Catherine
17 Published Stories
Catherine's Books and Stories
Rejected Bride: Now I Rule Your Family
Mafia I stood at the altar in my wedding gown when my assistant handed me the phone.
My fiancé, Devin, the heir to New York's most powerful mafia family, had just eloped with a waitress.
He didn't just leave me; he broadcasted a photo of them kissing at the airport to the entire high society.
A thousand guests whispered like a virus. Flashbulbs went off like gunfire.
My father panicked, begging me to flee through the side door in shame.
In the back room, the House family matriarch treated me like garbage, tossing her lesser, resentful grandsons at me to clean up the mess.
"Choose one of them, or scurry away," her daughter-in-law sneered.
If I compromised, I would be a permanent joke, a powerless hand-me-down bride for Devin to mock from his European paradise.
I had played the perfect, obedient fiancée for years, only to be publicly executed like a fool.
But I didn't shed a single tear. The humiliation froze into a sharp, calculated desire for vengeance.
I refused to be their victim. I wanted to make Devin bow to me for the rest of his life.
Lifting my heavy skirt, I walked straight to the center of the room, locking eyes with the terrifying man in the shadows.
"Since the heir ran away, the compensation must be of equal value," I declared.
I pointed past the furious matriarch, aiming directly at Devin's adoptive father-the ruthless, absolute Don of the House family, Brent House.
"I choose him." The Hundred Million Dollar Contract Wife
Romance The auctioneer's hammer fell, wiping out the Hayes family empire and leaving Elara with a crushing nine-figure debt and a critically ill mother.
Her last lifeline was her fiancé, Blake Sterling. But when his Bentley pulled up outside the auction house, he didn't come to save her.
"I can hardly marry a woman with a nine-figure debt attached to her name. Our family is a corporation, not a charity."
In front of flashing cameras, he publicly broke their engagement, looking at her with cold, dismissive contempt.
Stripped of her dignity, Elara returned the ring and walked out into a freezing blizzard until she collapsed in the snow.
Her tragedy didn't end there. Her mother's cognitive decline rapidly worsened, requiring a private care facility that cost an impossible sum.
Driven to an absolute dead end, Elara was forced to attend a humiliating "bride-finding" gala hosted by the elite Carlisle family, hoping to secure a rumored hundred-million-dollar settlement to save her mother's life.
She was fully prepared to sell her pride and be assessed like a mere commodity.
But she never expected the man sitting across the table to be Blake's legendary, ruthless uncle—the titan of Wall Street, Rhodes Carlisle.
Desperate, she offered to act as his fake fiancée in exchange for the money.
Rhodes calmly pushed a thick, leather-bound prenuptial agreement toward her.
"A fiancée is a temporary arrangement with no legal standing. We get married."
Elara picked up the pen and signed her name, instantly wiping out her debt and officially becoming her ex-fiancé's aunt. He Chose Her Over Our Dead Child
Romance Deidre went to the clinic and learned she was finally pregnant, but her failing heart meant carrying the baby would kill her.
Before she could process the grief, she received an anonymous photo of her husband, Danial, tenderly escorting a heavily pregnant woman into a VIP hospital.
The woman was his cousin, Daria.
Following them, Deidre overheard Danial call her a "sterile decoration," promising to get rid of her while securing a Cayman trust fund for his illegitimate child.
The nightmare only worsened when Daria gloatingly confessed to a horrifying truth.
Daria had stolen the credit for saving Danial in a fire—a heroic act that had actually destroyed Deidre's heart.
Even more sickening, Daria had bribed a doctor two years ago to fake Deidre's ectopic pregnancy, tricking Danial into authorizing the surgery that murdered their perfectly healthy baby daughter.
When a grief-stricken Deidre attacked the murderer, Danial furiously shoved his wife to the ground.
Ignoring her heart spasms and gasps for air, he threw her out into a freezing New York blizzard to die.
Lying in the snow, Deidre's love turned to pure ash as she realized she had sacrificed her body and her child for a blind monster.
But she didn't die that night.
Rescued by Danial's biggest Wall Street rival, Deidre marched into her husband's office the next morning alongside New York's most ruthless divorce lawyer.
