From Discarded Wife To The Don's Successor

From Discarded Wife To The Don's Successor

Catherine

5.0
Comment(s)
13.1K
View
17
Chapters

I was tightening my husband's tie for the photographers at the gala when my phone buzzed against my thigh. A single notification stopped my heart dead. Julius had just wired five million dollars-capital I had secretly stolen from my father to build his company-to an account named 'K. Drake'. When I confronted him later that night, he didn't apologize. Instead, he lured me to an empty warehouse and detonated a rigged gas line. I woke up in a hospital bed, my body broken and my mind racing. Julius stood over me, checking his watch, looking terrifyingly calm. "The baby is gone," he said dismissively, referring to the pregnancy I hadn't even told him about yet. "But Kenzie needs a bone marrow transplant. You're a match." He was holding our daughter, Ava, hostage. He told me if I didn't give his mistress my marrow, I'd never see my child again. He looked at me with total contempt. To him, I was just a boring, civilian housewife. A prop he had used and was now ready to discard. He had no idea who I really was. He didn't know that the "bank loans" I secured for him were actually laundered syndicate money. He didn't know that the father I "didn't talk to" was Horacio Horton, the most feared Don on the East Coast. I let them take the marrow. I let them believe they had broken me. Then, as soon as Julius left the room, I reached for the phone and dialed a number I hadn't used in ten years. "Papa," I whispered into the receiver. "Send the army." The civilian Florence died in that bed. The Mob Princess had just returned to take her throne.

From Discarded Wife To The Don's Successor Chapter 1

I was tightening my husband's tie for the photographers at the gala when my phone buzzed against my thigh.

A single notification stopped my heart dead.

Julius had just wired five million dollars-capital I had secretly stolen from my father to build his company-to an account named 'K. Drake'.

When I confronted him later that night, he didn't apologize. Instead, he lured me to an empty warehouse and detonated a rigged gas line.

I woke up in a hospital bed, my body broken and my mind racing.

Julius stood over me, checking his watch, looking terrifyingly calm.

"The baby is gone," he said dismissively, referring to the pregnancy I hadn't even told him about yet. "But Kenzie needs a bone marrow transplant. You're a match."

He was holding our daughter, Ava, hostage. He told me if I didn't give his mistress my marrow, I'd never see my child again.

He looked at me with total contempt. To him, I was just a boring, civilian housewife. A prop he had used and was now ready to discard.

He had no idea who I really was.

He didn't know that the "bank loans" I secured for him were actually laundered syndicate money.

He didn't know that the father I "didn't talk to" was Horacio Horton, the most feared Don on the East Coast.

I let them take the marrow. I let them believe they had broken me.

Then, as soon as Julius left the room, I reached for the phone and dialed a number I hadn't used in ten years.

"Papa," I whispered into the receiver. "Send the army."

The civilian Florence died in that bed.

The Mob Princess had just returned to take her throne.

Chapter 1

Florence Horton POV

I tightened the knot of my husband's silk tie for the photographers, forcing a smile as the flashbulbs flared like lightning storms.

Then, my phone vibrated against my thigh. A single notification.

It stopped my heart dead in my chest: a five-million-dollar wire transfer from our corporate reserve to an account named 'K. Drake'.

I looked up. Across the ballroom, Julius was smiling at his secretary. It wasn't a professional smile. It was a possessive one.

In that second, the air left my lungs. He wasn't just sleeping with her. He was financing my replacement with the very capital I had stolen from my father to build him.

"Smile, Florence," Julius whispered, his hand gripping my waist tight enough to leave a mark. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I have," I said, my voice trembling-not with fear, but with the violent, sudden death of my own naivety. "I'm looking right at him."

He laughed, a charming, hollow sound that the press ate up. He had no idea.

He didn't know that the woman standing next to him, the boring civilian wife he treated like a prop, was the daughter of Horacio Horton. He didn't know that the money he just stole wasn't bank loans, but laundered syndicate capital.

He thought he was a king. He was about to find out he was just a peasant stealing from the crown.

I pulled away. The gala was suddenly suffocating, thick with the stench of expensive perfume and desperate ambition. I needed to scream.

I walked straight to the open bar, grabbed a bottle of sparkling water, and downed half of it. My hand went to my stomach. Eight weeks. He didn't know yet. I was going to tell him tonight.

Then I saw her.

Kenzie Drake stood across the room, draped in a red dress that cost more than her annual salary. My salary. She caught my eye and smirked, raising her glass in a silent toast.

That smirk. It was the match that lit the fuse.

I didn't cause a scene there. I was trained better than that. I waited until the speeches concluded, until Julius was busy charming the investors I had secured for him.

I slipped out of the gala and took the town car to the gallery downtown. The one Kenzie had been bragging about. She had bought three 'modern masterpieces' with company funds last week.

I walked in. The gallery owner, a nervous man named Pierre, hurried over.

"Mrs. Carroll! We weren't expecting you."

"Unlock the display," I said.

"I... pardon?"

"The Drake collection. Open it."

He hesitated. I picked up a heavy bronze bust from a nearby pedestal. The weight of it felt good in my hand. Solid. Cold. Unlike my marriage.

"Open it, Pierre, or I start with the windows."

He scrambled to unlock the glass partition. There they were. Three twisted shapes of glass and metal. Hideous. Expensive.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I just swung the bronze bust.

*Crash.*

The first sculpture shattered into a thousand diamonds.

*Crash.*

The second one exploded.

*Crash.*

The third turned to dust.

It felt like exhaling after holding my breath for ten years.

I went home to the penthouse, my hands shaking. Not from adrenaline, but from clarity. I packed a bag. I went to Ava's room.

Her bed was empty.

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced my chest.

My phone rang. It was Julius.

"You embarrassed me at the gallery, Florence," his voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm. "Pierre called."

"Where is Ava?" I screamed into the phone.

"She's with me. We're at the old warehouse on the docks. The one we're renovating for the new port deal."

"Bring her home, Julius."

"You're hysterical. You need to calm down. Come meet us. We need to discuss your temper."

I drove like a maniac. The warehouse was a skeleton of steel and concrete by the water. A place for mob executions, not family meetings.

I ran inside. Julius stood on the second-floor catwalk. Ava was sitting on a chair, looking small and terrified.

"Mommy!" she cried.

"Let her go, Julius!" I yelled, my voice echoing in the vast, empty space.

"You froze the contracts, Florence," he said, looking down at me. "The investors called. You told them Kenzie was incompetent. Do you know how hard I worked for that deal?"

"You didn't work for anything! I built this! I bought this!"

"You're a housewife, Florence. You draw pretty pictures. I make the deals." He pulled a small remote from his pocket. "I need you to understand your place."

He pressed a button.

A boom shook the ground. Not near them. Near me.

A gas line. He had rigged the gas line.

The force of the explosion threw me backward. I hit the concrete hard. Darkness swallowed me instantly.

*

I woke to the smell of antiseptic and the rhythmic beep of machines. The light was blinding.

My stomach.

My hands flew to my belly. Flat. Empty.

A doctor stood there. And Julius.

"You're awake," Julius said, checking his watch. "Good."

"My baby," I rasped. My throat felt like it was full of glass.

"There was a complication," Julius said dismissively. "The blast caused trauma. You lost it."

I stared at the ceiling. A single tear leaked out, hot and burning.

"It's for the best," he continued. "Kenzie... she's sick, Florence. She has leukemia. She needs a bone marrow transplant. The doctors tested you while you were under. You're a match."

I turned my head slowly to look at him. He wasn't grieving. He was negotiating.

"You want my marrow," I whispered. "For your mistress."

"She's dying, Florence. Don't be selfish. We can have another kid later. You're young."

The world stopped. The air left the room.

"Selfish?" I asked.

"The doctor is prepping the room. Since you're already here, we'll do it today."

He turned to leave. He didn't even kiss my forehead.

Something inside me snapped. It wasn't a loud snap. It was the quiet sound of a lock clicking open. The lock on a cage I had built around myself ten years ago.

The civilian Florence died in that bed.

I waited until the door closed. I reached for the phone on the bedside table. My fingers were trembling, but my mind was ice.

I dialed a number I hadn't called in a decade. A number that didn't exist in any phone book.

It rang once. Twice.

"Speak," a voice graveled. Old, powerful, dangerous.

"Papa," I said.

Silence on the other end. Then, a shifting of weight. The sound of a cigar being crushed.

"Florence?"

"I'm coming home, Papa."

"Who hurt you?" The voice was no longer just a father's. It was the Don's.

"Everyone," I said. "Send the car."

"I will send the army," he replied.

Continue Reading

Other books by Catherine

More
Jilted Ex-Wife? Billionaire Heiress!

Jilted Ex-Wife? Billionaire Heiress!

Modern

5.0

My mother-in-law, Diane Thompson' s relentless Facebook posts, mocking my inability to conceive and celebrating "real grandchildren," had chipped away at my self-worth for two agonizing years, each jab a sharp reminder of my perceived failure, amplified by my husband, Mark' s, deafening silence as he merely dismissed her cruelty as "old-fashioned." Then, a thick envelope arrived, containing divorce papers already signed by Mark, offering a pittance of a settlement that barely covered a security deposit on a tiny apartment, followed by his chilling phone call casually confirming his colleague Brittany Evans was pregnant and demanding I sign the papers "quickly, no fuss." His cold dismissal, pushing me out of our home for an insulting pittance and a supposed "miracle," left me reeling from years of unacknowledged sacrifice and devotion, as I had quietly carried the heavy secret of his congenital azoospermia, enduring his mother' s endless interrogations about my fertility to salvage his pride. A simmering knot of suspicion tightened, confirmed when I followed his car one night, only to find him lovingly embracing a visibly pregnant Brittany Evans outside a women' s health clinic, proving their orchestrated ploy to utterly discard me for a faked pregnancy. But just as total defeat threatened to consume me, a strange calm descended, ignited by an unexpected phone call from a private investigator revealing my true identity as a wealthy lost heiress, and the shocking discovery of my adoptive mother's sealed envelope containing the undeniable proof: Mark's original medical report, detailing his infertility-the ultimate weapon against their meticulously constructed web of lies.

The Scars Behind My Golden Dress

The Scars Behind My Golden Dress

Modern

5.0

I spent four hours preparing a five-course meal for our fifth anniversary. When Jackson finally walked into the penthouse an hour late, he didn't even look at the table. He just dropped a thick Manila envelope in front of me and told me he was done. He said his stepsister, Davida, was getting worse and needed "stability." I wasn't his wife; I was a placeholder, a temporary fix he used until the woman he actually loved was ready to take my place. Jackson didn't just want a divorce; he wanted to erase me. He called me a "proprietary asset," claiming that every design I had created to save his empire belonged to him. He froze my bank accounts, cut off my phone, and told me I’d be nothing without his name. Davida even called me from her hospital bed to flaunt the family heirloom ring Jackson claimed was lost, mocking me for being "baggage" that was finally being cleared out. I stood in our empty home, realizing I had spent five years being a martyr for a man who saw me as a transaction. I couldn't understand how he could be so blind to the monster he was protecting, or how he could discard me so coldly after I had given him everything. I grabbed my hidden sketchbook, shredded our wedding portrait, and walked out into the rain. I dialed a number I hadn't touched in years—a dangerous man known as The Surgeon who dealt in debts and shadows. I told him I was ready to pay his price. Jackson and Davida wanted to steal my identity, but I was about to show the world the literal scars they had left behind.

