His Bride Of Revenge
He tilted her chin up, his touch deceptively gentle.
"You're trembling," he whispered, brushing his thumb over her lips, slow enough to make her shiver.
"Is it fear..." His gaze lingered on her mouth. "Or me?"
Her pulse stuttered, betraying her. He was too close, and her body didn't seem to remember which feeling came first, terror or desire.
****
Elena Castellano never thought her father would trade her freedom to keep her safe. But after a violent attack changes everything, she is forced to marry the one man she has every reason to be afraid of, Stefano Bernardo, the ruthless heir to one of Milan's most dangerous families.
To the world, it's a union between two powerful families.
To Stefano, it's the sweetest revenge.
Stuck in a marriage built on deceit and danger, Elena must fight not only for her freedom but also for her life, because Stefano's revenge runs deeper than she ever imagined.
And if she truly wants to live, she must face the truth: the real danger isn't her husband's revenge; it's falling for him.
He married her to destroy her family.
But she might become the death of him - literally.
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Chapter 1
**Elena's POV**
Someone should have warned me that tonight might be the night I die... or at least almost die.
"No… no… no, what was that?” I screamed as glass shattered behind me.
"That was obviously a gunshot. Oh God! Not tonight, please.” My heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst. My whole body tensed as the sharp smell of gunpowder filled the car.
I pressed the gas pedal hard and gripped the steering wheel tightly, trying to regain control.
Through the rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of two headlights rushing toward me, and my hands instinctively tightened on the wheel.
"What am I going to do? Elena, you’ve got to think… think…” My chest tightened, and cold sweat broke out across my forehead, dripping into my eyes, while my palms slipped on the wheel.
"Please,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the engine’s roar. “Please, God, help me.”
The street ahead was empty, with streetlights stretching across the wet road. Milan at night looked too peaceful for something like this to be happening.
Another shot hit my side mirror, and the glass shattered with a loud crash. I flinched, swerving to avoid losing control.
“Who are you?” I shouted into the night, slamming the steering wheel in frustration. “What do you want from me?”
My mind raced with a million thoughts.
“I couldn’t just sit here. I had to do something.” My heart raced as I reached for the small black gun from the glove compartment. Papa’s advice echoed in my mind: “Never leave home without it.” Thank goodness I had it with me tonight.
I rolled down the window, feeling the wind on my face as I aimed with shaking hands. “Come on,” I whispered, desperation in my voice. “Come closer.”
And they did.
I fired twice but missed. The SUV swerved but quickly regained control, getting even closer.
Just then, my phone vibrated on the dashboard, lighting up with a text from an unknown number. I glanced at the screen for a second.
*An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.*
“Oh God… I’m in deep trouble.” My hands trembled so violently I could barely hold the wheel.
The Lorusso clan.
I’d heard that phrase since I was a kid, whispered at funerals and left as a warning after attacks.
They had haunted my family for years with a vendetta that seemed endless. My father had warned me about them constantly, and I saw what they did to my mother.
Now they have found me.
“Why do I have such horrible luck?”
I couldn’t move, just sat there stunned by the impossible truth that this was really happening.
My hand trembled as I raised the gun, my fingers tightening on the trigger. I shot again. This time the bullet shattered their windshield, but they showed no signs of stopping.
Then I felt it… a bullet struck my shoulder. Pain exploded through me, making the gun slip from my hand as my right arm went limp.
“Ahhhhh…” I fought back a cry as I gripped the wheel with my left hand, the fabric of my cream shirt growing warm and wet.
I pressed the gas pedal down, and the car surged forward, trying desperately to put distance between us.
The road blurred as I squinted through the cracked glass. The Palazzo Kiton building flashed past on my left.
“I had to be careful; the road here could be very tricky,” I whispered to myself, forcing my foot to ease up just a little.
My thoughts raced, tangled in fear and adrenaline. All I could think about was staying alive.
“Help me,” I whispered, not sure who I was asking—God, fate, or anyone who might save me.
Then the SUV suddenly rammed into my bumper, jolting me forward so hard that my mouth slammed against the wheel. I tasted blood.
“No, this had to end,” I hissed, my jaw throbbing.
I swerved hard, trying to lose them, but the SUV stayed right behind me.
“Oh no…” I murmured frantically as I realized my mistake. I had forgotten how dangerous this stretch of road could be.
