Replaced By A Mistress: The Wife's Revenge
I went to the City Clerk's office to update my passport, desperate to feel alive again after losing my ability to draw.
Instead, the clerk handed me a reality that killed me.
"Mrs. Crosby," she whispered, her face drained of color. "You aren't married to Bennet. The divorce was finalized three years ago. On October 12th."
The date hit me harder than a physical blow.
October 12th was the day my right hand was crushed.
The day Gianna Skinner, a woman obsessed with my husband, shattered twenty-seven bones in my drawing hand with a marble bust.
Bennet, the most ruthless Don in New York, had promised me justice. He swore he locked Gianna in a dungeon to rot for hurting his "Angel."
But the screen in front of me told a different story.
He had married Gianna the very same day he divorced me.
I drove to the Lake House where she was supposed to be suffering. I didn't find a prison; I found a modern glass palace.
There they were, sitting on a swing set I had designed.
Gianna wasn't rotting. She was laughing in his lap, wearing a silk robe.
"She is so pathetic," Gianna purred, tracing his jaw. "Five years and she still thinks she is the Lady of the house."
Bennet chuckled, the sound dark and terrifying.
"She is broken, Gianna. A bird with no wings. She has no value to the Family anymore, except as a trophy on my shelf. She is my pet. You are my fire."
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Bennet.
"Happy Anniversary, my Angel. Tonight, I give you the world."
He wasn't giving me the world. He was building a cage out of lies.
Through a bugged ring, I later heard his endgame: he planned to institutionalize me for "mental instability" so he could bring Gianna into the light.
I didn't go home to cry.
I went to my office and opened a secure browser on the dark web.
*Subject: Protocol Erasure.*
*Target: Harper Cline.*
*Execution: Immediate.*
Bennet thought he had broken his pet.
He was about to realize he had just unleashed a lioness.
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Chapter 4
Harper POV
The red silk gown was tight enough to cut off my circulation-exactly the way Bennet liked it.
He had chosen it, of course.
"Red is the color of passion," he had murmured as he zipped it up my spine, his knuckles grazing my skin.
"Red is the color of blood," I had thought, staring into the vanity mirror.
We swept into the ballroom of the Crosby-owned hotel for the Anniversary Gala, a space that was dripping with crystals and gold.
Five hundred of New York's elite had gathered to celebrate a marriage that didn't exist outside of photo ops.
Bennet's hand was a steel vise on my lower back, steering me through the crowd.
He paraded me around like a prize pony he was considering putting down.
"Smile, Angel," he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. "Everyone is watching."
I forced my lips upward.
It felt like chewing on broken glass.
That was when I noticed the waitresses.
They were all wearing elaborate Venetian masquerade masks, obscuring half their faces.
"Why the masks?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice light.
"A theme," Bennet said dismissively, tightening his grip. "So no one outshines you, my dear."
Liar.
It was so he could hide her in plain sight.
I scanned the room, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I saw her near the champagne tower.
The platinum blonde hair was unmistakable, even beneath the feathers and lace.
She was watching us.
Her eyes were burning holes into my dress, dissecting me.
She moved with a predatory grace, carrying a tray of crystal flutes.
As she passed a group of older Dons, she stumbled.
It was theatrical.
Fake.
The tray crashed to the floor. Glass shattered, and champagne soaked the polished shoes of a Capo.
The room went silent.
Bennet released me instantly.
"Excuse me," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low register. "I need to handle this incompetence."
He marched over to the masked waitress.
He grabbed her upper arm-hard enough to bruise.
"My office," he growled, loud enough for the surrounding guests to hear. "Now."
He dragged her out of the ballroom, playing the part of the perfectionist host.
The guests whispered behind their hands.
I waited ten seconds, then followed.
I knew the layout of this hotel better than anyone. I had designed it, after all.
I slipped into the service corridor.
When I reached the executive meeting room, the door was slightly ajar.
I didn't need to see to know what was happening.
I heard the soft, desperate moans.
I peeked through the crack.
Bennet had her pressed against the mahogany conference table, her legs wrapped around him.
Her mask was off, discarded on the floor.
They were devouring each other.
"You bad girl," Bennet groaned, his voice thick with lust. "You embarrassed me on purpose."
"Punish me," Gianna begged, arching into him.
I turned away.
I didn't feel jealousy.
I felt a cold, heavy disgust.
I returned to the ballroom just as Bennet walked back in, adjusting his tie with practiced ease.
He looked flushed, energized.
He took the stage, commanding the room.
"My friends," he announced, raising a glass. "Tonight, I honor my wife. To celebrate five years, I am gifting her the deed to this very hotel."
Applause erupted, deafening and hollow.
He handed me a leather folder.
It was a prop.
Just like me.
As I stepped down from the stage, Gianna appeared from the shadows near the stairs.
She was still in her waitress uniform, but her mask was gone, her lipstick smeared.
She walked straight at me.
She didn't slow down.
As we crossed paths, she slammed her shoulder into my chest.
"Oops," she sneered, her voice a venomous whisper.
I stumbled back, the heel of my shoe catching on the hem of my gown.
Bennet was there instantly.
But he didn't catch me.
He reached out and steadied Gianna.
"Watch where you are going," he snapped at me.
The shove from his rejection hit harder than the physical blow.
Thrown off balance, I fell backward.
My head cracked against the sharp marble corner of a pillar.
Pain exploded behind my eyes.
Black spots danced in my vision.
The last thing I saw was Bennet holding Gianna's waist, looking down at me with cold annoyance, before the darkness took me.
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7.8
The moment I saw my husband massaging his dead brother's pregnant mistress's feet, I knew my marriage was over.
He moved her into our home under the guise of "family duty," forcing me to watch as he prioritized her comfort over our vows.
