Ellene Millstein
15 Published Stories
Ellene Millstein's Books and Stories
Not Her: The Shadow Bride's Great Escape
Mafia I was the invisible daughter of a low-level mobster until Ethan Cole, the city’s most terrifying Don, plucked me from the streets.
He claimed it was love at first sight. He married me, draped me in vintage diamonds, and treated me like a fragile porcelain doll.
I thought I was living a fairytale until I found the secret room in his library.
It was filled with photos of a dead woman named Olivia. A woman who had my hair, my eyes, and my face.
I wasn't his soulmate. I was a replacement part for a broken machine.
When I became pregnant, Ethan didn't hug me. He placed a possessive hand on my stomach and whispered, "The heir."
He didn't see me. He only saw an incubator for a ghost's legacy.
My father tried to warn me and died for it. I realized that once I gave Ethan this child, I would be trapped in his gilded cage forever, a broodmare for a man in love with a corpse.
So, I did the unthinkable.
I walked into a clinic and paid cash to remove the one thing he valued more than his empire.
I went home, collapsed on the marble floor in a pool of blood, and looked up at the monster who thought he owned me.
"I lost it," I screamed, tearing at his lapels. "I lost our baby!"
I watched his heart break, knowing I had just declared war. Her Escape, His Eternal Loss
Romance The familiar ache pulsed behind my eyes, a constant companion in the sterile white room where sheets matched my pale, bruised skin.
They had given me electric shock therapy again, leaving my mind a fog of agony.
A key turned, and in walked Ethan Miller, the man I was supposed to marry, his face handsome but cold, etched with pity and disgust.
"Still acting like this, Chloe?" he snapped, accusing me of hurting a nurse-a lie I was too broken to fight.
Then Liam Thorne, my half-brother, joined him, an insincere mask of concern plastered on his face.
"See, Ethan? She' s completely gone," Liam purred, blaming my supposed violent tendencies on the stress of his "illness."
Ethan, my savior turned accomplice, instantly sided with Liam, his trust absolute.
But then Mark Evans, a childhood friend turned doctor, assessed my condition, his voice serious as he unveiled the severe trauma and abuse they' d inflicted on me.
Liam quickly deflected, accusing me of self-harm, a narrative Ethan chillingly affirmed.
Liam then proposed transferring me to a private institution, the 'Thorne Wellness Center' -a name that sent a jolt of terror through me, a prison designed just for me.
Desperate, I pleaded with Ethan, "Please, don' t take me there. I' ll do anything."
He hesitated, a flicker of the old Ethan visible, and agreed to take me home.
But Liam intervened, whispering manipulations, leading me back into the trap.
I screamed as orderlies grabbed me, but it was too late.
They injected the sedative, and I went limp, my savior watching as he condemned me.
The torture at Thorne Wellness Center was worse than I could have imagined, leaving my mind fractured, my body starved.
When Ethan finally came to pick me up, he was horrified by the skeletal, lifeless woman I had become.
In that moment, a plan formed in my fragmented mind.
I had to escape, even if it meant jumping from a second-story window.
Under the cover of darkness, I slipped from my gilded cage, running, barefoot and silent, into the night. My Fiance's Betrayal, My Fiery Vengeance
Modern My fiancé and my adopted sister framed me for burning down our Hamptons beach house. They had me declared insane and used a forged power of attorney to lock me away in a private facility for four years.
While I was drugged, tortured, and systematically broken, they stole my company, my reputation, and my life.
When I was finally released, they stood before me, dripping in the wealth they'd stolen. Kelly, my sister, even wore my mother's engagement ring, a glittering trophy on her finger.
They saw a vacant, docile shell, not the woman who spent every waking moment meticulously planning their ruin. They thought they had extinguished the fire.
At a party meant to celebrate their victory, Kelly held up a dog collar studded with cheap rhinestones.
"Wear this," she cooed, "and you can have your mother's watch back."
I dropped to my knees and barked. They thought it was my final, crushing humiliation; it was the beginning of their end. Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Lycan King
Werewolf At the Full Moon Banquet, my husband didn't just announce a surrogate. He humiliated me.
Alpha Bennett stood center stage, radiating power, while I stood in the shadows—the embarrassment, the Wolfless Luna.
"Kelsey is too fragile," he announced to the pack. "Aria will carry our legacy."
He called it a medical necessity. But later, I heard him tell his Beta the truth:
"I look at her and see a dead end. Aria smells like a mate should."
