Serenity Now
11 Published Stories
Serenity Now's Books and Stories
The Rival Don's Treasured Second Chance
Mafia My husband, the King of New York's underworld, declined my call for the ninety-ninth time just as my brother's heart monitor flatlined.
He claimed he was in a life-or-death sit-down with the Commission.
But moments after my brother took his last breath, I saw his mistress's Instagram post.
The "meeting" was an emergency C-section for her Persian cat.
My brother was dead because a mistress's pet needed the surgeon Dante had promised to send for him.
The betrayal didn't stop there.
When our car was T-boned days later, Dante didn't pull me from the wreckage.
He carried his mistress to safety, screaming for paramedics to save his "fiancée," leaving me trapped in the burning vehicle with crushed legs.
Miraculously, I survived.
Lying in the hospital bed, I waited for an apology. Instead, I got a threat.
"Without me, you are nothing," Dante sneered, throwing a box of chocolates at me like I was a dog.
But the final blow came from the County Clerk.
When I tried to file for divorce, they told me no record existed.
Seven years of loyalty. Seven years of standing by his side. And I wasn't even his wife. I was just a possession he had tricked into playing house.
I didn't cry. I didn't scream.
I picked up my phone and scrolled past Dante's name to the one man he feared most: his rival, Alessandro De Luca.
I typed three words.
I need extraction.
It was time to burn his kingdom to the ground. Too Late, Mr. Betrayer
Romance My bones ached, a deep throb whispering something was terribly wrong. I'd sacrificed, donating marrow to save my fiancé Ethan' s "failing" company and his "dying" college acquaintance, Brooke Hayes. I believed it was for love, for our shared future.
Then, a chilling truth surfaced. A text on Ethan' s phone: "$50k transfer… Main portfolio remains shielded." There was no crisis. Brooke, far from dying, walked out of my bedroom, vibrant, triumphant. It was a meticulously planned scam. My heart froze. Ethan gaslighted, his hand too comfortable on Brooke' s waist, denying my pain for her comfort.
He prioritized a stray dog over my severe post-donation agony, dismissing my pleas for vital medication while showering Brooke with lavish gifts. Chloe, my best friend, became her accomplice, rationalizing their cruelty. The breaking point arrived when I overheard Ethan confess: he' d orchestrated the entire ordeal, the fake crisis, Brooke' s "illness," all to "make amends" to Brooke.
My unconditional love had been weaponized. At a glittering gala, Brooke, her fraud exposed by my desperate words, staged a dramatic fall, pointing accusingly at me. Ethan, without question, condemned me, and Chloe, my dear friend, slapped me hard across the face. Publicly shamed, physically and emotionally shattered, my phone buzzed with Mom's text: "Car waiting. South entrance." My escape.
I grabbed my small bag, destroyed my phone' s SIM, and walked out of the hotel, out of their lives, without a backward glance. My only path was to disappear, leaving behind the wreckage they'd created. Marrying The Crippled Billionaire For Revenge
Modern I was the top trauma surgeon at the city’s busiest hospital until my family decided I was nothing more than a disposal fee. I stood in my father’s mahogany-lined study, staring at a two-hundred-thousand-dollar check that was meant to buy my silence and my dignity.
"Sign the confession, Aurelia," my father demanded, the silver cigar cutter snapping with a violent finality. They wanted me to take the fall for a medical error I never committed, all to protect my sister Dominique’s image before her high-profile merger with the Blackburn family.
When I refused to sign my life away, the betrayal turned lethal. My sister planted a priceless sapphire heirloom in my bag and called the security team to search me in front of my ex-fiancé. My mother watched with cold indifference as I was branded a thief, and my father threatened to pull the plug on my grandmother’s nursing home payments by noon if I didn't vanish.
I was thrown out into a freezing rainstorm with a revoked medical license, a battered suitcase, and exactly forty-two dollars to my name. Even the man I once loved looked at me with pity, believing I had stooped to grand larceny because I was jealous of my sister’s success.
I stood at a bus stop, shivering and broken, wondering how my own blood could trade my truth for a corporate PR stunt. They had taken my career, my home, and my reputation, leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my back and a burning need for justice.
