Lively
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Lively's Books and Stories
Zero Score: My Escape from the Mafia Don
Mafia For three years, I was the wife of Don Dante Moretti. But our marriage was a transaction, and my heart was the price. I kept a ledger, deducting points for every time he chose her—his first love, Isabella—over me. When the score reached zero, I would be free.
After he abandoned me on a roadside to rush to Isabella's side, I was hit by a car. I woke up in the ER, bleeding, only to hear a nurse shout that I was two months pregnant. A tiny, impossible hope flared in my chest.
But as the doctors scrambled to save me, they patched my husband through on speakerphone. His voice was cold and absolute.
“Isabella’s condition is critical,” he ordered. “Not one drop of the reserve blood is to be touched until she is safe. I don't care who else needs it.”
I lost the baby. Our child, sacrificed by its own father. I later learned Isabella had only suffered a minor cut. The blood was just a “precautionary measure.”
The tiny flicker of hope was extinguished, and something inside me snapped, clean and final. The debt was paid.
Alone in the silence, I made the last entry in my ledger, bringing the score to zero. I signed the divorce papers I had already prepared, left them on his desk, and walked out of his life forever. He Chose The Mistress, Losing His True Queen
Mafia I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York.
To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen.
But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table.
It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test.
"Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture."
I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking.
He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago.
He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy.
He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go.
He was wrong.
I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don.
And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy.
I wanted to erase him.
I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built.
Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa."
It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul.
On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial.
When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth.
He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife.
Because the woman who loved him no longer existed. In Love With My Ex's Uncle
Modern On the day of the wedding, Brendan left me and went to find his true love. When I called him, he, who had always been gentle to me, showed impatience for the first time, saying, "It's just a wedding, I'll make it up to you when I get back." Feeling disheartened, I suggested calling off the wedding. Brendan thought I was just being stubborn, and in the face of friends' advice, he said, "It's okay, when she calms down, she will come find me." It wasn't until Edrence, the prince, posted our marriage certificate that Brendan suddenly went crazy and came knocking on my door. When he saw the man who opened the door, he was slightly stunned. And I, standing behind the man, with a blush still on my face, leaned forward and asked, "Nephew, what brings you to see your auntie so late?" The Woman Who Reclaimed Life
Fantasy The antiseptic smell was the last thing I remembered.
In my "other" life, the one that ended in blood and despair, I died from late-stage cancer in an unpaid hospital bed.
My parents, Sarah and Robert, cried. They held my hand, promising to take care of everything, just as they had for years while I diligently sent them money for my health insurance.
But they lied. The money was gone, squandered on a secret life.
My father finally broke, confessing they' d adopted a son, Liam, channeling all my money to him, building a new family on the foundation of my slow death.
The betrayal shattered something inside me. The weight of the kitchen knife, my mother' s scream, then nothing.
Until I blinked.
Sunlight streamed through my bedroom window. My husband, David, slept beside me. My body felt healthy, a full year before Dr. Evans' death sentence.
A terrifying, undeserved second chance.
I remembered the insurance renewal notice I' d ignored yesterday because I trusted them. This time, I wouldn't.
When I called my mother, her usual syrupy sweetness faltered. "Oh… perfectly fine if you handle that yourself," she said, before asking for another twenty thousand dollars for renovations.
I gave it to them, a ticket to the truth.
Then came the photo: a blurry, half-demolished kitchen, and in the corner, a bright blue, brand-new plastic dinosaur. Liam already existed.
The confusion lifted, replaced by a cold, sharp purpose. The hunt had begun. The Price of His Bitter Regret
Modern Five years ago, my brother Declan stripped me of our family name and cast me out. Now, I was a cocktail waitress with terminal cancer, desperately trying to save enough money for my own urn.
To make the final payment, I got on my knees on the cold club floor to bark like a dog for a drunk man's cash.
My brother saw it all. But instead of helping, his face twisted in disgust. He fired me on the spot, withheld my final paycheck, and swore I'd never work in this city again, stealing my last chance to die with a shred of dignity.
He grabbed my arm, his eyes burning with a cold fire I once thought was reserved for his business rivals.
"I don't care if you die," he spat.
And in that moment, I knew he meant it. The last flicker of hope died. He had taken my name, my health, and my future. Now, he had even taken my death.
So I wrote a letter, revealing the truth he refused to see for five years-about the stolen watch, the woman who framed me, and the cancer eating me alive.
Then, I walked to the river. If I couldn't live with dignity, I would let my death be the final, undeniable truth. The Man Who Broke Her Heart
Romance For ten years, my stepbrother Kason Oneal was my protector. After our parents divorced, he fought to keep me in his home, becoming the only family I had. Everyone knew he cherished me, and my gratitude slowly blossomed into a secret love.
Then, his old high school flame, Dalia Keith, came back.
The man who once kissed me in the dark of my room vanished overnight, replaced by a stranger. I overheard him telling Dalia, "She's just my stepsister. I feel sorry for her, that's all."
He demanded I give back the jade pendant he once worked all summer to buy for my birthday, only to give it to her.
