Just A Placeholder: Dying For His Mistress
I stood on the tarmac clutching white magnolias, watching the man I loved hand his loyalty to the woman born to destroy me.
Dante Cavallaro, the Ruthless Underboss, didn't just leave me for Sofia Moretti.
He revealed that for two years, I wasn't his lover. I was a human shield.
The heavy iron bangle he forced me to wear wasn't a gift for my protection.
"It's a Malocchio anchor," he sneered as I lay paralyzed on the floor. "It drains the wearer's luck to keep Sofia healthy. You are just the filter."
My body began to rot from the inside out, my nerves dying one by one.
When I was finally on my deathbed, unable to move or speak, Dante didn't cry for me.
He cried because his tool was broken.
He forced the cursed bangle onto his own wrist, begging the universe to keep me alive so I could continue to suffer in Sofia's place.
"Please," he sobbed into my sheets. "Don't leave me alone with the bad luck."
I used my last breath to make a wish—not for him, but for my freedom.
I closed my eyes and died.
Exactly one hour later, Dante's phone rang.
It was his father.
"Sofia just collapsed," he said. "Her heart just stopped."
I was the vessel.
And now that I was gone, the poison had come home to the King.
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Chapter 3
Elena POV
My phone buzzed against the dark mahogany table, the vibration shattering the silence like a drill.
It was 2:00 AM.
The screen lit up with a message from a blocked number.
No text.
Just a video file.
My chest tightened painfully.
In our world, anonymous messages usually meant someone was dead.
I pressed play.
The video was grainy, a wash of high-contrast black and white security footage from the VIP room of The Vault, a club owned by the Family.
Dante was sitting on a leather sofa, a glass of whiskey loose in his hand.
His tie was undone, draped around his neck.
He looked like a king holding court in hell.
Sofia was next to him, coiled tight and leaning close, her hand resting possessively on his knee.
There were other men in the room-Capos, soldiers-laughing at something I couldn't hear.
"The girl?" Dante's voice came through the speakers, distorted by the recording but devastatingly unmistakable. "Elena?"
My heart stopped.
He took a sip of his drink, his face a mask of bored indifference.
"She was a placeholder," he said flatly. "A necessary tactic. I needed the Morettis to think I was unavailable. Jealousy is a powerful motivator. It forced Sofia's father to the table faster than a bullet would have."
Sofia laughed, throwing her head back in triumph.
"And it worked," she purred, her voice dripping with satisfaction. "I hated her so much I agreed to the merger just to get you back."
"Strategy, cara," Dante said, clinking his glass against hers. "Just business."
The video ended.
I stared at the black screen, unable to breathe.
I wasn't a person to him.
I wasn't a lover.
I was a pawn.
A tactic.
A prop used to manipulate a business deal.
Suddenly, the front door lock clicked.
I froze.
Steps echoed in the hallway.
Heavy, uneven footsteps.
He was drunk.
"He needs rest, Sofia," Dante's voice drifted down the hall, thick and weary. "Leave it."
"He needs to cut the loose end," Sofia's voice whispered, sharp and venomous. "She's clutter, Dante. She's polluting our penthouse."
I stood in the shadows of the hallway, pressing my back against the cold wall, praying to disappear.
"She knows her place," Dante slurred. "Don't ruin my night."
"Make her leave," Sofia demanded. "Or I will."
Dante laughed.
It was a cruel, dark sound that scraped against my nerves.
"Do what you want," he said carelessly. "Just don't get blood on the carpet. It's imported."
He didn't defend me.
He didn't claim me.
He gave her permission to destroy me.
My legs gave out.
I slid down the wall, my hand clamping over my mouth to stifle the sob that was tearing my throat apart.
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7.8
ALPHA DOM AND HIS HUMAN Synopsis.
By [F.K Rowan]
Ella Navarro had one plan: become a mother on her own terms. No partner, no complications, no one to let her down. After years of heartbreak and a betrayal she never saw coming, she walked into a fertility clinic alone and chose the cleanest, most controlled version of a fresh start possible.
She got Dominic Sinclair's DNA instead.
Cold, powerful, and campaigning to become Alpha King of the North American wolf packs, Dominic is the last man on earth Ella would have chosen. He is also, apparently, the father of her unborn child. When the clinic's devastating mix-up comes to light, two people from completely different worlds are forced into each other's lives with nothing in common except the baby growing between them.
Ella expects a legal battle. She gets something far more complicated.
Because Dominic can't stop watching her like she's something he wasn't prepared for. And Ella can't stop noticing that behind all that money and control is a man still bleeding from a wound he never talks about.
She didn't come here to fall for anyone.
But some things, it turns out, were never hers to control.
