The Edge

For eight years, I was the Falcone mafia's top fixer and the Don's secret fiancée, taking bullets to keep his syndicate alive. But when my mother was crashing from heart failure, he refused to authorize her lifesaving surgery. I dropped to my knees in the middle of the crowded ballroom, begging him to make the call. Instead, Kieran didn't even flinch. He sat there meticulously folding a paper bird for his new favorite, Elena. "You are causing a scene, Sienna," he scolded me coldly. "And you completely forgot to pick up Elena's custom gown today. I am not rewarding your tantrums." He then publicly stripped me of my executive rank, gave my hard-earned Underboss title to Elena, and made a show of praising her—while the vintage diamond ring he had chosen in her favorite style still sat on my finger. I had died on the operating table three times to build his empire, yet he was willing to let my mother die over a delayed dress. The desperation in my gut congealed into a block of ice, and my lingering love completely burned away. I took off the ring and walked straight out of the Falcone estate into the freezing night. Outside, the Matriarch of his deadliest rival was waiting in an armored SUV. "My clinic can save her," she said smoothly. "But you know the price." I didn't even hesitate. "I will marry your son."

My fiancé, Knox, was the man I’d spent ten years building a life with, the one I’d poured my family’s fortune into. But then I found the lockbox. Inside, a photo of him smiling, his arm around a heavily pregnant woman, marked: *To my only wife Deana.* I’d been looking for a charger in our Boston penthouse closet when I stumbled upon it. The faded Polaroid showed Knox, younger, beaming, with a heavily pregnant stranger. Its timestamp: "Ten years ago"—the exact year I funded his Ivy League PhD. Flipping the photo, I saw Knox’s familiar handwriting: *To my only wife Deana and our upcoming miracle.* My world crumbled. The man I’d loved had a wife, making me the unwitting mistress. My opulent life was built on his lies. His text, "Baby, I'm coming home to *our house*," twisted into a cruel joke. My tears froze. A decade of sacrifices, of family alienation—all for a man who used my money and trust—shredded in my mind. The fragile woman in me vanished; my eyes turned cold and clear. I relocked the box, smoothed the rug, and applied crimson lipstick. Practicing a flawless smile, I whispered, "Welcome home, my sweet liar."

My Alpha mate abandoned me three years ago, leaving me as a disgraced Omega to raise our two children in a freezing, ruined hovel. To keep them from starving, I was forced into a humiliating deal with a rogue wolf named Jax, who stole our pack rations and demanded my young son as payment. The entire pack shunned me, my mother-in-law treated me like dirt, and my children lived in constant fear. When I finally awakened my ancient Luna bloodline to fight off Jax and feed my kids, Ryker suddenly returned. But he didn't come to save us. He blasted our door off its hinges, his eyes burning with a murderous rage. He ignored our starving reality and accused me of selling our bloodline to the rogue. "Where is the rogue? Who did you trade my bloodline to?!" I had endured beatings, starvation, and utter humiliation just to keep his children breathing. I had bled to protect our family. Yet, the moment he returned, he believed the lies of our tormentor and looked at me with the intent to kill. Why was I the villain in the story of my own survival? As his powerful inner wolf suddenly whined in submission for the magical food I had cooked, his Alpha command faltered into deep confusion. He ordered me not to leave his sight until I explained everything. But looking at the mate who had abandoned us, my mind was crystal clear. The real question wasn't whether I would leave, but whether he was still worthy of letting me stay.

At my boyfriend's poorest moment, I suddenly broke up with him. Later, he became a Don in the Mafia and married me by any means necessary. Everyone said he loved me to the bone. But every night, he brought different women home, deliberately trying to provoke me. I asked no questions, shed no tears, and never disturbed his trysts with his mistresses. He went crazy with rage instead, kissing me fiercely and demanding, "Why aren't you jealous?" He didn't know I was sick. Dying. While he was furiously taking his revenge on me, I was slowly walking toward death.

