectacle, met only with his icy indifference. Then, a single phone call shattered my world. My mother, her voice dripping with smug triumph, announced his engagement. Not to me, but to my manipulative stepsister, Kaylee. The betrayal cut deeper when I discovered the truth. His coldness wasn't for everyone; it was a calculated performance orchestrated by Kaylee. "I did what you asked, Kaylee," he'd whispered to her, his voice laced with a devotion he never showed me. "Anything for you." When Kaylee's lies escalated to a fire that nearly killed me, Etienne saved me, only to believe her twisted story that I had set it myself. He chose her, again and again, even leaving me bleeding on an operating table because Kaylee feigned a panic attack. "My fiancée needs me," were his final words to me. I was nothing to him. A nuisance. A convenient discard. The love I felt turned to ash. So I vanished. I rebuilt my life, becoming a media mogul, powerful and untouchable. I found real love with a kind man named Collins. But just as I found my peace, a ghost from the past reappeared, his eyes filled with a desperate, belated regret. This time, he wouldn't break me. This time, I would be the one to walk away.

For five years, I was the devoted wife who helped Brandon build his tech empire. But the moment his first love, Kristal, returned with a feigned injury, he handed her the diamond necklace meant for our anniversary and abandoned me in a torrential storm. He knew my PTSD from a past kidnapping made storms terrifying, yet he drove away with her without a backward glance. When I called him for help, terrified of the stranger driving my rideshare, it was Kristal who answered. "Brandon is in the shower," she taunted. "Don't disturb our reunion." I barely escaped an assault that night, only to return home and discover the ultimate betrayal: Brandon never filed our marriage license in the US. Legally, I was never his wife. I was just a placeholder until she came back. While he was busy comforting her, I didn't scream or fight. I simply shredded the fake wedding certificate, packed my bags, and vanished. By the time he realized his mistake and came begging on his knees, I was already gone.

For twelve years, my life wasn't my own. It belonged to Dawson Parks. I was sold to his family at sixteen to pay for my mother's cancer treatments, becoming the tech heir's companion, his secretary, and eventually, his lover. Then his childhood sweetheart, Kenzie, came back to town. He told me he was going to marry her and offered me a severance package-a few million dollars for twelve years of my life.

In my first life, I was the beloved adopted daughter of the Stanton family. My three perfect brothers showered me with affection, and Jackson, my first love, promised me the world. But it was all a lie. When they set the mansion on fire, they stood on the lawn and watched me burn. I heard them laughing through the flames. "She's just an orphan," they said. "Pretending to love her all these years has been exhausting." The only one who ran into the fire for me was Grayson Stanton—the cold, distant uncle who everyone said hated me. He held me as the roof collapsed, whispering, "I'm with you." He died for me. My world was built on their affection, a perfect, horrible lie. Now, I've woken up again, back in the lawyer's office, one week before the fire. To inherit the multi-billion dollar fortune, the will says I must marry one of my three brothers—my murderers. So when the lawyer asked for my choice, I smiled. "I choose Grayson Stanton."

The pregnancy test lay on our bathroom counter, two aggressive pink lines screaming a judgment. Seven years ago, I had a vasectomy-a choice Sarah and I made together, cementing our child-free life. But now, she stood beside me, eyes wide with an unnerving excitement, claiming this was a "miracle," a fulfillment of some bizarre "destiny card" from a tarot reader. My gut screamed impossible, yet her practiced smile, laced with an unsettling desperation, cornered me. I played along, a silent actor in her twisted play, watching her cling to this absurd narrative. My parents, then hers, were swept into the delusion, celebrating a grandchild I knew couldn't be mine. The deeper I sank into the charade, the more frantic her desperate whispers to her "mom" grew, texts angled away. Why was she so desperate, so secretive? What terror drove her to this elaborate lie? The truth was a chilling void, a gnawing suspicion that threatened to swallow me whole. Then, a hushed phone call from the next room. "No, Mark, you can't just show up here. Ethan is home." My wife's voice, intimate. Familiar. And then, the cruel, mocking laugh: "He actually believes that stupid story about the destiny card. He' s so easy to manage. Loyal like a puppy." My sanity shattered. This wasn't a miracle; it was a cold, calculated betrayal. This was her high school sweetheart, Mark, and their secret life-including "the last two times" and "another abortion." I would make her play out her perfect scene at her parents' anniversary party, then tear it all down.

