New Life After Heartbreak

Hannah came home under a false identity, ready to keep her head down and avoid trouble. Then a near-drowning opened her eyes, and the family she had wanted gave her nothing but disappointment. She severed every tie, shed the disguise, and rose in revenge as a miracle doctor, brilliant hacker, and feared underworld ruler. Shock followed her family at every turn. Her parents regretted everything. Her eldest brother clung desperately to the bond of their shared blood, while her second brother gave up his entire fortune just to earn her forgiveness. Her third brother offered up his own body for a surgery-all to save her. But Hannah stayed cold and built her empire alone. Only one deadly rival refused to be ignored. "I was hired to kill you, mister." "Then take my heart, too."

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape-the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

I stood in front of New York City Hall in my vintage lace wedding dress, my heart pounding with a nervous joy. I was minutes away from marrying Bradford Sterling, a move I thought would finally help me reclaim my mother’s legacy from my family’s crumbling empire. But as I reached for his arm, he flinched. A black Lincoln Navigator screeched to the curb, and his mother, Victoria, stepped out, slamming a restructuring document against his chest. She didn't even look at me as she delivered the killing blow: my sister, Eden, had just seized every cent of my voting rights and family trust. "Marrying her is a net negative yield," Victoria said coldly. Bradford didn't fight for me; he didn't even blink. He simply pushed my hand away and adjusted his tie as if I were a junk bond he was ready to offload. Seconds later, my sister Eden arrived in a red Ferrari, wearing her own bridal gown, and stepped into my place by his side. I was standing on the pavement, humiliated in front of a crowd, while the man I loved for three years treated me like a failed transaction. My sister laughed in my face, calling me a "liability" while she stole my wedding and my life. The grief was instant, but the rage that followed was a white-hot rupture in my chest. I didn't just walk away; I slapped the life out of Bradford and dove into the first black SUV I saw, desperate to escape. I didn't check the plates, and I didn't see the man in the wheelchair sitting in the shadows of the backseat. I had just "carjacked" Jefferson Montgomery, the most dangerous billionaire in the city. To save him from a parole violation during a sudden police raid, I agreed to a fake marriage that very night. They wanted to treat me like a negative asset? Fine. They have no idea that they just handed a world-class hacker the keys to the Montgomery fortune, and I’m going to liquidate them all.

Elara, a lone wolf with a hidden lineage, finds her life upended when she meets Kaelen, the future Alpha of a rival pack. Despite the ancient blood feud between their families, an undeniable bond pulls them together. As a looming war threatens to tear their world apart, the pair must decide if their fated connection is worth the risk of betrayal. Together, they navigate dark secrets and lethal enemies to protect a love that could change their fate.

I was never supposed to step into his world. I was just a daughter trying to survive the wreckage of a father's mistakes. A quiet girl living a small, careful life-until one night shattered everything I thought I knew about fear, power, and possession. They say the mafia doesn't forgive. They say debts are paid in blood. They never warned me that sometimes, the price is a woman. Luciano De Luca. The name alone makes men lower their voices and avert their eyes. A king without a crown. A devil in a tailored suit. He rules the underworld with calculated brutality, commanding loyalty through fear and obedience through bloodshed. To him, mercy is a weakness-and love is a lie told by foolish men before they die. Luciano is not a man you reason with. He is power, violence, and control wrapped in a deadly calm. A mafia king who destroys without mercy and takes without permission. When my father fails to pay his debt, Luciano takes me instead. I become his collateral. His punishment. His possession. Trapped in his world of blood and secrets, I am nothing more than a reminder of betrayal-kept under his watch, bound by his rules, and stripped of every illusion of freedom. Luciano made it clear from the start: I am not his guest. I am not his lover. I am not free. I am his possession. He watches me like a predator studying prey-cold, assessing, waiting for me to break. He expects fear to reduce me to nothing. He expects me to beg. To submit. But I don't. And that defiance ignites something far more dangerous than hatred in him. But somewhere between the locked doors and the whispered threats, I realize something dangerous: the man who owns me is far more broken than he wants the world to know. Luciano De Luca is ruthless-but he is not heartless. He is controlling-but barely. And every time I challenge him, every time I look him in the eyes without flinching, something dark and volatile stirs beneath his calm exterior. Luciano doesn't love. He claims. He controls. He owns. Yet the more he tries to crush my spirit, the more obsessed he becomes. His protection turns violent. His control turns suffocating. His eyes follow me like a promise and a threat all at once. He says I am his weakness. His mistake. His curse. Yet when enemies circle too close, it is Luciano who shields me with his body. When danger threatens, it is his voice that growls warnings, his hands that tighten possessively, his presence that promises violence to anyone who dares touch what is his. Because once a mafia king decides you belong to him... escape is no longer an option. I am trapped in a golden cage built from power, luxury, and danger-but the greatest threat isn't the guns, the blood, or the men who would kill for him. It's the way Luciano looks at me when he thinks I'm not watching. The way his control fractures when I'm hurt. The way his name feels dangerous on my lips. Because loving a mafia king is not a fairy tale. It's a war. A war between survival and desire. Between freedom and obsession. Between the girl I used to be and the woman his darkness is shaping me into. The deeper I fall into his world, the more I uncover secrets buried beneath his cruelty-betrayals that made him this way, scars that never healed, enemies that would destroy us both if given the chance. And as the line between captor and protector blurs, I'm forced to face a devastating truth: The man who owns my body may soon own my heart. But loving Luciano De Luca comes at a cost. Because in his world, love is a liability. And the moment he chooses me... is the moment he paints a target on my back. Will I escape the man who claims to own me? Or will I surrender to the darkness that refuses to let me go? In a world ruled by blood, power, and betrayal, one innocent woman will discover that the most dangerous thing of all... is being loved by a ruthless mafia king.

I knew my husband, Alessandro De Luca, was the Don of the most powerful Famiglia on the East Coast. What I didn't know was that our five-year marriage was built on another woman's grave. On our anniversary, I found his hidden safe. The code wasn't our wedding date or our birthdays. It was August 14th—the day his first love, Isabella, lost her family. Inside was a shrine to her: photos, dried flowers, and a love letter promising her a "castle in the clouds." There was nothing of me, not a single trace of the five years I'd given him. When he found me, he crushed her locket in his fist and threw it all into the fireplace. "Are you done now?" he asked, as if my heartbreak was a tantrum. He offered a trip to Sicily to "fix" this, then sneered that I had nothing without his name or money. But it was worse than that. He brought Isabella back, gave her my position at the charity I built, and paraded her at our annual gala, publicly claiming her as his own. He humiliated me in front of our entire world, siding with her after she staged a scene to make me look jealous and unhinged. He roared at me, "Caterina, what the hell is your problem?" while he comforted her. So I showed him. I walked over, poured a glass of champagne over his head in front of everyone, and said, "That is my problem." Then I walked out of the ballroom, out of his life, and sent him the separation papers. This wasn't a fight for his love anymore. It was war.