Desperate to protect my grandmother, I sought out the one man they all feared: Avery Blackburn, the "monster" CEO rumored to be a brain-damaged vegetable. But the man I found in the shadows of the VIP wing wasn't a victim; he was a wolf waiting for the right moment to strike.
"I need a shield, and you need a wife," he rasped, sliding a titanium card across the desk. I didn't hesitate to sign the marriage certificate. The Blanchards think they’ve discarded a liability, but they’re about to find out what happens when you give a desperate surgeon a billionaire’s scalpel. The Alpha's Regret: The White Wolf He Rejected
Werewolf My sister, the pack's beloved future Luna, was dying of kidney failure.
Axel, the Supreme Alpha and the man I had secretly loved my entire life, used his Alpha Command to force the pen into my trembling hand.
"Sign the papers, Jana," he growled, his eyes glowing with a predatory red light. "Stop being selfish. Kyleigh needs a transplant, and you are the only match."
I tried to beg. I tried to tell him that I couldn't survive the surgery.
I tried to tell him that I had already secretly donated a kidney to our father five years ago—a sacrifice my sister had claimed credit for.
But Axel threw a stack of falsified medical scans in my face.
"Stop lying to save your own skin," he spat. "You are a useless, Wolfless Omega. This is your only chance to be of value to this pack."
He didn't know that Kyleigh had been poisoning me with Wolfsbane for a decade to suppress my inner White Wolf.
He didn't know that the anesthesia wouldn't work on my poisoned body.
I felt every inch of the silver scalpel as they cut me open to harvest my only remaining kidney.
I died on that table, listening to the man I loved call me dramatic.
But death was not the end. My spirit floated above the chaos, watching as the surgeon's face turned pale with horror.
"She only had one!" the doctor screamed, holding up the blackened organ. "Alpha, look at the old scars! We just killed her!"
Only after my heart stopped did the scent-masking drugs fade.
Axel fell to his knees in the blood-soaked room, finally smelling the scent of rain and pine he had been searching for his whole life.
He realized he had just butchered his true mate to save a liar.
"Jana?" he howled, clawing at his chest.
But I was already gone. Betrayed By Love, Reborn By Fire
Romance The first cry of my newborn daughter, Lily, echoed in the delivery room, a sound so pure it momentarily erased the exhaustion from my bones. I was a mother, my world finally complete.
Then, one of the nurses murmured about a "scandal," and my husband, Daniel, stiffened. A month ago, photos of him with four women in a hotel room had surfaced-a business dinner, he'd claimed, a setup, a corporate sabotage. He was the victim, a saint who' d endured an ice bath all night to protect me and our child. I chose to believe him. I had to.
But the moment the door to my private room opened, the truth hit me with sickening force. My four personal assistants, loyal and trusted, stood there, their conditions obvious beneath their uniforms. They were all undeniably pregnant.
My mother-in-law swept in, beaming, confirming my worst fear. "These are our surrogate mothers," she announced, beaming. "To ensure the Hayes family line continues." Daniel, my loving husband, had used them, had planned this all along.
The world tilted. I pulled divorce papers from my bag, laying them on the pristine white blanket of my hospital bed. He tore them up, his tears and pleas of "accident" a grotesque performance.
He held Lily out like a shield. "Are you really going to deprive her of a father?" he pleaded.
"If I stay here," I countered, my voice flat, "she will be deprived of a mother. The woman I was will cease to exist."
My mother-in-law, a witch in human form, slapped me, screaming about me harming her "grandsons." My assistants, once my confidantes, turned on me, emboldened by her fury. "She' s cruel," Autumn sneered. "She' s not fit to be our boss anymore!"
My own pain was a cold, hard stone in my chest. I took Lily from Daniel and walked out, leaving the wreckage behind.
My lavish home became a prison. Isolated and grieving, I overheard Summer and Autumn, in the adjoining suite, boasting about co-CEO positions and how they just needed to "manipulate Ava into accepting our status. Make her feel guilty. She' s weak right now." They weren' t victims. They were complicit.
I resolved to take Lily and disappear. But then my new assistant burst in, face white. "She' s gone! Lily' s not in her crib!"
A primal fear shot through me. I found Summer and Autumn in the backyard, digging. My daughter' s bracelet glinted on the disturbed earth. Frantically, I dug with my bare hands until I uncovered her. Lily. Still.
