The Billionaire's Most Painful Regret
I was the wife of the De Luca crime family's Underboss, a beautiful statue whose only purpose was to produce an heir. But after five years, my body had failed.
The day my husband, Alessandro, told me I was barren, he also introduced me to my replacement. He called her a "vessel," a temporary arrangement, but I saw the infatuation in his eyes.
He promised it was just business, but soon he was calling me a "cold statue" behind my back while spending every night with her. The ultimate humiliation came at my birthday party. When a champagne fountain shattered and sliced my arm open, he ignored me bleeding on the floor to shield her instead.
In front of his entire family, the Underboss chose his mistress over his wife.
He left me there, my honor shattered as completely as the glass. I was no longer just a failed wife. I was an obstacle. And in our world, obstacles are removed.
But my arrogant husband didn't know his own father had a contingency plan to protect me. While he was distracted by his mistress's fake pregnancy, he unknowingly signed our divorce papers. My disappearance was no longer an escape; it was the start of my revenge.
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Chapter 3
Seraphina POV:
The air in the penthouse grew thick, suffocating me with the scent of lilies and lies. The sight of Alessandro's hand tracing a slow path down Aria's spine, the possessive gleam in his eyes as he watched her, pushed me to the edge. I needed to escape.
I slipped away from the party, finding refuge in a small, darkened alcove that overlooked the city. The glittering skyline was a cold comfort.
From the shadows, I saw them. Alessandro pulled Aria into the hallway, his back to me. His movements were urgent, desperate. I heard the rustle of her dress, then his voice, a low growl that vibrated with a passion he had never shown me.
"God, you're so alive," he murmured against her skin. "Not like her. She's just a perfect, cold statue."
He kissed her then, a hungry, bruising kiss that was all about possession. I saw his hand slide a box into hers. A Cartier bracelet. A transaction. A payment for services rendered.
My heart didn't break. It turned to stone.
I forced myself to walk back into the party, my posture perfect, my expression serene. A Donna to the very end. I saw Aria preening, the fresh love bite on her neck a vulgar trophy.
Emboldened by Alessandro's attention, she approached me, a triumphant smirk on her lips. In front of two Capos' wives, she held out her empty glass.
"Pour me a drink, Seraphina," she demanded, her voice loud enough for everyone to hear. It was a power play, a public humiliation.
I met her gaze, my own as cold as the grave. "No."
The single word hung in the air. Flustered by my refusal, she took a clumsy step back, her heel catching on the rug. She stumbled, crashing into the towering fountain of champagne glasses.
The sound was like a gunshot. Shards of glass exploded outwards. A sharp, searing pain shot up my arm as a piece of crystal sliced through the silk of my dress. I fell, the impact jarring my bones.
In that split second, everything slowed down. I saw Alessandro. He was moving, but not toward me. He shoved past my fallen form, his body a human shield, and wrapped himself around Aria, protecting her from the falling glass.
He chose her.
In front of his Capos, his soldiers, and their wives, the Underboss of the De Luca family chose his mistress over his Donna. He left me bleeding on the floor, my honor shattered as completely as the champagne fountain.
No one moved to help me. They were all watching him.
I rose on my own, my arm dripping blood onto the white marble. Ignoring the stares, the whispers, the sudden, sharp intake of breath from the women who had once envied me, I walked out.
Alone, I went to the family's private clinic to have my wound stitched. The nurse was silent, her eyes full of pity I didn't want.
As she was finishing, the door opened. Alessandro walked in, but he didn't look at me. He was leading Aria by the hand, his face a mask of concern. He gently brushed a stray piece of glass from her hair, his touch tender, his voice a low murmur of reassurance. A tenderness he had never, not once, shown me.
I was no longer just a failed asset. I was a liability. An obstacle to be removed.
Donato's "Purification" plan was no longer an escape. It was survival.
And in the sterile silence of that clinic, watching the man who was my husband tend to the woman who had replaced me, the cold fire of a true vendetta finally ignited in my soul.
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7.9
One night of deception.
A lifetime of consequences.
A bond that cannot be broken.
Nadia Williams is an Omega living in the shadows of the pack she once called home.
Since her father's death, she and her mother, Estelle, have been treated as outcasts by her ruthless uncle, Alpha Edwards. When her mother is framed for theft, Nadia is forced into a deal with the devil.
To save her mother's life, she must become a virgin substitute for her cousin, Danielle.
Her aunt, Katerina, offers a devil's bargain to set her mother free: Nadia must spend one night in the bed of the most powerful man in the country, the billionaire; Alpha Conrad Bradley.
The catch?
She must swap places with her spiteful cousin.
Conrad demands a virgin bride to secure his royal bloodline, and Danielle, Nadia's cruel cousin, has already forfeited her purity.
What begins as a desperate night of passion in the dark spirals into a web of hidden identities and betrayal.
Nadia survives the night and disappears, hoping to bury the shame of the encounter forever.
But fate has a different plan.
Desperate for a fresh start away from her uncle's shadow, Nadia secures a high-level position at Bradley Group of Industries.
As Alpha Conrad unknowingly hires Nadia at his company, an undeniable connection sparks between them.
