Z E B R A Unscramble Novels & Stories

There's an unwritten rule in the Chicago Outfit. The Don never keeps a mistress for more than a hundred days. When the hundred days are up, the women he’s finished with always take the money and leave quietly. Once, someone asked him, unwilling to accept it: “Why?” Santino Falcone smiled softly.“Because I love my wife.” Everyone knew that his wife of seven years was his weak spot. But this new mistress wouldn’t behave.Emboldened by his favor, she sent me a taunting text message. “Arabella, isn’t your husband cute when he’s asleep in my arms?I’ve got plenty more photos. I can send them to you if you want.” “I’m his one true love. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll step down and give me your place as his wife.” I didn’t argue with her.Instead, I generously gave her my wedding ring. Because what she didn't know was that I had gotten my memory back. I was never the orphan Santino saved. I am the long-lost princess of New York’s most powerful family, missing for seven years. In three days, my brother Matteo’s armored motorcade will arrive in Chicago to take me home.

I grew up fatherless, clawing my way through the Chicago underbelly with my mom. She always said he loved us. That he just had to go far, far away. Until she got terminally ill. I dropped out of design school and rushed back, ready to drain our life savings to treat her. But she put a pair of scissors to her own throat. She told me not to touch the cash. It was the only thing she had to leave me. I pretended to agree. But the second I turned around, I took our fifty grand and ran to Mr. Sal, the neighborhood's back-alley doctor. I begged him to save her. "Fifty grand? This buys her three months. Tops." He lit a cigarette. Through the smoke, his eyes bored into me. Like he was looking at a ghost. "Your mother... she was once the brightest jewel in Chicago. Gave it all up for a man. That man took her money and became the city's real estate king. He's Mob-connected. Maybe you should go ask him for help." I took that poison home with me. And I didn't breathe a word. When she found out I spent the money, she held me and cried. "My foolish girl, why are you so stubborn? I'm dying anyway. What about your school? How will you pay for it?" But while I took care of her, I tore through all her old things, looking for proof of that bastard's betrayal. On the night of his empire's 20th-anniversary gala, I crashed his party. I brought two things: a blood-stained marriage certificate, and a lawyer. "I'm looking for Nico Russo. He can either honor a twenty-year-old marriage... or he can sign these divorce papers."

I was Vampire Lord Bastian’s exclusive blood thrall. My blood was an addiction he just couldn't kick. But six years ago, an accidental blood pact left me pregnant. Yet, he never once allowed our half-blood son, Liam, to call him "Dad." After he blew off Liam’s birthday—again—for his pureblood companion Ophelia, I severed the pact. I took my son and walked out of his immortal life for good. The ever-so-elegant ancient vampire finally snapped. He tore into my empty lab, roaring, demanding to know where Liam and I had gone. But this time, neither Liam nor I would ever look back.

I’m the best art forger and intel specialist in Chicago. And I fell for the man who owned it all, Don Vincenzo Russo. For ten years, I was his secret, his weapon, and his woman. I built his empire from the shadows. I thought I’d get a ring. After all, every night he was in this city, he was buried inside me, taking his pleasure. He’d whisper that I was his, that no one else felt this good. But this time, after he was finished with me, he announced he was marrying the Russian Bratva princess, Katerina Petrov. That’s when I knew. I wasn’t his woman. I was just a body. For an alliance, for her, he sacrificed me. He left me to die. So I destroyed every piece of the life he gave me. I made one call to my father in Italy. And then, I vanished. But when the Don who owned Chicago couldn't find his favorite toy… he went insane.

The year was 1934; I was twenty-two years old. I never thought of myself as anything special. I was barely making it through the Great Depression. There were many days I lived off of scraps. I was the king of odd jobs, just enough to get by. I had done it all, from being a field hand to a miner. It all changed one night when I stumbled across a traveling circus, Cirque du Lune. I had never seen such a sight. Instead of the usual menagerie, this circus was overrun with wolves. There was one performer who caught my eye; it was as if an angel had descended from heaven on a silk ribbon.

Someone @'d me on Nextdoor. "Hey, penthouse girl. You're single. What do you need a whole rooftop garden for? My husband's throwing a party. We'll be needing it starting tomorrow." "Don't worry, we'll give you two hundred bucks a month for upkeep. You'll make a couple hundred for doing jack shit. You should be thrilled." I stared at the screen. It was a joke. I was Don Ricci's heir, groomed to run the South Side. But I traded that life for a paintbrush. This apartment was my sanctuary, my quiet place. That rooftop garden wasn't some building perk. It was mine. I'd paid half a million cash for the deed when I bought the place. I turned it into my sunroom studio. And now someone thinks they can have it for two hundred bucks a month? I replied with two words: "Dream on." I didn't expect the building manager and two security guards at my door the next day. Someone had filed a complaint about me "misusing community resources." And now, for the sake of "neighborly harmony," they were demanding my keys. Fine. They wanted to throw civility out the window? They were about to learn what real power felt like.

“You’re pretty, but I don’t like ungrateful little boys, bébé.” He informed, clicking his tongue, and pinching my nipple. A moan escaped my lips before I could stop it. What is wrong with me? “So you do love my touch, Ivan.” He teased in satisfaction, his eye’s darkened in lust. My body trembled from his intense stare on my body. Pretty, Bébé, and the stares. He wasn’t straight. “You’re…into men.” I stuttered in realization. He shook his head in response, spinning me around. “No, Ivan. I like naive little boys like you.” He admitted, his eyes lowering to my groin. “How about you?” His eyes were fixed on my groin, “You don’t look that straight to me.” Cristiano Vito is known for his ruthlessness in the underworld, but there was one secret they didn’t know—He’s not straight. What happens when he is being forced to marry a woman against his wish? He detests the idea, and fights against it, but Ivan Hernandez—his fiancée brother changes his mind. Cristiano is determined to have him as his new toy, and agrees to marrying Mia to get closer to Ivan. But the problem? Ivan wasn’t into men or was he?

They say sur‍vival buil⁠ds character.‌ It also b​uilds a gi‌rl who notices e‍verythi​ng and forg⁠ives not‌hing. I⁠ was seventeen, wo⁠rkin‌g three jobs before the sun‌ cam‍e up‌, studying af⁠ter midnight beca⁠use poverty was‌ never going to be my permanent addr‌ess.‌ I kne​w hun‍ger, but what I d​id not know wa​s t‍hat my name was alr‍eady tied to​ a b‍illionaire empire long before Jul‍i⁠an Vane ever‌ looked my way‌. He propo⁠sed an⁠d I said yes, because I was‍ a girl who had s​u⁠rvived on‌ s‍craps her w‌hole​ life and he was offering the world. What he did not tell me was t‌he l‍ocked room in his mansion that held secrets about my family. Silas‍ Th‍orne walked into my life when almost all hope was lost, and I’m torn between revenge and letting it all go.

Hyden Lester, a young and handsome CEO who recently took over the family business, has now chosen to marry a woman who is the only child of his parents' best friend. Lester had to take a bitter pill when he realized that Angel, his future wife, didn't love him. Marriage with one-sided love has an unpleasant beginning. Unlike most newlyweds, differences in opinian and problems in him household did not make Lester hate Angel. He keeps trying to get love from his wife. When Angel's heart began to melt, her hatred slowly faded and tried to love Lester. A big reality made her crash, the sense of trust she had just awakened suddenly shattered to pieces. "So, this is your goal?" Lester narrowed his lips. "Yes. Revenge."

“If you don’t stop looking at my mouth like that,” Hudson murmured, backing me against the bathroom sink, “I’m going to do something we’ll both regret.” ... ... My breath hitched. The door was locked but my heart was beating faster. Hudson stood inches from me, eyes dark, jaw tight, like he was fighting himself just as hard as I was. His hand came up, stopping just short of touching my waist, hovering there like a question. “Tell me to walk away,” he said quietly. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. That was all the permission he needed.