Lucy Cartwright
9 Published Stories
Lucy Cartwright's Books and Stories
No Next Life For The Don
Mafia For two years, I endured hell in an underground brothel, bleeding to earn the bribe money to save my Mafia Don husband from the electric chair.
But when Cassio finally returned, he didn't come to rescue me.
He marched in with thirty armed enforcers, threw annulment papers on my chest, and announced his new mistress was pregnant with his heir.
The mistress was Camilla, a low-level associate who stole the credit for my sacrifice.
Cassio believed every lie she told, looking at my degrading uniform with pure disgust.
"Sign the papers. You have disgraced the Moretti name enough."
He ignored the whip marks and burn scars covering my ruined body, tossing a stack of cash at my feet like I was trash.
When I tried to buy my freedom with the ten million dollars I had agonizingly earned, he ruthlessly blocked my bid.
He demanded I kneel and pledge loyalty to Camilla, trapping me as their property.
I couldn't understand how the man who once promised to burn the world down for me could be so blind.
I had destroyed my body and my ability to ever carry a child just to secure his freedom.
Yet he was standing here, publicly humiliating me for the woman who secretly orchestrated my torture.
Staring into his cold, unforgiving eyes, my dead heart finally turned to ash.
I calmly invoked the ancient, fatal 'Angel's Drop' trial.
I wrapped the sheer red silk around my wrists and ascended into the dark sky, choosing a shattered death in the freezing harbor over a life with him. Reborn As The Lycan King's Fated Mate
Werewolf I thought I had found my savior in Alpha Camron after my adoptive family was brutally slaughtered.
But as I lay chained to the damp dungeon wall, my inner wolf silenced by silver poison, he sneered and rejected me.
"Did you really think I loved you? You were just a dumb, loyal dog."
He confessed that he had orchestrated my family's murder to frame Lycan King Asher.
Blinded by his lies, I had plunged a silver blade into Asher's heart—the only man standing in Camron's way to the throne.
My step-sister Erica then arrived to deliver the final, crushing blows.
"He was your true fated mate, Ella," she whispered with sadistic glee. "He loved you so much he retracted his aura, leaving himself defenseless so you wouldn't get hurt killing him."
Worse, she laughed at my swollen belly, revealing the baby I carried wasn't Camron's. He had paid a filthy Rogue to defile me in the dark.
The man I murdered was the other half of my soul, and the monster I trusted had destroyed everything I loved.
My heart simply gave out, drowning in an abyss of pure agony and hatred.
Opening my eyes again, the stench of burning flesh was gone.
I was back in my attic bedroom on my fifteenth birthday.
Today was the day my evil stepmother would start her deadly plot.
This time, I would tear them all apart. The Billionaire's Secret Ten Year Obsession
Romance Brooke was supposed to marry her fiancé, Gaven, in less than twenty-four hours to secure her sick mother's corporate legacy.
But the night before the wedding, she followed a mysterious text to a hotel suite, only to find Gaven pressing her half-sister against a sofa.
Through the crack in the door, she recorded their sickening moans and their cold conspiracy to drain her mother's company the moment the marriage papers were signed.
At the altar the next day, Brooke didn't say "I do."
Instead, she hijacked the church's projector, broadcasting their sex tape and offshore fraud documents to hundreds of wealthy guests.
But instead of supporting her, her own father stormed the altar and slapped her across the face with brutal force.
He cared more about the corporate merger than his daughter, threatening to blacklist her from the industry, while Gaven vowed to completely destroy her.
Bleeding and stripped of her family ties, Brooke walked out into a freezing downpour, completely isolated against a powerful family ready to ruin her sick mother's life's work.
She had no money, no allies, and nowhere to go.
Just as a furious Gaven chased her into the street, a massive black Maybach sliced through the rain and pulled up in front of her.
Inside sat Foster Pruitt, the ruthless, terrifying billionaire whose life she had accidentally saved from a car wreck the night before.
