Healed By Another: Rejecting The Ruthless Don
I spent a year in a Swiss asylum, swallowing pills to cure a madness that didn’t exist.
It turned out the medication was just sugar.
My insanity was a script written by Jaxon Francis, the Don of New York, just so he could marry a Cartel princess without his ward getting in the way.
When I finally escaped and tried to leave him, his new wife staged her own kidnapping and framed me.
Jaxon didn’t ask for proof. He didn’t look at the evidence.
Instead, he tied a rope around my ankles and dragged me behind a helicopter across the jagged rocks of the Wastelands.
He held his wife close and watched as my skin was flayed and my bones shattered, believing he was executing a traitor.
He left me for dead in the dirt, convinced he had cleansed his empire.
I took the hush money his mother threw at me and vanished, letting Alina Phillips die in that field.
Three years later, I returned to New York as "Echo," the elusive artist the world was obsessing over.
At a charity auction, Jaxon bid one hundred million dollars for a painting of a woman’s scarred back, desperate to buy redemption for the ghost he thought he killed.
He chased me into the rain, begging for a second chance, swearing he had destroyed his wife for me.
I looked at the man who once held my heart and simply smiled.
Then I turned to the man standing beside me.
"Jaxon, meet Darwin," I said, linking my arm through his.
"My husband."
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Chapter 2
Alina Phillips POV
I returned to the Estate like a ghost haunting her own life.
The Fortress loomed atop the cliffs overlooking the Hudson, a sprawling expanse of grey stone and imposing iron gates.
It had once been my sanctuary. Now, it was just stone.
I punched the access code into the keypad at the side gate.
The light blinked green. It still worked.
The ease of it felt like a trap.
I moved through the gardens, my eyes instinctively seeking the soft purple of my irises by the fountain.
They were gone.
Rows of pristine white roses stood in their place, stiff, thorny, and flawlessly sterile.
They looked like funeral flowers waiting for a casket.
I entered the main house through the kitchen entrance.
The chatter of the staff died instantly. Silverware clattered against porcelain as they froze.
Their eyes went wide, tracking me as if I were a corpse that had clawed its way out of the grave.
I ignored the heavy silence and ascended the grand staircase, heading straight for the east wing.
My room.
Or what used to be my room.
I pushed the door open and halted.
The walls were no longer a soft, welcoming blue. They had been painted a stark, clinical white.
My easel was gone. My canvases, my paints, the charcoal sketches of my father-everything had been purged.
In their place stood abstract sculptures of twisted, jagged metal.
Cold. Sharp. Soulless.
A polished brass plaque beneath one piece read: Works by Krystal Gomez-Francis.
She hadn't just moved in.
She had erased me.
Bile rose in my throat, hot and acidic. I turned on my heel, needing air, needing to scream until my lungs burned.
I stumbled out the front door, my vision blurring as I ran down the driveway.
The aggressive roar of an engine cut through the air before I saw the car.
A cherry-red sports car careened around the curve of the driveway, tires squealing.
It was moving far too fast.
I froze.
The driver saw me. Through the windshield, our eyes locked.
Dark eyes, lined with heavy makeup, widened with instant recognition.
She didn't brake.
The engine revved. She accelerated.
I threw myself to the side, but the fender clipped my hip with the force of a sledgehammer.
The impact spun me around, slamming me onto the pavement.
My leg twisted beneath me with a sickening, wet crunch.
Pain exploded up my thigh-blinding, white-hot, and absolute.
I screamed.
The car screeched to a halt only a few yards away.
The driver's door flew open.
A woman stepped out. She was beautiful in a terrifying way, vibrant and deadly like a poisonous flower.
Krystal.
She stared at me writhing on the ground, clutching my shattered leg.
She didn't look scared.
She looked annoyed.
Then, the front door of the mansion burst open. Jaxon came running out.
"Alina?" he shouted, his voice rough.
He looked at me, broken on the asphalt, and then at Krystal.
He didn't run to me.
He ran to her.
"Are you okay?" he demanded, grabbing Krystal's shoulders, scanning her for injuries that didn't exist. "Did the brakes fail?"
I gasped for air, the agony making black spots dance across my vision.
"She hit me," I choked out, the words tasting like copper. "Jaxon, she hit me on purpose."
Jaxon turned his gaze to me then.
His eyes were hard, devoid of the warmth I remembered.
"Don't be dramatic, Alina," he said coldly. "It was an accident. Krystal isn't used to the handling of the car yet."
Krystal immediately buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking.
"I didn't see her!" she sobbed, the sound shrill and performative. "She just jumped out! Is she crazy? Oh god, Jaxon, you said she was sick."
"I'm not sick," I gritted out through clenched teeth. "Call the police."
The air around us went still.
Jaxon released Krystal and walked over to me.
He crouched down, close enough for me to smell his cologne, but he didn't touch me.
"We do not call the police, Alina," he stated, his voice dropping to the low, dangerous timbre of the Don. "We handle things in the Family."
"She tried to kill me," I whispered, tears leaking from my eyes.
"She is my wife," he said.
The word hung in the air like a guillotine blade, severing the last thread of my hope.
Wife.
He stood up, dusting off his pants, and signaled to his guards waiting by the entrance.
"Take her to the private wing," he ordered, his tone bored. "Get the leg set. And keep her quiet."
He turned his back on me, wrapping a protective arm around Krystal's waist.
"Come inside, tesoro," he cooed softly. "You're shaking."
He guided her toward the house.
He didn't look back.
