Alfred
15 Published Stories
Alfred's Books and Stories
Mafia Wife's Revenge: Unleashing My Fury
Mafia For five years, I lived a beautiful lie. I was Aliana Hughes, the cherished wife of the city's most feared Mafia Capo and the beloved daughter of the Don. I believed my arranged marriage had blossomed into love.
On my birthday, my husband promised me the amusement park. Instead, I found him there with his other family, celebrating the fifth birthday of the son I never knew he had.
I overheard their plan. My husband called me a "naive fool," a placeholder to legitimize his secret son. The ultimate betrayal wasn't his affair, but the sight of my own father's car parked across the street. My family wasn't just aware; they were the architects of my ruin.
Back home, I found the proof: a secret photo album of my husband's other family posing with my parents, and records showing my father had bankrolled the entire deception. They had even drugged me on weekends so he could play happy family.
The grief didn't break me. It turned into something cold and sharp. I was a ghost in a life that was never mine, and a ghost has nothing to lose.
I copied every damning file onto a USB drive. As they celebrated their perfect day, I sent a courier with my parting gift: a recording of their treachery. While their world burned, I walked toward the airport, ready to erase myself and start over. The Hidden Phone Shattered My World
Modern Ellen had spent ten years cleaning her husband's home, a quiet devotion to the man who demanded her constant labor. But while vacuuming under their bed, her world shattered with a single, horrifying discovery. Hidden away was a secret phone, revealing a life her husband had built with another woman and child for the past eight years.
A decade of devoted homemaking for Adrian in their Los Angeles home was Ellen’s life. While cleaning, she found a hidden compartment and a new iPhone, which she shockingly unlocked. The wallpaper revealed Adrian with a secret family in Austin—a double life since her own pregnancy. Texts detailed a $1.2 million house and lavish expenses for “Angel.” Adrian stirred, forcing Ellen to hide the device. Her son was denied a $200 class, while her $50,000 inheritance funded Adrian’s secret family. Rage replaced her tears. Ellen photographed all incriminating details, hid the phone, and forced a submissive smile. Her quiet devotion was over; her war had just begun. Too Late For Regret: His Secret Heir
Romance Five years ago, Grace made a devastating deal to save her fiancé, Jake, from federal prison.
She publicly dumped him, threw her Cartier engagement ring at his chest, and pretended to be a heartless gold digger who abandoned him for money.
Now, Jake had returned as a ruthless tech billionaire, and his first act was buying the very hotel where Grace worked as a struggling maid.
He didn't know she had secretly given birth to his son, Cody, who was currently fighting for his life in the pediatric ICU.
Driven by a dark, obsessive hatred, Jake made her life a living hell. He forced her to clean up shattered glass with her bare hands and crushed her fingers under his expensive leather shoe.
When Grace desperately begged him for three million dollars to pay for her son's life-saving treatment, Jake mistook it as a plea to save her new lover.
"You want the money? Get on your hands and knees and crawl to the desk like a dog."
Grace swallowed her shattered dignity, dropped to her knees, and crawled across the floor as he poured red wine over her head.
She endured the agonizing humiliation, unable to understand how the man who used to kiss her forehead every morning had become a sadistic monster.
Clutching the check, Grace walked out of his penthouse. But with the hospital pressing for answers, she knew the secret couldn't stay buried forever. What would Jake do when he finally discovered the "lover" he just humiliated her to save was actually his own dying son? Broken Doll's Revenge: The Heiress's Sting
Billionaires I was Grayson Warren’s "broken doll," a disgraced socialite kept on a short leash to pay off my family’s debts. To the world, I was a fragile liability; to Grayson, I was a pet he could humiliate for sport, forcing me to play the role of a mentally unstable girl while I secretly gathered evidence against his empire.
The cruelty peaked when Grayson forced me to break three years of sobriety in front of his investors, mocking my struggle before making me kneel on a golf course to scrub his shoes. He treated my life like a game, literally betting my sanity against a corporate board seat while he soft-launched a new relationship with a high-profile PR queen.
When the pressure triggered a massive panic attack, Grayson abandoned me in a private clinic just so he wouldn't miss a dinner reservation. Even my own mother turned against me, threatening to leak my psychiatric records and brand me a "violent delusional" if I didn't beg for Grayson’s forgiveness. I was trapped between a man who owned my debt and a mother who valued her estate over my daughter’s life.
I realized then that they would never let me go; they would only break me until there was nothing left. They thought they had erased my soul, but they forgot I was the only witness to the night my true love, Felix, was murdered. I was done being the victim.
I faked a suicide jump off the Queensboro Bridge to go off the grid, then crashed Grayson’s elite gala in a dress that signaled his downfall. Just as Grayson tried to physically crush me one last time, the room went silent. Felix Law, the man the world thought was dead for three years, walked out of the shadows with a federal warrant in his hand.
"Take your hands off her, Warren."
The game didn't just change; it ended. Felix was back from the dead, and this time, we were burning the empire to the ground together. Reborn Surgeon: The Billionaire’s Secret Obsession
Modern Standing on the edge of a limestone quarry in the pouring rain, I thought we were just having another family argument.
Then my mother, Ardell, screamed that I’d let the life insurance lapse, and my brother, Hakeem, stepped out of the shadows with a cold, calculating look in his eyes.
I told them I knew the truth—that Hakeem had cut the brake lines on my father’s car—but they didn't flinch. Instead, Hakeem shoved me hard, sending me tumbling into the abyss.
I hit a jagged ledge thirty feet down, the sound of my spine snapping like a dry branch echoing through the rain. As I lay paralyzed and broken, my mother watched from above, asking if I was dead yet, before Hakeem whistled for the starving wild dogs that lived in the quarry floor.
"Nature will clean up the mess,"
Hakeem said, walking away while the first set of teeth sank into my throat.
The agony was a tidal wave, but the rage was hotter, a nuclear hatred for the family that stole my future and the daughter I’d never see grow up. I died in that dirt, consumed by fire and teeth, wondering how a mother could choose a car payment over her own child's life.
But then, I gasped for air, sitting bolt upright in my old trailer bedroom. I looked at the calendar: May 12, 2014.
I was seventeen again, but I wasn't the same girl. Inside this malnourished body was the mind of a world-class trauma surgeon and the elite hacker known as 'Phantom.'
This time, I wasn't going to the quarry; I was going for their throats. He Chose A Fake Heir Over His True Wife
Mafia My husband studied the fertility report on his desk with the same cold precision he used to order executions.
On our fifth anniversary, he didn't give me diamonds. He checked his Rolex and delivered the sentence that ended my life.
"Your genetic profile is defective, Catarina."
He didn't just ask for a divorce. He pressed a button on his intercom, and a woman walked in. She was loud, chewing gum, and wearing a dress that was too tight.
"This is Aria," Alex said, his voice flat. "She is a vessel. She will carry the heir your body cannot produce."
He claimed it was just business, that she would be exiled once the child was born. But at my birthday gala, when Aria tripped into a champagne tower, the truth shattered along with the glass.
I was the one bleeding, a jagged shard slicing my arm.
But Alex didn't look at me. He threw his body over her. He cradled his mistress, screaming for a doctor to check the baby, while I stood there with blood dripping onto the marble floor, completely invisible.
I watched him give his own blood to save her in the clinic later that night. I saw the way he looked at her—not like a vessel, but like a prize.
He thought I would stay. He thought I was the obedient Mafia wife who would raise his mistress's child to save the family image.
So when he handed me a stack of papers to "protect the assets," he was too arrogant to read them.
He didn't notice the header read *Decree of Divorce*.
While he was busy buying baby clothes for a child that didn't even exist, I wiped my identity from the servers, signed the papers he blindly authorized, and boarded a one-way jet to Paris.
By the time he realizes his "heir" is a fraud, I will already be a ghost. The Rejected Omega: Rise of the White Wolf
Werewolf I was the dust beneath the pack's feet, an Omega nobody wanted.
Yet, the Moon Goddess paired me with Ethan Reed, the Alpha heir.
He told me he had amnesia, that he couldn't feel our bond. I was foolish enough to wait for him.
Until I saw him running away with his mistress, Chloe.
When their SUV flipped and caught fire on the highway, I didn't hesitate.
I dragged Ethan from the wreckage, my hands bleeding, my heart racing.
But as soon as he was safe, he didn't check on me.
"Save her!"
He roared, his eyes flashing gold.
He used the Alpha Command.
My body locked up, forced to obey against my will. I dove back into the burning car to drag Chloe out, shattering my leg as the fuel tank exploded.
I lay in the dirt, dying, while Ethan cradled Chloe—who had barely a scratch.
