He Killed Love, She Killed His Empire
I was securing the diamond clasp of my necklace when the security monitor blinked to life, revealing my husband burying his face between his assistant's thighs.
Just an hour later, Dante Moretti stood by my side at the Gala, playing the part of the devoted Capo, while his mistress smirked at me from across the room in a dress that screamed for attention.
I wanted to leave. I had packed my bags, ready to disappear.
But then the doctor told me the news: I was six weeks pregnant with the Vitiello-Moretti heir.
I thought the baby might save us. I thought it would stop the madness.
I was wrong.
When his mistress accused me of betrayal to cover her own tracks, Dante didn't listen to his wife. He listened to the woman warming his bed.
In a blind rage, the man who swore to protect me struck me down.
I felt the sharp, tearing pain in my abdomen before I even hit the stone floor.
As blood stained my pristine white dress, I realized he hadn't just broken his vows.
He had killed our unborn son.
So, when the opportunity came to detonate the gas line and fake my own death, I didn't hesitate.
I let the world believe Seraphina Moretti died in that explosion.
Ten years later, I returned to a city that thought I was a ghost.
I dismantled his supply lines, froze his assets, and watched his empire crumble piece by piece.
And when he was finally on his knees in the rain, broken and destitute, I stepped out of the shadows.
I didn't come back for his money.
I came back to hand him the ultrasound photo of the child he murdered.
"Hello, Dante."
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Chapter 6
Seraphina POV
The silence in the house wasn't simply empty; it was heavy, holding its breath, waiting for the scream.
I descended the floating staircase, the white silk of my dress whispering against my skin like a ghost trying to warn me. The living room was dim, lit only by the dying embers in the fireplace and the moonlight reflecting off the black lake outside.
There were no Russos. There was no dinner party.
Dante stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, a tumbler of scotch in his hand. He wasn't looking at the view. He was staring at his own reflection in the glass, or perhaps looking right through it to the darkness beyond.
The man from the driveway-the one with the predator's gait-lounged on my velvet sofa, casually cleaning a fingernail with the tip of a switchblade.
"Where are the guests?" I asked. My voice was steady, a flat line on a heart monitor.
Dante turned. For a second, something flickered in his dark eyes. Regret? No. Sharks don't feel regret before they bite. They just roll their eyes back and strike.
"Plans changed," Dante said, his voice devoid of warmth. He downed his drink in one swallow. "Luca here brought me some disturbing intelligence. About you, Seraphina."
Luca. The Jackal. I knew the name, of course. He was a freelance cleaner, a myth made of blood and bone, the man who handled the jobs even the Vitiellos wouldn't touch.
"Intelligence?" I stepped off the last stair, my chin high. "Does this intelligence explain why your mistress is currently parking her car in our garage?"
Dante's jaw tightened, a muscle feathering in his cheek. "Valeria is here to assist."
"Assist with what? My execution?"
Luca chuckled, a dry, friction-filled sound like dead leaves scraping against concrete. "Not an execution, Mrs. Moretti. An extraction. We have proof you've been selling routes to the Irish."
I stared at him, the absurdity of the lie almost laughing in my throat. Then I looked at Dante.
The betrayal didn't sting anymore; it just rotted, turning black and necrotic in my chest. "And you believe him? You believe I would betray the Family?"
"I believe you are unhappy," Dante said, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. "I believe unhappy women do desperate things. And I believe Valeria found the wire transfers in your name."
"Valeria found them because she planted them," I countered, my voice rising. It was so obvious, so clumsy.
But Dante wasn't listening to logic. He was listening to the poison Valeria had been dripping into his ear for months. He wanted a reason to discard me. He wanted a justification to sever the Vitiello alliance without igniting a war.
A traitorous wife was the perfect casus belli.
The side door opened.
Valeria swept in. She wasn't wearing her signature red tonight. She was wearing black. Mourning clothes. She was already dressed for my funeral.
"It's all set up, Dante," she said, not even deigning to look at me. "The boat is ready. We can make it look like she tried to flee across the lake and capsized in the storm."
My hand went instinctively to my stomach. To the secret life growing there.
They weren't just going to kill me. They were going to erase me.
