ELEANOR HORTON
15 Published Stories
ELEANOR HORTON's Books and Stories
Flesh And Blood: His Dark Obsession
Mafia I was just a lower-tier nobody when the Matriarch of the New York Famiglia offered me a dangerous deal: cure the ruthless Don Enzo's psychological trauma, and rise from the gutter.
But Enzo's trauma was deadly. His two previous wives were rival assassins who hid micro-explosives in their breast implants. Now, he violently attacked any woman who came near him, terrified of surgically modified bodies.
Just as I managed to break through his walls by proving my natural curves were entirely real, disaster struck. Camilla, a vicious mafia princess, burst into the Don's suite with corrupt doctors.
"She is a fake silicone whore and an FBI rat!"
She threw forged medical dossiers and deep-fake photos onto the table, rallying the entire syndicate to demand my immediate execution.
Camilla even pulled out a surgical scalpel, shrieking that she would slice my chest open herself to prove I had wires hidden inside.
I was surrounded by armed guards and hostile Capos, facing the terrifying prospect of the Don's lethal paranoia returning. Would he believe the digital lies and the syndicate's accusations over the warm truth his own hands had just verified?
Instead of panicking, I calmly stepped forward and looked Camilla dead in the eye.
I pulled down my collar to expose a fatal flaw in their deep-fake photos, revealing the permanent, dark bite mark the Don had just left on my bare skin. It was time to show them how a real Mafia Queen destroys her enemies. I Stole My Twin Brother's Bride
Mafia My fiancé, the golden boy of the ruthless Blackwood Syndicate, smirked and asked if I could tell him apart from his identical twin brother right before our wedding.
The moment he spoke, a terrifying memory of my own murder flashed before my eyes.
In that timeline, I chose him. He used his twin as a stand-in for our sacred vows so he could secretly run off with his mistress.
When his mistress later died in a tragic shipwreck, he went mad with grief and blamed me.
He dragged me to the roof of a casino and threw me off, screaming that my existence had sealed her fate.
"You should have known it was a game!" he roared as he pushed me over the edge.
As I plummeted to my death, I saw another man jump off the roof after me, desperately reaching out to catch me in mid-air.
I didn't understand why my fiancé would make such a sick wager with our marriage, or why he would murder me when my hand in marriage was the only thing that made him Don.
And I had no idea who the man was that willingly shared my brutal death.
Blinking back to the present reality of the dressing room, I looked at my arrogant fiancé and his silent, lethal twin.
This time, I walked right past the golden boy and threw my arms around the shadow. The Drowned Wife's Spectacular Comeback
Romance For three months, Summer sat by her husband Julian's ICU bed, guarding their unborn child and praying for him to wake up. Finally, the hospital called with the miracle she had been waiting for.
But when she rushed to his yacht to celebrate, she overheard him laughing with his mistress, Scarlett.
"As soon as she has the baby, she's gone. The child was a mistake. It should never have existed."
Before she could escape, Scarlett's men grabbed her. Looking out from the lounge window, her husband coldly ordered them to throw her into the freezing Atlantic Ocean. She survived, but the shock forced her into premature labor in a desolate shack. She gave birth to triplets, but her eldest son, Leo, had a fatal heart defect.
To save his life, she had to endure the ultimate agony. She anonymously sent her dying newborn back to the monster who tried to kill them, faking her own death in childbirth. For five years, she hid in the shadows with her healthy twins, her heart bleeding every day she was separated from her sick boy.
Now, the naive Summer Hayes is dead. She has returned as Dr. Matilda Sterling, a world-renowned cardiologist. And her very first patient at the Astor Medical Center is her son, Leo.
It is time to reclaim her child and burn Julian's world to the ground. Silent No More: The Genius Ex-Wife's Revenge
Modern The hospital ceiling was a blinding white, and I was losing my baby in a pool of rusty red. Because of my selective mutism, I couldn't scream as the doctors demanded a next-of-kin signature for the emergency surgery I needed to survive.
With trembling hands, I called my husband, Julius.