You'll also like

While I Was Bleeding Out, He Lit Lanterns For Her

While I Was Bleeding Out, He Lit Lanterns For Her

Katie Oettgen

As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole. I begged him for help, my vision blurring. But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background. "Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again." He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm. I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube. Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry. Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled. "You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up." He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research. I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym. They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive. They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity. I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding. I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it. Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house. The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born.

No Longer Mrs. Cooley: The Architect's Return

No Longer Mrs. Cooley: The Architect's Return

Xiao Xiaosu

I went to the City Clerk’s office for a routine copy of my marriage license to finalize a trust fund audit. I expected a simple piece of paper, but the clerk’s pitying look told me my entire life was a lie. "The license was never finalized, Ms. Oliver. In the eyes of the state, you are single." The three-hundred-guest wedding at the Plaza and the Vogue features meant nothing. My husband, Gray Cooley, had intentionally filed the documents with a "procedural defect" so he could discard me without a legal divorce. Moments later, an iCloud invite titled "Our Little Secret" popped up on my screen. It was a photo of my best friend, Brylee, holding a positive pregnancy test at our Hamptons estate. Gray’s text to her was the final blow: "Happy anniversary, babe. This baby is the best gift. Once the trust unlocks today, we’re done with the charade." I soon discovered they were even stealing my career, reassigning my architectural masterpiece to Brylee while preparing my eviction notice. Gray's mother called me a "barren mule" in a leaked recording, mocking the infertility I suffered after saving Gray’s life in a construction accident. I wasn't a wife; I was a three-year placeholder used to secure his inheritance. How could the man I bled for treat me like a disposable prop? How could my best friend carry his child while pretending to comfort me through my darkest moments? The betrayal burned until it turned into a cold, hard stone of fury. I didn't cry. Instead, I walked into the penthouse of the Barretts, the Cooleys' most powerful rivals. I signed a marriage contract with Kane Barrett, the man the tabloids called the "Beast of Wall Street." "I want a wedding," I told his father, my voice steady and lethal. "Bigger than the one I had with Gray." If they wanted me gone, they would have to watch me become the woman who owns their world.

Secret Triplets: The Billionaire's Second Chance

Secret Triplets: The Billionaire's Second Chance

Roderic Penn

I stood at my mother's open grave in the freezing rain, my heels sinking into the mud. The space beside me was empty. My husband, Hilliard Holloway, had promised to cherish me in bad times, but apparently, burying my mother didn't fit into his busy schedule. While the priest's voice droned on, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a livestream of the Metropolitan Charity Gala. There was Hilliard, looking impeccable in a custom tuxedo, with his ex-girlfriend Charla English draped over his arm. The headline read: "Holloway & English: A Power Couple Reunited?" When he finally returned to our penthouse at 2 AM, he didn't come alone-he brought Charla with him. He claimed she'd had a "medical emergency" at the gala and couldn't be left alone. I found a Tiffany diamond necklace on our coffee table meant for her birthday, and a smudge of her signature red lipstick on his collar. When I confronted him, he simply told me to stop being "hysterical" and "acting like a child." He had no idea I was seven months pregnant with his child. He thought so little of my grief that he didn't even bother to craft a convincing lie, laughing with his mistress in our home while I sat in the dark with a shattered heart and a secret life growing inside me. "He doesn't deserve us," I whispered to the darkness. I didn't scream or beg. I simply left a folder on his desk containing signed divorce papers and a forged medical report for a terminated pregnancy. I disappeared into the night, letting him believe he had successfully killed his own legacy through his neglect. Five years later, Hilliard walked into "The Vault," the city's most exclusive underground auction, looking for a broker to manage his estate. He didn't recognize me behind my Venetian mask, but he couldn't ignore the neon pink graffiti on his armored Maybach that read "DEADBEAT." He had no clue that the three brilliant triplets currently hacking his security system were the very children he thought had been erased years ago. This time, I wasn't just a wife in the way; I was the one holding all the cards.