I woke up with a throbbing pressure behind my eyes and the taste of metallic champagne in my throat. Instead of my cramped apartment, I was draped in expensive silk under a ceiling the color of a storm cloud. A pear-shaped black diamond sat heavy on my finger, and a document on the nightstand confirmed my worst fear. I was married to Arnulfo Bond, the shipping magnate whose previous eight fiancées had all vanished or died in "accidents." My sister, Verity, had drugged me at the Met Gala and sold me to cover our father’s fifty-million-dollar debt. "You do this, or I pull the plug on Aunt Meredith," she warned me over a burner phone. Arnulfo didn’t look at me with lust; he looked at me like an auditor checking a spreadsheet for defects. He sealed the estate with titanium shutters, turning the mansion into a high-tech fortress. When a doctor saw the whip scars and cigarette burns on my back—reminders of the childhood abuse Verity never faced—Arnulfo realized I wasn't the pampered socialite he’d bought. I was a line item, a transaction, a mute girl trapped between a husband who treated me like property and a family that wanted me dead. I didn't understand how my own sister could be so heartless, or why Arnulfo was suddenly looking at my broken skin with a terrifying, possessive interest. But they all made a fatal mistake. They thought I was just a helpless victim. They didn't know I was "The Ghost," a forensic accountant for the SEC who lived on the dark web. As Arnulfo walked away, I opened a hidden terminal on my phone. I wasn't running anymore; I was infiltrating. I was going to find every cent of his blood money and use it to buy my freedom.

I spent three years playing the perfect "placeholder" boyfriend for a billionaire’s rebellious daughter. I was the safety net, the companion, and the professional distraction paid to keep her out of trouble until she reached her "real" future. But the moment she turned twenty-one, her father slid a fifty-thousand-dollar check across a polished mahogany desk and told me I was a defective appliance being disposed of. He demanded I sign a non-disclosure agreement and disappear forever, treating my years of service like a common trash pickup. I walked out of the estate with a face full of tragic longing, making sure the security cameras caught my wet eyes. But the second the iron gates slammed shut, I wiped my face and opened "Proxy," a high-end app for the 1% who need hired bodies for their dirty emotional work. I didn't have the luxury of a broken heart; I had a foster home to roof and dialysis bills to pay. My next gig was a "hazard pay" nightmare with Antoinette Lowe, a cold-blooded professor who used me as a vessel for her grief. One hour I was wearing a five-thousand-dollar tuxedo while she hurled porcelain vases at my head, screaming about the man who left her at the altar. The next, she had me in a French maid outfit, scrubbing her kitchen floors on my hands and knees while she mocked my dignity. I became her ghost, her servant, and her scripted lover, whispering "you are breathtaking" for a five-hundred-dollar bonus while a silent timer vibrated on my wrist. I lived my life in fragments: a silent audience for a violent cellist by night, and a commanding voice on a headset for a girl who couldn't sleep. I was everyone’s everything, yet I was becoming a man with no face of my own. I realized then that these people didn't want a human; they wanted a mirror that didn't bleed. Antoinette started believing the lies I sold her, convinced she was my muse instead of my paycheck. She didn't see the calculation in my eyes or the way I analyzed her every weakness just to stay in character. "I am whatever you need me to be, Ms. Lowe," I told her, my voice a perfect mask of devotion. The obsession is growing, the roles are bleeding together, and the danger is peaking. But as long as the deposit clears, I’ll keep playing the game until there’s nothing left of me to sell.

