From Unwanted Ward To Unattainable Queen

I was the orphan Marcus Thorne took in. He was my guardian, my savior, and the man I foolishly fell in love with. But when he caught me sketching his portrait, he didn't see devotion. He saw a mess. He called my feelings "inappropriate" and told his fiancée I was just a "minor household issue" before shipping me off to Italy to get rid of me. He thought I would pine for him. Instead, I erased him. I blocked his number, deleted his photos, and sent him a check for every single cent he spent on me with two words: *Debt paid.* Three years later, Marcus showed up in Florence. He looked wrecked, desperate, and furious that his "property" had walked away. He tried to order me home. He tried to claim he finally loved me. He expected the girl who used to worship him to fall into his arms. But I looked at the man who broke my heart and felt absolutely nothing. "You don't love me, Marcus," I said, stepping back into the arms of a man who actually valued me. "You just hate losing." And for the first time, I watched him crumble while I walked away.

Chapters

Chapter 2

Ellie POV

The drive to the airport felt like a funeral procession for a girl who hadn’t even died yet.

I sat in the back seat, watching the Arizona landscape blur into violent streaks of red and ochre. Every mile felt like a physical severance, a blade slicing through the tether that held me to this place. I told myself this was necessary. I told myself I had to leave. Staying meant suffocating under the crushing weight of his indifference.

I looked down at my lap.

The sketchbook.

I hadn't packed it. I had brought it with me for one reason only.

I pressed the button to roll down the window. The wind roared into the cabin, hot and dry, carrying the scent of dust and sage. I ripped the first page out. The sound of the heavy paper tearing was sharp, visceral, satisfying. I let go. The wind snatched the drawing of his eyes and whipped it away into the unforgiving desert.

I tore out another. His hands.

Then another. His smile.

I felt a stinging in my chest, a hollow ache that spread to my fingertips. But as the pages flew out, disappearing into the dust, I felt lighter. It was a violent unburdening. I wasn't just throwing away paper. I was purging ten years of delusion.

By the time the car pulled up to the terminal, the book was empty. Just a hollow binding.

I grabbed my suitcase and walked toward the entrance.

Then I froze.

Marcus.

He hadn't ridden with me. Yet there he was, standing near the check-in counter.

My heart leaped—a stupid, traitorous reflex. *Did he come to say goodbye? Did he regret sending me away?*

Then I saw the flash of blonde hair.

Chloe.

She was leaning into him, her hand resting possessively against his chest. She whispered something, laughing, and looked up at him with a teasing glint in her eyes. Marcus wasn't pushing her away. He was looking down at her, listening, his face relaxed in a way it never was with me anymore.

They looked like a couple. A real, adult couple.

I was just the child being shipped off to boarding school.

Chloe saw me first. Her smile widened, but it didn't reach her eyes. It was sharp. Predatory.

"Ellie!" she called out, waving. She walked over, dragging Marcus with her. "Safe travels, sweetie. Florence is going to be so good for you. You need to broaden your horizons."

Her words were dripping with subtext. *Get out. He's mine.*

I looked at Marcus.

He didn't even look at me. He was checking his watch.

"The driver will handle your luggage," he said, addressing the air somewhere past my ear. "Check in. Don't miss your flight."

He wouldn't even meet my eyes. He was erasing me before I had even left the ground.

I gripped the handle of my suitcase until my knuckles turned white.

"Goodbye, Marcus," I whispered.

He didn't answer. He turned back to Chloe, who was whispering something in his ear.

I turned around and walked toward security. I didn't look back. I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other.

*This is it,* I told myself. *He is blind. And I am done.*

I pulled out my phone and opened my gallery. Hundreds of photos. Marcus at Christmas. Marcus teaching me to drive. Marcus asleep on the couch.

I hit Select All.

I hit Delete.

The trash can icon emptied.

Zero items.

I boarded the plane, sank into my window seat, and watched Arizona shrink until it was nothing but a topographic map below me. I had four years. Four years to become someone who didn't need him. Four years to ensure that when I returned, I wouldn't be the girl he sent away.

Continue to next part

Cierra Monroe never meant to steal her mother's life. One veil. One signature. One wedding meant to save her family....But lies spoken at an altar don't disappear. Dominic Vance remembers the girl who stood beside him. The way she trembled. The way her eyes lingered. And when the truth comes out, he doesn't let her go. What starts as a secret turns into obsession. What feels like protection becomes control. And love quickly turns violent. Cierra is hunted, locked away, and forced to choose between men who all want her for different reasons. Her boyfriend fights for her freedom. Her protector betrays her trust. And her stepfather decides she belongs to him. Blood is spilled. Guns are raised. Promises are broken. And Cierra learns too late that some vows never end... even when they were never meant to be real. Because not all that glitters is gold. Sometimes... all that glitters is my stepdad.