The humiliation didn't stop there. Aria moved into our home, scent-marking my bed with her vanilla perfume. When she staged a fall, Bennett didn't check if I was okay. He grabbed me by the throat, accusing me of trying to kill his unborn "Alpha twins."
He even drained his own blood to save her fake pregnancy, while I bled from silver wounds he ignored.
Broken and replaced, I left my wedding ring on the table and vanished to Paris. Bennett was so eager to be rid of me, he signed the separation papers without even reading them.
It wasn't until his wedding day to Aria that the truth came out. The pregnancy was a lie. The twins were a fraud created by witch potions.
Desperate and regretful, Bennett tore through Europe to drag me back, thinking I was still his weak, human wife.
He didn't know he was walking straight into the Lycan King's territory.
And he certainly didn't expect to find that his "Wolfless" wife had finally awakened as the legendary White Wolf. The Alpha's Lost Heir: A Broken Luna's Revenge
Werewolf I was the Luna of the Moonstone Pack, but to my husband, Alpha Blake, I was nothing more than a placeholder.
While he showered his "fragile" childhood friend Ariana with attention, I kept a secret black notebook.
It wasn't a diary. It was a countdown.
Missed our anniversary dinner for her? Minus 10 points.
Saved her from a falling sculpture while leaving me to be crushed by steel? Minus 20 points.
I lay in the hospital with broken ribs, watching him leave to comfort Ariana because she was "traumatized" by my accident.
But the final straw came the night I was hit by a truck in a storm he abandoned me in.
Desperate to save our unborn baby, the doctors called Blake. They needed his Alpha energy to anchor the fetus.
"I can't come," Blake said coldly over the speakerphone.
"Ariana is having palpitations. If the fetus is strong, it will survive. If not, it wasn't meant to be."
He hung up.
I felt the life inside me wink out.
With trembling hands, I opened my notebook for the last time.
Incident: Killed our child for her. Final Score: -100.
I signed the divorce papers, left them on the ashes of my life, and vanished.
When Blake finally returned to the empty house, realizing he had lost his True Mate, he fell to his knees and howled.
But he didn't know the truth yet.
The wife he called weak had just awakened as the legendary White Wolf, and I was never coming back. Betrayed By Love, Reborn In Fire
Billionaires Eleanor Vance, tech titaness, finally leaned back, champagne in hand, on her Monte Carlo terrace.
Six months into hard-earned semi-retirement, her empire was thriving, and today, her daughter Sarah and son-in-law Mark were officially taking the reins.
A notification shattered the peace.
"VANCE TECH SHOCKER: NEW HEIRESS ANNOUNCED AS FOUNDER' S DAUGHTER BRANDED A FRAUD."
Her blood ran cold as she saw the image: Mark, arm around a smug stranger named Lily Miller, the Vance Tech logo looming like a tombstone.
Sarah' s phone went straight to voicemail. "Sarah, darling, it' s Mom. Call me back the second you get this."
Mark answered, voice sickeningly cheerful. "Eleanor! Enjoying the Riviera, I hope?"
Then, dropped a bombshell: "Sarah Vance is not, in fact, Eleanor Vance' s biological daughter. She is an illegitimate child… The true inheritor… is my daughter, Lily."
Eleanor watched live footage: Sarah, her dress torn, screaming "He' s lying! I' m her daughter! Mom, he' s lying!" as security dragged her away.
Mark' s smooth voice narrated: "Sarah has been… unwell."
The camera zoomed on Sarah' s anguished face, then a guard shoved her out.
The world vanished for Eleanor; only a burning rage remained.
She hurled her glass, shattering it against the wall.
"Get the jet ready," she commanded, voice dangerously calm.
"Get me everything you can find on Jessica Brown and Lily Miller. Dig."
"I' m going home," Eleanor vowed, her eyes like flint. "And I' m going to burn their world to the ground."
How could Mark, her trusted son-in-law, conspire with Jessica, a former employee fired for corporate espionage, to publicly destroy her daughter and steal her legacy?
The deeper horror: the faint red welts on Sarah' s back in the video; this wasn' t the first time he' d hurt her.
Why hadn' t Sarah called?
What kind of hell had her child been living in while she was sipping champagne across the world?
The guilt was crushing, but the fury burned brighter.
Eleanor wouldn't just fight; she would annihilate.
"When we land, we go directly to headquarters."
