ANASTASIA GRAVES
9 Published Stories
ANASTASIA GRAVES's Books and Stories
The Runaway Wife: Hiding The Don's Heir
Mafia The combination to my husband's private safe was the date of his mistress's birth.
Inside, arranged beside his gun and stacks of cash, I found a legal document that shattered my world.
Clause 4: Upon the birth of the heir, my architecture firm is absorbed into the Moretti Trust.
Clause 5: Primary guardianship is transferred to the father and his proxy, Kaleigh.
Kaleigh is my step-sister. She is also the woman currently warming my husband's bed.
When I confronted Jacob, the Don of the city, he didn't offer a shadow of shame.
He simply gripped my chin, his eyes cold as ice, and whispered, "There is no divorce in this life. You leave in a coffin."
My lawyer betrayed me. The police were on his payroll. I was trapped in a gilded cage, waiting to be discarded.
Then came the final blow—an intercepted audio recording.
"The moment the head crowns, she is done," Jacob's voice said on the tape. "If she fights, she dies on the table."
They didn't just want my baby. They wanted to erase me completely.
I realized I couldn't win in court, and I couldn't win in a street fight.
To escape a man who owned the city, I had to cease to exist.
I drove my car to a desolate ravine and doused the leather seats in gasoline.
I took off my wedding ring, placed it on the dashboard, and lit a match.
I wasn't going to kill my son.
I was going to burn the world down for him. The Ruby Shackle: Bound To The Billionaire
Modern I’m a CIA operative known as "The Auditor," and for months, I’ve played the role of a pathetic, abused ward in Basil Dean’s mansion. My mission was simple: gather intel on a paranoid billionaire while pretending to be a girl who flinches at her own shadow and knows nothing of the world.
The balance shattered when Basil found a photo of me smiling at a local mechanic. He didn't just get angry; he dragged me into his soundproof vault, his leather-gloved thumb pressing into my carotid artery to feel the frantic, terrified thrum of my heart.
He tagged me with a ruby bracelet—a high-tech tracking device that reported my GPS and biometrics to his phone every second. His stepsister, Corine, smelled blood in the water, accusing me of theft while Basil watched my heart rate spike on his screen like a lab rat in a cage. I was trapped in a gilded nightmare, forced to scrub floors and endure his predatory stares while a fifty-thousand-dollar shackle recorded my every breath.
I couldn't tell if he was a grieving recluse or a shark playing with his food, but every time my signal dropped, he was there, looming in the shadows, waiting for me to slip up. I was drowning in a game where the rules changed every time I tried to fight back, and the agency was starting to think I’d turned.
To end the charade, I handed the bracelet back to him in front of the entire kitchen staff, a public rejection of his twisted ownership. Basil didn't blink; he took a heavy meat mallet and smashed the ruby to dust right in front of me before making a phone call that turned my mission into a death trap.
"Get the prenup ready," he hissed, his eyes burning with a terrifying, sane obsession.
"I'm marrying her." His Fatal Mistake, My Sweet Revenge
Modern Trapped 3,000 meters beneath the sea, the submersible I designed was my coffin. The air was turning to poison.
But my fiancé, Jeffery, gave our only long-term life support-a CO2 scrubber I invented-to his social media star mistress.
"You're strong, Elaina," he said. "You can figure something out."
When I tried to use the emergency comms, he broke my wrist and smashed the console.
He and his mistress sealed the hatch, leaving me to die alone in the crushing dark.
He chose his career over my life. He chose her over me. The man I was supposed to marry would rather I suffocate at the bottom of the ocean than face a failed mission.
But as the blackness closed in, I remembered a secret. A tiny, personal emergency pinger I' d built into my glove. With my last bit of strength, I tore the seam with my teeth and slammed my hand against my head. A faint click echoed in the silence. My revenge had just begun. The Fiancé's Cruel Deception
Modern I was kidnapped with my fiancé, Charlton Morris. In that dark, damp room, he was my hero, shielding me from our captors and whispering promises of safety.
After our rescue, he proposed in front of the world's cameras. But the fairytale was a lie. The kidnapping was a sham he orchestrated with my own father, a cruel plot to ruin my reputation.
I was just a pawn, a public pariah to make his family accept his true love, Giuliana. They humiliated me with a degrading video, had me committed to a mental asylum where I was nearly assaulted, and then discovered I was pregnant.
They forced me to abort the child I was secretly carrying-his child. They thought they had broken me, that I would disappear quietly with my shame after they had taken my dignity, my reputation, and my baby.
