Marigold
15 Published Stories
Marigold's Books and Stories
Jilted By The Don: The Heiress Awakens
Mafia I bled beside Dominic for ten years, helping him rise from a scarred street soldier to the most feared Mafia Don in the city.
But on the day I planned to tell him about the eight-week-old heartbeat inside me, he canceled our wedding to marry an eighteen-year-old girl.
He told me he craved her innocence, untouched by the filth of our business.
His new bride faked an injury to frame me. Without hesitation, Dominic stripped me of my ring and threw me into a freezing underground cell.
Days later, they dragged me out and forced me to chug raw moonshine to prove my submission to his new Queen.
The liquid fire tore through my starved stomach. I collapsed and miscarried our baby in a pool of blood right in front of them.
Even then, his new wife laughed, pointing at my dying body.
"She is using hidden blood packs to manipulate you! She was never pregnant!"
Ten years of absolute loyalty and two previous miscarriages on the run, all rewarded with this deadly poison.
He walked away, leaving me to die on the cold floor of his club, thinking I was just a stray orphan with nowhere to go.
But he didn't know my true bloodline.
Six months later, as the Underboss of the rival Marino Family, I rolled up the tinted window of my armored SUV, leaving the crippled, ruined Don begging in the mud. Escaping With The Alpha's Unwanted Heir
Werewolf For three years, I played the perfect, submissive wife to Alpha Julian Sterling.
When I finally got pregnant with his heir, I thought it would warm his cold heart. But the first thing he did when he returned from his trip was hand me a Mate Rejection Agreement.
He had brought back his ex-lover, Serena.
Julian coldly declared our marriage was just a political chore. To clear the path for her, he fired me from the company I built, watched her mock my late father, and threatened to throw me out as Rogue meat if I didn't submit.
The most chilling part was a hidden clause in the divorce papers. It stated that because I was a wolfless Omega, if I were ever pregnant, he would terminate the pup to protect his pure bloodline.
I had given him everything, only to be discarded like trash. I touched my flat stomach, terrified and disgusted that the man I loved would gladly kill his own child just to please his new queen.
"Prepare the documents to accept the rejection," I told my lawyer calmly.
Julian thought he had won, throwing away his useless, barren Omega. He had no idea I was taking his only heir with me, and I would burn his entire empire to the ground before he ever found out. My Cruel Choice, His Silent Death
Modern My husband, Cole, collapsed on our kitchen floor, gasping that he was in agony.
But I told him to stop being so dramatic. My toxic ex, Bryant, was drunk and whining about a sprained arm, and I chose to rush him to a private clinic instead.
I left Cole to die alone on the cold tiles. He had to call 911 himself.
When I finally saw him in the hospital, the adoration he'd held for me for five years was gone, replaced by a chilling emptiness.
"You left me to die, Emily," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "You chose him. Again."
I had taken the kindest, most devoted man I'd ever known for granted, treating him as a placeholder for the man who constantly broke my heart.
In one single, cruel moment, I had finally killed his love for me.
Now, the divorce papers are on my desk. He's in Paris, thriving with a new restaurant and a new love who appreciates him.
And I am left with nothing but the ashes of my mistakes, beginning a life of lonely, agonizing penance. Poisoned Love, Bitter Justice
Romance My mother, a nurse who spent forty years caring for others, was poisoned and left for dead after a charity gala. The woman responsible, Keyla Dixon, stood in court, a mask of tearful innocence, claiming self-defense.
The real horror? My husband, Garrison Gardner, the city's top lawyer, was defending Keyla. He tore my mother's reputation apart, twisting the truth until the jury believed Keyla was the victim.
The verdict came swiftly: "Not guilty." Keyla hugged Garrison, a triumphant smirk flashing across her face. That night, in our cold mansion, I confronted him. "How could you?" I choked out. He calmly replied, "It was my job. Keyla is a very important client."
When I screamed that she tried to kill my mother, he threatened to use my mother's sealed medical records, her history of depression, to paint her as unstable and suicidal. He was willing to destroy her memory to protect his client and his career.
I was trapped, humiliated, and heartbroken. He had sacrificed my mother for his ambition, and now he was trying to erase me. But as I signed the divorce papers he had prepared, a wild, desperate plan began to form. If they wanted me gone, I would disappear. And then, I would make them pay. The Wife He Never Touched
Billionaires For five years, I, Chloe Davis, was the woman every other woman wanted to be, married to a man whose wealth was matched only by his handsome face, living in a gilded cage. But in three years of marriage, he had never touched me, our bedroom cold and empty.
On my ninety-ninth attempt to seduce my husband, Ethan, he finally pulled me close. But as pleasure washed over me, he whispered, "Ashley, you know I love you. Marrying Chloe was something I had to do. How could you let her do this? How could you let her seduce me?"
His confession shattered me. He wasn't incapable; he just didn't love me. His heart belonged to Ashley Thompson, his niece and my best friend, and I was just a shield. Ashley, the one who had encouraged me to pursue him, was the real object of his affection. Later, as I lay dizzy and confused in a hospital bed from donating my kidney to Ashley, Ethan offered me anything I wanted, even a child, if I saved her, revealing his plan to use me as a surrogate for him and Ashley.
The truth sliced through my seven years of devotion like a knife. After all I'd given, all I' d sacrificed, I was just a tool in their twisted game, a cover for their sordid affair. Even my wedding ring was a duplicate of Ashley' s.
I secretly signed our divorce papers on the operating table, and in the dead of night, I walked out of that mansion, leaving behind the shattered pieces of my naive heart and a final message: "Happy divorce! Never see you again!" My Heart, Their Secret
Horror The family trip to the coast was supposed to be a relaxing end to summer.
But the moment I stepped back on campus, a cold dread washed over me: my dorm room lock was changed.
My roommates-Emily, Ashley, Megan-they were just… gone.
Their numbers disconnected, their social media wiped clean.
It was like they' d vanished into thin air, leaving only silence and a terrifying void where my life used to be.
Then, things got worse.
My best friend Jessica' s new roommates started screaming at the sight of me, fleeing in terror.
The university counselor looked at me with a mix of pity and fear, everyone whispering about "personal safety concerns" and "extreme reactions."
They all thought I was the monster.
I had no idea why.
I knew I hadn' t done anything, but an unbearable sense of confusion and injustice gnawed at me.
How could my friends abandon me without a word?
Why was everyone suddenly so afraid of me?
A chilling discovery would soon reveal that my friends hadn't abandoned me at all; they were closer than I could ever imagine, trying to tell me something unspeakable. Dowry Denied, Destiny Redefined
Romance My fiancé, Liam, fidgeted, his parents stone-faced across the coffee shop table.
Just weeks after celebrating our pregnancy, his mother, Susan, dropped a bombshell: our $380,000 dowry was slashed to $52,000, and our lavish hotel wedding was downgraded to a backyard BBQ.
They thought I was trapped, a pregnant woman with no choice but to accept this humiliation.
As I escaped to the restroom, I overheard their cruel laughter, confirming my deepest fears: my baby was a bargaining chip, and I was "damaged goods" they had to "take in."
Liam, my fiancé, stood by, silent and complicit, solidifying the cold realization that the man I loved was gone.
My heartbreak was immense, but beneath it, a simmering rage began to build.
No, I would not be their pawn.
I wiped my tears, smoothed my dress, and returned to the table with a new plan.
They wanted to play a game?
Fine.
But I would write the rules.
The cage door was open.
But they were the ones about to be trapped inside with me. A Price on Freedom
Modern "Just drink it, Emily, it\'ll help you relax." David Clark\'s voice was smooth, but his grip on my arm was tight, pushing a dark, sweet-smelling liquid toward me.
I looked at him, his face a charming mask, and knew he wanted me drugged for a photographer he\'d hired. He aimed to frame me, his fiancée, in a scandal to boost his political campaign.
My refusal turned his charm into an ugly snarl, his hand grabbing for me as he threatened to ruin me. Just then, our hotel room door exploded inward. Two grim men in sharp military uniforms stood in the doorway, led by Captain Alex Stone.
I, Chloe Miller, a tech inventor from the 21st century, had woken up in Emily Hayes\'s nineteen-year-old body, trapped in the 1980s. Emily\'s pre-arranged marriage to David, her family\'s desperate bid for security, was about to become my public nightmare. This was not my life.
I stumbled forward, feigning fear, accusing David of trying to drug me, seizing the unexpected opportunity. Captain Stone, suspicious yet bound by duty, took me under his wing, dragging me into the heart of his powerful, tangled family.
My engagement to Alex became my shield, but it also painted me as a gold-digger, an enemy to his vindictive aunt Clara, her resentful son Mark, and his jilted almost-fiancée Anna Lewis. Then, on my wedding night, Clara orchestrated the ultimate humiliation, bringing my poverty-stricken, opportunistic family to the mansion to stake their claim.