I was just a ranch hand, she was a Redding heiress. Our love was a defiance, a whisper against the roaring wind of her family's dynastic rules. Seraphina chose me, giving up everything, promising forever. Then, her family made a devil' s bargain: she was forced to give them a male heir with their rival' s son, Wyatt Cole, to eventually be with me. I watched, tormented, as she became pregnant, only for her to bear a daughter, prolonging the agonizing charade. To add insult to injury, her infant child fell mysteriously ill, and without hesitation, every finger pointed at me. I was blamed, accused of poisoning the baby, and dragged into a frozen meat locker in the heart of a Wyoming blizzard. Through the frosted glass, I saw Sera. Her eyes, once full of fire for me, were cold with disappointment. "Why would you hurt my child?" she asked, shattering my world. The woman who once cradled my smallest cuts now watched me bleed, giving my family's prized buckle to my rival, openly choosing him over and over again. How could the woman who pledged her soul to me, who bled for me, believe I was a monster? How could she watch me endure such humiliation and torture without a single word of defense? What unknown force compelled her to turn her back on the very man she claimed was her only home? Broken beyond repair, I walked away from the endless torment, vanishing into the vast, remote mountains, vowing to erase every trace of the life I' d lost. But some secrets refuse to stay buried, and some pasts insist on a final, shattering confrontation.

My life was perfect: a loving husband, a beautiful Charleston home, and a crucial grant to restore a historic house. But my lawyer' s words shattered it all. "There's an issue with the spousal disclosures," he said, pushing a marriage certificate across his desk. It wasn't mine. It was Ethan' s, marrying his assistant, Chloe Vance, five years ago. My seven-year marriage was a lie. Chloe was always there, her presence dismissed by Ethan as "purely professional." I had wanted to believe him. Then I overheard them: Ethan confessing he needed me for "legitimacy" and Chloe for "something vital." The betrayal was colder, more calculated than I imagined. He left me for dead, tortured and disfigured, in a damp basement, after Chloe orchestrated the attack using his men. He even gave her my great-grandmother' s locket-my heritage-as if replacing me, piece by precious piece. How could he? How could the man I loved, my soulmate, be so monstrously manipulative, so blind, so cruel? My body screamed in pain, but my heart felt nothing but an echoing emptiness. My entire existence was a charade, a cruel joke. But as I lay there, broken and discarded, a chilling resolve took root. Amelia Hayes was dead. It was time for Grace Thorne to be born. I would not just survive; I would rise from the ashes and dismantle every last piece of his gilded empire. This was not just revenge; this was rebalancing the scales, permanently.

I was Chloe, a high school student with Ivy League dreams, just two months shy of the SATs. Our kind housekeeper, Ms. Evans, offered me a "special calming tea" to ease my nerves. It wasn't comforting. It was a soul-swapping recipe that stole my life. I woke up trapped in the body of Brenda, Ms. Evans's resentful, academically hopeless daughter. Brenda, in my body, went to the SATs and deliberately caused a horrific scene. She tore up the test. They disqualified me. They blacklisted me. My parents, blindly trusting Ms. Evans, believed I'd had a breakdown or cheated. Their disappointment crushed me. My Ivy League dreams shattered into a million pieces. Ostracized and consumed by despair, I faded away. I simply stopped. The horror of remembering, the injustice of watching my future crumble, burned within me. Why did Ms. Evans and her daughter hate me enough to destroy me? But then, I woke up. I was back, two months before the SATs, alive again, before everything went to hell. This time, I wouldn't just prevent it. I would understand why, and then I would make them pay.

Sarah Miller was the quiet, scar-faced tech genius at Apex Innovations, engaged to the charming CEO, Ethan Hayes. She just wanted to build something amazing, leading Apex' s most critical project, Nightshade, her professional pride and joy. Then, Ethan introduced Brittany Evans, a bubbly, blonde "coding prodigy" intern. Tasked with mentoring her, I quickly saw through Brittany's dazzling smile: she was utterly incompetent, yet constantly slipped into Ethan's private office. My honest performance review, highlighting her lack of technical depth, became my corporate death sentence. The next day, Ethan publicly stripped me of everything. My lead role on Nightshade, my groundbreaking project, and even my earned Apex Innovator Fellowship-all given to Brittany. He then stood before the entire engineering department and, with icy words, accused me of "pettiness" and "jealousy." The applause for Brittany was a hammer blow, each clap echoing my humiliation and betrayal. How could the man I loved, the man who supposedly protected me, do this? The injustice was unbearable. All my loyalty, my years of work, thrown away for an intern who spent two weeks charming the boss. It made no sense. Why would Ethan sacrifice his company' s future for her? My mind reeled, desperate for an answer that wasn't just "he's a fool." As I walked out of Apex, leaving my old life behind, something shifted. The glasses came off. My mousy facade crumbled. The quiet engineer was dead. Because the truth was far more complex: Sarah Miller was a carefully constructed lie. And now, the real Sarah-a Sterling heiress, a spy with a score to settle-was finally ready to play.

