My Dead Husband Returned With Another Woman
Three years after I buried an empty casket for my husband, I found him alive in a grocery store parking lot.
He was rubbing a stranger's pregnant belly, smiling a soft smile I had never seen in our years of marriage.
My husband, the ruthless Don of Chicago, had become "Arthur," a gentle man with no memory of the empire he ruled or the wife he left behind.
To protect his happiness, I swallowed my agony and lied.
"I am his cousin," I told his pregnant fiancée, Mia.
I brought them home to his estate, enduring the torture of watching him give her the tenderness that used to belong to me.
But my mercy was rewarded with cruelty.
Dante looked at me with cold, unfamiliar eyes and slapped divorce papers onto the table.
"Sign them," he demanded, his voice devoid of emotion. "I want to marry Mia before the baby comes. I want a fresh start."
He didn't know I was dying of a heart defect caused by the stress of grieving him.
He didn't know I stalled for two weeks not for money, but because I wanted to be buried with his name.
I died the morning the deadline arrived, taking the secret of my love to the grave.
Ironically, that very night, a bullet grazed his temple during an ambush, unlocking the memories he had lost.
He remembered the peach orchard. He remembered our blood oath. He remembered that I was his soulmate.
He ran to my brother’s gates, screaming my name, blood pouring down his face, desperate to beg for forgiveness.
But my brother just stood there, blocking the entrance to the cemetery with a cruel smile.
"She waited for you every single day," he spat.
"And you killed her."
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Chapter 11
Elena POV
The scent of peaches was so strong it made my mouth water, heavy and sweet in the air.
I was back in the orchard on the Vitiello estate.
The sun was high and hot, baking the earth, releasing the heady perfume of ripe fruit and dry grass.
I was twenty-one.
My white sundress danced around my legs, catching the warm breeze.
Dante was walking toward me between the rows of trees.
Gone was the tailored suit.
Instead, he was dressed in tactical gear, black and heavy, smelling of gun oil and leather.
He had just come from the shooting range.
He looked dangerous.
He looked like a god of war who had stumbled into a garden.
He stopped in front of me, blocking out the sun, casting me in his shadow.
He didn't smile often, but his eyes were warm when they landed on me.
"What are you looking at, Principessa?" he asked, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in my chest.
He reached out and tapped the tip of my nose with a calloused finger.
A silent, playful gesture.
I laughed, swatting his hand away, but the humor faded quickly.
"I'm looking at my husband," I said. "You're leaving soon."
His face grew serious, the warmth in his eyes dimming slightly.
"Just a dispute in Chicago. I'll be back before the peaches rot."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the silver locket.
It was cool against my palm.
"Take this," I said. "So you remember who is waiting for you."
He took it.
His thumb brushed over the engraving.
E & D.
"I don't need silver to remember you, Elena," he said.
"Take it anyway."
He opened his hand.
In his palm sat a ring.
It was thick, silver, matching the locket's design.
"I had this made," he said. "A matching set. One stays with you. The other goes with me."
He slid the ring onto my finger.
It fit perfectly.
"This is our promise," he whispered, leaning his forehead against mine. "Wherever I am, this brings me back to you. Until death."
"Until death," I repeated.
He kissed me.
It tasted like peaches and gunpowder.
It tasted like eternity.
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7.8
Helen was finally brought back to the luxurious Gallagher estate as their long-lost blood relative.
But her new family didn't welcome her; they looked at her with undisguised disgust.
The matriarch mocked her stench of poverty, while her step-sister Candice treated her like a feral animal. The patriarch, Fredy—who had built his empire by betraying Helen's mother—tried to break her spirit. He blackmailed Helen into attending a high-society gala by threatening to cut off her grandmother's medical funds.
At the gala, Candice squeezed into a diamond-encrusted gown, desperate to seduce the guest of honor, Damian Montgomery. Damian was the most powerful man in New York, and he was currently tearing the city apart looking for a mysterious woman named Jane.
Overhearing this, a sick, greedy smile spread across Candice's face. She planned to impersonate Jane to claim Damian's wealth and completely crush Helen under her heel.
"Hide in the corner tonight. Don't you dare try to speak to anyone important!"
They all thought Helen was just a helpless, uncultured country girl they could easily manipulate and step on to secure their stolen legacy.
What they didn't know was that Helen was the real Jane. She was the lethal shadow who had saved Damian in the woods, shattered his grip, and robbed his highly guarded vault just the night before.
Helen calmly adjusted her simple black dress and stepped into the ballroom, ready to tear their stolen world apart.
7.6
I was arranging white lilies on the cold marble of my husband's grave when I saw a ghost.
Walking through the cemetery gates was a man who looked exactly like my dead husband, Dante.
Logic said it was his twin brother, Matteo. But a wife knows the slope of a man's shoulders. She knows the arrogant tilt of his chin.
My husband hadn't been blown up in a car bomb three years ago.
He had faked his death to steal his brother's rank, his fortune, and his mistress.
For three years, I had forced our son, Leo, to kiss a photograph goodnight. We lived in a damp, peeling apartment, surviving on the "charity" of the Family.
Meanwhile, Dante was living in a mansion, driving cars that cost more than my life, playing house with another woman.
