He Betrayed Me, Now He Begs

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

Chapters

Chapter 1

For seven years, I built a criminal empire for my fiancé, Dante Gallo.

Tomorrow, I was supposed to marry him.

But the night before the wedding, I received a text. The photo showed Dante wearing a wedding band. The message read: "Getting married tomorrow morning. She's safe now."

My eyes dropped to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was an exact replica of the one in the photo. The engraving "DI" didn't stand for Dante and I, but for Dante and his childhood sweetheart, Isabella.

I realized that he had betrayed me, and that I was nothing more than a shield he used to protect his true love.

Isabella sent me their sweet-looking bed photos, expecting me to break down.

They were about to find out just how dead wrong they were.

I forwarded their bed photos to Isabella's fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante.

"Your fiancée is tangled up with a man in a hotel suite," I told him. "I have a plan."

Chapter 1

Serafina's POV:

The phone in my hand felt colder than the engagement ring on my finger. It harbored an infuriating truth: my seven-year love story was a lie, and the man I was supposed to marry tomorrow already belonged to someone else.

For seven years, I had been the shadow behind Dante Gallo's throne.

He wasn't just the godfather of the Gallo family; he was more like a phantom haunting the city's underworld, a figure whose name was synonymous with both violence and absolute power.

His empire was built on blood and laundered through the legitimate front of Gallo Imports-an achievement that belonged just as much to me as it did to him.

I was the mastermind behind his legitimate success, the strategist behind his every move, and the unofficial consigliere who knew his inner workings better than he knew himself.

We were inseparable in everything but name.

Last month, he finally proposed.

The proposal was abrupt, feeling less like a romantic gesture and more like an afterthought, with the ceremony set for the Feast of the Assumption. I foolishly mistook it for a promise of our future. What a fool I had been.

That encrypted message was never meant for me.

Yet there it sat in my inbox, a digital bomb that obliterated the life I had so carefully constructed.

"Getting married tomorrow morning. She's safe now."

Attached was a photo. It showed a man's hand, unmistakably Dante's. I recognized the ring. Engraved on the inside were the letters: DI

My gaze fell to my own hand, to the engagement ring he had slipped onto my finger. It was exactly the same as the one in the photo, just a smaller size. The same platinum, the same diamonds, the same engraving.

Not Dante and I.

Dante and Isabella.

Isabella Falcone. His childhood sweetheart.

The truth hit me like a bolt of lightning, knocking the wind right out of me.

He didn't propose to me out of love. He proposed because Isabella was about to marry into another family. And marrying me was nothing more than a twisted way to fulfill his vow to her.

My future was just a convenient cover-up for his pathetic obsession.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

The door opened, and Dante walked in, shrugging off his coat. He saw me standing in the dark, my face illuminated only by the glow of my phone screen.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I looked up, meeting his eyes. The loving gaze I had seen this morning was gone, replaced by a chillingly sobering clarity. "We're done."

He scoffed, as if dismissing a petty tantrum. "Don't be dramatic, Sera." He walked toward me and reached for my phone. "What is it?"

I dodged his grasp with a fluid, precise movement. I held up the phone, shoving the screenshot right in his face.

His arrogant expression froze instantly. As he recognized the message and the ring, the color drained from his face. Then, just as quickly, his mask of cold indifference slipped back into place. "It's nothing."

"I'm not marrying you," I said, my tone flat, betraying none of the agonizing turmoil churning inside me. "We're done."

He clenched his jaw, his coldness melting into a dark, brooding anger.

He finally realized this wasn't a game.

We stared at each other, the seven years we shared stretching between us like an uncrossable chasm.

"Suit yourself," he growled, turning on his heel. The door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing the finality of my decision. That was it.

I stood there, enveloped by a heavy silence, unable to settle my racing thoughts for a long time. Then, with steady steps, I walked into the kitchen. I pulled out the steaks and vegetables I had prepped for our anniversary dinner.

The steak hit the hot skillet with a loud sizzle, the rich aroma filling the air. I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't going to break.

Tonight, I was going to enjoy a great meal to celebrate my freedom.

Continue to next part

Waking up with a cold, scaly hand wrapped around my throat wasn't the worst part. The worst part was realizing I'd transmigrated into the body of Terra Mason—the most despised woman in the entire Enclave. She drugged high-level beast-men and forced them into life-binding bio-contracts. She locked an aquatic warrior in a dry basement until his organs failed. She treated the most lethal males in the city like broken toys. Zev, the Level 6 serpent who's currently choking me, would rather blow up his own heart than spend another day as my slave. His affection metric? Negative ninety. His trust? Zero. Then my system activates: the Kore AI. It gives me exactly 500 credits, a medical nano-gel, and a recipe for neutralizing the radioactive poison in mutant meat. Real food. In this world, that's worth more than gold. I save Rhys, the dying aquatic male everyone left for dead. I season a slab of purple mutant steak until Sam, a battle-scarred grizzly shifter, groans at the taste—and his trust points finally tick above zero. When my backstabbing ex-best friend tries to steal my males and destroy me, I don't scream or throw a tantrum like the old Terra. I dismantle her with the truth. But earning their trust means more than grilling meat. A scorpion swarm ambushes us at midnight. Sam throws himself between me and a stinger the size of my arm. As he stands over the corpse, fur receding from his claws, he stares at me and whispers, "You were testing me." Yes. I was. Because in this world, the weak don't survive. And I refuse to be weak again. Four beast-men. Four contracts. One system. And a whole lot of steak. Let this dystopian wasteland know—I'm not the monster they remember. I'm worse. I'm the one who's going to feed them until they'd kill for me.