Mark thought he' d won; he just triggered the war of his life. From Servant To Survivor
Billionaires "I'm resigning." The words felt heavy on my tongue, the crisp white envelope a symbol of escape.
My HR director, bless her kind heart, urged me to reconsider, yet I walked away, my steps measured, a desperate fight against the urge to shatter the office's perfect silence.
Instead of going down, I went up-to Mark Johnson' s office. Tech mogul. My sister Emily's ex-fiancé. The man who owned my life.
I whispered, "I can' t do this anymore." His mocking reply: "Did you forget the debt you owe?"
He revealed the horrifying depths of his revenge, convinced my father murdered Emily and that I, Chloe, must atone for it.
He called me a "substitute," a "punishment," claiming Emily was his songbird, caged by him. Now, I was his new bird, and this time, "the cage has no door."
Humiliation after humiliation, I became his personal maid, scrubbing his pristine apartment while he spoke to a new woman, happily planning a future that should have been Emily' s.
Then came the bridal shop, Jessica Carrington, Mark's radiant fiancée, a diamond sparkling on her finger. "I said yes," she declared, and Mark's triumphant gaze met mine over her shoulder.
Jessica, eyes cold and sharp, warned me to disappear, claiming Mark was burdened by me. She also revealed a chilling truth: "He has a tracker on your phone."
Trapped, I endured endless nights of servitude, my dignity eroding, until one night, in the back of his town car, Mark kissed me-a furious, violating act-then abandoned me in the pouring rain.
A dream of Emily, calling to me to be free, sparked a fragile hope. I walked into his office, ready to break free, but his knowing smirk and a chilling whisper reminded me, "The cage has no door."
Then, at the bridal shop, Jessica's staged fall led to Mark's hand flying across my face, a slap that shattered everything inside me.
The last shred of my misplaced loyalty, my fear, my shame-it all broke. I walked out, pulling the tracker-laden phone from my purse, and threw it into the nearest trash can.
I was free. His Bet, Her Ruin, Their Reckoning
Young Adult The icy water stole my breath, a final, burning cold consuming me as I sank into the dark lake.
The last thing I saw was my Harvard acceptance letter, a cruel joke on the grass.
Yesterday, that letter was everything, the key to saving my brother, Liam.
But that was before Noah Vance, the school bully, destroyed my life.
It began with his chilling "mind-reading" trick.
He cornered me before the exams, his smirk unwavering as he revealed things only I knew, like Liam' s urgent need for a bone marrow transplant and our family' s crushing medical debt.
He proposed a bet: if he got into an Ivy League, I' d be his personal assistant for three months.
If not, he' d pay for Liam' s surgery.
Desperate, I agreed.
I aced my exams, and the call from Harvard brought a wave of relief.
Then I saw the public scoreboard: my perfect score, and right below it, Noah Vance, with the exact same perfect score.
It was impossible.
He and his friends dragged me into the shadows.
"Looks like I won," he sneered, his face inches from mine.
There was no money for Liam; only the bet.
They held me down.
They broke me.
Not just my spirit, but my body.
The next days were a blur of pain and shame.
I couldn' t tell anyone.
Then the hospital called: Liam had a complication, an infection.
Without funds, they couldn' t operate.
He died two days later, and with him, a piece of me.
I walked to the lake, the Harvard letter in hand, feeling nothing but a profound emptiness.
How did Noah Vance, a slacker, get a perfect score?
The water closed over my head.
Then, I opened my eyes.
I was in my bed, the sunlight streaming in.
My best friend' s text buzzed on my phone: "You ready for the last day of hell before exams?"
I was back.
Back to the day before the bet, before everything.
A cold smile spread across my face.
This time, Noah Vance would not succeed. Her Vengeance, Their Regret
Young Adult The email chimed, promising a breakthrough – a perfect 1600 on my SATs, a golden ticket to the future, and finally, acceptance into the Miller family.
But then, Chloe, my adoptive sister, gasped, her own 1599 score turning her face green with envy.
In an instant, joy curdled into a nightmare as Liam, my adoptive brother, materialized, his protective fury ignited by Chloe' s crocodile tears.
He branded me a cheat, an ungrateful outsider out to humiliate his beloved sister, tearing down everything I' d worked for.
They dragged me, terrified, from the house, not to reflect, but to a rundown animal shelter, a place designed to exploit my deepest, most traumatic childhood phobia: dogs. This was no prank; it was calculated malice.
