Rafaela Kokkotou
10 Published Stories
Rafaela Kokkotou's Books and Stories
He Chose The Mistress Over His Queen
Mafia I was polishing a diamond engagement ring that cost more than a small island when I heard the truth.
My fiancé, the ruthless Don Dante Moretti, was telling his mistress I was nothing more than a glorified bank account.
But it wasn't until the accident that I understood the depth of his cruelty.
While training in the estate gym, a support cable snapped. I fell twenty feet, shattering my leg on impact.
Through the haze of blinding pain, I waited for Dante to save me.
Instead, he rushed to his mistress, Livia—the woman who had cut the wire.
He held her close, soothing her because the loud noise had "startled" her, while I lay broken and bleeding on the floor.
"She won't die," I heard him whisper to her later. "Pain is a good teacher."
My love for him turned to ice in that moment. He didn't just want my father's money; he was letting her plan my assassination to get it.
They thought I was just a porcelain doll to be discarded once the wedding contracts were signed.
They forgot that even a pawn can kill a king.
I wiped the tears from my face and walked straight into the territory of the Valenti Syndicate—Dante's sworn enemy.
"I don't want protection," I told the rival Don, placing the surveillance evidence on his table.
"I want to burn his entire dynasty to the ground." He Chose Glass Over His Diamond Luna
Werewolf My husband, the Alpha, refused to mark me for three years, claiming he was waiting for the "perfect moment." Yet, he had no trouble claiming the "stray" rogue we took in.
I found Alessandro in his study, mocking me as a cold "ice sculpture" while Aria sat in his lap. He didn't just give her his affection; he gave her my life.
He cleared my sanctuary, the greenhouse, to plant cheap tulips for her. He drained the Pack's emergency funds to buy her a five-million-dollar necklace meant for a Luna.
But the ultimate betrayal happened in the stables.
My saddle snapped mid-jump. The fall shattered my leg, and the wound sizzled with liquid silver—sabotage meant to maim me permanently.
When the evidence pointed to Aria, Alessandro didn't punish her. He ordered the evidence buried.
He looked me in the eye and said a broken leg might finally teach me some humility.
He destroyed my reputation to boost his own ego, protecting a woman who was actually sleeping with half his council behind his back.
He thought I would break. He thought I would beg.
Instead, I stood before the entire Pack, played the footage of his mistress's treason, and uttered the words that would destroy him.
"I, Katarina De Luca, reject you." Betrayed For A Fake Heir: The Wife's Exit
Mafia At the auction, my husband raised his paddle and bid five million dollars on the only keepsake I had left of my dead mother.
But he didn't buy the sapphire necklace for me.
He handed the velvet box to his pregnant mistress, Mia, right in front of the entire New York underworld.
When I reached for it, Mia faked a stumble.
Dante moved with the speed of a predator. He shoved me hard to clear space for her.
My body slammed into a marble pillar, shattering my hip, while he scooped her up and carried her out, stepping over my dress without a single glance.
That was only the beginning.
He forced me to drain my blood to save her during a false emergency.
He exiled me to a freezing cabin with no heat, leaving me to be buried alive in an avalanche while he comforted her over a lie.
Lying in the hospital bed after surviving the snow, I realized I no longer hated him.
Hate is passion. Hate implies he still matters.
I felt nothing but a cold, heavy silence.
So when he finally left the house to hunt down the truth about Mia’s baby, I didn't wait for his apology.
I left my wedding ring on the bathroom counter.
I dropped my phone into a sewer grate.
By the time the Dragon of New York realized his wife was gone, I was already in Seattle, painting a new life where monsters couldn't find me. Love, Lies, And A Second Life
Horror The air in the room was stale, thick with the smell of antiseptic and despair.
They told me I was sick, that grief had broken my mind.
My mother-in-law, Martha, would visit, her concern a chilling mask, whispering to doctors how I was hallucinating, a danger to myself and my son, Billy.
"She doesn' t understand that David is gone," she' d insist, loud enough for me to hear.
But the real horror wasn't my madness; it was the truth.
Three days after my husband, David, a decorated police officer, was supposedly killed, I stood at his memorial, expected to mourn.
The man in the casket wasn't David.
It was Mark, his identical twin, missing the faded scar David always had.
That night, I found David, not dead, but alive in our summer cabin, with his childhood sweetheart, Emily Peterson.
He confessed it all with chilling indifference: Mark was killed in a shootout, and David seized the chance for a new life, free from me and Billy.
"I never loved you," he said, as if explaining a simple math problem. "It was always Emily."
I tried to tell everyone-his mother, his captain-but they looked at me with pity, already conditioned by Martha and David' s lies.
They had me committed to a white room, and David married Emily.
My four-year-old son, Billy, was left in their care, crying for me every night.
