Being Left At The Altar Novels & Stories

Three months after Pete took his foster sister as his mistress, I terminated my marriage, chose to die on paper, and vanished from his life entirely. One quiet morning, I handed my child over to the nannies arranged by the family and walked out of the Rizzuto estate alone. Pete didn’t chase after me that day. He believed I would come back. Once I had calmed down, I would lower my head. The following spring, I was diagnosed with cancer. Standing in the hospital corridor, I suddenly remembered years ago— Pete had taken my hand and said, “You’ll be the finest Donna this Rizzuto family has ever had.” What pulled me back was not Pete. It was a letter from Sicily. Thin paper. Cold, rigid handwriting—the kind favored by old families who had ruled too long to bother with sentiment. “The heir has begun showing signs of emotional instability.” “Recent violent behavior has caused internal concern.” “There is disagreement within the family regarding the current Don’s judgment.” In the mafia world, there is only one reason the elders would bypass a man and reach out to a wife officially presumed dead— When the family itself begins to lose balance. So I returned. To the place I had once fled with everything I had. This time, there were no illusions. I no longer placed any hope in emotion. I was there only to fulfill the obligations of the family. I knew exactly how much time I had left. And I knew exactly what needed to be done. I became a proper Donna.

04:00 AM. JFK International Airport. I switched off airplane mode, and my phone lit up. The first notification was an Instagram story from my husband, Donovan Valentino, Don of the Valentino family, posted at 3:30 AM: a photo of Seraphina Moretti’s back, captioned, “Run 50 completed. Package delivered safe.” An hour before that, my flight had hit catastrophic clear-air turbulence, dropping two thousand feet in seconds. I’d clung to my seatbelt until my knuckles turned white, the crumpled threat letter from a rival crew pressed like a blade against my ribs. In those blind, falling seconds, one thought burned through the panic: If I live through this—if Donovan is waiting at arrivals—I’ll tear up my transfer papers to Dubai and stay. But there were no missed calls. No messages. He’d been too busy collecting Seraphina. He knew my flight details. He just didn’t care. Four years of marriage. 50 fully armed security details for Seraphina. For my 112 long-haul flights over those same four years? The most I ever got was a driver in an unmarked sedan. Even the night Gambino’s crew tailed me from Manhattan, and I spent six hours locked in a diner bathroom. He didn’t pick up until dawn, after the twelfth try. My transfer to Dubai was confirmed. The signed divorce settlement was in my bag. This was the last time I’d ever come back for him.

• My mom died saving me during a kidnapping. At least, that’s what everyone believed. My dad—once the man who spoiled me like his little princess—turned his grief into hatred. He adopted a girl who looked just like Mom and gave her all the love that used to be mine. For five years, I lived in that shadow, broken and unwanted. Until the day I was beaten and left for dead… and my mom came back. Alive. He used to call me his treasure. Now he calls me a curse. But the night my mom returned, everything shattered—his lies, his obsession, and the truth I was never meant to know.

The first of a twin is always created to protect and guide the second, but no one said anything about them giving up their identity to fulfill the destiny of their younger sibling. London Elrod had no ambition in life, unlike her sister, who had her head in the cloud. One incident and a thing of joy becomes a river of sorrow, and London takes on the identity of her sister. She now has to answer a name that wasn't hers and carry a cross she knew nothing about. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, but would she be able to survive till she gets there?

Kaelan noticed I hadn't filed a single medical or living expense request in the pack’s resource channel for a week. He must have thought I’d finally kicked my greedy human habits. At dinner, he tossed a black card at me. It cut a cold arc through the air, landing beside my plate. “Your father’s treatment for next month. The wolf gene serum, the lab fees—it’s all approved.” His voice was pure Alpha command. An order, not a suggestion. “Bringing you and your father here was a risk. I fought the Elders for you. You are my mate. Stop begging for pack funds like a common stray. It’s a bad look.” He didn’t know my fingers were ice-cold when I picked up the card. The papers to sever our mate bond were already signed. So was my will. The hoodie I wore when I left was a faded thing he’d tossed at me three years ago. No one would believe it. The fated mate of an Alpha who ran a corporate empire… had to send a photo of a $10 painkiller receipt to a Beta assistant for approval. All because he thought a fragile human like me was a leech who couldn’t be trusted with cash. But a week ago, when my father’s lupus caused his organs to fail, I needed $50,000. He needed a dose of pure gene repair serum, synthesized in the pack’s high-tech med-bay. I begged him on my knees. His childhood friend, Seraphina, just laughed. She froze my request, saying she was helping me break my bad habit of “cashing in on my mate status.” Kaelan never knew I endured that humiliation just so my father could stay alive in his top-tier medical lab. Now, my father was dead. The medicine was cut off, and his ashes were already in the ground. I didn’t need to be his obedient little pet anymore.