Left bleeding and broken, Liam' s scathing words on the phone twisted the knife deeper, dismissing my pleas for help as manipulation.
Then, Chloe' s voice, sickeningly sweet, promised to destroy my most cherished possession-a photo of my late mentor, Mr. Harrison-and I heard the shattering glass.
The line went dead, leaving me in the dark with a freed, aggressive pit bull, its growl a death knell.
Just as hope flickered, Chloe' s voice, cruel and dismissive, echoed again, mocking my screams as "dramatic."
They weren' t coming. They wanted me to die.
But then, I heard the sirens, and found the strength to scream one desperate command: "Break it down!"
The world exploded in light, but so did the Millers' carefully constructed facade, exposed live on national television as a horrific betrayal.
Now, as they face the consequences of their monstrous acts, I will rise from the ashes, no longer an outsider begging for crumbs of affection, but the architect of my own destiny. Home, Finally, Without Him
Romance The plane landed, and Liam was there, handsome as ever, his smile making my heart flutter despite the exhaustion of my art residency.
But then I found a delicate pink earring in his car, one that wasn't mine.
Minutes later, his phone buzzed; it was his assistant, Chloe, and then a text popped up: "Are you with her?"
He brushed it off as "just work," but his hurried attempt to get rid of me, to send me into a bakery while he "circled the block," spoke volumes.
The cold dread in my stomach turned to ice, confirming what I already suspected: his concern for me was a performance, and the earring was a deliberate marker, a sign that my carefully constructed world was about to shatter. The Unwilling Wife
Romance The organ music swelled, painting my white wedding dress in shades of blood red.
I was marrying Julian Thorne, a man who despised me, believing the lies that had ruined my reputation.
This wasn't a marriage; it was a sentence, orchestrated perfectly by my stepsister, Sophia, who had always wanted Julian for herself.
Everyone saw Eleanor Vance, the brilliant architect, as the luckiest woman alive, but my heart was a cold stone.
As the word "I do" escaped my lips-a whispered surrender-a blinding white light engulfed me.
I woke up in my old bedroom, the floral wallpaper still on the walls.
My phone read October 12, 2014-ten years ago, the day of my first wedding, the one that never happened.
Relief surged through me; I wasn't Julian Thorne's wife.
But then dread set in as Sophia's text buzzed on my smaller, older phone: "Julian's family is coming for dinner tonight, you have to make a good impression!"
It was all starting tonight, the very dinner where Sophia would introduce me to the Thornes, setting off the chain of events that would lead to my forced marriage.
The contempt in Julian's eyes was already there, seeing me as a social climber, exactly the image Sophia had carefully crafted.
I was trapped again, a ghost in my own life, burdened by a future I knew was coming: the Thorne family's imminent financial ruin, and my own career sacrificed to support them.
But this time, I wasn't the naive girl to be manipulated.
I knew all their secrets, and I would not spend another ten years as Eleanor Thorne.
I would fight. Her Betrayal, My Mother's Death
Romance My world shattered in the sterile hospital air, moments after my twin sons, Leo and Max, were born.
Overhearing a hushed conversation, I discovered Max wasn't mine – he was my wife Olivia's lover Marcus's son, a fact confirmed by a secret DNA test. My mother, beside me, gasped, then collapsed, dying on the spot from the shock of Olivia' s betrayal.
Olivia abandoned me and Leo, taking Max away, only to unleash a torrent of public humiliation.
Marcus plastered their family photos online, Olivia still wearing my wedding ring, brazenly claiming "my woman, my son."
The city' s gossip consumed me; I was the cuckolded fool.
But the betrayal intensified. My culinary competition portfolio, my life' s work, vanished.
Days later, Marcus stood on stage, presenting my stolen ideas as his own. And then Olivia, my wife, painted me as a delusional lunatic, publicly tearing down my credibility to protect her lover.
How could she be so callously cruel? My mother was dead because of her, my son abandoned, my career destroyed, and I was branded the insane one while they thrived. The injustice was a suffocating weight.
But the broken pieces of my life sparked a furious resolve. I threw my wedding ring into the river, a final severance. I would leave this poisoned city, escape the whispers, and take Leo, my real son, far away. We would rebuild, find peace, and finally, be free from her shadow. Her Two Lives: From Maine to Manhattan
Romance I was a simple fisherman from Maine.
I saved a girl named Izzy from a shipwreck, and in her amnesia, we built a pure, simple love.
