Countdown To Nothingness Novels & Stories

After Edwin’s first love arrived, I left his home without telling anyone. The first week after I left, he didn't care at all. He spent the week doting on her first love, taking her to social gatherings, making people gossip about me being left. The second week after I left, his friends began placing bets on whether I would come back crawling or scheme against Rose and cry for attention. Edwin heard them making jokes about me, and he actually laughed, keeping Rose on his lap. The third week after I left, he tracked me down and barged into my door. “Stop all this drama, Victoria.” He spat, “Rose’s heart is delicate. Your heart is the right match for her. Donate your heart to her, and I’ll marry you.” But what he expected from me, a long confrontation or an ocean of tears, he didn't get at all. “Okay,” I replied, my voice as calm as the ocean. “When is the surgery’s date?” Edwin froze at his place. What he didn't know was that I was not the Victoria he remembered. I had been transported into his world after an accident, and only by fulfilling his hundred wishes could I finally return to my own. And, this was his hundredth wish!

His gun-roughened hands burned against my waist, every breath laced with the cold, unyielding possession that had made him the most feared Cosa Nostra Don in all of Sicily. A shrill ring sliced through the haze. He answered in guttural Sicilian. It was the dialect I’d learned years ago to fit into his world, so I caught every word. His consigliere was screaming down the line at him for filing a valid, legally binding marriage license with Sofia Lombardi, the woman who’d abandoned him when a bomb left him mute for seven years. Luca’s order was cold as a trigger pull. “Secure the original license in the family vault. Draw up a forged, null-and-void marriage license for Isa to keep her compliant.” In the eyes of the law, of his entire crew, I was nothing but his mistress. After seven years of laying down my life for him, I’d been reduced to nothing but his mistress. Another call flashed. Luca turned to me, the lie already shaping his mouth. “Family matters. The guards will see you home.” Without a word, I stepped out into the Palermo night, my hands shaking as I dialed his mother, Anna Vitali. “I’ll take your fifty million euros. I’ll leave Luca. For good.” Anna once said Luca and I were worlds apart. I had to admit she was right. This time, I want to leave with dignity.

"Mom, Dad. I've changed my mind. I'm willing to go back to Bimern and marry Mr. Coleman, even if he's in a coma." I keep it a secret from Frederick Kirby, my boyfriend of seven years. I'm going ahead and arranging a wedding with someone else. Lennon Downey, Frederick and I grew up together. I had fallen in love with Frederick when I was a teenager, while Lennon was always like an older brother to me. We are close, and we've always been that way. That is, until the three of us went on a trip and got caught in a flash flood. Florence Cooper, the fake heiress, stole the credit for saving their lives and even lied that I left them behind to save myself. Since then, they've taken her side in everything. They've even hurt me for her. I cried, fought, and tried to explain over and over again. I thought that they would see her for who she really is one day. However, they never did. All I got in return was betrayal, again and again. I'm done. I just want to leave. I want to disappear from their lives and never, ever see them again.

Every bonding anniversary, Shawn would bring home a new human girl from the outside—always under the lovely pretense of letting me mentor her on how to serve an Alpha. On our seventh anniversary, he brought back a nightclub girl dressed in a Princess Snow White outfit—cheap satin trembling under the chandelier's light. “She doesn’t have anything appropriate for an occasion like this,” he said casually. “Let her borrow your bonding dress. And the jewelry I gave you last time. As for shoes—what you're wearing now will do.” Then he added, with a trace of irony, “She’s just a young human girl, clueless. Teach her a few things about our world, will you? Especially the part about the bed.” Everyone was waiting for the spectacle—for me to break again, as I always had. And I didn’t disappoint them. I looked at Shawn, my voice steady, and said I wanted a bond-severance. He laughed—short and sharp—and leaned back like he was watching a comedy. “Clara, when are you going to stop with this bond-severance nonsense? I’ve heard it so many times. They’re just human girls, while you are my Luna. How could they ever compare to you?” Then, grinning as if doing me a favor, he added, “Fine. If you really want a bond-severance, I’ll gift you a territory in the south. Consider it a reward for doing your job as my Luna.” The room erupted in laughter. To them, I was ridiculous—greedy, jealous, hysterical. But what they didn’t know was that this was the 365th time I’d asked for a bond-severance. And the first time, I truly meant it. When he found out I wasn’t joking this time, he lost his composure. He searched for me across the world—only after he realized I was no longer where he thought I’d always be.

For seven years, I had been the secret of Enzo Gallo, the new Don of the Gallo family. When I went to register our son Lucas's birth, I discovered Enzo had already married his sister-in-law, Camilla, and claimed her child as his own. Her child became the heir to the family, with all the privileges that entailed. My child became a shameful bastard. Years ago, after Enzo's brother died, the family elders gave Enzo one condition to become Don: he had to have an heir with his sister-in-law to secure the Gallo bloodline. That night, Enzo held me close and swore I was his only true wife. He promised that once Camilla gave birth, he would give me the wedding I deserved. But he missed Lucas's birthday the day Camilla went into labor. Instead of the wedding he promised me, all I got was the news of his marriage to his sister-in-law. My son gently wiped away my tears with his small hand: "Mamma, don't be sad. I changed my birthday wish. I don't want a Papa anymore." "I don't care about being an heir. Having you is enough." I pulled Lucas into my arms, swallowing the bitterness that rose in my throat. "Who says you aren't an heir? Baby, Mamma is taking you home. To our family." What Enzo doesn't know is that I am the only daughter of the most powerful Mafia family in Sicily. I never cared about being the Donna of the Gallo family.