But on the day of their wedding, I sent them a gift: the preserved remains of the child they made me kill. Then, I burned my old life to the ground and bought a one-way ticket to London. They thought the story was over. They had no idea my revenge was just beginning. His Wife, Her Child: A Twisted Truth
Modern The cold bit deep, followed by a throbbing pain. My eyes, impossibly heavy, finally opened to a sterile white room. My last memory? My own son, Alex, his face twisted in a rage I' d seen countless times, brought a vase down on my head. Again and again.
As consciousness faded, a horrific truth surfaced: Alex wasn't my son. He was hers. My best friend, Lisa Hayes, had swapped our babies at birth. My sweet, healthy Emily for her violent Alex, cursed with a genetic disorder. Lisa had doomed me to a lifetime of hell, raising her monster while she raised my perfect child.
I' d died, discarded on my living room floor, wondering why my life had been a constant struggle, why my child was so broken. I' d endured years of Alex' s violent outbursts, the judgmental stares, Lisa' s fake sympathy, and my mother-in-law' s relentless criticism. My marriage crumbled under the weight of a secret I never knew existed, and my love and patience were worn thin.
Then, a nurse' s voice. "The epidural should be wearing off soon. You did wonderfully." Epidural? My stomach was flat. I looked at the calendar: October 12th, 2008. The day I gave birth, 16 years ago. I was back.
A second chance. A chance to save my daughter, to protect my husband, to reclaim the life Lisa stole. This time, there would be no swap. This time, I would rewrite our fate. Dear Wife, Let's Divorce!
Romance The boardroom was silent, captivated by my Apex Tower presentation-the culmination of my career, projected onto the massive screen.
But instead of my schematics, a live feed of our meditation room flickered on, revealing my wife, Sarah, in a tender embrace with another man, Mark.
A collective gasp, then stunned silence. My meticulously built world crumbled, my dignity in ruins before my investors and team.
How could the woman I' d worshipped for fifteen years, the angel who supposedly saved my life, do this? It was a betrayal so profound, I couldn't comprehend it. Was our entire life a carefully constructed lie?
I retreated, shattered, only to uncover a chilling conspiracy that turned my heartbreak into a burning desire for retribution, setting in motion a fight for my very survival. The Pastor's 63rd Bride
Horror The town of Havenwood smells of damp earth and blind faith, but I only came back for my sister Maria's funeral. She was Pastor Morris' s 63rd bride, and like the 62 before her, she died on her wedding night.
Instead of grief, my parents were celebrating, beaming with pride as they informed me that Maria had "ascended" and that Pastor Morris had chosen me to be his next bride.
My own family, then my best friend Wendy, and finally even my fiancé Matthew, betrayed me, selling me out to a man they believed was holy, a man who had murdered my sister.
I was utterly alone, tied to an altar, staring at portraits of his previous victims, wondering why anyone would celebrate such horror.
But when Pastor Morris offered me a choice of how I wished to "depart," something snapped, and my defiance brought an unexpected reprieve. Then I witnessed Wendy, my own best friend, ecstatic as venomous snakes bit her, realizing this wasn't murder, but a horrifying, willing ritual suicide.
Driven by a desperate need to understand the madness, I confronted the supposed "master," who claimed to be my long-dead great-grandfather and that these sacrifices saved our town. But remembering my real great-grandfather's true teachings about grace, not blood, I saw through the imposter's lies.
Realizing he was the blight twisting our town' s faith, I plunged the knife meant for me into him, shattering the collective delusion and freeing Havenwood from its long nightmare. When Love Dies, Justice Rises
Romance For five years, I, Ethan Hayes, a tech billionaire, adored Chloe, showering her with every luxury, believing my love would finally win her over.
Then, a frantic call put me in the Cedars-Sinai ER, facing consent forms for emergency surgery after Chloe's ex, Ryder, joyrode my gift G-Wagen while drunk, critically injuring two.
My phone buzzed; Chloe, on her way to Aspen, brushed off my urgency, snapping, "I handled it. I sent the money. Just stay out of it."
My blood ran cold when the doctor emerged from the OR with grim news: her parents, on their way to the anniversary dinner I arranged, were dead.
Chloe only cared her Centurion Card was declined days later, furious I'd "ruined her trip."
She strolled home, demanding to know who died, then dismissed the truth from my housekeeper as "my dramatic attempts for attention."
