Herculie Dipietro
13 Published Stories
Herculie Dipietro's Books and Stories
The Divorced Wife He Could Never Afford
Mafia I spent ten years building a mafia empire with my husband, Julian, taking bullets and laundering millions to make him the untouchable Don.
But today, he slid a fifty million dollar divorce settlement across the boardroom table, demanding I step down to make room for his naive new mistress.
He stripped me of my titles and gave her my Underboss pendant. He fabricated rumors of my infidelity to ruin my reputation in the Underworld, just to build a spotless pedestal for her.
When I was bleeding out in a turf war, he let her hang up my desperate call for backup.
"Julian had a stressful day, please do not bother him with your gang drama."
He didn't even apologize. Instead, he threatened to feed me to rival families if I didn't disappear, leaving me completely isolated and hunted by assassins.
Ten years of hiding bodies and surviving for his sake were reduced to a severance package. I stared at the man who once slaughtered an entire syndicate just to crown me his Queen, feeling nothing but a suffocating betrayal. How could he abandon our blood-soaked vows for a cheap replica playing a dangerous game?
I didn't cry or beg him to remember us.
I calmly signed the papers, stepped out of his fortress, and initiated a live broadcast to the highest judges of the Commission, leaking the corrupt ledgers that would burn his empire to the ground. Secret Princess: The Beast's Captive Mate
Werewolf In a world where the Wither virus turned surviving women into breeding livestock, Elinore was disguised as a boy at birth just to survive.
For twenty-one years, she lived a suffocating lie as the ruthless Prince of Navia, binding her chest and hiding her true gender. But her fragile reality shattered when her uncle, the tyrant King Orestus, casually gambled away her older sister Josefina in a card game.
Elinore kicked down the doors and violently rescued her sister, holding a short sword to the sweaty minister's throat.
"She is my legal property now! The King bet her and lost!" the minister screamed, waving the royal wax seal.
Elinore forced him to flee, but the aftermath was devastating. Their parents had been murdered by the King a decade ago, leaving them as captive pawns. Josefina, completely broken and terrified, wept in Elinore's arms. She actually begged to be sold off to a distant, savage kingdom just to escape the daily, inescapable hell of their uncle's court.
Stripping off her heavy military uniform in the dead of night, Elinore stared at her bruised, female body in the mirror. She was drowning in a suffocating sense of injustice. Why did women have to live as prey?
But an even deeper, more terrifying mystery was waking up inside her.
A strange, feverish heat began pulsing deep in her abdomen-an alien biological demand she couldn't control. That very night, she dreamed of a monstrous, seven-foot-tall Urekai beast pinning her to the freezing mud, its glowing yellow eyes claiming her as its mate.
Her disguise was failing, and her own body was betraying her. To save her sister and uncover the truth behind her awakening, the fake Prince decided it was time to burn this tyrannical kingdom to the ground. Too Late For Regret: The Ruthless Wife
Modern My sister stripped me of my entire life in a single night. She bought out my company, froze my bank accounts, and left me with absolutely nothing.
As a final twisted psychological test, she forced me into a hyper-realistic VR simulation. When I opened my eyes, I was trapped in the body of "Heloise Vance"—a miserable, bullied wife in the elite Mercer family.
My new reality was an absolute nightmare. My alcoholic husband lunged at me with his fists.
"You think you run this house? You're my wife. You do what I say."
My tyrannical mother-in-law raised her hand to slap me, treating me worse than a stray dog while demanding I serve them.
Even my parasitic biological parents showed up at the estate, demanding a million dollars to cover up my brother's crimes, threatening to ruin me if I didn't pay.
They all looked at me with pure contempt, expecting me to cower, cry, and beg for mercy just like the real Heloise always did.
They thought I was just a weak, helpless punching bag they could abuse without consequence.
But they didn't know the soul inside this body had changed.
I wasn't the pathetic Heloise; I was Cora Sawyer, the ruthless heir to a corporate empire.
