Benjamen Ernst
11 Published Stories
Benjamen Ernst's Books and Stories
She Died Once: Now The Mafia Kneels
Mafia I was the Mafia Princess of the Wolfe family, engaged to Daniel Marino to unite our powerful syndicates.
But during a hit at a speakeasy, we were both gunned down.
As my chest was torn apart by a Tommy gun, I looked at my fiancé, expecting him to reach for me.
Instead, there was no despair in his eyes, only a twisted, selfish terror.
We both died on that floor, but the devil sent us back to the day of my hospital discharge.
Instead of finalizing our wedding, Daniel stormed into my father’s study.
"I won't marry Isabella. I want Celine."
He demanded to break our engagement, claiming he wouldn't be collateral damage in a Wolfe family war, and declared his true love for my sweet, orphaned adopted sister.
He thought shedding me would save his life, completely unaware that the assassination was orchestrated by his precious Celine.
In my past life, I didn't know she was a rat who sold our patrol routes to rivals and plotted my murder just to take my place.
If I hadn't died once, I would have believed her manufactured tears and comforted her.
But this time, I remembered everything.
I buried the vengeful woman I had become and let my face pale as I pushed open the heavy oak doors.
"Daniel? You... you want Celine?" I whispered, forcing a heartbroken tear to fall.
This time, I would play the fragile victim, just so I could orchestrate their absolute ruin. Sold To The Devil: Escaping My Ruthless Husband
Modern I was standing in the center of the gallery, holding a glass of expensive champagne, when the screens behind me flickered and my life ended.
It was supposed to be an art unveiling, but the monitors shifted to fake footage of me handing evidence to the FBI.
My fiancé, Ethan, looked at me like I was a sick dog that needed to be put down.
My father slapped me across the face in front of everyone, disowning me to save his own skin.
That was when Luca Vitti, the city’s most dangerous man, stepped in.
He cleared the room and took my hand.
I thought he was saving me.
I didn't realize he was just collecting a new pet.
I was locked in his estate, isolated and terrified.
Then, my healthy mother suddenly "died" of pneumonia in a Vitti clinic.
Days later, I saw Luca’s frail stepsister, Clara, breathing easily for the first time in her life.
She had my mother’s lungs.
I became nothing more than a breeding vessel.
When I fell pregnant, I overheard Luca and Ethan planning my death.
"Once the kid is cut out, she's a loose end," Luca had said.
They were going to kill me and give my son to the woman who stole my mother's breath.
I couldn't let that happen.
So, I staged a tragedy.
I induced labor in secret, hid my living son, and placed a fake corpse in the crib with a note: The Vitti Legacy.
I escaped while they mourned.
Five years later, Luca finally found the doctor’s confession.
He learned that Clara had orchestrated everything.
He opened the velvet box I left behind and realized it was empty.
Now, he knows I didn't kill his son.
I saved him from becoming a monster like his father. Return From Grave: Reclaiming My Betrayed Heart
Modern I returned to Boston after three years, not for forgiveness, but to die.
My family, who blamed me for my mother's death, had cast me out, replacing me with a quiet, grateful orphan named Gabriela. She stole my father's love, my brother's affection, and my childhood sweetheart, Corey.
Now, terminally ill, my only wish was to reclaim my mother's wedding dress, a final piece of her to hold onto. But Gabriela was wearing it to marry Corey.
When I confronted her, she destroyed my mother's locket and cursed me to drop dead. In a blind rage, I slapped her. She shrieked, stabbed her own arm, and framed me for the attack.
As my family and Corey looked on with disgust, calling me a maniac, my body gave out. I collapsed, coughing up blood, my secret illness revealed in the most brutal way possible.
"You always blame me," I gasped, the words bubbling out with blood. "But I was just... dying."
Their faces filled with dawning horror, but it was too late. I was already gone.
Until I opened my eyes again, and my mother, who had been waiting for me all along, took my hand. "We'll be reborn," she promised, her eyes blazing with fury at the family who had destroyed me. "Together. As mother and daughter, again." My Empire, My Son, My New Love
Modern While I was fighting for my life in the delivery room, my husband was on the front page of every tabloid, caught in a scandalous affair.
He never came to see me or our newborn son. Instead, he whisked his actress mistress away to a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps, dismissing his betrayal as a mere "business arrangement."
When his mistress brazenly appeared in my home, she taunted me, claiming my husband wished I had died in childbirth. Then, she revealed a paternity test claiming my son wasn't his.
My husband believed her. He believed the lies of the woman who secretly snuck into our nursery to pinch and bruise our helpless, sleeping baby.
He took her side, shielded her from me, and even tried to take my son away to raise with her.
I had lost my parents and my brother, and now I was losing everything else. I was an orphan, a betrayed wife, and they were trying to take the only thing I had left: my child.
But they underestimated me. They thought Kane Powell was the most powerful person I knew. They were wrong. His Betrayal, My Steel-Legged Return
Modern The first time my husband tried to have me killed, he used our eight-year-old daughter as the bait.
After I discovered his affair with a woman whose college tuition I was paying, he staged our daughter's kidnapping to lure me into a trap.
I woke up in a hospital, my legs amputated, my womb removed, a permanent cripple.
My husband, Eugene, played the part of the grieving spouse perfectly, promising police he' d find the monsters responsible.
But I overheard him whispering to our daughter in the hallway.
"You were so brave," he praised her. "You made Mommy believe you were in danger. It was the only way to stop her from leaving us."
Her reply destroyed what was left of my soul.
"I like Brenna better anyway. She's prettier than Mommy."
They thought they had broken me, leaving me a shattered shell of a woman. So I let them believe it. I faked my own suicide and vanished. Now, three years later, I've returned. Standing on two legs of polished steel, I'm the CEO of a robotics empire, and I'm here to burn their world to the ground. Reborn: A Husband's Vengeful Love
Modern The last thing I remembered was the freezing cold of a lonely alley, the bitter taste of cheap whiskey, and the image of a newspaper: a glossy photo of my ex-wife, Sarah, and her new husband, Mark Thompson, cradling their perfect baby.
My final breath fogged in the winter air as I died with the brutal truth ringing in my mind.
I had failed them-my son, Leo, and my mother, Susan, both lying in fresh graves, victims of Sarah' s abandonment and my naive loyalty.
For four years, I toiled, clinging to her empty promises, while they withered away from neglect and poverty in our crumbling home.
I' d even sold a kidney to save them, but the money came too late; my mother starved, and Leo succumbed to a preventable fever.
At their funeral, Sarah returned not to mourn, but to accuse, to divorce, and to flaunt her new life with Mark-a life built on our ruins.
Then, a sharp, ragged gasp tore through me.
I wasn' t in an alley, but on the cold, splintered floorboards of my own bedroom, the air thick with the scent of sickness.
My heart hammered as I saw them: my mother, Susan, frail but breathing, and Leo, flushed with fever but alive, nestled in his crib.
A quick glance at the calendar confirmed it: three days before their deaths.
The raw grief, fused with a cold, hard rage, ignited a fire in my gut.
No more silence.
No more waiting.
"Mom," I declared, my voice steady, "We' re leaving. We' re going to find Sarah."
I had a second chance, and this time, I wouldn' t just survive; I would make them pay. Wife of the Rock God
Romance I gave up my music journalism career, piece by piece, to build Nathaniel Roberts' country music empire.
He was my college sweetheart, my golden boy, the man I poured my soul into making a star.
Then, his new pop-country princess co-star, Gabrielle, called me, her voice sickeningly sweet, telling me Nathaniel' s credit card was maxed out.
She was in our bed, and I heard the rustle of our expensive sheets, the ones I picked out.
I didn' t scream, I didn' t cry.
I simply packed everything he ever bought me into garbage bags and told him to get out.
He laughed, calling me dramatic, but agreed to a divorce, assuming I was after a final payday.
He gave me a massive settlement and an iron-clad NDA, smugly believing he' d bought my silence and dignity.
Months later, his manager called, oozing fake sympathy, inviting me to a reality show, "Second Takes," for "closure."
I knew their true plan: to make me look pathetic, clinging to him so he could gently reject me, cleaning up his image after the cheating scandal.
They wanted me to be his public doormat, boosting his new duet with Gabrielle.
I sobbed into the phone, playing my part perfectly, swearing I missed him, begging to get him back.
But their elaborate scheme was about to backfire spectacularly.
They thought I wanted his heart, but I was about to go for his wallet, his freedom, and his entire career. Too Late, Ethan: The Comeback Queen
Romance My office air, thick with stale coffee and cheap air freshener, always reminded me of the dreams I built with Ethan.
We were supposed to marry in a month, invitations sent, a Vera Wang dress waiting, our Boston Harbor Hotel wedding booked.
But then, Ethan, my fiancé of ten years, looked at me with what he thought were "soulful" eyes and dropped a bombshell.
He was going to marry Sabrina, the scholarship intern my family' s foundation sponsored, to "save" her from a loan shark.
He expected my "good heart" to understand this temporary arrangement, this noble sacrifice for a girl he plainly adored.
I didn't cry or scream; the pain was a cold stone, but my face was calm.
I saw him then, not as the boy I' d known since prep school, but as a weak, pathetic stranger using a flimsy excuse for a dirty affair.
He had been counting on my blindness, my willingness to be a doormat.
My hands didn' t tremble as I pulled an identical invitation from my Hermès bag.
I slid it across his desk: an invitation to my wedding, to Matthew Lester, on the very same day.
His disbelief turned to a slack-jawed horror as Sabrina, his tearful damsel, stumbled in.
He instantly became her protector, glaring at me, accusing me of scaring her.
I simply walked out, leaving the invitation like a time bomb, knowing my humiliation was far from over.
The city' s elite whispered as he publicly chose her over me, his "powerful fiancée losing her grip."
