Shen Xiyan
9 Published Stories
Shen Xiyan's Books and Stories
The Placeholder Wife: His Too Late Regret
Mafia On our fifth anniversary, I didn't get a gift. I got divorce papers.
My husband, Ethan Spencer, the city's most feared Underboss, stood by while his mistress threw red wine over my white gown in front of the entire elite.
"You're just a placeholder, Brooke," she sneered. "A factory rat keeping the seat warm."
I waited for Ethan to defend me. Instead, when she planted a necklace in my bag and accused me of theft, he didn't check the cameras. He didn't look at the blood soaking my dress where he had shoved me aside.
He called the police on his own wife.
"Take her away," he ordered cold-heartedly, stepping over me to comfort the crying woman who was framing me.
I spent the night in a freezing cell, realizing that for five years, he hadn't even opened the anniversary gifts I hid in his closet. He didn't know I wrote the stories for his company's games. He didn't know I was the one keeping his empire afloat.
When I was released, I didn't go back to the penthouse.
I walked straight to the headquarters of his sworn enemy, Dominic Cannon.
"I heard you're looking for a narrative designer," I said, placing my wedding ring on his desk. "And I know exactly how to destroy the Spencer family."
By the time Ethan found out the truth and came crawling back, dying and clutching the steel rose I once made him, it was too late.
I was already wearing someone else's ring. The Fallen Heiress's Debt to the Billionaire
Modern I was once the princess of the Upper East Side, but now I’m just "debt wrapped in pretty skin." To keep my father alive in a federal penitentiary, I signed a contract I didn't fully understand. I thought it was about restoring my family's name, but producer Barnett Orr treated it like a bill of sale for my soul.
Inside his limousine, the air smelled like gasoline and fear. Barnett didn't want a star; he wanted a victim. He bruised my jaw and ripped my vintage silk gown to shreds, laughing because he knew I couldn't fight back without signing my father's death warrant.
"Don't forget who owns you, Felicity," he whispered.
When he dragged me into Dewitt Knight’s penthouse party, I was a walking disaster. I huddled in Barnett’s oversized jacket, my lip bleeding and my spirit shattered. The elite crowd didn't see a victim; they saw a fallen girl selling herself for a role. A former rival poured red wine over me, and the room erupted in cruel laughter while Barnett told everyone he was just "testing my commitment."
I looked up at the balcony, locking eyes with Dewitt Knight. He was a god in a bespoke suit, looking down at me with cold, lethal disgust. He didn't see the bruises or the desperation. He only saw a transaction he found beneath him.
"So the rumors are true," he said, his voice cutting through the music. "The Aguilars really will do anything for money now. Even this."
I was trapped between a monster who wanted to break me and a man who thought I was trash. No one cared that my father's life depended on my silence. When Barnett cornered me in a guest room later that night, his belt jingling like a death knell, I realized no one was coming to save a girl like me.
I fought back with a crystal vase, shattering it against his shoulder, but I was drowning in my own terror. Just as Barnett lunged for my throat, the door was kicked off its hinges. Dewitt stood there, finally seeing the blood on the carpet and the map of purple bruises on my bare back.
He chased the monster away, but I didn't feel safe. I locked the guest room door, wedged a chair under the handle, and slept with a silver letter opener pressed against my skin. When I crept into the kitchen at midnight and found him waiting in the shadows, I aimed the blade at his heart.
"In this house, no one hurts you," he promised, his voice a low velvet rumble.
But in a world where I had already been sold once, I knew that even protection came with a price I couldn't afford to pay. The Red Queen's Spectacular Rise After Betrayal
Billionaires For five years, I was the woman in the shadows, the secret partner Evander Mathews promised to marry once his company was stable. On our fifth anniversary, I waited in our Manhattan penthouse with chilled wine, only for him to leave abruptly for what he called a "merger emergency."
In his haste, he left his wall safe open. Inside, I found a marriage contract signed three days ago. The groom was Evander, but the bride was my sister, Daneen.
Then came the message that shattered my world—a photo of their hands intertwined and a text from my sister.
"Sister, thank you for borrowing him for five years. But he is home now."
