Cun Li
13 Published Stories
Cun Li's Books and Stories
The Vanished Wife's Revenge: No Turning Back
Mafia My husband looked at the toxicology report proving the daughter of the Chicago Capo had poisoned my mother.
Then, without missing a beat, he looked me in the eye and asked if I wanted to discuss the dinner menu for the gala.
That was the moment I realized Dante Vitiello wasn't my savior; he was the devil in a bespoke suit.
To protect his precious alliance with Chicago, he buried the truth.
When my mother died from the arsenic, he didn't offer comfort. Instead, he forced me to sign annulment papers, claiming I was mentally unstable.
He stripped me of my title, my home, and my dignity to marry Sofia Moretti—the very woman who killed my mother—all because she claimed to be pregnant with his heir.
I stood in the freezing rain, watching a giant screen in Times Square as he proposed to her.
He told the press that Sofia was his hero, the one who saved his life during the ambush in Chicago.
He lied.
Under my soaked hoodie, the jagged scar on my arm throbbed. I was the one who took that bullet for him. I was the one who stitched myself up in silence so he wouldn't feel indebted to me.
He erased my sacrifice to build a throne for his mistress.
He thought he had broken me. He thought Elena Vitiello would fade away in a crumbling apartment in Queens.
But he forgot one thing: I was the one who built his encrypted laundering network. I held the keys to his entire empire.
I threw my wedding ring into the trash can and lit a match.
Elena Vitiello died that night.
And the woman who rose from the ashes didn't want his love anymore.
She wanted his ruin. The Alpha's Secret Heir and the Vanished Luna
Werewolf I was pregnant with the Alpha’s heir, yet Michael refused to Mark me, calling my concerns "hormonal" while he paraded another woman, Serena, as his future Luna.
The betrayal cut deep, but the breaking point came at the pack celebration.
Serena slapped me across the face in front of everyone, and instead of defending his pregnant mate, Michael looked bored and ordered me to stop making a scene.
That night, I didn't just leave; I ripped the mate bond out of my own mind.
The pain was blinding, but necessary.
With my mother's help, I faked my death—and the death of our unborn child—to escape his toxic hold.
For four years, I raised my son, Finn, on a hidden island, safe from the politics that nearly destroyed me.
I thought I was free, until a ragged, broken man washed up on my shore.
It was Michael.
He wasn't the arrogant King anymore; he was a beggar who had spent years mourning a ghost.
When he saw Finn, he fell to his knees, weeping at the sight of the boy who had his golden eyes.
"Is he mine?" he begged.
"He is mine," I told him coldly. "You lost him the day you chose her."
I prepared to send him away, but then the alarms rang.
Serena had found us, leading a rogue army to slaughter my son for dark magic.
Michael looked at me, his eyes clearing for the first time in years.
"I will be your shield," he vowed.
He ran straight into the silver blades, taking the death blow meant for our child.
As he died in my arms, I finally forgave him.
Now, I stand over his grave not as a victim, but as the Alpha Luna who will rule the world he left behind. My Fiancé's Ultimate Deception
Modern After seven years of devotion, I finally became pregnant with my fiancé Coleton's twins. But he secretly terminated the pregnancy, claiming it was for my health.
The real reason? His ex-girlfriend, Annis, suggested it.
He came to the hospital late, a fresh hickey on his neck, and instead of comforting me, he forced me to post a public apology to Annis for causing her "drama." He even used my phone to flirt with her, planning their dinner date right in front of me while I was still bleeding from the procedure he ordered.
When I refused to play along, he abandoned me at the hospital exit, causing me to fall and get a concussion. Later, I found them in our bed, and he had the audacity to invite me to their "celebratory" dinner.
"You're doing this for me, right?" he asked, a hopeful smile on his face. "So I can finally be happy with Annis?"
I looked at the man I had given my life to, the man who had just stolen our children from me, and saw a stranger. This time, there would be no tears, no second chances. I took the pre-nup he signed years ago-the one that gave me a huge chunk of his company if he ever betrayed me-and walked away for good. Love's Betrayal, Fortune's Irony
Modern I gave up my art scholarship to put my boyfriend, Armand, through law school. I worked three jobs and even took a knife for him, believing his promise that we would build an empire together.
But the day he became a star lawyer, I found him kissing his client, Cassandra, in the snow.
The shock caused a miscarriage. When I tried to end my life, he brought his mistress to my hospital bed to call me a lunatic.
He then used my family to blackmail me, forcing me to play the perfect wife while he flaunted his affair.
For years, I was his broken trophy, a testament to his power. He had the career I funded, the woman he chose, and complete control over my life.
But on the night his mistress held me at knifepoint on a skyscraper rooftop, she didn't kill me.