I knew then that I had to fight, not just for survival, but for autonomy. Meeting Alex in secret, he revealed his true motive for our marriage: I was to be his "unassuming" tool, a corporate spy to secure his family\'s legacy. I accepted. This was my chance not just to survive, but to truly live and rebuild, turning what was meant to be my ruin into my ultimate rise. My Husband's Lie
Romance On our eighth anniversary, my husband, Ryan Lester, confessed to a "one-night stand."
I forgave him, burying the deceit, clinging to the life we' d built, believing it was a drunken mistake.
Two years later, his intern, Molly, walked into my favorite café, dropped a folder filled with photos – Ryan and Molly vacationing, celebrating milestones, and finally, a baby, his baby.
"He never loved you," she whispered, his words echoing in my ears, "you were just a business arrangement."
The man I' d loved, the life I' d fought for, was a meticulously crafted lie, a calculated betrayal, and still, he wouldn' t let me go, demanding I raise his secret son.
That' s when I called my brother, a former Delta Force operator, and told him: "I need an exit. Make me a ghost." Unmasked: The Affair and the Fraud
Modern My morning took a chilling turn when a grainy video popped up: my eight-year-old son, Ethan, pleading, "Mommy, save me." A distorted voice demanded $50,000 ransom by tonight.
My husband, Mark, panicked, but I remained unnerved. Our $50,000 emergency fund was gone.
Mark stammered about "business expenses," but I already knew.
Bank statements confirmed a transfer to "M. Morningstar." He confessed: the money went to his mistress, Tiffany, for her son Leo' s "life-saving" cancer treatment.
As Mark crumbled, "kidnappers" called, Ethan's cries audible. I calmly told them we had no funds, hanging up despite Mark's horror. Then Tiffany brazenly arrived, demanding more money for Leo, shattering Mark's parents with the lie that Leo was Mark's biological son from their affair.
Through it all, I maintained confusing composure.
My family stared, bewildered by my steely calm, my defiance. Why wasn't I in hysterics? Was I insane or was a deeper game at play?
I picked up a burner phone: "Time for Act Two. Bring her son into play."
I forced Mark to choose between Ethan and Leo. He chose Leo.
Moments later, a perfectly unharmed Ethan walked in.
The kidnapping? A staged trap.
I' d meticulously orchestrated this to expose Mark's profound betrayal and Tiffany' s elaborate fraud.
The fallout had only just begun. Game Over, My Love
Romance I spent two years as "Sparrow" in "Chronicles of Eldoria," a quiet, analytical Loremaster, meticulously perfecting my skills and hiding my striking real-life beauty behind a plain avatar. My loyalty to Lex "Lionheart" Miller' s guild, The Crimson Vanguard, was absolute. But when a major server-wide tournament was announced, Lex, obsessed with "visibility," brought in Starfire, a flashy streamer known for her perfected looks.
I was publicly demoted, my spot given to her. Then, for daring to question it, I was falsely accused of stealing guild resources and slandered across the server, with Lex himself endorsing a bounty on my head. He didn't even recognize me when I served him coffee in real life, his dismissal in-game mirroring his utterly indifferent gaze. My safe haven, the one place where my talent truly mattered, became a public arena for my humiliation.
Two years of silent dedication, every strategic insight, every hard-earned contribution-all discarded because I wasn't "flashy" enough. How could he, who once relied on my genius, betray me so completely, and then act as if I was "never important"?
But their cruelty ignited an ice-cold fury. I deleted Sparrow, created a new identity, and decided it was time not just for Eldoria, but for Lex, and the entire gaming world, to see what the "plain, mousy" Sparrow truly looked like. The game was on. The Ninth Bride
Horror Eight years, the whispers in Havenwood never stopped.
They called it the "Thorne Curse"-eight women, all Julian Thorne's fiancées, all dead the night before their wedding.
My sister, Emily, was the first, ruled a suicide, but I knew that was a lie.
Today, I announced I'd be the ninth.
My father, Dr. Miller, looked at me, his face like stone, his words cold and sharp: "You are no daughter of mine."
He even offered my mother's inheritance, a severance from my own family, as the town stared, calling me crazy, just like my dead sister.
Walking into Thorne Manor, its black iron gates twisted like angry branches, I met Eleanor Thorne, whose smile didn't reach her eyes, and heard the staff whisper about Emily' s screams.
Julian Thorne, pale as death, just said, "I pray you'll be the one to break this curse."
His rehearsed words, my father's chilling abandonment, and the town's judgment only fueled my resolve.
