Tabbie Platt

I replaced my twin sister in a marriage contract to the ruthless Mafia Don, Donovan Blackwood. For three years, I was a ghost in his home, silently enduring his coldness while he flaunted his mistress, Chloe. On the very last day of our contract, Chloe staged an accident. Donovan didn't hesitate. He forced me to drain my blood to save her life. Then, to prove his loyalty to her, he drove me to the cliffs and pushed me into the freezing ocean. He even locked me in a cellar infested with spiders—my deepest phobia—because she lied and said I threatened her. He thought he was punishing the spoiled, arrogant Isabella. He didn't know he was breaking Ava, the woman who had silently memorized his allergies and waited up for him in the dark every single night. When I finally took my fifty million dollars and vanished, I left behind nothing but the divorce papers and a photo revealing the truth. He tore the city apart, destroying my family to find me, only to realize he had tortured the wrong woman. Now, he is standing on my porch in the pouring rain, staring in horror at the simple wooden ring on my finger given to me by another man. He falls to his knees, begging for a chance to love the wife he tried to destroy. I look at him, feeling absolutely nothing. "It's too late, Donovan," I say, locking the door. "You killed her."

Tonight, my boyfriend of seven years, Benjamin Kane, was supposed to propose. Our future was a perfect picture, planned down to the last detail. But a single phone call shattered it all. A mysterious voice convinced him I was a gold digger who would ruin him, and that another woman, Jenna Christian, was his true soulmate. He called off our engagement on the spot. That was only the beginning of my nightmare. I was stalked by a man obsessed with Jenna, a confrontation that ended with me falling from a rooftop and shattering my arm. Then, I was kidnapped by a shady agency, trapped by a contract Jenna had signed in my name. I was living the horrific fate that was meant for her. Benjamin, the man who promised me forever, abandoned me to suffer while defending the very woman who orchestrated my torment. Lying in a hospital bed, I received an acceptance letter for a design scholarship in Paris. It was my only escape. I took it, leaving behind the man who broke me and the life he destroyed.

Three days before my wedding, I held the invitations, a bright future with Chloe Davis unfolding before me. I decided to surprise her at her final dress fitting, full of stupid, happy optimism. But through the boutique window, I saw her with Ethan Miller, her "first love," the broke con artist I'd repeatedly paid off at Chloe's tearful request. Then, hidden in an alley, I heard their conversation: my meticulously planned life was a calculated scam. She called me "pathetic," a "tool," a "walking ATM." She even bragged about how easy I was to manipulate. My five years of pouring everything into her-paying off her loans, buying her a car and her mother a condo, giving Ethan tens of thousands-all of it was a lie designed to extract every penny before she discarded me. The invitations slipped from my numb fingers, scattering on the dirty asphalt as memories flooded back, each sweet moment now tainted with cold, cynical calculation. My heart, once full, was now a charred, worthless spot. The most horrific truth came out when she intentionally crashed our car on the freeway, shattering my leg. She escaped untouched, called Ethan, and left me for dead, only to flaunt her Vegas trip with him on social media, using my credit card, while I fought for my life. I was broken, not just by her betrayal, but by the realization that she hadn' t just hurt me; she had actively despised me, plotting to destroy me and even poisoning my mother to hasten my inheritance. But I wouldn't just be used and discarded. No. This was no longer about a broken heart. This was about my mother. This was about justice.

My brother Andrew was our family's only hope, his Penn State scholarship a golden ticket out of this dead-end, rust-belt town. But that dream shattered on the football field with a sickening crack, as Wesley Fowler, scion of the ruthless family who owned half the town, delivered a dirty, career-ending hit to Andrew's knee. In the hospital, Wesley threw five hundred dollars at me, sneering that Andrew "should have known his place." His goons later cornered me outside, shoving me against a brick wall, reminding me that "dead soldier's kids" were "nothing" and that the Fowlers "own the cops, the school, this whole damn town." Our cries for justice were met with chilling indifference; the sheriff dismissed it as "boys will be boys," and the school revoked Andrew' s scholarship, citing false rumors and Lester Fowler's "donations." An eviction notice appeared, a vicious online smear campaign painted us as violent thugs, and Andrew, once so full of life, withered in despair, whispering, "I wish I had died." How could they get away with this, destroying an innocent life and crushing a family, simply because they were rich and powerful? Drowning in a darkness so profound it felt like the end, I remembered my father' s Special Forces medals and his unit' s motto: "Leave no one behind." My father's brothers in arms were our last hope, and I would drive a thousand miles to find them.

After a year overseas building a skyscraper that put our firm on the map, all I wanted was to get back home to my wife, Jenny. But the moment I saw her at the airport, my world tilted; she was visibly pregnant, at least five months along, and the baby wasn't mine. Her chilling explanation? It was her childhood friend Wes' s child, his "only chance," and she expected me to embrace this "sacrifice" as a twisted form of debt repayment for a "perfect marriage image." Then, Wes moved into our home, a constant, smug reminder of my betrayal, culminating in Jenny slapping me and labeling me a "violent drunk" when I dared to defend myself against his taunts. I couldn't fathom how the woman I loved could so coldly betray me and then blame me, but as I prepared to leave, I stumbled upon a flash drive she'd left, hinting at a truth far darker than I could imagine-a hidden plot that would force me to fight not for a broken marriage, but for her very safety.