She turned and plunged the knife into Armand's chest instead.
And as his legal wife, I inherited everything. His Betrayal Created A Ruthless Queen
Billionaires My marriage ended the way the world found out about it: on a police report that landed on my desk. I was a prosecutor who had moved back to San Francisco to save my political marriage to tech billionaire Hilton Austin.
When I confronted him at the hotel, I found my husband on one knee, not proposing, but tenderly tying his influencer mistress' s shoe.
That night, he abandoned me on a dark highway to rush to her side, causing me to miscarry the child I was secretly carrying. At the hospital, he publicly accused me of faking the pregnancy, slapped me, and then cut my arm with a piece of broken glass.
"Now you have a reason to be in the hospital," he said coldly.
The love I' d held for him since I was sixteen didn't just fade; it was murdered. He thought he had broken me, but he only created a monster.
I used my family's power to have him thrown in jail. When he begged for a second chance, I brought in my childhood friend, Adrien, and delivered the final, killing blow.
"The baby wasn't yours," I said, my voice like ice. "It was his." My Life, His Deadly Design
Horror My life was a perfectly crafted blueprint of happiness. I was an architect, and my daughter, Lily, was my beautiful design.
Then Sophia came along, filling spaces I hadn't known were empty, and her angelic son, Lucas, instantly became Lily' s "best brother."
But on our first family camping trip, I found a horrifying collection: a dozen broken dolls, hair snipped, limbs twisted, eyes gouged out.
"Lucas said it's his collection," Lily whispered.
He smiled his innocent smile, claiming he "just found them and gave them a home," and Sophia rushed to his defense, completely blind.
Then Lily fell sick, a strange, spiderweb-like rash spreading across her body.
Lucas, the doting brother, sat by her hospital bed, winding a beautiful antique music box-his father' s, he said-filling the room with gentle melodies.
But when no one was watching, his sweet expression would vanish, replaced by a cold, detached curiosity as he stared at Lily' s fading form.
The day Lily died, that infernal music box was still playing.
Her death wasn't an accident; I saw the cold, unnerving stillness in Lucas' s eyes.
He had poisoned my daughter, enjoying every slow, agonizing moment.
My world was annihilated, consumed by grief and the chilling melody of that music box, until everything went black.
Then I gasped, eyes flying open, the scent of grilled burgers and fresh-cut grass in the air.
I was holding a velvet ring box, and Sophia was smiling, her voice full of love. "Yes, Ethan, I' ll marry you."
It was the day of our engagement party.
The day before the nightmare began.
And standing next to Sophia, holding her hand and beaming up at me, was Lucas, the monster hiding behind an angel' s face.
I was back. I had been given a second chance, and I would not waste it. A Sacrifice Rekindled
Fantasy The smell of smoke and burning wood woke me, my heart pounding. It was the same fire, the one that had consumed everything in my first life.
But this time, Kaelen was alive, his silver eyes narrowed, not in concern for me, but in a frantic search for Lyra.
He accused me of setting the blaze, demanding I save her with my own lifeblood, forcing the agonizing transfusion while she smirked, thriving on my pain and his blind devotion.
How could he believe her lies, even as I sacrificed everything, again and again, for the very life he now blamed me for saving?
Then, the memory hit me: Kaelen, dying in my past life, his last breath a bitter regret not for Lyra, but for me. This second chance wasn't just about saving him from fire, but from himself, from the painful, world-shattering regret that had haunted his dying eyes. The Wife They Buried: Now Watch Her Rise
Sci-fi My experimental cure for a degenerative neurological disease had a bizarre requirement: "positive emotional resonance."
Love was a luxury my family never afforded me.
My twin Jessica, my parents David and Linda, and even my husband Mark, bled me dry, taking credit for my genius.
The Phoenix Foundation announced my therapy was failing: seven days until my death.
Still, they demanded more.
Parents needed me to fix Jessica's buggy app for a funding round.
Mark required elaborate legal strategies for his career.
My talent, always theirs.
My head throbbed, my body failing, but they saw only annoyance, demanding I work.
Jessica feigned illness, then brazenly demanded IP rights to my groundbreaking app.
Mark, dismissing my imminent death as "dramatics," framed me for Jessica' s hit-and-run, securing my forced committal-a painful death sentence.
He even injected me with a lethal dose.
My ultimate betrayal came when Jessica brutally attacked me with shears, and Mark, seeing my bleeding face, still prioritized her comfort.
Lying there, bleeding and abandoned, a cold clarity dawned: they would never change.
My life, a relentless sacrifice, was ending in torment.
Why did they always break me, only to demand more?
But then, a whisper from the Foundation: "Protocol transition."
"Karmic Retribution Resonance."
