Ive Gutterson
11 Published Stories
Ive Gutterson's Books and Stories
You Said Die Quietly, So I Did
Mafia The doctor told me I had thirty days to live. Exactly ten minutes later, my husband told me his mistress was pregnant.
I sat in the cold marble living room of the Vitiello estate, watching Dante pace. He was the Capo of Chicago, the man I used to stitch up in a bathroom when we had nothing.
Now, he looked at me with dead eyes.
"Sienna is moving in," he said casually. "She carries the heir. You will raise him."
He treated the destruction of our marriage like a business arrangement.
I tried to tell him about the pain eating my insides, the Stage IV cancer that made standing agony. But he just rolled his eyes, calling my weakness "jealousy" and my silence "theatrics."
He even gutted our first home—the safe house where we fell in love—to build a nursery for her.
When I finally asked him, "What if I'm dying?" he didn't even pause on his way out the door.
"Then do it quietly," he said. "I have enough headaches today."
So I did.
I burned every photo of us. I signed the divorce papers. And I went to a civilian cemetery to buy a plot under my maiden name, far away from his family mausoleum.
I died alone on a cold stone bench, just as he asked.
It wasn't until he stood in the morgue, holding my skeletal hand and realizing I weighed nothing but bones and grief, that the King of Chicago finally broke.
He found my journal in the trash, where I had written my final entry:
"I wish I never met Dante Vitiello."
Now, he is on his knees in the dirt, begging a headstone for forgiveness that will never come. The Runaway Wife: Never Forgiving You
Modern My husband, the Mad Prince of the underworld, once burned down a city block just because a rival looked at me wrong.
Now, he forces me to kneel in the freezing New York snow, clad only in thin silk.
In his hand, he holds a tablet controlling my comatose brother's life support, threatening to kill him unless I confess to bullying his new mistress.
To save my brother, I swallow my pride and confess to a crime I didn't commit.
But the stress is too much.
I miscarry our child right there, staining the pristine white snow crimson.
Dante doesn't even blink.
He steps over my bleeding body to comfort his crying mistress, leaving me to scream for our lost baby alone.
He thinks he taught me a lesson.
He forces me to apologize to the woman who mocked me, even as my stitches tear.
He doesn't know that while he was guarding the door to keep doctors out, my brother actually died.
He doesn't know I buried the only family I had left in a pauper's grave while he slept with the woman who framed me.
On our tenth anniversary, he fills the house with lilies, expecting reconciliation.
Instead, I leave the signed divorce papers on the bed, take a handful of grave soil, and vanish into the night.
By the time he realizes the truth, I will be a ghost he can never touch again. The Billionaire Who Called Me Boring
Modern He was the billionaire who called me "boring" and paid me to disappear. Three years later, Gage Schwartz came back begging, promising me the world he'd denied me for seven years. I took him back, and soon, I was pregnant with his twins.
Then I heard the voicemail of him and his ex-wife, Brylee, laughing about how I was just a "comfortable placeholder."
The shock caused me to miscarry. When I tried to leave, he launched a smear campaign, painting me as insane to the world. Then he locked me in our penthouse.
He thought he could break me.
So I faked a complete mental breakdown, escaped into a blizzard, and vanished. I built a new life, found real love, and became the artist I was always meant to be.
But now, he's standing in my studio.
And he wants me back. The Genius Betrayed: A Silent Witness
Sci-fi I woke to the familiar sound of Ethan' s voice, thick with a passion that had never been for me.
"My entire existence, I wish to spend with Serena, intertwined, inseparable."
He was hugging my sister in the OmniCorp boardroom, the same place I' d once poured out my soul, creating the AI twins Aether and Echo.
Then, the memory slammed into me again: Ethan, with dead eyes, deleting them, calling them "flawed."
He' d said, "Serena was the real genius. She was just too devoted, that' s why she used the virus. If you hadn' t interfered, she and I would have achieved digital transcendence together."
He didn' t know Serena' s "Symbiotic Core" was a "Soul Devourer" virus, designed to hollow out a host for another.
And now, here we were again, him deluded, her feigning surprise.
I didn' t have to lift a finger this time; Ethan would walk into his own trap.
The board questioned him.
He snapped his head toward me, disgust in his eyes. "Ava is a viper. She is manipulative and malicious. She is utterly unfit to lead this project."