I glanced at the grandfather clock. 11:45 PM.
My contact-the cleaner I had arranged as a contingency-had said midnight.
Fifteen minutes. I had to stay alive for fifteen minutes.
"You're pathetic," I spat at Dante. "You're the Capo dei Capi, and you're letting a glorified secretary play you like a fiddle."
Dante crossed the room in two long strides. He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging bruisingly into the soft flesh.
"Watch your mouth, Seraphina. I am trying to give you a dignified exit."
"Dignified?" I laughed, and it sounded hysterical even to my own ears. "Drowning in a freezing lake is dignified?"
"It's better than what happens to traitors in the basement," he hissed, leaning close.
He pulled me toward the door. I dug my heels into the hardwood. I needed time.
"Dante, wait," I gasped, struggling against his grip. "There's something you don't know."
"I know enough."
"No!" I screamed. I twisted violently in his hold. "I'm pregnant!"
The words hung in the air, instantly freezing the room.
Dante stopped dead. His grip loosened, just a fraction. He looked down at my stomach, then up to my face. His eyes widened, the hard, impassive mask finally cracking.
"What?" he whispered.
Valeria let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. "Oh, please. She's lying, Dante. It's a desperate stall tactic. She's barren, remember? That's what the doctors said."
"I'm not lying," I said, my voice shaking but my eyes locking with his. "Six weeks. I went to the clinic today."
Dante looked back at me, a war raging behind his eyes-hope battling against suspicion.
"A child?"
"A lie!" Valeria shrieked. She rushed forward, grabbing Dante's free arm, her nails digging into his suit jacket. "She's manipulating you! She's stalling until her Irish contacts get here! Luca, tell him!"
Luca stood up, snapping the switchblade shut. "We're on a schedule, Boss. If we don't move now, the window closes."
Dante looked at me, then at Valeria. He was wavering. The Shark was hesitating.
And then Valeria did the one thing that sealed our fates.
She reached into her purse and pulled out a gun.
"If you won't do it, I will," she spat, aiming the barrel at my chest. "I'm not losing everything because of a phantom brat."
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7.7
Eva Brooks, a 25-year-old woman, was set up by her best friend. Her fiancé broke up with her and demanded compensation for allegedly cheating on him.
Eva had a one-night stand with the richest CEO in Dominic City, Ethan Owen. He was arrogant and offered her a job as his secretary.
As his secretary, Ethan couldn't shake his fondness for Eva. He became obsessed with her, worrying that she was cheating on him.
He broke up with his fiancée to become engaged to Eva, but will his fiancée let him go? Will Eva accept a relationship with her boss?
8.6
It was my birthday, but instead of celebrating, I was bleeding on the floor of my own bedroom. My sister Serena had just smashed a champagne bottle over my legs, her eyes filled with a dark madness because our father allowed me to wear the family diamonds.
To escape her, I bolted into a pitch-black guest suite, only to be grabbed by a man who felt like a wall of solid muscle. He was drugged, unstable, and pinned me against the wall, his teeth sinking into my neck in a primal claim that left a permanent mark.
I managed to flee, but the nightmare was just beginning. My father didn't care about my injuries; he only cared that I had "insulted" the man in that room—Delos French, the most powerful CEO in New York. He threatened to stop paying for my mother’s critical care facility unless I went to Delos and begged for his forgiveness.
My brother Julian was even worse, intentionally pouring scalding coffee over my bandaged wounds just to see me flinch. They forced me into a revealing gold dress, treating me like a high-priced commodity to be sold to the highest bidder to save their failing company.
I didn't understand how the people who were supposed to love me could be more predatory than the monster in the dark. I had spent my life fixing their scandals, yet they were ready to throw me to the wolves the moment I became useful as a pawn.
But when I stood before Delos French at his gala, he didn't see a trophy. He recognized my scent, my touch, and the fire in my eyes. He trapped me in his private lounge, kneeling to clean the blood from my injured feet.
"Marry me," he whispered, his voice a low, terrifying growl. "And I will give you the power to burn your family to the ground."
I looked into the eyes of the man who had hunted me and realized he was the only one offering me a weapon to destroy the people who had broken me.
"Okay," I whispered.