Everyone in Seavelt knew that Dr. Ethan Caldwell, the city's top gynecologist, never got close to women. No matter how many youthful figures stood before him, he never so much as glanced their way. I always thought I was different, even after ten years together, when he wouldn't let me touch him. If my fingertips accidentally brushed his sleeve, he'd snap, "Don't touch me." After another failed attempt to climb into his bed, he sent ten men to sleep with me. Afterward, when I cried and lashed out at him, he said flatly, "I can't let you live like a nun forever." The eleventh time he arranged for someone to pin me to the bed, I lost it and swallowed two hundred sleeping pills. When I woke up, Ethan, for the first time ever, allowed me to touch him. I thought I could slowly win him over. But the next day, at his private villa, I caught him holding another woman in his arms. He kissed the top of her head, his eyes burning with a passion I'd never seen. When I confronted him, Ethan looked at me coldly. "Clara's not like you. She doesn't have those filthy thoughts or try to seduce men." I bit my lip until I tasted blood. "Fine, Ethan. Let's break up."

The first thing I noticed was the ultrasound picture on my kitchen island, a grainy image signaling a future I never saw coming. My husband, David, looked pale, and beside him, his intern, Lily, barely legal and with a hand protectively over her flat stomach, smiled triumphantly. "I' m pregnant," Lily announced, "It' s David' s." The words shattered 15 years of my life. David, the man I' d sacrificed everything for, couldn' t meet my eyes. He mumbled about it "just happening." Then my fifteen-year-old adopted son, Alex, walked past me and handed Lily a glass of water, telling her, "You should sit down." He looked at me, his young face hard. "Mom, just listen. Dad made a mistake. Lily is scared. We need to be adults about this." The shock was a physical blow. Not just my husband, but my son, my Alex, was against me. Lily, seeing her advantage, spoke with false sincerity. "Sarah, I don' t want to break up your family. We can make this work. I can live here. You can help me with the baby." The audacity left me breathless. She wanted me to raise my husband' s illegitimate child in my home. My perfectly curated world dissolved into chaos. David, Lily, and Alex stood there, a new family, and I was the inconvenient, old piece. A profound cold dread spread through me. This wasn' t a crack; it was a demolition. Seven years ago, I had taken the fall for David' s career-ending mistake, losing my architectural license and, due to the stress, an ectopic pregnancy that left me unable to have children naturally. David had promised, "You are all the family I will ever need." Now, he fawned over Lily. My sacrifices, my body, my love-none of it was enough. Alex admitted he' d been covering for David and Lily for months, helping them meet. "Maybe if you were a better wife, none of this would have happened," Alex declared, his eyes full of contempt. "Maybe if you paid more attention to Dad instead of your work, he wouldn't have needed someone else." That was the final blow. I looked at their united faces. My heart didn' t just break, it turned to dust. "Get out of my house," I said, my voice dead. "All of you. I want nothing to do with you, or with it." David was speechless. I calmly opened the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out a manila envelope. "I want a divorce," I stated, placing the papers on the coffee table. The words were final. Alex scoffed, "You have nothing without him. Where would you even go?" David tried to placate me, then offered me the house, asking me not to fight for the rest of the assets-for the baby' s sake. Then came the ultimate insult. "I think it would be best if you found somewhere else to stay," he said. "Lily' s pregnancy… all this stress isn' t good for her. Or the baby." He was kicking me out of my own home, the sanctuary I had built, to make room for his mistress. A bone-deep sadness settled over me. It wasn' t my home anymore; it was a house full of strangers. "Fine," I whispered. "I' ll be gone by the end of the week." My choice was made.

The sterile scent of antiseptic always brought me back. It was the smell of my last death – broken and bleeding in a dark alley. But this time, I wasn\'t dying; I was walking into Senator Maxwell' s garden party, my husband, Professor Ethan Thorne, adjusting his tie beside me. To the world, he was a rising academic star. To me, he was my future murderer. Just hours ago, in a lifetime I' d miraculously escaped, his accomplices left me for dead after his brilliant scheme to have his lover, Holly Summers, "save" the Senator' s granddaughter backfired, permanently disfiguring little Lily Maxwell. His last words echoed in my mind, "Make sure she doesn' t talk." I\'d loved him, trusted him with my life, and he' d thrown it all away for power and wealth. Now, he asked, his smile perfectly crafted but his eyes calculating, "Liv, are you ready? Holly is already in the garden." He saw his naive wife, the talented musician. He couldn\'t see the ghost in my eyes, the cold resolve that now fueled me. He had no idea he was looking at the woman who would orchestrate his ruin. I had been given a second chance. Not for love, not for happiness, but for justice. The game had just been reset, but this time, I was writing the rules.

