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 4

Ellie POV

My apartment resembled a war zone, a chaotic landscape of cardboard boxes.

I was purging.

Every gift Marcus had ever given me was going. The silk scarf from Hermès. The pearl earrings for my sixteenth birthday. The leather-bound journal.

I threw them all into a box addressed to the Thorne Estate in Arizona. I didn't want them. They were heavy with memories I couldn't afford to carry anymore.

"Hey, Ellie?"

My roommate, a bubbly Italian girl named Sofia, hovered in the doorframe. "Are you okay? You've been packing for hours."

"I'm fine," I said, sealing the box shut with aggressive rips of the dispenser. "Just cleaning house."

"Did you hear?" she asked, leaning further into the room. "Someone said Marcus Thorne is expanding his business to Europe. Chloe gave an interview saying they might honeymoon in Paris."

"Good for them," I said. My voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

"He really took care of you, didn't he?" Sofia said, her tone dangerously innocent. "Paying for all this."

"He was paying for his conscience," I snapped.

She flinched at my tone. "Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," I sighed, rubbing my temples. "I'm just... tired."

I turned back to my desk. There was one photo left. It was hidden under my textbooks. Me and Marcus, three years ago, watching the sunset in the desert. The light was golden, and he was looking at me with something that resembled pride.

I picked it up.

It hurt. It physically hurt, like a knife twisting in my gut.

I remembered that day. He had told me I was smart. He had told me I had a good eye for beauty.

Lies. All of it.

If he thought I was beautiful, he wouldn't have shipped me off like expired goods.

I took the photo in both hands and ripped it down the middle. I tore it again and again until his face was just shreds of paper in my trash can.

A knock at the door shattered the silence. It was a courier.

"Package for Ms. Ellie."

I signed for it. It was a box from Arizona. From him.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Had he sent a letter? An apology?

I opened it with trembling fingers.

Inside, wrapped carelessly in old newspaper, was my "Desert Flower" sculpture. It was a clumsy clay piece I had made when I was twelve. It was the only thing I had left of my childhood artistic dreams. I had left it on the mantle in the library.

He had sent it back.

He hadn't even used bubble wrap. One of the petals was chipped.

He was scrubbing me out of his house. He didn't want a single trace of me left in his sanctuary.

I looked at the chipped clay. It looked pathetic. Just like me.

He didn't know me. He thought this was just some trinket. He didn't know that I made this the day after my parents' funeral because I needed to create something that wouldn't die.

"You know nothing, Marcus," I whispered to the empty room.

I threw the newspaper on the floor.

My phone buzzed on the desk. An email from his assistant.

Mr. Thorne suggests you take business electives. He expects you to be useful to the company when you return.

Useful.

He wanted a secretary. A subordinate.

I laughed. It was a dry, harsh sound.

"No," I said.

I walked to the calendar on the wall. I circled the date of my graduation with bold, angry strokes.

I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms. The pain grounded me.

I wasn't going back to be his assistant. I wasn't going back to be his ward.

I was going back to settle the debt. I would pay him back every cent he spent on me. And then I would walk away forever.

I grabbed the chipped sculpture and placed it deliberately on my desk. It wasn't a keepsake anymore.

It was a reminder.

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 4

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