Knowing he desperately needed a wife to secure his own empire, Brooke climbed into his car and looked at the most dangerous man in the city.
"Marry me." Reborn Heiress: Revenge On My Wedding Day
Modern I lay paralyzed in a luxury Swiss clinic, my body a heavy sack of meat I no longer controlled. The heart monitor’s rhythmic beep was the only thing louder than the silence, a mocking countdown to my inevitable end.
My fiancé, Jordan, walked in looking impeccable in the custom suit I had bought him for his birthday. He wasn't alone; my best friend, Chloe, followed him into the room, wearing the vintage Givenchy dress I had saved for our anniversary gala.
Jordan didn't look like a grieving man; he looked bored as he held up a blue folder confirming that my family's offshore trust had finally cleared. Chloe giggled, leaning over me to ask if I finally realized it was the engagement wine she had spiked seven days ago. Jordan brushed a cold hand over my forehead, calling me a "perfect little asset" before pulling Chloe into a hungry kiss right over my dying body. To ensure there was no turning back, he pulled out a silver lighter and set my living will on fire, watching the only document that could have saved me turn to ash.
I tried to scream, to curse them both to hell for stealing my life and my legacy, but all that came out was a wet, rattling wheeze. My own father, I would later learn, had known about the takeover and chose the profit over his own daughter's life.
As the darkness swallowed me whole, I made a silent, desperate promise: if there was anything after this, I would come back and destroy every single one of them.
I gasped, my body jerking upright as air rushed into my lungs like liquid fire.
I wasn't in Switzerland, and there was no poison in my veins. I was back in my Manhattan bedroom, staring at a phone that read June 12—the morning of the wedding, the day I was supposed to die, and the day I decided to burn their world to the ground. Tune In for My “Apology”
Modern My ex-boyfriend, Gabriel, the man who once promised me forever, looked at me as if I were a stain on his expensive suit. He was here to finish the job of destroying my life.
To save my brother from jail, he demanded an impossible six-figure settlement and a humiliating, live-streamed public apology.
Three years ago, his now-fiancée, my rival Aspen Watkins, framed me for cyberbullying. Gabriel believed her lies, publicly denounced me, and shattered my world. The scandal led to my expulsion, my parents' fatal car crash, and the loss of our family fortune.
He was ready to humiliate me all over again for a crime I never committed, his eyes cold and unyielding. The punishment wasn't just for my brother; it was for me.
But as I prepared for my public execution, a mysterious billionaire made me an offer. He knew the truth and gave me the means to fight back.
Aspen wanted a spectacle.
I decided to give her one. Love Turns To Ashes
Mafia I grew up with Asher from a young age.
He once saved my life by taking a hit meant for me from an enemy, and I was kidnapped and brutally mistreated because of him.
Everyone in the circle knew that I, the daughter of the Dixon family, was the center of Asher's world.
But when he returned from building a branch in the Golden Triangle after two years, he brought back a young woman dressed in immaculate white.
She looked pure, but she was provocative in her gaze.
"Nicola, it was just an accident between Asher and me, but he insists on taking responsibility for me. Please stop him."
I looked at her hand resting on her belly with Asher's ring around her finger. My fingers trembled slightly.
The next moment, the bodyguard behind me pressed a cold gun barrel against that young woman's temple.
I turned to Asher, who was clenching his fists tightly.
I said coldly, "If you insist on marrying her, then leave the Dixon family for good." Her Final Act
Horror For seven years, I lived as "Chloe' s boyfriend," a quiet coder whose entire self-worth was built around her "saving" me from social anxiety.
Our Austin apartment was loud, packed for the Super Bowl party, until the music died and everyone stared as Chloe walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, carried by her ex-boyfriend, Blake.
His smirk was a dare, a familiar test of my manufactured jealousy, but this time, something inside me was just... quiet.
My unexpected calm ignited a terrifying rage in Chloe, shattering her control and escalating her manipulations from fake tears and public flirtations to a staged car crash and a chilling threat to jump from our 15th-floor balcony.