"Sign it, or I'll freeze your offshore trust and burn your empire to the ground." The Scars Behind My Golden Dress
Modern I spent four hours preparing a five-course meal for our fifth anniversary. When Jackson finally walked into the penthouse an hour late, he didn't even look at the table. He just dropped a thick Manila envelope in front of me and told me he was done.
He said his stepsister, Davida, was getting worse and needed "stability." I wasn't his wife; I was a placeholder, a temporary fix he used until the woman he actually loved was ready to take my place.
Jackson didn't just want a divorce; he wanted to erase me. He called me a "proprietary asset," claiming that every design I had created to save his empire belonged to him. He froze my bank accounts, cut off my phone, and told me I’d be nothing without his name. Davida even called me from her hospital bed to flaunt the family heirloom ring Jackson claimed was lost, mocking me for being "baggage" that was finally being cleared out.
I stood in our empty home, realizing I had spent five years being a martyr for a man who saw me as a transaction. I couldn't understand how he could be so blind to the monster he was protecting, or how he could discard me so coldly after I had given him everything.
I grabbed my hidden sketchbook, shredded our wedding portrait, and walked out into the rain. I dialed a number I hadn't touched in years—a dangerous man known as The Surgeon who dealt in debts and shadows. I told him I was ready to pay his price. Jackson and Davida wanted to steal my identity, but I was about to show the world the literal scars they had left behind. From Discarded Wife To The Don's Successor
Mafia I was tightening my husband’s tie for the photographers at the gala when my phone buzzed against my thigh.
A single notification stopped my heart dead.
Julius had just wired five million dollars—capital I had secretly stolen from my father to build his company—to an account named 'K. Drake'.
When I confronted him later that night, he didn't apologize. Instead, he lured me to an empty warehouse and detonated a rigged gas line.
I woke up in a hospital bed, my body broken and my mind racing.
Julius stood over me, checking his watch, looking terrifyingly calm.
"The baby is gone," he said dismissively, referring to the pregnancy I hadn't even told him about yet. "But Kenzie needs a bone marrow transplant. You're a match."
He was holding our daughter, Ava, hostage. He told me if I didn't give his mistress my marrow, I’d never see my child again.
He looked at me with total contempt. To him, I was just a boring, civilian housewife. A prop he had used and was now ready to discard.
He had no idea who I really was.
He didn't know that the "bank loans" I secured for him were actually laundered syndicate money.
He didn't know that the father I "didn't talk to" was Horacio Horton, the most feared Don on the East Coast.
I let them take the marrow. I let them believe they had broken me.
Then, as soon as Julius left the room, I reached for the phone and dialed a number I hadn't used in ten years.
"Papa," I whispered into the receiver. "Send the army."
The civilian Florence died in that bed.
The Mob Princess had just returned to take her throne. The Three-Year Lie: Her Sweet Revenge
Romance The day I found out I was pregnant was the same day I learned my three-year relationship was a meticulously crafted lie.
I rushed to surprise my perfect fiancé, Anthony Holden, only to overhear him talking to his twin brother.
"I've endured three years of this farce," he said, his voice cold. "Not once did I touch the woman."
My entire life was a revenge plot for his childhood friend, a woman who bullied me relentlessly in college.
They left me to grieve my grandmother's death alone, subjected me to tortures designed from my deepest fears, and left me for dead-twice.
The man who swore to protect me became my villain, convinced I deserved every moment of pain.
On our wedding day, he stood at the altar, ready to deliver his final, humiliating blow.
He had no idea I was miles away, about to live-stream his confession to the entire world.
My revenge was just beginning. The CEO's Cruel Ultimatum, My Rise
Romance My fiancé, Connor, and I had a one-year pact. I'd work undercover as a junior developer in the company we co-founded, while he, the CEO, built our empire.
The pact ended the day he ordered me to apologize to the woman who was systematically destroying my life.
It happened during his most important investor pitch. He was on video call when he demanded I publicly humiliate myself for his "special guest," Jaden. This was after she'd already scalded my hand with hot coffee and faced zero consequences.
He chose her. In front of everyone, he chose a manipulative bully over our company's integrity, our employees' dignity, and me, his fiancée.
