Sumner Upsdell
11 Published Stories
Sumner Upsdell's Books and Stories
Marrying My Cheating Fiance's Ruthless Uncle
Mafia In my past life, my fiancé Grayson Falcone locked me in an abandoned warehouse to die of a fever while he paraded his mistress around the city.
I opened my eyes and was reborn right on the night of the Plaza Hotel gala.
Just like before, Grayson swam right past me in the freezing fountain, pulling his dripping mistress into his arms in front of New York's elite mafia families.
He publicly shattered our honor, leaving me to face absolute social death.
But this time, Damon Falcone—Grayson's uncle and the most feared Don in the city—stepped out of the shadows, wrapped me in his coat, and carried me away.
To safely destroy the betrothal, I decided to become Grayson's worst nightmare. I played the suffocatingly devoted fiancée, even "accidentally" feeding him his lethal allergen.
But my plan completely backfired.
Instead of breaking the engagement, Grayson developed a sick, morbid fascination with my lethal intentions.
Even worse, Damon cornered me in his private shooting range, his eyes burning with a terrifying, dark obsession as he pinned me against his chest.
I didn't understand why my calculated revenge was spiraling so dangerously out of control.
Thanks to the vicious rumors about Damon carrying me away, the furious family matriarch slammed her hand on the table to protect the family's honor.
"The rumors end now. Grayson and Isabella will marry next month." When Love Turns To Toxic Abuse
Modern I was a talented designer married to Christian, the boy who swore he'd always protect me from my cruel sister, Gidget. He was my childhood sweetheart, my entire world.
Then I found him in our bed, tangled up with her.
He swore she drugged him, but then she turned up pregnant with his child. He chose her, letting her move into our home and believing every one of her lies.
When Gidget deliberately slammed a piano lid on my hand, shattering the bones and ending my career, he didn't see her malice. He saw me as the villain.
He slapped me, locked me away while my hand festered, and sided with the woman he knew had tormented me my entire life. The man who was my protector became my abuser.
Five years later, they walked into my new boutique, a celebrated power couple ready to offer me charity. They thought I was broken and alone.
They had no idea I was remarried to a man who was about to expose every last one of their secrets to the world. The Stand-In's Sweetest Revenge
Billionaires My half-a-million-dollar-a-year job as a live-in personal trainer for billionaire Connor Smith was demanding, but simple. I managed his health, he paid me handsomely.
That all went up in flames the moment his ex-girlfriend, Bella, walked back into his life. She took one look at me and decided I was her "stand-in"-a cheap imitation he'd hired to fill the void she left.
Her mission became to destroy me. She framed me for theft, tried to humiliate me in front of his friends, and staged a bloody scene, screaming that I had stabbed her.
Connor, the man I was paid to keep healthy, was too weak to stop her, offering me more money to just "be discreet."
Bella's delusions escalated until she was lying in a hospital bed, demanding one of my kidneys as compensation for her fake injury.
I was a professional with a degree from Cornell, not a villain in her twisted romance novel. My career, my reputation-everything was on the line.
I quit. But when she followed me to social media, posting lies to ruin my name forever, I knew I was done being quiet. She thought she was the main character, but she forgot one thing: I had the receipts. From Savior to Obsessed Stalker
Romance The passcode to Conrad Ellison' s private villa was my birthday, a gesture I once thought was the most romantic in the world. Now, it felt like a key to a gilded cage. I walked through his silent mansion, a cold knot of unease growing in my stomach.
Then I heard it-a low moan from his bedroom. The door was ajar, revealing Conrad on his knees, clutching a lavender silk scarf. He was touching himself, breathing one name: "Kassidy." My stepsister.
My blood ran cold. The man I loved, the man I thought was pure, desired her, not me. As I stumbled back, his phone buzzed. It was Kassidy. "Conrad? You sound... out of breath." He snapped, "What do you want?" She asked if the rumors of our marriage were true. His reply hit me like a physical blow: "Never. She' s a delusional, pathetic woman. I wish she would just disappear."
He admitted he only tolerated me to get closer to her, to win her father' s approval. My three years of foolish love felt like a giant, humiliating joke. I remembered how my father brought Kassidy and her mother home after my mother' s funeral, how they made me a villain, and how Conrad, my supposed savior, had stepped in to protect me from bullies.
I had been so blind, so stupidly arrogant, believing I was special to him. He wasn't a saint; he was just obsessed with the wrong woman.
I ran until my lungs burned, collapsing on the lawn. A hard, sharp resolve formed in the wreckage of my heart. I called Helene, my voice torn with sobs. "I'm done. I don't want him anymore." I was leaving this city, my father, Kassidy, all of it. I was starting over. I was never coming back. I Dumped My Daughter's Father
Romance The sweet scent of vanilla filled our kitchen, a fragile peace before the storm of Lily' s fifth birthday.
Then, my husband Mark's phone buzzed with the name "Scarlett," shattering any illusion of our perfect life.
Later, I found receipts for a diamond necklace and private school tuition-all for Scarlett' s daughter, not our own.
My husband stood by, watching as his mistress' s daughter, Daisy, taunted Lily, proudly displaying gifts from her "Daddy."
That night, a news alert flashed across my phone: "Tech Mogul Mark Davis Rekindles Romance with Childhood Sweetheart Scarlett Vance? Seen on a Cozy Family Outing with Vance and Her Look-alike Daughter, Daisy."
He walked in at 2 a.m., oblivious to the wreckage he' d left in his wake.
"How was your party, Mark?" I asked, holding up the damning picture.
He denied nothing, offering flimsy excuses about "responsibility" and "old times' sake."
But when I found out he was paying for Daisy' s schooling, my control snapped.
"What do you want, Ava? A divorce?" he challenged.
"Yes," I said, the word tasting like ash in my mouth.
He panicked, pleading for a second chance, weaving a tale of blackmail.
"Prove it," I told him, demanding a postnup: if he strayed again, I' d take everything.
He signed, thinking he' d bought my silence.
But at his company picnic, Scarlett and Daisy appeared, Mark' s secret family in plain sight.
He spoke French to Daisy, a warmth he never showed Lily, making our daughter an outsider.
"It is incredibly rude to speak in a language you assume others don\'t understand, Scarlett. Especially when you are telling your daughter to boast about things a married man supposedly did with you," I said in flawless French, exposing their cruel charade.
His anger, however, was for me and our crying daughter.
"You\'re making a scene!" he hissed. "And Lily, for God\'s sake, stop crying. It\'s embarrassing."
That was the end. I walked away, Lily' s hand in mine, knowing he had made his choice. His Stolen Wedding, Her Perfect Lie
Romance My wedding day was supposed to be perfect, just like Chloe and I planned it.
White roses, fairy lights, and then I saw it: a giant photo of Chloe and her "best friend" Mark at the entrance, with "Congratulations Chloe & Mark" written beneath.
I thought it was a terrible prank, but a hulking man blocked my way, laughing when I said I was the groom.
"The groom' s name is Mark. Now get lost before you make a scene," he grunted.
My heart pounded as I pushed past him, only to see Chloe on stage in her wedding dress, Mark' s arm possessively around her.
"Thank you all for coming to celebrate the happiest day of our lives," Mark announced, as my mind went blank.
I shouted Chloe' s name, and for a second, I saw panic in her eyes before it was replaced by cold annoyance.
Mark smirked, pointing out a "wedding crasher" as his brother, Dale, stomped towards me, snarling about me getting lost.
"This is a misunderstanding! I' m Alex! I' m engaged to Chloe! We were supposed to get married today!" I cried, looking desperately at Chloe, but she wouldn' t meet my gaze.
Mark called me a "stalker," and Dale punched me in the stomach, then dragged me out, breaking my arm.
I lay on the cold concrete steps, the pain nothing compared to the crushing weight in my chest.
Just hours earlier, Chloe had woken me, worried she was pregnant, sending me on a wild goose chase for a test across town.
She had kissed me, telling me she loved me. It was all a lie.
She had stolen our wedding, our friends, and our life. My phone buzzed, a picture of Chloe and Mark, blissful in a hotel room, a smug message from him: "Thanks for setting everything up, buddy. She' s all mine now."