In that sterile hospital hallway, my love for Chloe died; not faded, but extinguished, leaving a cold, clear emptiness, like I was replaced by a stranger.
The reality hit me: she paid a fixer to cover up her own parents' murder, and Ryder's old letters, hidden in a shoebox, revealed a years-long scheme to bleed me dry, confirming I was just their "ATM."
I knew then I wasn't just losing; I was fighting back, ready to use my wealth, not as a source of affection, but as a shield and a sword.
It was never a competition for her love; it was a conspiracy, and the fraud would end now, starting with cutting off every financial tie and bringing the full weight of justice down on them both. You might like
Rejected by the Son, I Chose the Don
Rabbit 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 Husband's Brother Owns My Secret
Rabbit 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. Burned by Poison, Saved by the Devil
Gale Kaaya My cousin Hailey paid a dock worker to assault me just to ruin my engagement.
To survive the military-grade aphrodisiac she poisoned me with, I stumbled into a walk-in freezer and threw myself onto the only source of cold I could find-a man paralyzed by unnatural hypothermia.
It was a desperate, primal exchange of my heat for his ice just to keep my heart from stopping.
But when Hailey threw open the heavy iron door, leading my fiancé and the entire Bolton family to witness my "shame," her triumphant grin instantly vanished.
She hadn't caught me with a low-life thug.
She had caught me straddling Demetrius Maddox, the ruthless Iron King of Chicago.
The air in the room dropped to absolute zero. My grandmother screamed in horror, and my father turned the color of ash.
Hailey, blinded by jealousy, tried to double down. She pointed a manicured finger at the deadliest man in the city and called him a "nameless muscle" I picked up to defile the family name.
She didn't realize she had just signed her own death warrant.
I didn't cower. I realized this was the only chance to survive the family that wanted me dead.
I walked up to the Devil himself, my body still humming with the poison, and looked him in the eye.
"Kill me, and the cold inside you wins," I whispered, knowing he was dying from the inverse of my own poison. "I am the only doctor who knows how to cure you."
Demetrius tightened his hand around my throat, his dark eyes assessing my worth.
"Prove it," he growled.
I turned back to my trembling cousin and signaled the enforcer to hand me the whip. Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles
Dorine Koestler 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. To Ruin Him, I Married His Rival
Rabbit Andrew Hebert, the man who promised to protect me, stood on a stage and announced his engagement to my tormentor. It wasn't just heartbreak; it was a business deal. He was selling me to a creditor to cover his gambling debts.
The applause of the powerful families was a death sentence, each clap sealing my fate as collateral. Andrew had paraded me here just to show everyone I was an asset to be liquidated, while his new fiancée smirked at me from the stage.
I was trapped, with no money and no one to turn to. The man I loved was leading me to the slaughter.
But as I fled into the library, a voice emerged from the shadows, deep and dangerous.
Damien Maddox. The Dark Don. The only man Andrew feared.
He offered me a different kind of cage, one with the power to burn Andrew's world to the ground.
With nothing left to lose, I looked the devil in the eyes.
"Take me with you." His Vow Broke, Her Empire Woke
Hei Baidong I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair.
They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves.
Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment.
But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger.
In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all. Reborn, I Wed the Untamed Playboy
Bone Possolo On my wedding day to Julian Moretti, the future Mafia Don, I was deliberately sent to the wrong penthouse.
My half-sister Sofia had crawled into my fiancé's bed, leaving me to be discovered by the family's exiled, alcoholic cousin.
In my past life, I was shattered by this orchestrated betrayal. I cried and begged when Julian publicly humiliated me, choosing his illegitimate mistress over his rightful bride.
I played the perfect, dignified Mafia wife for years. I swallowed his insults, ignored his infidelities, and accepted my ruined reputation to keep the peace.
But my blind obedience only paved the way for my murder. Julian discarded me, and I was poisoned to death so Sofia could steal my crown as the Mafia Queen.
Until my agonizing last breath, I didn't understand. I had honored our families' blood alliance flawlessly.
Why was I the sacrificial lamb while they were rewarded for their treason?
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the dark leather sofa, suffocating in my heavy silk wedding dress.
This time, I didn't shed a single tear.
I grabbed a heavy brass letter opener, marched straight into the Don's main study, and slapped the Underboss across the face in front of the entire family.
"A Valdez woman does not share her husband," I declared coldly. "To honor the alliance, I will marry Dante."
If they wanted to make my humiliation a fact, I was going to make it a funeral. Mistaken Identity: Loving The Wrong Twin Sister
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."