9.4
Six years ago, Breanna was shoved into a pitch-black hotel suite by her own uncle.
She was forced to endure a brutal night with a drugged stranger just to keep her grandmother's ventilator running.
Nine months later, she gave birth in a cold underground clinic.
But her uncle immediately snatched the crying newborn from her trembling hands, coldly announcing the baby had died.
For six years, Breanna lived in agonizing grief, working as a lowly hotel cleaner just to survive.
But a cruel setup threw her directly into the path of Elliot Finch, the arrogant billionaire from that dark night.
He did not recognize the woman whose life he had completely ruined.
Instead, he looked at her like she was rotting garbage, had his guards drag her into a wet alley, and mercilessly got her fired.
"If I ever see your face again, I will make sure you cannot get a job cleaning toilets."
Breanna was suffocating from the injustice, stripped of her dignity and her family's only lifeline.
Yet, when she instinctively protected a traumatized little boy from bullies, she discovered he was Elliot's son.
The boy clung to her neck, crying and desperately begging his father to let her stay.
But Elliot just threw a massive check at her chest, violently accusing her of brainwashing a sick child for a meal ticket.
Looking at the toxic disgust in his eyes, something inside Breanna finally broke.
She picked up the check, ripped the millions into tiny shreds, and let them rain down on his expensive shoes.
"Keep your dirty money."
She turned her back on the crying boy and the stunned billionaire, deciding she would no longer be their victim.
7.1
For ten years, my family kept me locked away, forcing me to play the part of a broken, mentally unstable girl. They controlled me with sedatives and treated me like a ghost in my own home, a prisoner in a gilded cage.
But I had a secret. I was a world-famous anonymous artist with a hidden fortune, and I had an escape plan. On the day of my cousin's wedding, my rebellion was accidentally witnessed by a dangerous stranger who saw the predator beneath my fragile mask.
To silence him, I dragged him into a dark closet. The encounter turned raw and reckless, a violent collision I used as the perfect cover for my escape. I vanished with a new name and a one-way ticket to a new life, leaving him with nothing but a bloodstain and the bitter taste of betrayal.
I thought I was free, that I had successfully buried the girl I was forced to be and the man I was forced to use.
Three months later, on a superyacht in Monaco, he found me. He wasn't just some wealthy guest; he was the ruthless head of a powerful crime syndicate, and I was trapped in his private penthouse. He locked the door, his eyes black with possessive rage.
"The game is over," he whispered. "This time, you're not running."
8.7
Introduction
Emily is the adopted daughter of a billionaire family. They adopted her after the loss of their own daughter in a bid to comfort themselves.
However, when she was twenty one, the original daughter of her adopted parents came back and after the DNA tests proved that she was their child, their joy knew no bounds as they began to celebrate her.
Emily's fiance, Louis acted as a source of comfort to her around this time because her parents neglected her, providing their attention to their daughter instead.
They were set to get married in two months but that was until she saw a post on a blog, stating that her sister and her fiance Louis, were getting married.
She had an accident and nearly died but none of her family members showed up, leading her to believe that indeed they had lost all touch of love for her.
She gets home to find a piece of condom in the trashcan, suggesting that her fiance has been busy while she was in the hospital. She confronted him, telling him if what she saw on the blogs were true and he finally admitted to it, saying he loved her sister more than her and he would be getting married to her.
7.8
Clara Bennett built her life around two promises-protect her twins and never depend on anyone.
For five years, she has raised Liam and Isla alone, keeping the truth about their father buried in the past... a past that began with a single night she barely remembers.
But everything changes when billionaire CEO Ethan Caldwell suddenly walks back into her life.
Cold, powerful, and dangerously perceptive, Ethan offers Clara an arrangement she cannot refuse-one that forces them to live under the same roof.
What Ethan doesn't know is that the twins who instantly capture his attention might be more connected to him than he realizes.
As sparks ignite and tensions rise, secrets begin to surface. A ruthless corporate enemy is watching. And the truth about that forgotten night is closer to being exposed.
When the truth finally comes out, Ethan will have to face the one thing he never expected...
The family he never knew he had.
And Clara must decide whether she can trust the man who once walked out of her life without even remembering.