The line clicked open to the sound of cheering and a baby's first cry. Julius wasn't at work; he was in a delivery room, holding another woman's hand.
"I'm right here, Chanelle. One last push. You can do it."
When he finally realized I was on the line, his warmth vanished instantly.
"Elinor? I'm busy. Don't call just to breathe on the line."
He hung up while I was hemorrhaging on the gurney. Minutes later, my mother-in-law appeared not with comfort, but with a lawyer and a legal waiver.
"Sign away any claim your lost child gave you, or you don't get a cent for this procedure."
I signed the paper with a hand slick with blood, watching my child’s existence be erased for a few more minutes of life. When I returned home, Julius didn't ask if I was okay. He called me "barren" and "hysterical" while his mother forced a tray of raw, bloody organs into my hands, demanding I cook a recovery meal for the mistress.
They thought my silence was a weakness, a padlock they could keep locked forever. They didn't know I was a forensic accountant with a secret crypto fortune and the original blueprints for every design the mistress had ever stolen from me.
I realized then that I wasn't an incubator or a maid—I was the one who held the keys to their entire financial empire.
I took off my five-carat ring, tossed it into the fireplace, and sent a single message to a lawyer.
"It's time for total war." Sold To The Devil I Ruined
Modern Fitzgerald Woodard was the "stray" I used to torment in prep school, a boy I once paid to kneel in the mud for my amusement. Now, the tables have turned, and he’s the billionaire who bought my father’s debt, dragging me into his mansion as a "personal asset" listed in a contract I never read.
He didn't just want the money back; he wanted to see me break. He stood over me in the rain and told me he owned the very machines keeping my father alive, and with one flick of his thumb, he could stop his breathing forever.
The nightmare escalated until I didn't recognize myself. He forced me to eat cold soup off the floor like an animal and gripped my hand over a heavy hammer, forcing me to crush a young guard's bones just to prove I was as much of a monster as he was. His childhood sweetheart, a nurse I once humiliated, stood in the shadows, whispering that I was nothing more than a used-up toy he was already bored of.
I lay on the cold marble, shivering from a fever he refused to treat, realizing that the curse he placed on me years ago had finally come true. Every act of cruelty I had ever committed was being repaid with interest, and the man I once looked down on was now the only god I had left to pray to.
Suddenly, he threw me out into the freezing night with nothing but rags on my back and a shattered phone. The hospital called with an ultimatum: fifty thousand dollars by noon, or they pull the plug on my father’s life support.
Standing barefoot on the biting asphalt, I watched his black SUV disappear into the dark. I have nine hours to save the only person I love, and only one way to get the money. I have to go back and kneel before the devil I created. The Mistress's Watch, My Vengeance
Modern My husband, Cameron, stole my father's last gift to me-a one-of-a-kind watch.
I found it on the wrist of his mistress, Kenda, during a video call where she thanked him for the gift and their "late nights."
When I confronted him, he tried to gaslight me, using the years of painful, humiliating fertility treatments I endured as a weapon.
"You've been under a lot of stress lately," he said, a cruel glint in his eye.
He had convinced me I was barren, all while he was stealing from my family's foundation to fund her life. He even told her the watch was too ostentatious for me.
The affair was a sting, but the calculated cruelty of his deception was a mortal wound. He made me believe I was broken.
My grief turned to ice. I walked out of my study, leaving him stammering, and picked up my secure phone.
I made a single call to the only man I trusted.
"Gunner," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "I need you." Not Just an Incubator: The Omega's Revenge
Werewolf I thought I was the luckiest Omega in the world when the Alpha of the New Moon Pack chose me.
I was pregnant with his heir, sleeping in his bed, believing the warmth I felt was love.
But then I found the medical report hidden in his desk.
"Subject: Scent Modulator. Dosage: High."
It wasn't a fated bond. It was a drug. He was chemically forcing me to love him.
My best friend dragged me to a restaurant window, and I watched him kiss my cousin, Olivia.
Through the glass, I heard the words that shattered my soul.
"Just a few more months," Ethan told her, caressing her hand. "Once the incubator drops the brat, we'll dispose of her. Then we raise the heir as ours."