Conrad is haunted by the scent of the woman from that night-a scent that doesn't match his fiancée, Danielle, but seems to cling to his new, brilliant employee.
As they work side-by-side, Nadia finds an unexpected and beautiful second chance at a life she thought was lost.
Yet, buried secrets threaten to destroy everything.
When the Alpha discovers the woman he truly bonded with, the fallout will be legendary.
9.7
Eliana Rivera is the firstborn daughter of business tycoon Cassian Rivera. When her father's company falls into debt, he marries her off to the arrogant and ruthless billionaire, Alexander Grayson, as part of a business contract and under the threat of blackmail.
Alexander, the billionaire CEO, never planned to marry, but the pressure of blackmail forces him into a union with a woman he barely knows. Although Eliana doesn't see Alexander as her ideal partner, she agrees to the marriage out of a sense of duty.
Once engaged, however, he barely acknowledges her presence and harbours disdain for her because of her father's actions and their relationship. But as they navigate their newfound relationship, the unexpected desire for each other's touch ignites-a twist neither of them planned, leading them toward an unforeseen love.
7.4
My mother was dying and desperately needed a half-million-dollar deposit for an experimental heart surgery by tomorrow.
I swallowed my pride and begged my wealthy husband, Garrick, to save her life.
Instead of helping, he laughed coldly and threw a thick stack of divorce papers right in my face.
"A hen that can't lay eggs gets slaughtered," he sneered, ruthlessly poking my flat stomach.
He revealed that his secretary, my supposed friend Lacey, was already pregnant with his heir.
To him, our three years of marriage was just a business transaction, and now that my family was bankrupt, I was nothing but damaged goods.
He flicked a humiliating five-thousand-dollar check at me as his final act of charity, then locked me out of our townhouse into the freezing, pouring rain.
I had spent years enduring agonizing hormone treatments for a fertility issue that wasn't even my fault, only to be discarded like trash when I needed him the most.
Was my dignity, my absolute devotion, and my mother's life really worth nothing to him?
Driven by pure, reckless desperation, I threw myself directly into the path of a moving Rolls-Royce Phantom on Fifth Avenue.
It belonged to Holden Tillman, the ruthless patriarch of the Tillman empire—and the uncle Garrick lived in absolute terror of.
I thought I was walking into my death, but instead, I became his fiancée, ready to make Garrick and Lacey pay for every tear I shed.
7.5
I was Jocelyn Cruz, heiress to a billion-dollar empire, and I was supposed to marry my childhood sweetheart, Jake. My father had groomed him to be my king, and our life was a storybook romance.
But just before my 25th birthday gala, I saw him kissing Djuna-the fragile orphan my father took in, the woman I treated like a sister.
Their betrayal ran deeper than I could imagine. They drugged me to cause a riding accident, then gaslit me to make me think I was losing my mind. At a public auction, Jake froze my accounts and bought a family heirloom I cherished, only to gift it to her in front of everyone, leaving me broken and humiliated.
He wanted to shatter me, to turn me into a mindless puppet he could control.
So when he played a secret video of me crying for him at my own birthday party, I didn't break. Instead, I smiled. Because I had my own recordings, and I was about to show everyone the vipers he and his "true love" really were.
8.8
I was the invisible failure of the Goff family, hiding my medical genius behind a report card full of Fs and a slumped posture. One rainy night, I found a man bleeding out in a dark alley behind the school gymnasium, a knife protruding from his gut.
To keep the police from digging into my secrets, I dragged the dying stranger to my bedroom and stitched him up using a hidden surgical kit. I thought I was being careful, but my cousin Cleora caught a glimpse of the blood and immediately alerted my fiancé's wealthy family.
By morning, my world collapsed as my future in-laws stormed the manor, throwing an annulment agreement at my feet. They called me a "loose woman" and "million-dollar trash," while my own housekeeper gleefully testified against me. At school, the word "SLUT" was spray-painted across my locker in jagged red letters, and the boy I was supposed to marry looked at me with nothing but cold revulsion.
I didn't understand why they were so eager to destroy me before even asking for the truth. I was the one who had spent years protecting this family's reputation, yet they were throwing me to the wolves over a single misunderstanding. I felt a surge of cold fury as I realized my loyalty had been met with nothing but betrayal.
Everything changed when the "dying" stranger finally walked down the stairs, shirtless and bandaged, revealing himself as Braylon Lancaster, the most powerful man in the city. He didn't just defend me; he froze my fiancé's entire family fortune with a single phone call.
As my in-laws fled in terror, a courier arrived with a five-carat pink diamond from the head of the city's most dangerous crime syndicate. The note read: "The debt is acknowledged." Suddenly, I wasn't just a failure anymore-I was the most sought-after woman in the underworld.
8.5
Kaelyn spent three years believing Andrew loved her completely, until one overheard conversation shattered everything.
He had never returned for her. He had come back to save another woman, even if it meant taking Kaelyn's heart.
Humiliated and done with loving alone, she agreed to marry Theodore, the blind yet powerful heir chosen by his grandfather.
After the wedding, no matter how many times she tried, she just couldn't get past his walls.
Then at a banquet, her desperate ex came begging. Before Kaelyn could react, Theodore drew her into his arms and murmured, "Giving up already? Try again. I'm ready to surrender."