Gertrude
17 Published Stories
Gertrude's Books and Stories
Reborn Heiress: Dragging Traitors To Hell
Mafia The world was a symphony of agony, played on the strings of my own body. I was tied to a chair in a damp basement, the metallic tang of blood filling my mouth as my fingernails were ripped from their beds by a pair of rusty pliers.
My best friend, Corrine, stepped into the flickering light wearing my favorite Chanel suit and the engagement ring that was supposed to be mine. Beside her, my fiancé Aldo held the pliers, his voice smooth and cultured as he demanded I sign over my entire inheritance to them.
As I struggled, a news report flashed on an old TV in the corner: Hunter Gallagher, the man I had treated like dirt but who had always tried to protect me, was dead in a horrific car explosion. Corrine laughed, whispering in my ear that they had lured him to his death using a fake kidnapping tip. He died trying to save me from a trap set by the people I trusted most.
They didn't just want my money; they wanted to erase me. They plunged a needle full of heroin into my neck, watching with cold, mocking eyes as my heart hammered against my ribs and finally seized into nothingness.
I died in that basement, a blind, spoiled girl who had let her true protector be murdered. As the darkness closed in, my soul burned with a single, silent vow: If I ever get another life, I will drag you both to hell with me.
Suddenly, I gasped for air, my lungs fighting against a weight that wasn't there. I wasn't in the basement; I was in my own bed, my fingernails intact and my skin unbroken. I checked my phone, and my heart stopped—it was May 20th, exactly one year before my death. Hunter was still alive, and this time, I wasn't the prey. The Alpha Signed Away His Fated Mate
Werewolf I stood center stage at my own art exhibition, surrounded by the Pack elite who looked at me with nothing but pity.
My husband, the Alpha Prime, was missing.
Then someone pointed at the TV. There was Dante, live on the news, shielding another woman—a leggy Beta named Isabella—from the rain with his own body.
While I stood alone, treated like a defect because I couldn't shift, he was playing the perfect gentleman to his mistress.
That night, I walked into his office with a stack of boring gallery logistics paperwork.
Buried deep on page four was a Severance Bond—an archaic law declaring a mate unwanted property.
Dante didn't even read it. He was too busy laughing with Isabella to notice he was legally signing away his wife.
I took the folder, packed a bag, and vanished into the night, taking the secret of his unborn heir with me.
When he finally tracked me down in the Swiss Alps during a blizzard, he expected a submissive wife ready to return.
Instead, he found a woman who looked him in the eye and said, "You are not needed here."
I thought I was free, until a year later, when our daughter’s blood began to burn her alive from the inside.
Her powerful Alpha bloodline was at war with her body, and my magic wasn't enough to save her.
Trembling, I dialed the number I swore I’d never call again.
"Dante," I sobbed. "It's Luna. She’s dying."
The man who once treated me like a resource tore through mountains to save us.
But this time, the Alpha Prime didn't come to conquer.
He came to kneel. His Unwanted Wife, The Unbeatable Lawyer
Mafia For three years, I was the perfect Mafia wife. I ensured my husband Jared's suits were impeccable and his public image flawless. I even sat at tables with Russian killers and calmly translated the order to execute a man who betrayed our Family. My value was my composure and my loyalty.
The moment an internal memo praised Jared for his 'heroism' during the Mayland Warehouse Massacre, I knew our marriage was over. Because I was the one he'd left to die.
The memo was a masterpiece of fiction, claiming he made a split-second decision to protect the Family's "most valuable asset." That asset wasn't me, his wife, who was calmly negotiating with cartel members for our lives. It was Bianca, his fragile mistress, who was crying on the phone in a sector he was ordered to stay out of.
When I packed my bags and left, he had the audacity to call me hysterical. "You're my wife," he scoffed.
"Was I your wife at Mayland, Jared?" I asked. "Did you think of your wife for even a second while you were running to save your weak little woman?"
