REGINA HUTCHINSON
19 Published Stories
REGINA HUTCHINSON's Books and Stories
The Scars He Left: A Second Chance At Happiness
Mafia "Fifty strikes," Floyd ordered, his voice devoid of warmth.
I knelt in the freezing snow, watching the man I had taken a bullet for five years ago stand beside his new fiancée, Jaylah.
Because Jaylah tore her engagement dress and blamed me, Floyd let his men beat me until my face was unrecognizable.
But that was just the beginning of my hell.
To save his alliance with Jaylah's family, he drained my blood to save her mother, ignoring my own fading pulse.
When Jaylah lied that I tried to burn her, Floyd forced me to thrust my hands—my architect's hands—into glowing coals until the flesh melted.
He stripped me of my name, my protection, and finally, my life.
"You are a liability," he said, pushing me into the freezing pool with a skimmer pole.
He watched me drown with the same detached interest he used to inspect firearms.
My lungs burned, and my heart turned to ice. I died hating him more than I ever loved him.
I thought it was the end.
But then, I gasped.
Air rushed into my lungs.
I wasn't in the water. I was sitting at a drafting table, five years before the nightmare began.
My hands were smooth. No scars. No burns.
And when Floyd Meyers approached me on the quad, smiling like the boy I used to love, I didn't smile back.
I ran. A Wife's Tragic End, His Awakening
Modern The man who destroyed my life stood over my broken body, but he didn't recognize me. My husband, Carter, was just the lawyer handling the "Jane Doe" found at his client's construction site, worried only about legal complications.
As a ghost, I watched him dismiss every part of me. The silver locket I' d clutched in my hand?
"Just another piece of evidence," he said flatly.
The faded tattoo on my wrist? "An irrelevant detail." He called me a selfish liar when my severe heart condition kept me from donating bone marrow to his manipulative fiancée, Cecelia. He threw me out of his car and left me on a street corner, where her thugs found me.
He was consumed with finding justice for a stranger, blind to the fact that he was the one who had sentenced his own wife to death.
I thought he'd never know. But then, the police showed him security footage from a community center. He saw my face, alive and smiling. And in that instant, the man who refused to see me in life was forced to see me in death. Shattered Vows: No Second Chances
Modern My husband, Liam, was the man I literally gave a piece of myself to, a kidney donated to save his life. I loved him with a devotion that ran deeper than blood. But this morning, I discovered the heart beating inside him was now completely unfaithful, and the life I saved had been used to destroy mine.
For years, Liam, the empire-builder, was my perfect husband, still making my favorite breakfast.
Then his phone buzzed: a text from "Ava Sinclair" – *Can't wait for tonight.* His panicked reaction and cold, fake kiss shattered everything.
His betrayal quickly unraveled: late nights, whispered calls, a strange perfume. On our anniversary, he gave Ava the real "Star" necklace, sending me a fake. A hidden photo and ultrasound confirmed it: Liam with Ava and "our baby." He then abandoned me for Ava. Overhearing Liam call me "the brand" and "barren" while I carried his child, I made the agonizing choice to terminate my pregnancy.
Hollowed but resolute, I burned with injustice. I had sacrificed a life because of his lies; the man I saved viewed me as a broken asset.
When Liam called, oblivious, promising a "real surprise" at his tower, my voice was steel. I would go, not to celebrate, but to walk into the fire and finally be free. The Star He Left Bleeding
Modern For three years, I, Hollywood's unbreakable star Aliza Cabrera, chased the one man I couldn't have: the brilliant, cold surgeon Dr. Etienne McCarthy. My relentless pursuit was a public spectacle, met only with his icy indifference.
Then, a single phone call shattered my world. My mother, her voice dripping with smug triumph, announced his engagement. Not to me, but to my manipulative stepsister, Kaylee.
The betrayal cut deeper when I discovered the truth. His coldness wasn't for everyone; it was a calculated performance orchestrated by Kaylee. "I did what you asked, Kaylee," he'd whispered to her, his voice laced with a devotion he never showed me. "Anything for you."
When Kaylee's lies escalated to a fire that nearly killed me, Etienne saved me, only to believe her twisted story that I had set it myself. He chose her, again and again, even leaving me bleeding on an operating table because Kaylee feigned a panic attack. "My fiancée needs me," were his final words to me.
I was nothing to him. A nuisance. A convenient discard. The love I felt turned to ash.
So I vanished. I rebuilt my life, becoming a media mogul, powerful and untouchable. I found real love with a kind man named Collins. But just as I found my peace, a ghost from the past reappeared, his eyes filled with a desperate, belated regret. This time, he wouldn't break me. This time, I would be the one to walk away. Five Years, A Forged Vow
Modern For five years, I was the devoted wife who helped Brandon build his tech empire.
But the moment his first love, Kristal, returned with a feigned injury, he handed her the diamond necklace meant for our anniversary and abandoned me in a torrential storm.
He knew my PTSD from a past kidnapping made storms terrifying, yet he drove away with her without a backward glance.
When I called him for help, terrified of the stranger driving my rideshare, it was Kristal who answered.
"Brandon is in the shower," she taunted. "Don't disturb our reunion."
I barely escaped an assault that night, only to return home and discover the ultimate betrayal: Brandon never filed our marriage license in the US.
Legally, I was never his wife. I was just a placeholder until she came back.
While he was busy comforting her, I didn't scream or fight.
I simply shredded the fake wedding certificate, packed my bags, and vanished.
By the time he realized his mistake and came begging on his knees, I was already gone. The Serpent's Kiss: A Wife's Revenge
Romance In my first life, I was the beloved adopted daughter of the Stanton family. My three perfect brothers showered me with affection, and Jackson, my first love, promised me the world.
But it was all a lie. When they set the mansion on fire, they stood on the lawn and watched me burn.
I heard them laughing through the flames.
"She's just an orphan," they said. "Pretending to love her all these years has been exhausting."
The only one who ran into the fire for me was Grayson Stanton—the cold, distant uncle who everyone said hated me.
He held me as the roof collapsed, whispering, "I'm with you." He died for me.
My world was built on their affection, a perfect, horrible lie.
Now, I've woken up again, back in the lawyer's office, one week before the fire.
To inherit the multi-billion dollar fortune, the will says I must marry one of my three brothers—my murderers.
So when the lawyer asked for my choice, I smiled.
"I choose Grayson Stanton." The Past's Unwanted Return
Modern The pregnancy test lay on our bathroom counter, two aggressive pink lines screaming a judgment. Seven years ago, I had a vasectomy-a choice Sarah and I made together, cementing our child-free life.
But now, she stood beside me, eyes wide with an unnerving excitement, claiming this was a "miracle," a fulfillment of some bizarre "destiny card" from a tarot reader. My gut screamed impossible, yet her practiced smile, laced with an unsettling desperation, cornered me.
I played along, a silent actor in her twisted play, watching her cling to this absurd narrative. My parents, then hers, were swept into the delusion, celebrating a grandchild I knew couldn't be mine. The deeper I sank into the charade, the more frantic her desperate whispers to her "mom" grew, texts angled away.
Why was she so desperate, so secretive? What terror drove her to this elaborate lie? The truth was a chilling void, a gnawing suspicion that threatened to swallow me whole.
Then, a hushed phone call from the next room. "No, Mark, you can't just show up here. Ethan is home." My wife's voice, intimate. Familiar. And then, the cruel, mocking laugh: "He actually believes that stupid story about the destiny card. He' s so easy to manage. Loyal like a puppy." My sanity shattered. This wasn't a miracle; it was a cold, calculated betrayal. This was her high school sweetheart, Mark, and their secret life-including "the last two times" and "another abortion." I would make her play out her perfect scene at her parents' anniversary party, then tear it all down. No Second Chance For Love
Romance I was just a ranch hand, she was a Redding heiress. Our love was a defiance, a whisper against the roaring wind of her family's dynastic rules. Seraphina chose me, giving up everything, promising forever.
Then, her family made a devil' s bargain: she was forced to give them a male heir with their rival' s son, Wyatt Cole, to eventually be with me. I watched, tormented, as she became pregnant, only for her to bear a daughter, prolonging the agonizing charade. To add insult to injury, her infant child fell mysteriously ill, and without hesitation, every finger pointed at me.
I was blamed, accused of poisoning the baby, and dragged into a frozen meat locker in the heart of a Wyoming blizzard. Through the frosted glass, I saw Sera. Her eyes, once full of fire for me, were cold with disappointment. "Why would you hurt my child?" she asked, shattering my world. The woman who once cradled my smallest cuts now watched me bleed, giving my family's prized buckle to my rival, openly choosing him over and over again.
How could the woman who pledged her soul to me, who bled for me, believe I was a monster? How could she watch me endure such humiliation and torture without a single word of defense? What unknown force compelled her to turn her back on the very man she claimed was her only home?
Broken beyond repair, I walked away from the endless torment, vanishing into the vast, remote mountains, vowing to erase every trace of the life I' d lost. But some secrets refuse to stay buried, and some pasts insist on a final, shattering confrontation. His Gilded Lie, Her Golden Revenge
Romance My life was perfect: a loving husband, a beautiful Charleston home, and a crucial grant to restore a historic house.
But my lawyer' s words shattered it all.
"There's an issue with the spousal disclosures," he said, pushing a marriage certificate across his desk.
It wasn't mine.
It was Ethan' s, marrying his assistant, Chloe Vance, five years ago.
My seven-year marriage was a lie.
Chloe was always there, her presence dismissed by Ethan as "purely professional."
I had wanted to believe him.
Then I overheard them: Ethan confessing he needed me for "legitimacy" and Chloe for "something vital."
The betrayal was colder, more calculated than I imagined.
He left me for dead, tortured and disfigured, in a damp basement, after Chloe orchestrated the attack using his men.
He even gave her my great-grandmother' s locket-my heritage-as if replacing me, piece by precious piece.
How could he?
How could the man I loved, my soulmate, be so monstrously manipulative, so blind, so cruel?
My body screamed in pain, but my heart felt nothing but an echoing emptiness.
My entire existence was a charade, a cruel joke.
But as I lay there, broken and discarded, a chilling resolve took root.
Amelia Hayes was dead.
It was time for Grace Thorne to be born.
I would not just survive; I would rise from the ashes and dismantle every last piece of his gilded empire.
This was not just revenge; this was rebalancing the scales, permanently. Shattered Dreams, Renewed Power
Fantasy I was Chloe, a high school student with Ivy League dreams, just two months shy of the SATs.
Our kind housekeeper, Ms. Evans, offered me a "special calming tea" to ease my nerves.
It wasn't comforting.
It was a soul-swapping recipe that stole my life.
I woke up trapped in the body of Brenda, Ms. Evans's resentful, academically hopeless daughter.
Brenda, in my body, went to the SATs and deliberately caused a horrific scene.
She tore up the test.
They disqualified me.
They blacklisted me.
My parents, blindly trusting Ms. Evans, believed I'd had a breakdown or cheated.
Their disappointment crushed me.
My Ivy League dreams shattered into a million pieces.
Ostracized and consumed by despair, I faded away.
I simply stopped.
The horror of remembering, the injustice of watching my future crumble, burned within me.
Why did Ms. Evans and her daughter hate me enough to destroy me?
But then, I woke up.
I was back, two months before the SATs, alive again, before everything went to hell.
This time, I wouldn't just prevent it.
I would understand why, and then I would make them pay. Reclaiming Her Crown: The Sterling Saga
Modern Sarah Miller was the quiet, scar-faced tech genius at Apex Innovations, engaged to the charming CEO, Ethan Hayes.
She just wanted to build something amazing, leading Apex' s most critical project, Nightshade, her professional pride and joy.
Then, Ethan introduced Brittany Evans, a bubbly, blonde "coding prodigy" intern.
Tasked with mentoring her, I quickly saw through Brittany's dazzling smile: she was utterly incompetent, yet constantly slipped into Ethan's private office.
My honest performance review, highlighting her lack of technical depth, became my corporate death sentence.
The next day, Ethan publicly stripped me of everything.
My lead role on Nightshade, my groundbreaking project, and even my earned Apex Innovator Fellowship-all given to Brittany.
He then stood before the entire engineering department and, with icy words, accused me of "pettiness" and "jealousy."
The applause for Brittany was a hammer blow, each clap echoing my humiliation and betrayal.
How could the man I loved, the man who supposedly protected me, do this?
The injustice was unbearable.
All my loyalty, my years of work, thrown away for an intern who spent two weeks charming the boss.
It made no sense. Why would Ethan sacrifice his company' s future for her?
My mind reeled, desperate for an answer that wasn't just "he's a fool."
As I walked out of Apex, leaving my old life behind, something shifted.
The glasses came off. My mousy facade crumbled. The quiet engineer was dead.
Because the truth was far more complex: Sarah Miller was a carefully constructed lie.
And now, the real Sarah-a Sterling heiress, a spy with a score to settle-was finally ready to play. The Missing Wife's Return
Modern We were the quintessential Chicago love story, high school sweethearts, married for five blissful years.
My husband, Michael, a successful real estate developer, suddenly longed for a family, and our high-profile OB-GYN, Dr. Peterson, joyfully announced we were expecting twins.
But eight months into my pregnancy, a chilling conversation changed everything.
I overheard Michael conspiring with Dr. Peterson, not about our supposed twins, but about 'Chloe's' baby, and a forced C-section for me to steal her child.
"Born a month apart, they won't look like twins," Dr. Peterson warned, yet Michael heartlessly replied, "She won't see them much anyway; I'll keep her occupied."
In that horrifying moment, I realized my beloved husband planned to use me to legitimize another woman's baby, then discard me.
He was a monster beneath the charming facade, frantically searching for his "missing" pregnant wife on national TV, all a performance.
He bought me my dream bakery and orchestrated a public reunion for the cameras, while inside, I felt only cold, sickening dread.
Then came Chloe's anonymous messages and Michael's sickening "promotional wedding" with his pregnant mistress, humiliating me publicly.
The man I loved, the man I married, was a ghost, replaced by a calculating schemer.
How could the man I trusted utterly betray me, twisting our love into such a grotesque charade?
But while he reveled in his deception, I was already planning my escape.
I had to protect my baby from his sick game, so aided by my powerful mother, I left him with divorce papers, ready for a final act he'd never forget.
His confident charade was his undoing; my departure was my fierce liberation. Back From The Grave For My Daughter
Modern The clinking of glasses and polite chatter filled the dining room—a supposedly normal dinner with my wife, Izzy, and a potential business partner, Mr. Henderson.
This was the night meant to seal the deal for my brewery, signaling a bright future for my family.
But in my mind, the scene played out differently, vividly, a horrific déjà vu of the night my life had truly ended.
Last time, this seemingly innocent evening spiraled into a nightmare where my daughter, Lily, died, and I was framed for her murder.
My 'loving wife' Izzy pointed her finger, screaming accusations that chilled me to the bone, painting me as a monster.
My stepmother, Carol, publicly disowned me, her eyes cold and calculating, while my father, Richard, succumbed to the shock, his weak heart giving out.
I ended up in prison, a shivving victim, universally condemned as a child abuser and killer.
The sheer injustice of it all, the betrayal by those closest to me, had festered over what felt like an eternity.
How could they concoct such an elaborate, cruel lie, especially one involving an innocent child?
Why would my own family orchestrate such a devastating downfall?
But this time, I was back, reborn into this exact, horrifying moment, the jagged neck of a broken beer bottle clenched in my fist.
No more polite conversation, no more playing the fool—this time, the script was mine.
This time, Lily would live. Live Broadcast, Dead Girl's Revenge
Romance Two years have passed since my death.
Now, my old roommate, Jessica, stands on a grand stage, accepting the "Annual Community Contributor" award.
Millions across the nation are watching her flawless smile, her humble nod—a true paragon of virtue.
Then, a catastrophic glitch.
My old laptop’s desktop, with a candid photo of my stepbrother Michael, flickers onto the massive screen behind her.
Michael, in the front row, snarls loud enough for every microphone to catch it, “What is that dead girl’s junk doing here? So damn disrespectful!”
The live chat goes wild, demanding this "trash" be removed, calling me sick, a psycho, forever "bad news."
The host, David, clicks open my "Sarah's Private Posts" folder, exposing my innermost thoughts, my hidden struggles, one excruciating entry at a time.
He reads my very first post—detailing a secret donation I made, the same one Jessica brazenly claimed as the start of her own famous charity work.
Jessica feigns shock and Michael, clutching her hand, reinforces their elaborate deception, branding me as an obsessive, selfish liar who brought all her troubles on herself.
My name, once again, is dragged through the mud, my tragic end blamed on my own "faults," even from beyond the grave.
The cameras fixate on Jessica’s carefully staged sorrow, Michael’s theatrical disgust, and the world believes them, condemns me.
Didn’t my sacrifices, my pain, my desperate attempts to uncover the truth mean anything?
But David, the host, doesn’t stop.
He scrolls to the next post, and the one after that.
They have no idea what else I left behind.