Then came the unbearable news: Billy was dead, a "tragic accident" from an overdose of cough medicine.
My world shattered.
Desperate, I fashioned a noose, remembering Billy' s bright laugh, the life David had stolen.
My only regret was that David would never face justice.
I kicked the chair away.
Darkness took me.
Then, a blinding light, and I was back on my living room couch, the day David was supposedly killed.
I wasn' t dead. I was back.
Martha' s face, a mask of practiced sadness, now held a triumphant curl.
I heard David' s voice from the hallway, "Is she stable?"
"She' s fragile, but she bought it," Martha replied. "She' ll break, just like we planned. We' ll have her committed, and Billy will be ours."
"Good," David said. "Make sure she doesn' t get near the body. Mark didn' t have my scar."
This time, I was not the grieving widow.
I was the executioner. The Billionaire's Regret: A Silent Amends
Billionaires While struggling to get by, a call from an unknown New York number shattered my fragile sense of peace.
It was Ethan Vance's assistant, inviting me to his foundation's gala-Ethan, my former guardian who had cruelly exiled me years ago, now pulling me back.
Victoria, Ethan' s wife, immediately launched a campaign of humiliation, subtly branding me his "old ward" at the gala.
She then systematically sabotaged my job search, slamming every door shut on my desperate attempts to rebuild my life.
When I refused her massive bribe to disappear, a brutal fire tore through our apartment, leaving my daughter Lily in a hospital bed, gasping for air.
Clutching my terrified Lily and battling my own PTSD flashbacks, I knew this wasn't an accident; the fire was no coincidence.
This cold, calculated attack was all Victoria, who had effortlessly tried to destroy what little I had.
How could a person be so merciless, deliberately endangering a child to eliminate me?
I hugged Lily tight, promising, "Never. I will never let anything happen to you."
Lying there, battered and bruised, my resolve hardened.
I was through being a victim of his past or her present schemes.
It was time to confront Ethan, expose his wife, and fight for the stable life Lily and I deserved. Reborn on Our Wedding Day
Romance My wedding day. Again.
I stood there, a young woman forced into an arranged marriage, about to become Abigail Blackwood.
In my previous life, a cold, brutal tyrant named Ethan, obsessed with a family vendetta, systematically destroyed everything and everyone I loved.
I suffered silently with a terminal illness no one knew about, watching in agony as he engineered my beloved grandfather' s public humiliation and death, and as my sister Ellie endured a horrific abusive marriage that tragically cost her, and her unborn child, their lives.
His cruelty knew no bounds: public shaming, forcing me to play piano until my fingers bled for his mistress's amusement, endless torment for every desperate plea.
Overwhelmed by despair and humiliation, I chose to die by my own hand.
But somehow, fate intervened. Here I am, back on our wedding day.
And so is he.
Ethan Blackwood remembers everything, just as I do. The monster who tormented me now acts kind, attentive, even regretful, desperately trying to atone.
But my heart is a fortress of old wounds, my soul scarred by unimaginable pain. Can I ever trust him, or is this just another, more sophisticated game?
This second chance is both a gift and a terrifying burden. I am determined to protect my family, to rewrite our tragic history, and to never again be the pawn in his brutal game. Can love truly blossom from such a foundation of hatred and despair? The Daughter Who Refused to Break
Mafia Emily Callahan had finally done it. Full scholarship to the state university, a dream come true for her and a testament to her late father' s legacy, her mother Susan beaming with pride from their beloved Sunrise Cafe.
But the aroma of coffee turned to the stench of fear when local crime boss Paddy O' Doyle, whose offers for the cafe were always refused, stormed in. What began as intimidation quickly became a brutal assault, leaving Susan battered and their cafe in ruins.
This attack was no isolated incident; it was just the first domino. The police chief turned a blind eye, revealing a pervasive corruption that shielded the O' Doyles from justice. Emily' s scholarship was mysteriously revoked, her future snatched away. Then came the orchestrated smear campaign, turning the community against her, followed by a terrifying home invasion where her dog was brutally murdered and her father' s cherished Medal of Honor desecrated. Now, even her mother' s vital medical care was at risk.
How could a hero' s family be so horribly betrayed and abandoned, their pleas for justice met with silence or outright hostility by the very system meant to protect them? The injustice burned, transforming her grief into a searing rage.
With every official avenue blocked and nowhere left to turn, Emily clutched her father' s Medal of Honor, a symbol of everything good and true, and embarked on a desperate cross-country journey to seek out the only man who could possibly help: her father' s former commanding officer, a four-star General. The Twin Swap: An 18-Year Deception
Modern For 18 years, I quietly raised my twin sons, Alex and Ben, believing their father Mark and his mistress Brenda were dead.
Now, with their Stanford acceptance, I planned a celebratory dinner, a culmination of my secret pride.