His eyes on the screen demanded my submission.
"Apologize to Jaden. Now."
I took a step forward, held up my burned hand for the camera, and made a call of my own.
"Dad," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "It's time to dissolve the partnership." The Divorce That Freed Her
Romance I made my husband the scallops he'd always loved, a special dinner in the home built from my designs.
But when he came home from the firm that runs on my talent, he recoiled from my touch. He sneered at the food, claiming to hate seafood now.
He told me I was stagnant, unlike his young intern, Bria, who makes a simple steak.
His parents, our dinner guests, agreed. They told me a man's tastes evolve and I needed to keep up.
As if on cue, Bria arrived at our door, holding a steak for him. They sat her in my chair, and his mother told her she would make a wonderful addition to the family.
In that moment, I understood. After eight years of my name being erased from every blueprint, of being gaslit and belittled, I was being replaced. They didn't see me as family; I was just a tool that had become obsolete.
When my husband dismissed my breakdown as a "tantrum," something inside me went cold.
After they left, I packed my bags and my encrypted design portfolio.
Then I texted his biggest competitor: "I've left Donte. I'm looking for a new job. I have my portfolio." My Fiancé Chose His Ex On Our Wedding Day
Modern My hands were my entire career, the key to my life as one of New York's top hand models. My fiancé, Chase, had plucked me from a small town and given me a world of glamour. I thought I owed him everything.
Then his high school sweetheart, Karis, gave me a "luxury" treatment at her salon that left my hands with chemical burns, destroying my ten-year career overnight.
Chase called it an "accident" and defended her. He told me Karis was so upset she might have to join him on our honeymoon to St. Barts to feel better. At our rehearsal dinner, when Karis suggested I'd hurt myself for attention, Chase publicly shamed me for upsetting her. His bachelor party turned out to be a private date with her.
I found the prenup he wanted me to sign: if we divorced, I'd get nothing. But the final blow came the night before our wedding. As he slept, he grabbed my arm and whispered her name.
"Karis... don't go."
I realized then I was just a stand-in, a warm body in the dark. My love for him had been a survival strategy in a world he built for me, and I was finally suffocating.
The next morning, on our wedding day, I didn't walk down the aisle. I walked out the door with nothing but my passport and made a call I hadn't made in fifteen years. An hour later, I was on my way to a private jet, leaving my old life to burn behind me.
Her Envy, My Unbreakable Heart
Fantasy My life was perfect, or as close to it as an art student could dream.
I was the top candidate for the prestigious Atherton scholarship, a full ride that would launch my career, my paintings getting noticed, my grades stellar.
Then my roommate, Chloe, pressed a tarnished silver locket into my palm, a "good luck" charm to secure my future.
From that day, my life inexplicably soared, every creative block vanished, every anxiety quelled.
Until the day the scholarship was announced.
The gallery was packed, my paintings front and center, proud and beaming.
And then, a searing pain, blinding and brutal, tore through my abdomen.
I collapsed, screaming, the world blurring into a chaotic nightmare of pain and blood.
Right there, under the bright lights, I gave birth.
The scandal was instant, absolute, splashed across every headline: "Miracle Birth or Immoral Hoax? Art Student' s Public Scandal."
The university revoked my scholarship, my parents disowned me, and my friends vanished.
My future shattered, the baby taken away, I found myself alone in a cheap motel, walking to a bridge, looking at the dark, swirling water below.
I only understood why everything happened after I died.
The locket wasn't for luck, but a cursed object.
It drained life essence and transferred stolen pregnancies.
And the mastermind was Chloe, consumed by envy, orchestrating my downfall to claim my scholarship and my baby' s wealthy father.
My soul screamed with a rage that transcended death.
Then, a violent pull.
I gasped, my eyes flying open.
I wasn' t falling into cold water.
I was back in my dorm room, the smell of oil paint thick in the air.
Chloe stood before me, hand outstretched, the antique silver locket gleaming.
"For good luck," she said, her voice dripping with the poison I could finally hear.
I was back, and this time, the ending would be different. The Dark Side of Celebrity Love
Modern The first sign of trouble wasn't a call or a whisper. It was a photograph.
