He chose my stepsister. I chose his rival
Scarlet's world shattered the night she discovered her husband in her bed with her own sister.
The betrayal was brutal. The humiliation, unforgivable. And what hurt the most? Neither of them felt a single ounce of remorse.
Within months, her husband divorced her and married the very woman who helped destroy her life, her sister.
They thought she would break. They thought she would disappear quietly.
They were wrong.
Ryan Marchetti-cold, calculating, and dangerously powerful, has spent years waiting for the perfect chance to destroy his business rival. Marrying that rival's ex-wife is the ultimate move. Strategic.
For Scarlet, marrying Ryan isn't about love. It's about revenge.
A calculated alliance. A public statement. A promise that she will rise from the ashes they left her in. Together, they become the scandal that shakes empires.
But revenge is never simple.
Because behind Ryan's icy control lies a secret, one tied to her past, to her ex-husband, to the very marriage that ruined her life. A truth so explosive it could unravel everything she thought she knew.
Was she just a pawn in Ryan's war from the very beginning?
Or is the man she's slowly falling for capable of betraying her too?
In a game fueled by vengeance, power, and buried truths, Scarlet must decide:
Will she let betrayal destroy her again...
Or will she risk her heart for the one man who might truly love her?
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Chapter 2
My legs wobbled, my balance faltered, and my emotions felt like a chaotic storm, but I refused to turn back and leave without confronting the family that had betrayed me.
I knew it was time to stop avoiding the inevitable. Despite my determination to have nothing to do with this family ever again, I couldn't escape confronting them forever. Even though I understood deep down that it might not change anything, I needed closure, a resolution to the torment inside my mind.
Standing in front of my family home, a place I hadn't visited in three months and had sworn never to return to, I took a deep breath before walking through the gate and towards the front door. Every step felt like a challenge, a battle against the anger and humiliation I carried within.
Inside, my father's familiar voice greeted me, but the surprise in his expression suggested he wasn't thrilled to see me so suddenly.
"Scarlet!" he gasped.
"Hello, Dad," I replied, my voice devoid of any emotion. Despite the rush of emotions within me, I couldn't bring myself to be happy seeing my father again. The disappointment I felt toward him was immense; he had failed me when I needed his support the most.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, clearly caught off guard.
"What? Don't you want me here? Does my presence bother you?" I retorted, my words laced with bitterness. I had no intention of pretending I was okay. I was here to express everything that had been festering inside me.
"It's not that. I just wasn't expecting you so soon. But you know you're always welcome here, as long as you don't cause trouble," he replied, his words carrying a tinge of annoyance.
"Oh, please. Don't be pathetic. How dare you imply that I'm only welcome if I don't cause trouble? Does that mean I can't voice my grievances?" I shot back, my anger simmering beneath the surface. My father's lack of empathy fueled my frustration.
"I'm begging you, don't do this. This isn't the time or place to vent your anger. I can understand why you're upset, but you have to move past it and move on with your life. There's nothing you can do to change how things have turned out," he implored, his words leaving me speechless.
"You know what? I didn't come here to talk to you. The person I have a problem with is inside, and she's the one who deserves my wrath, not you. Now, get out of my way," I snapped, pushing past him and storming into the living room where the rest of the family sat.
"Scarlet?" My stepmother's voice called out, trying to diffuse the tension that had entered the room.
My eyes scanned the room, taking in the sight of my family gathered there, seemingly having a grand time. It struck me then that none of them truly cared about me, not one bit. They were content in their happiness while I suffered in silence, left to cope with the devastation on my own.
"Mother, Hannah, Sam," I greeted, pointedly leaving out Emily's name.
Emily, Hannah, and Sam were my stepmother's biological children, while I was the sole child of my late mother. My stepmother, Jane, had raised me, despite the numerous challenges our relationship had faced.
"Well, isn't this a surprise, my dear? We weren't expecting you to show up like this, but we're very happy to see you. It's perfect timing because we're having a celebration right now, and since you're part of the family, you should join us in celebrating," my stepmother said, her tone cheerful.
I nearly scoffed at her apparent obliviousness to the turmoil within me.
"What's the occasion?" I asked, my eyes falling on the invitation cards scattered on the table. I already knew the answer. The wedding between Henry and Emily was imminent.
"We're celebrating Emily's upcoming wedding to Henry," my stepmother announced, her words dripping with feigned happiness.
I couldn't hold back my disbelief. "I know you have no shame, but are you so shameless that you can't see anything wrong in what you just said? Were you so desperate to marry that you had to rush into a wedding with your sister's ex-husband? Are you that hungry to be someone's wife?" I lashed out, my voice resonating with my indignation.
"It's been three months, Scarlet. Three whole months, and you still haven't moved on? Are you obsessed?" Emily retorted, her words slicing through the room like a knife.
