1945 Pulitzer Winning

The Don of the Vito family, Damiano Vito, has broken his wedding vows by cheating on me with the daughter of the rival mafia family, Bianca Sorace, while I'm still pregnant with his heir. He ends up executing Bianca with his own hands in order to reassure me as well as provide my family, the Cappas, with a satisfactory answer. My parents advise me, "Now that Damiano has returned to your side, you mustn't kick up a fuss for the sake of both families' interests." But since then, I've developed an obsession over cleanliness. Any form of physical contact is capable of making me dry-heave out of discomfort. Since I can't take any medication at all, I can only spend my days venting my stress by demanding that everything be disinfected before touching me. Damiano, who's known for having a violent temperament, is willing to keep disinfecting himself repeatedly for my sake. If he needs to make physical contact with me, he'll wear gloves. Whenever he enters my room, he has to change into a biohazard suit. No matter how hot and stuffy it gets under the suit, he doesn't utter a word of complaint. "It's fine. I was the one who broke the wedding vows first, anyway." Finally, the moment I command Damiano to wash his hands yet again, he loses control of himself before me. He even goes so far as to shatter the ashtray right before my eyes. "That's enough! All I did was make the mistake every man is capable of making! Must you humiliate me to this degree? How does that make me a filthy man?" Damiano deliberately allows his subordinates, who are drenched in blood, to throw a party in the estate, thinking that it serves as a punishment for my obsession over cleanliness. He intends to force me to yield to him by threatening the baby in my belly. Thanks to the nonstop aggravation, I feel intense pain flaring from my abdomen. Soon, blood keeps oozing down my inner thighs beneath my skirt. But at the same time, I feel a sense of relief that I've never felt before. "Let's get a divorce, Damiano."

When I find out that Joe Herring—the man I've loved for ten years—is planning a grand proposal, I'm so thrilled I can't sleep a wink that night. But the next day, everyone in the pack is buzzing about how Alpha Joe just proposed to my stepsister, Nora Safford. He comes to me afterward, trying to explain. "It's not even real, Anna. Nora doesn't have anyone in the pack. I'm just doing her a favor. "Don't worry. I'll break it off before the mate-bonding ceremony next week. Then we'll have our ceremony, just like we planned." But over and over, he keeps asking me to compromise for Nora. And when the mate-bonding ceremony finally arrives, he's still with her. So in the end, I let her have him and walk away without a word.

Every Christmas Eve, the heir of the Marco mafia family—Adrian Marco, must follow the family tradition: Draw a name to decide whether he’s allowed to marry me. Because I, Irene Cast, am not mafia-born. Unless he draws the slip with my name on it, he can’t take me as his wife. For four years, Adrian has drawn four times. And not once did he draw my name. I always thought he fought with his family because of me— that he was willing to risk losing his position as the Don, just to choose me. Every time he failed, he held me so tightly and whispered, “It’s okay. There’s always next year.” And I loved him so much it hurt. Hurt enough that I was willing to wait, year after year. This year, I told myself: If he still doesn’t draw my name… I’ll secretly switch the result. I sneaked to the door of Adrian’s study, and heard his younger brother ask: “Don… every year you do draw Irene's name. Why do you pretend you didn’t? Is it because you still can’t let Sera go?” But he simply said, in a flat voice, “Sera needs me for something urgent. Do what you always do: swap Irene’s name for a blank one.” He walked out without looking back. Instead of swapping, he tossed the blank slip into the trash, left the one with my name on the table, and hurried after Adrian. I went inside, picked up the blank slip from the trash, and replaced the one with my name. Watching my own name fall into the garbage. Adrian…I don’t want to wait and marry you anymore. I’ll grant you your choice.

I had loved my Mafia Boss Alexander in silence for ten years. I was the only woman he fucked. Almost every night he would pin me down and pound me until I was screaming his name, filling me with his seed. He never touched anyone else. I thought I was special to him. I was wrong. To appease his fiancée Sophia’s family, Alexander dangled my mute little sister from a helicopter. I begged. I knelt. I offered my life for hers. "Enough, Ivy. The show is over," he scoffed, wiping the blood from my lip with his thumb. "It was just a silicone doll. Did you really think I would kill your sister over this? I just wanted to show you what happens when you defy me." But he didn't know that it really was Lily. I risked my life to take revenge on Sophia, only to be shot into the Mediterranean by Alexander's bullet. But why did the high and mighty Don go completely mad, searching the world for my body?