"She just… passed away in her sleep," Summer said, a grotesque parody of sympathy. My mother-in-law arrived, disgusted. "She was just a worthless girl anyway. Her death is insignificant. We have four more chances for a proper heir."
Daniel, feigning grief, talked of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, of having "more children." He seemed to believe his own lies. "You' re hysterical, Ava. The grief is making you delusional." He walked away, leaving me with my murdered child.
That night, I started sewing a burial gown from my wedding dress. Daniel and Summer' s intimate sounds from next door were a brutal torment.
The next morning, Lily's body was gone. Furious barking led me to the backyard, where Autumn stood by aggressive hunting dogs, throwing Lily' s cashmere blanket into the pen. I watched in horror as they tore it to shreds. My world went black.
I woke to Autumn' s sneering voice. "She' s so dramatic. Mrs. Hayes Senior just wanted the blanket destroyed. It' s bad luck."
Daniel stood over me, offering sedatives. "You and your mother, you killed her!" I screamed. "You murdered my baby and now you' re destroying every last piece of her, as if she never existed!"
He left. That night, an echoing scream: "She' s dead! Mrs. Hayes is dead!" Daniel burst into my room, his face a mask of rage. He lunged, hands closing around my throat. "You did this. You killed my mother."
I was held captive, called a "witch" by servants. Only Chloe, my loyal assistant, visited, bringing warm bread and tears. "I' ll find evidence. I' ll clear your name." I gave her a silver locket, a secret sign for help from an old friend. "Tell him Ava regrets it." A tiny flicker of hope.
Days later, the stench of smoke woke me. The mansion was on fire. My door was locked from the outside. Through the smoke, I saw Summer, a crazed, triumphant smile on her face. "I set the fire, Ava. Daniel' s idea, of course. With you and your bad luck gone, I can finally become the real Mrs. Hayes." She turned the key. "Goodbye, Ava."
Just as a massive beam began to fall, the door exploded inward. A familiar, deep voice called my name through the smoke. "Ava! I'm late!"
It was Alex Thorne, the son of a powerful senator, a boy I' d once defended. He threw himself over me as a burning beam crashed down. His strength was astonishing; he carried me through the inferno.
He' d placed a female body in the fire, fabricating my death. My locket, returned to me, was the signal for help I' d sent him. My plan had been to disappear with Lily. But Lily was gone.
"I' m not going back, Alex," I stated. "My daughter died. I was almost killed. I can' t leave without finding out the truth. Without getting justice."
I looked him straight in the eye. "Alex, you once told me you hate cowards more than anything. A Reed does not run from a fight."
"What do you plan to do?" he asked, admiration in his eyes.
"Alex, if I' m not mistaken, you' re still unmarried. Would you still marry me?"
Alex' s eyes widened in profound disbelief. "You… are you serious?" he stammered.
"I am," I confirmed. "Consider it a transaction. A strategic alliance." I needed power. I needed to become Mrs. Thorne to fight back.
He took my hand. "I will marry you, Ava. If you need me, I won' t refuse."
Days later, Daniel, mourning his "dead" wife, announced a new marriage at a lavish hotel. He married Winter.
Alex confirmed my suspicions. Summer had set the fire at Daniel' s bidding. "Autumn is dead," he said quietly. "An accident." And Summer? "She was flayed. Her body was hung on the wall." Daniel had eliminated his competition.
"When do you want to announce our engagement?" Alex asked.
"Tomorrow," I said, my resolve hardening into steel.
At the Thorne engagement reception, I slowly removed my veil. Daniel recoiled as if struck. "No! This is impossible. Ava is dead!" His shock curdled into alcohol-fueled rage. He grabbed a steak knife. "You' re an imposter! I' ll kill her for you!"
He lunged. Alex disarmed him. "Daniel Hayes, are you trying to start a war with me?"
"That' s right!" Daniel roared, his facade crumbling. Armed men in tactical gear poured into the ballroom. "Why should I just be a CEO? I want to be the most powerful man in this city!" He was beyond insane. "I never thought you' d be smart enough to fake your own death. You almost fooled me."
"Why?" I asked, needing the final truth.