Not death, but a second chance.
Not for love, but for their regret.
I would become Anna Hayes, an architect of their downfall, finally taking back what was mine. Her Ex, His Redemption
Romance I was the rock of InnovateATX, Bella's husband, the tech visionary who' d put his own startup on hold to support her dream.
Our Austin home, a life I helped design, was where I genuinely believed our future lay, despite the secret pact I' d made years ago with venture capitalist Olivia Hayes to neutralize Victor Cole, the man connected to my family' s ruin.
Then, Bella handed me divorce papers, declaring, "It was always him," nodding towards Victor, her resurrected college sweetheart.
Weeks blurred into public accusations – Bella siding with Victor, dismissing me as "moping" after a staged office "accident"- and private indignities, as she signed my resignation without a glance, calling my efforts a "drag."
She watched me clear out our home, deeming our shared memories "sentimental junk," and, as I stumbled through the wreckage of my life, coldly stated, "I don' t love you anymore."
Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, a truck swerved into my car, leaving me mangled and bleeding on a Hill Country highway.
Through my blurring vision, all I could see was Bella, rushing past my wreck to Victor' s less damaged Tesla, cradling him, utterly oblivious to me.
In that moment, the final, agonizing truth slammed into me: she truly felt nothing for me, the man she married, the man who had loved her.
The raw realization was more painful than any shattered bone.
Desperate, I fumbled for my phone and choked out Olivia' s name.
Her voice cut through the chaos, calm and cutting: "They can make you disappear, Ethan. Officially. A clean slate. A new life. If you want it."
Watching Bella's betrayal unfold, I whispered, "Yes. Do it."
As darkness consumed me, my old life ended, and a new one, colder, sharper, was born from the ashes. The Unwanted Wife's Unstoppable Rise
Romance For five years, I was the devoted rock for Mark, pouring my love, money, and unwavering support into his struggling tech startup, dreaming of our shared future.
Then, on April Fool's Day, a wedding invitation flashed on Instagram: Mark and Chloe.
His college crush.
Her smug caption, "#NotAJokeAnymore?", felt like a direct stab.
He'd hidden it.
That night, a drunken Mark called me Chloe, regretting he was "too broke" to pursue her.
His friend confirmed I was a convenient rebound.
Days later, I found Chloe in our apartment, wearing his shirt, who then gloatingly showed me their engagement photos – taken a month ago.
I blacked out.
Waking in the hospital, Mark brazenly offered a "solution": he' d keep me, his "wife," while managing Chloe.
Five years of devotion, reduced to a reliable appliance, while my prematurely white hair screamed the truth of his deceit.
But a notification for my expedited transfer to Europe was my lifeline.
I ripped out my IV, walked out, and never looked back.
Two years later, a frantic Chloe called: Mark was gravely ill, delirious, calling only for me, for my comforting remedies.
He missed the services, not the woman.
I calmly hung up; my new life was finally my own. The Queen Bee's Fall
Modern The drone of Mr. Davies' voice, the familiar hum of my junior year English class, felt strangely distant. Once, my life was a clear path: top student, Yale-bound, my future set. My mother, Dr. Emily Miller, a respected psychometrician for the College Board, a source of pride.
But that perfect future shattered. Tiff Reynolds, the school' s queen bee, twisted my academic talents and my mother' s connection into a weapon. Jealous of my success, she spread a monstrous lie: I was the mastermind of a cheating ring, funneling actual test questions from my mom.
The investigation hit like a Category 5 hurricane. My Yale admission, rescinded. My mother, suspended, her brilliant career in ruins. And Dad… Dad, hounded by shame and stress, passed away. The weight of their blame, the utter desolation, crushed me. I tried to end it all, escaping into a cold abyss.
Why? Why did Tiff' s greed and lies destroy everything I loved, everything I was? The injustice was a searing, raw wound. There was no relief, no way out of that suffocating despair, only the consuming question of how my innocent actions could lead to such a catastrophic fall.
Then, the world snapped back. Heart hammering, I was sitting in class again, the date September 14th. It was real. A second chance. My hands clenched under the desk. This time, I wouldn' t just survive. This time, they would pay. His 'Practice' Bride, Her Real Wedding
Romance For five years, Ava Miller navigated a passionate, secret relationship with Ethan Hayes, her best friend's younger brother. High above the New York skyline, she lived in their bubble, cherishing his touch and believing his fervent promises that their hidden love would "soon" be revealed to the world. She devoted herself, feeling vibrant and truly loved.
One devastating night, her carefully constructed world shattered. Hiding just outside a half-open door, Ava overheard Ethan tell his closest friends she was nothing more than "great practice"—a mere "walking manual" for him to hone his boyfriend skills for his true, long-held obsession, Chloe Vance. Five years of her life, dismissed as a calculated "training program."