I was in my office, lights of downtown LA sprawling beneath me, when I saw it: my pop princess wife, Olivia Reed, wrapped around a notorious talent manager, Liam Stone. His hand was possessively splayed on her bare waist, his thumb stroking intimately.
"It' s just for the cameras, Ethan," she' d said, dismissing my concern with a shrug when she finally came home hours later. But the image of his touch burned hotter than the city lights outside.
Then came the anonymous message. Five words, a blank profile, and a grainy photo: Olivia and Liam, leaning in, their faces inches apart, his hand high on her thigh. This wasn't smoke and mirrors. This was raw, undeniable betrayal.
When I confronted her, she sneered, "I'm suffocating. I'm married to a man so insecure, so boring, he can't handle his wife being successful." She accused me of sabotage, of jealousy, and then dropped the bombshell: "We need to talk about a divorce."
My world crumbled. Everything I' d built, every memory in our home, tainted. But the devastation quickly hardened into a cold resolve. She wanted a war? She wanted to ruin me? Fine. Let her try. His Betrayal, Her Fiery Rebirth
Sci-fi The air still reeked of scorched metal and something sickly sweet, even as I stood on the gantry, watching the heat waves rise from the test pit below. My husband, Liam, stood beside me, his face impassive as he held out a pen.
"Sign the papers, Ava," he demanded, his voice flat.
Suspended beneath us, held by a massive industrial claw, were my parents-pale, terrified, and renowned NASA scientists. Liam' s new mistress, Scarlett, was pregnant, and he needed a "real home" for his new family.
I had laughed, a raw, broken sound, when he told me, then confronted him, only for him to offer divorce papers and a blank check.
"Take it. It' s more than you deserve," he' d said.
My refusal led to broken legs, a vicious smear campaign, and then, he took my parents.
Now, he offered the pen again: "Sign. Or they' re gone."
My parents' eyes screamed, though their mouths were taped. My father shook his head, a desperate plea for me not to comply.
But I couldn' t let them die. My own life was already over.
"I' ll sign," I whispered, tasting ash. "Just let them go."
Liam nodded to the operator, but the claw didn' t rise. It opened.
My parents fell, their screams swallowed by an inferno. The stench of burning flesh hit me, and I vomited.
Liam watched, his eyes empty.
The world dissolved into grief and fire. There was nothing left. I turned, and with a final look at the man I once loved, I threw myself into the flames.
And then I woke up.
My legs were whole. The date on my phone was yesterday. It wasn' t a dream. It was a second chance. Love's True Reckoning
Billionaires The sterile scent of disinfectant was my daily reminder: my parents were gone, killed in a car crash, and my brother, Alex, was paralyzed.
Just seventeen, his vibrant blue eyes had dimmed, and our tiny apartment reeked of medical bills we could barely afford.
I, Lily Reed, a waitress barely making rent, was all he had left.
Then, like a mirage, Mark Thompson reappeared.
Alex' s childhood best friend, vanished since the accident, now a polished, wealthy man.
He swept into our lives as a savior, moved us to a luxurious apartment, hired nurses, paid our debts.
His charm was intoxicating; I believed he was everything I needed, everything I thought I wanted.
So, when he proposed, I said yes, feeling like the final piece of a perfect puzzle had fallen into place-a second chance at a real family, a real life.
But at our wedding reception, a low, drunken conversation twisted my stomach: "He had to... it was the only way to keep her quiet about the accident. He owed her."
Then, a whisper from Mark on a balcony, meant for his former girlfriend, Sarah: "This marriage is just a means to an end... I got rid of the obstacles, just like I promised."
Obstacles.
My parents.
Alex.
The world crashed around me.
It wasn't an accident.
It was him.
My husband, the man I' d given everything to, was the monster who had destroyed my family.
I had willingly walked into my own gilded cage.
Rage, cold and sharp, ignited within me.
He thought he had bought my silence, that I was a naive fool to be gotten rid of.
He thought he had won.
He had no idea what he had just unleashed.
I would play his game, be the perfect wife, and wait.