When he came to our cramped apartment to drop off the monthly "pension" money, pretending to be Uncle Matteo, he didn't look at me with love. He looked at his watch.
When Leo ran to hug him, shouting "Papa," Dante peeled the boy's small arms off his expensive suit like he was removing a piece of lint.
"Don't call me that," he snapped. "I am your Uncle."
My grief turned into ice. He chose another woman's comfort over his own son's hunger.
I grabbed Leo's hand and walked out the door.
"You walk away, and you get nothing!" Dante shouted after me. "You'll be on the street!"
I didn't stop. I walked straight to the black SUV idling at the curb.
The window rolled down, revealing Salvatore Vitiello. The Don. The most lethal man in the city.
"Get in, Elena," he commanded.
I opened the door and slid onto the leather seat next to the devil himself.
As we drove away, leaving my husband in the dust, I realized I had just traded a liar for a killer.
And I didn't regret it for a second.
8.7
My new boss is gorgeous, arrogant, and filthy rich.
The only problem?
He doesn't know he's also the father of my baby.
Six years ago, I was supposed to get married.
But the night before the wedding, my groom-to-be showed me sides of himself I'd never seen before.
I might've died in that hotel room...
If Mikhail Novikov hadn't burst in to save me.
Handsome, strong, capable knight in shining armor-sign me up, right?
WRONG.
Because Mikhail wasn't just the hero I never knew I needed...
He was also way more dangerous than I ever could've known.
But for one night, I let myself do something I never should've done.
It was worth it-several times over, if you catch my drift.
In the morning, though, I did the reasonable
I RAN.
For six years, I keep running.
Until I walk into work one day, and find my new boss waiting in my office.
Guess who?
And guess what he does when finds out about our baby?
8.3
I stood before the altar of the grand gothic cathedral, about to marry Julian Moretti, the grieving adopted son stepping up for the comatose Don.
To the hundreds of mafia men behind us, it was a dutiful wedding. But I knew the horrifying truth.
Julian and his pregnant mistress, Clara, had orchestrated a brutal plot to steal my dowry and secure his place as the next Don.
In my past life, I was completely blind to their betrayal. Julian trapped me in our apartment and set it ablaze.
I could still feel the blistering heat of the fire. I could still hear my mother’s agonizing screams and my little brother Antonio’s desperate coughing as the smoke filled our lungs.
My entire family was burned alive just so Julian could swap the brides and put his whore in my place.
I died in pure agony, filled with hatred and despair, wondering why I had trusted a monster.
God hadn't saved me from those flames. The Devil had.
And he sent me back to this exact moment at the altar.
"Do you, Isabella Rossi, take Julian Moretti to be your lawfully wedded husband?" the priest asked.
Julian reached for my hand with a sickeningly gentle smile.
I didn't give it to him. I tore back my lace veil and turned to face the crowd.
"You are mistaken, Father," I said, my voice like ice. "The man I am bound to marry is your Don. Damien Moretti."
9.6
[R-18 | MATURE CONTENT]
Sasha thought saving a stranger would be the most dangerous thing she'd ever done.
She found him half-dead on the shore of her quiet island-bleeding, unconscious, and with no memory of who he was. Out of kindness, she brought him home, cared for his wounds, and gave him a place in her life.
Days turned into months.
The mysterious man with dark eyes and quiet strength slowly became her everything. In the small warmth of her seaside home, they built something that felt real-something that felt like love.
Until the morning he disappeared without a trace.
No goodbye. No explanation.
Years later, Sasha learns the truth.
The man she saved isn't a helpless stranger.
He is one of the most feared mafia bosses in Russia... and his amnesia was never real.
Now she's trapped in his world-far from the sea she calls home-and the man she once loved offers her a dangerous deal. One that ties her fate to his once again.
Was every touch just part of his plan?
Or is the ruthless mafia king hiding the same man who once held her like she was his entire world?
Sasha only knows one thing for certain.
Saving him was never the mistake.
Falling in love with him might have been.
After all... she accidentally adopted a mafia boss.
9.1
I woke up strapped to a freezing operating table, a gaping hole crudely sutured over my heart.
Joi Rocha, my supposed guardian, stood nearby holding a glowing vial that contained my freshly extracted Phoenix gene sequence.
"Don't blame me, sweetheart. Gayla's body is just too weak. She needs this sequence more than you do."
In my past life, I endured years of illegal biological harvests for this family. My fiancé Brennon watched with cold eyes as they ripped the gene from my chest, while the elite academy students filmed and mocked my bleeding, broken body. They stripped me of my status, drained every drop of my worth, and left me to die in a freezing tomb just so their precious fake daughter could thrive.
Until my dying breath, I didn't understand. I had given them my absolute loyalty, so why was I treated like disposable medical waste? Why did my life mean absolutely nothing to them?
But opening my eyes again, I realized I had returned to the exact day they stole my core.
This time, I didn't cry or beg. I stared dead into Joi's eyes and smiled.
I detonated the residual energy in my chest to incinerate Gayla's stolen sequence, faked my own flatline, and injected myself with a hidden dark matter drive to completely rewrite my DNA.
If they wanted to play God with my life, I was going to burn their entire world to ash.