My tires screeched as the car lost control. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. A tire burst, sending the car flipping over and sliding off the road.
Everything spiraled out of control. My body jerked violently, and a brutal impact slammed my head against the steering wheel. Pain erupted as my vision blurred.
Then there was complete silence.
The seatbelt pressed into my ribs, keeping me in place as a loud ringing filled my ears. Smoke rose from the hood.
My head throbbed. Pain stabbed through my shoulder as warm blood trickled down the side of my face.
“This wasn’t how I expected today to end,” the thought echoed numbly through my mind.
I tried to lift my hands, but they barely moved. All I could hear was my heart pounding.
I blinked hard, forcing my eyes to focus.
Looking through the cracked windshield, I saw the empty road. The SUV was nowhere in sight. They had left me to die.
“Papa,” I forced the word out. “I’m sorry.”
My entire body felt heavy and numb.
“So this is it." My lips trembled. “This is how it ends.”
Pain throbbed in my shoulder with every heartbeat. I sank back, eyes tightly shut, as the harsh truth hit me—I had been foolish to think I could ever truly escape this life.
Tears stung my eyes, blurring my vision. I couldn’t tell whether it was fear, regret, or the pain that made them fall.
Memories of home flooded my mind, along with my father’s voice: “You’re not ready for the world out there, Elena. You wouldn’t last a night.”
Looks like you were right, Papa.
Remembering Lucia’s warning earlier that night, a wave of regret washed over me. “Your father wouldn’t like you sneaking out again,” she had said.
A soft, bittersweet sound escaped my lips. “You were right, Lucia.”
I had spent weeks planning my escape, desperate for a life where I didn’t have to look over my shoulder, where I could make my own choices. But now, bleeding in the wreckage, I felt completely hopeless.
Elena Castellano, you really should have stayed home.
I tried to reach for my phone, but it was missing, lying somewhere on the floor out of reach. “You wanted freedom, Elena,” I gently scolded myself. “This is the price.”
I began to lose consciousness. My breathing slowed, and all I could taste was blood. My chest tightened as everything started to fade.
Somewhere far off, I thought I heard a siren, but maybe it was only in my head.
As my vision dimmed, one quiet thought drifted through my mind: At twenty-five, I had never even been kissed… and now I was about to die.
“This is what it means to be born a Castellano,” I sighed, my breath trembling as everything went dark.
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7.5
The Duke was standing in the middle of the room, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted to one side. It was a relaxed, casual pose, and yet the way he looked at her was anything but casual. The deep midnight of his eyes burned and he radiated a subtle, sensual energy that made the air around him crackle.
He looked like a man who'd never heard the word 'no' in all his life. Unluckily for him, 'no' was the only word she had.
"There's no reason why I should stay," Anna clasped her shaking hands together in an effort to still them. "I'm not marrying you."
His gaze flickered, his mouth curving slightly, and she had the disturbing thought that far from putting him off, her insistence was only inciting him further.
"But you haven't heard my proposal yet," he said mildly. "Isn't that why you're here?"
"I don't need to hear it. I already know that my answer will be no."
"Of course. But you can hardly tell your father that you heard me out when you haven't, in fact, heard me out.... Anna."
7.7
Not only was I drugged, blinded and assaulted. I was deceived into carrying a baby by a stranger I never knew. Then he appeared and took my child away.
I was sent to a militia by the father of my child. I thought I was rescued but I was recruited to be a weapon for killing. Who was manipulating me, I didn't know. The answers were far from what I knew.
Forced to blend into the world that I could never believe I would be to, a place where brutality reigned, kill or be killed was the only language. I have survived but he has to pay for everything he did to me, because I believed every phase of my life was set by him and him alone. Have I really survived?
Who would have thought, he existed twice in the same world? Do I really know who I should take revenge on? Him or the person I would sacrifice everything for?
Was my mother the one who orchestrated everything? What kind of pawn am I?
8.2
For three years, nineteen-year-old Ella Campbell rotted in a freezing psychiatric isolation room.
Her billionaire family didn't visit her once, only pulling her out today to force her to publicly apologize to Ashlyn, the perfect sister who had framed her.
At Ashlyn's glamorous engagement gala, Ella was treated worse than a stray dog and forced to watch her childhood sweetheart propose to her sister.
When Ella showed no jealousy, her brother Ivan dragged her onto a dark balcony and nearly choked her to death.
