Escaping the Pawn, Ensnaring the Don
"My father sold me to a sixty-year-old monster to clear his gambling debts. So, I made a desperate gamble of my own."
Seventeen-year-old Isabella Rossi has two choices: become the broken plaything of a sadistic mafia Capo, or do the unthinkable. She chooses the latter. Sneaking into a high-end speakeasy, she slips an aphrodisiac into the whiskey of the deadliest man in New York—Damien Falcone, the ruthless Underboss of the Falcone family.
Her plan was simple: steal his seed, secure his protection, and run.
But you don’t drug a predator and expect to walk away.
When Damien wakes up, he doesn’t kill her. Instead, he claims her.
"You intercepted a delivery meant for my enemy. Turns out, it was you. Now, you are my Collateral."
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Chapter 7
Isabella POV
The word *Collateral* hung in the heavy, cigar-scented air, a cold iron chain wrapping tightly around my throat.
Luca’s face crumpled. Driven by a final, reckless surge of honor, he took a desperate step toward me, his hand outstretched. "Izzy—"
Damien didn't even turn his head. He merely flicked his amber eyes toward the shadows.
Leo 'The Bear' Gallo moved with terrifying speed for a man his size. He materialized between Luca and me, a silent, impenetrable wall of muscle. Leo didn't utter a single threat; his dead eyes and massive frame delivered the message perfectly: *Step back, or die.* He gripped Luca's shoulder, forcibly turning him around, and marched the pale, defeated man down the hall.
The heavy front door slammed shut. My last tie to the outside world was severed. Damien had proven his absolute rule.
Without another word, Damien turned on his heel and left, leaving me to be escorted back to the master bedroom. The door clicked shut, locking me in my gilded cage.
I sank onto the edge of the massive bed, the expensive silk sheets feeling like ice against my skin. The mahogany wardrobe filled with new dresses, the glittering jewels on the vanity—they were all mocking me.
*Gutter rat.* Bianca’s venomous voice hissed in my ears.
*She is my Collateral.* Damien’s arctic declaration followed, crushing the breath from my lungs.
I was a nameless object. A possession. The sheer weight of my reality pressed down on me until the room spun. A sudden, warm drop hit the back of my hand. Blood. It dripped from my nose, a physical manifestation of my fracturing composure.
Staring at the crimson smear, the opulent room faded. I was five years old again, standing in the cramped, reeking kitchen of our tenement apartment in Little Italy. I had been so hungry. I’d only taken a crust of stale bread, but my stepmother had screamed. Then came my father, Silas Rossi. He didn't yell. He just swung his heavy fist, catching me right in the face. I remembered the sickening crunch of my nose breaking, the hot rush of blood, and the absolute disgust in his eyes as he looked down at me like I was garbage.
I blinked, pulling myself out of the suffocating memory. I marched into the en-suite bathroom and turned on the cold tap, splashing water over my face until it ran clear. I gripped the edges of the marble sink, staring at my pale, defiant reflection.
*Collateral.*
I let the humiliation burn through my veins, forging into something hard and unbreakable. I would not be a victim anymore. I would survive Damien Falcone. I swore to myself, staring into my own dark eyes, that I would amass enough money—steal it, earn it, whatever it took—to buy a passage on a ship. I would bribe every guard and sail back to Sicily, forever escaping the men who thought they could own me.
*
Bianca POV
The next afternoon, the clinking of fine porcelain in the exclusive tea room of The Plaza Hotel did nothing to soothe my rage.
"She's a shameless whore," I hissed to Adriana Moretti, gripping my teacup until my knuckles turned white. "She was practically seducing Luca Viti right in front of Damien. That gutter rat needs to be crushed. Killed, preferably."
Adriana, Rico 'The Vulture' Moretti's niece, took a delicate sip of her Earl Grey. "Be careful, Bianca. You know the consensus among the higher-ups. My uncle always says, what Damien Falcone claims, he keeps. Even if he decides to destroy it with his own hands, he will never let anyone else touch it."
*
Eleonora POV
That evening, in the quiet sanctuary of my private wing at the Falcone Estate, I stared at the flickering flames in the fireplace. A lowborn girl had caused a public scene and derailed a crucial alliance.
"It is good that Damien is finally showing interest in a woman," I murmured to my trusted handmaiden, keeping my voice perfectly even. "But a distraction must be managed."
I turned to her, my gaze hardening into ice. "Send Giada to the safe house to serve them. I want to know every breath that girl takes. And while you're at it, find me a few others who look just like her. Younger. Cleaner. We will remind my son that toys are easily replaced."
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7.2
Title- A Name Without A Past
Author- Abraham Tejiri Onojighofia
Genre: Psychological Suspense Romance / Crime Thriller
Tagline: Memory lies. Danger doesn't..
Larry awakens in an abandoned hospital with no name, no past, and no memories-except one. A woman's face. Her voice. Her presence. The single image floating in the hollow wreckage of his mind is so sharp, so undeniable, that he knows she matters. He doesn't know who he is, but he knows he must find her.
Moments after he escapes the hospital, someone tries to kill him.
Driven by instinct and the one memory he trusts, Larry follows the fragment of recognition until it leads him to Ella Morgan, a composed and fiercely intelligent homicide detective. But instead of relief, he's met with confusion. Ella has never seen him before. According to her, he is a stranger.
But danger arrives before either of them can walk away.
