Er Duo
13 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." The Billionaire's Asset: Cashing Out Freedom
Modern I spent three years acting as a high-end manufacturing plant for the Snyder dynasty, waiting for the day I could finally break my golden cage. Today, I slid the postnuptial amendment across the desk, trading my marriage for fifty million dollars and a chance to breathe again.
I thought I was free the moment the elevator doors closed. But while I was at a club celebrating my "asset liquidation" with champagne and silk blindfolds, the Snyder empire was falling apart. My grandfather-in-law had a heart attack the second he heard I was gone, and he refused the surgery that would save his life unless I was the one to authorize it.
Claudius didn't send a lawyer to bring me back; he came himself. He burst into my private VIP suite like a predator, his eyes cold enough to freeze the room. He saw the models, the drinks, and the blindfold, and he instantly assumed I was selling my dignity at a discount just hours after leaving him.
He didn't care about the truth or the papers I’d already signed. He kicked the cameras out of his cousin’s hands, cleared the room with a single look of death, and hauled me over his shoulder like a sack of grain in front of everyone. To him, I wasn't a woman or a wife; I was a critical piece of hardware that had gone rogue.
"The separation is paused," he growled, pinning me against the leather seats of his Maybach as the child locks clicked into place.
I stared at the bite mark I’d just left on his thumb, realizing that in the world of the Snyders, even a signed exit strategy was just another contract he was willing to break. This wasn't the end of my marriage; it was the start of a much more dangerous game. 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
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. 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." 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. Stripper's Love: I Married My Ex's Uncle
G~Aden I'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body.
My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in.
I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then-
I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses.
Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down-
He's still hard.
Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance.
"You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless.
"I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake.
"Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat.
And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm.
"Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine.
***
Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge.
She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez.
He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her.
What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated.
Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty?
And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?
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. 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. My Cold Heart: Rejecting The Mafia Boss
Jia Zhong My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket.
He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent.
But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress.
Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you."
To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife.
When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala.
He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent.
He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters.
He thought he had broken me.
He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage.
But he made a fatal error.
He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign.
They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me.
And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck.
I didn't jump to die.
I jumped to be reborn.
And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin. 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." 
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