Her mother didn't even check if Ella was breathing, merely ordering a makeup artist to paint thick concealer over the dark purple handprints on Ella's neck so the family's stock price wouldn't drop.
Standing under the blinding stage lights in a shapeless gray dress, facing three hundred mocking Wall Street executives, Ella was supposed to be the broken, obedient psycho the Campbells needed.
"I am deeply sorry for the pain I caused."
She was supposed to end the apology there and bow to her abusers, but Ella didn't shed a single tear.
"My only regret is that I didn't insist on waiting for the police to arrive that night. I deeply regret that I didn't demand a full, legal toxicology report to prove to everyone exactly what happened."
As the ballroom erupted into suspicious whispers and her paralyzed twin brother finally saw the violent bruises hidden beneath her makeup, Ella's counterattack against the Campbell family officially began.
7.6
Jocelyn Yang lived in the grand Turner Mansion, not as a guest, but as a prisoner. Ever since her father's death, the ruthless billionaire Elam Turner forced her to atone for sins her father never committed.
On her nineteenth birthday, a male classmate secretly sent her a diamond necklace. Elam, who had flown back from London overnight, flew into a psychotic, jealous rage at the sight of another man's gift.
He mercilessly crushed the delicate necklace into the marble floor with his custom leather shoe.
"Did you forget what you are?" Elam hissed, dragging her into a pitch-black storage room. "You take gifts from other men behind my back?"
He pinned her to the dusty floorboards and violently assaulted her. The next morning, a wire transfer of $500,000 hit her bank account. He had humiliated her, broken her spirit, and was now casually trying to buy her silence. Later, when a broken bike left her walking miles through a freezing rainstorm, he just shoved scalding tea into her bleeding hands.
"Look at you," he sneered. "You look like a stray dog ruining my floors."
Jocelyn curled up in the cold, her lips bleeding and her heart shattered. She couldn't understand his terrifying obsession. If he hated her so much, why did he refuse to let her go? Why did he look at her with such manic hunger while systematically destroying her life?
Staring at the massive sum of hush money on her phone, a desperate spark of vengeance flared in her chest. Jocelyn wired every single cent back to Elam's account. She picked up her charcoal pencil, vowing to win the upcoming art competition and buy her escape from this monster forever.
7.2
I went to the bank to set up a trust fund for my twins, only to have the manager look at me with pity.
"Mrs. Dunlap, the trust requires the *biological* mother's signature."
I froze. I *was* their mother. Or so I thought.
That day, I learned my husband, the most powerful Mafia Don on the coast, had used his ex-lover’s frozen eggs.
For six years, I wasn't his wife. I was just the incubator.
When his "true love," Iliana, returned from exile, my life disintegrated.
My children, poisoned by her lies, pushed me down the stairs and called me "just the nanny."
Gavyn didn't help me up. He stepped over my bleeding body to take his "real family" out for ice cream.
But the ultimate betrayal happened on a windswept cliff.
Staged by Iliana, we were both tied up, allegedly rigged to explode.
Forced to choose who to save, Gavyn didn't hesitate.
He cut Iliana loose.
"You did this to yourself, Alex," he said, driving away with the children, leaving me to die.
He thought he was leaving behind a corpse.
He didn't know I had skimmed ten million dollars from the household accounts.
"Cut me loose," I told the hitman, transferring the money. "And tell him the ocean took me."
Two years later, the Don is on his knees in my garden, begging for a second chance.
Too bad he has to get through my new fiancé first—the head of the rival cartel.
7.6
Synopsis:
Diana, a twenty-nine year old brilliant young lady and a successful fashion designer. She was grateful she had been able to achieve everything she had without any support.
But there was a void inside of her. She wanted to get married.
She couldn't bear the fact of entering into the big chapter thirty without a life partner. She met David at a business conference meeting. He asked for her number.
She hesitated thinking he wasn't going to stay like the others. She decided to give him a chance and went on a first date with him only to realise that he was serious and wanted to marry her.
What Diana didn't know was that David was pretending all along. He was never interested in her as a person.
During a public awards ceremony, David brings Eleanor, a celebrity who is his new business partner, onto the stage. He dedicates his award to her, claiming she was the "sole inspiration" for his success.
Later that night, he tells Diana that he has already signed the divorce papers. His cold dismissal shatters her, but in the aftermath, a clear-headed determination sets in.