Sea Quest

I was the invisible daughter of the Hayes crime family, secretly painting portraits of Marcus, the Underboss. He was the man who had once protected me from the world, the man I loved from the shadows. But he chose power over affection. To secure an alliance, he engaged Isabella. Threatened by my existence, Isabella staged a fake miscarriage and framed me for destroying her heirloom wedding dress. Marcus didn't ask for my side of the story. Blinded by rage over his "lost heir," he ordered his guards to drag me to the Ice Cellar—a freezing underground torture chamber used for traitors. For days, I shivered in the absolute darkness, listening to the water drip, realizing the man I worshiped was actually my jailer. My father, protecting his own millions, let it happen. In that cold, the girl who loved Marcus died. When he finally released me, he expected me to be broken, obedient, and grateful for his mercy. Instead, I burned every painting I had ever made of him. I packed a single bag and vanished into the night, escaping to a rugged ranch in Montana where no one knew my name. Three years later, the truth about Isabella’s lies finally surfaced. Marcus tracked me down. The King of New York fell to his knees in the dirt and cow manure of my new home, weeping, begging, and offering me the entire world to come back. I looked down at the man who once owned my heart. "You can't un-shatter a glass, Marcus," I said coldly. "I'm not coming home."

I was the wife of a tech mogul I' d built from nothing. I even hired his new assistant, a woman who looked just like his dead mother, thinking I was giving him a piece of his past back. Then I discovered the truth. He wasn't just sleeping with her-she was pregnant with his son. And for months, the prenatal vitamins he lovingly gave me every morning were nothing but sugar pills. The shock of their betrayal caused me to miscarry our first child. They painted me as a crazy, violent heiress, took my family's company, and left me with nothing but the ashes of the life he'd promised me. But as I stood in our home, ready to burn it all down with me inside, I discovered a miracle: I was pregnant again. I faked my death and disappeared. Five years later, he walked into the quiet inn I now own with his family. And his eyes landed on my daughter.

The sterile hum of the hospital room grated on my nerves, a grim backdrop to my mother' s shallow breaths. I clung to her frail hand, praying each rise and fall of her chest wouldn't be her last. But then my phone buzzed, pulling me into a different kind of nightmare: a photo of my wife, Sarah, draped provocatively over a junk car, sent by Jake, her "creative director." My blood ran cold. Sarah, my Sarah, looking cheap and available, with Jake' s smug caption about "pushing boundaries." Then came his direct message-another photo, Sarah' s eyes closed, her lipstick smeared, and Jake' s hand on her bare shoulder, possessive. Below it, a single line that ripped through me: "Wish you were here? Don't worry, I'm taking good care of her." Rage flooded my chest, hot and acidic. I called Sarah, my voice shaking, begging her to come, to say goodbye to my dying mother. "I can't just leave, Alex," she snapped, her voice sharp with impatience. "This is Jake's big break. Everything is riding on this. I can't let him down." "Your mother-in-law is dying," I whispered, disbelief choking me. "My mother is dying." "And what do you want me to do about it?" she sneered. "Hold her hand? It's not like she ever liked me anyway. I' ll be there when it' s over. Just... handle it. I have to go." The line went dead, her cruel words echoing in the suffocating quiet of the hospital corridor. Moments later, the doctor delivered the news: she was gone. My world went silent. Then, my phone buzzed again, an Instagram notification: "Sarah.Evans and Jake.Creates are now live." I clicked it, a hollowed-out shell of a man, watching my wife celebrate with her lover while my mother's body grew cold in the room behind me. They celebrated their "win" with champagne, Sarah screaming, "To us! To the win!" as Jake leaned in for a long, deep kiss, for the whole world to see. Why? Why did she choose him? Why did she treat my mother with such contempt in her final hours? The answer lay buried in years of betrayal, starting even before our wedding day. And now, I would unearth every dirty secret, even if it meant tearing my own life apart.

My life as Jocelyn Scott, wife to rising political star DA Ethan Scott, was a carefully crafted facade of domestic bliss, though I, a Senator' s daughter, had traded my ambition for his. Then came the "accident." At the hospital, my husband, bandaged for dramatic effect, publicly declared amnesia, disowning me and our five-year-old son, Leo, and embracing his "first love," Sabrina, daughter of a powerful senator whose endorsement he craved. Overnight, I became a "household staff member" in my own home, watching Sabrina wear my clothes and sleep in my bed. Leo, ostracized and bullied at school, came home with bruises and tear-filled eyes, while his father walked past him as if he were furniture. The final, crushing blow came when Ethan, watching our son drown in a fountain, joked, "Well, that'll get the sympathy vote." Leo died that night, and Ethan saw his death as pure political gold. How could he? How could the man I loved, the father of my child, be such a monstrous, calculating machine? My son, my beautiful boy, reduced to a tragic headline, his resting place torn down for a hot tub. In that hollowed-out instant, the last shred of my former self died. And in its place, a cold, hard resolve was born. I would fake my own death, resurrecting Jocelyn Fuller, and become the ghost that would haunt his rise, then meticulously orchestrate his devastating fall.