"Do you know what I hate most about you, Ava? It' s your aristocratic background. Everything about you made me feel small." His "love" was a performance. He had drugged himself, slept with my assistants, turned them against me, setting in motion the chaos that led to Lily' s death, ruining my reputation, framing me for his mother' s murder. "Ruthlessness is a necessary tool for greatness. My mother was just a sentimental old woman."
"You are truly evil. But your time is almost up."
He sneered. "With my control over the city' s network, everything here is already mine!"
"And where is your control, Daniel?" Alex asked mildly.
Daniel fumbled at his belt, his confidence turning to panic. "Where is it?"
I stepped forward, pulling a small, sleek device from my clutch. "Are you looking for this?"
Panic seized Daniel. He lunged for the device. Alex' s security team moved, subduing him. "How?" Daniel screamed, his face ashen.
"Chloe gave it to me," I said, my voice clear.
Two days before the fire, I had met Chloe, bruised and broken. She confessed everything: Daniel believed Lily was a boy, planning to use my "son" as leverage for my family' s European assets. He had beaten her after she stole his control device. Her last words were a choked apology for her betrayal.
Daniel' s empire crumbled. He and his private army were arrested for treason. Lily was avenged.
There was nothing left for me here. Alex drove me to the private airfield. He had been my rock, my ally. He had asked for nothing.
"Ava Reed," he said, his voice soft. "Have a safe journey."
"Write to me often," I replied, a genuine smile touching my lips.
As the jet climbed, I looked down at the city, a place of so much pain and loss. I wasn't leaving as a victim. I was leaving as a survivor. I was leaving as Ava Reed, a woman who had fought back from the ashes and won. The future was mine to write. His Betrayal, Her Burning Revenge
Romance The leather seats of the Rolls-Royce were cold against my bare skin, just like the emptiness inside me after another stolen encounter with Ethan Vance.
I was Scarlett Hayes, a sharp fashion designer, entangled with a tech billionaire, a genius admired by the world.
But tonight, the usual rush was gone, replaced by a chilling void as I watched city lights blur past.
Then, a message on Ethan' s laptop caught my eye: "Ethan, the storm scares me..." From "Willow." Willow, my sickly stepsister, a name that tasted like bitter poison.
My phone buzzed. It was Ethan. "I have to step out for a bit. An emergency. Stay here." He rushed out, leaving me with a cold dread.
I tracked his car to a high-end hotel, and what I saw shattered my world: Ethan, tenderly carrying Willow like she was made of glass.
He was her protector, her long-lost sweetheart; the two painful parts of my life colliding.
Suddenly, Willow wasn't just some delicate girl. She was Ethan's past, and now, my stepsister. Rage, betrayal, and a deep, aching hurt swirled inside me.
The arranged marriage my father forced on me wasn't just an escape anymore. It was a weapon. My revenge.
Two days later, homeless and broke after a vengeful shopping spree, Ethan found me. He offered me refuge. I saw the handsome, deceptive face of the man who had played me for a fool.
A week later, at Willow' s welcome-home party, the ultimate humiliation struck. In a cruel game, Ethan chose Willow repeatedly-for kindness, for trust, and finally, on a sinking ship, to save.
His silence when asked who he loved more was a public verdict. He chose Willow. He always would.
Something inside me snapped. I lunged at Willow, my hands finding her fragile neck. Ethan pulled me off, his face a mask of cold fury, choosing her even then.
"He was never yours," Willow hissed after I was detained. "This whole affair? It was my idea. He recorded everything. All for me."
The betrayal was monstrous. I walked out, went to his penthouse, and systematically destroyed it. I burned everything to the ground.
The "ailing" groom in the South, Liam Sterling, was not what I expected. He was healthy, charming, and looked at me as a long-lost dream, confessing he had orchestrated the arranged marriage just to meet me.
Just as I found a flicker of peace, a fragile hope for a new life, Ethan came back.
He interrupted my engagement party, a wild, desperate man, publicly declaring his love for me.
But it was too late. I rejected him. I had a new, real life.
On the eve of my wedding, in a final, mad act of possession, Ethan kidnapped me. He took me to a secluded private island.
He tried to rekindle our past with lavish gifts and desperate affection. I feigned compliance, secretly planning my escape.
