He Chose Her Lies, I Chose Revenge
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.
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Chapter 2
Seraphina Vitiello POV
My phone buzzed against the nightstand, a harsh, insistent vibration that rattled my teeth.
I stared at the screen, the glow illuminating the dark hollow of my room.
*Dante Moretti.*
The name used to make my heart perform gymnastics. Now, it just made my stomach turn sour.
*Penthouse. Suite 1808. Now.*
A command. Not a request.
In my past life, I would have rushed over, breathless, thinking he finally wanted to talk. Thinking he had remembered the truth.
I knew better now.
But I had to play the part. The obedient little sister. The punching bag.
If I deviated too much, too fast, they would lock me up before I could ever escape.
I pulled on a simple black dress. No makeup. No jewelry.
I looked like a shadow. That’s what I was.
The building was a fortress owned by the Outfit—a mixed-use high-rise where the top floors served as private recovery suites for the elite.
I took the elevator up, watching the numbers climb.
18...
The doors slid open with a soft chime.
Two guards stood outside the suite. They didn't even check me for weapons.
After all, who fears the spare?
I pushed the heavy door open.
The suite smelled of lilies and sandalwood—the scent of expensive funerals.
Dante was there.
He was leaning against the mahogany desk, his suit jacket discarded, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar to reveal the tan skin of his throat.
He was devastatingly handsome. Dark hair, sharp jaw, eyes like shattered ice.
And Isabella was in his lap.
She was giggling, tracing the line of his jaw with a manicured finger. Her dress was hiked up high on her thighs.
They looked like a centerfold for a vice magazine.
Isabella gasped when she saw me, feigning shock. She buried her face in Dante’s neck.
"Dante, you didn't tell me she was coming," she whined.
Dante didn't look at her. He looked at me.
His gaze was cold. Predatory.
"I wanted her to see," he said. His voice was a low baritone that vibrated through the floorboards.
"See what?" I asked. My voice was steady. Dead.
"This." Dante gestured to Isabella, to the luxury around them, to the power he wore like a second skin. "I wanted you to see what loyalty looks like. What perfection looks like."
He stood up, gently setting Isabella aside.
He walked toward me. He towered over me, radiating heat and suppressed violence.
"You told your father you were leaving," he said. "Going to London."
"Yes."
"Good," he sneered. "Because I'm tired of your desperate attempts to claim credit for saving me. I'm tired of your jealousy."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy cream envelope.
He shoved it into my hand. The corner dug sharply into my palm.
"The wedding invitation," he said. "Consider it a command. I want you there. I want you to watch us say our vows. I want you to understand, once and for all, that you are nothing."
I looked down at the invitation.
*Dante Moretti & Isabella Vitiello.*
The calligraphy was exquisite. Like a beautiful epitaph.
"Understood," I said.
Dante paused. He was expecting tears. He was expecting me to scream that I was Seven, the girl who had dragged him from hell.
"Understood?" he repeated, his eyes narrowing.
"Message received," I said. "I wish you a long reign."
I turned to leave.
"Wait," Dante barked.
I stopped.
"You're pathetic," he spat. "Look at you. You don't even have the fire to fight for yourself."
"Fire burns, Dante," I said softly, refusing to turn back. "I'm done burning."
I walked out.
I heard Isabella laughing behind me. A cruel, tinkling sound like breaking glass.
Dante escorted her out a moment later. They were heading to the club at the base of the tower.
I followed them out of the building, keeping my distance, a ghost haunting the living.
The Chicago wind cut through my thin dress like a knife.
They stood on the curb, waiting for the valet. Dante had his arm around her waist, shielding her from the cold.
I stood ten feet away, shivering.
Above us, the old neon sign of the jazz club flickered ominously.
*The Blue Note.*
I heard the shriek of metal before I saw it.
A rusted bolt gave way.
The heavy steel frame of the sign groaned and detached from the brick facade.
It plummeted.