Rage burned through me. I called, needing her to confirm the betrayal.
"Things change. People change. I chose Mark. He can give me the life I deserve," she said dismissively.
I realized then: I was just a placeholder. The entire five years was a lie.
The devastating truth wasn' t just about a wedding lost, but a life stolen.
I moved out, blocking her everywhere. It was over. But it wasn' t just about moving on. It was about reclaiming everything she tried to erase. A Mother's Sin, A Son's Reckoning
Horror The crystal glasses clinked in our opulent gallery, a melody of my mother Olivia's engagement party. I was her protégé, her son, her heir-everything I ever had, she gave me.
But watching her laugh with David, his arm possessively around her waist, a familiar knot tightened in my chest: a suffocating need for her sole focus.
In a desperate, childish search for comfort, I buried my face in her scarf in her private suite, only to hear her voice, "What are you doing?"
Olivia' s face, a mask of disbelief, hardened into rage. "You were sniffing my things like some kind of pervert... I take you in, I give you a life, and this is how you repay me? With this… this obsession?"
She advanced on me, eyes blazing. "You need to be cleansed. Go to The Gauntlet. You will stay there until you shed these perverse thoughts!"
The Gauntlet. A brutal, secretive art collective for artists who had committed "grave sins" from which no one returned whole. A prison.
The next morning, Olivia took a heavy metal ruler and brought it down hard across my knuckles, shattering my painting hand.
One year later, a broken shell of the artist I once was, I returned to Olivia. David, her fiancé, reached out to pat my head, a casual, condescending gesture. My body flinched violently, anticipating a blow before I forced myself to submit.
Olivia saw the flinch, the tremor. "Have you learned your lesson?" she asked, her voice cool and measured.
My damaged tongue slurred, "Yes, I understand. I truly do."
I thought my obedience would finally soothe her, but it only made her uneasy. She didn' t see my torture, only my alarming compliance.
Then came the airplane ride, triggering flashbacks of being thrown from cliffs into churning water. Next, the mansion, my home, was empty of my beloved cat Mittens, rehomed due to David' s allergy. I could only nod numbly, fear overriding every other emotion.
A can of soda, offered by Olivia, ignited memories of forced chugging until I choked and vomited. I gulped it down, the searing pain a familiar companion to my terror.
Later, in my old room, Olivia's knocking became the signal for The Gauntlet's "clients," forcing me to prepare for violation. I fumbled frantically, unable to respond, and threw myself at her feet, begging, "Don't hit me! Don't hit me, I'll be quick!"
She slapped me again and again until my face was red and swollen. I was pathetic, disgusting, tainted. She left me on the floor, the video of my begging playing on loop next to my father' s portrait.
I couldn' t love her. I couldn' t even be near her. I raised my own hand and began to slap my face, a desperate plea for self-punishment. "Alex will never love Olivia again…"
I passed out on the cold, hard floor. I just wanted to be free. No Mercy For Traitors: The Kingman's Vengeance
Romance Ava Kingman, heir to a formidable but fading legacy, stepped into the glittering Zenith Club, a venue once synonymous with her family's name.
She was there for a quiet night supporting her visibly pregnant sister, Chloe.
But the supposed celebration turned into a public spectacle when Chloe’s fiancé, Chad, with his mistress Krystal, dragged her onto a makeshift stage.
They announced a twisted "paternity game," taking open bets on Chloe’s unborn child, parading her most private and humiliating photos on a giant screen.
Marcus Thorne, the club owner and her father's former protégé, not only allowed it but actively endorsed this public humiliation.
The "new money" crowd, who once paid homage to her family, now openly sneered, declaring the Kingmans "ancient history."
Ava, the silent heir to a forgotten empire, found herself restrained, forced to watch as her pregnant sister was brought to her knees for a humiliating DNA sample.
Her pleas for intervention were met with scorn, her Kingman authority card derided as a "cheap fake."
How could the Kingman name, once synonymous with power, be so utterly disgraced?
How could Thorne, a man her father had raised, sink to such depths?