When the healers arrived, Ethan stood over me, cold and indifferent.
"Do not touch the Omega until Chloe is treated," he ordered.
He looked me in the eye and called me weak. He left me to bleed out in the cold night air for the sake of a woman who smirked at my pain.
Something inside me snapped.
With my last breath, I didn't beg. I rejected him.
They buried an empty coffin the next morning.
Three years later, I walked back into the Blood Moon Pack.
I wasn't Ava the servant anymore.
I was the White Wolf.
And I was ready to burn his kingdom to the ground. Erased No More: My Symphony
Modern I sold my vintage Fender bass to pay for Jarvis' s med school tuition, believing his promise that we would conquer the world together.
Ten years later, I found a hidden folder on his laptop titled "Exit Strategy," detailing exactly how to leave me homeless while he moved our daughter's tutor into my house.
He wasn't just cheating; he was systematically erasing me.
On the nanny cam, I watched him laugh as Chrissy, the "angelic" tutor, wore my silk robe and mocked my music as childish noise.
He told her I was nothing but a stepping stone, a connection to my father's influence that he had finally outgrown.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg.
I quietly gathered the evidence, secured my assets, and served him divorce papers that shattered his carefully curated reputation.
But when Chrissy, driven mad by his lies, dragged our daughter to a snowy cliff' s edge, Jarvis finally fell to his knees.
He wept, begging for a second chance, swearing I was the only woman he ever loved.
I looked at the man who had plotted my ruin, then down at my daughter who saw right through him.
"It's too late, Jarvis," I said, my voice colder than the wind.
I walked away into the snow, holding my daughter tight, leaving him alone in the cold with nothing but his regrets. The Coach's Lie, My Final Truth
Modern My husband and coach hadn't answered my calls in five days. I was home, sick and nursing a career-ending injury, when I found him on another woman's social media, his arm draped around her shoulders, a smile on his face I hadn't seen in years.
The next time I saw him was at the hospital. She was with him, pregnant with his child.
When my bad ankle gave out and I collapsed, he ignored me on the floor to protect her. My medical reports scattered across the tiles, and she deliberately stomped on them with a smirk.
He didn't defend me. He just called me pathetic for making a scene.
"You got injured, Aria," he sneered, his voice cold. "You fell apart. You're a mess."
But that report she stomped on held my terminal diagnosis. I had months, maybe a year, left to live.
With nothing left to lose, I filed for divorce and booked a one-way ticket to see the world. My life was ending, but for the first time, I was going to live it for myself. His Friend, My Living Hell
Romance My father's routine heart surgery went horribly wrong, leaving him in a coma. The surgeon was Fabiola, my husband Julian's celebrated childhood friend.
When I begged Julian to use his immense resources to save him, he gave me a chilling ultimatum: my father's life for Fabiola's career.
To protect her, he stood by as she deliberately scalded my hand with boiling soup.
He locked me in a rat-infested wine cellar to "teach me a lesson."
He even force-fed me peanuts, knowing I had a deadly allergy, and had me committed to a psychiatric hospital when I still wouldn't break.
I didn't understand how the man who once promised to build a fortress around me had become the one launching the attack, all for a woman he claimed was just a friend.
So, as Fabiola shoved me from the deck of our yacht into the dark water below, I didn't fight. I let myself fall, because faking my death was the only way to destroy them both. No Longer Your Perfect Husband
Romance For seven years, I was the perfect husband, or rather, the perfect live-in help, trapped in a gilded cage after the Davies family took me in following my parents' death and arranged a marriage to their daughter, Olivia. I gave up my dreams, working a stable job and tending to their every need, becoming a well-dressed butler to a wife who treated me like a convenience and a daughter who called me Ethan.
But then, one night, after celebrating a major promotion, I returned home to find the smart lock code changed. Access denied. My own daughter, Lily, saw me through the frosted glass and walked away, refusing to open the door.
Olivia's phone went straight to voicemail, the house line just rang. A profound cold settled in my bones as I realized one small deviation from seven years of perfect service meant I was literally cast aside. The next morning, I drove to a diner and called a divorce lawyer.
When Olivia finally called, annoyed I wasn't home for Lily's school ride, I simply said, "I'm with my lawyer. I'm filing for divorce." She laughed, bewildered, asking if one night outside was worth it. I thought of the endless chores, my abandoned art, Lily calling me Ethan, the cold silence of the house, and the shadow behind the glass. "Absolutely," I replied.
