The Mistress by Blueesandy

I went to the City Clerk's office to update my passport, desperate to feel alive again after losing my ability to draw.

Instead, the clerk handed me a reality that killed me.

"Mrs. Crosby," she whispered, her face drained of color. "You aren't married to Bennet. The divorce was finalized three years ago. On October 12th."

The date hit me harder than a physical blow.

October 12th was the day my right hand was crushed.

The day Gianna Skinner, a woman obsessed with my husband, shattered twenty-seven bones in my drawing hand with a marble bust.

Bennet, the most ruthless Don in New York, had promised me justice. He swore he locked Gianna in a dungeon to rot for hurting his "Angel."

But the screen in front of me told a different story.

He had married Gianna the very same day he divorced me.

I drove to the Lake House where she was supposed to be suffering. I didn't find a prison; I found a modern glass palace.

There they were, sitting on a swing set I had designed.

Gianna wasn't rotting. She was laughing in his lap, wearing a silk robe.

"She is so pathetic," Gianna purred, tracing his jaw. "Five years and she still thinks she is the Lady of the house."

Bennet chuckled, the sound dark and terrifying.

"She is broken, Gianna. A bird with no wings. She has no value to the Family anymore, except as a trophy on my shelf. She is my pet. You are my fire."

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Bennet.

"Happy Anniversary, my Angel. Tonight, I give you the world."

He wasn't giving me the world. He was building a cage out of lies.

Through a bugged ring, I later heard his endgame: he planned to institutionalize me for "mental instability" so he could bring Gianna into the light.

I didn't go home to cry.

I went to my office and opened a secure browser on the dark web.

*Subject: Protocol Erasure.*

*Target: Harper Cline.*

*Execution: Immediate.*

Bennet thought he had broken his pet.

He was about to realize he had just unleashed a lioness.

Chapter 1

Harper POV

I stepped into the City Clerk's office with a singular goal: to update my passport.

It was a desperate bid for the only thing that still made me feel alive-my art.

But instead of a stamp, the clerk handed me a reality that killed me.

My husband, the most ruthless Don in New York, hadn't just betrayed me.

He had secretly divorced me three years ago to marry the very woman who had crushed my right hand.

The fluorescent lights of City Hall buzzed overhead, a sickly sound that drilled into my temples.

Brenda, the clerk who had smilingly processed my marriage license five years ago, looked at her computer screen, then up at me.

Her face was drained of color.

"Mrs. Crosby," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I think there is a mistake in your paperwork."

I shifted my weight, instinctively shoving my right hand deep into the pocket of my wool coat.

It was a reflex honed over three years of shame.

The hand that used to sketch skylines and dream up skyscrapers was now a mangled claw of scar tissue and stiff joints.

"What mistake?" I asked, forcing a polite smile. "It is our fifth anniversary. I just need to update my status for the visa application."

Brenda hesitated, then slowly turned the monitor toward me.

"You are not married to Bennet Crosby," she said softly. "The divorce was finalized three years ago. On October 12th."

The date hit me harder than a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs.

October 12th.

The day my hand was destroyed.

"That is impossible," I stammered, the room beginning to tilt. "I live with him. I share his bed."

Brenda clicked a mouse button, her eyes full of pity.

"He remarried the same day, Harper. To a Ms. Gianna Skinner."

The world stopped.

Gianna Skinner.

The name tasted like ash and copper on my tongue.

Three years ago, she had cornered me in the drafting room of the Crosby estate.

She was a soldier's daughter, wild, feral, and obsessed with my husband.