The humiliation was suffocating, the betrayal chilling, and within Ava, a silent, white-hot fury began to ignite—a fire no one present had ever witnessed.
They thought she was weak, a relic, an easy target.
They were catastrophically wrong.
Tonight, the Kingman dynasty was about to be reborn, in fire and thunder. 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. The Enforcer's Jilted Princess
Bone Possolo Tomorrow was my wedding day to Jason Brennan, the heir to a powerful Mafia family.
My family, the Falcones, had even taken in an orphaned girl, Elena, treating her like my own sister.
But in my nightmare of a past life, I choked on my own blood, poisoned by the arsenic Elena slipped into my food every day.
As I lay agonizingly close to death, Jason stood over me with a cold laugh, holding Elena in his arms.
"We just needed the Falcone wealth, Bella. And the docks."
Then came the gunfire. I was forced to watch them slaughter my father and my brother, tearing my family out by the roots.
After my death, Elena even spread vicious rumors that I was a barren spinster, twisting their foul betrayal into a tragic tale of noble sacrifice to completely destroy my legacy.
The metallic tang of my own blood was so real I could still taste the ash.
I didn't understand why the girl my family sheltered for eight years would repay our charity with such venom.
And I understood even less how the man who swore to love me could orchestrate my brutal murder without a shred of hesitation.
Bolting upright in bed, drenched in cold sweat, I realized I had returned to the night before my wedding.
This time, I wouldn't just cancel the engagement. I would hand their treason directly to the Mafia's most terrifying Enforcer, and watch them burn. Betrayed, I Married the Feared Cripple
Hu Minxue Three days after my fiancé publicly dumped me for my stepsister, the Supreme Don issued a command that silenced the entire estate.
I wasn't being cast aside. I was being sold to Damien Russo.
The "Broken Don." A crippled, scarred monster rumored to have murdered his last two wives.
My adoptive mother, Elena, didn't cry for me. She smirked.
To her, I was finally being disposed of.
She was so confident I was walking to my death that she decided to loot my corpse before I even left.
She forged documents to steal my entire inheritance—my biological mother’s trust fund—to pay for my stepsister’s lavish wedding to my ex.
"She won't need money where she's going," my stepsister laughed, wearing a dress bought with my stolen funds.
They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter.
They thought I was too weak, too stupid, and too afraid of the monster to fight back.
But they made a fatal mistake.
With my aunt’s help, I didn't just find the proof of their embezzlement; I found a weapon.
I’m not running from the monster. I’m going to marry him.
And when I hand him the evidence that the Herrera family stole from his bride, he won't be my executioner.
He will be my vengeance. Too Late, Mr. Capo: Your Wife Is Gone
Mo Yufei "Happy Anniversary," my husband said, sliding the separation agreement across the mahogany desk.
It was the eighteenth time in five years I had signed these papers.
Matteo De Luca, the most ruthless Capo in New York, checked his Rolex with cold impatience.
"Sign it, Sera. Bianca is on the ledge again. She needs to see we're over, or she jumps."
Bianca. The ward. The broken bird. The woman whose fragile psyche dictated every moment of my marriage.
I signed my name, and he left me alone on our anniversary to save her. Again.
But saving her wasn't enough.
When Bianca pushed me down a flight of marble stairs in a fit of jealous rage, shattering my spine and leaving me paralyzed, I thought Matteo would finally choose me.
I was wrong.
I woke up in the hospital to find him holding her hand, not mine.
"The security footage has been wiped," he told me, his voice void of emotion. "We cannot have a scandal. You fell, Sera. That is the story."
He erased the truth. He erased my pain.
He protected the woman who crippled me over his own wife.
Two months later, he wheeled me into a gala, playing the doting husband while I sat in the chair that was my prison.
He didn't know I had a burner phone hidden in my velvet dress.
He didn't know that tonight, the obedient wife was going to die on the pavement, and a ghost would rise in her place.
I looked at him one last time and dropped the phone in his lap.