Because my carefully documented words, my secret recordings, and undeniable evidence are about to bring their entire empire crashing down, live on national television. Stepsister's Scorn, Lover's Lie
Romance At the elite Auer Conservatory gala, I, Ava Davies, a scholarship violinist, finally felt I belonged, especially with my powerful trustee boyfriend, Ethan Montgomery, effortlessly by my side.
But then, the grand screen, meant for donor names, flickered to life, displaying a deeply intimate video of me—a bedroom scene—for all of New York's elite to see, hijacking my deepest humiliation for public consumption.
As gasps turned to cruel whispers and mocking laughter, and my world crumbled, Ethan, my supposed anchor, vanished, only for me to find him moments later, gloating with my stepsister, Seraphina, admitting our entire relationship was an "amusing diversion" to orchestrate my ruin.
Betrayed by the man I loved, herded like an animal, I was then dragged into a dark alley by his friends, enduring unimaginable torture: chili oil burned my throat, flashes captured my terror, and a searing hot iron branded my shoulder, all for the public's entertainment, sanctioned by Ethan who later, chillingly, instructed kidnappers to "dispose of me."
Why had he, the man who once championed me, orchestrated such monstrous cruelty, leaving me broken and branded, desiring my very eradication—what dark secret propelled this twisted vengeance, and could I ever escape his terrifying obsession?
This raw, agonizing betrayal transformed me: I would not just survive, I would disappear from his world, on my own terms, turning my back on the ruin he created to forge a future where I, Ava, would finally be free. Love Whispers
Romance She came from humble beginnings, with an average academic record, she held a dull job and earned a small income. Wearing makeup and dressing up was not in her daily repertoire. From her head to her toes, inside and out, she was a plain Jane.
Yet, following the night that she had planned to teach her unfaithful brother-in-law a lesson as revenge for her cousin, she was plunged into another world. A chance encounter in the wrong room, and she met him–a man whose entire presence exuded charm, glamour, and perfection.
He could have had any woman that he wanted. Any upper-class lady could have graced his arm at social events to further his business goals while he traded as a corporate raider. However, unexpectedly, he becomes infatuated with 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. His Vow Broke, Her Empire Woke
Hei Baidong I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair.
They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves.
Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment.
But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger.
In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all. Betrayed, I Married the Feared Cripple
Hu Minxue Three days after my fiancé publicly dumped me for my stepsister, the Supreme Don issued a command that silenced the entire estate.
I wasn't being cast aside. I was being sold to Damien Russo.
The "Broken Don." A crippled, scarred monster rumored to have murdered his last two wives.
My adoptive mother, Elena, didn't cry for me. She smirked.
To her, I was finally being disposed of.
She was so confident I was walking to my death that she decided to loot my corpse before I even left.
She forged documents to steal my entire inheritance—my biological mother’s trust fund—to pay for my stepsister’s lavish wedding to my ex.
"She won't need money where she's going," my stepsister laughed, wearing a dress bought with my stolen funds.
They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter.
They thought I was too weak, too stupid, and too afraid of the monster to fight back.
But they made a fatal mistake.
With my aunt’s help, I didn't just find the proof of their embezzlement; I found a weapon.
I’m not running from the monster. I’m going to marry him.
And when I hand him the evidence that the Herrera family stole from his bride, he won't be my executioner.
He will be my vengeance. The Jilted Bride's Secret Mafia King
Benjamen Ernst Standing at the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral, I waited to marry my wealthy fiancé in front of three hundred of New York's elite.
But right before the vows, my phone vibrated in my bouquet. It was a text from my groom: he was backing out because my maid of honor—my supposed best friend—was pregnant with his child.
Before the shock of this double betrayal could even settle, his mother dug her manicured claws into my arm and publicly humiliated me.
"A woman who can't even attract her own man, how is she worthy of the Doyle name?"
She mocked my background, calling me a worthless orphan who only knew how to draw blueprints, turning my broken heart into a public execution of my dignity.
The terrified girl inside me vanished, replaced by a dark, burning rage. I didn't understand why I had to let this arrogant family step all over me while they played the innocent victims.
I yanked my arm free, tore off my expensive lace veil, and walked straight to the podium to grab the microphone.
"The wedding is canceled. The groom is currently busy with my maid of honor."
I walked out of the church, leaving them in absolute shock. But as I stumbled onto the street, I fell right into the arms of Damiano Moretti—the exiled, dangerous mafia boss known as the Ghost, who sat in a custom wheelchair.
Looking into his cold, storm-gray eyes, I made a reckless, desperate deal.
"Marry me." My Husband Sold Me to the Don
Qing Gongzi My husband, Hudson Higgins, used my dowry to buy his way into the Chicago underworld while his family treated me like a servant in my own home. I endured their insults for the sake of my five-year-old daughter, Josie.
But then, the unthinkable happened. I found Josie's small, lifeless body by the garden fountain, while my sister-in-law Karly and mother-in-law Eleanor stood by, complaining about their party plans.
"She was just too naughty," Karly sneered, adjusting her pearls over my dead child.
When I turned to Hudson for help, he looked at me with dead eyes and told me it was just her fate. In that moment of absolute grief, I remembered the words of the ruthless Don Damien Falcone: "Your husband is a man who knows how to close a deal."
The truth sliced through me like a blade. Hudson hadn't just ignored the Don's interest in me; he had actively sold me to the Devil of Chicago to buy his seat at the table. He let his family punish me for the very sin he committed.
I had lost everything-my dignity, my mother, and now my baby-all sacrificed for a man who traded his wife's body for power. The sorrow in my chest evaporated, replaced by a scorching, blinding thirst for a blood vendetta.
After lunging at Hudson and feeling the world explode into white, I opened my eyes to find myself back in the winter of 1928. It was the exact night the nightmare began, and Don Damien Falcone was walking toward me in his penthouse.
This time, I won't be the broken bird in his gilded cage. If Hudson wants to use me to climb the ranks, I will use the Don's dark obsession to burn the Higgins family to the ground. Too Late, Mr. Capo: Your Wife Is Gone
Mo Yufei "Happy Anniversary," my husband said, sliding the separation agreement across the mahogany desk.
It was the eighteenth time in five years I had signed these papers.
Matteo De Luca, the most ruthless Capo in New York, checked his Rolex with cold impatience.
"Sign it, Sera. Bianca is on the ledge again. She needs to see we're over, or she jumps."
Bianca. The ward. The broken bird. The woman whose fragile psyche dictated every moment of my marriage.
I signed my name, and he left me alone on our anniversary to save her. Again.
But saving her wasn't enough.
When Bianca pushed me down a flight of marble stairs in a fit of jealous rage, shattering my spine and leaving me paralyzed, I thought Matteo would finally choose me.
I was wrong.
I woke up in the hospital to find him holding her hand, not mine.
"The security footage has been wiped," he told me, his voice void of emotion. "We cannot have a scandal. You fell, Sera. That is the story."
He erased the truth. He erased my pain.
He protected the woman who crippled me over his own wife.
Two months later, he wheeled me into a gala, playing the doting husband while I sat in the chair that was my prison.
He didn't know I had a burner phone hidden in my velvet dress.
He didn't know that tonight, the obedient wife was going to die on the pavement, and a ghost would rise in her place.
I looked at him one last time and dropped the phone in his lap.
"I hope she's worth it." Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles
Dorine Koestler I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved.
He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again.
"Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports.
For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian.
In return, he treated me like furniture.
He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste.
I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home.
So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco.
I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage.
But I underestimated Dante.
When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat.
He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away. The Enforcer's Jilted Princess
Bone Possolo Tomorrow was my wedding day to Jason Brennan, the heir to a powerful Mafia family.
My family, the Falcones, had even taken in an orphaned girl, Elena, treating her like my own sister.
But in my nightmare of a past life, I choked on my own blood, poisoned by the arsenic Elena slipped into my food every day.
As I lay agonizingly close to death, Jason stood over me with a cold laugh, holding Elena in his arms.
"We just needed the Falcone wealth, Bella. And the docks."
Then came the gunfire. I was forced to watch them slaughter my father and my brother, tearing my family out by the roots.
After my death, Elena even spread vicious rumors that I was a barren spinster, twisting their foul betrayal into a tragic tale of noble sacrifice to completely destroy my legacy.
The metallic tang of my own blood was so real I could still taste the ash.
I didn't understand why the girl my family sheltered for eight years would repay our charity with such venom.
And I understood even less how the man who swore to love me could orchestrate my brutal murder without a shred of hesitation.
Bolting upright in bed, drenched in cold sweat, I realized I had returned to the night before my wedding.
This time, I wouldn't just cancel the engagement. I would hand their treason directly to the Mafia's most terrifying Enforcer, and watch them burn. 
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