Did Echo Kill Kingpin Novels & Stories

I’m the princess of the Hillrose Family. He’s Blair Falcone, Don of the Falcone Family. A perfect match. We were New York's power couple, the envy of everyone in the underworld. Until three days before our wedding. One minute, we were lost in each other, his body moving inside me, his lips trailing fire across my skin. The next, he calmly announces, "Flora, there's something I have to tell you." "Legally, I already have a wife. The old man married me off to her six years ago. She's the daughter of a man who took a bullet for him." "If you can live with it," he continued, "our marriage is still on. As planned." I stared at him in disbelief. "What about me? What were our six years?" He took a slow drag from his cigar. "I know what this is. So, what's it gonna be?" My hand instinctively went to my stomach. He didn't know. I was going to tell him my happy secret tonight: I was pregnant. But now, I wasn't going to tell him a damn thing.

When we were eight, Kaelen burned down an entire pack territory just to save me. He swore an oath before the Moon Goddess to be with me forever, to never leave my side. Not even his own father could keep us apart. Then, a pregnant human girl reeking of his scent strutted into my office, a smug smirk on her face. "He says you're old and boring," she gloated. "That your scars turn his stomach." He seems to forget that he's the reason I have every last one of them. And I am not some weak woman he can just humiliate.

Three days before our wedding, my fiancé, Raphael Russo, was killed in a gang shootout. They didn't even find a body. As I was drowning in grief, comments suddenly flashed before my eyes: 【Wake up, girl! the coffin's empty! He faked his death! The scumbag ran off to be with that scheming bitch chloe, the one pretending to be sick!】 【While you're crying your eyes out at the funeral, Raphael is fucking Chloe’s brains out in a hotel bed.】 【When he comes back, he'll claim he has amnesia. You won't know a thing and you'll forgive him. You poor thing…】 A month later, news of my marriage to Mafia Don Marcello Falcone spread through New York. Raphael’s right-hand man cornered me, furious. “How could you betray the Boss?” I tightened my grip on Marcello’s arm and smiled. “A girl can’t mourn forever, can she? I’m sure Raphael, in spirit, would be happy for me.”

For the past two months, I’ve been getting photos. Photos of my fated mate, Andrew, fucking his mistress, Crystal—a sultry omega. 【Dear Luna, Andrew left so many marks on me last night. He said I'm the only one who's ever made him feel a real orgasm.】 【Oh, and that famous soothing ability you're so proud of? I have it too. He says I can replace you completely now.】 【Don't worry, I'll take good care of your mate for you.】 In the photos, a smudge of Crystal's lipstick was a glaring stain on Andrew’s mate mark. Looking at those messages, disbelief curdled into despair, and finally, into a cold, hard numbness. Until tonight, when the Moon Goddess finally answered my desperate prayers. I could sacrifice half of my soothing gift for one chance to sever our mate bond on my own. In seven days, I will finally leave Andrew for good.

They call me 'Ghost.' The king of mercenaries, feared across the entire black market. But for Madeline, the Godmother of the Chicago Mafia, I walked away from it all. She wanted me by her side, so I became a normal man. We were married for five years. The entire underworld knew she loved me more than life itself. She even had my dagger tattooed next to her family's crest—a permanent mark of loyalty. Until I got the photo from her lover. The bartender was naked, his chest covered in red scratches from her nails. Madeline’s hand, with its red polish, was still on his waist. He’d drawn his name right next to my dagger on her skin. And my wife had let him. "Madeline says I'm the only one who can make her feel like a woman. You can't satisfy her anymore. It's time to make way for a younger man." I didn't reply. I just made a call. "Hello. I need a new identity. And a plane ticket."