I calmly moved on, started a new life, and was building my own success, finally free of her endless drama.
Then, just weeks later, at my promotion celebration, she appeared in a white wedding gown, asked for one last photo, and plunged a knife into her own stomach, collapsing into my arms.
Her final, horrifying act left me tragically, undeniably free. His Quiet Escape
LGBT+ My wife, Vicky, said she had a business trip. "It's important, Ethan," she' d said, not looking at me. That was her excuse for missing the music festival, the one I' d bought tickets for months ago. So I went alone.
Then, on the main stage screen, there she was, smiling next to Dylan Hayes, her college ex. The interviewer asked about inspiration. "Sometimes you wish you could go back to a simpler time," Vicky cooed, her eyes on Dylan. "Like, three years ago, before I made certain life choices." Three years ago. That's when we got married. My stomach dropped. The beer tasted like poison.
My own public declaration of divorce at an open mic that night spiraled into a media frenzy. Vicky, terrified of public backlash, hit back. Not at me, but at my sick younger brother, Liam. She threatened to cut off funding for his life-saving leukemia treatments unless I went along with her sanitized PR narrative: we'd "amicably separated," and she was simply "reconnecting" with her new business partner-Dylan.
The injustice burned. To leverage my brother's health for her image? To see her ex-lover ensconced in her company, a reminder of her betrayal? I was trapped, but I wouldn't be broken. She wanted a new chapter without me? Fine. I would write one for me and Liam.
That night, while she celebrated her carefully crafted facade, I packed our bags. I typed up a divorce petition, signed it, and left it on her pristine kitchen island. I found a new, fully-funded clinical trial for Liam across the country. My brother' s treatment, my escape. We were gone, leaving her to face the consequences of her choices. The Cost of Love: Abandoned and Broken
Romance My life was perfect: a star quarterback, engaged to my high school sweetheart, Chloe, and surrounded by a loving adoptive family who always put me first.
Then Liam appeared, claiming to be my long-lost biological half-brother, weaving tragic tales that instantly captivated everyone around me.
One by one, my adoptive mother, my three stepsisters, and even Chloe, chose him, abandoning me completely when a flash flood swept me away, leading to my brutal kidnapping and torture, which they dismissed as my own fault. Liam stole my dreams, my scholarship, and then my last chance to play football, while my family celebrated him as their new hero, claiming I was "not up to it."
The ultimate betrayal came when he brazenly wore my jacket and used a precious, deeply personal memento, meant for the child Chloe had lied about losing, as a dog toy. How could everyone I loved turn their backs so easily, believing every lie from a stranger while my entire life shattered around me?
With nothing left but the raw ache of their indifference, I walked out of that house and that town forever, determined to find a new life, far from the shadows of my past and the people who destroyed me. You might like
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. Reborn, I Wed the Untamed Playboy
Bone Possolo On my wedding day to Julian Moretti, the future Mafia Don, I was deliberately sent to the wrong penthouse.
My half-sister Sofia had crawled into my fiancé's bed, leaving me to be discovered by the family's exiled, alcoholic cousin.
In my past life, I was shattered by this orchestrated betrayal. I cried and begged when Julian publicly humiliated me, choosing his illegitimate mistress over his rightful bride.
I played the perfect, dignified Mafia wife for years. I swallowed his insults, ignored his infidelities, and accepted my ruined reputation to keep the peace.
But my blind obedience only paved the way for my murder. Julian discarded me, and I was poisoned to death so Sofia could steal my crown as the Mafia Queen.
Until my agonizing last breath, I didn't understand. I had honored our families' blood alliance flawlessly.
Why was I the sacrificial lamb while they were rewarded for their treason?
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the dark leather sofa, suffocating in my heavy silk wedding dress.
This time, I didn't shed a single tear.