I managed to get a message to Liam. He came for me. As we escaped, a cliff collapsed. Ethan, in a single, selfless act, threw himself in front of us. He saved us.
The last thing I saw before everything went black was Ethan, lying broken at the bottom of the cliff. He lost. I won.
But deep down, a question lingered: what kind of love could twist so violently? The $75,000 Test
Romance My life was perfectly normal. I was Chloe, working an entry-level marketing job, struggling like any other recent grad.
When my $75,000 "bonus" (actually a secret trust fund distribution) landed, my boyfriend, Ethan, immediately had an extravagant idea: buy his mom a luxury SUV, and he needed exactly that amount for the down payment. He claimed his money was "locked up."
Then, my boss, Ms. Albright, magically appeared at the dealership, publicly shaming me for not supporting my boyfriend's grand gesture. It felt off, but I gave Ethan a second chance. He invited me on a romantic coastal trip.
But the "romantic" drive turned into a nightmare. In the middle of a torrential storm, he pulled over at a deserted gas station. When I came out, the car, and Ethan, were gone. My phone rang. It was him. His voice was cold, chilling: "Transfer the seventy-five thousand dollars to my account. This is a test of your commitment. If you don't, you'll be stranded."
My heart dropped. The car, Ms. Albright, the "locked" money – it was all a meticulously planned trap. He abandoned me in a life-threatening storm, for money. I was furious, humiliated, freezing, and utterly alone, with a dead phone. How could the man I loved betray me like this? How naive had I been?
But even soaked and shivering, a cold resolve settled in. He thought he could exploit my kindness and leave me for dead? He had no idea who he was messing with. I sent one last desperate message to my father before my phone died. And then, I found my strength. Ethan Miller was about to learn a very hard lesson about underestimating "just Chloe." Seven Years, Stolen Dreams
Romance For seven years, sous-chef Mark diligently poured his life savings into a "joint fund" with his girlfriend, Sophia, meticulously saving for their future and, more crucially, for his younger brother Leo' s escalating cystic fibrosis treatments.
He even recently proposed, believing in their shared life.
But days after his heartfelt proposal, the woman he loved and trusted, Sophia, secretly married wealthy Ethan Davenport.
Just as Leo' s condition rapidly deteriorated, requiring an urgent, life-saving transplant, Mark discovered Sophia had maliciously frozen and completely withheld his entire savings.
Desperate, he crashed her lavish wedding reception, pleading for the funds to save his dying brother, only for Sophia to publicly disavow him, claiming she didn' t know him, and have him brutally thrown out by security.
Leo tragically died shortly after, his last hope extinguished by her callous betrayal.
How could the woman he had sacrificed everything for, with whom he shared seven years of his life and dreams, so cruelly deny his dying brother' s chance at life? The injustice seared through Mark, leaving him with an unbearable grief and a burning, quiet rage.
Yet, a life-changing job offer in Austin emerged from the darkness, pulling him away from the ghosts of his past and into a new chapter where he would rebuild, thrive, and ultimately, find a path to his own profound, emotional retribution. The Unseen Betrayal: A Love Murdered
Modern Anya Sharma had it all: a brilliant architecture career and a seemingly perfect marriage to Julian Vance, San Francisco' s beloved "People' s Champion." Everyone adored them, his public devotion legendary, filled with grand, romantic gestures.
But Anya quietly confessed the truth: his public devotion was a meticulously crafted lie, a shield for relentless infidelity, revealed by early anonymous emails and late-night whispers.
The cracks widened daily, fueled by unfamiliar perfumes and furtive texts, pushing Anya towards a shattering truth about Julian' s affair with Izzy Moreau.
Then came the crushing realization during a car crash: in a split second, Julian instinctively protected Izzy and his precious work, forcing pregnant Anya to bear the brutal impact alone, leading to their child' s devastating loss.
Anya watched him perform as the grieving husband, oblivious to his continued secret life with Izzy, now secretly pregnant with his child.
The public airport proposal to Izzy, where Julian denounced Anya, was a final, humiliating blow.
His obsession spiraled into relentless harassment, culminating in Anya's chilling abduction.
Trapped in a luxurious prison, Anya was subjected to Julian' s pathological delusion, as he attempted to force her into a twisted family with Izzy's son, falsely claiming the child was theirs through a secret surrogacy.
