I Built Your Empire, Now It Burns

I Built Your Empire, Now It Burns

Madel Cerda

5.0
Comment(s)
574
View
10
Chapters

I realized my husband did not love me the moment he stepped over my broken heart to answer a text from his mistress. Caleb was the "Architect," a feared Capo in New York, but he forgot that I was the one who funded his rise from the gutter with my inheritance. He brought his assistant, Kimberly, into our private penthouse. She wore my silk robe, mocked my past trauma, and snapped my dead mother's rosary right in front of my eyes. When I lashed out in grief, Caleb didn't defend me. He pinned me against the wall, comforting her while calling me "unstable" and "violent." He gaslighted me, claiming I would be eaten alive without his protection. He thought I was just a fragile princess who would crumble without him. He truly believed he was the king, forgetting that I was the one who built the castle. I didn't cry. I simply wiped the blood from my arm and walked out the door. He didn't know that I owned thirty percent of his laundering front and the land beneath his precious casino. I picked up the phone and dialed the number of his deadliest rival, the Irish mob. "The bank is closed, Caleb. I'm selling my shares to the enemy."

I Built Your Empire, Now It Burns Chapter 1

I realized my husband did not love me the moment he stepped over my broken heart to answer a text from his mistress.

Caleb was the "Architect," a feared Capo in New York, but he forgot that I was the one who funded his rise from the gutter with my inheritance.

He brought his assistant, Kimberly, into our private penthouse. She wore my silk robe, mocked my past trauma, and snapped my dead mother's rosary right in front of my eyes.

When I lashed out in grief, Caleb didn't defend me.

He pinned me against the wall, comforting her while calling me "unstable" and "violent."

He gaslighted me, claiming I would be eaten alive without his protection. He thought I was just a fragile princess who would crumble without him.

He truly believed he was the king, forgetting that I was the one who built the castle.

I didn't cry. I simply wiped the blood from my arm and walked out the door.

He didn't know that I owned thirty percent of his laundering front and the land beneath his precious casino.

I picked up the phone and dialed the number of his deadliest rival, the Irish mob.

"The bank is closed, Caleb. I'm selling my shares to the enemy."

Chapter 1

Azalea Vitiello POV

I realized my husband did not love me the moment he figuratively stepped over my broken heart to answer a text from his mistress, but I knew our marriage was truly dead when he told me I was too emotional to understand the business I had funded.

Caleb Garner sat behind the mahogany desk that cost more than most people earned in a year. He was typing with lethal precision on his encrypted laptop.

He did not look up when I walked in.

He did not look up when I placed my wedding ring on the dark wood.

The diamond made a sharp click against the surface, a sound that echoed in the vast, cold silence of the penthouse.

"I am busy, Azalea," he said. His voice was a low rumble, the kind that usually made my knees weak. Now, it just made my stomach turn.

"We need to talk," I said.

He finally stopped typing. He looked at me with those ice-blue eyes that had terrified half the criminal underworld of New York. He was the Architect. The Capo who had transmuted street violence into corporate strategy. He was the man who had once beaten a corrupt city official into a coma because the man dared to touch my arm without permission.

"Not now," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "I have the laundering reports for the Nexus opening. If we do not wash this cash by midnight, the Commission will have my head."

I watched him. He was beautiful in a terrifying way. Sharp jaw, broad shoulders strained against a custom suit, a lethal grace that screamed predator. But I was not his prey. I was supposed to be his Queen.

"Your phone is buzzing," I said.

He glanced at the burner phone sitting next to his scotch glass. It was late. Past midnight.

"It is work," he said.

"It is Kimberly," I countered.

Caleb sighed. It was a long, suffering sound. He picked up the phone and silenced it.

"Kimberly is my executive assistant. She is helping me coordinate the drop. You know this. Why do you insist on this paranoia? It is unbecoming of a Vitiello."

He used my maiden name like a weapon. He knew I hated the weight of it. The blood that came with it.

"She knows things she should not know, Caleb," I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "She asked me about the anniversary of my mother's death. She knew details. Details I only told you in the dark, under the sheets, when I thought we were one soul."

Caleb stood up. He walked around the desk, towering over me. He smelled of expensive cologne and gunpowder.

"I vent to her, Azalea. It is stress. You are too soft for the life. You cannot handle the pressure of what I do. Kimberly understands the grind. She is a soldier."

"A soldier," I repeated. "Is that what we call them now?"

"You are being hysterical," he said. His hand reached out to cup my cheek, but I flinched. His eyes narrowed. "You are acting like a child. Go to bed. We will discuss your mood in the morning."

The elevator doors chimed.

We both turned. Kimberly walked into our private penthouse. She was holding plastic bags from the Thai place Caleb loved. She was wearing a skirt that was too short for a boardroom and a smile that was too sharp for a friend.

"I brought Pad Thai," she chirped. She did not look at me. She looked only at him. "I thought you might be hungry after dealing with the accounts."

Caleb's face softened. The tension that had been radiating off him when he looked at me vanished. He looked at her with relief.

"You are a lifesaver, Kim," he said.

