Strong Female Lead

For three years, I smelled like nothing for my Alpha.
Scent blocker on my wrists and throat, every time another Alpha walked into the room. "Until it's official," Knox said. Until he marked me.
When the war's over. He promised me eighteen times.
I drank wolfsbane in his place at every feast. I drew the maps that won his war, then watched him stand up and take the thanks.
The morning after the wa...

Leonardo Loren was the most powerful man in the world. As Alpha of a colossal pack, he could have anything and anyone he liked. That was until he met Ella. Fiercely independent, strong-willed and hugely unafraid.

She was unique. And she was everything he hated.

Their personalities clash and their relationship becomes a sea of turbulent resentment and hostility. But can their undeniable love ri...

Just before Easter, my husband, Ethan Cole, surprised me by arranging a weeklong trip to Switzerland.
In ten years of marriage, it was the first time he had ever planned a vacation for me.
I thought he had finally remembered that I was human, too, and needed a break.
Then, one day, I accidentally overheard a conversation between him and our daughter, Ella.
"Daddy, if you and Sophia have a wedding,...

My boyfriend, Ethan Whitmore, has prosopagnosia. He can't remember faces unless he's looking right at them.
At our wedding send-off dinner, my roommate blindfolded him and challenged him to name three things about the woman he'd loved for four years.
"Big eyes. Small face," he said.
My heart nearly burst with happiness.
Even blindfolded, he still remembered me.
Then he smiled and added, "And there...

Ethan Calloway and I had been together for eight years. Married for three—or so everyone thought.
We had the ceremony. The hospital chapel, the white dress, his boss giving a toast. But we never made it to City Hall to sign the papers. He promised we would. Eighteen times.
Every time, something came up. Or rather, someone came up—his young protégée, Chloe. She needed him at the hospital. She neede...

On our fifth anniversary, my Mafia Don husband kissed my cheek, then switched to Corsican to tell our adopted daughter how much he enjoyed getting her pregnant piece by piece.

He didn't know I spoke seven languages. Corsican included.

He didn't know that in three days, I would vanish — no body, no trail, no goodbye.

When I disappeared, he lost his mind.

Now it was my turn to teach hi...

My six-month business trip to Europe was finally over. I decided to surprise my husband Nathaniel by coming home early without telling him, bringing my six-year-old son Lucas straight to his newly opened upscale restaurant.

Lucas excitedly ran toward the children's play area while I scanned the restaurant for Nathaniel, eagerly anticipating our reunion.

Suddenly, a scream shattered the peaceful ...

I thought the orchestrated assault was the most profound betrayal of my life. Then, from the shadows of the wine cellar, I heard my husband and his brothers toasting to their success.
"The slow-motion capture of her climax, paired with those broken whimpers... it was cinematic perfection."
"She played her part beautifully. After all, she’s just a Valenti."
I learned the devastating truth: my agony...

On the night of my college graduation, Sloane Callahan, the biological daughter my Mafia family had only recently brought home, asked me what I planned to do next.

Before I could answer, my four childhood friends spoke up one after another.

One by one, all four showed me documents proving they were moving to California.

Then Graham Whitmore, heir to one of Chicago's most powerful Mafia families...

The night I graduated from college, Bianca Moretti asked what I was going to do next. My Mafia family had only recently brought their biological daughter home.
I didn't get a chance to answer. The four men I'd grown up with answered first, each taking his turn.
They all had paperwork showing that they were moving to California.
Then Dante Romano, the future head of one of Chicago's most powerful c...

The second the graduation ceremony ended, my parents took us all to the nicest restaurant in town.

They said they wanted to properly celebrate having "two graduates" in the family.

Pierce, my boyfriend of four years, showed up last with a huge bouquet of champagne roses in his arms.

I'd just gotten up from my chair when he walked right past me and handed the whole bouquet to my friend Brooke. "...

They cropped me out of the graduation photo, and nobody even noticed.
For eighteen years, I was the quiet, easy daughter. My sister Brooke got my clothes, my room, and the center of every picture. Ethan, the boy next door who once watched me nearly die from a peanut allergy, handed me a peanut butter smoothie and called it my favorite.
When Brooke found my full-ride acceptance letter, she called i...

On my due date, my husband Matteo locked me in an underground freezer at minus ten degrees.

The Torrino family's unbreakable rule: the first-born male inherits the entire mafia empire. My sister-in-law Jennifer and I were both pregnant, our due dates only one day apart. To ensure his brother's child was born first, Matteo made this insane decision.

"My brother and Jennifer's baby has to come fir...

In our family, fairness was the one rule nobody broke.

My brother Brody and my sister Raegan are twins.

Growing up, if one of them got an extra cookie, the other would tear the whole house apart.

To keep the peace, Mom and Dad split everything down the middle. Half went to Brody, half went to Raegan.

Which meant nothing in this house was ever mine.

I was the third kid. The one my parents neve...

The night of my coming-of-age ceremony, Elodie asked us to sit around the bonfire and talk.

Elodie was my adoptive parents' real daughter. They had brought her home three months ago.

She smiled at me across the fire. "Wren, which academy are you choosing?"

Before I could answer, the four boys I grew up with spoke first.

One by one, they held up acceptance receipts. All four said Silverhaven.

...

Nico Castellano knelt in front of thirty made men to save my life. Everyone in Chicago knows the Don’s son would die for his wife.

So nobody thought to tell me about the girl in the apartment on Lake Shore Drive.

They talked about her right in front of me. In Italian. They were sure I’d never understand a word.

They were wrong.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t make a scene. I paid a man on Halsted to...

"I need you to erase Elena Cavalli completely," I said, sliding an untraceable check across the table.

People say my husband Vito Cavalli broke every mafia code for me. The heir who knelt before all five family bosses and named an ordinary woman his godmother.

For three years, he convinced the world we were in love. He told the press I was why he went legitimate, why he gave up the gun.

But dev...

On the day of my marking ceremony, my mate, Ryan Mercer, is caught kissing my sister, Paige Frost, in the dressing room. The whole pack gets to laugh at my humiliation.

Then Alpha Ethan Vale steps forward. With everyone watching, he gives me his mark.

Once we're married, Ethan couldn't be kinder to me. But we can't conceive a pup. At last, I try IVF, and I finally get pregnant.

He becomes even ...

When I was eight, my older sister pointed a finger in my face and told me I'd been adopted out of foster care.

I went crying to our parents. With their arms around her, they nodded.

“Yes. Your real parents didn't want you.”

After that, I stopped competing with her for affection. I didn't dare ask for new clothes. I took over the housework and fought for the highest grades in my class, terrified...

In order to rush to comfort his assistant whose apartment was leaking, Richard signed his name hastily without even glancing at the documents on the table.
I put away the divorce agreement with a wry smile.
When he and my son completely disappeared, he finally panicked.
Three months later .
He knelt down on the streets of Chicago in despair, begging me to remarry him.
My six-year-old son looked co...