Roldan Mccartney

One wedding. Two brides. A lethal trap. My stepsister got the sparkling gown and the Mafia’s golden heir. I got a five-dollar dress and a dying groom. My father traded me away to seal a silent assassination, selling me to Damien Carlisle—a paralyzed, disfigured warlord whose enemies were eagerly waiting for sepsis to claim his life. "He won't last a month," my stepsister mocked, pouring wine down my back. "Enjoy being a widow, dear sister." Stranded in a cold, decaying manor with a dying man and traitorous servants, I was expected to weep and perish in the dark. They made one fatal mistake. The weak, pathetic girl they trampled on is gone. In her place stands a soul back from another world—armed with supreme medical tech, lethal toxin mastery, and the V-9 AI system. I opened my medical bag and looked at the sleeping beast beside me. They sent me here to die with a crippled outcast. Instead, I’m going to build an Emperor—and tear their world apart piece by piece.

For five years, I lived a beautiful lie. I was Aliana Hughes, the cherished wife of the city's most feared Mafia Capo and the beloved daughter of the Don. I believed my arranged marriage had blossomed into love. On my birthday, my husband promised me the amusement park. Instead, I found him there with his other family, celebrating the fifth birthday of the son I never knew he had. I overheard their plan. My husband called me a "naive fool," a placeholder to legitimize his secret son. The ultimate betrayal wasn't his affair, but the sight of my own father's car parked across the street. My family wasn't just aware; they were the architects of my ruin. Back home, I found the proof: a secret photo album of my husband's other family posing with my parents, and records showing my father had bankrolled the entire deception. They had even drugged me on weekends so he could play happy family. The grief didn't break me. It turned into something cold and sharp. I was a ghost in a life that was never mine, and a ghost has nothing to lose. I copied every damning file onto a USB drive. As they celebrated their perfect day, I sent a courier with my parting gift: a recording of their treachery. While their world burned, I walked toward the airport, ready to erase myself and start over.

I’m the sister of a pack Gamma, but in the Nightshade Pack, status is everything. My brother Silas keeps warning me to stay away from the Blackwood family, especially the Alpha, Ryker. But I couldn't help it—I’m in love with Cole, the Alpha’s younger brother. I thought our love was a secret sanctuary, a fated bond that defied the pack’s rigid hierarchy. Today, I decided to surprise him at the Packhouse, hoping to be the light in his stressful life as he prepared for the Alpha’s upcoming mate selection ceremony. I snuck into the West Wing, only to find myself in a room that radiated pure, suffocating power. I didn't know I was in Ryker’s private office. When I touched a silver-framed photo of his parents, the door burst open. Ryker didn't just see a trespasser; he saw a violation. His Alpha Command hit me like a physical blow, forcing me to drop the frame. It shattered against the stone hearth, and with it, my entire world. The rage in his eyes was absolute, a cold, terrifying fury that left me trembling on the floor. His future Luna, Mira, stood by, mocking my pathetic state as I scrambled to escape, my hand sliced open by the jagged glass. Why was he so cruel? And why did the scent of my own love, Cole, seem to make them look at me with even more disdain? I couldn't go back to the life I knew. As I sat sobbing on the stairs, abandoned by the man I loved and broken by his brother, I realized I had been completely blind to the darkness of the Blackwood name. I didn't care about the pack rules anymore. I looked at my bleeding hand and made a silent vow: I would uncover the secret behind why the Alpha hated me so much, even if it destroyed the very foundation of the pack.

After we made love, my husband Ethan always did the same thing: he'd pull out papers for me to sign, saying it was just business. I trusted him completely, signing without reading, believing he was handling the boring paperwork so I could focus on my tech company. Then, one night, I heard him on the phone with his childhood friend, Sarah Jenkins. "It' s done, Sarah. I got the last signature." They were draining my accounts, framing me for fraud, and planning to leave me bankrupt and facing prison. My world shattered. This wasn' t just about money; they had meticulously planned this revenge for five years, fueled by a petty college misunderstanding. Every kiss, every "I love you" had been a calculated lie. The man I married was a monster. The betrayal deepened when I discovered I was pregnant. Before I could process the news, Ethan, knowing how my absence for doctor' s appointments would raise questions, took me to the hospital, ostensibly for confirmation. But on the way, he sped up, deliberately causing a car crash that made me lose our baby. Temporarily blinded by the impact and drowning in grief, I was coerced into signing away everything, believing they were insurance forms. It wasn't an accident. I overheard him tell Sarah, "The accident worked perfectly… No more baby to complicate things." He murdered our child. How could the man I loved, the father of my child, be such a cold, calculating killer? How could I have been so blind, so trusting? My love had been his weapon, and his every act, a betrayal beyond imagination. But they had underestimated me. I was Chloe Miller, CEO. And I wasn' t just a broken woman; I was a woman scorned, ready for war.

The Preston family mansion was cold, even in summer, a stark reminder that despite being their long-lost son, I was an intruder. My adoptive brother Liam, the golden child, introduced me to the opulent life with a sneer, constant humiliation, and a cruel challenge: a series of contests to prove my worth, threatening to send me back to the gutter if I lost. My biological parents, more concerned with appearances, stood by, silently endorsing my torment as I faced certain defeat, their indifference a deeper cut than Liam' s malice. The ultimate blow came when my college girlfriend Chloe, my rock and only comfort, revealed her true colors: she was using me as a pawn to manipulate Liam, arranging for me to be discarded and married off to a dying heiress. Heartbroken and empty, with nothing left to lose, I made a choice so desperate, so reckless, yet utterly mine: I would take Liam' s place at the altar, stepping into a world of unknown dangers, but finally, on my own terms.

My life as a gig-economy delivery driver was tough, but I always kept my head down. On Valentine' s Day, a late condom delivery for Room 12 at a sleazy motel spiraled into instant blackmail. Kevin and Tiffany, the couple, scammed me out of my day' s pay and hit me with a one-star review that cratered my job rating. Just as I thought it couldn't get worse, they escalated. They claimed Tiffany was pregnant because I was supposedly late, demanding $20,000. When I refused, they fabricated an assault, accused me of causing a miscarriage, and launched a vicious online smear campaign. They doxxed me, ruined my reputation, and got me fired; I was days from homelessness. But the ultimate blow came from the person who mattered most. My foster mother, Sarah, the kindest soul I knew, used her life savings-money she' d been meticulously saving for decades to find her long-lost son-to pay them off, just to make them stop hounding me. I couldn't believe it. Her entire hope, her deepest dream, sacrificed for me because of their elaborate lies. How could anyone be so utterly cruel, so shamelessly manipulative? And watching Tiffany flaunt new "engagement" bling, clearly funded by Sarah's stolen hope, made my stomach churn. No more. They took my job, my home, and then her dream. It wasn't about surviving anymore. It was about making them pay. Every last cent. And for everything else. I'm coming for them.

A heavy rain washes away the buried male corpse in the cornfield. The murderer is quickly caught. Only I notice something's off— someone is missing. Ten years later, the people from the past reunite, and rotting oranges are hard to emit a fragrance. The regrets of ten years ago, this time, I will personally deliver judgment.

"Where do you think you're going, huh? You're mine now, Little Mouse. Get back in the house!" Vincenzo's voice boomed, sending chills down Victoria's spine as her world seemed to crumble. Victoria Washington was shattered-betrayed by her boyfriend who dumped her the day before his wedding, to her sister. She was left humiliated, mocked by everyone. But fate had other plans for her. She's broken, he's lost. She's full of fear, and he's the monster. Yet, somehow, he's her light while he remains in darkness. Vincenzo Dante will stop at nothing to tarnish his family's name for forcing him into a marriage he never wanted. But what he doesn't realize is that his new wife is stronger than she seems-too broken to bend under his cruelty. But when love begins to bloom, and secrets start to unfold, what will happen next?

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

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.

I was three days away from marrying the Underboss of the Fazio crime family when I unlocked his burner phone. The screen glowed toxic bright in the dark next to my sleeping fiancé. A message from a contact saved as 'Little Trouble' read: "She is just a statue, Dante. Come back to bed." Attached was a photo of a woman lying in the sheets of his private office, wearing his shirt. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. For eight years, I believed Dante was the hero who pulled me from a burning opera house. I played the perfect, loyal Mafia Princess for him. But heroes don't give their mistresses rare pink diamonds while giving their fiancées cubic zirconia replicas. He didn't just cheat. He humiliated me. He defended his mistress over his own soldiers in public. He even abandoned me on the side of the road on my birthday because she faked a pregnancy emergency. He thought I was weak. He thought I would accept the fake ring and the disrespect because I was just a political pawn. He was wrong. I didn't cry. Tears are for women who have options. I had a strategy. I walked into the bathroom and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in a decade. "Speak," a voice like gravel growled on the other end. Lorenzo Moretti. The Capo of the rival family. The man my father called the Devil. "The wedding is off," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "I want an alliance with you, Enzo. And I want the Fazio family burned to the ground."

