Zaccaria Linn
9 Published Stories
Zaccaria Linn's Books and Stories
His Unwanted Wife: The Genius Artist Returns
Mafia 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. Ordered To Serve His Mistress: Heiress's Revenge
Modern My fiancé sent me a text ordering me to serve his mistress, unaware that the waitress holding the tray was actually the daughter of the man who owned his soul.
I was working undercover at his club, playing the role of a poor nobody to test his character before our wedding.
But tonight, the test ended in disaster.
His mistress, Jaden, walked in and treated me like dirt. When I brought her drink, she slapped the tray, spilling scalding coffee all over my hand.
The pain was white-hot. My skin blistered instantly, peeling away in angry red patches.
I showed Connor the injury on a video call, expecting protection. Expecting him to be a man.
Instead, he looked at my burned hand and then at his investors. Panic filled his eyes.
"Fix it, Blake," he roared. "Apologize to her."
"She burned me," I said quietly.
"I don't care! Kneel if you have to. Kiss her ring. Just make her happy so I can finish this deal!"
He told the Principessa of the Shaw crime family to kneel to a woman who meant nothing.
He sacrificed his future wife to save face.
Something inside me snapped. It wasn't my heart; it was the leash I had placed on myself.
"Okay," I whispered.
I hung up the phone and dropped it into a pot of boiling pasta water.
Then I turned to the Executive Chef, a former hitman who recognized the lethal shift in my eyes.
"Lock the doors," I ordered.
"And tell my father I'm ready to burn this place to the ground." The Doctor, The Husband, The Lie
Modern My Broadway dreams died with a fall on stage. For three agonizing years, my husband Hudson was my rock, nursing me through what doctors called a career-ending injury.
Then I discovered the truth. My "injury" was a lie, a conspiracy orchestrated by my husband and our doctor, Bethany. They had been slowly poisoning me to keep me crippled and dependent.
When I confronted them, they tried to silence me with an overdose. In the hospital, Bethany carved up my body with a scalpel.
To complete their twisted fantasy, they decided she would carry my child, forcibly harvesting my embryos while I was awake on a pain-enhancing drug.
Hudson just watched.
"Just endure it, Emmy," he murmured.
But they didn't break me. I escaped and meticulously erased myself from his world. My final act before disappearing was pressing 'send'-unleashing every piece of evidence to the entire world.
"You took everything from me," I wrote. "Now, I'll take everything from you. Tenfold." Betrayed By Her Seven Protectors
Romance My father raised seven men to be my protectors, my companions, and one day, my husband. As the heiress to a Texas empire, they were sworn to protect me above all else.
But they were all in love with my adopted sister, Savannah.
I discovered their secret in the shadows of a stable, listening to the man I loved, Sterling, tell Savannah that marrying me was just a "small price to pay" to give her the world. My entire life was a lie, a performance for her benefit. They weren't my family; they were parasites, and I was their host.
Their cruelty escalated. Savannah sabotaged my saddle, causing an accident that nearly killed me, and Sterling covered it up. Then, at my 21st birthday party, they broadcast a secret video of me sobbing over him for all of high society to see, completing their campaign to utterly humiliate me.
They wanted to break me down until I was nothing more than a prize to be won. They thought I would shatter.
But as the room descended into chaos, my childhood friend Preston stepped onto the stage, pulling me to his side. His voice cut through the noise, clear and decisive.
"Tonight is about a new beginning," he announced, looking directly at Sterling's stunned face. "Because Clara Beaumont has agreed to be my wife." When Sisterhood Becomes Betrayal
Horror The dream always started the same way: my sister, Sarah, screaming my name, her face twisted in pure terror, pointing at a world where the dead walked.
This time, the screaming wasn't a dream. It was real, coming from down the hall.
"They're coming! I saw them!" Sarah shrieked, convinced her nightmares were prophecies.
My parents rushed to her, cooing about a bad dream, but Sarah insisted it was real, clearer this time, a prophecy of rotting flesh and dead eyes.
I lay in my bed, heart a slow drum, remembering my first life: the foolish concern, the attempts to reason that always ended with their blind siding of Sarah.
My logic was met with her tears, my calm with her hysterics, and our parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, labeled me "insensitive," not understanding how "special" Sarah was.
My efforts to save their retirement, to hide car keys from her "prepper" conventions, led to slaps and silent treatments, to accusations of sabotaging her "survival instincts."
The family crumbled around her delusion, losing their house, savings, everything, and when the apocalypse never came, they blamed me for not believing, for not supporting their perfect, unified front of madness.
They cast me out, and I died alone in a homeless shelter, not from a zombie, but from pneumonia.
Now, I was 22 again, lying in my childhood bed, listening to the prelude of that same disaster, a second chance at a test I' d failed spectacularly.
This time, I knew the answers.
"It' s going to start with the birds!" Sarah yelled, predicting a mass blackbird death event, completely unaware I knew about the city' s planned fumigation.
My parents leaned into her every word, their faces a mix of worry and excitement, while a bitter taste filled my mouth.
I wouldn' t stop her. I wouldn' t save them.
This time, I would watch them burn.
And I would bring the gasoline. Stolen Youth, Reclaimed Destiny
Fantasy The roar of the crowd was the last thing I heard.
I died on a dirty city street, falsely accused, a monster in their eyes.
It all started with a gift for my 25th birthday-an antique smartwatch from Eleanor, my adoptive mother.
It wasn't just a heavy, ornate trinket; it was a life-drainer.
Weeks after I clasped it on, my vibrant youth withered, my hair thinned, my mind fogged.
As I became a frail old woman, Eleanor, terrified of aging, grew younger, radiant with my stolen vitality.
She locked me in the dusty attic, telling the world I' d had a breakdown.
My only hope, Bethany, my ex-boyfriend' s fiancé, found me.