But as the party peaked, the 'dead' burst in—Mark Thompson and Brenda Sullivan, arrogantly alive.
Mark accused me of lies, Brenda feigned heartbreak, and he demanded I sign away my sons, seizing what he claimed was his.
My bewildered sons watched their world crumble as Mark's family rallied behind him.
With a steady hand, I signed the papers, feeling my boys' pain and disbelief.
"Mom, no! How can you?" Alex cried.
Everyone assumed I was broken, defeated.
They saw a mother abandoning her children, a woman succumbing to the pressure.
"You're just... giving us up?" Ben whispered, his eyes clouded with betrayal.
The room buzzed with judgment.
They had no idea this was just the first act of a meticulously planned retribution.
"The party isn't over," I stated, a chilling smile on my face.
As two young men, one dependent on a wheelchair, entered, I revealed their truth.
"Mark, Brenda, meet Cody and Tyler Thompson. Your actual biological sons."
My 18-year revenge was finally set into motion. The Placeholder Wife: A Billionaire's Secret
Billionaires It was my 30th birthday, and I was patiently dining alone at a Michelin-star restaurant, waiting for my finance titan husband, Julian, to arrive.
Suddenly, my phone screen flickered to life, displaying a TMZ headline that stopped my breath: "Julian Vance Spotted with Returning Socialite Chloe Sinclair – Old Flames Rekindled?"
A video showed Julian, my husband, shielding Chloe from the rain and cameras, his arm protectively around her.
Shock, cold and sharp, spread through me, as the bitter taste of betrayal filled my mouth.
This wasn’t just a business meeting; it was a public declaration of his true affections.
The table was set for two, but the untouched food grew cold as countless minutes ticked by, each one deepening the suffocating loneliness I felt.
Five years. Five years I had spent waiting; five years I had been a placeholder for the woman he truly loved, the one he married me to forget.
Then, a text from Julian cemented my despair: "Raincheck on birthday. Next year."
There would be no next year for us.
My quiet endurance finally gave way to a hardened resolve.
I signaled the maître d', trading the lavish, uneaten meal for a sturdy umbrella.
I walked out into the Manhattan rain, a clear decision forming in my mind: this was the end.
But for me, it was also a new beginning. You might like
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 Unwanted Bride Becomes The City's Queen
Breeze I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella.
Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark.
But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved.
Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies.
When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel.
While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest.
The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella.
He ordered my father to punish me.
I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth.
That night, the love in my heart finally died.
On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven.
Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney.
By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return. 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. 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." Runaway Nurse: The Mafia King's Remorse
Hu Minxue For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York.
I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him.
But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash.
In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress.
He forced me to watch him court her.
At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her.
He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain.
He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life.
I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god.
I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole.
He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps.
So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother.
I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars.
I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia.
By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost. Marrying His Rival: The Ex-Fiancé's Nightmare
Moria Anninger I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia.
The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast.
That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water.
He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard.
But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead.
I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival.
On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone.
"I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city." 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. Revenge Is Sweet: Marrying His Worst Enemy
CHRISTINE ROBINSON I was staring at the two pink lines on the plastic stick, trembling with the terrifying joy of carrying the heir to the New York underworld’s most ruthless faction.
Then the intercom buzzed, and a voice splintered my world.
"The little art student actually thinks I'm going to marry her? It was just a game to pass the time while you were in Europe, Estella."
I froze.
My boyfriend, Holden, was in the next room, laughing with the daughter of his rival.
He explained that I was just a "clean civilian image" he needed to secure a business deal. Now that the deal was signed, he was dumping the "stray" to marry the "Queen."
I tried to run, but freedom only lasted forty-eight hours.
Holden didn't just break my heart; he turned my terror into content.
He kidnapped me, tied me to a chair at the edge of a cliff, and forced me to choose between my life and his new fiancée's.
Then, he pushed me off the edge.
As gravity snatched me, I heard him laughing.
I landed on a stunt airbag. It was just a "social experiment." A sick prank for his amusement.
"Don't be so dramatic, Kenia," he called down. "It's just a game."
He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a prop in his life.
But he forgot that I knew his secrets.
I dragged my injured body to a payphone and dialed the one number Holden told me to fear—the rival Don, Gael Simpson.
"It's Kenia," I whispered, clutching the receiver like a lifeline. "I'm calling in the debt." Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him
SHANA GRAY I died on a Tuesday.
It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father.
I was twenty years old.
He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant.
He chose her. He always chose her.
And then, I woke up.
Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for.
This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice.
He didn't know he was talking to a ghost.
He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal.
He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder.
That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry.
She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts.
So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie.
I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane.
But I will not be a victim.
This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter.
This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.