My life was a monument, built brick by brick on my mother' s legacy, dedicated to a name that meant integrity, quality, and family. Then, in a sterile hospital room, it all ended. The man I married, Mark, took everything: my company, my home, my inheritance, and the future of my unborn child. I had saved him from ruin, pulling him from the wreckage of his own failed ventures, using my funds and company resources to clear his name. In return, he promised me the world, and like a fool, I believed him. I invested my expertise, my connections, my family' s capital into him, helping him climb the corporate ladder, all while he climbed on my back. At my most vulnerable, six months pregnant, he stole my designs and sold them to our biggest rival. When I confronted him, he stood with Emily, the woman from that rival firm, sneering, "Even if Emily is ruthless, she loves me and would never betray me!" He twisted the knife, "You\'re just a pawn, Sarah. Bound by our family\'s contract. A tool. If it weren\'t for avenging what your family did to Emily\'s years ago, I wouldn\'t have even bothered with you!" He unraveled everything, funding Emily\'s projects with my firm\'s assets, selling off my child' s future. The hatred consumed me, a fire that burned away every last ounce of love. Then, the world went dark. I woke up, not in that hospital, but in my own bed, two years earlier. My stomach was flat, no baby, no pain. The digital clock showed the exact day Mark first brought Emily home. I heard his voice downstairs, her laugh. He knew. He had come back too. A cold smile spread across my face. "Grandfather," I said, my voice clear and steady as I joined them. "Since Mark likes this woman so much, let\'s welcome her into the family." He had expected tears, not this. My hatred, reborn, was a razor\'s edge. He had just welcomed a viper into his home, a corporate raider I knew would drain him dry in less than ten days.

Ava Reed was at the pinnacle of her career, overseeing the groundbreaking Nexus Tower, a testament to her vision and her late father' s legacy. Then, the blueprint for her dream project, her future-and her trust-shattered into a million pieces. Her live-in assistant, Liam Stone, the man who shared her home and her dreams, the man she loved, had betrayed her. He leaked her confidential designs to the cutthroat Sterling Group, their biggest rival. The city, once her canvas, now twisted into a landscape of public humiliation. Sterling Group retaliated, suing Ava for intellectual property theft, painting her as the villain, and her board members-once her staunchest supporters-began to question her leadership, her judgment, and her very sanity. How could the man she trusted with everything orchestrate such a devastating attack? Was it all a lie? Every shared laugh, every quiet moment? The betrayal was a physical ache, a wound that ripped not just through her company, but through her soul. Just when all hope seemed lost, a cryptic call from Liam offered a tantalizing, dangerous possibility: a deeper conspiracy, a mole within her own company, and a chance for her to fight back.

My biological parents were tech billionaires, yet for me, Sarah Miller, every penny was a battleground. They preached "character" and "tough love," while lavishing everything on Ashley, their "perfect" adopted daughter, who got whatever she wanted. On SAT day, a torrential storm hit. I desperately needed $50 for an Uber to reach the crucial exam on time. My father, flaunting his self-made fortune, snatched my emergency cash – saved from months of skipping lunch – and sneered, "Spoiled brat! Build character." I arrived soaking wet and an hour late, my SATs a blur of cold and despair. Then, on a classmate' s phone, I saw it: A live social media feed of my parents hosting a multi-million dollar bash for Ashley. The reason? She'd won a minor school debate. My mother' s caption gloated, "So proud of our Ashley! #ProudParents #HarrisonLegacy." Millions for Ashley' s 'tests' were fine, but $50 for my future was an exorbitant luxury. Every hope, every scraped-together crumb of affection I'd ever craved, evaporated. Why did they despise their own daughter so much? What had I, their flesh and blood, ever done to earn such icy disdain? In that moment, something inside me snapped. The desperate girl who clung to their approval died. My local college applications lay torn. My illusions, finally, shattered. And I knew: I was done.