I was never his Luna. I was livestock. A walking womb chosen for my bloodline compatibility because his mistress was barren.
My father had tried to warn me with his dying breath, but I had been too blinded by the synthetic scent to listen.
Grief threatened to kill me, but the White Wolf inside me woke up screaming for vengeance.
I went back to the house. I didn't pack a bag. I went straight to the kitchen and brewed a tea of Wolfsbane and Mugwort.
I drank it all, weeping as I felt the bond to the baby snap.
Then, I walked into our bedroom, left the divorce papers on his pillow, and whispered into the mind-link:
"I, Ava Miller, reject you, Ethan Cole, as my mate."
As he screamed in my head, I blocked him and walked into the rain.
He thought he broke a weak Omega. He didn't know he had just unleashed a White Wolf. The Scarred Luna's Silent Vow of Vengeance
Werewolf A woman brought a boy into my clinic with my mate’s eyes and a genetic disorder exclusive to his Alpha bloodline. She named my mate, Damien, as the father, and through our bond, I felt his love for her as he lied about where he was.
That night at the pack gala, he shoved me to protect that boy, causing me to miscarry the baby I’d just learned I was carrying. As I bled on the floor, he comforted his son over a scraped knee, never once looking back at me.
His mistress later pushed me from a cliff, rejecting me in his name. But I survived, and a week later, I boarded a plane to Switzerland, ready to be reborn from the ashes of the woman he destroyed. No More Sacrifices: Chloe's Vow
Fantasy The last thing I remembered was the screech of tires and a crushing impact.
Then, I was a ghost, floating above my own lifeless body, pulled from the wreckage.
I watched silently as my fiancé, Liam, the man I' d given everything for, proposed to my stepsister, Scarlett, at my funeral-the very ring I' d once admired.
Their passionate kiss, the congratulatory smiles of our friends-it all ripped through me with a pain far worse than death.
My entire life had been a lie, a sacrifice for their happiness, and the regret consumed me whole.
I woke up with a gasp, drenched in sweat, in my childhood bedroom.
The date on my laptop screen read June 12, 2008-the day it all went wrong.
An email glowed: "Internship Offer: Prestigious New York Firm."
I had a second chance.
My heart turned to ice as the doorbell rang-it was Liam, charming as ever, with a bouquet of my favorite flowers.
He walked in, proposing marriage, but only if I gave my prestigious internship to Scarlett, his "soulmate."
"Marry me, Chloe," he whispered, "if you give her your internship spot...She' s my soulmate, you know that, but you...you're the one I want to build a home with."
This time, I slowly pulled my hands from his, a cold smile touching my lips.
"No."
His facade cracked, revealing the selfish man beneath.
"You're over, Liam," I said, holding the door open.
"I'm taking the internship. And I am never, ever going to sacrifice my life for yours again." Broken Ties, Shattered Dreams
Billionaires For eighteen years, the Miller mansion was my sanctuary, a gilded cage built with the love of my adoptive father, Richard, and my brother, Ethan.
My top-floor studio, overlooking the city, was my universe, filled with their unwavering support for my art and their endless affection.
Then Tiffany arrived, Richard' s biological daughter, a ghost from his past.
I welcomed her, eager for a sister, but the dream shattered almost overnight.
One night, Richard gave me a beautiful, antique paintbrush-a cherished gift.
But a single, perfectly timed tear from Tiffany, a trembling voice whispering about her deceased mother, instantly shifted the narrative.
Suddenly, I was the villain, my joy overshadowed by her fabricated grief.
Richard took the brush back, Ethan consoled her, and I was left with a cold, heavy stone in my chest.
This was just the beginning.
Soon, the Miller Corporation faced ruin, and I, their beloved adopted daughter, became a commodity.
My family, the men who had once adored me, arranged my marriage to a stranger to save their empire.
They saw a necessary sacrifice, not a heartbroken daughter.
When I fled to my Uncle David, he offered escape, a life devoted to my art.
But I believed it was my last act of loyalty to the family I once loved.
