Rafael: The Mafia's Substitute Wife

For all the little girls who grew up wondering what happens after the prince kisses the girl—this is the story they never told you.
.
Locked in her frozen tower, Bella dreamed of warmth, of touch, of freedom and of love. Cursed with the power of ice and snow, she’s spent her life alone. A secret they tried to protect the world from. Her only escape comes in the form of the books she reads. Stories of heat, desire, and the kind of love that could melt even her frostbitten heart.
Damien is the Beast. A dragon King with a temper forged in flame and a soul hollowed by duty. The world fears him. The people call him a monster. But beneath the scales and the rage lies a man who has never been touched by love.
When frost meets fire, the world shatters. She was never meant to leave her tower. He was never meant to find her. But destiny doesn’t bow to kings or care for cages and now the question burns through them both: Can Bella have her Beast? Or will the girl of snow melt in the heat of his desire?

.
"I’m keeping her."
"What?"
Before I can react, he scoops her up. Her small body fits easily in the cradle of his talons. For a split second, she looks startled, but not afraid. Her hand rests against one scaled finger, and she stares up at him with that same curious wonder, as though she’s already forgotten she was ever meant to fear me.
"Put her down," I try to command, panic threading through my thoughts. "You’ll hurt her."
"She’s ours," the beast insists, possessive and fierce. "Our snowflake."

Aurora Whitmore was the villain of Malcolm & Whitmore High. She was obsessed with her childhood love, Adrian Malcolm.
When he chose Jane Sinclair over her, Aurora lost control and on graduation night, she died after drinking a poisoned wine, not knowing who poisoned her. With her last breath, she wished for a second chance and woke up one year before her death.
This time, Aurora refuses to be the villain. She breaks off her engagement, stops chasing Adrian, and walks away with her pride intact. But the more she ignores him, the more Adrian wants her back.
And when his cold, mysterious half-brother Marcel, the one who was supposed to die, returns and begins to fall for Aurora after she saves him. Now the brothers are at war.
One wants the girl who stopped loving him. The other wants the girl who saved him. But Aurora isn’t chasing anyone anymore. She’s rewriting her fate.
Will Aurora be able to change her fate? Will she return back to Adrian or choose Marcel? Or will fate turn her into the villain again? There is only one way to find out.
Take note, that names, characters, location are all fictional.

I woke up three years into a marriage I barely remembered—pregnant with twins that weren't my husband's.

Those words should have destroyed me, but the truth was worse: I'd been used as a broodmare by the man who swore to love me, set up in a hotel room with a stranger because My husband Alexander Cross couldn't father children himself, and now I carried the secret babies of Damon Lester—the most powerful and dangerous Alpha in San Loris—while my own family replaced me with the daughter they'd always wanted. But when that same stranger's doctor appeared at my door, when twenty million dollars exchanged hands over a fake perfume bearing my secret identity, and when Damon's gray eyes locked onto mine with recognition I couldn't afford, I realized my carefully hidden life as the legendary perfumer Vera was colliding with a pregnancy that could cost me everything.

Could I protect my babies from the husband plotting my death, hide my true identity from the Alpha who's been hunting me for years, and reclaim the freedom I'd buried along with my dreams—even if it means standing alone against the wolves who see me as nothing more than a womb to be used and discarded?

Twenty-two-year-old Alyssa Van Every is in a dilemma. Her close friend, Sienna, is marrying billionaire, Lucas Donnelly who, along with his brothers, happens to be her older brother, Alex's sworn enemy.
She escapes to Preston Island to attend the wedding without informing him only to collide with Lucas’s hot, fiery and arrogant brother, the twenty-three-year-old, Nicholas Donnelly. Sparks immediately fly between them but Alyssa refuses to acknowledge them fearing her brother's wrath.
The wedding is over and Alyssa tries hard to forget the mysterious Nicholas Donnelly but can he forget her? Can he ignore the attraction he feels for her, feelings that have resurfaced after ten years?
What will Allyssa do when she is stalked by the man who has been invading her dreams since the day she met him? What will she do when she is whisked away to a deserted island by the unpredictable Nicholas Donnelly? Can she tame her heart or surrender to sinful temptations? Read to find out!
Part of the Temptation Series. Can be read as a standalone.

Left at a pack border with a name and a stubborn heartbeat, Envy grows into the sharpest kind of survivor, an orphaned warrior who knows how to hold a line and keep moving. Love isn’t in the plan…until four alpha wolves with playboy reputations and inconveniently soft hands decide the girl who won’t bow is the only queen they’ll ever take. Their mate. The one they have waited for. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, and Noah are gorgeous, lethal, and anything but perfect and Envy isn’t either. She’s changing. First into hell hound, Layah at her heels and fire in her veins. Then into what the realm has been waiting for, a Goddess of the Underworld, dragging her mates down to hell with her.

When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.

“Please listen to me! I am not a thief. I don’t know how that necklace ended up in my purse. Please!” begged Maeve, crying.
Thorin pushed her on the bed and pinned her with his body. He growled near her face, “Liar!”

“No! No! I am not lying!”

“Then explain this!” Thorin whipped the screen of his phone near her eyes. Maeve looked at the screen, and her eyes widened with shock. It was a DNA report. It clearly said that Valeska was Maeve and Thorin’s daughter. “You have been lying to me for months now. Why did you hide that she is my daughter? Why did you start hating me? Did you never love me?”

“What should I have done? Let you kill my daughter!” snapped Maeve.

“What? Kill? What the hell are you talking about?” shouted Thorin.


