Falling for the Crowned Mafia Prince

Chapter One: The Girl Behind the Screen [Cassandra’s POV] They know me as MsLili, the faceless author whose stories break hearts and heal them all at once. But no one really knows me. The rain outside whispered against the window as I typed the final line of my latest novel. The soft tapping of keys filled my quiet apartment, steady like a heartbeat. My eyes stung, but I couldn’t stop not until I finished it. "And as the Crowned Prince held her broken body in his arms, he whispered to the heavens, ‘I will find you… in whatever world you’re in.’” I stared at the words. A bittersweet ache bloomed in my chest. Finished. Another story. Another world I built to escape my own. I leaned back in my chair and sighed, rubbing my tired eyes. My phone buzzed on the table beside me, screen lighting up with notifications from the writing platform. [You’ve hit 100K reads!] [“MsLili, your stories always make me cry and fall in love. Please never stop writing!”] [Request: Sequel, please! I need more of Seraphina and the Crowned Prince!!] Thousands of comments flooded in, adoration, praise, emotional reactions from strangers who felt so connected to my words. I should’ve been happy. And yet, I still felt hollow. All they saw was the name: MsLili. The mysterious author who never showed her face. They didn’t know I lived alone in a cramped apartment, surviving on coffee, soft music, and the imaginary worlds I clung to like oxygen. They didn’t know my real name was Cassandra Chandria Cortez. And that everything I wrote was born from loneliness. I closed my laptop and crawled into bed, pulling the blanket up to my chin. The rain was still falling outside, soft and steady. I closed my eyes, letting the silence surround me, until the memories started creeping back in. I was one year old when I was abandoned at the gates of Saint Clarisse Orphanage. The nuns said I was wrapped in a thin blue blanket, with no name, no note, just a fragile baby with wide, curious eyes. They gave me a name. Cassandra Chandria. And they gave me love in the way they could. But I always knew I was different. As I grew older, families would come to adopt. Parents with kind smiles and hopeful hearts. They’d laugh and play with the other kids, but when they saw me, they always paused. Whispered. Looked away. “She looks odd.” “She doesn’t talk much.” “She’s… strange.” I wasn’t like the other children. While they played outside, I sat by the window, inventing stories in my head. I imagined kingdoms and dragons and brave girls who were chosen for something bigger than themselves. When I was ten, I watched my best friend Liza get adopted. I stood in the corner, silent, as she hugged me tightly before leaving with her new family. I didn’t cry in front of her. But that night, I wept into my pillow, whispering the question that echoed in my chest for years: Why doesn’t anyone want me? No one ever came for me. At eighteen, I left the orphanage with a suitcase full of secondhand clothes and a scholarship form clutched in my hands. I worked part-time jobs, waitressing, cleaning, assisting at bookstores, anything to survive. I poured every free moment into studying and writing, chasing the one thing that always gave me purpose: storytelling. Four years later, I graduated with a degree in Literature. And somewhere along the way, MsLili was born. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, my thoughts still tangled in the past. People think success feels like warmth, like light finally pouring into your world. But for me… it still feels like shadows. Like I'm hiding, even in the spotlight. I pulled the blanket tighter around me and whispered into the silence. “I just want to live a different life.” The rain outside stopped. And for a moment… the world went still.