"You make it sound like three months is equivalent to three years. Were you expecting me to get over the fact that my sister and ex-husband were sleeping with each other in just three months? And now, all of a sudden, you two are getting married as if nothing ever happened? How thoughtless of you, little sister," I countered, my words sharp with anger.
Emily, undeterred, mocked me. "Oh, well, I won't apologize to you for choosing my happiness over yours. Besides, you keep pretending like your marriage with Henry was a love story, but it never was. You two were in an arranged marriage. He could never bring himself to love you; he fell for me instead. Be a big girl and get over it!" Emily sneered, her satisfaction evident.
Emily's mother jumped in, defending Emily's actions. "This wedding won't be a happy occasion for you, but you must let go of your anger. Your sister made a choice, and it's time for you to accept it and move forward. You can't keep tormenting yourself over something you can't change. Besides, you can't stress your pregnant sister; it's bad for the baby."
The mention of Emily's pregnancy hit me like a blow to the stomach. "You're expecting a child with Henry?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Yes. Henry and I are having a baby. It's time you accept this and move on," Emily replied, her tone cold and final.
I felt my legs weaken for a moment, but I forced myself to stand tall. "Today may be a happy day for you, but it's a day of betrayal for me."
"If you can't be happy for us, please leave and come back when you've accepted the new reality," my father's voice said, a note of finality in his tone.
I said nothing, my heart heavy with the weight of their betrayal. Turning away, I made my way to the door, determined to leave this house and the family that had turned their backs on me.
A hand grasped my shoulder, halting me in my tracks. When I turned, I found Emily standing there, a sly smirk on her face.
"This may seem extreme, but I still hope you'll attend my wedding. It would be my pleasure to have you by my side on such a joyous occasion," Emily whispered, extending an invitation.
"I curse the days I considered you my sister. You'll pay dearly for this humiliation. I swear it to you," I whispered back, my voice laced with determination.
"Good luck with that," Emily responded, her smirk widening, before patting my shoulder and stepping back.
With that, I left, determined to confront my family's betrayal and make Emily pay for the pain she had caused me.
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7.1
Aria Graves was the perfect Luna.
After seven years of a marriage built on lies, She didn't break when the truth surfaced-she burned. Her revenge was clean and her rejection final.
But fate wasn't done with her.
To protect his own secrets, her father used her mother's life as leverage and forced Aria to take her sister's place, sending her to the Silverfang Pack as a living offering to their ruthless Alpha King, Damien Rothwell.
Cold, commanding, and scarred by war, Damien should have killed her. Instead, he claimed her.
Yet the King is not the only one who wants her.
His half-brother, Ethan Rothwell, once the blind boy Aria taught to read, now returns a man who sees her more clearly than anyone else.
Now Aria stands between two brothers-one bound by duty, the other by love.
In a world where loyalty bleeds and desire burns, she must choose: the Alpha King who could ruin her, or the brother who would burn the world to save her.
7.7
The Cameron family clinic smelled like lemon polish and impending death. For three years, I'd been a vessel in a cold, forced marriage to Underboss Kade Cameron. But today, the doctor's words would shatter everything.
"No heartbeat," Dr. Finch declared, then, "Stage IV gastric cancer. Terminal." A double death sentence. As the world tilted, a news alert flashed: Kade, my husband, parading his mistress, Carla Shaw, across Europe-"a love that defies family lines."
Dying and carrying his dead child, I overheard nurses gossip Kade wanted me gone for his "true love." I chose to feel the D&C agony, cleansing him from my soul. Stumbling out, Kade accused me of killing his child, then rushed Carla, feigning illness, to OB/GYN, ignoring my bleeding and dying state.
Back at the mansion, I vomited blood, my body failing. Kade watched with disgust, dismissing my terminal diagnosis as a "performance." He called me "collateral," a "debt payment," then left me for his mistress. The last shred of loyalty shattered, replaced by chilling clarity.
I signed the divorce papers he dismissed as a "tantrum," leaving his ring. No longer a Cameron, no longer his possession. With Fluffy, I made one call, choosing to die on my own terms, finally free.
9.2
For four years, I was the Silvercrest Pack's biggest joke—a scentless, wolfless Omega who somehow became the Alpha's Luna.
I thought I was just naturally defective, until our fourth anniversary, when I overheard my husband Adrian talking to his Beta.
"I’ve been having the kitchens slip a silver-based compound into her meals since the day I marked her."
He confessed the poison was meant to suppress my inner wolf and keep my womb permanently barren. He only married me as a power play to make his highborn mistress, Seraphina, jealous. While I wept over my empty cradle and apologized to his family for my broken body, he was using pack funds to buy her custom luxury goods, tossing me the leftover wrapping paper. When I finally confronted him about the silver and tried to leave, he flew into a feral rage. He violently smashed my head against the marble vanity, leaving me bleeding on the floor, and locked the bedroom door behind him.
I lay there in the cold, staring at the pool of my own blood. My entire life, my endless pain, and my unborn pups were nothing but a cruel, calculated joke to the man who was supposed to be my Mate.