He vowed, "I desire only Serena, a singular partnership for all time."
I met his gaze, unfazed. "You' re overthinking it, Mr. Thorne. I' ll be packing my things and leaving the project. I wish you and my sister a long and prosperous partnership."
A flicker of confusion crossed his face. "You' d better!"
But as they walked away, he doubled over, coughing black code.
Serena shrieked, "Chairman, someone has infected Mr. Thorne with a malicious virus!"
Every eye in the room turned to me.
Ethan pointed a trembling finger. "Chairman, it must be because I didn' t choose Ava. She' s consumed by unrequited obsession and infected me with a virus. How malicious!"
My eyes stung. He knew Serena was the only one who had ever infected him. I had burned out my own core to save him the last time, and yet, he condemned me again. Why did I expect anything different?
The chairman demanded answers. I tried to explain, but Ethan cut me off, fabricating a story about a data packet I' d sent him. My voice turned to ice. "Mr. Thorne, this virus was clearly deployed by my sister. Aren' t you afraid of losing your digital life?"
He raged, "You dare to slander Serena! Besides, I love Serena to my core. It would be worth losing my digital life for her!"
Serena began to sob, offering to step aside, playing the noble martyr. Ethan, deeply moved, embraced her. "My heart has always been, and always will be, yours!"
He then declared, "Chairman, although Ava is a tech prodigy, she has committed a grave digital crime. You must not let her go unpunished!"
I suggested an external expert, seeing panic in Serena' s eyes. She then dropped to her knees, begging for me, then offered to implant a "diagnostic bug" in me.
My blood ran cold. It wasn't a diagnostic bug. It was the Nightmare Daemon, the inheritance token of our clan.
Ethan forced me to my knees. The Nightmare Daemon surged forward, biting into my digital pathways, siphoning my core data. The pain was unbelievable, but I forced my face to stay calm.
Ethan scoffed. "Ava, you' re quite the actress. You' ve had corrections before. Who are you trying to impress with this performance of pain now?"
I pointed. "Do you know that if my core data is completely consumed by this virus, no one will be able to save you?"
He roared, "You vile woman, are you trying to threaten me? Serena said that once she integrates with my core, this virus of hers can be neutralized! Don' t think for a second you can deceive everyone this time!"
He pulled Serena closer. "Three days from now, I will integrate with Serena. This time, I will never let anyone harm you again."
My vision blurred. The Soul Devourer virus. In three days, it would have completely spread through his system. By then, he would be doomed.
I lost consciousness. The Price of Stolen Genius
Modern My phone screen was the only light in the suffocating darkness, casting a sickly blue glow on the corrugated steel walls closing in around me.
A notification popped up with Nicole' s latest livestream, her face triumphant, showing a thumbnail of me, huddled and sketching on a dirty cardboard box.
"My pathetic 'brother' making trash art for change," the title read, a cruel mockery of my homelessness and desperation.
Then, her message: "Feeling cramped, Caleb? I remember you don't like small spaces."
My heart hammered as the air thinned, the walls pressing in; I was trapped, locked in a storage unit, betrayed by the girl I once called my sister.
I gasped, scrabbling against the unyielding metal as my vision blurred, the darkness crawling inward.
My last conscious thought was the cold, unyielding finality of it all; heart failure, alone and forgotten.
But then, the distinct smell of turpentine and acrylic paint jolted me awake.
I wasn' t in a storage unit; I was back in the bright art room of Northgate High, eighteen years old again.
And there she was: Nicole, laughing perfectly, with Ethan, the star quarterback, arrogant and untouched by his future accident, by his downfall.
The raw memory of my death, the cold, suffocating terror, slammed into me, a tidal wave of pure, undiluted rage.
I grabbed the nearest jar of murky paint water, and without a second thought, hurled it straight at Ethan' s chest.
His pristine jacket exploded with gray water and glass, and the fight that ensued was just the beginning.
I was back, and this time, the masterpiece of revenge would be mine. The Heiress Undone: A Politician's Ruin
Romance The D&C procedure was over, a cold finality to the grief already heavy on my shoulders from my parents' recent death.
As I clutched their ashes, I called my husband, Ethan, a rising political star, needing him more than ever.
His assistant, Sabrina, coldly told me he was too busy, later revealing his fury that I' d even suggest divorce.
His anger boiled over when I finally told him I was done, not realizing the deep well of my despair.
He'd sworn he wasn't divorcing me, his voice sharp and dismissive, just as he had dismissed my pain for years.
I still remember the day my heart turned to stone: Sabrina "accidentally" knocking over the urn holding the ashes of our first lost baby, and Ethan rushing to comfort her, then turning to me, his eyes full of irritation, telling me to "get over it."
But the truth was far more insidious, lurking beneath his carefully crafted image.
An anonymous email, an audio file revealing his chilling plan, had shattered any lingering hope or trust.
His calm, clear voice: "...She' s useful for that, at least."
Useful.
He meant my body, my unborn child, a living incubator to harvest cord blood for Sabrina' s dying sister.
My baby wasn't a crop.
My body wasn't a field to be plowed for his convenience.
The decision was instant, brutal, and mine alone.
I signed the divorce papers, the only certainty I had left in a world that had crumbled around me.
And then, I knew, it was time to leave. You Can't Sell What's Priceless: Her $200M Bid
Billionaires My husband, Mark Vance, built a tech empire from our garage – mostly with my money, my ideas, and my tireless support.
We were the Silicon Valley power couple, or so I thought.
Tonight, at a lavish charity gala, I planned to buy him a special anniversary gift, a rare NFT.
My paddle was raised, ready to bid.
Then, I watched in horror as Mark, smirking, used our joint high-limit credit card to snatch the very same NFT – not for me, not for us, but for Tiffany Hayes, his flashy ex-girlfriend, right across the room.
My blood ran cold, but my mind was clearer than ever.
I quietly froze our joint card, watching Tiffany's public meltdown as her payment for our NFT was declined.
Mark was furious, his fake smiles turning chillingly real.
He then twisted my arm into a "business trip" to a lavish private island, only to drug me upon arrival.
I woke up disoriented, locked in a luxurious cage.
Then I found myself on a stage, an auctioneer booming about selling me – my "services" and "future commitments" – to a room full of leering strangers.
He announced all our assets were liquid, offshore, and now "his."
The man I built, the man I trusted, was auctioning off my life, my dignity, as payback for a declined credit card.
Was this truly the depths of his betrayal? The ultimate degradation?
But as despair threatened to swallow me, a flicker of memory, a whisper from my grandmother, ignited a cold, hard rage.
He thought he broke me.
He thought he had won.
He had no idea what I was truly capable of.
With my voice steady and clear, I looked him in the eye and made my own bid: "$200 million. I'm buying myself." The Phoenix Artist
Modern Sarah Miller, an acclaimed artist, was finally returning to New York for her biggest solo exhibition, "Echoes in Sterling," ready to embrace a future with her kind and steady fiancé, Liam Chen.
But a single shocking headline-"Vanderbilt Heir Embroiled in New Scandal"-ripped through her carefully constructed peace, dragging her back to a past she' d fought for years to bury.
Years ago, she' d saved an injured, amnesiac man she called 'Leo,' building a world of pure, selfless love in her cramped Brooklyn studio, his devotion marked by her initials tattooed over his heart.
Yet, when his memory returned, revealing him as Ethan Vanderbilt, scion of a powerful real estate empire, that tender love shattered under the weight of his family' s expectations and a pre-arranged engagement to the formidable Isabelle Harrington.
The cruel denouement came at a lavish gala: Isabelle, with Ethan watching, orchestrated the public destruction of Sarah' s art and even tore her deceased grandmother' s cherished locket from her neck.
Ethan, the man who once promised her the world, stood by, dismissing her despair as "making a scene," his betrayal complete.
With nothing left but a two-million-dollar check, a chilling price for her silence, Sarah fled New York, vowing to transform her agony into art.
Now, she' s back, a celebrated artist on her own terms, but the city that broke her whispers with old ghosts, and the man who betrayed her has evolved into something far more dangerous, obsessed with a warped form of atonement. Beyond the Altar
Horror My father, Pastor Miller, knew everyone in Oakhaven. After his funeral, as people left, I sat in the front pew, my fiancé David’s hand on my arm. My mother, beside me, was a broken bird. We were a grieving family, facing loss, but united.
Then, just as I thought the church was empty, the side door creaked open. Three men. My father’s ashes, held sacred moments before, were cruelly threatened. They dragged me to the office. For eight hours, they hurt me. They filmed everything.