We were the quintessential Chicago love story, high school sweethearts, married for five blissful years. My husband, Michael, a successful real estate developer, suddenly longed for a family, and our high-profile OB-GYN, Dr. Peterson, joyfully announced we were expecting twins. But eight months into my pregnancy, a chilling conversation changed everything. I overheard Michael conspiring with Dr. Peterson, not about our supposed twins, but about 'Chloe's' baby, and a forced C-section for me to steal her child. "Born a month apart, they won't look like twins," Dr. Peterson warned, yet Michael heartlessly replied, "She won't see them much anyway; I'll keep her occupied." In that horrifying moment, I realized my beloved husband planned to use me to legitimize another woman's baby, then discard me. He was a monster beneath the charming facade, frantically searching for his "missing" pregnant wife on national TV, all a performance. He bought me my dream bakery and orchestrated a public reunion for the cameras, while inside, I felt only cold, sickening dread. Then came Chloe's anonymous messages and Michael's sickening "promotional wedding" with his pregnant mistress, humiliating me publicly. The man I loved, the man I married, was a ghost, replaced by a calculating schemer. How could the man I trusted utterly betray me, twisting our love into such a grotesque charade? But while he reveled in his deception, I was already planning my escape. I had to protect my baby from his sick game, so aided by my powerful mother, I left him with divorce papers, ready for a final act he'd never forget. His confident charade was his undoing; my departure was my fierce liberation.

The clinking of glasses and polite chatter filled the dining room—a supposedly normal dinner with my wife, Izzy, and a potential business partner, Mr. Henderson. This was the night meant to seal the deal for my brewery, signaling a bright future for my family. But in my mind, the scene played out differently, vividly, a horrific déjà vu of the night my life had truly ended. Last time, this seemingly innocent evening spiraled into a nightmare where my daughter, Lily, died, and I was framed for her murder. My 'loving wife' Izzy pointed her finger, screaming accusations that chilled me to the bone, painting me as a monster. My stepmother, Carol, publicly disowned me, her eyes cold and calculating, while my father, Richard, succumbed to the shock, his weak heart giving out. I ended up in prison, a shivving victim, universally condemned as a child abuser and killer. The sheer injustice of it all, the betrayal by those closest to me, had festered over what felt like an eternity. How could they concoct such an elaborate, cruel lie, especially one involving an innocent child? Why would my own family orchestrate such a devastating downfall? But this time, I was back, reborn into this exact, horrifying moment, the jagged neck of a broken beer bottle clenched in my fist. No more polite conversation, no more playing the fool—this time, the script was mine. This time, Lily would live.

Two years have passed since my death. Now, my old roommate, Jessica, stands on a grand stage, accepting the "Annual Community Contributor" award. Millions across the nation are watching her flawless smile, her humble nod—a true paragon of virtue. Then, a catastrophic glitch. My old laptop’s desktop, with a candid photo of my stepbrother Michael, flickers onto the massive screen behind her. Michael, in the front row, snarls loud enough for every microphone to catch it, “What is that dead girl’s junk doing here? So damn disrespectful!” The live chat goes wild, demanding this "trash" be removed, calling me sick, a psycho, forever "bad news." The host, David, clicks open my "Sarah's Private Posts" folder, exposing my innermost thoughts, my hidden struggles, one excruciating entry at a time. He reads my very first post—detailing a secret donation I made, the same one Jessica brazenly claimed as the start of her own famous charity work. Jessica feigns shock and Michael, clutching her hand, reinforces their elaborate deception, branding me as an obsessive, selfish liar who brought all her troubles on herself. My name, once again, is dragged through the mud, my tragic end blamed on my own "faults," even from beyond the grave. The cameras fixate on Jessica’s carefully staged sorrow, Michael’s theatrical disgust, and the world believes them, condemns me. Didn’t my sacrifices, my pain, my desperate attempts to uncover the truth mean anything? But David, the host, doesn’t stop. He scrolls to the next post, and the one after that. They have no idea what else I left behind. Because my carefully documented words, my secret recordings, and undeniable evidence are about to bring their entire empire crashing down, live on national television.