"A dark, slow-burn werewolf romance about the wreckage we build lives from."
7.2
Azura Briggs was just a broke college student working freezing valet shifts to pay her adoptive mother's crushing medical debt.
Her desperate life shattered the night a bulletproof Maybach violently cornered her in an alley, and a ruthless billionaire kidnapped her by mistake.
After a harrowing escape, Azura was forced to take a humiliating "plus-one" gig at a high-end gala just to survive. But her date turned out to be the billionaire's arrogant nephew, who promptly abandoned her to the wolves. Cornered by a sleazy executive and his psychotic wife, Azura was publicly slapped, her dress torn, and left bleeding on the floor while hundreds of elites watched in disgust.
Just as she prepared to fight to the death, the crowd violently parted. Hunter Mcintosh, the terrifying man who had kidnapped her days ago, dropped to his knees in the broken glass and wrapped his bespoke jacket around her trembling shoulders.
Azura was completely paralyzed. Why was the monster who threatened her life now destroying billionaires just to protect her?
But the illusion of safety didn't last. Trapped in his Maybach hours later, Hunter threw a draconian employment contract at her feet.
"Sign it, and her care is covered. Forever."
He knew exactly how to break her. He was offering to pay off her mother's debt, but only if she signed her life away to become his personal assistant. With no other way out, Azura picked up the heavy pen.
9.2
After catching my fiancé cheating with my adoptive sister, I broke off our engagement on the spot.
In retaliation, my abusive adoptive parents sold me to Kaelen Knight, the Lycan King, to clear our pack's debts.
He was rumored to be a ruthless, reclusive monster who had been horribly crippled in a fire centuries ago.
To ensure my absolute ruin, my sister planted fake love letters to my ex in my luggage and anonymously destroyed my university scholarship, cutting off my only escape route to the human world.
"A wolfless whore. You planned to drug me," Kaelen sneered, looking at the fake evidence with absolute disgust.
Believing I was a spy, my new husband had his guards throw me into the freezing woods with the Dire Wolves, leaving me to survive the night alone.
I was just a broken, wolfless Omega, entirely at the mercy of a cruel, powerless Lycan and a family that wanted me dead.
But I was wrong about him being powerless.
One night, I accidentally saw him rise from his wheelchair, his tall frame radiating an overwhelming, lethal aura.
He wasn't crippled at all.
The secret I thought was my shield was actually a loaded gun pointed at my head. Trapped with a terrifying predator, I had to stop playing the victim and fight for my life.
9.6
I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me.
But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest.
The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me.
They didn't.
Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her.
They let me burn to keep her warm.
When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages.
That was the moment Elena Vitiello died.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York.
By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring.
"You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them.
"Burn for it."
7.4
My husband, Rodger Hayes, was a renowned chief negotiator, famous for his integrity and firmness within the circle.
When my son and I were kidnapped, with three hostages at the scene, the kidnappers agreed to release only one.
Among the women and the boy, Rodger should have chosen to save the boy first.
Yet, I heard him saying in Spanish fluently, "Release the woman in white."
His first love, Jolene Chapman, was freed, while my son, Jacob Hayes, died from a gunfire.
Later, Rodger explained the situation flatly. "The kidnappers chose to release Jolene."
I cradled Jacob's ashes and smiled sadly.
Rodger didn't know that I was fluent in Spanish, as I had been a special forces member.
His lies crumbled before me.
My phone vibrated, and I confirmed the encrypted message.
"Falcon returns to base."
9.7
Agent Alivia Sanford opened her eyes to the suffocating stench of wild animal musk and raw sex.
She hadn't just transmigrated into a savage beastman world; she had woken up in the body of a 300-pound, diseased, and universally despised woman. Worse, the original owner had just drugged the tribe's strongest warrior, trying to force a mating.
Now, the warrior pinned her to the cave floor with murderous fury.
"You think you can trap me, you disgusting pig?" he snarled, ready to rip her throat out.
After kneeing him and escaping, a "Super Charm AI" bound to her mind demanded she conquer her five designated mates to survive. But these men treated her like a walking plague. They mocked her bloated face, threw bloody raw meat into the mud for her to eat, and publicly announced they would starve her to death. Even her own family looked at her with utter disgust.
In her past life, she was a legendary survivor who could have crushed these arrogant men with her bare hands. Now, she was trapped in a weak shell, threatened with soul erasure by a system if she didn't grovel for their affection. Why should she beg for love from beasts who wanted her dead?
Looking at the five "-100" hostility scores on her system panel, Alivia coldly drew a mental cross over each of their faces. Enduring agonizing pain, she forced her bio-manipulation ability to violently purge the toxins from her fat body. She wasn't going to play their twisted game; she was going to find her own resources and make them pay.