I stood there, frozen. I was the wife. I was the one who provided the clean money, the inheritance from my grandfather that built the Nexus casino, the legitimate front that kept Caleb out of prison. And I was invisible.

She walked past me to the wet bar to grab plates. She moved like she lived here. Like she knew where the forks were.

"Azalea," Caleb said, his voice hard again. "Show Kimberly some respect. She is working overtime for our family."

I looked at her. She was humming. She was happy. She was winning.

"I will not bow to your whore," I whispered.

The room went silent. Kimberly dropped a fork. Caleb stepped toward me, his face twisting into a snarl.

"Watch your mouth," he warned.

I laughed. It was a dry, broken sound. "You broke Omertà, Caleb. You told an outsider family secrets. You told her about my mother. You brought a rat into our bed."

"I am leaving," I said.

Caleb sneered. He leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms. "Leaving? You? You have never stepped foot on a sidewalk without three bodyguards. You are a princess in a tower, Azalea. You would not survive an hour in the real world without my name protecting you."

I looked at the man I had loved since I was nineteen. The man I saved from the gutter.

I walked up to him. I stood on my toes. I looked him dead in the eye.

And then I slapped him.

The sound cracked through the room like a gunshot. His head snapped to the side. Kimberly gasped, covering her mouth. Caleb slowly turned his head back to me. His cheek was already reddening. There was shock in his eyes. I had never raised a hand to him. I was the gentle one. The Virgin Queen.

"I am done," I said.

I turned around and walked toward the elevator.

"Azalea!" he roared. "If you walk out that door, do not think you can come crawling back when the world eats you alive."

I did not look back. I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. As the doors closed, I saw Kimberly handing him an ice pack, her hand resting familiarly on his chest.

I was alone.

Continue Reading

Other books by Madel Cerda

More
Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Romance

4.7

I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch—a titan of industry and my best friend’s father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

When Lies Crash

When Lies Crash

Modern

5.0

The captain' s voice sliced through the cabin' s quiet hum, a familiar prelude to disaster. My husband, Alex, was at the controls, announcing an abrupt diversion from Los Angeles to New York. His reason? A 'medical emergency' for his dearest friend, Brittany, compelling us to land in Denver. My blood ran cold; this wasn't just déjà vu, it was my nightmare from a past life replaying, detail for excruciating detail. Last time, Alex' s toxic obsession with Brittany hijacked this very flight, making a cross-country journey hostage to his personal drama. He callously ignored a genuine onboard emergency-a stroke suffered by actor Julian Knight-despite my desperate pleas as a paramedic to land immediately. Alex' s reckless refusal led to Brittany' s 'emergency' being exposed as a self-inflicted sham, yet he still twisted everything. He systematically demolished my career and reputation, blaming me for every consequence and shamelessly claiming credit for the life-saving work I' d done. And when he was finally done breaking me, he staged a car accident, murdering me. I still felt the metallic crunch, the searing pain, followed by consuming darkness. Yet here I was, resurrected, seated on this precise flight, hearing his voice again. The chilling echo of 'Denver. Brittany.' consumed my thoughts, a stark reminder that I was reliving my end. But not this time. There would be no begging, no pleading, no quiet acceptance of victimhood. Alex Carter was about to meet an Evie Hayes he didn't kill, an Evie Hayes ready to fight.

The Real Boss Was His Neglected Wife

The Real Boss Was His Neglected Wife

Mafia

5.0

I was putting my signature on the invoice for the Gulfstream G650 when my husband snatched the boarding pass from the folder and handed it to his mistress. "You're taking the commercial flight out of JFK," Jackson said, daring me to challenge him in front of his security detail. "Amber needs the privacy. She gets air sick." I looked down at the crumpled ticket he had slid to me. Economy. Middle seat. Three layovers. Then I looked at the sixty-million-dollar bird I had leased specifically so his crime family wouldn't get slaughtered on the highway by their rivals. "Amber is fragile," he whispered, his breath smelling of the expensive scotch I bought. "She carries the future. You just carry the checkbook." My mother-in-law was already on board, sipping the vintage Dom Pérignon I had curated, refusing to look at me. They treated me like a glorified ATM with a medical degree. They forgot that five years ago, when the Feds froze everything, I was the one who bought their lives with a five-million-dollar tribute. They forgot that the hand that writes the checks can also close the account. As the engines roared to life, leaving me stranded on the tarmac, I didn't cry. Surgeons don't cry over dead bodies. I pulled out my phone and cancelled the Uber he had called for me. I wasn't going to the airport. I was going to the safe to retrieve the "Blood Contract." The five million dollars wasn't a gift. It was a callable loan. And the collateral was everything. I dialed my lawyer. "Burn it to the ground."

