Ninjago Echo Zane Novels & Stories

In the middle of the night, my husband started talking in his sleep. "My little treasure, Daddy's taking you and Mommy to the new house tomorrow." But we were using protection. Where the hell did a kid come from? So I opened his phone. I saw the money transfers to another woman—spent on all kinds of luxury shit and a house. The photo album had pictures of her in a skimpy stripper outfit, a little bump in her belly. The last one was an ultrasound. Four months along, it looked like. I didn't make a sound. Just saved the evidence. They were about to learn the price of betraying a mafia princess.

Chloe, the maid I share a room with, is dead. I watched the head housekeeper and another maid pin her to the floor. I watched them as the housekeeper vomited up a slimy, black web of fungus and forced it down Chloe's throat. I should have screamed. I wanted to. But my selective mutism took over, trapping the sound in my throat. It probably saved my life. The next day, Chloe was alive again. She walked into the young miss’s room to brush her hair, just like always. I was so scared I dropped the water basin I was holding. As I stood there, frozen, the young miss leaned in close, her voice a whisper only I could hear. "You've noticed it too, haven't you? They're not themselves anymore."

Everyone in New York knew I was the Godfather’s heart. Gavin Whitestone’s heart. He loved me for ten years. He’d fly into a rage if I so much as got a paper cut. But he’s the one who gave me these three scars. The first time, he pulled every doctor to treat Sofia, the girl who took a bullet for him, and ignored the shrapnel tearing into my side. The second time, he was drugged and fucking Sofia in his bed. When I walked in on them, he shoved me aside, desperately carrying her to the hospital. The third time, he took my father's last gift to me—a revolver—and gave it to a pregnant Sofia, just to make her smile. He told me, “It’s all for the baby. Once the baby is born, we’ll go back to how we were.” But this time, I didn't forgive him. I threw away every gift he ever gave me and vanished without a trace. And that’s when the untouchable Godfather finally broke.

For five years, Marco Falcone was the perfect man. Or so I thought. The illusion shattered on the night of our engagement party, when his mistress crashed it, a five-year-old boy in tow. The boy ran straight to Marco, crying, "Daddy! Daddy, I finally found you!" It had to be some kind of sick joke. But then Marco turned to me, his voice stripped of all warmth. "This is my son, Leo. A… mistake Sofia and I made five years ago." "Leo is the Falcone heir. I have to legitimize them. That means I'll be engaged to Sofia first." "But Lydia, believe me, I still love you. We can have our engagement party in six months. You're going to be the Donna of the Falcone family. I expect you to be generous and understanding. This is non-negotiable." I laughed, a cold, sharp sound, and slid the engagement ring off my finger. My eyes scanned the room and locked on the man in the corner—Lorenzo Moretti, the most powerful Don in New York. He held another title, one only I knew: the man who’d been trying to make me his. "Don Moretti," I called out, my voice clear and steady. "I find myself in need of a new fiancé. Are you interested?"

During a dinner party hosted by the Cassano crime family, a lace garter stained with dried fluid dropped out of Matthew's pocket. He was the Don's son-in-law. When questioned, Matthew insisted I had tried to seduce him, failed, and planted my own underwear on him as a setup. In my past life, I was just a maid for the Cassano family. Simply because I had a killer body and a pretty face, the hot-tempered mafia princess, Caroline, refused to listen to a word I said. She had me fed alive to a venomous snake. My parents came seeking justice, only to end up at the bottom of the river. In this life, I faced Matthew's setup once again. "She sneaked into my booth and threw herself at me! When I rejected her, she planted this on me to ruin my marriage with Caroline!" But I was no longer a lowly maid. I held a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale and served as the Chief Advisor for the Visconti family, a global mafia empire.

My marriage to Dante, the Moretti heir, was meant to be a union of power, an alliance of empires. But for me, it was also the real deal. Then his adopted sister, Clara, showed up at a party. She was wearing his custom leather jacket, straddling his prized Ducati, and she looked right at me with a smirk. "Dante says," she purred, "that I suit these precious things better than you do." My smile froze. Dante had her on a plane overseas so fast it was like she'd never existed. Five years later, the night before our wedding. I found him staring at the design for our wedding rings. He'd changed the engraving. The "Amor Aeternus"—Eternal Love—was gone. In its place: "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." My sin, my greatest sin. I took off my veil right then and there. "The wedding," I said, my voice like ice, "is off."

My Alpha was gravely wounded in a battle with a rival pack. But I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t even flustered. I let him go, three thousand kilometers away, to be healed. Because in my past life, Damien got himself injured on purpose, all to give his healer mistress, Isla, a shot at glory. Worried sick about him, I forced our pack’s healers to treat him instead. But Isla lost her one shot at fame. Without it, she couldn't secure her place in any pack and eventually killed herself. Damien's life was saved, but he blamed me for her death. He poisoned me, leaving me to die in agony. When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Right before Damien got hurt.

The sixth year I gave up my family, my name, everything, to be with Marcus. That’s when I found out I was just a stand-in for the one he could never forget. And now, she was back. I accepted my family’s arrangement. The marriage alliance. The day my engagement dress arrived at the office, Marcus looked pissed. “I thought we agreed we’d get married when my career was more stable.” I said nothing. But when the wedding invitation arrived, Marcus finally broke. The groom wasn't him. It was the heir to the Moretti family.

I was Apollo’s most devoted follower, the lover he handpicked from a sea of worshippers. With me, he’d always shed his divine arrogance. He was so tender, so attentive. I actually thought he loved me to the bone. Until seven days before our Consort Ceremony, when I used my gift of prophecy to peek into our future together. I expected to see a lifetime of blinding love. Instead, I saw him violently tangled in the sheets with my adopted sister, Cassandra. Wrapped around him, Cassandra giggled. "You're so good to me, my Lord. Thanks to you, I'll finally get my sister's Sight and take her place as High Priestess." And Apollo—my god, my lover—smiled down at her with pure adoration. "Whatever makes you happy, little bird. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have played pretend for this long, let alone allow her to become a god's consort." In that split second, my heart turned to ash. My faith shattered into a million pieces. With seven days left until the ceremony, I didn't confront them. Instead, I fell to my knees before the altar of Hades, Lord of the Underworld. "I offer you my gift of prophecy. I will be your most loyal follower in exchange for your sanctuary." "Please. Take me away from here. Take me somewhere Apollo can never find me."

I’m the Chief Counsel for Donatello Vexille, the Godfather of the Vexille family. I’m also his secret wife. At night, he’d pull me close, take me with a ragged violence, leaving his marks on me, a brutal claim I couldn’t refuse. But by day, I was just his lawyer. All he had for me were cold commands. We lived like that for three years. I decided I was done. But he couldn’t know. When I handed him the divorce papers, disguised as a bill of lading, and he signed his name, a breath I didn’t know I was holding finally escaped me. I chased him for seven years and was married to him for three. Whatever was left of my heart finally flatlined. I knew I could never have his. Because it already belonged to someone else: Angelina, his underboss’s sister. He remembered her favorite restaurant. He got blind drunk with joy when she filed for divorce. He even posted his personal guards outside her door. Those were honors I never had. So I tricked him into signing the papers, packed my things, and vanished. What I didn't expect was what he did after I left. He put a king's ransom on my location, and even announced to the whole world that I was his wife.