Not Her: The Shadow Bride's Great Escape

I was the invisible daughter of a low-level mobster until Ethan Cole, the city’s most terrifying Don, plucked me from the streets.

He claimed it was love at first sight. He married me, draped me in vintage diamonds, and treated me like a fragile porcelain doll.

I thought I was living a fairytale until I found the secret room in his library.

It was filled with photos of a dead woman named Olivia. A woman who had my hair, my eyes, and my face.

I wasn't his soulmate. I was a replacement part for a broken machine.

When I became pregnant, Ethan didn't hug me. He placed a possessive hand on my stomach and whispered, "The heir."

He didn't see me. He only saw an incubator for a ghost's legacy.

My father tried to warn me and died for it. I realized that once I gave Ethan this child, I would be trapped in his gilded cage forever, a broodmare for a man in love with a corpse.

So, I did the unthinkable.

I walked into a clinic and paid cash to remove the one thing he valued more than his empire.

I went home, collapsed on the marble floor in a pool of blood, and looked up at the monster who thought he owned me.

"I lost it," I screamed, tearing at his lapels. "I lost our baby!"

I watched his heart break, knowing I had just declared war.