The Canary Who Learned To Fly

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him—my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit—watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London—an exile disguised as a severance package—I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

Chapters

Chapter 11

Seraphina Vitiello POV

The plane plummeted fifty feet in a single second.

My stomach lurched into my throat, a violent upheaval that tasted of bile.

The cabin lights flickered and died for a terrifying heartbeat.

Someone in the row behind me screamed.

I didn't scream.

I gripped the armrests until my knuckles turned bone white, my fingernails digging into the leather. My breathing was shallow, ragged gasps, each one sending a fresh jolt of pain through my still-healing ribs and the ache in my re-injured leg. I had taken extra pain medication before boarding, but the turbulence ripped through the dulling fog.

I wasn't on a plane anymore.

I was back in the SUV.

I was upside down.

I smelled the acrid stench of leaking gasoline.

I saw the fire eating the metal, curling around the frame like a hungry beast.

I saw Dante sprinting past my window without a single backward glance.

The plane shook again, violently this time, rattling my teeth.

My vision blurred.

Black spots danced at the edges of my sight, threatening to pull me under.

I couldn't breathe.

My ribs, the ones that were still healing, felt like a cage shrinking around my lungs, squeezing the life out of me.

A hand touched my arm.

I flinched.

I expected a blow.

I expected Dante's rough grip or my father's heavy, punishing hand.

But the touch was gentle.

Warm.

Solid.

I looked up.

The man in the seat next to me was watching me.

He had dark hair and eyes the color of aged whiskey.

He wasn't looking at me like I was a spare part or a nuisance to be dealt with.

He was looking at me like I was a person in distress.

"Breathe," he said softly.

His voice was deep, a rumble in his chest, but it lacked the sharp edge of command I was used to.

I tried to inhale.

The air in the cabin was stale.

It smelled of recycled oxygen and collective fear.

"Here," he said.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a blanket.

It was cashmere. Charcoal grey and impossibly soft.

He draped it over my shaking shoulders.

It smelled like sandalwood and expensive soap.

It didn't smell like blood.

It didn't smell like gunpowder.

"Focus on the fabric," he said, his tone low and grounding. "Feel how soft it is. You are safe."

I buried my nose in the blanket.

I focused on the sandalwood.

I counted the threads in my mind.

One. Two. Three.

The plane stabilized.

The pilot came over the intercom, his voice crackling as he apologized for the turbulence.

My heart rate began to slow, the thunder in my ears fading to a dull thrum.

I looked at the man.

"Thank you," I whispered.

He smiled.

It was a genuine smile. It reached his eyes, crinkling the corners.

"I'm Luca," he said.

I hesitated.

Seraphina Vitiello was dead. She died in the wreckage in Chicago.

"I am... Sarah," I lied.

"Nice to meet you, Sarah," Luca said. "First time flying?"

"No," I said. "Just the first time escaping."

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

He didn't pry.

He just nodded, as if escaping was the most natural thing in the world.

We landed in Sydney fourteen hours later.

The sun was blinding.

It wasn't the grey, oppressive light of Chicago.

It was gold. It was alive.

I walked through customs with my heart in my throat. Every step was a careful calculation, my leg protesting the journey, but my resolve hardened with each unchallenged moment.

I expected a hand on my shoulder.

I expected Marco or Dante to drag me back to the basement, to the darkness.

But no one stopped me.

The stamp in my passport hit the paper with a dull, final thud.

"Welcome to Australia," the officer said.

I walked out into the arrivals hall, my legs trembling.

I found a taxi rank.

The driver was an older man with faded tattoos on his forearms.

"Where to, love?" he asked.

I looked at the skyline.

"Anywhere," I said. "Just drive."

He chuckled, a gravelly sound.

"Running from something or running to something?"

"Both," I said.

He put the car in gear.

"Well, you came to the right place," he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. "Sydney is a city of second chances. Even for old convicts like me."

I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window.

A convict and a mafia princess.

We were both criminals in our own way.

I watched the city blur past.

For the first time in my life, the road ahead wasn't paved with someone else's expectations.

It was just a road.

Continue to next part

For years, I belonged to him. Not his mate. Not his love. But his bedmate. His Gamma. His shadow in the night. Alpha Calhoun made sure no man dared touch me, no wolf dared look at me. I was his possession, his secret, his sin wrapped in skin. And I endured it all-his rough hands, his dark devotion, his kisses that tasted like fire and chains because at least, for a while, he was mine. Until she returned. His destined mate. His so-called true love. And suddenly, I was nothing. Cast aside, silenced, left to wither in the shadows of a love that had never been mine to claim. But the thing about being claimed by a man like Calhoun. is that he never truly lets you go. "Try to leave me, Elodie," his voice had been a snarl against my throat, his grip bruising my waist. "I'll burn down every border, tear apart every wolf that stands in my way, until you crawl back to me. You're mine, even if the Moon Goddess herself wants to rip you away." He didn't know then that I already had one foot out the door. And when I finally left his pack. I took more than just my broken heart with me.

