No Second Chances: My Empire, My Rules

No Second Chances: My Empire, My Rules

Gavin

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I stood at the Northwood University Alumni Gala, a successful architect, a wife, and a mother, years after I' d left everything behind. Then, my ex, Ethan Hayes, stepped onto the stage, and the whole room hushed. He finished his speech and, to my horror, dropped to one knee before me, publicly proposing marriage with the words, "Phoenix Rising." Phoenix Rising. The name ignited a searing pain, a brand from a past I' d buried years ago. I remembered my senior year, my award-winning design stolen by Olivia Monroe, and Ethan, my then-boyfriend, standing by her side, calmly confirming her lie. That betrayal led to my disqualification, academic dishonor, and blacklisting, forcing me to flee the US, utterly broken. Stones in my gut, those words. How could he, after everything, dare to invoke that name, that pain, for this grotesque public spectacle? Did he think a grand gesture could erase the humiliation, the shattered dreams, the life I had to rebuild from nothing? But this wasn't the shattered girl he remembered. Before he could utter another word, my husband and daughter appeared, a living testament that I had not only survived but thrived. My past was about to get a very clear message: I was no longer a victim; I was home, loved, and ready to close this painful chapter for good.

Introduction

I stood at the Northwood University Alumni Gala, a successful architect, a wife, and a mother, years after I' d left everything behind.

Then, my ex, Ethan Hayes, stepped onto the stage, and the whole room hushed.

He finished his speech and, to my horror, dropped to one knee before me, publicly proposing marriage with the words, "Phoenix Rising."

Phoenix Rising.

The name ignited a searing pain, a brand from a past I' d buried years ago.

I remembered my senior year, my award-winning design stolen by Olivia Monroe, and Ethan, my then-boyfriend, standing by her side, calmly confirming her lie.

That betrayal led to my disqualification, academic dishonor, and blacklisting, forcing me to flee the US, utterly broken.

Stones in my gut, those words.

How could he, after everything, dare to invoke that name, that pain, for this grotesque public spectacle?

Did he think a grand gesture could erase the humiliation, the shattered dreams, the life I had to rebuild from nothing?

But this wasn't the shattered girl he remembered.

Before he could utter another word, my husband and daughter appeared, a living testament that I had not only survived but thrived.

My past was about to get a very clear message: I was no longer a victim; I was home, loved, and ready to close this painful chapter for good.

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Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Mafia

4.5

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.

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