Er Duo
12 Published Stories
Er Duo's Books and Stories
The Mafia Don's Regret: She Is Gone Forever
Mafia I carried the first word I had spoken in ten years like a sacred offering, ready to surprise the man who had saved my life.
But through the crack in the study door, I heard Josiah tell his Underboss that I was nothing but a noose around his neck.
"Grace is a burden," he said, his voice cold. "I can't become Don while babysitting a mute ghost. Lexi brings power. Grace brings nothing but silence."
He chose to marry the Mafia Princess for her father's trade routes, dismissing me as wreckage.
But the true betrayal didn't happen in that office. It happened in the woods during an ambush.
With bullets flying and the mud sliding beneath us into a ravine, Josiah had to make a choice.
I was injured, trapped at the bottom. Lexi was screaming on the ridge.
He looked at me, mouthed "I'm sorry," and turned his back.
He hauled Lexi to safety to secure his alliance. He left me to die alone in the freezing mud.
I lay there in the dark, realizing the man who swore a blood oath to protect me had traded my life for a political seat.
He thought the silence would finally swallow me whole.
He was wrong.
I crawled out of that grave and vanished from his world completely.
Three years later, I returned to the city, not as his broken ward, but as a world-renowned artist.
When Josiah showed up at my gallery, looking shattered and begging for forgiveness, I didn't sign.
I looked him dead in the eye and spoke.
"The girl who loved you died in that ravine, Josiah." My Broken Bond, Their Unending Pain
Modern After our parents died, my brothers were my protectors. That ended the day they brought home Faye, a fourteen-year-old orphan they treated like a fragile doll, while I became part of the furniture.
They gave her my vintage saxophone, my promised trip to Paris, and dismissed my symphony-my life' s work-as "noise."
The final betrayal happened in the library. Faye deliberately tore my master score to shreds. When I tried to stop her, she faked an injury, and my brothers took her side without hesitation.
"You are a jealous, manipulative child," Clinton spat, before burning the rest of my symphony in front of my eyes. They told me to get out of their lives.
So I did. I accepted a ten-year isolated fellowship and vanished. Now, I've returned as a world-renowned composer whose work saved millions. When my brothers, broken by regret, finally found me and begged me to come home, I gave them a calm, professional smile.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Do I know you?" Exiled by My Mate, Crowned by Rogues
Werewolf After seven years in a dungeon for a crime I didn't commit, my fated mate, the Alpha who let them drag me away, finally opened my cell door.
He announced I would take my place as his Luna, not out of love, but because the law demanded it.
But the moment a frantic mind-link came through that his precious Seraphina—my adopted sister, the one who framed me—was having trouble breathing, he abandoned me without a second glance.
That night, huddled in a dusty shack, I overheard my own parents' secret conversation. They were planning to have me exiled. Permanently.
My return had upset Seraphina, and her "weak heart" couldn't take the shock.
I lay there in the darkness, feeling nothing. Not surprise. Not even pain. Just a profound, empty coldness. They were casting me out. Again.
But as they plotted my exile, a secret message arrived for me—an offer of escape. A new life in a sanctuary far to the north, where I could leave the Blackmoon Pack behind forever.
They thought they were getting rid of me.
Little did they know, I was already gone. The Heiress's Unseen Revenge
Romance I was Ella Cash, a ballerina who gave up everything for Damien Wolfe, believing his philosophy that love should be free and untethered. I thought our love was superior, purer than any vow or ring could make it.
Then, I overheard him on the balcony of his penthouse, talking to a friend. "Of course I'm going to marry her. Kiersten is the only one for me." He called me a "placeholder," dismissing our two years together.
My world shattered. Every loving gesture, every whispered promise, every shared dream-it was all a lie. He left me standing there, rushing off to Kiersten, who was crying in Central Park.
There, I heard the ultimate betrayal: "I never loved Ella. I pursued her for you. I needed her to carry our child so you wouldn't have to put your career on hold." The baby I miscarried wasn't ours; it was Kiersten's, conceived with a donor's sperm.
I was just a vessel, an unwitting surrogate. To add insult to injury, I learned I was the real Bentley heiress, a truth Damien and Kiersten conspired to hide to protect her inheritance.