Horror Romance Werewolf

7.9

The scoundrel caused my miscarriage, and I made him pay with his life

7.9

In a dilapidated warehouse, my husband brutally cut open my abdomen to extract the fetus. All for the sake of obtaining bone marrow from our child to save the life of the son he had with his mistress. "Honey, I'm begging you, don't hurt the baby," I pleaded with him. "Arina, don't be afraid. It won't hurt. Just a little while, and you'll be free,". Just when I was on the verge of giving up all hope, the sound of approaching help reached my ears. I felt a glimmer of joy, thinking I was finally going to escape this nightmarish hell. But then, in an instant, there was a sharp "Puff!" It was the sound of a dagger slicing through my belly. There was a deep gash in my abdomen, and blood was gushing out profusely. "Ah! My baby!" "How could you be so cruel?" I stared in disbelief at my best friend standing before me. "Arina, you have to die today..."

Horror Modern Romance

7.6

Delicious Reptilian Meat

7.6

Have you ever eaten "Reptilian" meat? My grandfather said he had. Creatures that looked exactly like us on the outside, but were fundamentally different on the inside. Extremely dangerous, yet incredibly delicious. Before he died, my grandfather left behind a notebook. The first page read: "Reptilian look exactly like humans, but human instinct can tell them apart." The moment my cousin Braden returned for my grandfather's funeral, my gut told me: he wasn't human!

Action Horror Modern Sci-Fi

8.2

Her Neglect, My Undying Haunted Soul

8.2

I was the biological daughter, yet my mother looked at me with disgust while worshipping my adopted sister, Carina. When I vanished for two months, my mother laughed it off as a "tantrum" designed to ruin my grandmother's jubilee. She only stopped laughing when the detective slammed a forensics report on the table. "Your daughter didn't just die, Mrs. Fowler," the officer said, his voice cold. "She was buried alive by the elements. It took her three days to suffocate in that ravine." My mother turned pale, stammering that she never got a call for help. The detective' s eyes narrowed. "Oh, she called. Five times. Someone answered the last one, listened to her scream, and then deleted the log to cover it up." The room went dead silent. Slowly, my mother' s horrified gaze turned toward Carina, the "perfect" daughter, who was trembling violently in the corner. My ghost watched from the shadows of the interrogation room as the realization finally hit her. She hadn't just neglected me; she had raised the monster who left me to die.

Horror Mystery

8.0

Nowhere To Run From The Cold-Hearted CEO's Obsession

8.0

Aurora didn't cry when Grayson dumped her; she vanished after his line, "Wherever I am, you can't show up." Three years on, she returned as the city's star anchor; he watched nightly, haunted. Five years on, free of his family's leash, he staged a dinner to win her back. She met him like a stranger and refused. Learning she was engaged to his nephew, he dropped restraint. By any means, he would reclaim her. As she walked away, his voice shook. "Until I die, I won't let go." In college she'd chased him, not knowing he was a Rockefeller-until his father's snub proved the gulf she'd never cross. Whether it was five years ago or now, they were never meant to be, she thought.

Billionaire Horror Modern

7.0

Revenge Seduction: Captivating The Wall Street Monster

7.0

For six years, I was the obedient, pathetic girlfriend of Arron, the adopted heir to the terrifying Mayer empire. But on the night of a major party, he abandoned me for another woman, leaving me humiliated and alone in a hotel penthouse. While I was crying in the bathtub, a splitting headache suddenly unlocked a terrifying truth. I wasn't just a discarded girlfriend; I was living inside a scripted corporate thriller. I was the disposable side character destined to be crushed by the Mayer family, driven to despair, and drowned in the freezing Hudson River so Arron and his new love could have their happy ending. My destined ending was nothing but a joke to them. "When he gets bored and throws you out, you'll be worse than a stray dog." Arron's cruel warning echoed in my mind, but the phantom feeling of freezing water closing over my head completely burned away my pathetic love for him. Why did I have to die just to be a stepping stone for the man who threw me away like trash? I refused to be a tragic victim. Looking at the broken gold watch chain I had just ripped from the coat of Cassius Mayer—Arron's ruthless, untouchable billionaire father—a cold calculation took over. Since Arron wanted to ruin me, I was going to use the most feared man on Wall Street to tear their empire down from the inside.

Billionaire Horror Romance

The Canary Who Learned To Fly

Chapter 11

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