Anya, reeling from the profound injustice and overwhelming sense of betrayal, recognized his true depravity.
Desperate and cornered, she made a choice for self-preservation and freedom.
With a single, decisive strike, Anya ended Julian's tyranny, shattering his manufactured world and reclaiming her life from a nightmare that had consumed her for too long, paving the way for a genuine future with Ben Carter. Her Perfect Swap
Horror My husband, Mark, hummed happily in the shower, the sound a dull comfort. I picked up his phone, intending to set his alarm, a routine task in my seemingly perfect life.
Then, a new message flashed: "Jessica." Followed by words that shattered my world: "Can't wait for the road trip, baby. Soon she'll be gone, and we'll be rich." Road trip? He' d mentioned one for us, next weekend.
My fingers trembled unlocking his phone, our anniversary the passcode-irony's cruelest stab. Months of messages with Jessica, my adoptive sister and childhood tormentor, confirmed it: they were plotting my murder. "The brakes will fail on that riverside road," Mark wrote. "The insurance money will set us and the baby up for life." A photo showed Jessica with a newborn, and Mark's reply: "Our little one deserves the best." My marriage, my comfortable life, was a cold, calculated lie.
Mark emerged, smiling, a predator's grin. He chattered about the "beautiful" road trip, oblivious, each word a hammer blow. He was going to kill me. My own sister, his accomplice. My cherished life, a carefully constructed trap.
He left with a casual "Love you!", but the silence that followed was deafening. Then, rage burned away the shock. They wouldn't get away with this. 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. Too Late, Mr. Don: The Wife You Buried
Cinderella's Sister I went to the family lawyer for a routine travel clearance. Instead, I was handed a divorce decree. The ink was three years old.
While I had been playing the role of the dutiful Capo's wife, Dante had secretly divorced me the day after our fifth anniversary.
Twenty-four hours later, he legally married the nanny, Gia, and named her cruel-eyed son as his heir.
I returned home to confront him, only for the boy to throw boiling tomato soup on me.
Dante didn't check my burns. He cradled the boy and looked at me with pure, drug-fueled hatred, calling me a monster for upsetting his "son."
The final blow came in a parking garage. A car sped toward us.
Dante didn't pull me to safety. He shoved me into the vehicle's path, using my body as a human shield to protect his mistress.
Lying broken on the asphalt, I realized Aria Vitiello was already dead to him. So, I decided to make it official.
I arranged a private flight over the Atlantic and ensured there were no survivors.
By the time Dante was weeping over the wreckage, realizing too late that he had been poisoned against me, I was already in France.
The Canary was dead. The Reaper had risen. 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.* 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." 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. 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. 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. Too Late To Beg: My Cold Ex-Husband
Bei Ke On our ninth anniversary, my husband Dominick didn't toast to us. Instead, he rested his hand on his mistress's pregnant belly in front of the entire crime family.
I was just a debt payment to him, a ghost in a forty-thousand-dollar gown.
But the humiliation didn't end in the ballroom. When his mistress, Chastity, started hemorrhaging later that night, he didn't call an ambulance. He dragged me to the family clinic.
He knew I had a serious heart condition. He knew a transfusion of that magnitude could trigger a fatal cardiac event.
"She is carrying my son," he said, his eyes devoid of any humanity.
"You will give her whatever she needs."
I begged him. I bargained for my freedom. He lied and agreed, just to get the needle in my arm.
As my dark red blood flowed through the tube to save the woman destroying my life, my chest tightened. The monitors began to scream. My heart was failing.
"Mr. Reyes! She's crashing!" the doctor shouted.
Dominick didn't even turn around.
He walked out of the room to hold Chastity's hand, leaving me to die on the table.
I survived, but Annis Myers died in that clinic.
He thought I would return to the penthouse and continue being his obedient, silent wife. He thought he owned the blood in my veins.
He was wrong.
I went back to the penthouse one last time. I struck a match.
I let the room burn.
By the time Dominick realized I wasn't in the ashes, I was already on a plane to London.
I had left my wedding ring in an envelope, along with the medical records that proved his cruelty.
He wanted a war? I would give him one. 
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