How could my father accept Emily's "suicide" so easily?
Why did this town cling to such a convenient lie?
I had to know what really happened to Emily.
I had to finally expose the truth behind the Thorne Curse, even if it meant becoming its final victim. The Pregnant Rival and My Impossible Love
Sci-fi My perfect life with Liam felt like a dream – his gentle smile, his warm touch, a love so complete it seemed too good to be true.
Then the system alerts began: Affection Level: Liam +5.
This wasn't real.
My memories screamed of labs and blinding flashes; I was trapped in a cognitive simulation, a prison crafted by NexusMind.
Every loving word, every tender moment was a lie, meticulously programmed to control me.
The torturous truth emerged: Liam wasn't programmed just for me.
He was torn between his directive to bond with me and a hidden "cover narrative" involving Elara, a woman who haunted my simulated reality.
She was Liam's "real" love, his true "Sparrow," whose preferences dictated every detail, down to the almond croissants he brought me.
Days turned into loops, 47 iterations of the same cruel game, always with Elara as the preferred, radiant rival.
The simulation's ultimate torment arrived when Liam reunited with Elara, whose contempt was palpable, especially when she announced she was pregnant – with his child.
His family embraced her, and I, Liam's supposed lover, became a humiliated bystander, collapsing under the weight of this unbearable, endless lie.
Why was I put through this agony?
Was I supposed to break?
To surrender to this manufactured despair?
How could I fight a system that could rewrite reality, controlling minds with lines of code?
Just as I felt utterly defeated, adrift in a sea of emotional torment and physical weakness, something unexpected happened.
Amidst the chaos of Elara's pregnancy announcement, Liam defied his programming.
He knelt before me, heart in hand, and against all odds, asked for my hand in marriage.
The system shrieked: CRITICAL NARRATIVE DIVERGENCE! SYSTEM OVERLOAD IMMINENT!
After 47 cycles of torment, could this be my impossible escape? When Family Becomes A Prison
Billionaires For seven years, I lived a life of gilded gratitude, managing the Ashworths' sprawling estate and their demanding schedules. I was the loyal husband to Jessica, the devoted stay-at-home dad to Sophie, constantly reminded of the "debt" I owed for their rescue. My world revolved around their convenience, their expectations, their rules. On paper, I had everything: a wealthy family, a beautiful home, even a new promotion at their company.
Then, after a rare night out celebrating that promotion, I returned to the house I managed. The security code was rejected. I tried again. Rejected. Through the window, I saw Sophie's shadow. I called her name, desperate, but she vanished. Jessica had changed the codes, and told our daughter not to open the door.
The humiliation was a cold, hard knot in my gut, sharper than any betrayal. I spent that night shivering in my car, staring at the house that was never truly mine. The next morning, facing Jessica and her parents, I declared I wanted a divorce, willing to walk away penniless. Their scoffing, their incredulity, Mrs. Ashworth' s icy question, "Where would you go? What would you do?" rang like a prison sentence.
They saw a man throwing away everything they' d "given" him, unable to comprehend the seven years of silently endured disrespect, the slow suffocation of my spirit. They thought it was about a security code, but it was about every condescending glance, every undermining comment, every minute I' d spent playing their grateful puppet. My gratitude, once a heavy cloak, had finally become an unbearable chain.
So, I left. I walked away from the Ashworths, the mansion, the gilded cage, and the woman who never truly saw me. With nothing but an old pickup and a dilapidated family cabin, I began building something new, brick by painful brick, not for them, but for myself. This wasn't an end; it was finally a beginning. You might like
From Jilted Bride To Mafia Empress
Xiao Wang For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne.
But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.”
My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love.
He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party." 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. 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.
Reborn To Love My Outlaw Husband
Little Red Riding Hood "Once she's finally dead, I want you to take me - right there, in that outlaw President's own bed... promise me, Blaze."
Lying in a freezing pool of my own blood, I watched the man I had loved for three years flirt shamelessly with my cousin. Meanwhile, my so-called "best friend" greedily stripped the wedding ring off my bleeding finger. "Take her. Have your fun with her, just don't let that pretty face go to waste," the scumbag sneered, kicking me aside. As a group of tattooed thugs approached with sickening, lustful grins, I was swallowed by absolute, shivering despair.
Just as I prepared to bite my own tongue to end it all-a deafening engine roar shattered the night. My husband, the ruthless MC President Axel, the "monster" I had spent my life trying to escape, charged into the hellfire covered in blood. He used his massive frame to shield me from every bullet. With his dying breath, his normally cold eyes held nothing but desperate, humble tenderness. "Don't be afraid... I love you..."
When I opened my eyes, I was reborn a year before our fatal fallout. To completely sever ties with the cheating scumbag, I secretly liquidated all my designer assets, transferring the funds into an untraceable offshore account. But the financial report was handed straight to Axel.
He forcefully cornered me against the wall, his eyes swirling with a devastating mix of soul-crushing heartbreak and violent obsession as he ruthlessly bit my lip. "Chloe, even if you run to the ends of the earth, I will drag you back in chains!" he growled, his voice hoarse and his eyes red. "But from tonight on... until I see your lover's corpse with my own eyes, don't you ever try to touch me again."
I wrapped my arms tightly around his solid waist from behind, my small hands slipping under his half-open leather jacket to trace the hard lines of his tense abs. Feeling his massive body instantly freeze into stone, I stood on my toes and whispered breathily against his ear: "Okay. But before you kill him... hubby, don't you want to come back to bed and fulfill your duties as my husband first?" The Underboss's Obsession: Stealing The Bride
Diversion Three days before the wedding.
I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman.
Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress.
The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem.
It didn't spell Elena.
It read Sofia.
He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name.
Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife.
He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance.
I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared.
"The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?"
"Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport."
"Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys."
I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday.
He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead. 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. Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him
SHANA GRAY I died on a Tuesday.
It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father.
I was twenty years old.
He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant.
He chose her. He always chose her.
And then, I woke up.
Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for.
This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice.
He didn't know he was talking to a ghost.
He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal.
He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder.
That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry.
She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts.
So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie.
I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane.
But I will not be a victim.
This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter.
This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain. Abandoned Heiress, Now His Mafia Bride
Priority I was tracing the gold paint on my own tombstone when a hand tapped me on the shoulder.
It was Clayton.
The same man who, five years ago, had left me bleeding out in a ditch because he didn't want to be late for my sister's engagement party.
"Die quietly, Ivy," he had said over the phone before hanging up.
Now, standing over my grave, he dropped his cheap plastic flowers in shock.
"Ivy? You're... we buried you."
They hadn't buried me.
They had buried an empty box to save face, mourning a "troubled" daughter they had actually discarded like broken trash the moment I became a liability.
Clayton's shock quickly turned to that familiar, arrogant anger.
He accused me of faking my death for attention.
He told me I was sick for putting the family through such pain.
He even reached out to grab my arm, intending to drag me back to my father to apologize.
"You're coming with me," he spat. "You owe us an explanation."
But he made a fatal mistake.
He thought he was talking to Ivy Dillard, the soft girl who cried when she skinned her knees.
He didn't notice the town car waiting at the curb, or the man stepping out of it.
Before Clayton's fingers could graze my coat, a hand made of steel caught his wrist.
Collin Richardson, the most feared Capo in Chicago, stepped between us.
"Touch my wife again," Collin whispered, his voice promising violence. "And you lose the hand."
I smiled at the terror draining the color from Clayton's face.
I didn't come back from the dead to explain myself.
I came back to bury them. Reborn From Fire: The Ex-wife's Revenge
Lunacy Heidi gripped the sterile hospital bedsheets as violent contractions ripped her body apart.
The heavy door opened, but it wasn't the doctor. It was Brigette, wearing the exact custom wedding dress Heidi had spent six months designing for herself.
Brigette held up her phone on speaker. When the doctor warned that a natural delivery would kill the mother, Christian Page's voice echoed through the room, ice-cold and devoid of any warmth.
"Prioritize the Page heirs. Let her die."
The man she loved had just signed her death warrant over the phone.
Brigette stole her newborn twins, dragged her to an abandoned warehouse, and poured gasoline over her bare legs.
Flicking a lit cigar into the puddle, Brigette left Heidi tied to an iron pillar to burn alive.
But as the flames formed a deadly circle around her, Heidi's body convulsed with a terrifying truth.
In the heart of the blazing inferno, she miraculously gave birth to two more babies she didn't know she was carrying.
Using her own back as a human shield against the falling embers, she survived the fire, but the ultimate betrayal burned deeper than her ruined skin.
Four years later, Heidi returned to New York with a reconstructed face, two brilliant children, and a terrifying new identity as the world's top underground surgeon.
When Christian, entirely unaware of who she was, signed a waiver begging her to save his dying grandfather's life, Heidi looked into his desperate eyes with absolute, clinical boredom.
"The game starts now," she said coldly. 
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