Popular Award-winning Books Novels & Stories

Four years into our bond, my body was a wreck. Losing our first pup had nearly killed me, leaving me too fragile to handle Fred’s massive frame. Fred was our Alpha—a mountain of a man. To protect me, he publicly announced he’d had a vasectomy. Even after the Pack Healer cleared me, Fred wouldn’t touch me. He claimed he was terrified of hurting me again. I thought I had the most loyal mate alive. Then I saw him. He was at a shop across town with his Lead Warrior, loading a basket with over a dozen toys—the most expensive models they had. The Warrior nudged him, smirking. "Planning a marathon? You’re not worried Maya will find out you’re screwing her sister?" Fred laughed, his eyes bright with a sick kind of pride. "Maya is my Luna; I love her. But her body is broken," he shrugged. "Cynthia looks exactly like her—only younger, tighter, and willing to do whatever I want. No complaints, no pain. My soul belongs to my Luna, but I need an heir. Cynthia will carry my son so Maya doesn't have to suffer."

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.

On one mid-autumn day, my national classified mission finally came to an end. I dug out the phone I hadn't touched for four years, planning to call my wife, Nora Christie, and tell her that I'd be coming home. But the moment my phone screen lit up, I saw a public court notice declaring me… dead. I froze. Then, I looked closer. The person who had filed the petition to have me legally declared dead was Nora. Frowning with confusion, I dialed her number. With a soft chuckle, she brushed it off, saying that it must have been a clerical error by some court intern. Then, she asked when I would be coming home. Just when I was about to answer, I heard a soft, restrained moan from Nora. "Ah, don't touch me there…" Realizing something wasn't right, I told her that I would be back in a few more years before hanging up. Then, I grabbed the medal I had earned from four years of service to my country, and took the next train home. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I arrived. Right outside my front door, Nora was holding a wedding ceremony. The groom was Henry Crowley, the poor student I had sponsored!

By the ninety-ninth day of Lux Vitale’s disappearance, all of Sicily had already accepted that she was dead. The Antara family held a funeral grand enough to shake the entire underworld. Standing before her grave, Lorenzo Antara, Don of the Antara family and her husband, mourned openly in front of police officials, family lawyers, and powerful business associates. Under the glare of reporters’ cameras, he even swore that for the next three years, no woman would ever take Lux’s place. However, when Lux finally returned to the seaside estate on Long Island, wounded, limping, and barely alive after months of captivity, she discovered that Lorenzo had not only broken his promise– He had already given another woman everything that once belonged to her. And that woman was none other than Bianca Vitale. The sister who had shared her name.

After Pierce Emery and I got back together, I started "renting him out." Every time his old flame, Daphne Roach, called him away, I stopped crying and causing scenes like before. I charged by the hour instead. Ten grand an hour during the day. Twenty at night. Triple on holidays. Three months later, my account was up almost two million dollars. Pierce had promised to help me pick a dress for a banquet, but Daphne called him crying, saying she'd sliced her hand while cooking. I didn't even look up. I just held out my phone with the payment screen open. One night, I came down with a brutal fever. While Pierce was driving me to the hospital, his phone rang again. Daphne. He stared at the screen for a long second before answering. Her voice came through shaky and tearful. "Pierce, the thunder's so loud. I can't sleep. Can you come stay with me?" I quietly pulled out an umbrella and told him to let me out at the next intersection. He looked at me like he wanted to explain something, but I just smiled. "Don't forget to transfer the money." The same thing happened again on the day our daughter went in for her routine checkup. Except this time, she was the one asking him for money.

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.

On the day of my wedding, my fiance, Don James Colombo, left me at the altar again. "Angelina is in the ICU," he said. "The ceremony will have to wait." It was the ninth time he had abandoned me for his terminally ill childhood sweetheart. The first time, she had run away from home, and he could not rest easy. "Angelina is missing, yet you want me to stand here toasting at the wedding? Don't be so selfish, Leticia." The third time, he said Angelina was in a terrible state and threatening to take her own life — he had to go comfort her. By the eighth time, James had stopped explaining and simply had the butler notify me the wedding was off. For him, postponing a wedding was nothing. For me, the Buono Principessa left standing in a chapel, it meant ridicule and one hundred lashes from my furious father. The lashes split open my skin and left me running a fever that would not break. James would hold me afterward, apologize helplessly, and promise he would make it up to me after we married. He promised nine times. He kept none of them. So when he left me again for Angelina, I did not cry or make a scene. I packed my bags alone and in silence. It would be the last time he ever postponed our wedding. One month later, he would never be able to find me again.

Seven years ago, I signed a mate contract as Luna. For my mother’s dying wish and for the Pack’s stability, I personally pushed a man with nothing to his name onto the Alpha throne. I held the Pack together for him, expanded our businesses, and handled the filthy negotiations and the deals no one wanted to see in the light. Everyone said— I was calm, I was formidable, I was qualified. Just… not much like a “gentle mate.” Until that day. I stood in the bedroom and watched my Alpha husband lay his hand over my paralyzed stepsister’s slightly rounded belly. They told me it was for the greater good of the Pack. That child would be registered under my name. He would call me Mother. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just waited for the seven-year term to hit its end and activated the trust clause my mother left behind. Accounts frozen. Capital withdrawn. The wolf empire I built with my own hands collapsed overnight. By the time he knelt in the ruins and finally understood what he’d lost— I had already taken back my mother’s last name, dissolved the mate bond, and stepped onto a new territory.

It was my sixth year with the Mafia Don. On the night of my birthday, he came home with a young, beautiful stranger by his side. Everyone thought I would break down or fall apart because of his betrayal. Instead, I smiled, my fingertips brushing lightly over the diamond ring on my ring finger. What they didn’t know was that I had come for revenge. Six years ago, he killed my father and my fiancé. So, I remained by his side, waiting for the right moment to send him to hell. How could I have fallen for him?

I was doted to the bone by the mafia heir, Leonardo — he took bullets for me, endured 99 lashes, and promised to take me to see the Southern Sea that never freezes! But he let Zoe get pregnant with his child. He accused me of causing Ella’s pollen allergy, and even gave the only keepsake left by my mother — a bracelet — to Zoe as an apology. He said, "It’s just a bracelet." During an argument, he shoved me down, causing my head to bleed, yet he rushed to the hospital with Zoe, not even bothering to look back at me. I lay in the hospital getting stitches, and his suit still carried Zoe’s perfume. He yelled at me, "You followed me to the hospital to cause trouble!" My heart shattered, yet he still lied to me, "I only love you. After this fake wedding, I’ll take you away!"