As the guards lifted me onto the stretcher, ignoring my gasp of pain, I watched the heavy oak door close.
He left me bleeding on the asphalt to comfort the woman who had put me there.
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9.6
Alyssa Hart is out of options. Drowning in medical debt, with her mother's life hanging in the balance, she's desperate for a solution. When an unexpected email offers her an interview at the mysterious Valentino Enterprises, she doesn't hesitate.
But what she walks into isn't a job opportunity... it's a marriage contract.
The powerful and feared Valentino Crime family needs a wife for their heir, Stephano Valentino. Cold, ruthless, and utterly uninterested in love, Stephano has discarded every woman his parents have introduced him to. They don't expect Alyssa to be any different.
The deal is simple: marry Stephano, bear his heir, and in two years, she'll be free, with enough money to ensure her mother's survival.
There's only one rule: this is not a real marriage. Stephano can do as he pleases, but Alyssa is bound to him alone.
She should hate him. He gives her every reason to.
But the longer she stays, the more she begins to see through the cracks in his armour. Beneath his icy exterior is something broken, something she can't help but want to fix. And Stephano, who swore he would never care, finds himself drawn to the woman he was never meant to love. But in their world, love is a weakness, and breaking the rules always comes with a price...
9.6
Ezran Williamson never asked for a new family, especially not one that comes with a stepbrother he can't stand.
At twenty-one, Ezran is sharp-tongued, rebellious, and determined to graduate and build a future in programming on his own terms.
But when his mother remarries a powerful businessman, his carefully controlled life collides with Lucian Banks, his cold, dominant, and dangerously untouchable stepbrother. Successful, older, and infuriatingly composed, Lucian is everything Ezran hates.
Slowly, hatred turns into tension, tension becomes chemistry, and chemistry ignites something neither of them is prepared to face.
What begins as resistance slowly unravels into a forbidden obsession, one that defies family, morality, and control. As secrets surface and pressure mounts, Ezran and Lucian are forced to choose between duty and desire, legacy and love, because some feelings don't fade and some obsessions are worth every consequence.
7.9
"You are wet, Red. I can smell your juices already." He said. I wanted to deny it but I knew he was right. The sides of my thigh were already clammy. How could he tell from afar?
"No, I need to sleep. I told you I have a presentation tomorrow, right? I'm tired, I want to rest a bit." I replied.
"You'll do that when I get a release. I'll make sure to be fast about it," he replied. I stood rooted on the same spot without moving. I knew he was just being civil with me. It was only a matter of time before he dragged me to his side.
"Unless maybe you want me to call the others?" He asked but I could tell he was threatening me. Calling the others would end in me not getting any rest at all.
"No, please," I replied walking obediently to his side.
*****
Three men, one naive woman.
Ziyana never knew her life would turn in the most dramatic way. She enjoyed the life of a princess until life happened.
From being hated by her blood to suddenly being sold to a spoilt Mafia Lord. She thought she could navigate through it but there were two more brothers!
Ruthless. Domineering. Voracious.
The Niccolo Brothers' lives were full of danger and envy but these men never wanted her out of their sight.
Would Ziyana be able to cope in the midst or run for her life before she get used to them?
8.5
My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention.
He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor.
I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don.
"The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly.
An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion.
He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement.
For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple.
"Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her."
As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman.
Then, the steel door detonated.
Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.
8.5
Aria had always been a driven, ambitious woman. As a rising star in the tech industry, she had no time for games or drama. Her relationship with Ethan, her longtime boyfriend, had been convenient but lackluster. That is, until the fateful night she caught him in bed with her childhood best friend, Jasmin.
Heartbroken and enraged, Aria confronted them both, demanding answers and explanations. Mark tried to manipulate her, but Aria was done listening. In a fit of anger and despair, she left with no destination in mind and ended up in a hotel bar, drowning her sorrows in an expensive whiskey. It was there that she first encountered Luca kings, a dangerous and handsome mafia boss.
But Aria's new life took a shocking turn when Luca revealed a dark secret: Her father, a powerful corporate executive, had been responsible for the death of Luca's mother. It was a brutal murder years ago, covered up by Aria's influential family.
Luca vowed revenge, and Aria found herself caught in the middle. She was torn between her loyalty to her family and the undeniable attraction she felt towards Luca. As the tension mounted, Aria knew that she would have to make a choice - one that would change the course of her life forever.
7.7
In my past life, the bullet chambered in the gun on the desk was less lethal than the indifference of the two men standing beside me.
Dante and Matteo were supposed to be the future kings of Chicago, and I was their queen.
But they threw it all away for Sofia—a liar with a pretty face and a fake sob story about a gambling father.
They forced me into a gilded cage, making me serve Sofia like a maid while they played her saviors.
They let me rot in isolation until I swallowed a bottle of pills just to escape the coldness of their neglect.
They didn't even mourn me; they were too busy comforting the girl who would eventually destroy them.
I died realizing that my loyalty was my fatal flaw.
I had worshipped men who saw me as nothing more than an accessory, while they sacrificed their empire for a woman who played them for fools.
But the universe has a sick sense of humor.
It sent me back.
Back to the day that sealed my fate.
The Consigliere pushed the assignment papers toward us—the path to becoming Bosses.
"We are not going," Dante said, looking at me with cold eyes. "Sofia needs us. She is fragile."
In my past life, I begged them to stay.
This time, I stepped forward and picked up the pen.
"I will go," I said, signing my name in sharp black ink.
"I don't need your protection anymore."