Running from mafia

For five years, my husband kept me in a dog cage because he believed I murdered his fiancée, my stepsister Kinsley.

He stripped me of my dignity, my name, and my humanity, all to avenge a woman who wasn't even dead.

When Kinsley finally returned, alive and smiling, I thought my nightmare was over.

Instead, she framed me again.

Right in front of Courtland, she pushed my little brother down the stone steps of the estate.

I held my brother's broken body in the rain, screaming for help.

But Courtland just stood there, shielding Kinsley under his umbrella, looking at me with cold indifference.

He chose the monster over his wife.

That night, I realized love wasn't enough to save me.

So, I stood on the edge of the hospital roof and let gravity take me.

I wanted him to mourn. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to burn.

Three years later, at a gala in New York, the Ice King dropped his champagne glass.

He stared at me—the woman in the red dress, the fiancée of his rival.

I looked him dead in the eye and smiled like a stranger.

He cornered me later, his voice trembling with rage and obsession.

"Death is the only divorce in my world, Anastasia. And you are still very much alive."

Chapter 1

Anastasia POV

I was on my knees, my forehead pressed against the cold linoleum, when the Warden threw a black velvet box at my head.

It skittered across the floor, stopping inches from my nose.

"Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Johnson," the Warden sneered, checking his watch. "Your husband is outside, and he says if you aren't in the car in three minutes, he burns the orphanage where we keep your brother."

I didn't pack.

I didn't even breathe.

I just ran.

Five years inside the "Serenity Rehabilitation Center" had stripped the meat from my bones, but it hadn't touched the panic that lived in my marrow. If anything, fear was the only thing keeping me upright.

To the world, I was Anastasia Johnson, the tragic, drug-addicted wife of New York’s most powerful Don. A woman so broken by the "accidental" death of her saintly stepsister, Kinsley, that she needed institutionalizing.

To the staff here, I was a murderer. A rat. A woman who bit the hand that fed her.

I scrambled off the floor, my knees cracking in protest. I grabbed the velvet box as I sprinted past. I didn't need to open it to know what was inside, but my trembling fingers pried the lid open anyway as I navigated the corridors.

A locket.

I clicked it open. Kinsley’s face smiled back at me. Blonde, perfect, and rot-in-the-ground dead.

The note tucked behind it was written in Courtland’s sharp, slashing handwriting.

*For your daily prayers.*

He didn't just want me to remember; he wanted me to wear the face of the woman he believed I killed. He wanted it burning against my skin like a brand.

I clasped the cold metal around my neck. It felt like a noose.