When I asked to move out of the room next to his, he laughed cruelly. "You'll move into the servant's quarters in the basement. That's where you belong now."
The final blow came when he gave an interview to the press, painting me as a clingy, delusional girl. I became the public villain in their perfect love story, a parasite who couldn't let him go.
Staring at a taunting picture Dalia sent of her wearing my pendant, I finally understood. My love was worthless. I picked up the phone and called my biological father. "Dad, I agree. I want to marry Hadley Payne." The Price Of Love, A Life Reclaimed
Modern The New Year's trip was meant to be a fresh start, my final test to prove myself worthy of Chloe Davis' s powerful family. I spent the holiday tirelessly entertaining her restless younger brother, Leo, a frantic effort to be the perfect future brother-in-law.
Then, a single scream shattered everything. When I rushed out, Leo lay twisted at the bottom of a deep excavation pit, buried under steel and concrete.
Just like that, the Davis family turned on me. Chloe's father, purple with rage, screamed, "This is your fault! You were supposed to be watching him!" Chloe stood behind him, her face a mask of horror and blame, refusing even to look at me. Their influence was a weapon, brutally efficient. Overnight, my family's construction business was ruined, contracts canceled, loans called in. A week later, two men ambushed me, beating me until my bones cracked, kicking my leg until something snapped, smashing my face into a brick wall.
I woke up in a public hospital, disfigured and permanently limping, alive but utterly broken. To add insult to agony, the news blared, showing Chloe Davis marrying my best friend, Mark Johnson-the city' s new golden couple, smiling for the cameras. My betrayal was complete.
I couldn' t comprehend how my life had been so utterly decimated, all hinged on a supposed accident and baseless accusations. Why me? Why this brutal, undeserved fate?
Just as I was about to jump from the city' s tallest building, a voice cut through the wind: "Don't do it!" It was Sophia Anderson, the mysterious tech mogul, offering a salvation I never expected, a second chance I desperately clung to. But salvation doesn't always look like promised heaven. Surviving Eleanor: A Daughter's Rebellion
Horror The smell of grain and something sour-a barn in my suburban kitchen-was the first sign of something deeply wrong with my seemingly normal life with my mother, Eleanor.
Standing over the blender, humming an unsettling tune, she poured what looked like chicken feed into it, her eyes wild with a grim, fanatical determination.
"It's for your own good, Sarah," she explained, utterly calm, "The curse from your past life, when you were a neglected pig, is still holding you back. This will cleanse you."
My stomach lurched; this wasn' t the first time she' d spouted Mrs. Gable's charlatan nonsense, but the ritualistic "cleansing" had never been this tangible.
"I am not drinking animal feed," I said, my voice shaking with disgust. "This is insane."
Her composure shattered. "You will drink it!" she shrieked, lunging at me with the sloshing blender jar, pinning me against the wall as the world went dark.
I gasped, sucking in the familiar, acrid smell, my eyes snapping open to find myself on the kitchen floor, my mother still humming, the bag of chicken feed unopened.
I scrambled up, touching the back of my head-no blood, no pain, just the impossible, terrifying realization: I had died, and now I was back.
"Mom, what are you doing?" the words escaped me, a ghostly echo of a conversation that had already occurred.
Her face held the same fanatical expression, as she began, "It's for your own good, Sarah. Mrs. Gable was very clear-"
"No," I cut her off, the phantom pain in my skull too real, "Stop."
Then came the final blow, a chilling announcement that shattered any remaining hope: "I've already found a man for you. Mark will be here any minute. He's a good, strong man. He knows what to do with a difficult woman like you."
This wasn't just a curse; it was a cage. I had to get out. When Home Becomes A Battlefield
Modern I was just an ambitious architect, chasing a prestigious fellowship that would define my career.
But then the email came, and my world blurred: the fellowship was awarded to my husband' s best friend, Ethan, who had no business getting it.
My mother-in-law, Debra, beamed with feigned sympathy, calling it "God's plan" for me to focus on "a family," while my husband, Andrew, nodded along, smugly implying my career was an obstacle.
It wasn't just losing a fellowship; it was discovering they had "accidentally" unplugged my laptop, erasing hours of work, and Andrew had allowed his mother to give away a $3,000 bottle of Scotch meant to save my promotion.
The final, horrifying blow came when I overheard Andrew tell Debra he' d get me pregnant "even if I have to do it behind her back," just to make me "settle down and be a proper wife."
They thought they had me trapped, a pawn in their twisted game of family.
They had no idea that their cruel little "plan" had just awakened a cold, precise fury they couldn't even begin to imagine. My Wife's Silent Witness
Romance My wife, Isabella, was my entire world.
I' d given her my kidney, saved her life, sacrificing my burgeoning career as a concert pianist without a second thought.
Our love was my masterpiece.
But after a minor car crash, she woke up claiming amnesia, her eyes hollow, devoid of any recognition for her husband.
My place was immediately usurped by Julian, her manipulative childhood friend, and I became nothing but a nuisance.
At a dinner he hosted, with a chilling smirk, Isabella coerced me, a man with a life-threatening peanut allergy, into eating poisoned food.
As my body convulsed and I choked for air, she stood by, watching me die on the restaurant floor, her laughter mingling with Julian's as I slipped into darkness.
As a helpless ghost, my torment only deepened.
I witnessed her utter callousness towards my corpse, then Julian' s brutal physical assault and cold-blooded deception of Eleanor, my beloved mother-in-law, the only soul who fought for me.
The pain of betrayal was eclipsed only by profound confusion: how could the woman I saved become such a monster?
Then, a shocking truth emerged from hospital security footage: Isabella' s amnesia was a calculating lie, and Julian was a murderer, caught red-handed.
An icy, terrifying resolve ignited in her eyes, transforming her.
Now, a merciless game of vengeance begins, and Julian, the architect of our collective ruin, is about to face a reckoning far worse than death. Unscripted: My Own Story
Romance My life with Jake was supposed to be a rom-com: I, the supportive girlfriend, he, the brooding game developer destined for greatness.
But our apartment was a toxic mess of his empty energy drinks and my growing resentment, as the rent-paying backbone of his "genius."
Strange, unsolicited “viewer comments” glowed in the air around me, always excusing his messes, validating his outbursts, and telling me how to be the "perfect" partner.
They echoed in my ears the night Jake threw a tantrum over a hot dog, shattering our matching mugs and leaving me cut and bleeding, while the comments screamed that he was just "hangry" and "passionate."
After Jake publicly flaunted his "support crew" and I lost my major freelance job due to the "difficult" reputation he manufactured, I was drowning in a narrative everyone else seemed to believe.
Why was my life so chaotic, and why did everyone, even my own parents, act like I was the problem?
Fleeing in despair, I stumbled upon a shocking truth: My entire life, every argument, every emotional manipulation, was a meticulously crafted "script" by a "Relationship Architect" named Mark Taylor, designed to make me the perfect, submissive character in Jake's "hero's journey." His Ex, My Hell
Romance For five years, I was Mrs. Davenport, cleaning up after my husband's one-night stands and enduring his casual cruelty.
Call it a gilded cage, but this mansion was my prison, bought by my sacrifice: I was the secret medical lifeline keeping him, Ethan Davenport, alive.
Our cruel contract was nearing its end, just three months left.
Then, Chloe, his perfect ex-girlfriend, waltzed back in.
Her arrival wasn't a gentle reunion; it was a wrecking ball designed to finish what Ethan's neglect had started.
She smeared my name, orchestrated a public humiliation, and then watched, smiling, as Ethan, fueled by rage and alcohol, dragged me to a damp, cold cellar.
He tore apart my most sacred possession-my fiancé's diary-then brutally killed my loyal dog, Buddy, right before my eyes.
As I bled, collapsing into unconsciousness, I heard his ex's venomous whisper: she'd had all my precious memories of him incinerated.
They had taken everything.
My dignity, my love, my last connection to a life I cherished.
My heart was a hollowed-out space, suffocating under a mountain of grief and betrayal.
How could a human being be so cruel, so blind, to the sacrifices I'd made to keep him alive?
But on the day our notorious contract officially expired, I walked out.
With nothing but the clothes on my back and a one-way ticket to a remote Pacific Northwest retreat, I finally chose myself.
It was time to disappear, to burn away the past, and somehow, exist again. You might like
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. 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. 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.
His Discarded Gem: Shining In The Ruthless Don's Arms
Temple Madison For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe.
On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring.
Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger.
Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family.
When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence.
"Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets."
My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet.
He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts.
He was wrong.
With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use.
Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed.
*I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.*
His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning.
*The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?*
I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me.
I looked down and typed three letters.
*Yes.* 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. 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?
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. You Can't Buy My Heart, Mr. Vitiello
JENNIFER JARVIS My father sold me to the Vitiello Crime Family to settle a three-million-dollar gambling debt.
For three years, I was Dante Vitiello’s property. I warmed his bed, tended his wounds, and let him own every part of me.
I thought I was earning my freedom. I thought I mattered.
Then his "true queen," the Mafia Princess Sofia, returned to the city.
Dante pushed me off his lap the moment she walked into the room. He ordered me to leave because, in the presence of his equal, I was nothing more than "the help."
The humiliation didn't stop there.
He evicted me from the penthouse to renovate it for her.
At a gala, he outbid me for my grandmother’s heirloom bracelet—my family's last scrap of dignity—just to gift it to Sofia in front of the entire city.
But the final blow came when he came to my bed drunk one last time.
He kissed me with a desperate hunger, whispering that he was only "practicing" his technique on me so he would be perfect for her.
I realized then that I wasn't a person to him. I was a training dummy. A debt with a pulse.
He told me to wait for him while he took her to Paris. He thought I would stay in the kennel like a good pet.
He was wrong.
While he was gone, I accepted a surgical fellowship in Switzerland.
I snapped my SIM card in half, left his millions on the floor, and boarded a one-way flight.
By the time the Wolf comes home to find his cage empty, I will be gone. 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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