I grabbed a heavy brass letter opener, marched straight into the Don's main study, and slapped the Underboss across the face in front of the entire family.
"A Valdez woman does not share her husband," I declared coldly. "To honor the alliance, I will marry Dante."
If they wanted to make my humiliation a fact, I was going to make it a funeral. 99 Roses for the Underboss's Wife
Natala O'neal I was the brilliant money launderer for the most feared syndicate on the East Coast, and the fiercely loyal wife of its Underboss, Dante.
While I worked sleepless nights to build his underworld dominion, he secretly diverted my operations to fund a luxury club for his naive barista mistress.
When I confronted them and publicly exposed her, Dante didn't show a shred of guilt.
Instead, he slapped me across the face in front of the entire syndicate.
He draped his tailored jacket over his crying mistress to shield her, then turned his cold eyes on me.
"Apologize to her right now, or I will send every single soldier in your crew to the slaughterhouse."
He then weaponized the mafia's whisper network to destroy my reputation, painting me as a hysterical, paranoid woman just to legitimize his affair.
For years, I had blindly endured his psychological torture, believing my devotion would eventually earn his respect.
But looking at the brutal purple handprint on my cheek, and the ninety-nine dried bouquets of white roses he kept in the attic to carelessly patch over his toxic abuse, my heart finally turned to ice.
I didn't throw a tantrum, nor did I beg for his love anymore.
I left his apology blood diamonds on the table, drafted my mafia severance papers, and walked out of his territory for good.
This time, I would build my own empire, and let him drown in the ruins of his. You Called Me Barren, Mr. Sterile Don
Gong Zi On my birthday, my husband Dante asked for a divorce over a plate of cold lasagna.
He held my hand, tears in his eyes, and told me his mistress was pregnant.
"It’s a miracle, Elena," he wept. "God has finally given me a son."
He looked at me with pity, calling me "broken" because I hadn't given him an heir in eight years.
He moved his pregnant mistress into the penthouse I paid for, and his mother mocked me as a "dry vine" while cooking tonic soups for the new woman.
They didn't know the truth I had buried three years ago.
I remembered the day the doctor slid the file across the desk: *Azoospermia. Zero sperm count.*
Dante was the sterile one.
I had burned the results to protect his fragile ego as a Mafia Don. I took the blame. I drank his mother's vile herbal poisons every morning until I vomited, just to keep his secret.
Now, he was discarding me for a "miracle" that was biologically impossible.
I signed the divorce papers without a tear.
Then I bought the debt of his company, put on a blood-red dress, and walked into his heir's Christening.
I didn't come to object.
I came to plug a USB drive into the projector and show the entire underworld exactly whose "miracle" that baby really was. Substitute Bride: Taming The Masked Mafia Don
Hei Baidong I was dragged back from the countryside by my father for one purpose: to be a sacrificial lamb.
He ordered me to marry the mafia Don Damien Valachi in place of my sister. Everyone in the underworld knew that this Don's brides never saw the light of the next day. My stepmother put on a fake smile and took my hand, calling it an "honor"; my sister hid behind her, unable to conceal the gleam of triumph in her eyes.
I smiled coldly and held up two fingers: "Twenty million dollars. Now."
My father tried to play tricks, planning to take back the money from my trust fund after I died, but I had someone transfer every cent out before the wedding, leaving him a zero balance.
The next day, the wedding car pulled up to the Valachi estate. The butler ordered the driver to use the service entrance-it seemed my groom didn't think I was worthy of the front gate.
I got out and switched to an armored vehicle. I floored the accelerator, crashing straight through the estate gates. The gates shattered, and I didn't stop until I reached the main steps. I jumped out, the heel of my shoe crushing a broken iron railing, and shouted:
"The bride is here."
I looked up, scanning every window until my gaze stopped on one dark pane. I knew Damien was watching.
I brushed the dust off my skirt, raised my voice a notch, and smiled: "What, the Don of the Valachi family doesn't dare come out to meet his new wife?" Reborn To Ruin The Capo's Wedding
Felix Turner My mother is marrying a monster tomorrow.