The night before my wedding, I found out I was pregnant. That same night, I found out my fiancé had already chosen another woman to give him his first child. Adrian DeLuca, heir to a mafia empire and the man who once swore I was the only woman he would ever love, came home carrying her perfume on his clothes and told me, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, that it was only a medical arrangement. His dead friend’s widow needed an heir, and after I had failed to give him one through sixty-six rounds of IVF, he had decided this was the best solution for everyone. I said nothing. I let him go on preparing the wedding. I let him believe I would still walk down the aisle and become Mrs. DeLuca. But while he was planning our ceremony, I was planning my disappearance. On our wedding day, the estate would still open its doors. The guests would still arrive. The ceremony would still begin. But the bride Adrian DeLuca betrayed would die there. By the time he learned the truth, that I had been carrying his child all along, I would already be gone under a new name, taking his heir somewhere he could never reach.

My fated mate, Alpha Kaelen, rejected me seven times. The first time we bonded, he whispered against my ear, his breath hot. “From now on, my soul sings only for you.” But then his first love, the Omega Seraphina, came back for him. And just like that, he rejected me. They shared a mate’s mark from their past. It left her hopelessly addicted to his scent. “I’m sorry,” he’d said. “I have to be with Seraphina. The scent addiction is destroying her. She can’t even shift. Her wolf is weakening.” The first time he rejected me, I slashed a silver dagger across my wrist. I let the blood flow, hoping the pain would make him look at me. It worked. Kaelen was horrified. He left Seraphina for a moment and rushed to my side, holding me, comforting me. The third time, I disguised myself as an ordinary pack wolf. I got an internship at his pack headquarters, just to breathe in the air he breathed. But this time, he looked right through me, as if we were strangers. By the sixth rejection, I had learned how to calmly erase my scent from his suite. I left without a sound. My screams. My surrender. My begging. And what I got in return? Every time he was with her, the full moon would rise, and he’d call me back. Just to play the same sick game all over again. Until now. I heard Seraphina was coming back again. So I handed him the ceremonial dagger myself. He set the date for my return, just like always. He had no idea. This time, I'm the one severing the bond for good. And I am never coming back.

I hid behind the study curtains, heart racing with a fragile, trembling joy. In my hands: an ultrasound photo—two heartbeats—and a no-limit black card. Alessandro had given it to me last night, his lips on my neck, calling me his Donna, his queen. Tonight, I was going to tell him about the twins. "The Petrov family needs to see my good faith," his voice drifted in, smooth as velvet. "Vittoria arrives Thursday. I’ll announce the engagement then." My blood froze. "What about Elena?" someone asked. "She’s been with you three years. She manages the books, dug that slug out of your side herself. Is this fair to her?" "Elena?" He leaned back in the leather chair, cigar smoke curling around his jaw. "She’s like a trained hound, Salvatore. After the Rossi family got wiped out, I pulled her from the gutter, gave her a gun and a bed. Have you ever seen a hound leave its master? I could kick her, and she would lick my boot and ask for another." My nails sank into my palms, crumpling the ultrasound. "Aren’t you afraid she’ll leave?" Marco, his Capo, asked. Alessandro paused. Then he said: "She would die for me without question. How could she ever leave?" Those words struck my chest like two 9mm rounds. I didn't wait. I ran through the cemetery, past the tombs of dead Dons, and hurled that card into the Hudson. I vanished into the night with his heirs in my womb and three years of lies in my throat. "I'm sorry, my babies," I whispered to my belly. "Mommy was a fool." But I wouldn't be a fool anymore.

My childhood friend promised to marry me once we came of age — but at my wedding ceremony, he gave my wedding ring to my stepsister, Summer Hugh. At the time, it was Victor Lowell, the fearsome mafia heir, who saved me by publicly announcing he had loved me for years. In the five years we had been married, he would fulfill every wish I had, even those I mentioned offhand. I truly believed I was the center of his world. All that changed when I stumbled across a top-secret folder as I was cleaning his bookshelf. The very first page was a file on Summer, with three red words printed in bold, “Top protection priority.” It was followed by a mission report I knew too well. On the night of the mission, there had been an attempt on my life. My blood had almost run dry before I was saved. When I woke up at the hospital, I found out that I had lost a baby I did not know I had been carrying. I wept bitterly in Victor’s arms, but I did not tell him about the baby. I did not want him to worry about me more. Now, I finally found out — Summer had been attacked that night as well, and Victor’s orders had been: “Save Summer first.” My tears soaked into the paper, smudging his handwriting. “Alright,” I said softly but firmly into the silence. “If my marriage had been a lie all along, I’ll disappear from your life. Forever.”

By day, I was a maid in Chester Graham's household. By night, I was nothing more than a way for him to satisfy his desires. After one encounter, he dragged me from the bed, indifferent to my pain. "You don't have to come back," he said flatly. I collapsed to the floor in terror. "Did I do something wrong? Please don't send me away." The man who had murmured comforts to me only moments earlier now gazed down with icy detachment. "Wendy has agreed to marry me. "She's afraid of pain. You were nothing more than a tool for me to practice on. Once used, you're thrown away. "You've always been obedient. You know what you're supposed to do."