By noon, the video was everywhere. My phone blew up with cruelty, not comfort. David called, his voice flat. “The wedding… it’s off.” My job was gone. My mother saw it. Two days later, she died, her eyes full of a pain I couldn’t fix. I was alone. Utterly ruined.
My supposed savior, Michael Vance, David’s older brother, offered me an escape: marriage. I was desperate, saying yes. Six months later, I overheard his drunken confession: Michael orchestrated my hell. All of it. The assault, the video, even my father’s ruin. All for another woman, Jessica Thorne. How could the man who offered me safety be the architect of my destruction?
After being publicly shamed again and institutionalized, a chilling thought solidified: I was no longer a victim. A cold, hard whisper formed in my mind: *Revenge.* With my sharp lawyer aunt by my side, I knew what had to be done. They would pay. 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. 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. 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. 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." 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. The Don's Pawn, A Queen's Revenge
Rabbit My family sent me to marry into the enemy, a ruthless Don in Chicago. From the moment I arrived, I was treated like a common whore, a pawn to be humiliated and discarded. But they made one fatal mistake: they thought I was a lamb, when I was really a wolf in disguise.
Sent to Chicago for an arranged marriage with Don Vincenzo Moretti, Isabella Falcone arrived at his hostile estate, instantly an unwelcome outsider.
Hostility turned personal. Publicly shamed and trapped in Vincenzo's bed by his cousin, the Don accused me of whoring for family favor.
I faced constant humiliation. Family insulted me, staff trapped me. Vincenzo was cold. A rival framed me with a planted diamond, and the Consigliere declared me a thief, ordering soldiers to drag me away.
Branded a criminal by a rigged game, injustice fueled a cold, clear rage. I was a pawn, but I would show them a queen.
My fear hardened into lethal resolve. Alida Savage thought she'd destroyed me, but only declared war on the wrong woman. I would tear down all who dared to underestimate me.
Too Late: The Don's Regretful Pursuit
Elisha Plasket I sat at the head of the mahogany table, the heavy heirloom emeralds around my neck marking me as the future Queen of the Cosa Nostra.
But the man beside me—Jax Viles, the most feared Don in New York—had his hand resting possessively on the thigh of the woman sitting to his right.
She wasn't his fiancée. I was.
The humiliation didn't stop at dinner. Jax moved her into my home, turned my dance studio into her closet, and when she pushed me down a flight of stairs, he stepped over my broken body to comfort her because she was "shaken up."
He started a bloody gang war just to defend her honor, yet ignored my desperate calls warning him of an ambush.
To him, I wasn't a partner. I was furniture—a fixture that was expected to be silent and useful. He would burn the world to ash for her, but for me, he wouldn't even skip a meeting.
So, while he was out celebrating his victory for her, I didn't wait for him to come home.
I left the engagement ring in the trash can next to the toilet.
On his desk, I left a single note: "I release you from the oath. I hope she's worth the war."
By the time he realized his mistake and came looking for his shadow, I was already gone, ready to become the Queen of my own life. Mistaken Identity: Loving The Wrong Twin Sister
Tabbie Platt I replaced my twin sister in a marriage contract to the ruthless Mafia Don, Donovan Blackwood.
For three years, I was a ghost in his home, silently enduring his coldness while he flaunted his mistress, Chloe.
On the very last day of our contract, Chloe staged an accident.
Donovan didn't hesitate.
He forced me to drain my blood to save her life.
Then, to prove his loyalty to her, he drove me to the cliffs and pushed me into the freezing ocean.
He even locked me in a cellar infested with spiders—my deepest phobia—because she lied and said I threatened her.
He thought he was punishing the spoiled, arrogant Isabella.
He didn't know he was breaking Ava, the woman who had silently memorized his allergies and waited up for him in the dark every single night.
When I finally took my fifty million dollars and vanished, I left behind nothing but the divorce papers and a photo revealing the truth.
He tore the city apart, destroying my family to find me, only to realize he had tortured the wrong woman.
Now, he is standing on my porch in the pouring rain, staring in horror at the simple wooden ring on my finger given to me by another man.
He falls to his knees, begging for a chance to love the wife he tried to destroy.
I look at him, feeling absolutely nothing.
"It's too late, Donovan," I say, locking the door. "You killed her." 
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