If my sister wanted me to play this sick survival game to escape, I would gladly burn the entire Mercer family to the ground first. Fake Divorce, Real Betrayal
Romance "Let' s get a divorce, Ava."
My husband, Mark, said the words so calmly, pushing the papers across our dining room table, the morning light making the black letters sharp.
He quickly added, "It' s a fake divorce. It' s for Clara. Lily needs to get into the school district here, and she can' t unless she' s living with my residency."
He promised we' d remarry once it was done.
He thought I was a fool.
I signed the papers, my hands steady, the silence in the room heavy.
That fake concern on his face. That smug confidence that he had me completely under his control.
I had already seen the truth.
Two weeks ago, tucked at the bottom of the trash bin in the guest bathroom Clara used, I' d found it. A pregnancy test. Two pink lines.
It wasn' t Lily' s future Mark was securing. It was the future of his new family.
I said nothing. Just nodded.
The divorce was done, official. Outside the courthouse, I watched Mark walk quickly toward a car. Clara got out, then wrapped her arms around his neck, his hand resting protectively on her stomach. They looked like a real family.
My phone buzzed. A message from Professor Thorne, my old mentor. "The lab door is always open for you, Ava."
I took a deep breath, watched them drive away, and then turned to walk in the opposite direction. My pain was old, familiar. Now, it was time for change. The Divorce That Saved Us
Romance The first thing I felt was a dull ache and a blinding white light. I was in a hospital, my wrist bandaged, my mind a blank slate.
Then I heard the voices: "The guy in 302, Ethan, tried it again." "The one married to CEO Sterling? This is what, the third time this year?"
My stomach turned. They somehow thought I was Ethan, the pathetic, clingy husband of Sophia Sterling, the girl who was always out of my league in high school. And I had tried to kill myself over her.
When a nurse confirmed it, revealing my arm was slit, a wave of nausea hit me. I stared at my older, gaunt reflection in the mirror, five years of my life vanished, all tied to this humiliating existence.
How could I have become this person? This wasn't me. The desperate, attention-seeking man they described-the one who sent bleeding wrist selfies-was a stranger.
I wanted nothing to do with him. So when Sophia, colder and more beautiful than ever, arrived to discharge me, I knew what I had to do. I wanted a divorce, and I would start shedding this unwanted life, piece by painful piece. The Songbird's Revenge: How I Became His Aunt
Romance Three years ago, I was on top of the world.
Engaged to Caleb Scott, pregnant with his child, I, an orphan from foster care, felt like I was living a fairytale at our Belle Meade mansion engagement party.
Then, his childhood friend Jennifer Lawrence, a shadow lurking over our relationship, faked a deadly allergic reaction, screaming I had poisoned her drink.
Caleb turned on me in an instant, his face contorted with rage, tearing my wedding dress to shreds, yelling for security to drag me out like trash.
The next day, he forced me to abort our baby, spitting that a "venomous, scheming woman" like me was unfit to carry a Scott child.
He slapped me with aggravated assault charges, leaving me utterly broken, homeless, and facing prison, a pariah in Nashville society.
How could he believe such a monstrous lie? How could he destroy my life, our child, without a moment of doubt?
Just as I lay shattered in a dark alley, a stranger offered a hand. Now, three years later, I' m back in Nashville, not as his victim, but as Mrs. Andrew Scott… Caleb' s aunt. The Homecoming Queen and the Home-Wrecker
Romance Eleven years. I dedicated them all to Wesley Scott, sacrificing my architect dreams to support his political ambitions.
After a decade of being his unassuming small-town Texas girl, he finally proposed, not out of love, I suspected, but for his political image.
Then, an anonymous email arrived with a photo: Wesley and his childhood friend, Gabrielle, smiling, holding a deed to a luxury Austin condo, purchased jointly under their names.
Beneath it, Gabrielle' s chilling message: "Coming home for good."
