The Unwanted Wife's Dazzling Public Divorce

For five years, I was married to the most feared Mafia Don in New York. But my husband's heart only had room for one woman: my fragile, manipulative half-sister, Siena. He constantly used his absolute authority to protect her, even forgetting my deadly genetic allergy just to cater to her meals. The ultimate betrayal came during a hostage exchange with a rogue faction at the freezing East Docks. The kidnapper pressed a gun to Siena's head and demanded a one-for-one trade. The Mafia Queen for the sweet civilian. My husband and my son didn't hesitate for a single second. "Walk forward, Tessa," Cassio commanded, his voice devoid of any hesitation. "Go save my aunt!" my young son screamed from the car. I was shoved toward the ruthless mobsters and dragged onto their idling smuggling boat. When I looked back, Cassio was hurriedly wrapping his warm coat around Siena's shivering shoulders. He didn't look at me. Not even once. In that freezing rain, I finally realized my absolute worthlessness. I was never a wife or a mother; I was just a disposable bargaining chip. Memories of a past life suddenly flooded my mind—a life where I withered away in a cage, dying alone while Cassio stood over my hospital bed and whispered his final words. "I wish I had met Siena first." I looked down at the freezing, black ocean churning below the edge of the boat. An underground extractor had already prepared my new identity in Switzerland. With a sudden jerk, I ripped my arm out of the mobster's grip and stepped backward off the edge of the boat. This time, I chose to live for myself.

For a whole year, April believed her billionaire husband, Bartholomew, abandoned her in Europe the day after their arranged wedding. She hated him so much she drunkenly prayed for his death at a club. But he suddenly returned that very night, catching her red-handed. Instead of a divorce, he trapped her, threatening to bankrupt her bloodsucking family unless she moved into his penthouse to play the devoted wife. Forced to comply, she attended a dinner with her toxic family. Her stepmother deliberately served her lobster—knowing April had a fatal allergy. "Eat up, darling. I know hospital food is dreadful." When April refused and exposed their massive gambling debts, her furious father raised his hand to strike her across the face. But it was Bartholomew, the ruthless tyrant she despised, who caught her father's arm and snapped his wrist. "If you ever try to touch my wife again, I will erase your family by sunrise." April was completely stunned. Why was he defending her with such murderous rage? And why did he keep a cheap paper airplane she had made at age six preserved under a glass dome in his study? The answer came that night. When Bartholomew stepped out of the shower, April saw the massive, jagged surgical scar sliced directly over his heart. He hadn't run away; he had been fighting for his life on an operating table. Staring at the man who had silently survived just to come back to her, April made her choice. She was going to uncover the truth behind his surgery and their past.

I sat before the vanity in a lace dress that cost more than a mid-sized sedan, but to me, it felt like a burial shroud. I was the sacrifice being offered to the Ortega family, a human payment for my father’s debts and failing company. When I tried to refuse, my stepmother forced a glass of drugged champagne into my hand and threatened to destroy me. She whispered that if I didn't marry the "monster" Cooper Ortega, she’d release psychiatric records proving I was a mental patient who hallucinated a child that never existed. I escaped by jumping out of a speeding limo, tumbling into a ditch and losing everything but my life. A mysterious, scarred driver in a beat-up Ford saved me, but when I limped back home, my father threw me out like trash. My own sister stood in the foyer, wearing my engagement ring and clinging to Lance, the man who had promised to protect me. "You're a sinking ship, Fran," my father sneered before locking the gates. Then I found the recording—my stepmother’s voice complaining that the doctor wanted more money because my baby had cried before they took him away. My son wasn't stillborn; he was stolen by the people I called family. I was broken, homeless, and hunted, with only a "poor" driver named Cooper to help me. I didn't know he was actually the billionaire monster I had jumped out of a car to avoid, but I moved into his cramped studio anyway. I’m starting a war with nothing but a cracked phone and a mother’s rage. They took my life and they took my son, so now I’m going to take everything they have left.

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.