Even Though I Knew The End

I once thought I would spend my entire life in love with my husband, Vincenzo, the Don of the De Luca family. In the end, our whirlwind romance was no match for a childhood promise. On the day Vincenzo went through with a sham marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Chloe, to honor a blood oath, I destroyed the penthouse we had filled with memories and left his city for good. When Vincenzo used the family's entire intelligence network and still couldn't find me, the untouchable Don was driven mad. Later, he offered a worldwide bounty for any information on my whereabouts and even publicly begged me to come back. Too bad for him, I already wore another man's ring. Vincenzo, nothing waits for you forever. Especially a love you strangled with your own hands.

I spent five years as Dominic Santoro’s wife in name only. Five years hidden behind closed doors, buried under his sheets, erased from his world. When he finally agreed to take me back to Chicago—to stand beside him, to be seen—I thought I had won. I bought a new dress. Soft. Elegant. Worthy of a Don’s woman. The night before we left, he looked at me through the mirror and said calmly, “Take the makeup off. Change into pants.” I asked why. He adjusted his cufflinks like I was nothing more than background noise. “Juliana Lancaster is back. Tonight is our engagement.” Russian Bratva. Lancaster blood. A marriage alliance. Seeing my silence, he laughed—careless, cruel. “What’s with that look? Didn’t we agree on this when we married? Brotherhood. Loyalty. No love.” Then he turned, eyes sharp and mocking. “Victoria Miller… you didn’t actually fall in love with me, did you?” I stood there, frozen. Because inside the inner pocket of his tailored suit— was my pregnancy report. And the Don of Chicago had no idea the woman he was about to sacrifice was carrying his heir.

At the height of her ballet career, Sienna’s life was brutally shattered when her ex-boyfriend maliciously broke her legs. She fell into despair, and when she climbed to the rooftop to end it all, I was the one who saved her. I gave up a million-dollar salary for her sake. I spent ten years as her golden agent watching her starting from a background actor and becoming a superstar. When she reached the pinnacle of fame, she publicly declared her love for me. Our love story was hailed as the last fairy tale of the entertainment industry. I stood by her through her lows, and she held my hand through the glory. However, on the day I proposed… Her ex-boyfriend stormed in and publicly claimed that Sienna was carrying his child. His face was full of arrogance, and his eyes brimmed with provocation. “Every night, she throws herself at me like an animal. “You think she loves you? Her heart, her mind, it’s all mine.” I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. My mind went blank. I turned to Sienna. She pressed her lips together, remained silent and offered no explanation. At that moment, my heart shattered into pieces.

Sette’s only choice was to kill her mate. Her whole existence is tangled with a curse. A love she’ll once have. A life she couldn’t hold. The man she couldn’t save. The curse will take the life of her mate, Lane Emerson, the Alpha. To kill him in her own hands means she doesn’t have to suffer his death. To kill him before she’ll love him was Sette’s mission. But what can Sette do when the heart is stronger than the mind? What can she do when she’s slowly slipping to the curse? Will she save him to savor the time they have left or kill him so she could save herself from dying pain? Only one thing Sette knows. It’s either her love will save him. Or kill him. This is the first installment of Dival Sisters.

She came back carrying secrets that could ruin them both. He swore he’d never forgive the girl who once held his heart in her hands. Elena Voss needed one thing: keep her head down and finish her degree while covering the elite Ridgewood Ravens basketball team for her project in the student media but that shattered when she crashed straight into Noah Hale — team captain, campus badboy, her brother’s best friend, and the boy who once bared every broken piece of himself to her in the dark before hating her for it. To him, she’s the girl who betrayed his deepest vulnerability. To her, he’s the only person who ever made her feel truly alive and the one who shattered her without a second glance. Now he blocks every media interview with a glacial stare. Watches her from across the court like he can’t decide whether to throw her out or pull her closer. Hate has never felt this addictive and proximity has never burned this hot. If Noah ever learns what Elena really sacrificed to protect him, he won’t just push her away. He’ll destroy the last fragile piece of her heart that still beats only for the boy he used to be.

During the award ceremony at our annual dinner, my boss, Hank Reid, suddenly announced an impromptu addition to the agenda. “Annual department competition! The department that ranked last has to come up and receive a little award of motivation!” The screen lit up. They scrolled through all the departments’ results. The sales department got first place, the operations department got second place, and the marketing department got third place. However, there was nothing from the administration department. That was because the administration department did not have KPIs. Hank smiled at us. “Let’s welcome our colleagues from the administration department to come up and receive their awards!” Two of my colleagues carried a whole basket of brooms onto the stage. Everyone was laughing. “You should sweep away your bad luck from last year. Let’s hope you won’t get last place again next year!” Hank personally passed the brooms to all of us. Cameras flashed as people took photos of us with their phones. The sales department was laughing the loudest. “Finally, the administration department has some recognition!”

Aria Vale pressed her pen to the divorce papers and signed her name. Three years of her life reduced to a signature. Three years of loving Damien Blackwood. She hadn't even set the pen down before she found out. Someone new. Already chosen. Already waiting in the wings while the ink on their ending was still fresh. With a broken heart, she walked away from the man she had once saved and loved with everything she had. But Damien did not know one dangerous truth: The woman he threw away was not ordinary. Aria hid a powerful identity, a dangerous secret, and soon, a child that could change everything. Now the man who let her go wanted her back. But this time, Aria was no longer the woman who waited to be chosen.

BLURB For three years, Seraphina gave everything she had to a man who never saw her clearly. She cooked, she endured, she stayed quiet through every insult his family threw at her, and she secretly kept his failing business alive from the shadows, without him ever knowing it was her. Then his first love walked back through the door, and Seraphina disappeared. She walked out as his invisible wife and came back as Seraphina Vaughn, the hidden heiress of the most powerful family in the country. The woman two dangerous older brothers would tear the world apart for, the woman every powerful man in the city now wants standing beside him. Damian thought she would come back within a week; but he was wrong. Instead, he discovered that the woman he had ignored was the reason his business had ever survived, that the wife he had underestimated was now the one name every boardroom feared and that the brothers she had never mentioned were already deciding what happened to the people who had hurt their sister. Now Seraphina has a choice: the man who broke her is on his knees, but can a woman who gave everything trust the same hands that let her fall?

After going bankrupt, I do the unthinkable for my gravely ill younger brother, Ricky Ashford, and climb into the bed of Damien Blackwood, the notorious mafia boss. When his smoldering gaze sweeps over my shirtless body, I stay perfectly still. The reason is that I'm afraid to set off this infamous man in front of me. However, the next instant, his lips are everywhere on my skin, and the night dissolves into a wild, reckless blur. For three years, I endure every torment in his bed. Thoughts of escape and even suicide cross my mind, but the fact that my brother is fighting for his life in the ICU keeps me going. One day, I accidentally overhear him speaking with his childhood friend, Chloe Sterling. "How long do you plan to toy with your enemy's daughter? You're not falling for her, are you?" "Don't be absurd." "And what about her sickly brother?" "He died long ago." The last thread holding me together snaps. Now, there is no reason left to live. As I prepare to end my life by burning charcoal, tears well up in his eyes as he pleads for me not to leave.

I stayed by William Gavin's side for three years and proposed to him three times. He rejected me each time. With a look of utter disdain, he said, "Every time I see that scar on Whitney Spencer's stomach, I remember the baby that died in there. It just makes me think she's dirty." The words pierced my heart like a knife. And yet, I still asked him to marry me a fourth time.