My whole life was focused on one goal: Harvard. I was Sarah Miller, the academic star, future astrophysicist, and that scholarship was my family's only way out of our small New England town. Just days after acing another SAT practice test, my best friend Chloe, with her cheerleader ponytail swinging, handed me a shiny "friendship locket" for good luck. Suddenly, my perfect scores plummeted, while Chloe' s, who usually struggled, inexplicably soared. Then, a chilling conversation overheard outside the library confirmed my worst fears: Chloe and Ethan, my childhood friend and the boy I might have loved, had deliberately used the cursed antique locket from Mr. Abernathy' s shop to swap my academic luck for Chloe' s gain. My actual SAT scores were a disaster, shattering my Harvard dream and my mother's hopes as her health faltered under the stress. Ethan, to shield Chloe from a plagiarism charge, brazenly framed me, leading to my National Honor Society revocation, lost scholarships, and public humiliation as a "cheater." Later, after Ethan rushed off to save Chloe, leaving me besieged by a vengeful clique vandalizing my car, he returned only to plant fabricated evidence that caused my mother to collapse. How could my closest friends, who should have been my anchors, orchestrate such a cruel, calculated betrayal, then watch my life unravel without a flicker of remorse? The injustice burned, transforming my despair into a cold, sharp rage. They believed they had dealt with the 'naive bookworm' and that I would just "be fine." They were profoundly mistaken. My revenge would begin by turning their own vile magic against them.

I had long embraced my role as the quiet, unremarkable husband, often ridiculed for supposedly failing at business and living off my wife, Brittany. My marriage was a pact, a secret agreement with her father to save his struggling retail empire. For years, I patiently endured Brittany’s public mockery, casual disrespect, and blatant infidelity with her personal trainer, Chad. I let the stinging whispers of "kept man" wash over me, maintaining my carefully crafted facade. But at tonight’s glittering charity ball, her cruelty escalated. She shamelessly paraded Chad, then, scoffing at my "lack of ambition," she dramatically produced divorce papers. In front of high society, she thrust them into my hands, sneering that I was a burden and she never wanted me. The room erupted in snickers, the crowd visibly reveling in my supposed humiliation, assuming I would beg. They believed I was truly a nobody, a pathetic freeloader, easily discarded. Years of my patience, enduring this charade for a sacred promise, vanished in that moment. Their smug faces, her utter betrayal—did she truly believe I was the penniless man she so gleefully cast aside? I calmly accepted the divorce, a decision that visibly stunned everyone in the ballroom. Then, during the ongoing charity auction, as she brazenly flaunted her wealth, I began to subtly bid against her, defying her by one dollar at a time. I had given her countless chances, but tonight, something truly had to break. My carefully constructed facade finally shattered, and it was time for them all to witness the true identity of the man they had been so arrogantly mocking.

Emily Winston, heiress to the powerful Winston Media Group, led a seemingly perfect life, engaged to Ethan Hawke, the charismatic heir of Hawke Energy. Their corporate fairy tale shattered when she discovered Ethan in their marital bed with Sophia Bell, her father's illegitimate daughter. Despite his tearful pleas, the betrayal ran deep. Ethan’s resentment, fueled by his belief Emily orchestrated Sophia’s quiet exile, poisoned their marriage and her very existence. Corporate sabotage followed: leaked secrets, crumbling strategies, her family's empire ravaged. Her beloved grandfather and frail mother withered under the immense stress, gone too soon. Emily herself met a brutal end, run down by a truck on a rain-slicked street, the very day she learned she was pregnant. A life stolen, a legacy destroyed—a cruel cosmic joke. Why had her love, her loyalty, been met with such utter devastation? But then, she woke up, back on her 25th birthday, gifted an impossible second chance. This time, Emily would rewrite her story, protect her family, and forge a new destiny. Yet, across the opulent ballroom, her eyes met Ethan Hawke’s, and a chilling, stark recognition flickered in their depths. He remembered. He had reborned too. This changed everything.

For a decade, I was Amelia Ross, the Upper East Side's most publicly humiliated wife. Page Six kept a running tally of my husband Jared Sterling's affairs, a humiliating "Sterling's Scorecard." My entire independent design career, my peace of mind, even my very identity, had been sacrificed to protect the Sterling family's gilded facade. Then, with surgical cruelty, Jared orchestrated a "routine check-up" during my twenty-week pregnancy. It ended not with a healthy heartbeat, but a fabricated miscarriage report and a hefty gag order. "You're not fit to carry a Sterling heir," he sneered, tossing the paperwork at me as he celebrated with Kendra Bell, his latest "passion muse." My heart, already a mosaic of fractures from 99 prior betrayals, shattered into dust. While Jared and Kendra toasted their "undying love," my baby was gone, a life stolen, and my agony dismissed as inconvenient. The public, his family, even Jared himself, expected me to collapse, to beg for forgiveness, to cling to the wreckage of our marriage like I always had. They expected tears, desperation, and another humiliating plea. But the hundredth cut didn't break me; it forged me anew. From that moment on, I didn't just walk away; I turned the page, ready to build an empire of my own, free from the Sterling name, ready to redefine what "Amelia Ross" truly meant.

Here's the translation: "I’m on vacation and I’m planning to find a summer job. Aunt Kyla said that serving plates is too hard, so she introduced me to a job as a stunt double for a short play. I didn’t think much and went straight there, but the location turned out to be a hotel. They said they were going to film a scene where the female lead gets choked to death. When I saw that the room was full of men, I got scared and wanted to run away. But they grabbed me by the neck and pinned me down on the bed: 'What are you pretending to be a virtuous woman for? I already gave Aunt Kyla 5,000 yuan for you. You think you can escape?! Dream on!' I struggled desperately, but in the end, they tore my clothes and made me wear strange outfits, and I suffocated to death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day Aunt Kyla introduced me to the job. Ha, such a good job is better left for your own daughter to 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."

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."