He was a coward who had ignored a direct order from a Don, and the Family was calling him a hero for it. But I had the proof: a thirty-second recording of his profound dishonor.
I wasn't just seeking an annulment. I was petitioning the Commission, and I was going to use that recording to burn his world to the ground. Mafia Don's Wife: My Sweet Architect Revenge
Mafia For years, I was the secret architect behind my fiancé Ethan's success. I even torched my own reputation to cover up his theft, believing he was the love of my life and we were a team.
Waking from a car crash he engineered, I overheard his plan. He had not only caused my accident but also orchestrated the "stress" that led to my miscarriage. Now, he was stealing my masterpiece, "Echoes of the City," and planning a public proposal to trap me in a gilded cage.
At the gala, he left me on stage mid-proposal, the ring clattering to the floor, to rush to his mistress's side. At another party, after she told me he was "relieved" I'd lost our baby, I confronted him. He shoved me hard, sending me sprawling to the floor in front of everyone before walking away with her.
Lying there, humiliated, I realized he didn't see me as a person. I was just a tool to be used and discarded. The love I felt for him didn't just break; it turned into a cold, dark void.
But he made one mistake. He forgot about the one man in the city he truly feared, a powerful Don who had once praised my work. I picked up my phone and sent a single, desperate text to his rival: "This is Sarah Jenkins. I need your help." Deserted Wife, Billionaire's Regret
Modern My anniversary flight was about to board when my husband' s assistant, Chloe, appeared, tears streaming down her face, begging for my ticket because her mother was supposedly dying. It was absurd, but I told her to find another way, unaware of the trap I was walking into.
When I arrived home, my husband, Liam, confronted me, accusing me of abandoning Chloe. He then offered me a glass of water, which, unbeknownst to me, was drugged. I woke up alone, stranded in a scorching desert, the sun a blazing inferno above me.
A helicopter appeared overhead, and I saw Liam with Chloe, who was holding a phone, livestreaming my torment with the hashtag #AvaWalksTheDesert. They boasted about my family' s supposed bankruptcy and ordered me to apologize to Chloe. When I refused, Liam' s bodyguards took my shoes, leaving me barefoot on the burning sand, where rusty nails were then dumped in front of me.
I forced myself to walk, nails piercing my feet, leaving a trail of blood. The doctor on board screamed that I was losing too much blood, but Liam was unconcerned. Then, a sack of highly venomous desert vipers was dumped in my path, preying on my deepest fear.
I stood frozen, paralyzed by terror, as one viper slithered toward me and bit my calf. The doctor cried out for antivenom, but Chloe "accidentally" knocked the vial, shattering it. Liam, more concerned with his pride and the livestream than my life, demanded I apologize to Chloe and the camera for his "show."
"Never," I rasped, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Just as Liam' s bodyguards forced me to my knees, a military-grade helicopter descended from the sky. His Promise, Her Prison
Romance The day I was released from prison, my fiancé, Don Ford, was waiting for me, promising our life would finally begin.
Seven years ago, he and my parents begged me to take the fall for a crime my adopted sister, Kelsey, committed. She got behind the wheel drunk, hit someone, and fled the scene.
They said Kelsey was too fragile for prison. They called my seven-year sentence a small sacrifice.
But as soon as we arrived at the family mansion, Don’s phone rang. Kelsey was having another one of her “episodes,” and he left me standing alone in the grand foyer to rush to her side.
The butler then informed me I was to stay in the dusty storage room on the third floor. My parents’ orders. They didn't want me upsetting Kelsey when she returned.
It was always Kelsey. She was the reason they took my college scholarship fund, and she was the reason I lost seven years of my life. I was their biological daughter, but I was just a tool to be used and discarded.
That night, alone in that cramped room, a cheap phone a prison guard gave me buzzed with an email. It was a job offer for a classified position I had applied for eight years ago. It came with a new identity and an immediate relocation package. A way out.
I typed my reply with shaking fingers.
