Chapter 4

On the cruise ship, my fiancé's beloved, Cathy Begum, botched an important performance, which angered the mafia group behind it. The mafia's leader, Nate Adams, declared he would ruin Cathy's piano-playing hands. My fiancé, Chris Dobson, seemed unconcerned, focusing on feeding me soup. However, I fainted soon. When I awoke, I found myself naked and bound to the bed in Nate's room. Chris was tenderly holding Cathy's hands, his face filled with concern. "Cathy makes her living with her hands. I can't just watch them get ruined. You just need to stay with Nate for one night, and once he's calmed down, I'll come get you." I snorted with derision. "What makes you think Nate will calm down? What if he gets even angrier?"

Selena Menezwa had been with Caius Capone, the illegitimate son of the mafia family, for ten years. Yet, on the day he took power, the family called someone else the "Godmother". Caius, his hands still stained with blood and gripping a gun, held Charlotte Wodehurst, a pure-looking beauty in his arms. "Selena, don't blame me. You never had a proper education, and you're too unrestrained. You're not fit to be the Godmother. Charlotte is different. She was born into nobility and is the second violinist in the orchestra. You can stick around without a ring, but she can't." Selena didn't argue; she simply turned and left. What Caius didn't know was that she was the princess of the powerful Menezwa family and the concertmaster of the very orchestra where Charlotte played. The Menezwa family, well aware of Selena's reckless streak, had already prepared a man for her. The arms dealer Caius was desperate to win over was already eager to become her fiancé.

"Sign it. Apologize to Sophia." My sister Diana Dixson had stumbled into a mafia deal and paid the ultimate price, brutally killed by Sophia Visconti. My husband Vincent Rossi didn't just help Sophia fabricate evidence, claiming Diana was mentally unstable. He demanded I sign an apology statement. To protect Diana's keepsakes, I swallowed my pride and scrawled my name. But I vowed their blood would answer for my sister's.

My fiancé, Richard Ahmed, had been unfaithful. His mistress, Eva Marsh, sent me a provocative video. In the video, Richard and Eva were passionately kissing, while his friends cheered loudly, "You two are perfect for each other. You should get married." Richard's parents were holding Eva's hand, saying, "You're the only one we see as part of the family." I let out a cold laugh and dialed the number of my father, the head of a criminal syndicate. "Get in touch with a team for me. I have a live stream event planned." "Alright. The condition is that you return to Zlomont and become the new head of the Brooks Group."

Luna Hayes accidentally saved Liam Moretti, the heir to Ravenwood's largest mafia family. People whispered his name with fear. They said he was merciless, ruthless, a devil in business... and even worse in bed. Yet this very man would kneel to help Luna put on her heels, afraid to hurt her. In bed, he was always gentle with her-so much so that he kept a sex slave just to satisfy his darker desires. But everything changed the moment Liam decided to let that slave carry his child.

I was the wife of Brennan Johnson, the head of the Sterling Syndicate. For years, I was the perfect partner, helping him climb from a young enforcer to the undisputed boss, believing he was the man who had once saved my life and promised to protect me forever. That illusion shattered when I overheard him promising that same protection to a young art student he was sleeping with. When I confronted him, he called me tainted and complicated. When I asked for a divorce, he cut my cheek with shattered glass and snarled that I belonged to him. He publicly gave my foundation and a necklace meant for me to his mistress, declaring her his "one and only" in front of the entire city. The ultimate betrayal came when we were both kidnapped. The kidnappers held a knife to each of our throats and told him to choose. He looked at me, his wife, and said, "I choose her." He abandoned me to be assaulted and killed, walking away with his new love without a backward glance. But I didn't die. An old family loyalist saved me. I faked my death, escaped the country, and built a new life from the ashes of the old one. I was finally free. Until tonight, when he walked into my restaurant, a ghost from a life I had buried. He found me. And he wants me back.