Action LitRPG Mafia Sci-Fi

7.1

Claimed By The Exiled Tiger King

7.1

The last thing I remembered was the blinding flash of my starship crashing. But instead of a rescue crew, I woke up tied to a wooden post, surrounded by hostile beastmen. My universal translator kicked in just in time to hear their priestess, Chelsea, declare that I was a cursed demon who ruined their hunt. To save the clan from winter starvation, I was to be burned alive. The flames were already blistering my legs, and jagged stones hurled by the crowd gashed my forehead. I barely negotiated a three-day reprieve to find them food, venturing into the deadly primeval forest. I found a massive supply of wild potatoes and even gained the protection of Bronson, a terrifyingly powerful saber-toothed tiger beastman. But Chelsea wouldn't stop. She labeled my food as poisonous, tried to sentence me to starve in a penitent's cave, and when my agricultural knowledge proved her wrong, she invoked an ancient law. She incited the tribe's savage warriors to fight over me, turning me into breeding property. I was a scientist offering them endless food, yet their primitive ignorance and one woman's vicious jealousy kept pushing me toward a brutal end. I was terrified, completely powerless against their monstrous physical strength. As five ruthless challengers drew their bone axes to claim me, I begged Bronson to leave me and run. Instead, he pulled me against his scarred chest and kissed me fiercely in front of the entire clan. "She is my mate," he roared, unleashing a soul-crushing aura. "Anyone who wants her, come at me together."

Action Fantasy Sci-Fi

8.9

Defeat of Lab Deceit

8.9

In a future where biological manipulation is a tool for control, a rogue operative uncovers a sinister conspiracy hidden within a top-secret research facility. As the line between humanity and experiment blurs, they must navigate a web of corporate lies and lethal security measures to expose the truth. With time running out and powerful enemies closing in, the protagonist fights to dismantle the laboratory's deception before the world is forever altered.

Action Mystery Sci-Fi

7.6

Moonlight Claimed

7.6

AKARI TANAKA didn't know she was a werewolf until she inherited a murder. Summoned to a remote Carpathian town, she learns she's the last heir of an ancient alpha line-and her great-uncle's suspicious death has thrown the local packs into a war for succession. As her own latent power violently awakens, Akari is caught between a ruthless rival alpha who wants to control her and a fanatical uncle whose faked death masks a plan to sacrifice her in a ritual that will rewrite reality. To prevent a genocide of her own kind, Akari must forge an alliance with her enemy, master the wolf within, and confront the monstrous truth of her bloodline. The price of leadership is sacrifice. The cost of failure is annihilation. But in Lupinara, the greatest predator isn't the wolf... it's the past.

Action Mystery Werewolf

7.5

My Success Is The Best Revenge, Darling

7.5

It took seven years for Ethan to convince me I was the center of his universe, and exactly seven weeks for his "business partner," Chloe, to prove I was just a placeholder. I was the woman who ironed his shirts and managed his schedule, yet she was the one he comforted at 2 AM. But the real end didn't come with a fight. It came with an explosion. At a family gathering, a gas heater malfunctioned. Glass shattered, and fire erupted. In that split second of life or death, Ethan didn't look for me. He threw his body over Chloe. He shielded her from the flames, cocooning her in his arms, whispering frantically to her while I stood twenty feet away, watching my boyfriend of seven years act like I didn't exist. When I confronted him later, he didn't apologize. Instead, he let Chloe carve her initials over ours on our anniversary tree. When I tried to stop them, he shoved me into the dirt to comfort her over a broken nail. "You are dead to me, Ava," he screamed. "Jealousy makes you ugly." He thought I would beg. He thought I was an appliance he could unplug and plug back in whenever he wanted. He was arrogant enough to believe I would always be there, waiting for his scraps. He was wrong. While he was playing hero to his mistress, I didn't cry. I booked a one-way ticket to Portland, snapped my SIM card in half, and vanished. By the time he realized the silence in his apartment wasn't peace, but abandonment, I was already gone.

Action Modern Mystery

8.8

The Broken Mother's Ruthless Revenge

8.8

My little boy died on the operating table during a minor, routine surgery. That exact same night, my billionaire husband bought out the Hudson River for a massive, million-dollar fireworks show. It wasn't to mourn our child. It was to celebrate his first love's son being discharged from the hospital. When I confronted him with our son's death certificate, he sneered and accused me of hiding the boy to get his attention. He held his mistress in our home, watched her fake a panic attack, and threatened to bankrupt my family if I didn't get on my knees and apologize to her. But the most horrifying truth came from a terrified hospital nurse. My son's anesthesia was deliberately kept low during the procedure to keep his tissue viable to save the mistress's child. He was awake and in agonizing pain while his own father planned a grand celebration for another man's son. I couldn't understand how a father could be so completely heartless. How could he sacrifice his own flesh and blood just to please a woman who constantly manipulated him? Looking at the ashes on my son's favorite toy, my paralyzing grief evaporated, replaced by a cold, unyielding rage. I arranged my little boy's funeral alone in the freezing rain, left my wedding ring on the counter, and walked straight into the private hotel suite of my husband's most ruthless business rival. "Let's take him down," I said.

Action Modern Romance

He Betrayed Me, Now He Begs

Chapter 1

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