She helped me escape, or so I thought.
She live-streamed my chaotic flight, twisting a narrative: I was a fraud, mentally unstable, stealing from Eleanor.
The crowd, incited by her online posts, saw a villain, not a victim.
They closed in, their rage contorting their faces.
Bethany watched, a triumphant smile on her face, as my life drained away for the second, and final, time.
But death was not the end.
Floating in a void, I saw Eleanor and Bethany toasting with champagne, celebrating my demise.
The injustice burned through me, a rage so pure it could tear the universe apart.
They had taken everything.
Then, I woke up.
Gasping for air, my skin smooth, my hair thick and dark-25 again.
It was my birthday, the day it all started.
This time, the watch wouldn' t be for me.
This time, I was going to offer the "life-drainer" to Bethany.
I would watch Eleanor and Bethany, two predators bound by vanity and greed, tear each other apart.
This time, I would not be the victim. A Mother's Reckoning
Billionaires The polo match shimmered with Hamptons elite, a cruel contrast to my jazz singer soul.
Julian, my husband, was, as always, obsessed with his "white moonlight," Scarlett Vance, and her daughter Penelope.
My twin sons, Leo and Noah, just five years old, were the only music in my gilded cage.
Then Penelope, Scarlett's daughter, had a medical crisis, aplastic anemia, needing a bone marrow transplant.
Julian' s words froze my blood: Leo and Noah, my babies, were perfect matches.
He ignored my pleas, dismissing their age, proclaiming them "useful to the family."
He ripped my sons from my arms, forcing them into a dangerous, excessive donation for Penelope, leaving them bleeding and feverish.
While my sons lay dying, he was at a gala celebrating Penelope' s "miraculous recovery."
He called my desperate calls for help "dramatic," then hung up.
With no drivers, no one to help, I scooped my fading boys into my arms, rushing into the pouring Manhattan rain.
I begged a public hospital for help, drenched in their blood, only to be met with news reports of Julian lighting up the Empire State Building in celebratory pink, and witnesses whispering, "Negligent mother."
Then the doctor came.
"They're gone."
My sons, my world, brutally taken by a cold, calculating man who saw them as a resource.
But Julian didn't know his mother, Eleanor Thorne, was about to expose the monstrous lie he' d sacrificed our children for.
He didn' t know this was just the beginning of my reckoning. You might like
My Husband's Brother Owns My Secret
Rabbit My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine.
Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family.
To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset.
They both thought I was a broken doll they could control.
I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice.
She sang it, and now her career is over.
Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground. Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles
Dorine Koestler I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved.
He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again.
"Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports.
For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian.
In return, he treated me like furniture.
He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste.
I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home.
So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco.
I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage.
But I underestimated Dante.
When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat.
He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away. His Discarded Gem: Shining In The Ruthless Don's Arms
Temple Madison For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe.
On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring.
Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger.
Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family.
When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence.
"Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets."
My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet.
He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts.
He was wrong.
With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use.
Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed.
*I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.*
His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning.
*The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?*
I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me.
I looked down and typed three letters.
*Yes.* Too Late, Mr. Don: The Wife You Buried
Cinderella's Sister I went to the family lawyer for a routine travel clearance. Instead, I was handed a divorce decree. The ink was three years old.
While I had been playing the role of the dutiful Capo's wife, Dante had secretly divorced me the day after our fifth anniversary.
Twenty-four hours later, he legally married the nanny, Gia, and named her cruel-eyed son as his heir.
I returned home to confront him, only for the boy to throw boiling tomato soup on me.
Dante didn't check my burns. He cradled the boy and looked at me with pure, drug-fueled hatred, calling me a monster for upsetting his "son."
The final blow came in a parking garage. A car sped toward us.
Dante didn't pull me to safety. He shoved me into the vehicle's path, using my body as a human shield to protect his mistress.
Lying broken on the asphalt, I realized Aria Vitiello was already dead to him. So, I decided to make it official.
I arranged a private flight over the Atlantic and ensured there were no survivors.
By the time Dante was weeping over the wreckage, realizing too late that he had been poisoned against me, I was already in France.
The Canary was dead. The Reaper had risen. The Capo's Scarred Wife: A Vicious Comeback
Sofia Wade I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me.
But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest.
The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me.
They didn't.
Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her.
They let me burn to keep her warm.
When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages.
That was the moment Elena Vitiello died.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York.
By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring.
"You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them.
"Burn for it." Marrying The Rival: My Ex-Husband's Despair
Fonz Nadherny I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria.
But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity.
A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love.
My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me.
Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego.
He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press.
He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan.
He had no idea she was a fraud.
He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her.
He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate.
At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her.
I didn't beg. I didn't cry.
I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play. Runaway Nurse: The Mafia King's Remorse
Hu Minxue For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York.
I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him.
But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash.
In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress.
He forced me to watch him court her.
At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her.
He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain.
He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life.
I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god.
I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole.
He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps.
So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother.
I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars.
I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia.
By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost. His Unwanted Wife: The Genius Artist Returns
Zaccaria Linn On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table.
Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen.
"Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over."
I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward.
Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant.
She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest.
As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me.
He hugged her.
"It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you."
The betrayal didn't stop there.
When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police.
When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line—the one meant for life-or-death situations.
He declined the call.
He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife.
That was the moment the chain broke.
As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come.
I opened the door and jumped into the dark.
Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement.
Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one. My Cold Heart: Rejecting The Mafia Boss
Jia Zhong My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket.
He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent.
But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress.
Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you."
To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife.
When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala.
He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent.
He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters.
He thought he had broken me.
He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage.
But he made a fatal error.
He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign.
They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me.
And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck.
I didn't jump to die.
I jumped to be reborn.
And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin.