The True Believer

The most powerful Godfather in the mafia underworld—Dante Costello—had an expensive diamond signet ring custom-made to fit my finger perfectly and sent straight to our home. He said that whoever could wear the ring would become the lady of his family. The Monroe family had long since fallen from grace. All that remained were four women. On ordinary days, we fought endlessly, tearing each other apart. Every single one of us wanted to marry Dante because marrying him meant preserving a life of dignity and comfort. In the first life, the fake heiress, Blair, secretly had the ring resized smaller and married into the family. Dante took one look at her, then had her thrown into the river to drown. “Not her.” In the second life, my cousin, Chloe, underwent plastic surgery to alter her fingers and force the ring on. Dante gifted her a staged car accident. “Still not her.” In the third life, my stepmother, Catherine, clenched her teeth and forced the ring onto her finger. Her blood hadn’t even dried when she married Dante. He coldly slashed her face, then locked her in the basement, where she slowly wasted away until death. By the fourth life, all three of them were terrified. None of them dared to marry him anymore, so they hurriedly pushed me forward instead. I put on the ring. This time, the size was perfect. Just when I thought my good days had finally begun, Dante stabbed me to death on our wedding night, his eyes burning red with madness. After my rebirth, the consigliere of the Dante family delivered the ring once again. This time, all four of us avoided it like the plague.

The moment the acid hit my skin, I heard my own flesh sizzle. In the last moments before my consciousness faded, my trembling fingers managed to dial my brother, the new Don of the Steele family. To my relief, Farrow finally answered. The sounds of expensive jazz and clinking glasses bled through the receiver. His voice was cold as ice. "What is it this time, Grace?" "Farrow... help me..." He cut me off before I could finish. "Listen, Betty's book launch is tomorrow night. If you dare cause a scene or embarrass the Family, I'll disown you. I'll ship you off to a convent in Sicily." The line went dead. A moment later, a second splash of acid hit my face, and the searing agony consumed me. My eyes were gone, leaving nothing but hollow, bloody sockets. You don't need to exile me, Farrow. I'm already gone. Forever.

When I was three years old, my twin brothers, Silas and Julian, nearly died in an explosion while trying to save me. The Vampire King happened to pass by and turned them into high-ranking vampires. He had wanted to turn me too, so our family could stay together forever, but they refused. The King's power was too overwhelming, they said-the transformation would be agonizing. So they promised to turn me themselves when I turned eighteen. They spent every last penny they had on an impossibly rare serum-a blood-calming agent that would ensure I survived the transformation safely. But six months ago, they brought home a fifteen-year-old human orphan named Elena. Silas snatched my serum and handed it to Elena, his voice cold as ice. "You're strong enough to endure the transformation on your own. Elena is far more fragile than you-she needs this more." Julian's face twisted with undisguised contempt. He pointed at the door and snarled, "Get out! Don't come back until you learn to share!" I didn't say a word. I picked up the suitcase I'd already packed and disappeared into the rainy night. They assumed I was just throwing a tantrum. They figured I'd come crawling back in a few days. To celebrate ridding themselves of their "burden," they took the orphan on a vacation to the Caribbean coast-the trip I'd been dreaming about for years. But when they returned to the castle two weeks later, they were stunned to discover that I had undergone the Vampire King's transformation personally. Not only that-I had voluntarily signed a hundred-year agreement to join a classified isolation research project studying resistance to holy silver and crucifixes. A century of solitary confinement. I was never coming back. That day, they completely fell apart.

I'd been with Alpha Adrian Grant for eight years, but he never once allowed me to go public with our relationship. On the eve of my birthday, I learned he'd bid on a priceless moonstone ring at auction. I could barely contain my excitement—I thought he was finally going to claim me openly. But on my birthday, I saw the photos on the news. Adrian, kissing another she-wolf. And on Vivian's hand—the one wrapped around his neck—was the very moonstone ring I'd been dreaming about. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. I drove toward Moonlight Forest, but halfway there, a pack of rogues ambushed me. Desperate, I reached through the mate bond, trying to connect with Adrian. Every single time, he shut me out. Just when I'd given up hope, a passerby drove the rogues off and rushed me to the hospital. My pup was gone—lost in the attack. I called Adrian through my tears, over and over. On the twenty-fifth try, the call finally connected. But the voice I heard wasn't his. "Ugh, so annoying. You promised you'd spend today with me—just me. Why are you taking calls from other she-wolves?" Adrian immediately set me aside, his tone turning honey-sweet as he soothed the woman in his arms. "I know, I know. I'll ignore her. She's just some orphan with no family—how could she possibly compare to you?" Their smug laughter pierced through the phone like a knife to the chest. But what they didn't know was this: I was the true daughter of the Oceanridge Pack Alpha—his only heir. Vivian Blake was nothing more than a girl my family had taken in out of pity. I opened the mind-link to my father. "Dad, I'm coming home. And that arranged mating you mentioned—I agree. But I have two conditions. First, remove Vivian from the pack. Second, cut all ties with Crescent Moon Pack and pull every cent of funding we've ever given them."

On the day I return to my home to reunite with my actual family, Melanie Stewart, the fake heiress, shows up in front of me. Her neck is completely riddled with hickeys. Instantly, countless live comments appear in the air around me. "Poor Yvonne! She thought she could start living a comfortable and lavish life now that she had been accepted by her actual family. Little does she know that Melanie has already formed a pact with the transfer system!" "Melanie is a loose woman by nature, and she loves sleeping with countless men. After getting bound to the system, the children she gets pregnant with will be transferred into Yvonne's womb instead." "Yvonne will proceed to give birth to dozens of bastard children, thus humiliating her family to no end. She ends up getting cast out of her family by her own parents!" "The truth is, there's a solution to this situation. Yvonne can just remove her uterus so that the system won't work at all. Alas, she doesn't know about that." I stop in my tracks at that moment. In my previous life, I had believed the live comments. As such, I traveled to a hospital to get my uterus removed overnight. But the next day, Melanie blew the whistle on me to my parents. She claimed that I wanted to get rid of my uterus in order to cut down the risks completely for the sake of having as much fun as I wanted with other men. My parents were completely disappointed in me. My fiance refused to enter a marriage alliance with me, a woman who could no longer give birth, as well. In the end, I died from a post-surgical infection. However, Melanie obtained everything that was supposed to be mine, to begin with. That was how she became successful in life. When I open my eyes again, I realize I've returned to the day I'm bound to reunite with my family.

In my last life, I was kidnapped alongside the fake heiress, Lilith Howe, at the same time. My father, the richest man in the country, claimed he had to prove his impartiality. Without a second thought, he told the police to rescue Lilith first and refused to pay a ransom for me. In front of the cameras, he declared with solemn conviction, "A daughter of the Howes must have backbone. We will never give in to criminals!" Lilith returned without a single scratch, and the internet crowned her a miracle girl. Meanwhile, I was killed by the kidnappers. There was barely anything left of me to bury. As my soul hovered above the scene, I watched my brother sneer at what little remained. "Good," he said. "At least she won't come back and be an eyesore to Lilith. We'll finally have some peace in the house." When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment the kidnappers called with their demands. A knife was pressed against my throat. On the other end of the line, my father's voice was just as cold, just as absolute. "I'm not choosing. My money belongs to charity. If she's a Howe, she should be ready to sacrifice for the family." I laughed. If he was willing to destroy his own flesh and blood for the sake of so-called honor, then this time, I would grant them a reunion in hell!

Rumor had spread through the Vittori family that the daughter they had lost years ago had finally been found. The moment I heard, I left the family branch and rushed back to the main estate. My car had barely stopped when a young woman hurried over and grabbed my hand. “So you’re the Vittori family’s adopted daughter,” she said with a smile that looked painfully sincere. “Your dress is so beautiful. It must cost tens of thousands of dollars. You can tell you’ve never really had to worry about anything before. Unlike me. I grew up in places where even finding my next meal was a problem.” For a second, I didn’t understand what she meant. Then her eyes lowered to the only necklace around her neck. “This is the only thing I have from Mother,” she whispered. “Please don’t hate me for wearing it.” The next second, she suddenly grabbed my hand, dragged it up toward her throat, and yanked hard. The necklace snapped. Pearls scattered across the marble floor. “Why would you do that?” she cried, staring at me in shock. “If you hate seeing Mother’s gift on me, I’ll take it off right now. I won’t stay and make things difficult for you. Just please don’t tell Father and Mother. I don’t want them caught in the middle, and I don’t want this family fighting because of me.” She curled into herself on the marble floor, shaking as she cried, while the guests around us immediately turned to stare. I stood there completely stunned. I had imagined a thousand ways I might meet my daughter again. I never imagined she would look me in the eye, mistake me for someone else, and frame me before I had even spoken. Because I was not Valentina. I was her mother.

It was only on our first wedding anniversary that I realized the rubbers I bought before our wedding had long expired. No one would believe that my mafia husband, Andre Garcia, and I had never consummated our marriage. That night, I gathered my courage and bought a suggestive nightgown. After downing three glasses of whisky, I hugged Andre tightly and whispered in his ear, "Darling, let's do it today. I want you..." However, Andre shook my hand off indifferently as if he were handling a gun. "Danielle Lawson, do you have no shame? You've done such shameless things time and time again. If you're really that lonely, I'll order you some toys so you can play with them to your heart's content." My face turned deathly pale as I stood there, stunned. I could not understand why a wife begging for her husband's affection was considered 'shameless' behavior. I curled up on the couch, unable to help but ask on social media. Danielle: [My husband has no dysfunction. Why won't he touch me after marriage?] Someone replied: [Perhaps your husband has someone else.] Like a dagger, that comment pierced me awake. I suddenly realized—maybe the problem was not that I was unattractive but rather that he was never mine. The moment I deleted my account, I also made the decision to leave. Who could have imagined that Andre, who would usually not even glance at me, would frantically search for me after I disappeared? "Danielle, I can't get a hard-on after you left!"

My family sold one of their properties to put me through school abroad. Nathan Kingsley and I had been together three years. Two of those were long-distance. Through those two years of me alone overseas, he never broke contact — airport pickups, long phone calls, every anniversary remembered. I'd never once doubted him. I thought distance hadn't beaten us. The day I flew home, he was waiting at Arrivals with a bouquet of flowers. He smiled and said, "Finally." We set the engagement date. We picked out the dress. We booked the reception. The day the wedding march began and I stood at the top of the aisle looking at him, I thought — these three years were worth every minute. Then the doors behind me opened. My sister walked into the chapel, in a white dress, and slid her arm through his. She smiled at me. "Sorry, sis. Those airport pickups? I'm the one who sent him. For the last three years, he's been mine the whole time."

My sister and I married into the Phoenix Clan at the same time and, coincidentally, gave birth at the same time. After my sister birthed a purebred golden phoenix, the eldest prince she married was immediately crowned the next leader of the Phoenix Clan. Meanwhile, I gave birth to a mixed-bred pheasant and was condemned to death along with my husband, who was the second prince. It was only after my death that I found out the pheasant was my sister’s child! It was a ploy concocted by her and the eldest prince. The goal was to hide the bastard bloodline of the eldest prince and steal the throne of the Phoenix Clan. When I opened my eyes again, I realized I had been reborn. I didn't give birth, and my sister was visiting me with a haul of supplements…