I looked at the rows of white silk dresses in my closet and finally understood the truth. I was never his lover; I was a living memorial, a placeholder he had curated to look and smell exactly like the sister who had spent our childhood abusing me. He knew about the scars on my back, yet he was choosing the woman who gave them to me.
When Evander sent his assistant the next morning to pay me off with a diamond necklace, he expected me to disappear. He thought the girl he had kept hidden for half a decade would never have the courage to step into the light.
He was wrong. I grabbed the fabric scissors, hacked off the long hair he adored, and dialed a number I had kept hidden for years.
"I’m ready to collect that favor," I said to the man on the other end. "Get me into the gala tonight. I’m going to show them exactly what they tried to bury." Four Years Built On Deceit
Modern For four years, I believed my fiancé, Damari, was fighting for us. I watched him endure his grandfather' s cruel punishments-exile, financial ruin, public humiliation-all because the old man supposedly refused to approve our marriage. I waited, believing his sacrifice was the ultimate proof of his love.
Then I found the real document hidden in his office. It wasn't a rejection. It was an approval, stamped and dated, with a tiny, forged "not" scrawled in different ink.
The entire four-year struggle was a lie.
When I confronted him, he crumbled. He did it for his obsessive assistant, Cydney.
"She can't live without me, Augusta," he pleaded. "She needs me."
My world collapsed. His devotion wasn't for me; it was a performance to appease another woman. All his "sacrifices" were just a cruel way to keep me waiting while he played the hero for someone else.
So when he abandoned me one last time to run to Cydney's side, I made my choice. I packed my bags, left New York, and started a new life, determined to never be anyone's second choice again. Caged Love
Romance The camera flashes were blinding, a storm of light. My fiancé, Ethan, stood at the podium, his hand clutching mine, whispering sweet nothings for the reporters. He declared his eternal love, sacrificing his ambitions for my "crippled" self, the pianist whose dream was tragically cut short.
But an hour earlier, I'd overheard him and my best friend, Bella. "Her hands… are they permanently damaged?" Bella whispered. "Completely," Ethan confirmed, his voice chillingly cold. "The 'accident' was flawless. She\'s a cripple, Bella. You have nothing to worry about."
My world shattered.
The car crash, the botched surgery-all a meticulously planned lie. My supposed recovery was overseen by Dr. Ben, who had helped Ethan ensure I would never play again. I lay in a hospital bed, my bandaged hands a testament to their cruelty, left to grapple with the shocking betrayal.
How could the man who promised me forever, the one I loved, orchestrated such a heinous plot?
The deeper I looked, the more horrifying truths unravelled: I was drugged for months to appear unstable, and the tragic miscarriage I suffered wasn\'t natural-he had murdered our unborn child. The love I thought was real was a delusion, a carefully constructed cage.
With nothing left to lose, and fueled by a cold, searing rage, I stopped merely existing.
I was no longer a victim. I was a survivor, and I would make them pay. My escape wasn't just about leaving; it was about orchestrating their downfall, piece by agonizing piece. My Love, Her Leverage
Romance My ribeye was getting cold as I sat alone at Vince's Steakhouse, waiting for Nicole on our one-year anniversary.
I' d booked her favorite corner booth, even checking myself out of the hospital despite cracked ribs, all for her.
Then her text came: "Stuck in chem lab. Won't make it. Raincheck?" My heart sank.
But just as I was about to signal for the check, a group was led past my table.
My world stopped.
It was Nicole, in the dress I bought her, laughing with her college roommate and her high school sweetheart, Luis-the one who' d ghosted her when her life fell apart.
I watched, frozen, as her roommate quipped about me being "a sweet, dumb rich kid" wrapped around Nicole's finger.
Nicole just shrugged, saying, "Can we not talk about him? He's ruining my mood."
The woman I loved called me an inconvenience, while celebrating "new beginnings" with the man who' d abandoned her.
I swallowed the bitter truth: I wasn't her boyfriend; I was a transaction.
A debt repaid with her time. The pain was worse than any broken bone.
Why was I always the fallback, the savior, never the choice?