My last memory of my first life was Ethan, standing over my grave. He wasn't crying; he was smiling, that cruel twist of his lips I knew all too well. "I forgive you, Chloe," he' d whispered, putting his arm around Jessica as they walked away with the son I' d raised, leaving me to rot. They stripped me of everything: my apprenticeship, my dignity, decades of my life wasted raising their abandoned baby, "Lucky." When I got sick, they threw me away like trash, only to reveal their truth: Lucky was their child, conceived in a twisted plan to steal my future. I gasped, my eyes flying open, not in a coffin, but back in my 1995 body, young and alive, standing on a desolate back road. Just feet away, a baby carrier, and the wailing infant inside. In my past life, pity had washed over me, and I' d rushed to save him, unknowingly signing my own death warrant. This time, as I looked at the carrier, I felt nothing but a cold, hard fury. I turned my back and walked away, choosing a path of ice instead of kindness.

My college life as a pre-med student at a California state university was focused on rigorous studies, good grades, and upholding personal integrity, shared with my best friend Olivia and our free-spirited roommate, Jessica. The facade of normalcy shattered when Jessica reappeared after a three-day disappearance, clutching my personal water bottle, her neck and arms covered in unsettling red welts, all while boasting about dodging crucial health screenings. My attempt to responsibly report her for avoiding mandatory health checks spiraled disastrously: Jessica, fueled by rage, staged a dramatic escape and, aided by her ethically compromised academic advisor, Dr. Peterson, orchestrated a fake cyberbullying charge against me. Suddenly, my reputation was on the line due to a formal disciplinary warning, making me the campus pariah. How could doing the right thing backfire so spectacularly, leaving me accused and shamed, while actual recklessness went unchecked? The injustice was a bitter pill, confirming my deepest suspicions about Jessica's manipulative nature and the disturbing, illicit alliance she clearly shared with Dr. Peterson. But instead of breaking me, this unfair attack ignited a cold fury, transforming my disgust into a calculated resolve: I would expose their corrupt web, even if it meant playing their game, starting with a discreet "accident" in Dr. Peterson's office.

My sister Eleanor was set to marry Marcus Thorne, a powerful man whose family held immense sway. It was a pre-arranged union, heralded as the cornerstone of a grand alliance between the Harrisons and the Thornes. But my world shattered when I uncovered the horrifying truth: Marcus had orchestrated Eleanor's death, masking it as a "sudden illness." Before I could expose his monstrous secret, a killer's hands clasped my throat. The suffocating scent of expensive oud cologne filled my lungs as my vision faded. My first life ended right there, in my father's study-a place of power that became my tomb. Every attempt to reveal the truth, every desperate plea, was brutally silenced. The injustice was a burning fire within me. How could his heinous crimes go unpunished? The phantom ache of that chokehold, indelibly linked to the memory of that rich, woody scent, fueled an insatiable fury. I died knowing the monster would walk free. But then, I gasped, sitting bolt upright in my silk sheets, sunlight streaming into my room. It was Eleanor's engagement day once more. This wasn't a nightmare; it was a resurrection. This was my second chance. I knew what I had to do: I would marry Marcus Thorne myself, infiltrating his inner circle to save Eleanor and orchestrate his ultimate downfall. This wasn't just survival; it was war.

My 21st birthday wasn't just a day; it was the day. The day Ava Harrison promised we' d meet at Austin's iconic Continental Club, the moment I believed she'd finally see me, the kid who poured his soul into songs just for her. But as I arrived, guitar in hand, ready to begin our future, I heard her voice, clear and cold, telling her friend: "It' s a great way to finally shut down little Ethan. Still chasing that silly promise about The Continental Club." Then came the public engagement, a diamond flashing as she announced, "Sweet, but a little too late." My world crumbled. Moments later, a stage light crashed. I was severely injured, but Ava, my supposed future, didn't stay. She left me, bruised and broken, for her new fiancé, Julian, sending a single, chilling text: "#EngagedLife." How could the girl I worshipped, the one I wrote a decade of music for, be so utterly cruel? So dismissive of my love, my pain? The betrayal burned deeper than any physical wound. I smashed my guitar. Blocked her. And packed my bags for Nashville. This wasn't just over; it was a detonation. I swore I' d turn that agonizing betrayal into music so powerful, it would become her inescapable shadow. This wasn't the end of me; it was the birth of something far more formidable.

The world went gray after the crash that took my parents, leaving their green tech company on the brink. Then my dazzling wife, Izzy, appeared like a savior, her old Texas oil money propping us up. She was my rock, my biggest cheerleader through ninety-eight failed prototypes, always assuring me the ninety-ninth, UrbanFlow, would be "the one." I loved and trusted her completely. Until I overheard her chilling confession. She wasn't my supporter; she was a saboteur. She'd orchestrated every single one of my "failures," systematically leaking my core algorithms and business plans to her old flame, Caleb. My IP was the foundation of his booming tech empire. Our marriage? A cold, calculated "strategic" move to keep me coding, dependent, and utterly blind. The woman I adored, my "Izzy," was a venomous lie. Every affectionate word, every comforting touch, twisted into a cruel mockery of love. My life was a meticulously constructed deception, my genius hijacked, my parents' legacy exploited. Nausea churned in my gut, quickly replaced by a simmering, icy rage. She believed I was a naive fool, that I had nothing without her. She was about to discover just how wrong she was. My heart ached with betrayal, but my mind sharpened with unwavering resolve. I would not just reclaim my work; I would unleash a reckoning so precise, so public, that they would pay for every single lie. This was no longer about a company—it was about justice.

I'm a horror novelist. Recently, the release of my new work made me quite a bit of money. However, I haven't written the ending for this story yet. To be honest, writing the ending of a horror story is really difficult. My new work is titled "The Building Ghost." Late at night, a reporter named Yolanda approached me and asked, "Xander, do you believe that building ghosts exist in this world?" I took a sip of my beer and fell into silence. "I do."

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.