The revelation was a gut punch. Ethan, the man who pursued her so ardently, abandoned her at her sickest to fuss over Chloe’s minor scrape. He allowed Chloe to publicly gloat, calling Ava a "warm-up act" and "convenient." Every tender word, every intimate gesture, now felt like a meticulously rehearsed lie. The man she loved saw her as a disposable tool.
How could someone be so callous? Was her entire five-year relationship a horrifying, humiliating charade? The sheer audacity, the betrayal, left her reeling, disgraced and utterly heartbroken. What was she if not a placeholder, a learning experience for someone else?
Refusing to be a discarded practice doll any longer, Ava made a stark choice. She severed all ties, sold her life in New York, and fled to Charleston, determined to build a new, honest life—one where she was truly valued. But would her past, and Ethan’s eventual realization, allow her to move on untouched? 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. 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. 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. 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 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." The Scars He Left: A Second Chance At Happiness
REGINA HUTCHINSON "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. Into The Rival's Arms: The Decoy's Escape
Paula Gardini I stood behind the velvet curtain, clutching a positive pregnancy test, waiting for the perfect moment to tell Dante our family was growing.
Instead, I heard him laugh.
"She is not the bride," Dante told his Consigliere, swirling his fifty-year-old scotch. "She is the bulletproof vest I wear until it is safe for Sofia to enter the city. When the bullets stop flying, we throw the vest in the trash."
My world shattered.
When Sofia arrived that night, she didn't just take my place; she boiled my beloved cat for dinner. Dante didn't defend me. He told me to clean up the mess or face punishment.
To prove his devotion to her, he had his men drag me to "The Pit"—an underground fight club.
I was thrown into a cage with a starving Doberman.
I looked up at the VIP box, begging the man I loved to save me. Instead, Dante pressed the intercom button, his voice booming over the speakers.
"One million dollars on the dog," he said. "She won't last three minutes."
He covered Sofia's eyes to protect her innocence while the beast tore the flesh from my arm.
That night, Elena Vance died in the dirt.
One year later, the grieving Dante Moretti attended a gala for a mysterious new artist in New York.
He dropped his champagne glass when he saw me on stage, alive, wearing a dress that revealed my ruined, scarred arm.
"I didn't leave you, Dante," I said into the microphone, my voice cold as ice.
"You killed me. And now, I'm here to collect my winnings." He Faked Amnesia To Abandon His Wife
Karyelle Kuhn The neurosurgeon looked at me with pity, delivering a diagnosis that severed seven years of devotion in a heartbeat.
According to the scans, my husband, Dante Rizzoli, remembered how to strip a Glock blindfolded and launder millions.
He just didn't remember loving me.
Overnight, I went from being the cherished Mafia Princess to an unwanted stranger in my own penthouse.
While I filled our home with his favorite lilies trying to spark a memory, Dante brought home Gia.
She was loud, tacky, and draped over him like a cheap suit. The Capo had forgotten his wife, but he seemed to remember his lust perfectly fine.
I swallowed the humiliation, clinging to the hope of his recovery, until I stood outside his office door with a tray of espresso.
I heard his dark, amused laugh rumbling through the wood.
"The amnesia is the most useful card I've ever played," Dante told his soldier.
"It buys me time to enjoy Gia without the family breathing down my neck. Elena is a boring, safe relic. I need fire, not a porcelain doll."
My heart didn't race. It stopped.
The medical anomaly was a lie. He hadn't forgotten me; he was just done with me.
I set the tray down silently. I wasn't going to wait for him to remember anymore.
I walked out of the penthouse and dialed a number I hadn't used in years.
"Get the new ID ready," I whispered into the phone.
"Elena Vitiello dies tonight. Livia Moretti leaves at dawn." The Betrayed Rose Rises Anew
Elisha Plasket He called me his wild rose, the foster kid he rescued from the streets. He built me a gilded cage and told me it was love.
Then I saw the text: my best friend, Karis, showing off the engagement ring he' d just given her.
I rushed to his office, only to overhear the truth. I was just a "placeholder," a "stray he picked up," a useful toy to keep his family happy while he planned his real future with her.
He laughed about how easily he could control me.
"A little gaslighting, a few well-placed gifts, and she'll be back where she belongs. Under my thumb."
His final act of love? Drugging me and handing me over to a monster, sacrificing me as a "body double" to protect his precious Karis.
He thought I was just a broken foster kid with nowhere to go. He thought he could erase me.
He was wrong. As the private jet he put me on exploded over the ocean, I was already gone-saved by the powerful family I never knew I had. Now, I'm coming back, and they will pay for every single lie. 
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