The final betrayal came when she stole and deliberately broke my mother's priceless necklace.
When I slapped her for the desecration, my husband struck me across the face to defend her.
He had violated a sacred honor code by putting his hands on the daughter of another Don-an act of war.
I looked him in the eye and swore on my mother's grave that I would bring a bloody revenge upon his entire family.
Then I made one phone call to my father, and the demolition of his empire began.
8.1
I died once. Betrayed, broken, and discarded by the most powerful man in New York.
Now, I'm back. Reborn on the very day my husband, Dante Moretti, handed me an expulsion agreement. But this time, I know his secret. The coldness in his eyes isn't cruelty; it's a slow-acting poison, a betrayal creeping through his veins, fed to him by those closest to him.
This time, I don't cower. I meet his icy command with a slap and an ultimatum: I carry his heir. To cast me out is to sentence his own bloodline to death.
He is the untouchable Don, a king on a poisoned throne, fighting a war within his own mind. I am the ghost of the queen he tried to break, armed with the memories of our enemies' every move.
I won't be a pawn in their game again. I will dismantle them all, from my treacherous sister to the viper he calls a mother. I will be the queen he needs, even if he fights me every step of the way.
It's a vendetta.
8.7
Synopsis:
She thought she could forget him by morning. She was wrong.
Catherine Moretti wanted to escape her past.
As the daughter of a powerful mafia boss, her life was full of danger, lies, and control. So she ran, hoping to start over, far from the world she was born into.
But one reckless night turned her life upside down, just to find out later she's pregnant with the hot Italian stranger's baby, the one she spent the night with!
Now, she's pulled back into the mafia world, only this time, into Nico's.
She ran from one mafia king... and ended up in the arms of his enemy
However, Nico isn't the kind of man you walk away from.
And in his world, one night can turn into forever.
8.1
I was the top trauma surgeon at the city’s busiest hospital until my family decided I was nothing more than a disposal fee. I stood in my father’s mahogany-lined study, staring at a two-hundred-thousand-dollar check that was meant to buy my silence and my dignity.
"Sign the confession, Aurelia," my father demanded, the silver cigar cutter snapping with a violent finality. They wanted me to take the fall for a medical error I never committed, all to protect my sister Dominique’s image before her high-profile merger with the Blackburn family.
When I refused to sign my life away, the betrayal turned lethal. My sister planted a priceless sapphire heirloom in my bag and called the security team to search me in front of my ex-fiancé. My mother watched with cold indifference as I was branded a thief, and my father threatened to pull the plug on my grandmother’s nursing home payments by noon if I didn't vanish.
I was thrown out into a freezing rainstorm with a revoked medical license, a battered suitcase, and exactly forty-two dollars to my name. Even the man I once loved looked at me with pity, believing I had stooped to grand larceny because I was jealous of my sister’s success.
I stood at a bus stop, shivering and broken, wondering how my own blood could trade my truth for a corporate PR stunt. They had taken my career, my home, and my reputation, leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my back and a burning need for justice.
Desperate to protect my grandmother, I sought out the one man they all feared: Avery Blackburn, the "monster" CEO rumored to be a brain-damaged vegetable. But the man I found in the shadows of the VIP wing wasn't a victim; he was a wolf waiting for the right moment to strike.
"I need a shield, and you need a wife," he rasped, sliding a titanium card across the desk. I didn't hesitate to sign the marriage certificate. The Blanchards think they’ve discarded a liability, but they’re about to find out what happens when you give a desperate surgeon a billionaire’s scalpel.
8.7
Heidi gripped the sterile hospital bedsheets as violent contractions ripped her body apart.
The heavy door opened, but it wasn't the doctor. It was Brigette, wearing the exact custom wedding dress Heidi had spent six months designing for herself.
Brigette held up her phone on speaker. When the doctor warned that a natural delivery would kill the mother, Christian Page's voice echoed through the room, ice-cold and devoid of any warmth.
"Prioritize the Page heirs. Let her die."
The man she loved had just signed her death warrant over the phone.
Brigette stole her newborn twins, dragged her to an abandoned warehouse, and poured gasoline over her bare legs.
Flicking a lit cigar into the puddle, Brigette left Heidi tied to an iron pillar to burn alive.
But as the flames formed a deadly circle around her, Heidi's body convulsed with a terrifying truth.
In the heart of the blazing inferno, she miraculously gave birth to two more babies she didn't know she was carrying.
Using her own back as a human shield against the falling embers, she survived the fire, but the ultimate betrayal burned deeper than her ruined skin.
Four years later, Heidi returned to New York with a reconstructed face, two brilliant children, and a terrifying new identity as the world's top underground surgeon.
When Christian, entirely unaware of who she was, signed a waiver begging her to save his dying grandfather's life, Heidi looked into his desperate eyes with absolute, clinical boredom.
"The game starts now," she said coldly.
9.5
On her second wedding anniversary, Andrea Reed discovers the ultimate betrayal.
Her husband wants a divorce. Her stepsister is his mistress.And the family empire she protected is nothing more than a prize they've been plotting to steal. Before she can fight back, Andrea is pushed off a cliff-pregnant, broken, and filled with regret.
But death isn't the end. She wakes up five years in the past. Her father is alive. Her inheritance is still in her hands. And the man who killed her is smiling like he's in love.
This time, Andrea won't be naive. She plays the perfect fiancée while secretly collecting evidence, turns traps into public humiliation. She lets her enemies destroy themselves from within.
And when a powerful, dangerously enigmatic billionaire-Samuel Kingswell-crosses her path again, Andrea realizes something even more terrifying than betrayal: In her first life, she chose the wrong man.
In this life, she will choose power and revenge, make them beg before they fall. Because this time, the woman they tried to kill is no longer a victim.
She is the hunter.