Wesley dismissed it as "just a favor," his casual use of "Gabby" a slap in the face.
But the next day, the building manager casually confirmed Gabrielle was the primary owner, and I, his fiancée, was merely "the friend," a temporary guest.
That night, at Gabrielle's welcome dinner, Wesley sat beside her, radiating ownership, as everyone toasted them as "the perfect couple."
Then, a friend goaded them into a kiss, and Wesley, playing to the crowd, gave Gabrielle a soft, lingering kiss, a gesture of intimacy he never showed me.
All eyes turned to me, expecting tears, a scene, but I just smiled.
"If Gabrielle wants him," I said, my voice clear and calm, "she can have him."
He dragged me out, furious, but a later anonymous message, a screenshot of their secret Instagram post-"To our future!" and his reply, "Whatever you want, you get. Always"-extinguished any lingering hope.
It was the same day he'd asked me to move in, calling it "our first real step."
His betrayal culminated when a mob of HOA women, spurred by Gabrielle, publicly assaulted me at the condo, and Wesley stood by, calculating the optics of defending me.
I collapsed, humiliated, only to later see his reply on the HOA Facebook chat, throwing me under the bus: "The owner on the deed is the one who matters."
He had confirmed I was nothing, a squatter to his entire world.
When he abandoned me in the hospital for Gabrielle's fake allergic reaction, I knew. It was over.
Three days later, at our lavish engagement party, instead of our romantic slideshow, I played the video of their kiss, the condo deed, and his damning words on the jumbo screens.
His political career ignited in a glorious fireball.
"Why, Wesley?" I told him calmly when he screamed down the phone. "I was just making way for the real couple. After all, the owner on the deed is the one who matters."
I hung up and blocked him, and everyone from that life. I was free to build my own. The Shed: A Family's Dark Secret
Modern For three years, I' d been free from my toxic Appalachian family, living a new life built on respect, not obligation.
Then, a call from my mother, soft and warm, inviting me to my brother Caleb's wedding, made me foolishly hope things had changed.
I drove back to the mountains, a $25,000 peace offering for the wedding in my bag – $5,000 from me, and $20,000 from Ethan' s parents never touched since our own marriage – only to be greeted with cold demands for the "money I owed."
They scoffed at my gift, then my father calmly declared they now wanted $80,000, and when I refused, my brother Caleb snatched my phone and keys, my parents locked me in the cold, spider-filled shed I' d known as a childhood prison, and commanded me to call my husband to wire the money.
Beaten and terrified, I refused their extortion, but found a sliver of hope in a dusty window, determined to fight back against the family that wanted to break me. When The Quiet Wife Roared
Romance I was Sarah Miller, publicly humiliated and discarded by NFL star Ethan Vance on his draft day.
Branded a gold digger, I vanished, rebuilding my life and secretly marrying billionaire philanthropist Alexander Sterling.
Five years of quiet happiness passed.
But fate, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humor.
While on a simple errand, I unexpectedly collided with Ethan and his arrogant fiancée, my former intern.
Their taunts instantly dragged me back into the nightmare.
My attempt to assert my new reality – that I was married – was met with cruel laughter.
Ethan snatched my Sterling Foundation card, mocking it as a fake, calling me a delusional liar and a thief.
His rage escalating, he brutally crushed my hand in a car door, then locked me in a stadium utility room.
Later, he dragged my battered self onto a championship ballroom stage, publicly branding me a stalker and criminal, while displaying my bandaged hand.
Why was this nightmare happening again?
Was I destined to be forever haunted by my past, my worth shattered anew?
But just as he prepared to deliver his final, devastating blow, the grand ballroom doors dramatically swung open.
My husband, Alexander Sterling, stood there, a quiet force of nature.
My past had tried to consume me, but it was about to meet its match. My Wife, The Narcissist CEO
Modern I just closed a fifty-million-dollar deal for Innovatech Solutions, the company I co-founded with my wife, Jess.