The Davenport Wives' Reckoning

The Davenport Wives' Reckoning

Romance

5.0

My life in Boston, married to the man I adored, Liam, and embraced by my incredible mother-in-law Eleanor, was a dream. Sheltered by Eleanor' s modern wit from the stuffy Davenport family' s expectations, I felt truly happy and secure. Then came Eleanor' s frantic call. Her voice, shaking, shattered my illusion of perfection: Arthur, the family patriarch, had moved another woman into our guesthouse. My stomach clenched as I confessed Liam had also grown distant, constantly working late with a new "business associate" set up in a corporate apartment. The ultimate public dismissal arrived when our husbands brazenly excluded us from the annual family gala. Eleanor' s swift investigation uncovered the brutal truth: Liam was openly escorting his "associate," Agent Walker, who the firm treated with alarming familiarity. It became horrifyingly clear-we were being discarded, replaced like outdated accessories. The betrayal felt like a gut punch, a painful echo of the quiet suffering endured by generations of women in our families. How could the men who pledged to love and protect us abandon us so cruelly? The pain was unbearable, the humiliation profound. But Eleanor, a sharp former tech CEO, refused to be a victim. Her eyes blazing with a fierce resolve, she declared, "If they want new lives, we'll start ours. A better one." Our audacious plan: fake our deaths during the gala, disappear without a trace, and reclaim our freedom. A plan that, amidst its desperate chaos, led to a shocking discovery: we were both pregnant with their children.

The Ex-Fiancé You Can't Afford To Lose

The Ex-Fiancé You Can't Afford To Lose

Modern

5.0

I stood in the ballroom with a diamond ring in my pocket, waiting to be crowned King of the empire I had built from the ground up. Instead, the woman I loved walked to the microphone and signed my death warrant with a smile. Serena didn't announce our engagement. She announced that Luca Moretti—an incompetent associate I'd almost fired three times—was the new Underboss and her partner in life. Then, she kissed him. Deep and possessive, right in front of the entire Commission. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. Luca smirked at me, wearing a suit that was too tight, while Serena looked at me with cold, dead eyes. "Dante is the old guard," she told the crowd, dismissing me like a waiter. "We are moving in a new direction." They stripped me of my title. They humiliated me on live television. They thought they had taken my crown. But they forgot one crucial detail. I was the Architect. I had built the encrypted logistics system that kept the FBI in the dark. A system that required my specific biometric code every morning to function. I didn't make a scene. I didn't scream. I simply placed the ring on a waiter's tray and walked out into the night. Forty-eight hours later, the Vitiello empire was in a freefall. The accounts were frozen. The shipments were flagged. My phone buzzed. It was Serena. "Dante," she panicked, her voice trembling. "Fix it. Now." I took a sip of my espresso and smiled at the chaos on the news. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Serena. You fired the only pilot who knows how to fly the plane."

You'll also like

The Convict Heiress: Marrying The Billionaire

The Convict Heiress: Marrying The Billionaire

Rollins Laman
4.8

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."

The Discarded Heiress: Marrying My Lethal Husband

The Discarded Heiress: Marrying My Lethal Husband

Xiao Wang
5.0

The rain in Detroit was slick with grime when my family finally came to fetch me. They didn't want a reunion; they wanted a sacrificial lamb to marry into the Kaufman empire to save their failing business. I thought I was just being sold off, but the limo ride ended under a dark overpass where six hired thugs were waiting with chains. My own sister had ordered them to "break my spirit" so I’d be a shaking, pathetic mess by the time I reached the altar. They called me "Detroit trash" and sprayed air freshener when I sat on their leather seats. My stepmother wanted a video of me begging for my life, and my father was ready to trade me like a used car to a man everyone called a "vegetable." They expected a submissive country girl, unaware that I was a high-level "cleaner" who could snap a radius bone before they could even scream. When I finally reached the Kaufman estate, I found my fiancé, Barron, slumped in a wheelchair, drooling and silent. But as soon as the doors closed, the "invalid" grabbed my wrist with a grip of iron and whispered a command that changed everything. I didn't understand why my own blood was so desperate to see me destroyed. What had I ever done to deserve a hit squad and a forced marriage to a man they thought was a corpse? But Barron isn't a vegetable, and I'm not a victim. We just touched down at the Moon family gala in a matte-black helicopter, and as the doors slide open, the "broken" bride is about to show them exactly what happens when you throw away the wrong daughter. "If we're going to crash a party," Barron whispered, his eyes burning with lethal clarity, "we should make an entrance."

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
I Built Your Empire, Now It Burns I Built Your Empire, Now It Burns Madel Cerda Mafia
“I realized my husband did not love me the moment he stepped over my broken heart to answer a text from his mistress. Caleb was the "Architect," a feared Capo in New York, but he forgot that I was the one who funded his rise from the gutter with my inheritance. He brought his assistant, Kimberly, into our private penthouse. She wore my silk robe, mocked my past trauma, and snapped my dead mother's rosary right in front of my eyes. When I lashed out in grief, Caleb didn't defend me. He pinned me against the wall, comforting her while calling me "unstable" and "violent." He gaslighted me, claiming I would be eaten alive without his protection. He thought I was just a fragile princess who would crumble without him. He truly believed he was the king, forgetting that I was the one who built the castle. I didn't cry. I simply wiped the blood from my arm and walked out the door. He didn't know that I owned thirty percent of his laundering front and the land beneath his precious casino. I picked up the phone and dialed the number of his deadliest rival, the Irish mob. "The bank is closed, Caleb. I'm selling my shares to the enemy."”
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