Karl Doenitz And The Last Days Of The Third Reich

The wedding had been postponed ninety-nine times. I called the wedding planner and told them to change the bride's name to Ivy Sterling, Charles Hart's childhood sweetheart. "Donna, are you sure?" the planner asked cautiously. "This time, the Don didn't postpone again." I heard the surprise in his voice. My answer was calm. "Yes. Change it to Ivy Sterling." From the very beginning, Charles gave only one instruction for the wedding: "Adjust the decorations according to Ivy's taste." He explained that Ivy had good taste, that she would only serve as a reference for our wedding. But every choice, the flowers, the favors, the entrance music, was made by Ivy. Even my wedding dress. She had said lightly, "A mermaid silhouette suits her better." So I decided to give the entire wedding, steeped in her presence, to them. And I walked away from this farce completely. From now on, let him keep his old dreams. I will go and enjoy my own boundless sky.

Vincenzo Moretti was Stonehaven’s youngest financial titan— a tech mogul commanding a multibillion-dollar empire, gracing the covers of business magazines as a modern legend. But only a select few knew the truth: he was also the ruthless Don controlling the East Coast mafia. To him, wealth and power were mere chips in a game. And I? I was just another pawn used to stabilize a fragile family alliance. In our ten-year marriage, he slept with my friends, my coworkers… every single person I once trusted. Then one morning, as I took our one-month-old baby for a routine checkup, Sienna Newton, his latest mistress, ran me down with her car. The baby screamed endlessly. I begged her to take us to the hospital, and when Vincenzo arrived, he looked at me with cold disdain. “Isabella,” he sneered, “when did you learn to stage accidents? “Even if you died here, I wouldn’t bat an eye.” Then he took Sienna’s hand and walked away without a backward glance. By the time I was rushed to the hospital, the child in my arms had suffocated. Upon hearing the news, my mother suffered a heart attack. She didn’t survive. I slipped into a coma for two days. When I finally woke up, I found out that Vincenzo never visited. Instead, his father, Renato Moretti, the true king of the Moretti empire, stood by my bedside. I looked at him calmly and said, “Let me go. Whatever I owed your family, I’ve repaid in full with two lives.” Later, that same Don who had once looked down on me knelt before me, begging me to come home. But I was no longer the woman who waited, silent and broken, for his change of heart. I was the Don’s wife who turned away and never looked back.

I gave Julian Marchetti thirty years of my life after the war ended. I built his empire, raised his children, and held the family together behind the scenes. But when he died, his will didn’t even mention my name. Half his fortune went to our children. The other half went to Lydia Carter, the daughter of the man who’d saved his life in Normandy. The same Lydia who’d stolen my identity.The same Lydia who’d built her entire life on the ruins of mine. All he left me was a single note, scrawled in his familiar handwriting. I loved you. We had thirty good years. But I owe Lydia. This is the least I can do. I dropped dead of a heart attack right there in his study, clutching that pathetic piece of paper. When I opened my eyes again, I was reborn in 1945, when the war had just ended This time I will not swallow my anger and suffer in silence; I will fight back. And I will take back every single thing that is rightfully mine.

My best friend and my husband, Lorenzo Bartoli, fought every time they met. Lorenzo was the Don of the family, while my best friend was his Consigliere. She always fiercely opposed his most ruthless, high-risk decisions. Tempers explode every single time. But there was one rule that they both agreed on without any hesitation. No one was allowed to touch me. Because of them, no one in the city dared to cross me. Until the fifth month of my pregnancy, when I went down to the basement vault to organize Lorenzo's guns for him. I opened the safe to see stacks of letters, hundreds of them, all unsent. I picked one up. The moment I opened the letter, cold dread overwhelmed me. The receiver of the letter wasn't me. [My dearest Sofia…] I quickly scanned downward to the final lines of the letter. [If I don't make it back alive, everything in the Swissie accounts goes to you. As for Vittoria, she's a good woman, but I have never loved her.] With trembling hands, I tore open the rest of the letters like a hysterical woman. Three hundred of them in total. Every single one was addressed to Sofia Finzi. Sofia was not a stranger. She was my best friend.

The day I learned the family's secretary had been Richard's mistress for three years, I called off the wedding without a second thought. Heartsick, I took a family flight and moved out to the West Coast, only to walked straight into an ambush. When they had me surrounded, Richard appeared out of nowhere and threw himself in front of the bullet meant for me. He ordered his most trusted guards to keep me alive, whatever it cost. Dying, he stared deep into my eyes. "Elise, I have no right to ask your forgiveness. Just live. Live well, and let me love you properly in the next." The sea ran high and wild that day, and they never found his body. By the time the rescue boat pulled me out of the water, I had already cried myself hoarse. After that I lived to eighty, carrying the guilt of him every single day. Then I opened my eyes again and found myself back, before he had ever betrayed me. This time, before I could even speak, he fired Charlotte right in front of me. Apart from family business, his greatest interest was cooking dinner for me. Everyone marveled at it. The Don himself, Richard, loved Elise nearly to the point of madness. And then, the night before our wedding, I heard his thoughts. [I'm finally about to have Elise.] [This time I can't let her find out Charlotte exists.]

I was the Falcone family's top consigliere. Their brain. And today, I was walking away—handing over the books to every legitimate business I ran, severing my final tie. My protégé couldn't understand. "You're the future of this family, Aurelia. You can't just leave." I shook my head with a bitter smile. They didn't know. I'd been secretly married to the Don, Vittorio Falcone, for three years. I thought my looks, my mind, and everything I gave him would be enough to win all of his love. A hit at the docks three months ago showed me the truth. I took thirteen bullets. Emergency. I needed the family surgeon—which required Vittorio's direct order. I called him over a dozen times. But when he finally answered, all I heard was a soft, breathless voice on his end. "Vittorio, we haven't cut my birthday cake. Will you hold my hand and cut it with me?" That voice. My best friend. The woman Vittorio once had a crush on. Carina. In the safe house, weak from blood loss, I dug the bullet out myself and had one of my men rush me to a family clinic. Right before they wheeled me into the OR, Vittorio burst in—carrying Carina. Twisted ankle. Needed a doctor. Now. My surgeon was dragged away. The antibiotics came too late. The wound got infected. I fought for my life for a week. When I woke up, I stared at my phone. Not a single message. The tears finally came. I understood. I was just the woman he'd been forced to marry after he was drugged and slept with me. A scandal averted. All he cared about was my value and his reputation. And me? The secret princess of the Rossi family, who gave up everything to build his empire. All for nothing. So I prepared four parting gifts. A celebration of our mutual destruction. Then he'd never see me again.