And when the time was right, I would destroy him. When The Dead Come Knocking
Horror Thanksgiving was supposed to be quiet this year, just me wrapped in a blanket, the Macy' s Parade playing to an empty house. My mom and brother, Maria and Leo, died a week ago, leaving me utterly alone.
Then my phone buzzed. It was Mom's number. I answered, terrified, and a thin, distorted voice whispered, "Sweetheart, we're almost home."
And there they were, knocking on the door. Pale, stiff, holding grocery bags. They acted normal, but their movements were jerky, their eyes hollow. They even removed their own memorial photos from the mantelpiece.
My dread deepened when they insisted I drink a strange concoction, a glass of cider or eggnog with a sinister black ash residue at the bottom.
What was going on? Why were they here, yet so unnerving? Were they trying to hurt me, or was something far more twisted at play?
Just as I felt a strange connection fading, a chilling reflection in a window revealed the impossible truth: the reflection wasn't mine. It was the face of the boy who killed me. It wasn't their accident. It was mine. And they had brought me back. The Day I Chose Differently
Fantasy A sharp gasp. Cold air filled my lungs as my eyes snapped open. I was in the familiar leather armchair of the Vanderbilt library, sunlight streaming in. June 10th. The day I was to choose my bride.
Just moments ago, or so it felt, I was pushed from a penthouse balcony.
The rain slicked my face; Seraphina' s sneering expression, Leo' s hands, then her final, venomous whisper: "You shouldn't have chosen me, Ethan. You were always too weak."
Then, darkness swallowed me whole.
I remembered every manipulated moment-the fake accidents, the endless lies, the plundered fortune, my shattered heart.
I had chosen her, Seraphina Ashworth, only to be left a hollow shell, betrayed by the woman I loved and her conniving lover.
To die such a humiliating, lonely death.
Why was I back?
Was this some cruel trick of fate, an unfathomably twisted joke from the universe?
Could I really be reliving the very day my misery began, the day I picked the woman who would destroy me?
The bitterness was overwhelming, the injustice absolute.
But my hands, strong and steady now, confirmed it.
I was reborn.
And this time, I wouldn't be weak.
I wouldn't be a fool.
I would choose differently, decisively, and ensure my betrayers paid every last penny. Her Regret, My Horizon
Romance It was our seventh wedding anniversary.
Seven cars, seven apologies, one for each endless week she spent with him.
My wife, Olivia, hummed, zipping up a suitcase clearly packed for Julian.
"Don't forget to check out the new car, Ethan. It's a beauty," she said, her usual dismissive, cool kiss brushing my cheek.
But this year was different.
Julian called, his voice dripping with smug satisfaction. He explained Olivia had cut their trip short because he was "unwell." Then, he flashed his phone at me: Olivia, sun-kissed and laughing, vigorously rubbing sunscreen onto his bare back on a yacht.
The date stamp on the photo? The exact day I was in the hospital with a stab wound and a concussion, after waiting hours for her to call. She was unreachable, I now knew, because she was with him. Every shiny apology car, every yearly 'trip' she took, suddenly felt like a cruel, calculated mockery.
I wasn't her husband.
I was her conveniently understanding placeholder.
A gilded cage, built around my dreams of freedom.
Yet, this time, there was no sting, no usual pain, just a flat, dull line.
Three months ago, I' d booked a one-way ticket to Austin.
Divorce papers lay signed on the dining table, waiting for her.
My new life began the second her Uber pulled away. Jilted Ex-Wife? Billionaire Heiress!
Modern My mother-in-law, Diane Thompson' s relentless Facebook posts, mocking my inability to conceive and celebrating "real grandchildren," had chipped away at my self-worth for two agonizing years, each jab a sharp reminder of my perceived failure, amplified by my husband, Mark' s, deafening silence as he merely dismissed her cruelty as "old-fashioned."
Then, a thick envelope arrived, containing divorce papers already signed by Mark, offering a pittance of a settlement that barely covered a security deposit on a tiny apartment, followed by his chilling phone call casually confirming his colleague Brittany Evans was pregnant and demanding I sign the papers "quickly, no fuss."
His cold dismissal, pushing me out of our home for an insulting pittance and a supposed "miracle," left me reeling from years of unacknowledged sacrifice and devotion, as I had quietly carried the heavy secret of his congenital azoospermia, enduring his mother' s endless interrogations about my fertility to salvage his pride.