For three months, I’d been in an online romance with a stranger, a werewolf named "Lykos." We were falling hard and fast. Every night, his deep, husky voice and fiery texts made my whole body burn. "I want you, sweetheart." "I can feel it. You're my fated mate." "Dreamt of you again last night. Your scent was everywhere, and you were wrapped around me, begging me to make you mine." Just as I was fantasizing about meeting him, something in one of his daily photos caught my eye: the silver wolf sigil of the Blackwood Pack. And I, a Beta, work for a corporation owned by the Blackwood Pack. I'd been dating a pack member for three months—someone who could be right under my nose! As I frantically tried to guess who he was, I saw it, and my blood ran cold. My boss, the Alpha's brother, Liam, was wearing the black obsidian and silver ring I’d picked out for "Lykos."

At the Iron Moon pack's victory party, celebrating the defeat of our sworn enemy, an Omega named Sienna accused me. The charge? Embezzling five million dollars from the pack's treasury. She spoke with self-righteous fury. "Are we really going to let a selfish thief continue as our Head Beta? I propose we strip her of her title immediately and exile her!" I stared at Caleb. The Alpha of the Iron Moon pack. The man I had loved for ten years. He should know better. Those funds were paid out of my own pocket years ago when the pack was broke but desperate for weapons and territory expansion. Now that the pack's treasury was overflowing, I was simply taking back what was mine. Yet the man who had held my hand just days ago, promising to officially make me his mate-to-be, now glared at me. "What do you have to say about Sienna's accusation of stealing pack funds?" I curled my lips into a smirk. "I have nothing to explain." They really thought I was some easy pushover. But they didn't know I was the only daughter of Magnus, the Alpha King of all North American packs. If they wanted to mess with me, they better be ready to be torn to shreds.

After I found out my Alpha mate, Bruce, couldn't let go of his ex-mate, Fiona, and her pup, I started teaching our son to call him "Alpha Bruce." When our son had a fever, Fiona called my mate away in the middle of the night. I touched my son’s burning forehead and had him say, "Goodbye, Alpha." When he bailed on the birthday party he’d promised our son because Fiona called, crying that her own son didn't have a father, I didn't even look up. I just had our son explain to the guests, "The Alpha has something important to do." Our son always hesitated for a long time. Until Bruce finally realized how much he’d failed us. He suggested we take a family portrait. But at the studio, Fiona called again, sobbing. “Bruce, can you please come and pretend to be Tony’s dad? The kids at daycare are making fun of him for not having one…” A flicker of guilt crossed Bruce’s face. He was about to kneel and explain it to our son. But this time, our son didn't need my cue. He just waved. “It’s okay, Alpha Bruce. Go be with your other pup. Mom and I are enough for the family photo.”

Six years ago, my sister and I fell for the same man, Edmund. But he only had eyes for Rosalie, the sweet, innocent type. With them, I was always the third wheel. They got married, of course. And on their wedding day, I overheard my parents whispering. "The company's strapped for cash," my father said. "What if we marry Corinne off to our business partner? That'd solve our problem..." This "partner" was over fifty and twice divorced. So I ran. I fled to Sicily with the only five thousand dollars to my name. I ran on pure bitterness. In four years, I brought dozens of small-time Sicilian crews to heel and forged my own family: Vexille. In another two, I came back to New York and quietly became the most powerful woman in the North American underworld. By then, Edmund's power was crumbling, hit hard by a rival family. That's when my mother called, her voice full of that same old entitlement. "Your brother-in-law's in some trouble. Figure out a way to help him." Then a text from my sister, Rosalie, dripping with contempt: "Sister, I remember you have a little casino in Sicily, right? So you must know something about that Vexille family." "Edmund needs their help. See what you can dig up." They still don't know. I'm the Don of the Vexille family. I glanced at the schedule my advisor had prepared. Tomorrow, 9:00 AM. A sit-down with some minor family looking for a handout. The name on the file: Edmund.

Three years into my arranged marriage with the Valachi family heir, the one that got away came back. He left me for Julia eight times. The ninth time, he left me bleeding on the side of the road with a gunshot wound to go running to Julia, who’d called him because she felt a little dizzy. "She needs me. You get that, right, Leona?" This time, I didn't fight for him. He didn't know about the bet I’d made with Julia. The ninth time he abandoned me, I would be the one to leave for good. So on his birthday, I left a set of signed divorce papers on his desk and got on a plane.