Her tone shifted, sharp and authoritative. "Fine. You can divorce me. But you can't take Lily. She's a Davies. She stays here." I smiled grimly. "Don't worry," I told her, "I'll waive my parental rights. You can have full custody." I then quit the job, gave up the car, and hung up, feeling a wave of liberation I hadn't known in years.
I shed the role of their dutiful servant, moving back to my dilapidated childhood home. I rebuilt it with my own hands, filmed the process, and watched in stunned silence as my online channel, "The Rebuilder," exploded, bringing me more success and peace than I'd ever known. This was my life now, simple, honest, and truly mine. Duchess's Advocate: Reborn For Justice
Modern The acrid smell of antiseptic and fear hit me first, a phantom scent from a life I' d already lost.
I was back, standing under the buzzing fluorescent lights of the 24/7 animal emergency hospital, on the same exhaustion-laden shift I' d worked before.
My phone buzzed with a text from Molly, my best friend: "Thanks again for covering, Gabs! You' re a lifesaver. Brian and I owe you one!"
Brian. My husband. Molly. My best friend.
The names twisted in my gut, bringing back the crushing weight of their betrayal, the public shame, the cold click of a bathroom door.
I remembered the screaming, the accusations, and Duchess, the champion show dog, lifeless in her kennel.
I remembered Brian' s cold eyes, Molly' s fake concern, and the news of their luxury car business, bought with my life insurance money.
They didn' t just ruin my life; they murdered it.
But they failed. I was back, at the exact moment my universe began to unravel.
This time, I wasn' t the broken woman who ended it all.
My name is Gabrielle Fuller, and this time, things would be different. The Master of Illusions: Unveiling the Truth
Fantasy I lay dying on the cold Chicago asphalt, Nightfall's attack tearing through me.
My last hope, the Heartstone Amulet, was clutched in my hand, meant for Mark, our fallen leader, the one the Order truly needed.
Then Olivia, the orphaned girl I' d raised and loved like a sister, knelt beside me.
I gasped, holding out the Amulet: "Give it to Mark, he needs it!"
Her hand reached for it… and then tightened, not gently, but with a bone-chilling strength.
She ripped the Amulet from my grasp.
"I need him to live, Ethan!" she whispered, her eyes fixed solely on Mark.
She scrambled away, leaving me to the cold embrace of death as she revived him.
She never looked back.
The betrayal, from her, was a physical blow, worse than any wound.
My selflessness, my sacrifice… wasted on a fool.
It wasn't for the Order, but her desperate desire for him. Mark always got what he wanted.
How could I have been so blind, so utterly foolish, to die for someone who could betray me with such chilling indifference?
But then, darkness faded into a blinding flash.
I stood, years earlier, in the grimy Chicago alley where I'd first found Olivia.
The skirmish was ending, she was there, injured. Before, I would have rushed to her side, full of compassion.
But this time, I felt nothing but ice. I remembered. And this time, the illusionist would play a different game. The Day My Fairytale Died
Romance My life with Ethan Hayes was a true New York fairytale. He was devastatingly handsome, a brilliant tech CEO, and our engagement was the stuff of lifestyle blogs and glittering society columns. I poured my heart into our eight years together, building a perfect future, a "Golden Couple" image people envied.
Until I found the texts: "Can't wait until she's out of the picture for good. You promised." And then the photos, the eggplant emoji, the casual cruelty of a Cartier bracelet – "one-of-a-kind," he'd said – glinting on *her* wrist, identical to mine. Chloe Vance, an old college acquaintance, was his secret "escape," his "excitement." Not just a fling, but a long-term, calculated betrayal.
He lavished gifts on me, charming me even as he publicly defended her, dismissing my concerns. He even gave his pregnant mistress his family heirloom, the one he swore was meant only for me. My birthday ended with him ditching me for her manufactured crisis, only for me to receive a photo of Chloe's pregnancy report. Eight years. A lifetime of promises. All built on his lies.
How could someone be so utterly, flawlessly deceptive? My love for him turned to ice, replaced by a searing ache of betrayal and a cold, quiet rage. I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't scream. I pressed call on Liam Walker's name, a man from a past I’d left behind, and uttered four words that would change everything: "Marry me, Liam." It was time for a reckoning. And I knew just how to deliver it. 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. The Underboss's Wife, Now His Queen
Hydro Therapy I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria.
But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity.