The next morning, her call came, a soft apology, promising to meet.
A foolish part of me hoped, until Luis sat beside her at the coffee shop.
This wasn't an apology; it was a shakedown for half a million dollars. And that' s when I finally said, "No." From Broken Heart to Billboard Queen
Romance My wedding day was supposed to be the moment my love story with Liam played out on giant screens for all of Nashville to see.
Instead, those screens showed something very different: my fiancé, Liam, shamelessly hooking up with my own cousin, Savannah, at his bachelor party.
The chapel descended into shocked silence. Liam grabbed my arm, whispering denials, while Savannah sat sobbing in the front row, a pathetic mess.
But the hickeys on their necks told the whole brutal truth. I calmly walked to the microphone, called off the wedding, and left them to face the circus they created.
He tried to play the remorseful fiancé, showing up with flowers I was allergic to and Savannah's favorite BBQ, not mine. He stalked me, pleading for "one more chance," even using me as a bet to impress Savannah.
Every interaction twisted the knife, confirming years of quiet betrayals I'd ignored.
Why did I believe his lies for so long? Why did I allow myself to be a third wheel at my own anniversary dinner, or cook for him only to be met with his and Savannah's mockery?
The humiliation was suffocating, the anger a fire in my gut. But then, a new thought ignited within me.
I picked up my guitar not to write a sad song, but a war declaration. This wasn't heartbreak; it was a reckoning. And I was just getting started. 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. 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. Married To The Comatose Mafia King
Benjamen Ernst I stood before the altar of the grand gothic cathedral, about to marry Julian Moretti, the grieving adopted son stepping up for the comatose Don.
To the hundreds of mafia men behind us, it was a dutiful wedding. But I knew the horrifying truth.
Julian and his pregnant mistress, Clara, had orchestrated a brutal plot to steal my dowry and secure his place as the next Don.
In my past life, I was completely blind to their betrayal. Julian trapped me in our apartment and set it ablaze.
I could still feel the blistering heat of the fire. I could still hear my mother’s agonizing screams and my little brother Antonio’s desperate coughing as the smoke filled our lungs.
My entire family was burned alive just so Julian could swap the brides and put his whore in my place.
I died in pure agony, filled with hatred and despair, wondering why I had trusted a monster.
God hadn't saved me from those flames. The Devil had.
And he sent me back to this exact moment at the altar.
"Do you, Isabella Rossi, take Julian Moretti to be your lawfully wedded husband?" the priest asked.
Julian reached for my hand with a sickeningly gentle smile.
I didn't give it to him. I tore back my lace veil and turned to face the crowd.
"You are mistaken, Father," I said, my voice like ice. "The man I am bound to marry is your Don. Damien Moretti." 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. 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." Forbidden Affair with My Mafia Stepbrother
Realfantasies The man I had a passionate one-night stand with turned out to be my stepbrother…and the mafia boss.
"The sweet taste of your lips, your lewd moans, all the times that you begged me to do you harder, and the way your hips moved under me…I remember everything about you and that night, Abigail…"
After her fiancé suddenly dumps her to marry her best friend, Abigail decides to drown her sorrows in the passionate embrace of an attractive stranger for the night. Fate plays a game with her again, when she finds out that the man that she spent the night with turned out to be her stepbrother, Raphael. Abigail finds herself living together with Raphael after her mother marries his father.
With her mother’s perfect marriage at stake, Abigail does everything to hide her secret affair with Raphael from everyone but how can she escape from his seductive traps when Raphael refuses to let her go no matter how many times she begged. When their parents go on their honeymoon, Abigail is left to fend for herself from the lusty and calculating beast living under the same roof.
Just when his heated kisses and seductive caresses tear down her walls of defense, Abigail is shocked to learn of Raphael’s engagement and the dark secret behind his family business. While at the same time, their parents are keen on arranging Abigail’s marriage to secure her future.
Through it all, can Abigail gain what she desperately yearns for the most from Raphael: His Love.
How can these two lovers who are destined to play ‘House’ overcome their cursed forbidden relationship and create a happy ending for themselves?
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.