I'm the only one who remembers.
My widowed mother was arranged to marry Lorenzo, a powerful Mafia Capo. I thought his status would finally bring us protection.
But on the third day of their marriage, Lorenzo moved his pregnant mistress, Camilla, into the estate's master suite.
She loudly claimed the child in her womb was the orphaned blood of a fallen soldier.
"A Capo of Lorenzo's stature is doing your mother a service," the Syndicate wives mocked me, demanding we accept our place.
Camilla systematically seized my mother's territory cuts and subjected her to endless psychological torture, while Lorenzo simply turned a blind eye.
When the baby was born, it bore the exact same distinct birthmark on its neck as Lorenzo.
Only then did we realize Lorenzo had used my mother as a convenient shield for his illicit affair, stealing my dead father's legacy and slowly draining our lives away.
I didn't understand why the Family's brutal justice allowed a thief to siphon funds under the guise of caring for a martyr's widow, leaving us to die in absolute disgrace.
Opening my eyes again, I was back to the day before the mob wedding.
Looking at my six-year-old hands, I grabbed the torn marriage petition and stole the secret trust documents.
This time, I ran straight to the heavily guarded gates of Don Salvatore, the most ruthless executioner in the city. 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.
Dying To Escape The Obsessive Mafia Don
Priority I spent three excruciating years building an underworld empire for Cassius, only for him to give the ultimate symbol of his protection to a fragile girl named Serena on the very day he proposed to me.
My biological brother Julian, my protector Enzo, and my ally Lucian all followed suit, prioritizing Serena's fake tears over my life.
They forced me into a lethal bone marrow extraction to save her. When I welcomed the agony—using it to trigger my system's extraction protocol, my only way home to the real world—they violently aborted the procedure. They accused me of twisted manipulation and locked me in a high-security medical prison. There, they handed my care over to Serena, who tortured me in secret, calibrating my pain to hover just below the medical alarms.
"You will live," she whispered, "so that you may watch them choose me—until the act itself becomes a prayer."
I didn't understand. Why was my physical agony never enough to make them stop, yet a single tear from Serena became their absolute law? Why wouldn't they just let me die so I could go home?
Then I saw my real brother Arthur, exhausted by my hospital bed, through the system feed—and I realized I couldn't die. Not yet.
I wiped all emotion from my face and calmly signed the papers for their live public reconciliation broadcast.
Before I leave this world for good, I will tear Serena's perfect facade to pieces. Too Late For Regret, Underboss
LARA MORRISON For two years, my world was circumscribed by the biometric lock on our penthouse and silent prayers for my husband, Vincenzo, the most feared Underboss of the Cosa Nostra.
But when he finally returned from a brutal three-week smuggling route, he tossed me a cheap five-dollar tourist scarf, while his ex-lover Camilla flaunted the flawless pearl necklace he had just bought her.
He abandoned me with a bleeding hand to rush to her side, ignored my severe medical emergencies to comfort her over trivialities, and publicly humiliated me at a Syndicate banquet by seating her in my rightful place at the head of the table.
Camilla cornered me in the powder room, her fragile victim facade dropping instantly as she smirked at my reflection.
"The thing a powerful man fears most isn't a wife who screams. It's a useless one who refuses to bow out gracefully."
I endured his blatant disrespect and broken Omertà, wondering why my unwavering loyalty meant nothing compared to the manipulative tears of a woman who was actively leaking his classified safehouse coordinates.
I didn't understand why he treated his sacred vows like garbage, eagerly feeding her Syndicate intel just to play the big, strong hero while leaving me to face cartel death threats entirely alone.
But I was done being the neglected mafia wife waiting in the shadows.
I calmly activated the covert audio recording device hidden inside my designer clutch.
It was time to present this irrefutable evidence to the Don's Tribunal, strip my husband of his title, and build my own empire.