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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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!"

On my wedding day, my father sold me to the Chicago Outfit to pay his debts. I was supposed to marry Alex Moreno, the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. But he couldn't even be bothered to show up. As I stood alone at the altar, humiliated, my best friend delivered the final blow. Alex hadn't just stood me up; he had run off to California with his mistress. The whispers in the cathedral turned me into a joke. I was damaged goods, the rejected bride. His family knew the whole time and let me take the public fall, offering me his cousins as pathetic replacements-a brute who hated me or a coward who couldn't protect me. The humiliation burned away my fear, leaving only cold rage. My life was already over, so I decided to set the whole game on fire myself. The marriage pact only said a Carlson had to marry a Moreno; it never said which one. With nothing left to lose, I looked past the pathetic boys they offered. I chose the one man they never expected. I chose his father, the Don himself.

My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine. Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family. To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset. They both thought I was a broken doll they could control. I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice. She sang it, and now her career is over. Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground.

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."

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.

MAFIA RUTHLESS: BOOK ONE ************* ************ *********** The devil's captive became his heart's keeper. *************** *********** *********** Revenge! The only thing the strong ,powerful and ruthless mafia don Alessandro Moretti has harboured for years. When he discovers the identity of his mother's killer,he doesn't go after the man alone. He wants everything belonging to Giovanni Conti burnt to the ground,including his most valuable possession-his daughter. Auctioned off by her uncle to the highest bidder,Isabelle Conti's fate is sealed. Not until masked gunmen crash her wedding,and she wakes up in the don's den. She becomes his captive. His obsession...His willing prey. His weapon of vengeance. Isabelle Conti turns out to be different from the others,this time around she doesn't want his affection...she needs his downfall. And when she finally has him where she wants him and she's torn between her feelings and surrendering to the ruthless don. One question threatens to destroy everything, Have you ever loved me?

For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe. On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring. Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger. Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family. When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence. "Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets." My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet. He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts. He was wrong. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use. Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed. *I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.* His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning. *The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?* I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me. I looked down and typed three letters. *Yes.*

I went to the family lawyer for a routine travel clearance. Instead, I was handed a divorce decree. The ink was three years old. While I had been playing the role of the dutiful Capo's wife, Dante had secretly divorced me the day after our fifth anniversary. Twenty-four hours later, he legally married the nanny, Gia, and named her cruel-eyed son as his heir. I returned home to confront him, only for the boy to throw boiling tomato soup on me. Dante didn't check my burns. He cradled the boy and looked at me with pure, drug-fueled hatred, calling me a monster for upsetting his "son." The final blow came in a parking garage. A car sped toward us. Dante didn't pull me to safety. He shoved me into the vehicle's path, using my body as a human shield to protect his mistress. Lying broken on the asphalt, I realized Aria Vitiello was already dead to him. So, I decided to make it official. I arranged a private flight over the Atlantic and ensured there were no survivors. By the time Dante was weeping over the wreckage, realizing too late that he had been poisoned against me, I was already in France. The Canary was dead. The Reaper had risen.

My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention. He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor. I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don. "The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly. An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion. He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement. For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple. "Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her." As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman. Then, the steel door detonated. Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.

My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent. But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress. Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes. "If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you." To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife. When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala. He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent. He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters. He thought he had broken me. He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage. But he made a fatal error. He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign. They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me. And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck. I didn't jump to die. I jumped to be reborn. And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin.

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."