But they didn' t know the truth: this wasn' t the end of me; it was the start of something new.
I tossed my family' s heirloom sapphire engagement ring into a recycling bin and typed my resignation to his company.
I knew Ethan would try to cling to me, or worse, retaliate.
What he didn' t know was that I was already steps ahead, ready to reclaim everything he thought he could steal. A Father's Unwavering Fight
Billionaires The quarterly earnings call had just wrapped, leaving me with the quiet hum of success as CEO of Apex Innovations.
My company was thriving, big but discreet, just how I liked it. All I truly cared about was getting home to my son, Leo, my everything.
Then, the school's number flashed on my phone. My heart always jumped when they called, but this wasn't the usual secretary.
It was Leo, his small voice shaking, "Dad, I got beat up at school!"
My blood ran cold. He explained the bully was Ethan Miller, who'd twisted truths, calling me a "freeloader living off Mom." At the school, anger warred with disbelief.
The principal and Ms. Albright, draped in a designer scarf I' d just bought my wife, blamed Leo, siding with Ethan and his arrogant father, Rick Miller.
Jessica was even worse. My own wife dismissed Leo' s pain as a "schoolyard squabble," defending Rick as an "important contact."
She then signed a "reconciliation agreement" that forced our bruised son to apologize, all to "protect our family image."
She prioritized appearances over her child.
Freeloader? Me? The CEO? The blatant bias, Rick's veiled threats, and Jessica's cold dismissal screamed betrayal.
What in God's name was really going on? This was more than a schoolyard fight; it was a deeply unsettling web of lies, and I was furious.
A cold, hard knot of suspicion tightened in my gut. This wasn't just about school donations.
That evening, I made a call to my most trusted executive assistant: "Sarah, I need everything you can find on Richard Miller and Jessica' s recent projects. Discreetly." The game had changed. And I would find out why. The Elite PMC Leader's Price: A Bargain at $9.99
Modern I was Ethan “Ghost” Riker, an elite PMC leader, engaged to Sophia.
My disciplined, trust-filled life felt stable, despite its dangers.
But a botched mission, leaving my best man critically injured, shattered that.
The culprit? Kevin, Sophia’s arrogant younger brother, whom I held accountable.
This decision would unearth a betrayal I never imagined.
The next morning, my secure sat phone buzzed with an alarming alert.
My full bio, deepest secrets, and safe houses were on the dark web for $9.99.
Too fast, too precise, too intimate – it pointed to Sophia.
Then, from the Walker estate, I heard her chilling laugh, boasting she’d listed me for pennies.
She confirmed I was a "tool," a "dog" who needed reminding of his place.
My blood ran cold, burning with rage, as she casually plotted my further humiliation.
Driven by disbelief, I walked into her trap: a desolate factory, a fake "safe house."
Drugged, helpless, I faced my bitter old enemies, orchestrated by Sophia and Kevin.
They beat me bloody, filming every degrading moment, leaving me for dead.
Each blow was agony, but the public humiliation was worse.
"Why, Sophia?" I rasped, as she knelt beside me, her perfume mixing with my blood.
Her whisper sealed my fate: "Because it's entertaining."
"This is what happens to dogs that bite," she purred, abandoning me.
How could she destroy me so meticulously, so coldly, after everything?
I refused to die her dog.
A stubborn defiance ignited in my broken spirit.
Against all odds, I clung to life, rescued by a loyal brother-in-arms.
They thought they’d killed the Ghost, but Ethan Riker was truly reborn.
The man who survived would be harder, colder, and ready to rewrite the rules. 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. 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." When Love Rebuilds From Frozen Hearts
Landslide 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. Too Late For Regret: The Mafia King's Runaway
Tangye Wanzi I watched my husband, the most feared Capo in New York, sign away our marriage with the same cold indifference he usually reserved for ordering a hit.
The nib of his Montblanc pen scratched against the paper, drowning out the rain hitting the coffee shop window.
He didn't bother to read a single word.
He thought he was signing routine shipping manifests for the family business.
In reality, he was signing the "Dissolution of Union" papers I had hidden beneath the cover sheet.
He was too distracted to check. His eyes were glued to his encrypted phone, frantically texting Sofia—the widow, the tragic beauty, the woman who had haunted our marriage for three years.
"Done," he grunted, tossing the stack into his armored SUV without even glancing at me.
"Business is concluded, Elena. We leave."
Moments later, his phone rang with her special emergency tone.
His demeanor shifted from cold boss to frantic protector instantly.
"Driver, divert. She needs me," he roared.
He looked at me with zero affection and ordered, "Get out, Elena. Luca will take you home."
He kicked me out of the car into the pouring rain to rush to his mistress, completely unaware he had just legally granted me my freedom.
I stood on the curb, shivering but smiling for the first time in years.
By the time the Don realizes he just signed his own divorce, I will be a ghost in San Francisco.
And he will have nothing left but his shipping logs and his regret. 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." 
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