I've been in a relationship with my older brother's best friend, Alpha Alexander Parker, for seven years. But there's a twist—this relationship is a secretive one. After having too much moonshine to drink one day, Alexander tells me drunkenly, "Willow, Stella is with pup now. If she doesn't have a mate, she'll get exiled out of the pack by the elders. Is it okay if I give her the Luna position for now?" In a calm and docile tone, I reply, "Okay." In my previous life, I didn't agree to Alexander's suggestion. I also insisted on holding the mating ceremony with him. Meanwhile, Stella Lockhart's belly continued to grow as weeks passed. In the end, she couldn't conceal it anymore. The enraged elders eventually cast her out of the pack. After Stella was gone, Alexander no longer came home, nor did he speak a word to me. I knew that he blamed me for everything. Some time later, I died from overwhelming guilt and depression. When I was about to close my eyes, I saw Alexander rushing into my room in alarm. Stella, who was supposed to be cast out of the pack, trailed behind him with a pup in her arms. That was when I finally realized that while Alexander was Stella's savior, he was never the most suitable mate for me. Now that I'm reborn, I don't turn his suggestion down. Instead, I decide to cut off all ties with him so that he and Stella can live happily ever after.

Sawyer Patterson intended to leave me again for his childhood sweetheart, Mathilde Payne. We'd been together for ten years, and this was our seventh engagement party. For the previous six times, Mathilde always had some kind of emergency. This time, I wasn't going to let him go. "We're about to exchange rings. It won't take long. She's just got a slight fever. It's not a big deal if you go later, right?" Sawyer lost it. "Can you stop making a scene? Mathilde has always been frail. We've been together for ten years. We can do without a ceremony." He walked out, leaving me behind with a broken heart. This time, I was truly done with him.

Our bodies tangled in the car. My husband moved inside me, lips claiming my chest, when the sudden ring of a phone ripped me out of our intoxicating haze. Gabriel answered without hesitation. It was one of his closest friends from the medical world, speaking in German. “Don,” the voice said casually, “your mistress is two months pregnant. What are you going to do?” Gabriel didn’t pause. His tone was calm. “Grace can’t have children,” he replied. “I’ll let her carry the baby to term, then adopt it as my own. That secures the heir. This stays between us.” Something inside me froze. The one thing he had forgotten— I majored in German. And he learned it just to win me. I didn’t scream. I didn’t confront him. Instead, I smiled, stayed quiet, and kept playing the perfect wife. Later, I slipped the divorce papers into a real estate contract and watched him sign without reading. Then I quietly registered a new identity. For the next three days, his absence—and her taunting messages—erased the last illusions I had about love. When my new identity finally went live, I walked away without looking back. Carrying his child. And disappearing from his world forever.

Sepharine cared for Draven, the crippled son of an Alpha, for three long years. After painstakingly helping him regain his strength, he scorned her—for she was merely a lowly maid, unworthy of an Alpha's heir. Heartbroken, Sepharine left the pack. Only after losing her did Draven realize the depth of his feelings for her.

I was different from the others in my pack. My wolf could hear the truths hidden deep in someone’s heart. Whenever someone lied, she would immediately whisper their real thoughts to me. During the two years I was with Jace, my wolf stayed silent. I knew his love for me was real. But on the day before our marking ceremony, my wolf finally spoke. "I need to stall Leah tomorrow. I have to mark Elena." "Elena's pregnant. She has to be marked to be accepted by the pack. Leah loves me too much to blame me." My hand tightened around the pregnancy test tucked deep in my bag. A cold dread swept over me. Jace, I was pregnant too. But I wouldn't tell you. I played along with his plan, pretending I didn't know the truth. I let him make Elena his mate, father to her pup. After their ceremony, all he'd find was the discarded pregnancy test I left behind. His heir and I would be gone from his world—forever.

In my tenth year of being the Luna of the Nocturne pack, the first love of my mate, Alpha Stellan Caldwell, returns to the pack. With a bouquet of dead wolfsbane in her hands, Nigella Starveil barges into the anniversary of the mate-bonding ceremony between Stellan and me. "Stellan, I still remember you telling me that you're willing to endure all types of poison in the world just for my sake. Does that promise still count?" Before Nigella finishes her sentence, Stellan, my powerful yet distant Alpha, feels his expression change instantly. He doesn't even bother sparing me a glance. All he sees is the bouquet of dead flowers that are equally deadly to Nigella. Stellan rushes up to Nigella and swipes the bouquet out of her hands roughly, not caring about the fact that everyone is staring at him right now. Silence befalls the hall instantly. From my position behind Stellan, I know right away that I've been reduced to the biggest laughingstock in the Northern Territories. The fact that Stellan doesn't hesitate to protect Nigella becomes the biggest insult that humiliates me to no end. It turns out that ten years of companionship and shared struggles are nothing compared to the bouquet of dead wolfsbane in Nigella's hands. After that, Nigella shoots me a smug and contemptuous look while rubbing her reddened wrist. "Do you see now? This is proof that he loves me. You've already tried to do your part as the breeding machine, so you can now retire from your position." In the past, Stellan had barged into the forbidden lands in search of Nigella. He almost got shredded into a thousand pieces there. But now, he's still willing to humiliate me in public just for her sake.