They even tried to kill me, pushing me into a pool, with Damien choosing to save her over me. A Decade Undone by Deceit
Romance I collapsed from exhaustion after dedicating ten years of my life to my CEO girlfriend, Kendal. I gave up my music, my dreams, everything to build her empire. At the hospital, the doctor delivered the news.
Malignant tumor. I needed emergency surgery to save my life.
Kendal never visited. Not once. I later found out she was on the phone with another man, sweetly telling him she missed him while I was lying in a hospital bed.
Two weeks after they cut the cancer out of me, on her birthday, I went home and cooked her favorite meal. It was supposed to be our last supper, a final goodbye.
She stumbled in late that night, drunk, carried piggyback by that same man.
They were wearing matching black t-shirts. His said, "I'm with her." Hers said, "I'm with him."
She saw me and froze, her laughter dying in her throat. She scrambled off his back, her face a mask of panic and guilt.
But I felt nothing. Not anger, not jealousy. The part of me that could feel pain for her had been carved out on the operating table, right along with the tumor.
I looked her straight in the eye. "It's over."
Then I walked out of the penthouse we once called home, leaving her standing alone in the monument to our failed relationship. This time, I wasn't coming back. When Family Becomes The Enemy
Modern "A daughter should never marry better than her family, Sarah. It's a simple truth." My adoptive father, Mr. Miller, laid down the law every night, telling me my only job was to be grateful and listen to his "guidance."
Then, a week later, my successful boyfriend, Michael, came to dinner, flowers in hand. My father, who had just fawned over my brother Kevin's wealthy girlfriend, turned ice-cold.
"Get out of my house," he snarled at Michael, shaming me and driving him away.
Hours later, the nightmare escalated. My father, drunk and enraged, announced he had already arranged my marriage to Leo, a man I barely knew. When I refused, he lunged across the table and struck me.
I fled, humiliated and betrayed, only to have my father ambush me at work the next day with Leo. He publicly announced our "engagement," turning my professional life into a circus. Michael walked in on the chaos, and the trust in his eyes vanished. He left, unable to handle the "chaos."
My own family, including my mother, then blamed me for everything, even after my brother physically assaulted me. They demanded I fix their problems, clean up their mess.
How could my own family do this? What twisted logic allowed them to treat me like property, to sabotage my life at every turn, while showering their biological son with privilege? Why was I, the dutiful daughter, always the one punished?
Their cruelty, their endless demands, transformed my despair into a cold, hard rage. I saw their game, and I decided then and there: if I couldn't fight them head-on, I would dismantle their power from the inside. They wanted a pawn? Fine. They were about to get a queen. The Cheating Husband’s Painful Secret
Romance The harsh, sterile light of the emergency room usually brought me a sense of purpose. But tonight, it felt like a spotlight on my humiliation.
There, on a gurney, was my husband, Liam, clutching his groin, his face pale and contorted, his designer jeans cut away by paramedics.
Next to him, a young woman in a crop top, mascara streaked, held his hand, whining about him collapsing.
Then I saw it on his chart: Priapism. A prolonged, painful erection. A side effect of recreational drugs. On our tenth wedding anniversary.
"I\'m his wife," I finally managed, the words tasting like acid.
Her jaw dropped. "His wife? But he told me he was divorced! He said I was his girlfriend."
The air left my lungs. My colleagues watched as Dr. Evelyn Reed, brilliant cardiac surgeon, couldn\'t even hold her own marriage together.
Relief curdled into rage as Liam avoided my gaze. He looked weak, pathetic.
"No, Dr. Chen," I said, my voice cold and clear. "I\'ll handle it. He\'s my patient now."
I stripped off my wedding ring, dropping it onto the gurney next to his hand. "We\'re done, Liam. Consider this my anniversary gift to you."
The memory of him whispering promises of forever, of honesty, of a partnership built on respect, now felt like a cruel lie.
This wasn't just betrayal. He had faked a vasectomy years ago, after our miscarriage, telling me he only needed me, while planning this separate life.
The depth of his deceit made me physically sick.
A Code Blue saved me from that moment, calling me to save a life.
But I promised myself, after I saved my patient, I would return and systematically destroy Liam\'s.
I wouldn't look back. His Billion-Dollar Regret
Billionaires My body was a battlefield, stitches screaming with every step, but my heart soared.