My team, the Trailblazers, cheered as Jess, our CEO, hugged me, promising a "really special bonus."
That bonus was a crudely drawn Sharpie watch on my wrist and a flimsy "next year" promise.
Later, my blood froze seeing Liam Walker, her incompetent "Executive Assistant," beaming with keys to a company-leased Porsche, courtesy of Jess.
His Instagram: "Real love means exclusive pampering. #BestBoss."
Humiliation burned as Jess frantically spun excuses, then offered me the baby I' d always wanted if I' d "unlike" the post.
When I refused, she retaliated, punishing my loyal team while Liam' s cronies went untouched.
"You'll get over it," she snapped, hanging up.
The Porsche was just the latest, undeniable symbol of her two-faced hypocrisy and a years-long affair.
My love for the woman I married had completely evaporated, replaced by a profound, weary exhaustion.
I was done enabling her narcissism, done absorbing her endless betrayals.
"Let's just get a divorce," I told her, my voice flat and final.
Then, I called Innovatech' s biggest competitor, ready to secure not just my future, but my entire team's, forcing her to finally face the consequences. The Sweet Friend's Deadly Secret
Young Adult I was a driven high school student, about to embark on the biggest national scholarship competition of my life in Washington D.C.
It was a life-changing opportunity for everyone on our team, especially my boyfriend, Mark Olsen, and my seemingly sweet best friend, Jessie Evans.
But that life ended in betrayal.
A drink spiked with my fatal allergen, followed by swift anaphylactic shock.
Mark and the others testified I drank it knowingly, painting me as a distraught villain.
Jessie, playing the grieving friend, became a national sensation, a "survivor" online, while my Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist mother fought for justice.
Jessie's powerful family allies launched a merciless smear campaign, shattering my mom's reputation, costing her job, and ultimately, her life to a stress-induced heart attack.
After I died, the chilling truth unfurled: Jessie orchestrated my demise and my mother's ruin.
Her motive? Pure, unadulterated revenge.
My mother had exposed her CEO father's massive corporate fraud, sending him to prison, and Jessie wanted us both to pay.
The injustice burned through me, leaving an icy trail of hate.
Then, I woke up.
The familiar lurch of the bus, Mark's voice arguing with the driver, demanding we wait for Jessie's "lucky locket"-the exact same words, the exact same moment.
I was back, armed with the horrifying knowledge of what was to come, and a powerful secret: a full-ride Stanford scholarship I already secured.
This competition was meaningless to me.
This time, things would be different. The Billionaire's Secret Twin Wife
LGBT+ My husband, Marcus, was already late for our second anniversary dinner when he walked in, reeking of another woman's perfume. He introduced her as his "indispensable" new assistant, Chloe Sanders. My heart, already terminally ill, tightened further – a painful reminder of the lie I was living.
He never truly saw me; he saw my dead twin sister, Eleanor, the woman he still claimed to love, the one he believed I, Tori, had killed. I, Eleanor, was forced to impersonate her after a tragic accident, trapped in a marriage where Marcus constantly abused me, seeking vengeance for a death I didn't cause.
Then, he overheard a conversation that revealed the shocking truth: I wasn't Tori at all. I was Eleanor, his actual wife. I hoped this truth might change everything, but barely ten days later, a text from Chloe solidified his betrayal – a photo of her pregnant stomach, her message simple: "I'm pregnant with Marcus's child. He's known your real identity for weeks and told me everything."
His brief, feigned kindness dissolved, confirming his calculated deceit. He continued his blatant affair, shamelessly using my terminal heart condition for a monumental P.R. stunt, playing the heartbreakingly devoted husband while his mistress smirked triumphantly. All the years of abuse, the forced identity, my dying heart – it had been for nothing.
A cold, simmering rage ignited within me. He believed he was still in control, but I wouldn't die as his victim. I decided to play his game, but by my rules, turning his public display of affection into the perfect stage for ultimate retribution. I would use his own deceit to expose his entire empire, allied with a man connected to him in ways he never imagined. 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.