"Dante!" Isabella screamed.
Dante looked up.
He had a split second.
I was standing to his left. Isabella was to his right.
The sign was wide. It was going to hit us all.
He moved with the unnatural speed of a killer.
He lunged.
But he didn't lunge for me.
He threw his body over Isabella, tackling her to the pavement, shielding her with his own broad back.
He left me standing there.
The metal crashed down.
Pain obliterated my shoulder, my back, my legs.
The world turned white, then red.
I was pinned. Crushed under twisted steel and shattered glass.
I couldn't breathe.
I turned my head against the gritty asphalt. Blood was pooling warm and sticky around my face.
I saw Dante.
He was standing up, dusting off his suit. He was unharmed.
He was pulling Isabella to her feet.
"Are you hurt?" he asked her, his voice frantic. "Bella, look at me."
"I... I think I scraped my knee," she sobbed.
He hugged her tight. "I've got you. You're safe."
He didn't look left.
He didn't look at the pile of debris five feet away.
He didn't look at me.
I closed my eyes as the darkness took me.
The boy I saved in the safe house was truly dead.
And this time, I hoped I was too.
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7.7
My fiancé always told me he loved me. But not long after our engagement, I woke up suffocating in the dark.
He was pressing a pillow over my face, his eyes cold and dead, while my half-sister stood by watching with fake pity.
They had orchestrated everything just to steal my trust fund.
It all started with a massive hotel scandal. They had drugged me, thrown a cheap escort into my bed, and brought a mob of paparazzi to ruin my reputation.
When my fiancé broke through the crowd, playing the heartbroken victim, he knelt down with a massive diamond ring.
"I know things have been hard, but I love you. If you come home with me, I will forgive all of this."
In my past life, I cried tears of gratitude and let him slide that ring onto my finger.
That ring sealed my death warrant. I lost my company, my dignity, and eventually, my life.
Until my lungs burned and my heart stopped, I didn't understand.
How could the people I trusted most plot my murder so ruthlessly?
Why did they have to tear my entire life apart?
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the morning of the hotel scandal, exactly one year ago.
But the man lying bare-backed in my bed wasn't a random escort.
It was Johnathan Chase, my family's biggest corporate rival and the most ruthless predator on Wall Street.
Listening to the paparazzi pounding on the door, I smiled coldly.
9.1
Julian Laurent was known as the most notorious playboy in Rivermont, changing girlfriends as often as he changed his clothes and treating marriage like a joke.
Clara Sterling, on the other hand, had always been the most quiet and obedient daughter of the Sterling family. Raised as the heir since childhood, she had been flawless in every word and every gesture.
A family-arranged marriage forced these two complete opposites into the same life.
On their wedding night, Julian openly made out with a young model at a nightclub.
For the first time, Clara cast aside her propriety, slapping him and demanding a divorce on the spot.
But before the next day was over, their families had forced them to remarry.
This time, Julian managed to stay faithful for a month before he cheated again.
Clara filed for divorce once more, cutting ties with him completely.
However, that very same day, it was revealed that Clara was not the real daughter of the Sterling family, and she was thrown out.
At her lowest point, Julian found her and solemnly promised to protect her from then on.
They remarried again, and from that day forward, the scandals surrounding Julian ceased.
Everyone said Clara was lucky. Even her best friend insisted that Julian had truly settled down, and Clara believed it.
Until she saw him in a hospital corridor, holding her best friend's hand, his voice strained with deep emotion, "I never liked her. You're the one I've always loved!"
It turned out all of his tenderness had been a lie.
This time, she walked away and never looked back.
And the man who had once treated her as disposable only realized after she was gone that he had long since drowned in her quiet love, unable to escape.
8.6
Lilac Stone once wanted nothing more than being unnoticed. But everything changed the moment she met Adrian Cole, the new lecturer.
He's distant and completely off-limits. She's quiet, guarded, and unprepared for the way he sees right through her.