I had just given a kidney to save Liam, the struggling artist I loved more than life itself.
This massive sacrifice for the man I believed was my destiny, the fellow orphan who understood my every struggle, was all worth it because he would live.
But then, laughter peeled from his hospital room – not just Liam' s, but his wealthy friends', their voices dripping with cruel amusement.
"I can' t believe she actually did it," Tiffany' s voice sliced through me.
"Sold a kidney!
For you!
That is the funniest thing I have ever heard."
My world shattered as Liam, the "dying" patient, emerged from his charade, pulling off a fake IV and lighting a cigarette, his smirk cold and unfamiliar.
The room reeked of betrayal.
Liam, the "struggling artist," was the heir to the massive Blackwood Corporation.
His illness, our shared past, his love – all a meticulously crafted lie, a cruel game orchestrated by Tiffany to "teach the little orphan a lesson."
The thought made me sick; I had carved myself open for a ghost, my every genuine feeling trashed for their entertainment.
Why?
Why would someone inflict such calculated cruelty?
My hope, once so vibrant, was crushed, leaving a gaping wound where my heart used to be.
The humiliation was a physical weight, but then a cold, quiet rage began to burn away the tears.
They thought they had broken me, reduced me to a pathetic charity case.
They were wrong.
I would not be their mouse anymore.
I pulled out my phone, a new purpose hardening my resolve.
I was done playing their game; it was time to leave. Woke Up Screaming: A Second Chance
Horror We woke up screaming.
The cloying scent of lilies, the vivid, horrifying memories-Jessica. My older sister, a syringe in her hand, her eyes bright with a chilling mania, her obsession with "dark romance" novels, her fixation on tech mogul Damian Blackwood. We died once because of her twisted fantasy; we were just collateral damage.
Now, we were back-my parents and I-with the chilling knowledge of our past. Then the phone rang. It was her. She' d damaged Damian Blackwood' s drone again, trying her pathetic "meet-cute." Just like before.
My parents, once her enablers, now had pale faces and rock-hard eyes.
This time, we wouldn't bail her out. This time, she would face the consequences alone.
But Jessica' s delusion only festered. Arrests, lawsuits, public humiliations-she embraced them as "tests." She stalked him, got fired, and finally, drugged him. I watched, sickened, as she spiraled deeper into her twisted script, even after being assaulted.
Her unshakeable belief that Damian was "testing" her, even as she was thrown out like trash, was maddening. How could someone be so utterly lost in a fantasy, even when faced with stark, brutal reality? What happened to the caring sister I once knew?
This reawakening wasn't just about surviving. It was about breaking the cycle. This time, the monster wouldn' t win. I would dismantle the very source of her misguided obsession, Damian Blackwood himself, armed with the terrifying knowledge of his true nature from a life we already lost. The Man I Saved, The Monster He Became
Fantasy I am Elara, one of the last Sunstone Guardians, living a quiet, sacred life channeling my essence into healing crystals in the heart of the Arizona desert.
To secure my people's peace, I sacrificed my vitality, marrying a wealthy, paralyzed Texan, Ethan Rutherford, to heal him with my life-giving Sunstone Seeds.
He walked again, strong and vibrant, but my peace was shattered at a glittering Dallas charity ball when I saw my precious, living Sunstone Seeds listed for a twisted public display.
Ethan, now outwardly charming, announced a cruel game: I had to identify my three sacred Seeds from a hundred counterfeits, or he would crush them, one by one, for 'research' orchestrated by his jealous stepsister, Candice.
My terrified pleas were met with a chilling smirk, as security guards held me fast while my humiliation was live-streamed for a national audience.
They called me 'primitive' and a 'gold-digger' as I was forced to watch my vital essence, my very soul, shattered into dust before my eyes, then ordered to 'eat' the pulverized remains.
The unthinkable cruelty, the public mockery, and the desecration of everything sacred within me was a searing agony I thought would break me entirely.
How could the man I saved, the man I married, become such a monstrous betrayer, orchestrated by the woman who now demanded my 'confession' as a fraud?
But as a raw, broken laugh escaped my lips, the grand chandelier above us flickered violently, and a tremor shook the ballroom floor.