My entire life revolved around Ashworth Creatives, the agency I poured my soul into building, and my fiancé, Ethan. Tonight was meant to be my crowning achievement, sealing a colossal client deal and my future within the powerful Ashworth family who' d adopted me. Then, I saw Ethan' s phone. A text from my manipulative adoptive sister, Chloe: "Heard you' re taking Ava to the gala tonight. Don' t forget our little after-party, just us. ;)" Beneath it, a damning video: Ethan and Chloe, laughing, intertwined in my private guesthouse. Chloe was draped in my deceased mother' s diamond necklace, a "gift" from Ethan, according to his text. My blood ran cold. They weren't just having an affair; they were plotting to use my marriage to secure my assets, then throw me aside, giving my agency to her. The Ashworths had groomed me, controlled me, and now, they planned to discard me like trash. I was a means to their end, and Ethan, their willing, despicable pawn. The gala-my moment of triumph-threatened to become my public humiliation. But a cold, unyielding rage ignited inside me, far stronger than any despair. I wouldn't be their victim; I would dismantle them all, piece by agonizing piece. My fingers flew across my own phone, dialing a number I' d heard whispered about, for "companions." "I need an escort," I stated, my voice flat, holding back a torrent of fury. "Tonight. For the industry gala. For a performance. You need to act like my devoted boyfriend." My revenge would be calculated, public, and absolute.

I didn't mean to call my boss. I definitely didn't mean to leave a seven-minute voicemail of dirty secrets about him. Working for Ruslan Oryolov is the job from hell. The man is impossible-demanding, arrogant, and way too gorgeous for his own good. After eighteen months of fetching his coffee and swallowing my pride, all I wanted was one night of stress relief. But the billionaire CEO of Bane Corporation isn't just a boss from hell. He's the head of the Oryolov Bratva-and now that he's heard every secret I never meant to share, he's decided to claim me. His contract. His rules. His protection for my three orphaned nieces and nephews-the only reason I'm signing my life away to a man I should fear. He owns my signature. He owns my safety. Now he wants my soul.

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.

She's sin wrapped in a nun habit. He is the devil who makes her want to confess. Luciano Moretti, the mafia's most feared enforcer, kills without hesitation, prays to no god, and bleeds for the Cosa Nostra. Sister Elizabeth has spent her life behind church walls, burying her desires under layers of penance and prayer. She is supposed to be untouchable-a quiet, secluded nun devoted to faith. But when she finds him bleeding on the altar one night, their worlds collide in a sin neither heaven nor hell can cleanse. He's meant to marry her sister to seal a deal between two mafia empires. She's meant to keep her vows and distance. But temptation has a cruel sense of humour... Because he's the last man she should want. She's the only woman he can't have. But one touch, one look, and everything sacred begins to crumble. Luciano does not seek salvation. Instead, he lures her into a dangerous path, one that includes everything she is meant to avoid, and everytime she whispers "forgive me, Father," her soul sinks deeper into him. As bloodlines clash and loyalty turns to betrayal, Elizabeth learns that the war outside the chapel isn't the only one she must survive. Because Luciano's world is built on violence and secrets, one of which binds her fate to his in ways neither of them saw coming. Desire clashes with devotion. Duty turns to betrayal. And when they're both drowning in a love so forbidden, not even God can save them.

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."