My Alpha mate, Dominic, rules the entire Stormfang Pack, but in our ten years together, he has never once given me a gift. Even our bonding tokens—a pair of rare healing crystals that cost me an entire year's savings—were taken by him without hesitation. He claimed that as Alpha he needed to appear frugal and understated, which is why he marked me in secret without hosting a proper mating ceremony. Because of this, most pack members don't even know I'm his mate. Yet when Sylvia, his childhood sweetheart, returned to Stormfang territory, he publicly announced their mating plans. He even dipped into the pack's long-term savings to throw her an extravagant celebration. When my mother was attacked by rogue wolves and left critically wounded, I begged Dominic to return my healing crystals—the only things that could save her life. Instead of helping, he denied knowing me in front of the entire pack and ordered his guards to drive me away with burning torches. Later, my mother died during the Blood Moon Festival. I lost my only family during what should have been our most sacred celebration. I renounced my Stormfang membership that same night and accepted the Northern Shadow Pack's Chief Healer position. While packing my belongings, Dominic returned from his honeymoon with Sylvia. He found me and assumed I was merely sulking. For the first time ever, he made a generous offer: "Come on, what could possibly happen to your mother? At worst, I'll give you that fancy mating ceremony you've always wanted. That should satisfy her desire to be an Alpha's mother-in-law." What he didn't realize was that from the moment my mother died, I had already sworn to the Moon Goddess that our mate bond would be broken forever.

When I was eighteen, Kael pulled my sister and me out of a rogue auction ring on the northern border. From that day on, I fought for him, bled for him, and helped him carve out his place among the northern packs. By the time his name carried weight across the borderlands, everyone knew I was the one who stood closest to his power. I thought that one day, he might finally look at me and see more than a weapon at his side. Then he brought home a soft-spoken Omega named Liora. “Mira, look at you. Covered in blood again.” “Wash up before you frighten Liora.” After that, everything changed. The pack began calling her future Luna. Kael took my blades away, tied an apron around my waist, and made me responsible for her every need. Whenever she slipped into places she should not have been, got hurt, and claimed I had frightened her out of jealousy, Kael believed her. Every punishment came with a reason. Neat enough to sound fair. Sharp enough to hurt. I accepted all of it. Because years ago, when I asked how I could repay him for saving my sister and me, Kael had said: “You want to repay me?” “Then do one hundred things for me.” I lowered my eyes to the yellowing notebook in my hands. Only three were left. When I finished them, I would owe him nothing. And then I would leave.

When Rachel found out that she is mated to her old enemy, she was asked to forgive him for the benefit of the old pack. She needs to think if the whole pack is Worthy of her forgiveness to her mate. "I think I can give you a chance". I said quietly, and he sighed in relief, he took my hands off his face and kissed my palm before placing it on his chest. " Are you sure?". He asked hopefully.

For ten years, I spent by Damien Thorne's side, helping him transform from a servant's son into the powerful Alpha of Shadow Pack. I believed I would eventually see the day he'd claim me as his mate. Instead, he brought home Scarlett Rivers, his childhood sweetheart who had been living abroad, treating her like precious royalty while making her his Luna. To help his beloved Scarlett and free her parents from prison, Damien handed over my healing potion patents without hesitation. Even my own son was placed in Scarlett's care to secure her position as Shadow Pack's Luna. I became everything to Damien—his financial backer, his assistant, his healer, his bed partner—everything except what I truly wanted to be: his rightful mate. "Just wait a little longer," Damien always promised me. "Once I repay my debt to my childhood benefactor, you'll be my only mate." So, I kept waiting and waiting. But Damien seemed to forget his promises entirely. Even my own child began to despise me. Suddenly, exhaustion hit me like a tidal wave. Waiting felt pointless. I didn't want to do it anymore.

After my younger sister went abroad, I married the mafia Don in her place. Five years after we married, we became each other’s greatest enemies. He hated me for driving my sister away and scheming my way into becoming his wife. I hated him for always treating me as a stand-in, never once acknowledging me in front of the world. My lack of status brought humiliation to my vain parents, and from that moment on, their love for me turned into hatred. In the end, he and my parents left me behind on a snowy mountain while celebrating Christmas with my sister. In the bitter cold, I died together with the child I never got to meet. Meanwhile, my sister basked in everyone’s love and had the happiest Christmas of her life. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day my sister returned from abroad. This time, I would not beg Gideon or my parents to love me ever again.