"I hope she's worth it." 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. Reborn Heiress: Claimed By The Dark Don
Hen Bu I spent three years hating Damien Castillo, the ruthless mafia Don who kidnapped me from my engagement party and ruined my reputation.
But in the end, it was my perfect fiancé, Julian, and my sweet half-sister, Sophia, who slipped the deadly poison into my wine.
As the venom burned through my veins in that freezing cellar, I watched Julian smile. He and Sophia had orchestrated my brutal death. She had been sleeping in his bed all along, intentionally miscarrying his bastard child just to frame me as 'impure' and strip me of my family's protection. My own father used me as a political pawn, letting them throw me away like garbage.
And Damien? The monster I had fought and despised for years marched straight into a suicide ambush for me. He was riddled with bullets, turning his body into a human shield just to buy me a few more seconds of life.
"Touch her and you die."
I died in that blood-soaked basement, clutching his lifeless body, suffocating on my own blind trust. Why did I ever believe the golden boy who betrayed me? Why did I fight the only man who truly loved me?
Opening my eyes again, the stench of copper and mold was gone, replaced by the scent of Cuban cigars and black silk.
I was back in 1928, on the exact night Damien stormed my engagement party and locked me in his penthouse.
This time, when the ruthless Don approached me, I didn't scream or run back to my killers. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. The Mafia King's Substitute Bride
Western Rose The space between them disappeared. She arched into him, tilting her head as his lips traced a slow path down her jaw, then lower.
Goodness, she wanted more.
***
Valentina De Luca was never meant to be a Caruso bride. That was her sister's role-until Alecia ran off with her fiancé, leaving behind a family drowning in debt and a deal that couldn't be undone. Now, Valentina is the one offered up as collateral, forced into marriage with Naples' most dangerous man.
Luca Caruso has no use for a woman who wasn't part of the original bargain. To him, Valentina is nothing more than a replacement, a means to reclaim what was promised to him. But she isn't as fragile as she seems. And the more their lives tangle, the harder she is to ignore.
Everything begins to go well for her, well, until her sister returns. And with her, the kind of trouble that could ruin them all. 
/1/112349/coverorgin.jpg?v=41705586d45608abf40722e47d615a0c&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/107259/coverorgin.jpg?v=f869ae0cdb7972b6441ba8c345d610fb&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/102556/coverorgin.jpg?v=60b15fb4dd1a1f728fc95fc07e222ac3&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/95475/coverorgin.jpg?v=a376fea15ce268d09ac1cd099cb12449&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94335/coverorgin.jpg?v=56c3c4241de06bb721eaee8dc983aac4&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/89319/coverorgin.jpg?v=b91304b08d88a396bc003600960da027&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/85926/coverorgin.jpg?v=e003520e1964899a2afd5bd53ccbda34&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/85885/coverorgin.jpg?v=79fcaf52fdb355f2abea8b90c806b830&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/85800/coverorgin.jpg?v=9f5cdba58a903ef873bae8e29ac8c8e2&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/80705/coverorgin.jpg?v=2b4a666e3b5e25a58c0191078841dc57&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/63990/coverorgin.jpg?v=71750998cc5fca9105e8d8ab6056a347&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/106756/coverorgin.jpg?v=97365198d2e42e4794a57a69368cfbf7&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/106734/coverorgin.jpg?v=c7ef0ae7a01b8941d249a96e5d9ca057&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/111351/coverorgin.jpg?v=fe53761623ef79ba6489c2e2e054daf2&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/110270/coverorgin.jpg?v=0b4091eec0abc08acf158d1d013debb3&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/109994/coverorgin.jpg?v=6df60f632de2c9f91576883d95eb1bbe&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/110351/coverorgin.jpg?v=85f9d5eead0e33b7f6ce2040765a8972&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/110133/coverorgin.jpg?v=a6428170bc09c00f6487b1a72008e49a&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/100248/coverorgin.jpg?v=b1dec4753a5c9ea677f050c0b517bc01&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/111541/coverorgin.jpg?v=2c0d26d6147aa7ed22975affc54e2cb5&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/106357/coverorgin.jpg?v=b3e777a89422447cd6ceed01f11ab916&imageMogr2/format/webp)