My last remaining, untouched Sunstone Seed pulsed with an blinding light, levitating to blast the horrifying truth of my sacrifice and Candice's evil directly into Ethan's fractured mind, a cosmic vengeance finally awakening. His Empire Of Lies: Undone By A Song
Fantasy Aurora Hayes, a senator' s wife with a mystical singing gift known as "Heartnote Harmony," craved true connection on her tenth wedding anniversary night.
But inside their D.C. mansion, she overheard a devastating truth: her charismatic husband, Alistair, had fathered children with his former aide, Cassie Bellweather.
Cassie demanded Aurora' s unique gift be used to legitimize her sons, shattering Aurora's carefully constructed world.
The betrayal escalated quickly; Cassie stole Aurora's ancestral locket, then brutally crushed her hands in a piano, forever silencing her extraordinary voice.
Aurora was publicly framed as unstable and suicidal, her "drowning" orchestrated to preserve Alistair' s political image.
Yet, as a final act of defiance, bandaged hands shaky, she scrawled "NEVER" in her own blood on a forced confession.
Presumed dead, Aurora was secretly rescued by a loyal friend, retreating to the Louisiana bayou where her broken gift transformed into something wilder, potent.
Now, rising from the swamp' s embrace as Nola Rey, she' s returning to claim what was stolen by the very man who buried her. You might like
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. 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. 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. The Capo's Scarred Wife: A Vicious Comeback
Sofia Wade I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me.
But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest.
The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me.
They didn't.
Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her.
They let me burn to keep her warm.
When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages.
That was the moment Elena Vitiello died.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York.
By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring.
"You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them.
"Burn for it." Marrying His Rival: The Ex-Fiancé's Nightmare
Moria Anninger I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia.
The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast.
That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water.
He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard.
But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead.
I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival.
On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone.
"I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city." His Unwanted Wife: The Genius Artist Returns
Zaccaria Linn On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table.
Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen.
"Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over."
I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward.
Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant.
She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest.
As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me.
He hugged her.
"It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you."
The betrayal didn't stop there.
When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police.
When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line—the one meant for life-or-death situations.
He declined the call.
He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife.
That was the moment the chain broke.
As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come.
I opened the door and jumped into the dark.
Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement.
Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one. Revenge Is Sweet: Marrying His Worst Enemy
CHRISTINE ROBINSON I was staring at the two pink lines on the plastic stick, trembling with the terrifying joy of carrying the heir to the New York underworld’s most ruthless faction.
Then the intercom buzzed, and a voice splintered my world.
"The little art student actually thinks I'm going to marry her? It was just a game to pass the time while you were in Europe, Estella."
I froze.
My boyfriend, Holden, was in the next room, laughing with the daughter of his rival.
He explained that I was just a "clean civilian image" he needed to secure a business deal. Now that the deal was signed, he was dumping the "stray" to marry the "Queen."
I tried to run, but freedom only lasted forty-eight hours.
Holden didn't just break my heart; he turned my terror into content.
He kidnapped me, tied me to a chair at the edge of a cliff, and forced me to choose between my life and his new fiancée's.
Then, he pushed me off the edge.
As gravity snatched me, I heard him laughing.
I landed on a stunt airbag. It was just a "social experiment." A sick prank for his amusement.
"Don't be so dramatic, Kenia," he called down. "It's just a game."
He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a prop in his life.
But he forgot that I knew his secrets.
I dragged my injured body to a payphone and dialed the one number Holden told me to fear—the rival Don, Gael Simpson.
"It's Kenia," I whispered, clutching the receiver like a lifeline. "I'm calling in the debt." Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him
SHANA GRAY I died on a Tuesday.
It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father.
I was twenty years old.
He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant.
He chose her. He always chose her.
And then, I woke up.
Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for.
This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice.
He didn't know he was talking to a ghost.
He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal.
He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder.
That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry.
She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts.
So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie.
I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane.
But I will not be a victim.
This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter.
This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain. Runaway Nurse: The Mafia King's Remorse
Hu Minxue For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York.
I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him.
But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash.
In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress.
He forced me to watch him court her.
At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her.
He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain.
He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life.
I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god.
I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole.
He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps.
So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother.
I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars.
I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia.
By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost. 
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