"I accept." Finding Love After the Drain
Romance Emily' s smile was as bright as the new silver pen she held out to me, a pen she said would bring me good luck for finding a new job. But I knew better. Every "lucky" gift from her had cost me dearly.
My last job, a stable marketing position, vanished after she gave me a "lucky" desktop plant. Then a designer handbag led to my wallet being stolen. And a set of wine glasses she gave me and Mark on our anniversary led to our worst fight ever, and then he left me, only to start dating Emily two weeks later.
They became the city' s golden couple, their success built on my ruin. My parents, who adored Emily, couldn't see it. "Things just seem to go wrong around you, Sarah," my boss had said, echoing my family' s common accusation: I was truly unlucky.
But I knew the truth. Emily had confessed it herself: "Because you had all the luck, Sarah. These little gifts… they' re not for you. They' re for me. They take your good fortune and transfer it to me. Your job paid for my gallery representation. Your boyfriend… well, I think I' ll keep him. You' re not unlucky, Sarah. You' re a battery. And you' re just about drained."
Now, holding a pen that felt like poison, I realized I wouldn' t be a victim anymore. My old self had died with everything I' d lost, but a new, cold resolve was forming. I was a battery, yes, but now I would choose who got drained. I reached into my purse for my grandmother' s locket, the one thing Emily had never touched, my last hope. The game was about to change. His Unwanted Wife's Revenge
Romance The day I turned eighteen, I was thrown into a gilded cage, marrying into wealth as my mother' s unwanted baggage.
Ethan Kensington, my new stepbrother, treated me like furniture, a secret he summoned only when bored or lonely, buying me off with trinkets.
Then came the wedding announcement: Ethan was marrying someone else, and the world was celebrating, blind to the shadow I' d become.
Broken and disposable, I faked my death, hoping to evoke a shred of guilt, only to reappear years later, building a quiet life of my own.
But he found me, cornered me in a diner, and with a public proposal that reeked of control, I foolishly said yes.
I married him again, believing his grand gestures were a sign of true love, until I overheard him describing me as a problem to be "handled."
The humiliation burned, and then, a horrifying crash revealed his executive assistant, Chloe, tampering with my car brakes, confirming the chilling truth: he didn't just want control; he wanted me erased.
In the hospital, reeling from the accident, the doctor delivered another blow: "You're pregnant."
But then Chloe appeared, radiating fake concern, only to deliver her own bombshell: "I'm pregnant, too, Ava. And it's Ethan's."
My world shattered, and cold, hard rage settled in, replacing all weakness.
They wanted two women, two babies, two lives controlled, but I would not live in that gilded cage.
"I need to speak to my doctor," I told the nurse, "Alone."
I was ending this. All of it. Chloe, My Only Regret
Romance Our marriage was a five-year war, a slow burn of mutual revenge.
I thought he hated me for trapping him, especially after I hid that letter from his college sweetheart, Sarah Jenkins.
He retaliated by bringing other women home, making them use my mug, sit in my chair, their perfume a constant torment he inflicted just to see the pain on my face.
After years of fighting for even a sliver of his attention, I woke up from a nightmare so vivid, so terrifyingly real, it felt like a premonition: a future where he'd force me to sacrifice everything for Sarah, leaving me ruined and discarded.
The terror of that vision compelled me to act; I demanded a divorce, expecting a fight, only for him to agree to my outrageous demand of 50% of his company shares.
Just as I believed I was finally free, I walked into a bar and saw him, playing the devoted hero to Sarah, shielding her from two thugs.
He accused me of orchestrating the whole thing, his fury blinding him to my innocence, confirming his deep-seated belief that I was nothing but a manipulative monster.
Then, just as I was about to walk out on him for good, he ambushed me, dragging me into a private room, his rage-filled kiss a violation, yet confusingly, it stirred something within me I swore was long dead.
