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 6
Harper POV
The villa sat in a heavy silence, the kind that precedes a scream.
Gianna haunted the hallways in her maid's uniform, a spectre of resentment. She dusted surfaces that already gleamed, her gaze snapping to Bennet like a magnet every time he entered a room.
For his part, Bennet played the benevolent king to perfection.
A hand on my shoulder as he passed. A solicitous inquiry about my comfort. He acted as if bringing his mistress into our home to scrub floors was an act of medical mercy for my fragile mind.
"Drink this, Angel," Bennet said that evening, setting a mug of warm milk on the nightstand. "It will help you sleep. You look pale."
The steam curling from the ceramic carried the scent of nutmeg masking something chemical.
A sedative.
He wanted me unconscious.
"Thank you, Bennet," I whispered, keeping my lashes lowered.
He kissed my forehead, his lips lingering a second too long, before he disappeared into the bathroom.
The moment the shower spray hit the tiles, I moved.
I poured the milk into the potted fern by the window, the soil drinking the white poison instantly.
I wiped the rim of the mug with my thumb, leaving a smudge to mimic use, and placed it back on the coaster.
By the time Bennet emerged, a towel slung low around his hips, I was curled under the duvet, breathing in the slow, rhythmic cadence of deep sleep.
He stood over me.
I felt his gaze like a physical weight pressing down on my skin.
"Sleep well," he murmured.
Then he turned and walked to the balcony doors.
The latch clicked softly.
A rush of cool night air invaded the room, followed immediately by the cloying scent of her perfume.
She was waiting out there.
I opened my eyes to mere slits.
Through the sheer curtains, their silhouettes cut sharp shapes against the moonlight.
Gianna was pressed back against the stone railing. Bennet crowded her space, his hands gripping the stone on either side of her, boxing her in.
"Is she out?" Gianna's voice drifted in, hushed but sharp with impatience.
"Like a light," Bennet replied.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't look back at the wife lying in his bed.
He kissed her.
It wasn't a gentle thing. It was hungry, violent-a release of the tension he kept tightly coiled around me.
I watched his hands roam over her body, claiming her in the open air of my home.
I waited for the sting of tears, but they didn't come.
Instead, I felt the cold, hard click of a lock turning in my chest.
The next day, Bennet left for the city before dawn.
The house felt suffocating in his wake.
I locked myself in my office, sketching with my left hand, refining the lines of a building that would soar away from the earth, defying gravity.
I avoided the kitchen. I avoided the living room.
But the confrontation was inevitable.
Dinner time approached.
My door handle turned.
Gianna walked in without knocking, balancing a silver tray on one hand.
"Dinner, Ma'am," she said, the honorific dripping with acid.
She set the tray on my drafting table, dropping it directly onto a sketch.
Grease from the plate bloomed across the paper.
"Oops," she said, her smile toxic.
"Get out," I said, my voice steady.
Gianna laughed. She circled the desk, trailing her fingers possessively over my supplies.
"You think you're so special," she hissed. "Sitting in here, drawing pictures like a child while the adults run the world."
She leaned in close, her breath hot against my ear.
"I know you saw us last night. I checked through the curtains. Your eyes were open."
My pulse spiked, but I kept my face a mask of indifference.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Liar," she spat. "You watched him fuck me. And you did nothing. Because you are weak. You are a cripple, Harper. Bennet needs a queen, not a broken bird."
She grabbed the tray again.
"He's going to replace you. Fully. Legally. And I'm going to be the one wearing that ring."
She lifted the heavy silver tray high above her head.
Then she hurled it to the floor.
The crash was deafening. Porcelain shattered, sending shards flying like shrapnel. Gravy splattered across the Persian rug.
Gianna immediately dropped to her knees, burying her face in her hands, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
"Help! Please! Don't hit me!"
Footsteps thundered up the stairs.
Bennet burst into the room, his gun drawn, eyes scanning for a threat.
He saw Gianna cowering on the floor amidst the wreckage. He saw me standing behind the desk, motionless.
"What happened?" Bennet roared.
Gianna looked up, tears streaming down her face with impressive speed.
"She... she threw it at me, Bennet! She said I was trying to poison her! She tried to hit me with the tray!"
Bennet holstered his gun.
He looked at the mess. He looked at Gianna.
Then he looked at me.
I braced myself for the blow. I braced myself for his rage.
But Bennet's eyes were cold, calculating.
He walked over to Gianna, grabbed her by the arm, and hauled her to her feet.
"Get out," he growled.
Gianna stopped crying instantly, confusion fracturing her performance. "What?"
"I said get out," Bennet shouted, shoving her toward the door. "You upset my wife. You caused a scene. Pack your things. You are leaving this house tonight."
Gianna's jaw dropped. "But Bennet-"
"Now!"
He slammed the door in her face.
He turned to me, his chest heaving.
"I am sorry, Angel," he said, stalking toward me. "I thought she could handle it. I thought she learned her place. I will remove her. You won't see her again."
He pulled me into a hug.
I stood stiff in his arms.
Why?
Why defend me?
Later that night, I found the answer.
I was in the walk-in closet, pretending to organize my shoes. I had the ring pressed to the wall, listening.
Bennet was in the hallway, on the phone.
"Stop crying, Gianna," his voice filtered through, distorted but clear.
"You kicked me out!" she wailed. "You chose her!"
"I chose peace," Bennet snapped. "She was getting suspicious. If she snaps, she becomes a liability. I need her docile until the divorce papers are signed and the assets are transferred."
My blood ran cold.
"So I am really leaving?" Gianna asked, her voice small.
"You are going to the townhouse," Bennet said, his tone dropping to a manipulative purr. "Think of it as freedom. No more sneaking around. Just you and me, whenever I can get away. We are the real couple, Gianna. She is just the signature I need."
I lowered the ring.
He hadn't saved me.
He was just managing his assets.
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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.