We promised each other forever by the salty sea.
Years later, the woman who looked exactly like my Izzy, now the formidable heiress Isabelle Sterling, summoned me to New York.
But this Isabelle was cold, distant, and chillingly allowed her aggressive fiancé, Preston, to repeatedly brutalize me.
She kept me confined in her luxurious penthouse, a gilded cage far from my home.
Preston had me beaten in an alley, smashed my jaw, and even framed me for assault, sending me to Rikers Island for a brutal month.
Isabelle watched, seemingly unmoved, later bringing me back only to keep me under her watchful eye.
My health was failing, constant headaches and blurred vision plaguing me, but I clung to the hope that my real Izzy was truly out there, fighting for her family, plotting our reunion.
"My Izzy would never abandon me," I' d whisper, constantly denying this powerful, callous Isabelle was the girl I loved.
Why was she letting this happen to me?
Was the Izzy I knew gone, or just buried under layers of New York ambition?
Then, at a glittering gala, as Isabelle triumphantly exposed Preston' s crimes and shockingly announced our engagement, he screamed the devastating truth: "She IS Izzy! She abandoned you for power! And she' s using you again!"
The world spun, my carefully constructed reality crumbled, and the full weight of her betrayal, coupled with a crushing pain, brought me to my knees. What Money Couldn\'t Buy
Modern The hospital air was cold, too clean, smelling like death trying to hide.
I was running, lungs burning, clutching the $50,000 I'd scraped together-every cent Dad and I had, plus loans and extra shifts-desperate to save my father.
He'd helped me raise the money for Izzy' s "crippling debt," a desperate plea from the woman I loved and planned to marry.
I believed her, truly.
Then the doctor delivered the blow: "Your father, Michael... he passed away an hour ago. He collapsed because he hadn' t been taking his prescribed medication. The expensive ones for his condition."
My blood ran cold, the words echoing in the sterile hallway.
He did this for Izzy.
He killed himself to help my girlfriend.
Numb, I found Izzy at her "struggling artist" apartment, her eyes feigning perfect concern.
"It's for your debt," I rasped, handing her the thick envelope.
Days later, working a catering gig, my father' s cheap cardboard urn tucked under my arm, I overheard her at a lavish party.
Izzy, laughing with Liam Astor, her smug "childhood friend."
"He actually passed the hardship test, Liam. Impressive, for a line cook."
My blood turned to ice.
Then Liam' s cruel reply: "The old man croaking was a nice touch. Really sold the desperation."
They knew.
They knew my father died.
My father' s life, his sacrifice, was a game. A test.
The love I felt for Izzy, the future I imagined with her, crumbled into ashes, just like the ones I carried.
This wasn' t just betrayal; it was a grotesque, sadistic mockery.
My selfless father, reduced to a pawn in her twisted elite games, his death a mere footnote in their cruel charade.
The world tilted, reeling from the sheer, mind-numbing horror of it all.
No.
I wouldn't be their punchline.
I quit my job, scattered Dad' s ashes, and left.
Vanished.
But when, years later, she' d desperately beg me to "come clean" and "come home" on national television, her pleas would ring hollow.
I had found my peace, far from her toxic world, leaving her to the echoing silence of her monumental lies. 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. 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.* 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. 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. 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. 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. I Married My Ex-Fiancé's Ruthless Older Brother
EVA PINK I was a Vitiello, sold to the Morettis to secure an alliance. For five years, I quietly loved Dante, counting down the minutes until our wedding at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
But it ended with a single text three minutes before the ceremony.
"Stay at the apartment. Sofia is awake. Don't make a scene."
His ex-girlfriend, the love of his life, had woken from a coma with no memory. Just like that, I was erased.
For thirty days, I waited in the shadows while Dante played hero to a woman who didn't remember him. He told me he was protecting her fragile mind.
But then I found the truth.
I stood outside the doctor's office and heard Dante refuse a treatment that would restore Sofia's memory.
"If she remembers, she might leave again," Dante told the doctor. "Elena will wait. She's a good soldier. Let me have my fantasy."
He wasn't protecting her. He was keeping her broken to feed his ego, banking on my submission. He thought I was furniture he could put in storage.
He was wrong.
I didn't go back to the apartment. Instead, I dialed a number every made man in New York feared.
"Matteo," I said to Dante's lethal older brother, the King of the underworld.
"I am done waiting. I want to be a Moretti bride. But not Dante's." 
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