A sudden attack convinces Ella that Larry is not lying-someone wants him dead. And the attempt on his life mirrors the recent string of unsolved murders she is investigating. Against policy and against her better judgment, Ella takes him under temporary protection. Immediately, unsettling cracks begin to appear in her certainty.
Larry recognizes places connected to the case.
He reacts to threats with a trained instinct he can't explain.
And his fragmented flashbacks seem tied to secrets Ella wasn't supposed to uncover.
As they race to piece together his missing identity, a darker truth begins to emerge. Larry's amnesia is no accident. Evidence points to a covert operation, a covered-up crime, and powerful enemies determined to bury the truth permanently. His erased memory may hold the key to a conspiracy that reaches into the police force, the city's elite-and Ella's own past.
With each step closer to the truth, the connection between them deepens. Larry feels drawn to her with an unshakable certainty that defies logic, while Ella fights the pull of a man who may be the missing link to her most dangerous case yet.
But as Larry's memories begin to return, so does a chilling realization:
Ella wasn't just a face in his mind. She was the last person he tried to protect before everything went dark.
Now, the enemies hunting Larry have turned their sights on her.
In a deadly race against a faceless adversary, Larry and Ella must unravel the past he's forgotten before it destroys them both. Because the silence Larry woke up with isn't empty-it's hiding a witness, a secret, and a truth someone is willing to kill to keep buried.
And the closer the truth gets, the more dangerous remembering becomes.
7.1
He doesn't believe in love.
He believes in ownership.
Lucien Vale built his empire the same way he destroys his enemies-quietly, strategically, without mercy. To the world, he's the youngest billionaire in Europe. To those who cross him, he's something far darker.
They call him The Devil in a Suit.
When struggling art conservator Amara Rossi unknowingly restores a painting tied to one of Lucien's most dangerous secrets, she becomes collateral in a war she never saw coming. To protect her-and control the damage-Lucien does what he does best.
He claims her.
What begins as a contract meant to silence her turns into an obsession neither of them expected. Amara refuses to be owned. Lucien has never been denied.
But behind Lucien's cold precision is a man forged by betrayal, raised in violence, and taught that love is a weakness exploited by enemies. And behind Amara's defiance is a woman who has spent her life surviving powerful men.
Their chemistry is volatile. Their power dynamic intoxicating.
Their connection? Terrifyingly real.
Because the devil doesn't fall in love.
He possesses.
And when Lucien realizes he would burn empires for her, the question isn't whether he can keep Amara-
It's whether she can survive being claimed by him.
7.8
She once called him her husband.
Now, she calls him a devil.
After catching her husband in his ex's house one too many times, she walked away,pregnant, broken, and done.
Four years later, fate laughs when she runs into him again, more powerful, colder, and dangerously obsessed.
He wants her back, but not for love. For revenge. For reasons buried beneath his arrogance and her silence.
But as she fights the pull between hate and desire, she learns something terrifying
The devil she runs into might not be the same man she divorced.
He's darker, hungrier... and this time, he's not letting her go.
7.9
Ten minutes. That was how close I was to handing my fiancé the keys to a three-hundred-million-dollar empire built on my code.
But when I walked into the office, his mistress was sitting in my chair, spinning the pen I bought him for our anniversary.
Caleb didn't even look up. He told me the investors wanted stability, not a pregnant woman. He called our unborn child a "liability" and ordered security to escort me out of the building I paid for.
I went home to pack, only to find a burner phone hidden in the closet. The texts were brutal. He called me an "incubator." He said once the deal was signed, he’d take the baby and dump the "nerd."
When he caught me with the phone, he didn't apologize. He dragged me by my hair and threw me into the soundproof panic room to keep me quiet until the deal closed.
"Caleb, please! I'm bleeding!"
I pounded on the steel door until my hands were raw. But he just locked it and went to eat pizza with his mistress.
Alone in the dark, on the freezing concrete, I felt the life inside me slip away. He hadn't just stolen my company; he had killed my child.
He thought I was broken. He thought I was just "the help." But he forgot one thing: I built the security system he was trying to sell.
Three days later, I rolled my wheelchair into his victory press conference, flanked by his biggest rival.
"Do you trust your new code, Caleb?"
"Because I wrote the backdoor. And I just opened it."
8.1
On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes.
She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia."
Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours.
He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity.
But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture."
I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her.
And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm.
Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite.
He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet.
He is wrong.
I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door.
And I changed the groom.
As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears.
The Reaper.
9.5
On her second wedding anniversary, Andrea Reed discovers the ultimate betrayal.
Her husband wants a divorce. Her stepsister is his mistress.And the family empire she protected is nothing more than a prize they've been plotting to steal. Before she can fight back, Andrea is pushed off a cliff-pregnant, broken, and filled with regret.
But death isn't the end. She wakes up five years in the past. Her father is alive. Her inheritance is still in her hands. And the man who killed her is smiling like he's in love.
This time, Andrea won't be naive. She plays the perfect fiancée while secretly collecting evidence, turns traps into public humiliation. She lets her enemies destroy themselves from within.
And when a powerful, dangerously enigmatic billionaire-Samuel Kingswell-crosses her path again, Andrea realizes something even more terrifying than betrayal: In her first life, she chose the wrong man.
In this life, she will choose power and revenge, make them beg before they fall. Because this time, the woman they tried to kill is no longer a victim.
She is the hunter.