A simmering knot of suspicion tightened, confirmed when I followed his car one night, only to find him lovingly embracing a visibly pregnant Brittany Evans outside a women' s health clinic, proving their orchestrated ploy to utterly discard me for a faked pregnancy.
But just as total defeat threatened to consume me, a strange calm descended, ignited by an unexpected phone call from a private investigator revealing my true identity as a wealthy lost heiress, and the shocking discovery of my adoptive mother's sealed envelope containing the undeniable proof: Mark's original medical report, detailing his infertility-the ultimate weapon against their meticulously constructed web of lies. You might like
The Biker's Mistake: Return Of The Heiress
Wu Li For four years, I secretly poured my family's trust fund into the Schwartz MC, acting as the President's Old Lady and the club's private ATM.
But when Daryl returned from his cross-state run, he didn't come back alone.
He brought home a blonde mistress and a four-year-old boy with his exact same gray eyes.
"She gave me an heir. From today on, she is the official Old Lady of this chapter."
He expected me to step down to a shared club girl, demanding I stay in the grease pit to tune their bikes and pay their bills.
When I cut off their vendor accounts and demanded my millions back, his family showed their true, parasitic colors.
Daryl and his mother locked me inside my own heavily reinforced workshop.
Through the ventilation shaft, I heard them plotting their sickening next move.
They couldn't kill me because they needed my wealth and my engine patents to survive on the highway.
Instead, they planned to slip tranquilizers into my water, force Daryl on me, and get me pregnant so I would be legally tied to him forever.
"A woman with a baby never walks away," his mother sneered.
They thought locking me in the dark would break my spirit and turn me into their obedient slave.
But they had no idea they had locked me inside a fully stocked chemical armory.
I grabbed the high-grade racing oxidizers and industrial solvents from my workbench.
They wanted a private party tonight, so I was going to make sure they never forgot the fire. From Jilted Bride To Mafia Empress
Xiao Wang For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne.
But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.”
My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love.
He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party." The Unwanted Bride Becomes The City's Queen
Breeze 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. 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. The Underboss's Obsession: Stealing The Bride
Diversion 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. Too Late, Mr. Mafia: The Surgeon He Discarded
Winnie Suchoff I was the wife of Dante Cavalli, the most ruthless mafia Don in the country.
But today, his Underboss slid mandatory annulment papers across my hospital bed, ordering me to dissolve our marriage.
In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged them not to abandon me.
I spent the next thirty years locked in Dante's massive penthouse, waiting for a man who bathed the streets in blood but never gave me a single drop of warmth.
My aristocratic mother-in-law stripped me of every cent, leaving me completely isolated.
I foolishly threw away a brilliant surgical career to be a submissive, obedient mafia wife.
In the end, Dante never came to see me, and I died entirely alone in that massive, empty bed.
Until my last breath, my chest was suffocated by a lifetime of regrets.
I couldn't understand why I had sacrificed my freedom and my scalpels for a man who would only feel a twisted guilt decades after I was already a cold corpse.
Opening my eyes again, Fate had dragged me back to the exact day my nightmare truly began.
Matteo stood at the foot of my bed, clearly expecting my usual pathetic tears.
"Take your time to think about it."
This time, I didn't cry or beg for my life.
I just picked up the fountain pen, signed my name, and walked out to reclaim the scalpel I had abandoned. My Triplets' Daddy Is A Heartless Mafia
Itsme "It was just one night stand, and now I'm pregnant with triplets? Gosh!"
Josephine Jade never thought that she would have to run away from her own family while pregnant. She was alone, without money, without connections, with three fetuses in her stomach. How can she survive?
However, Josephine couldn't give up now, until she managed to reclaim her arbitrarily seized property and get back at everyone who tried to get rid of her.
A sick child, a past crush that comes back, a mysterious eccentric man, and a family that hates her, will weave together the journey of Josephine Jade's new life.
"You have no right to separate me from my children, you bastard! I will survive and you will submit to me. Just watch!" Marrying The Rival: My Ex-Husband's Despair
Fonz Nadherny 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.