At the elite Auer Conservatory gala, I, Ava Davies, a scholarship violinist, finally felt I belonged, especially with my powerful trustee boyfriend, Ethan Montgomery, effortlessly by my side. But then, the grand screen, meant for donor names, flickered to life, displaying a deeply intimate video of me—a bedroom scene—for all of New York's elite to see, hijacking my deepest humiliation for public consumption. As gasps turned to cruel whispers and mocking laughter, and my world crumbled, Ethan, my supposed anchor, vanished, only for me to find him moments later, gloating with my stepsister, Seraphina, admitting our entire relationship was an "amusing diversion" to orchestrate my ruin. Betrayed by the man I loved, herded like an animal, I was then dragged into a dark alley by his friends, enduring unimaginable torture: chili oil burned my throat, flashes captured my terror, and a searing hot iron branded my shoulder, all for the public's entertainment, sanctioned by Ethan who later, chillingly, instructed kidnappers to "dispose of me." Why had he, the man who once championed me, orchestrated such monstrous cruelty, leaving me broken and branded, desiring my very eradication—what dark secret propelled this twisted vengeance, and could I ever escape his terrifying obsession? This raw, agonizing betrayal transformed me: I would not just survive, I would disappear from his world, on my own terms, turning my back on the ruin he created to forge a future where I, Ava, would finally be free.

Essie wakes up on her bed in the morning and is shocked to find an unknown good-looking man sleeping beside her. On the desk, she also discovers the marriage certificates bearing the names of her and this man. She tries to figure out what has happened and finds that it's only a mistake. Yesterday, she was rejected by someone she loves and was told that he would be engaged to her deadly foe. In great despair, she went to a bar and met this guy. They drank a lot and played games. Under the influence of alcohol, they got married. However, it's hard to get a divorce now because she wants to use the dramatic yet genuine marriage to keep her proud in front of her deadly foe. Would it be possible that they fall in love with each other in the future?

She came from humble beginnings, with an average academic record, she held a dull job and earned a small income. Wearing makeup and dressing up was not in her daily repertoire. From her head to her toes, inside and out, she was a plain Jane. Yet, following the night that she had planned to teach her unfaithful brother-in-law a lesson as revenge for her cousin, she was plunged into another world. A chance encounter in the wrong room, and she met him–a man whose entire presence exuded charm, glamour, and perfection. He could have had any woman that he wanted. Any upper-class lady could have graced his arm at social events to further his business goals while he traded as a corporate raider. However, unexpectedly, he becomes infatuated with her.

Essie wakes up on her bed in the morning and is shocked to find an unknown good-looking man sleeping beside her. On the desk, she also discovers the marriage certificates bearing the names of her and this man. She tries to figure out what has happened and finds that it’s only a mistake. Yesterday, she was rejected by someone she loves and was told that he would be engaged to her deadly foe. In great despair, she went to a bar and met this guy. They drank a lot and played games. Under the influence of alcohol, they got married. However, it’s hard to get a divorce now because she wants to use the dramatic yet genuine marriage to keep her proud in front of her deadly foe. Would it be possible that they fall in love with each other in the future?

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia. The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast. That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water. He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard. But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead. I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival. On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone. "I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city."

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

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

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

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

I stood alone at the center of my art gallery opening, clutching a glass of warm champagne, while the guests whispered behind their hands. My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, wasn't there. A breaking news alert on my phone explained why. It was a high-definition photo of Dante shielding his mistress, Isabella, from the rain. He was touching her with a protective possessiveness he had never once shown me. Then came his text: "Isabella needed me. Go home." That was the moment the cage door unlocked. I didn't go home to cry. I went to his office the next morning with a stack of papers disguised as "gallery insurance forms." While Isabella sat on his desk, mocking me for being a boring housewife, Dante was too annoyed to read the fine print. He just wanted me gone so he could get back to her. He signed the divorce decree. He signed the asset dissolution. Most importantly, without looking, he signed the irrevocable relinquishment of parental rights. I walked out with my freedom, but fate had a cruel sense of humor. That night, I stared at a positive pregnancy test. I was carrying the Sovrano heir he had always demanded. And he had just legally signed away his right to ever know his child. I fled to the Swiss Alps, vanishing into the snow to raise my baby away from his world of blood and bullets. I thought I was safe, until six months later. Dante hadn't just sent men to look for me. He had burned his own shipping empire to the ground, destroying his status as King, just to prove he would trade it all for the wife he threw away.

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

I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me. But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest. The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me. They didn't. Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her. They let me burn to keep her warm. When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages. That was the moment Elena Vitiello died. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York. By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring. "You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them. "Burn for it."