Married to the Billionaire Mafia Don
Ebony Pete "You're leaving," Lorenzo said softly.
Ivy straightened her spine and raised her chin. "I am. I'm getting out of this place even if it means climbing over the front gates. I can't stay here anymore. I'm leaving!"
"You can't," Lorenzo said flatly. "Not now."
"Watch me," Ivy hissed, brushing past him.
Lorenzo stepped in her way and grabbed her by the arms-not roughly, but firmly.
"I mean it, Ivy. You can't leave," he said tightly.
She struggled against his grip, her bag falling to the floor with a thud.
"Let me go, Lorenzo! I don't belong here. This place is insane. Your family is insane!"
"You belong to me," he said sharply, eyes burning into hers. "And it's my job to protect what's mine."
"I don't want to be yours," Ivy cried. "I want to be free! I want to live!"
Something shifted in Lorenzo's face. He looked at her then, not as an obligation, not as a pawn, but as a person. A frightened, strong, beautiful woman who had been caught in a storm she never asked for. And something in him cracked.
Lorenzo reached down and cupped her face with both hands. Ivy flinched at first but didn't pull away. His thumbs wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks.
"I never wanted to hurt you," he said quietly.
Her lower lip trembled. "Then let me go..."
"I can't," he whispered.
And then, without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her.
***************
Ivy Wesley believed that marrying a wealthy stranger would be her golden escape from a life of struggle. Lorenzo Martinelli was supposed to be her way out: her fresh start, her answer to every prayer whispered in the dark.
But the moment the mansion doors shut behind her, Ivy understood the truth. She hadn't stepped into a fairy tale. She had walked straight into the lion's den.
The whispers about the Martinelli family's ties to the Mafia aren't just rumors; they're real, and now Ivy is bound to them by a ring on her finger and secrets she can never unlearn. There is no undoing this choice. No clean exit. Not after what she's seen. Not after what she knows.
Surrounded by dangerous alliances, ruthless power plays, and truths sharp enough to draw blood, Ivy finds herself caught in a world where trust is a luxury and loyalty can be lethal. Yet in the middle of the chaos, something even more unexpected takes root: a love she never planned for, never prepared for, and may not survive.
Now Ivy faces an impossible choice: run while she still can, or stand her ground beside the man who could destroy her as easily as he protects her. In a world where betrayal lurks behind every polished smile and devotion can cost a life, can their love endure... or will it be the very thing that brings everything crashing down? The Underboss's Wife, Now His Queen
Hydro Therapy I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria.
But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity.
A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love.
My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me.
Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego.
He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press.
He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan.
He had no idea she was a fraud.
He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her.
He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate.
At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her.
I didn't beg. I didn't cry.
I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play. You Called Me Barren, Mr. Sterile Don
Gong Zi On my birthday, my husband Dante asked for a divorce over a plate of cold lasagna.
He held my hand, tears in his eyes, and told me his mistress was pregnant.
"It’s a miracle, Elena," he wept. "God has finally given me a son."
He looked at me with pity, calling me "broken" because I hadn't given him an heir in eight years.
He moved his pregnant mistress into the penthouse I paid for, and his mother mocked me as a "dry vine" while cooking tonic soups for the new woman.
They didn't know the truth I had buried three years ago.
I remembered the day the doctor slid the file across the desk: *Azoospermia. Zero sperm count.*
Dante was the sterile one.
I had burned the results to protect his fragile ego as a Mafia Don. I took the blame. I drank his mother's vile herbal poisons every morning until I vomited, just to keep his secret.
Now, he was discarding me for a "miracle" that was biologically impossible.
I signed the divorce papers without a tear.
Then I bought the debt of his company, put on a blood-red dress, and walked into his heir's Christening.
I didn't come to object.
I came to plug a USB drive into the projector and show the entire underworld exactly whose "miracle" that baby really was. 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." 
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