A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love.
My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me.
Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego.
He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press.
He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan.
He had no idea she was a fraud.
He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her.
He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate.
At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her.
I didn't beg. I didn't cry.
I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play. He Erased Me, I Erased Him First
Lan Zhen On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news.
He was shielding another woman—his ruthless business partner—from a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city.
The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: “Something came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.”
For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets.
My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me.
So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts.
He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line I’d marked.
He didn’t know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree.
He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies. The Mafia King's Runaway Genius Wife
Huo Wuer I was married to the Dark Don of New York, but to the Trevino family, I was just collateral.
While I was suffering from agonizing acute appendicitis, my husband forced me out into the freezing rain just to watch him parade his mistress in front of the city's elite.
When I handed him the annulment papers and begged for my freedom, he coldly burned them to ashes right in front of my face.
He watched me collapse on the floor in blinding pain, completely ignoring my deathly pale skin.
"Stop this pathetic performance. If you aren't ready for the gala by seven, I will throw your grandfather into a state facility."
His mistress even mocked my illness, handing me raw oysters with a victorious smirk while he looked at me with pure disgust.
I finally understood that in this gilded cage, my life meant absolutely nothing to him.
If I stayed, I would die here—either from a ruptured appendix or from his suffocating cruelty.
So, I took a heavy dose of painkillers, threw my diamond ring into the river, and emptied the family's hidden safe.
When he finally cornered me in a dark alley to drag me back, I shoved the real annulment papers into his chest.
"Touch me, and I will scream until every rat in this city hears me."
I stepped into the getaway cab, taking the master copies of his smuggling ledgers with me.
It was time to burn his empire to the ground. Reborn From Fire: The Ex-wife's Revenge
Lunacy Heidi gripped the sterile hospital bedsheets as violent contractions ripped her body apart.
The heavy door opened, but it wasn't the doctor. It was Brigette, wearing the exact custom wedding dress Heidi had spent six months designing for herself.
Brigette held up her phone on speaker. When the doctor warned that a natural delivery would kill the mother, Christian Page's voice echoed through the room, ice-cold and devoid of any warmth.
"Prioritize the Page heirs. Let her die."
The man she loved had just signed her death warrant over the phone.
Brigette stole her newborn twins, dragged her to an abandoned warehouse, and poured gasoline over her bare legs.
Flicking a lit cigar into the puddle, Brigette left Heidi tied to an iron pillar to burn alive.
But as the flames formed a deadly circle around her, Heidi's body convulsed with a terrifying truth.
In the heart of the blazing inferno, she miraculously gave birth to two more babies she didn't know she was carrying.
Using her own back as a human shield against the falling embers, she survived the fire, but the ultimate betrayal burned deeper than her ruined skin.
Four years later, Heidi returned to New York with a reconstructed face, two brilliant children, and a terrifying new identity as the world's top underground surgeon.
When Christian, entirely unaware of who she was, signed a waiver begging her to save his dying grandfather's life, Heidi looked into his desperate eyes with absolute, clinical boredom.
"The game starts now," she said coldly. The Discarded Wife Is A Mafia Queen
Shore Tour I am the wife of Dante Moretti, a powerful Mafia Underboss. But in secret, I am "Spettro," the phantom architect who built his entire encrypted bootlegging empire.
On my birthday, I came home to find him gifting our five-year-old daughter the exact plush toy he had violently slapped out of my hands months ago. Only this time, he was giving it to his mistress, Adriana, to present as her own.
"Auntie Adriana is a million times better than Mommy."
My daughter's innocent words pierced my heart, while Dante coldly dismissed my presence, treating me like an unwelcome stranger interrupting their perfect family. He mocked my mothering, allowed his mistress to sever my desperate phone calls with my child, and weaponized his power to break our daughter's spirit just to spite me. He sneered that my only purpose was to stay quiet, absolutely certain I would crawl back the second my allowance ran dry.
He thought I was just a weak, submissive wife who had lost everything. He didn't realize that the empire he arrogantly ruled was entirely built on my stolen brilliance.
I left my diamond ring on the table, violently slashed our ancient blood oath in half, and walked out of his gilded cage forever.
Sitting in a cold warehouse, I placed my hands on my telegraph machine and initiated the Ghost Protocol to permanently paralyze his entire criminal network.
The era of playing the dutiful wife was over. I am Donna Falcone, and the vendetta has just begun.