That night, on the grand staircase, Tiffany ensured my "loyalty" came with a price.
She faked a stumble, pushed me, and sent me sprawling, my ankle twisting in agony on the marble floor.
Richard and Ethan rushed to her side, not mine.
"Chloe, what is wrong with you? Your jealousy is going to destroy this family!" Richard roared, his face a mask of cold fury.
They saw only Tiffany' s tears, never my pain, my twisted ankle, or the innocent truth.
In that moment, something inside me broke for good.
The marriage wasn' t a sacrifice anymore.
It was an escape, a desperate flight from a family that no longer saw me. My Sweet Revenge: A Second Life
Young Adult I used to think my life was a gilded cage, trapped by the family who adopted me, the Blakelys.
They showered me with privilege, but it was just a facade.
Then, everything changed. I' m on my knees, a throbbing pain in my cheek, accused by my adoptive mother, Elizabeth, of assaulting my "sister," Nicole.
Nicole plays the perfect victim, her eyes brimming with fake tears as Elizabeth tells me, "You are not our daughter, Stella. Nicole is. You owe her everything."
They stripped me of my identity, making me feel like a replacement, a charity case who had stolen another's life.
In my last life, their words shattered me. I was a naive girl, easily manipulated, unknowingly prepped for sacrifice. I died at twenty-one, my "Golden Aura"-my very life force-drained to fuel their real daughter's ascent, sealing my real parents' gruesome fate.
But the joke's on them. I'm back. Reborn at eighteen, with every chilling memory of my past life and the decade I spent as a wandering spirit.
This time, I' ll play their twisted game, but with one crucial difference: I make the rules. And I will burn their world to the ground. The Final Goodbye of a Reborn Heart
Romance I was given a second chance, reborn to right the wrongs of my first life and finally cherish Elara, the wife I had scorned.
But this time, she was the one who was cold, distant, obsessed with another man, Julian Croft.
Her indifference rapidly twisted into ruthless cruelty when she forced my mother into a dangerous bone marrow transplant for Julian, then imprisoned me to prevent my interference.
The humiliations escalated: public mockery, water torture in a hotel pool, and even my hand broken on her command for a fictional injury to Julian.
Then, she tried to burn my parents alive with me watching, falsely accusing me of driving Julian away.
The Elara I knew, the woman who died for me, was gone, replaced by a monster.
My love, which had survived death and rebirth, finally died, and I realized I had to escape this nightmare.
So, I faked my own death, vanished from the world, and started a new life, finally free.
But even in death, secrets refuse to stay buried, and when Elara uncovers Julian' s shocking deceptions and attempts at murder, she discovers that Asher Blackwood is not only alive but deliberately ran from her.
Now, she's searching for me, desperate for answers and forgiveness, but I have a final message for her, a choice that will determine our fate across lifetimes. Too Late, Mr. Hayes: She's a Queen
Romance I'd moved on.
A decade ago, Ethan Hayes shattered my heart, ditching me for another woman after secretly giving me birth control disguised as vitamins, then publicly shaming me.
Now, I was Queen Sarah of Valoria, attending a glamorous D.C. embassy ball with my loving husband, King Alaric, and our charming son, Liam.
I thought I was free of the past.
Then I saw him.
Ethan.
Right there, with the same woman, Jessica Vance, her hand on a pregnant belly.
All the old agony, the humiliation, flooded back.
He and Jessica accosted me, mistaking my simple Valorian silk for catering staff attire, offering me cash, and then, claiming my dress was stolen, tried to have me thrown out for "harassing royalty."
He even unclasped his expensive cufflinks, offering them to me with a condescending smirk.
My heart pounded with the phantom pain of his betrayal, the audacity of his delusion.
How could he still be this man?
Just as he was about to signal security, my five-year-old son, Prince Liam, intervened, kicking the guard attempting to remove me.
Then, loud enough for the entire ballroom to hear, he declared, "She is my mother! Queen Sarah of Valoria!"
The room fell silent.
Ethan's face went white.
Alaric stepped in, his glacial gaze fixing on my ex.