On my birthday, my husband Dante asked for a divorce over a plate of cold lasagna. He held my hand, tears in his eyes, and told me his mistress was pregnant. "It’s a miracle, Elena," he wept. "God has finally given me a son." He looked at me with pity, calling me "broken" because I hadn't given him an heir in eight years. He moved his pregnant mistress into the penthouse I paid for, and his mother mocked me as a "dry vine" while cooking tonic soups for the new woman. They didn't know the truth I had buried three years ago. I remembered the day the doctor slid the file across the desk: *Azoospermia. Zero sperm count.* Dante was the sterile one. I had burned the results to protect his fragile ego as a Mafia Don. I took the blame. I drank his mother's vile herbal poisons every morning until I vomited, just to keep his secret. Now, he was discarding me for a "miracle" that was biologically impossible. I signed the divorce papers without a tear. Then I bought the debt of his company, put on a blood-red dress, and walked into his heir's Christening. I didn't come to object. I came to plug a USB drive into the projector and show the entire underworld exactly whose "miracle" that baby really was.

"My world is a mess; you want nothing to do with this" "You don't have the right to decide that for me." Her chest was heaving, harsh breaths scraping the walls of her nose. "I am your wife, and I am choosing to be in your mess." He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her closer. "This is your last chance. Once you step in, I can never let go." "I'm not planning on it." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jade Saint, who was switched at birth, is coerced into an arranged marriage after returning to the Sterling home. That is, until Roman Volkov – the richest and most dangerous man in the city – claims her as his bride. Desperate to save her dying adoptive mother, she willingly enters into a contract marriage with the devil himself. But marriage to Roman is not what she thinks it is – not the enemies lurking in the shadows. Not the dangerous world he refuses to explain, and certainly not the way his cold touch begins to feel like a promise instead of a warning. Because the more she tries to understand him, the more she realises he didn't choose her by accident. And the truth behind it all may destroy her.

I was washing the caked blood from my five-year-old daughter's broken body in the family mortuary. She had been tortured to death by a rival cartel. My husband Julian, the underworld's legendary "Master of Whispers," claimed his intelligence division did everything they could, but the rescue coordinates were wrong. Yet, while I stood over our child's corpse, he was busy comforting his new apprentice, Chloe. She posted a picture of their intertwined hands online, bragging that she had "accidentally deleted a crucial audio file" yesterday, but the boss had held her hand and forgiven her. Yesterday. The exact day my daughter died. When I confronted him, Julian slapped me across the face in front of our men. "You carry the curse of your bloodline! You are an omen of death! You brought this on her!" He blamed me for our child's slaughter, demanding I apologize to his mistress, while he secretly wiped the server logs to protect the incompetent girl who got our daughter killed. He actually thought I would just swallow the grief, refusing a divorce because I still loved him, allowing him to use my family's immense wealth to play house with his whore. But he forgot one crucial detail. His legendary "God's Ear" was a total myth, a lie entirely powered by the secret algorithms I funded to cover up his permanent deafness. I calmly gathered the ashes of my daughter from the floor and picked up my phone. "Initiate an immediate withdrawal of all funds from Julian's division. Let them bleed."

Three days before the wedding. I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman. Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress. The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem. It didn't spell Elena. It read Sofia. He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name. Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife. He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance. I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared. "The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?" "Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport." "Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys." I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday. He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead.

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.

Seven days before I was set to marry the most feared Mafia Don in the country, I was asked to step out of my own wedding photos. Because my shadow was ruining the shot. The photographer then took ninety-nine pictures—of my fiancé and my adopted sister. When I refused to give up the master suite meant for a wife, the man I loved called me ungrateful. He abandoned me at a remote compound to take her to a nail salon. So three days before the ceremony, I returned his keys, his ledgers, and his world. I left a single note: 'Thank you.' Eight years later, I came back home—and found him waiting for me on the same road where he once left me behind. He promised to wait forever. He broke that vow in the worst way possible. And I never even heard the crash.