What begins as harmless conversations after class quickly turns into something far more dangerous-something neither of them can stop no matter how hard they try.
But then they're living in a world where rules are meant to be followed, and their connection is one line they were never supposed to cross.
Whispers turn to accusations. Secrets are exposed. Their futures are at risk.
They are merely two opposites-a lecturer and a student, a male and a female-but they are bound to destroy each other as long as they are huddled in one space at the same time.
What then can they choose: forfeit their futures and embrace their happiness, or let the latter slip while keeping their careers intact?
7.7
Rory stood on the witness stand, forced by her father into an impossible choice: secure her dying mother's medical funding, or save her innocent boyfriend.
She looked Corbin right in his trusting eyes and lied to the court, testifying that he was the one driving the car during the fatal hit-and-run, sending him to a maximum-security prison for ten years.
The betrayal destroyed him. Corbin's father died of a heart attack upon hearing the guilty verdict. Six years later, Corbin returned as a ruthless billionaire and systematically blacklisted Rory from every job in the city. He cornered her into singing at his private club, humiliating her by forcing her to drink scotch—knowing she was severely allergic—and making her throw away his promise ring just to earn a stack of cash.
"Remember this moment. This is only the beginning."
She endured his cruel revenge because she was hiding a desperate secret: she was raising his five-year-old daughter, Willa. But when Willa's congenital heart defect suddenly worsened, requiring an impossible one-million-dollar surgery, Rory realized Corbin's calculated blockade had left her completely trapped with no way to save their child.
Staring at the sterile hospital walls, the last shred of her guilt burned away, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. He had destroyed her career and backed her into a corner, but he was the only one with the money. Wiping her tears, Rory turned and headed straight for Vance Tower.
9.5
"You shouldn't be here, Fiona," his deep voice rasped against her ear, his hand still pressed against the wall behind her.
"Then tell me to leave," she whispered, her lips trembling inches from his. He didn't move. He didn't breathe. And in that moment, she knew he wanted her just as much as she wanted him.
Fiona Harry has lived her whole life in a golden cage of wealth, reputation, and suffocating rules. University was supposed to be her escape, her first taste of freedom. But nothing could prepare her for the moment she came face-to-face with Professor Jalen Hart, her father's best friend. One reckless night changes everything. A drunken mistake turns into an irresistible obsession, pulling her deeper into Jalen's forbidden world. But secrets don't stay hidden forever. Between Jude, her possessive friend who knows too much, Marian, Jalen's wicked wife, and the dangerous power of desire, Fiona is about to risk not only hers and her family's reputation but her entire future.
And what happens when the truth comes out especially to Marian?
9.0
My father was dying in the ICU, and our family company, the Martin Group, was on the verge of total collapse.
While I was desperately trying to sign the consent form for his life-saving surgery, my fiancé, Eston, sent me a text.
"I told you not to be stubborn. The company is mine by Friday. Beg me, and I might pay for the funeral."
He had been secretly looting my family's assets from the inside, waiting for me to break so he could steal everything. He thought I would crawl back to him in absolute despair, surrendering my father's legacy just to survive. The sheer weight of my helplessness crushed my chest as the heart monitor next to my father's bed let out a frantic, high-pitched scream.
The betrayal tore through me, but the despair quickly hardened into a cold, sharp stone.
Why should I let the man who ruined me dance on my family's grave? Why should I let him walk away with everything while I lost the only family I had left?
I wiped away my tears and blocked his number permanently.
Then, I stepped out into the freezing Manhattan rain and went straight to the top floor of the Maxwell building.
I threw my remaining shares onto the desk of Ellwood Maxwell—the apex predator of Wall Street, and Eston's untouchable, ruthless uncle.
"I want you to marry me," Ellwood said, pushing a marriage contract toward me. "That is the only way your company survives."
I picked up the pen. If Eston wanted to destroy my life, I would become his aunt and make him bow.