This wasn't just a confrontation anymore—it was a diplomatic incident.
And it was time for my past to finally understand who I truly was. His Wife, His Brother, Their Betrayal
Romance Ethan Miller, a software engineer, centered his world on his wife, Olivia, often feeling overlooked by his family who favored his 'successful' older brother, Mark.
A year after Mark's wife, Olivia's twin, tragically died, Olivia's mother made an unthinkable demand: that Olivia surrogate a child for Mark to continue their bloodline, a bizarre proposal shockingly backed by Ethan's own parents and the entire family.
Ethan's world imploded when he found Olivia and Mark in his bed; Olivia's flimsy excuse of 'saving Mark' from suicide was accepted by the family, who gaslit Ethan, physically abused him, and threatened him with institutionalization after Mark staged an injury.
The ultimate blow came when Olivia announced her pregnancy with Mark's child, portraying it as a noble sacrifice for Chloe's legacy, utterly invalidating Ethan.
Betrayed, humiliated, and mentally tormented by his closest kin, Ethan simmered with a burning rage and disbelief, grappling with how his own family could conspire to such lengths and make him doubt his own sanity.
With his spirit broken but a cold resolve hardening him, Ethan secretly divorced, moved to New York, and began meticulously crafting an elaborate, 'eye-for-an-eye' revenge, hiring an actress to unleash Olivia's own manipulative tactics back on her. 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.
Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles
Dorine Koestler I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved.
He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again.
"Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports.
For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian.
In return, he treated me like furniture.
He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste.
I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home.
So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco.
I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage.
But I underestimated Dante.
When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat.
He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away. The Underboss's Obsession: Stealing The Bride
Diversion Three days before the wedding.
I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman.
Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress.
The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem.
It didn't spell Elena.
It read Sofia.
He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name.
Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife.
He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance.
I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared.
"The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?"
"Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport."
"Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys."
I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday.
He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead. No Tears For My Cold Mafia Husband
Amigo On our first wedding anniversary, my husband walked out the door.
Not for business. For her.
I left the divorce papers on the table, my wedding ring next to his untouched champagne, and I disappeared into the night.
For a year, I watched Dominic Rossi—the ruthless Underboss of the New York syndicate—drop everything the moment his phone buzzed with another crisis from Sophia. A panic attack. A sleepless night. A lie. I was his wife, the woman he’d promised to cherish, but I was never his priority.
So I chose myself.
Now he’s tearing the city apart trying to find me. But I’m already gone—building a new life with a job that’s mine, an apartment that’s mine, and a name that doesn’t belong to him. The girl who waited in that penthouse is dead. The woman who walked out isn’t looking back.
When Dominic finally corners me, I see the cracks in his armor. He says he’s sorry. He says he loves me. He says he finally understands.
But some words are too late, and some promises can’t be fixed.
He made me guess for a year. Now it’s his turn to wonder if I’ll ever come back.
A heart-wrenching, standalone mafia romance about a woman who refused to be second choice, and the man who learned too late what he’d lost. 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. Ravaged Crown - A Mafia Romance
Nicole Fox What would you do if you walked in on your husband cheating?
I'll tell you what I did:
Ran out the door with nothing but the clothes on my back.
A month later, I'm broke, jobless, almost homeless.
But then, while filling in as a waitress at a fancy restaurant, I trip and land in the lap of a gorgeous stranger.
One thing leads to another and we end up hooking up.
Afterwards, he leaves.
That's the end of that... right?
WRONG.
Because the next day, my temp agency sets me up for a job t
hat seems too good to be true. But when I arrive for the interview, my jaw drops. It's the stranger. Turns out he's rich. Like, very rich. And powerful. Like, very powerful. And here's his offer:
"Live in my house.Be my wife.Have my baby."
Needless to say, I start to freak out.
I stand up and stammer, "Um, I'll have to get back to you..."
And he replies:
"You're misunderstanding.It wasn't a question. You're not going anywhere." 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. From Jilted Bride To Mafia Empress
Xiao Wang For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne.
But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.”
My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love.
He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party." 
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