But Adrian didn't know I wasn't just a brainless Omega.
I wiped the blood from my face, climbed down the balcony trellis into the freezing rain, and pulled out an encrypted burner phone.
"The cage is broken. Initiate Phase Two."
7.3
I was never supposed to step into his world.
I was just a daughter trying to survive the wreckage of a father's mistakes. A quiet girl living a small, careful life-until one night shattered everything I thought I knew about fear, power, and possession.
They say the mafia doesn't forgive.
They say debts are paid in blood.
They never warned me that sometimes, the price is a woman.
Luciano De Luca.
The name alone makes men lower their voices and avert their eyes. A king without a crown. A devil in a tailored suit. He rules the underworld with calculated brutality, commanding loyalty through fear and obedience through bloodshed. To him, mercy is a weakness-and love is a lie told by foolish men before they die.
Luciano is not a man you reason with. He is power, violence, and control wrapped in a deadly calm. A mafia king who destroys without mercy and takes without permission.
When my father fails to pay his debt, Luciano takes me instead.
I become his collateral.
His punishment.
His possession.
Trapped in his world of blood and secrets, I am nothing more than a reminder of betrayal-kept under his watch, bound by his rules, and stripped of every illusion of freedom. Luciano made it clear from the start: I am not his guest. I am not his lover. I am not free. I am his possession. He watches me like a predator studying prey-cold, assessing, waiting for me to break. He expects fear to reduce me to nothing. He expects me to beg. To submit.
But I don't.
And that defiance ignites something far more dangerous than hatred in him.
But somewhere between the locked doors and the whispered threats, I realize something dangerous: the man who owns me is far more broken than he wants the world to know.
Luciano De Luca is ruthless-but he is not heartless. He is controlling-but barely. And every time I challenge him, every time I look him in the eyes without flinching, something dark and volatile stirs beneath his calm exterior.
Luciano doesn't love. He claims. He controls. He owns.
Yet the more he tries to crush my spirit, the more obsessed he becomes. His protection turns violent. His control turns suffocating. His eyes follow me like a promise and a threat all at once.
He says I am his weakness.
His mistake.
His curse.
Yet when enemies circle too close, it is Luciano who shields me with his body. When danger threatens, it is his voice that growls warnings, his hands that tighten possessively, his presence that promises violence to anyone who dares touch what is his.
Because once a mafia king decides you belong to him...
escape is no longer an option.
I am trapped in a golden cage built from power, luxury, and danger-but the greatest threat isn't the guns, the blood, or the men who would kill for him.
It's the way Luciano looks at me when he thinks I'm not watching.
The way his control fractures when I'm hurt.
The way his name feels dangerous on my lips.
Because loving a mafia king is not a fairy tale.
It's a war.
A war between survival and desire.
Between freedom and obsession.
Between the girl I used to be and the woman his darkness is shaping me into.
The deeper I fall into his world, the more I uncover secrets buried beneath his cruelty-betrayals that made him this way, scars that never healed, enemies that would destroy us both if given the chance. And as the line between captor and protector blurs, I'm forced to face a devastating truth:
The man who owns my body may soon own my heart.
But loving Luciano De Luca comes at a cost.
Because in his world, love is a liability.
And the moment he chooses me...
is the moment he paints a target on my back.
Will I escape the man who claims to own me?
Or will I surrender to the darkness that refuses to let me go?
In a world ruled by blood, power, and betrayal, one innocent woman will discover that the most dangerous thing of all...
is being loved by a ruthless mafia king.
7.7
Reborn: Lord of the Undead Dominion
Tagline: When a legendary necromancer returns to his childhood, the world that betrayed him will kneel.
Once a peerless human powerhouse on the cusp of ascending to the 12th Rank, Royan met a brutal end at the hands of treachery during his final transcendence. But fate granted him a second chance-he awakens in his five-year-old body, with a century of arcane wisdom, mastery of necromancy and alchemy, and the burning fire of vengeance in his veins.
In the magical world of Amelia, where races rise and fall by a millennium-old cycle, humans defied destiny to claim dominance. Now reborn, Royan hides his ancient soul behind a child's facade, wielding unmatched spiritual power and forbidden knowledge to rewrite his fate. He'll protect his family from the shadows, gather loyal warriors and fearsome undead companions, and unearth the conspiracy that cut his first life short.
From summoning skeletal legions to forging legendary artifacts, from outwitting scheming nobles to challenging the gods of old-Royan's path is paved with blood, bone, and unyielding ambition. The world thought him fallen, but the Necromancer Lord has returned. This time, he won't just survive-he'll conquer the dominion that was stolen from him, and reign over Amelia as its undead sovereign.
If you crave fast-paced action, epic world-building, and a protagonist who turns weakness into strength with wit and overwhelming power, this dark fantasy saga is for you. Dive in and witness the rise of a rebirthed legend-where death is just the beginning of conquest.
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.