On my wedding day, my father sold me to the Chicago Outfit to pay his debts. I was supposed to marry Alex Moreno, the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. But he couldn't even be bothered to show up. As I stood alone at the altar, humiliated, my best friend delivered the final blow. Alex hadn't just stood me up; he had run off to California with his mistress. The whispers in the cathedral turned me into a joke. I was damaged goods, the rejected bride. His family knew the whole time and let me take the public fall, offering me his cousins as pathetic replacements-a brute who hated me or a coward who couldn't protect me. The humiliation burned away my fear, leaving only cold rage. My life was already over, so I decided to set the whole game on fire myself. The marriage pact only said a Carlson had to marry a Moreno; it never said which one. With nothing left to lose, I looked past the pathetic boys they offered. I chose the one man they never expected. I chose his father, the Don himself.

For seven years, I scrubbed floors, cooked books, and hid my identity as the Vitiello heiress just to test if Dante Moretti loved me for me, not my father’s power. But the massive digital billboard in Times Square froze the blood in my veins. It wasn’t my face next to his under the headline "The King and his new Queen." It was a cocktail waitress named Lola. When I walked into the lobby to confront him, Lola slapped me across the face and crushed my late mother's locket under her stiletto heel. Dante didn't defend me. He didn't even look sorry. "You’re useful, like a stapler," he sneered, checking his watch. "But a King needs a Queen, not a boring clerk. You can stay on as my mistress if you want to keep your job." He thought I was a nobody. He thought he could use me to launder his money and then discard me like trash. He didn't realize that the only reason he wasn't in federal prison was because I was protecting him. I wiped the blood from my lip and pulled out a secure satellite phone. Dante laughed. "Who are you calling? Your mommy?" I stared him dead in the eyes as the line connected. "The pact is void, Papa," I whispered. "Burn them all." Ten minutes later, the glass doors shattered as my father’s military helicopters descended onto the street. Dante fell to his knees, realizing too late that he hadn't just lost a secretary. He had just declared war on the Capo dei Capi.

Three days before the wedding. I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman. Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress. The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem. It didn't spell Elena. It read Sofia. He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name. Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife. He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance. I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared. "The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?" "Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport." "Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys." I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday. He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead.

"What if I don't want to go home?" "Then come with me." That single decision changed my life forever. Never in my life have I ever experienced what it means to be loved, not even when my father was still around. But it all became worse after he abandoned us. Morgana, my mom had never treated me like her own and as a result we always had heated arguments. After being saved from street hoodlums by the feared mafia leader, Sylvester Muskegon, i find myself living inside the mansion of the most dangerous mafia family in the city. Cold-hearted killers. Powerful brothers. Deadly secrets. Yet behind their terrifying reputations, they treat me like some little precious princess, especially Sylvester, the ruthless mafia king whose touch feels safer than home ever did. But becoming the Mafia's Princess comes with a deadly price. Because once the enemies of the Muskegons discover my existence, I'm no longer just an innocent girl caught in their world...i became their greatest weakness.

I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair. They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves. Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment. But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger. In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.

For fifteen years, I bled for my husband, a ruthless Mafia Don, helping him build his syndicate from the ground up. But on our anniversary, I found a cheap strawberry lip balm in his armored car. That was when I discovered he was having an affair with a civilian secretary, and she was pregnant with his heir. Instead of staying with me, he lied to my face and abandoned me at home to rush to her side. "He sees you as an unbreachable fortress, and her as someone who needs his protection." His right-hand man had been covering it up for months. I learned my husband had bought the mistress the flawless blood diamond he once promised me when we were starving in safe houses. He was even taking her to the Swiss Alps—our dream wedding destination. I had stitched his bullet wounds in unlit basements and frozen in the winter cold to deliver his bribes. I gave him my youth and my absolute loyalty, only to be tossed aside for a fragile girl who just wanted a crown. I didn't cry, and I didn't beg him to stay. I left my cheap copper wire wedding ring on his pillow, drafted a severance demand to take half of his laundered assets, and booked my own first-class ticket to Europe. This time, I was going to see the snow for myself.