The Convict Heiress: Marrying The Billionaire

The Convict Heiress: Marrying The Billionaire

Rollins Laman

The heavy thud of the release stamp was the only goodbye I got from the warden after five years in federal prison. I stepped out into the blinding sun, expecting the same flash of paparazzi bulbs that had seen me dragged away in handcuffs, but there was only a single black limousine idling on the shoulder of the road. Inside sat my mother and sister, clutching champagne and looking at my frayed coat with pure disgust. They didn't offer a welcome home; instead, they tossed a thick legal document onto the table and told me I was dead to the city. "Gavin and I are getting engaged," my sister Mia sneered, flicking a credit card at me like I was a stray dog. "He doesn't need a convict ex-fiancée hanging around." Even after I saved their lives from an armed kidnapping attempt by ramming the attackers off the road, they rewarded me by leaving me stranded in the dirt. When I finally ran into Gavin, the man who had framed me, he pinned me against a wall and threatened to send me back to a cell if I ever dared to show my face at their wedding. They had stolen my biotech research, ruined my name, and let me rot for half a decade while they lived off my brilliance. They thought they had broken me, leaving me with nothing but an expired chapstick and a few old photos in a plastic bag. What they didn't know was that I had spent those five years becoming "Dr. X," a shadow consultant with five hundred million dollars in crypto and a secret that would bring the city to its knees. I wasn't just a victim anymore; I was a weapon, and I was pregnant with the heir they thought they had erased. I walked into the Melton estate and made an offer to the most powerful man in New York. "I'll save your grandfather's life," I told Horatio Melton, staring him down. "But the price is your last name. I'm taking back what's mine, and I'm starting with the man who thinks he's marrying my sister."

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
From Discarded Wife To The Don's Successor From Discarded Wife To The Don's Successor Catherine Mafia
“I was tightening my husband's tie for the photographers at the gala when my phone buzzed against my thigh. A single notification stopped my heart dead. Julius had just wired five million dollars-capital I had secretly stolen from my father to build his company-to an account named 'K. Drake'. When I confronted him later that night, he didn't apologize. Instead, he lured me to an empty warehouse and detonated a rigged gas line. I woke up in a hospital bed, my body broken and my mind racing. Julius stood over me, checking his watch, looking terrifyingly calm. "The baby is gone," he said dismissively, referring to the pregnancy I hadn't even told him about yet. "But Kenzie needs a bone marrow transplant. You're a match." He was holding our daughter, Ava, hostage. He told me if I didn't give his mistress my marrow, I'd never see my child again. He looked at me with total contempt. To him, I was just a boring, civilian housewife. A prop he had used and was now ready to discard. He had no idea who I really was. He didn't know that the "bank loans" I secured for him were actually laundered syndicate money. He didn't know that the father I "didn't talk to" was Horacio Horton, the most feared Don on the East Coast. I let them take the marrow. I let them believe they had broken me. Then, as soon as Julius left the room, I reached for the phone and dialed a number I hadn't used in ten years. "Papa," I whispered into the receiver. "Send the army." The civilian Florence died in that bed. The Mob Princess had just returned to take her throne.”
1

Chapter 1

08/01/2026

2

Chapter 2

08/01/2026

3

Chapter 3

08/01/2026

4

Chapter 4

08/01/2026

5

Chapter 5

08/01/2026

6

Chapter 6

08/01/2026

7

Chapter 7

08/01/2026

8

Chapter 8

08/01/2026

9

Chapter 9

08/01/2026

10

Chapter 10

08/01/2026

11

Chapter 11

08/01/2026

12

Chapter 12

08/01/2026

13

Chapter 13

08/01/2026

14

Chapter 14

08/01/2026

15

Chapter 15

08/01/2026

16

Chapter 16

08/01/2026

17

Chapter 17

08/01/2026