The nightmare, however, brought me back to reality, and I pushed him away, screaming for him to go to Sarah, desperate to escape the dangerous flicker of hope his touch ignited.
When I presented a revised divorce agreement, offering to take less, he simply shredded it, then later, I watched, horrified, as he chauffeured Sarah around in my Porsche.
His phone call came late, a vulnerable whisper, claiming a car accident, drawing me to him despite everything, only for me to find him drunk, unhurt, and suddenly, bewilderingly, in tears, confessing his enduring love and tearing up yet another document – this time, a full transfer of his company shares to me.
I placed Sarah's letter, the one I had hidden, beside him, ready to finally reveal the truth, only for him to casually dismiss it, claiming he never loved her, and admitted to hiring actresses for five years to make me jealous.
Only then did I confess my own deception, and the realization of our shared, foolish misunderstanding brought us crashing together, five years of wasted pride melting away as he pulled me into his arms, finally understanding the depth of our love. Echoes of a Stolen Life
Young Adult "Liam, we need to talk." My father's flat voice cut through the tense silence of our dining room, setting the stage for a conversation I knew was coming. The university scholarship, a white rectangle of hope, lay on the table-a trap. My mother, Sarah, chimed in, her voice sickly sweet as she reminded me Noah hadn't gotten a scholarship, knowing what they truly wanted.
Then came the monstrous demand: "We want you to give the scholarship to him." Hot anger surged, the desire to scream, to accuse them of their blatant, cruel favoritism. But then, the cold memory washed over me. In my last life, I had screamed. I had fought. They expelled me, had me framed for plagiarism with fake evidence under Noah's name. The university slammed its doors. My name was dragged through the mud.
I watched Noah, my beloved younger brother, live my stolen life while I spiraled into poverty and despair. I died at thirty, watching his business success on TV, consumed by bitter regret. Why did they do this to me? How could my family betray me so monstrously?
But now, I was eighteen again. The letter was on the table. The same demand hung in the air. This time, I would not fight them. Not here, not now. I looked up, a mask of dejection on my face, and whispered, "Okay." They expected a fight, but I had a new plan. I was taking my future back, and this time, they wouldn't even see it coming. His Other Family, Our Stolen Future
Modern My son, Leo, was burning with fever, his cough rattling in his chest like loose change. We were broke, living in a damp trailer, and the eviction notice was a soggy death sentence taped to the door.
Desperate, I considered taking a shady job-fast money for Leo' s doctor. But then, visions flashed before my eyes like a glitch in reality.
I saw my deployed husband, Ethan, laughing in a sunny cafe, spending our combat pay on a fancy cake for another woman, Maria. I saw them buying new clothes, moving into a posh apartment on base, all on our dime.
Then the visions turned horrifying. I saw myself taking that job, Leo dying alone, and Ethan coldly using his death as an excuse to divorce me and marry Maria, securing her future with my family's benefits.
The phone dropped from my hand. This wasn't just my ruin; it was Leo' s death. This twisted future could not happen.
How could he betray us like this? How could he plan to steal Leo's very life and use it to advance his new, fraudulent family?
I would not let it. My son' s future was not going to be what those visions showed me. I had to go to Germany. I had to face Ethan. I had to reclaim what was rightfully ours. Reborn With A Vengeance
Fantasy The comforting warmth of my newborn son, Thomas, at my side filled the room, a perfect solace after days of exhaustive labor.
Maria Sanchez, my trusted housekeeper' s daughter, appeared at the doorway, her smile wide and seemingly benevolent, holding out a thermos of her mother' s special chicken broth.
But that smile, that very broth, triggered a horrifying flood of memories that weren't dreams at all-they were a past life I had lived, suffered, and died in.
In that chilling reality, Maria wasn't a friend; she was a cunning puppeteer who used innocent-looking chicken trinkets to steal my healthy baby, erase my very name, and shackle me to a monstrous husband named Julian Vance.
I remembered every agonizing detail: drinking that "revitalizing" broth had been the first step in a meticulously cruel scheme that resulted in Maria swapping her sickly infant for my perfect Thomas just days after his birth.
My existence became a living hell, a gilded cage where I wasted away, powerless, betrayed by all I held dear, until my premature, miserable death.
The fresh agony of that past life' s betrayal, the icy grip of her deception, ignited a cold, unyielding fire within me that burned away any trace of exhaustion or fear.
How could I have been so utterly blind, so heartbreakingly naive, to allow such a predatory serpent into my home, unknowingly consuming the very poison that would destroy me?
But now, I was Sarah Miller reborn, alive and aware, standing on the precipice of a second chance in this very moment.
As Maria reached out with the steaming bowl, believing she held the trump card, she had no idea that I was already steps ahead, ready to shatter her world just as she had shattered mine. Behind the Scoop
Modern My investigative journalism career was at its zenith, poised to expose a sprawling human trafficking network that reached into the city' s highest offices.
I had irrefutable proof, years of hard work culminating in this moment, ready to break a story that would shake the city to its core.
But then, only days from publishing, my former intern, Jessica Evans, unveiled my investigation with eerie precision, claiming my unique angles and even confidential source details as her own "intuition."
Overnight, I was branded incompetent and slow, my decade-long reputation imploded, while she soared as the city' s new journalistic darling.
The fallout was brutal: my editor, once my strongest advocate, viewed me with suspicion, and the whispers of a "washed-up" journalist followed me everywhere.
The pattern continued; lead after lead I was developing, cases I was quietly researching-like the chilling "Poetic Justice Killer"-Jessica miraculously scooped with impossible, intimate detail I hadn't even fully formed.
Then came the deepest cut: Professor Marcus Thorne, my respected Columbia mentor, praised Jessica's "raw talent" while publicly dismissing me as "envious," twisting the knife of my isolation and despair.
How could Jessica know my raw, unfettered thoughts, my most private investigative theories, ideas I hadn' t even fully committed to paper?
The sheer scale of this inexplicable theft, coupled with my mentor's shocking public betrayal, left me utterly confounded, adrift in a sea of public accusations and professional ruin.
But their words, their disbelief, ignited a fierce fire within me; this wasn't mere envy or decline, it was a profound, calculated betrayal, and I would expose how she truly saw into my mind, starting with my "retirement" from the public eye. Their Blinded Betrayal
Modern I was dying of aggressive leukemia, my last chance for life, a revolutionary CAR T-cell therapy, within reach.
My own family - my husband, David, and my parents - colluded to steal that life-saving treatment, diverting it to my cousin Jessie, who feigned vague illnesses for attention.
Condemned to palliative care, I watched them celebrate Jessie's "recovery" while dismissing my worsening symptoms as "drama" or "negativity."
I was forced to sign over everything I' d built-my beloved bakery, my bookstore, my investments-to the very woman who was orchestrating my demise.
Adding insult to injury, David asked for a divorce, planning to move Jessie into our home and enthralling my son with her false charm.
They called my quiet compliance "sensible," completely blind to the fact that I, sick and betrayed, was merely settling my affairs as a dying woman.
How could they be so utterly oblivious, so consumed by a manipulative charade, while their daughter lay dying before their eyes?
But their blind betrayal ignited a cold resolve: my surrender was merely the prelude to a posthumous retribution, carefully orchestrated in my final moments through a secret will and damning evidence, now entrusted to a shark lawyer to unleash upon them all. The Auctioned Wife's Redemption
Romance For five years, my husband Jackson controlled my life with extreme rules, all under the guise of his "severe mysophobia."
Every accidental touch meant hours on my knees, scrubbing marble with burning disinfectant, hands raw and bleeding.
I lived isolated, convinced I was a source of "contamination," perpetually seeking his nonexistent approval.
Then, a faint perfume on his collar, and a hidden conversation shattered my gilded delusion.
His "mysophobia" was a cruel lie, a charade to keep me in line while he entertained his mistress.
Worse, he was preparing to auction me, his wife, as an exclusive "Ephemeral Experience" at a high-society gala.
He even stripped me naked and locked me in our glass sunroom, a live preview for his laughing cronies next door.
The raw, public humiliation swallowed me whole; I was nothing but a commodity to heighten their depravity.
How could someone feign such a condition, then orchestrate such a monstrous betrayal, reducing me to an object without a shred of dignity?
My despair was absolute, the hope I clung to turning to ash in my mouth.
But buried deep within my grandfather’s prenup lay a secret clause, a last resort for "egregious betrayal."
My trembling fingers reached for the phone, a fragile seed of defiance taking root. You might like
Rejected by the Son, I Chose the Don
Rabbit On my wedding day, my father sold me to the Chicago Outfit to pay his debts. I was supposed to marry Alex Moreno, the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. But he couldn't even be bothered to show up.
As I stood alone at the altar, humiliated, my best friend delivered the final blow. Alex hadn't just stood me up; he had run off to California with his mistress.
The whispers in the cathedral turned me into a joke. I was damaged goods, the rejected bride. His family knew the whole time and let me take the public fall, offering me his cousins as pathetic replacements-a brute who hated me or a coward who couldn't protect me.
The humiliation burned away my fear, leaving only cold rage. My life was already over, so I decided to set the whole game on fire myself. The marriage pact only said a Carlson had to marry a Moreno; it never said which one.
With nothing left to lose, I looked past the pathetic boys they offered.
I chose the one man they never expected.
I chose his father, the Don himself.
My Husband's Brother Owns My Secret
Rabbit My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine.
Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family.
To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset.
They both thought I was a broken doll they could control.
I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice.
She sang it, and now her career is over.
Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground. Stripper's Love: I Married My Ex's Uncle
G~Aden I'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body.
My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in.
I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then-
I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses.
Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down-
He's still hard.
Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance.
"You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless.
"I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake.
"Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat.
And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm.
"Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine.
***
Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge.
She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez.
He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her.
What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated.
Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty?
And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?
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. To Ruin Him, I Married His Rival
Rabbit Andrew Hebert, the man who promised to protect me, stood on a stage and announced his engagement to my tormentor. It wasn't just heartbreak; it was a business deal. He was selling me to a creditor to cover his gambling debts.
The applause of the powerful families was a death sentence, each clap sealing my fate as collateral. Andrew had paraded me here just to show everyone I was an asset to be liquidated, while his new fiancée smirked at me from the stage.
I was trapped, with no money and no one to turn to. The man I loved was leading me to the slaughter.
But as I fled into the library, a voice emerged from the shadows, deep and dangerous.
Damien Maddox. The Dark Don. The only man Andrew feared.
He offered me a different kind of cage, one with the power to burn Andrew's world to the ground.
With nothing left to lose, I looked the devil in the eyes.
"Take me with you." 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. Burned by Poison, Saved by the Devil
Gale Kaaya My cousin Hailey paid a dock worker to assault me just to ruin my engagement.
To survive the military-grade aphrodisiac she poisoned me with, I stumbled into a walk-in freezer and threw myself onto the only source of cold I could find-a man paralyzed by unnatural hypothermia.
It was a desperate, primal exchange of my heat for his ice just to keep my heart from stopping.
But when Hailey threw open the heavy iron door, leading my fiancé and the entire Bolton family to witness my "shame," her triumphant grin instantly vanished.
She hadn't caught me with a low-life thug.
She had caught me straddling Demetrius Maddox, the ruthless Iron King of Chicago.
The air in the room dropped to absolute zero. My grandmother screamed in horror, and my father turned the color of ash.
Hailey, blinded by jealousy, tried to double down. She pointed a manicured finger at the deadliest man in the city and called him a "nameless muscle" I picked up to defile the family name.
She didn't realize she had just signed her own death warrant.