Mafia Modern Romance

8.7

Destino o casualidad

8.7

In a world where power and blood dictate every move, a chance encounter disrupts the rigid hierarchy of the criminal underworld. This modern mafia romance follows two souls caught between the loyalty they owe their families and the undeniable pull of a forbidden connection. As dangerous secrets emerge and rivalries ignite, they must decide if their meeting was a stroke of luck or a predetermined fate that could lead to their ultimate ruin.

Mafia Modern Romance

8.7

Escaping The Ruthless Don's Golden Cage

8.7

I stood at the gala, draped in diamonds worth millions, playing the role of the perfect Mafia wife. But the illusion shattered when his mistress walked in wearing a necklace identical to mine—a cattle brand dipped in gold. When I confronted them, Liam didn't defend me. He shoved me aside to protect her. I hit the floor, and as my blood soaked into the white stage, I realized he had killed our unborn child. But the nightmare didn't end there. I woke up to find that Liam had ordered me sedated to "manage my hysteria." The complications from his control and the trauma had forced an emergency hysterectomy. He hadn't just killed his heir; he had stolen my future. Yet, he still tried to lock me in his estate, convinced he could force me to love him again if he just kept me hidden long enough. He thought I was broken. He thought I was his property. He was wrong. With the help of a doctor who had loved me from the shadows for years, I faked my death and vanished. Six months later, the great Don found me in a small-town bookstore, falling to his knees to beg for a second chance. I looked at the man who destroyed me and handed him a single dollar bill. "Loyalty is the only currency, Liam," I said, quoting his own vow back to him. "And you are bankrupt."

Action Mafia Romance

8.0

Pregnant And Running From The Mafia Don

8.0

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."

Mafia Modern Romance

8.8

Reborn Heiress: Claimed By The Dark Don

8.8

I spent three years hating Damien Castillo, the ruthless mafia Don who kidnapped me from my engagement party and ruined my reputation. But in the end, it was my perfect fiancé, Julian, and my sweet half-sister, Sophia, who slipped the deadly poison into my wine. As the venom burned through my veins in that freezing cellar, I watched Julian smile. He and Sophia had orchestrated my brutal death. She had been sleeping in his bed all along, intentionally miscarrying his bastard child just to frame me as 'impure' and strip me of my family's protection. My own father used me as a political pawn, letting them throw me away like garbage. And Damien? The monster I had fought and despised for years marched straight into a suicide ambush for me. He was riddled with bullets, turning his body into a human shield just to buy me a few more seconds of life. "Touch her and you die." I died in that blood-soaked basement, clutching his lifeless body, suffocating on my own blind trust. Why did I ever believe the golden boy who betrayed me? Why did I fight the only man who truly loved me? Opening my eyes again, the stench of copper and mold was gone, replaced by the scent of Cuban cigars and black silk. I was back in 1928, on the exact night Damien stormed my engagement party and locked me in his penthouse. This time, when the ruthless Don approached me, I didn't scream or run back to my killers. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.

Action Billionaire Mafia

8.3

The Jilted Mafia Heiress Takes It All

8.3

I stood at the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the daughter of New York’s most feared Don, ready to lower myself to marry a common soldier. Then, a toddler in the front pew shrieked, "Daddy." Liam didn't squeeze my hand for reassurance. He dropped it like it was a branding iron. In front of five hundred of the criminal elite, he ran down the aisle, scooping up his secret child and the mistress who had been blackmailing him. He left me standing there, humiliated and alone. Three months later, the "Jilted Princess" title still clung to me. Yet, Liam had the audacity to bring her to my father's birthday gala. Sarah, wearing a dress far too tight and a smug smile, cornered me in the middle of the ballroom. She wanted to twist the knife. "He hates you, you know," she screamed, loud enough for the Dons and Capos to hear. "He says sleeping with you was like sleeping with a statue. He chose real love! He chose a family!" The room went deathly silent. Liam looked at me with pity, thinking he had won. He thought I was broken. He thought I was alone. I took a slow sip of my champagne and set the glass down. "I am not alone, Sarah," I said calmly. I turned toward the shadows near the entrance. "Ethan?" I called out. The crowd parted instantly for the scarred, lethal man who stepped forward—The Ghost of Chicago, the most feared Underboss in Europe. He walked over and wrapped a heavy, possessive arm around my waist. "I’d like you to meet my husband," I told a horrified Liam. "And our daughter is waiting upstairs."

Billionaire Mafia Modern

From Unwanted Ward To Unattainable Queen

Chapter 2

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