Sophia Langley

For seven years, I was known as the "Caged Canary"—the orphan ward of the ruthless Don, Autry Villarreal. I wore his silver star necklace like a dog tag, mistaking his cold control for protection. Then came the breaking news alert that shattered my world: Autry was marrying Cassie Turner to end a decade-long turf war. He didn't just break my heart; he let her destroy my home. When Cassie ordered a bulldozer to rip up the rose garden my deceased father had planted, Autry stood on the patio and watched. He chose political strategy over my only living memory of my parents. "It is necessary," he told me, handing me a briefcase full of cash to disappear. "This saves lives." I realized then that he wasn't my protector; he was my jailer. I left the money, discarded his necklace, and vanished into the night. Five years later, I returned to New York not as his ward, but as J.B., a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with a diamond ring on my finger from a man who actually cherished me. Autry didn't handle my freedom well. He cornered me in a car, staging a paparazzi photo to look like a passionate embrace, desperate to ruin my engagement. "I destroyed Cassie for you," he claimed, revealing he had leaked his own ex-fiancée's crimes to clear my name. "I cleaned the slate. I can give you the world now." He expected gratitude. He expected me to fall back into his arms. I looked him dead in the eye and posted a selfie with my fiancé instead. "I don't want your world, Autry. I'm done living in the dark."

At the family dinner, the waiter stumbled, sending a tray of boiling onion soup flying toward the table. My husband, Marcus, moved instantly. But not for me. He threw his body over my cousin Chloe, shielding her completely in his arms. I was left exposed. The scalding liquid hit my chest and arm, burning my skin instantly. While I screamed in agony on the floor, Marcus was frantically checking Chloe for scratches, whispering, "Thank God it missed you. You are more important than her. Always." In the hospital, he handed me a check for fifty thousand dollars. "It was an instinct," he said, avoiding my eyes. "Don't make a scene." He didn't notice my hollow expression. He didn't ask why the doctors were looking at him with pity. And he certainly didn't know that the shock and trauma had caused me to miscarry our six-week-old baby. For four years, I had been his perfect doll. I dressed like Chloe, painted like Chloe, and waited for him to love me. I thought I was his wife. I didn't realize I was just a placeholder until he sacrificed our child to save his true love from a splash of soup. When he left to comfort Chloe again, I pulled the IV from my arm. I placed the signed divorce papers on the bedside table. Underneath them, I left the medical report confirming the miscarriage of his child. Then, I vanished.

I am Luna Croft. My boyfriend, Smith Caldwell, called himself a "casino master." Every time he went gambling, he came back loaded with winnings. It wasn't until later that I realized he always chose the same table. And the dealer at that table was his so-called untouchable dream girl, Alice Moore. "Luna, I'm a millionaire now. You're way out of your league-so let's call it quits. Alice is my true love. She gives me both fortune and pleasure," he added with smug certainty. I said yes, only to watch him lose every last dollar at the table moments later. He shoved me straight into the hands of the loan sharks who had come to collect his debt. "This is my girlfriend. I'm giving her up to settle my debt. She's an orphan. Even if you ruin her completely, no one will come after you!" The casino staff and the loan sharks closed in on me, but I couldn't help laughing. "Let your boss come out and talk to me," I demanded.

The Great Depression had gnawed away at everything, leaving my family-my parents, Mark and Susan, and me, Sarah-scrambling for survival in a city choked with despair. Then, they found Buddy, a stray golden retriever, shivering in an alley. Suddenly, my meager cannery wages, meant for rent and food, were funneled into premium dog food, toys, and vet visits for him. I worked myself to exhaustion, only to watch them hand-feed Buddy roasted chicken from our good plates while I got watery potato soup. He wasn't just a dog; a cold, malevolent intelligence lurked in his eyes, a mocking smirk reserved just for me. When I tried to evict him, he bit me, and my parents blamed me, tending to him while I bled, calling me a "jealous, worthless girl." My world shattered when I was laid off, and an eviction notice arrived. Our only hope was a government housing lottery. But when I announced it, my parents only saw three spots: one for them, and one for Buddy. "He's not a dog!" my mother screamed. "He's family! More family than you've ever been!" They raced off, dragging Buddy, leaving me, weakened by hunger and infection, to chase after them. I watched, horrified, as an official marked three names: my father, my mother, and the dog. They were ushered through the gate. They didn't look back as it locked, leaving me outside. Through the bars, Buddy looked at me and grinned. I died alone, freezing in an alley. Then, a sudden jolt. My eyes flew open. I was in my bed, the morning my parents found Buddy. My blood ran cold, hearing their cheerful voices. I was back. And this time, I wouldn't die in the cold. I would find out why they chose a dog over their own daughter. And they would pay.

The cold, sterile air in the office bit at my prison uniform, a cruel reminder of the past three years. I knelt on the polished floor, my gaze fixed on Daniel Miller' s expensive shoes, a man I once loved for five years. "A convicted felon, trying to seduce me?" his voice, low and laced with familiar cruelty, sent a shiver down my spine. He was now Detective Miller, a powerful figure in the new corporate order, and I was nothing, a "convicted felon" whose parents' assets were seized, their names tarnished. As if that wasn' t enough, he sneered, accusing me of sabotaging his family, ruining Chloe, and pushing her to the brink of suicide. Chloe, his fiancée, my cousin, the one he chose over me when my world crumbled, the one whose father rebuilt his career and became the new CEO. "Silence!" he roared, his fist slamming onto the desk when I tried to deny pushing Chloe. He declared me his personal assistant, more like a maid, even forcing me into a humiliating encounter that left me aching and defeated. Then came the true horror. My uncle, Chloe' s father, the new CEO, had me secretly poisoned, giving me just three months to live. Three months. My back, a roadmap of whip scars from prison, my body frail, I knew I had to survive, not just for revenge, but to reclaim what was mine. I bit my finger, signing my life away, a shaky, bloody promise to turn their world upside down. Now, as the poison courses through my veins, I refuse to be a quiet victim, a disgraced criminal. I will make them pay.

The club's bass vibrated through Mark' s bones as he showered the squalling women with champagne. His wife, Sarah, lay miles away in a hospital bed, kept alive by tubes after a hit-and-run, the money from their house sale meant for her treatment now being thrown away on a lavish display. Suddenly, Sarah' s parents, the Smiths, stood before him, their faces etched with grief. They watched in horror as he publically humiliated them, throwing crumpled bills at his kneeling mother-in-law, even striking the woman on his lap. "You bastard. That' s her money! That' s the money for her treatment!" Mr. Smith roared, his face red with fury. Then, with chilling indifference, Mark told them Sarah was a vegetable and would die soon, revealing an "inoperable tumor." Mrs. Smith collapsed, bleeding from her mouth. The city exploded with outrage as videos of "MarkTheMonster" went viral, but he reveled in the hatred, driving straight to the hospital. There, Mr. Smith launched himself at Mark, screaming, "You killed her! Sarah is dead! And it' s your fault!" But when the doctor confirmed Sarah's death, Mark threw his head back and laughed, "Oh, thank God! I'm free!" He celebrated, declaring himself released from the burden of his wife, a woman who, in her dying breath, had recorded a message forgiving him and telling him to be happy. Then, in an unthinkable act, Mark pulled back the sheet from Sarah' s gurney and slapped her lifeless face, hissing, "You were more than a burden. You were a leech." The crowd erupted, consuming Mark in a storm of vigilante justice. As police intervened, Mark, battered but lucid, dropped a bombshell on Captain Miller. "How can I have killed a woman who isn' t actually dead?" he asked, pointing a bloody finger at the doctor. He accused Dr. Evans of fraud and attempted murder, revealing Sarah' s "injuries" were a minor concussion. He then pulled out Sarah' s real medical records and a recording implicating Mrs. Smith in funding the hit-and-run, claiming the Smiths had already conspired to kill his first wife, Ava. Just as the Smiths and Dr. Evans were cuffed, Sarah sat up, confirming the elaborate charade.

My wife, Sophia Hayes, was beautiful, poised, and utterly detached. For five years, our marriage had been a bizarre, silent transaction: she'd disappear for days, even weeks, to "support" her childhood sweetheart and his failing tech startup. Each time she returned, a lavish "guilt offering" would appear – a vintage Patek, a signed first edition, a priceless Ming vase. Ninety-nine such gifts now filled our sterile mansion, each a screaming monument to her absence and my bitter complicity. I was no longer the man who' d clung to hope, who' d screamed and shattered expensive crystal. Today, as she fastened a diamond bracelet, preparing for her hundredth departure, she waved away my feigned concern for our anniversary, prioritizing his celebration. "I need you to sign this," I said, offering a document I' d subtly placed among her latest "gift." She signed, carelessly dismissing it as a prenup addendum, already thinking of David. She didn' t read the fine print. She never did. "PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE" it read, the final decree awaiting its ironclad confirmation. The world saw her as a successful patron, supporting a talented founder, but at a glamorous gala, the veil slipped. A reporter, sensing blood, asked, "Are you two an item?" Panic flashed in Sophia' s eyes, and in her fear, she sought me out – her hidden husband – to rescue her public image. I stepped from the shadows, played my part, and then watched as she rushed not to me, but to him, murmuring reassurances. That night, she didn't come home; the next morning, she arrived, exhausted but triumphant, thanking me for "saving us." She dismissed my quiet anger as humility, oblivious. "You asked me to be there, Sophia," I said, watching her carefully curated world unravel. "I did? When?" she asked, genuinely bewildered. Her memory, a weapon of convenience, had erased my very existence. I nodded, utterly calm as she detailed her next trip with David, making another empty promise for "us" once she returned. That date was the day our divorce would be finalized. A cold, hard satisfaction settled in my gut; the world she had built was about to come crashing down. Just not in the way she expected.

My daughter, Molly, lay frail in the hospital bed, her future hanging by a thread. The doctor's words were stark: an incredibly expensive experimental therapy was her only hope. My ex-husband, Matthew, stood by, his charming facade crumbling as he refused to pay, citing "scam" and "natural remedies." My heart ached with a familiar, searing pain. I remembered this scene – the same cold refusal, the same sweet-sounding lies that doomed her, and me, in another life. He stood there, the man who had abandoned us before, the man who ultimately murdered us. This time, however, I was ready. This time, I had a plan. My voice, unnervingly calm, cut through the tension. "If you won't pay, Matthew, I understand. We'll go to Oregon. They have a law there – the Dignity with Death Act. Physician-assisted suicide." The room plunged into shocked silence. Gasps. Disbelief. Even Molly, my sweet, brave girl, looked stunned. How could a mother even suggest such a thing? What monstrous desperation, or sheer madness, would drive her to this unthinkable act, to choose death for her child? But they didn't know what I knew. They didn't know the dark secret Matthew was hiding, the true horror he had planned. And this time, I wouldn't let him get away with it. This time, I' d drag his true intentions into the light, even if I had to burn down everything around me to expose him.

The first thing I remember is the blood. My fiancée, Jocelyn, stood in the doorway, her face a mask of horror. Our perfect future shattered when I was found standing over her parents' bodies, my father's blood-soaked guitar in my hands. The police came, and I didn't resist, silenced by a terrible promise. The media branded me the "Guitar Slinger Killer," and the world condemned me. But the deepest cut came when Jocelyn, the woman who saved me, joined the prosecution, vowing to make me pay. How could she believe I was a monster? How could I explain that I was sacrificing everything, including her love, for a promise I never asked for? My silence was my only shield, a burden of pain and untold truth. Now, a "Neural-Narrative" machine will force my memories to the surface, and everyone will see. But who will they choose to believe when the "truth" is revealed?

I was Ethan Miller, a boy from a trailer park, who married into the impossibly wealthy Vanderbilt family. My life with Vicky was a gilded cage – opulent, yes, but undeniably a prison. My stutter, a constant echo of my humble beginnings, always made me feel like an outsider in her world. But nothing prepared me for the day Vicky believed I'd abducted her ‘lover,' Julian Astor. Her voice, usually just sharp, turned venomous. She threatened to destroy my only family, my beloved grandparents, if I didn't produce him. And then, I watched, live on a screen, as a bulldozer tore apart their cherished farm. My frail grandmother collapsed. Vicky laughed, blaming me for every single splinter. From then on, I was a ghost in her mansion, silently enduring her escalating cruelty. She publicly humiliated me with leaked, shameful photos of my past. She had me doused with garbage at a lavish party. She framed me for poisoning Julian, then forced me to drain my own blood to save him. Finally, she threw me into a decrepit, cockroach-infested basement, filled with the rancid smell of my deepest traumas. How could love morph into such a grotesque instrument of torture? Was this her way of molding me, or just pure sadism? With nothing left to lose, only one desperate thought remained: freedom, at any cost. As Vicky married Julian, live-streamed directly to my dark prison, I swallowed an experimental drug. I hoped for a final, peaceful escape. But my ‘death' was just the beginning of her utter ruin.

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."