I didn't cower. I realized this was the only chance to survive the family that wanted me dead.
I walked up to the Devil himself, my body still humming with the poison, and looked him in the eye.
"Kill me, and the cold inside you wins," I whispered, knowing he was dying from the inverse of my own poison. "I am the only doctor who knows how to cure you."
Demetrius tightened his hand around my throat, his dark eyes assessing my worth.
"Prove it," he growled.
I turned back to my trembling cousin and signaled the enforcer to hand me the whip. The Don's Pawn, A Queen's Revenge
Rabbit My family sent me to marry into the enemy, a ruthless Don in Chicago. From the moment I arrived, I was treated like a common whore, a pawn to be humiliated and discarded. But they made one fatal mistake: they thought I was a lamb, when I was really a wolf in disguise.
Sent to Chicago for an arranged marriage with Don Vincenzo Moretti, Isabella Falcone arrived at his hostile estate, instantly an unwelcome outsider.
Hostility turned personal. Publicly shamed and trapped in Vincenzo's bed by his cousin, the Don accused me of whoring for family favor.
I faced constant humiliation. Family insulted me, staff trapped me. Vincenzo was cold. A rival framed me with a planted diamond, and the Consigliere declared me a thief, ordering soldiers to drag me away.
Branded a criminal by a rigged game, injustice fueled a cold, clear rage. I was a pawn, but I would show them a queen.
My fear hardened into lethal resolve. Alida Savage thought she'd destroyed me, but only declared war on the wrong woman. I would tear down all who dared to underestimate me.
Mistaken Identity: Loving The Wrong Twin Sister
Tabbie Platt I replaced my twin sister in a marriage contract to the ruthless Mafia Don, Donovan Blackwood.
For three years, I was a ghost in his home, silently enduring his coldness while he flaunted his mistress, Chloe.
On the very last day of our contract, Chloe staged an accident.
Donovan didn't hesitate.
He forced me to drain my blood to save her life.
Then, to prove his loyalty to her, he drove me to the cliffs and pushed me into the freezing ocean.
He even locked me in a cellar infested with spiders—my deepest phobia—because she lied and said I threatened her.
He thought he was punishing the spoiled, arrogant Isabella.
He didn't know he was breaking Ava, the woman who had silently memorized his allergies and waited up for him in the dark every single night.
When I finally took my fifty million dollars and vanished, I left behind nothing but the divorce papers and a photo revealing the truth.
He tore the city apart, destroying my family to find me, only to realize he had tortured the wrong woman.
Now, he is standing on my porch in the pouring rain, staring in horror at the simple wooden ring on my finger given to me by another man.
He falls to his knees, begging for a chance to love the wife he tried to destroy.
I look at him, feeling absolutely nothing.
"It's too late, Donovan," I say, locking the door. "You killed her." Too Late: The Don's Regretful Pursuit
Elisha Plasket I sat at the head of the mahogany table, the heavy heirloom emeralds around my neck marking me as the future Queen of the Cosa Nostra.
But the man beside me—Jax Viles, the most feared Don in New York—had his hand resting possessively on the thigh of the woman sitting to his right.
She wasn't his fiancée. I was.
The humiliation didn't stop at dinner. Jax moved her into my home, turned my dance studio into her closet, and when she pushed me down a flight of stairs, he stepped over my broken body to comfort her because she was "shaken up."
He started a bloody gang war just to defend her honor, yet ignored my desperate calls warning him of an ambush.
To him, I wasn't a partner. I was furniture—a fixture that was expected to be silent and useful. He would burn the world to ash for her, but for me, he wouldn't even skip a meeting.
So, while he was out celebrating his victory for her, I didn't wait for him to come home.
I left the engagement ring in the trash can next to the toilet.
On his desk, I left a single note: "I release you from the oath. I hope she's worth the war."
By the time he realized his mistake and came looking for his shadow, I was already gone, ready to become the Queen of my own life. 
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