After a passionate night with the Alpha Heir Thorin Blackridge, Maeve Arrendale, a human, found herself pregnant. She knew she had left her contact details for Thorin to find her, but he never came. Desperately, she went to tell him everything and ask him to take responsibility. But what came at her was humiliation and the devilish serial killer, Ozul.

She had no idea how she escaped her certain but she thanked every god and ran far away from Thorin and his world. She raised her child on her own. She herself had a difficult life and didn’t want her daughter to suffer. So she did everything in her power to give Valeska a good life.

Her life was turned upside down when Thorin came to her office as her boss. His fated mate, Vespera clinging to his arms. Now, Thorin hated her for vanishing from his life, and Maeve hated him for sending a serial killer to kill her.

Will Thorin accept his daughter? Will Maeve forgive him for attempting to kill her? If not Thorin, then who sent a serial killer to kill Maeve? An ancient magic, a prophecy, a powerful child is going to change everything in everyone’s life. Is everyone ready?

They traded me for their "real" daughter the day she showed up.

My fiancé didn't just dump me—he proposed to her that same night. My so-called family handed me bus fare and a one-way ticket to the countryside.

Perfect. Let them think they won.

They don't know who I really am. The anonymous genius surgeon who saves lives when elite hospitals give up. The legendary artist whose paintings sell for millions at auction. The undefeated shadow queen of the underground fighting circuit. And the true heiress to a fortune that makes theirs look like pocket change.

Now my ex-fiancé begs on his knees. My fake sister's jealousy is eating her alive. And that cold, arrogant CEO who once threw our engagement contract in my face? He's hunting me down like a man possessed, desperate for one more chance.

They threw me away like trash to upgrade their lives.

Joke's on them.

I was always the upgrade.

My name is Audrey, and I'm the adopted daughter of the Bailey family.
Four years ago, the Bailey family faced a devastating financial crisis.
Just when bankruptcy seemed inevitable, a mysterious benefactor emerged, offering salvation with one condition: a contract marriage.
Rumors swirled about this enigmatic man—whispers claimed he was hideously ugly and too ashamed to show his face, possibly harboring dark, twisted obsessions.
Without hesitation, the Baileys sacrificed me to protect their precious biological daughter, forcing me to take her place as a pawn in this cold, calculated arrangement.
Luckily, in those four years, the mysterious husband never asked to meet in person.
Now, in the final year of our arrangement, the husband I've never met is demanding we meet face to face.
But disaster struck the night before my return—drunk and disoriented, I stumbled into the wrong hotel room and ended up sleeping with the legendary financial mogul, Caspar Thornton.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?

Ayla Frost is a beautiful, rare omega. Kidnapped, tortured, and trafficked to rogue clans and corrupt alphas to do with as they pleased.  Kept alive in her cage, broken and abandoned by her wolf, she becomes mute and has given up on hope for a better life until one explosion changes everything. 

Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life. 

Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination

Charlotte Pierce is used to surviving in motion. New towns, new schools, the same old house on the edge of nowhere, and the same rule that keeps her standing. Keep her twin brother, Charlie safe. Keep his hockey dream alive. Keep her own needs quiet. She works too much, sleeps too little, and saves the one thing that still feels like hers for the middle of the night, when she can lace up her worn skates and carve freedom into dangerous frozen ice. Charlotte and Charlie shifted once, years ago, and never understood what it meant. They had no pack, no guidance and no protection. Just two twins clinging to each other and pretending the voice in their heads was stress, imagination, or loneliness. Then they move to Wellington.
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)

Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.

A collision of two worlds brought them together. Two single parents, with different personalities and distinct parenting styles.
Henderson Bain a playboy billionaire cares about nothing else aside from his daughter, Itzel who is a spoilt brat all thanks to her father.
Lena Cohen is hunted by her past but despite that, she is an amazing mother to Trent, a sweet well well-behaved boy but life wasn't rosy for them.
Henderson Bain is having a hard time searching for a nanny for Itzel until shows up though qualified, Henderson refuses to offer her the job because of their first encounter but seeing how Lena and Itzel get along, he decides to employ her.
Lena and Henderson were two worlds apart but one thing they never saw coming was them falling for each other.
Will they finally let go of their past, and give love a chance? Or try to suppress their feelings for each other? And what if their past comes knocking at their doors once again?

"She's naive. A pretty little socialite who got lucky marrying above her station."
"I still can't believe she actually did it. Aria Hart, filing for divorce. Who saw that coming?"
"How long do we think it'll take before she comes crawling back?" Another voice joins the conversation.
"Three days," Victoria declares. "Five at most. She has no money, no skills, no family. Where's she going to go?"
When Aria Chen divorced billionaire Leon Hart, New York's elite sneered, betting she'd crawl back within days. She never did.
Three years later, the world is rocked when Dr. Aria Vale, CEO of a revolutionary cybersecurity empire, steps into the spotlight. The mysterious genius who built a billion-dollar company from nothing is none other than Leon's discarded wife, the woman everyone thought was just a pretty ornament.
Now, every powerful man wants the queen Leon threw away a renowned scientist seeking partnership, a financial titan proposing an empire, and an actor offering devotion. Each sees the brilliance Leon ignored.
Then Leon discovers the truth: Aria's sacrifices, her secret double life, and the daughter she's been raising without him. For the first time, the man who once took her for granted must fight for her love. But can he compete with men who valued her from the beginning?
A story of love, betrayal, and power where the king must kneel before the queen who never needed saving.