THE REAPER'S LEDGER

THE REAPER'S LEDGER

Oyin Bimbola · Ongoing · 41.5k Words

439
Hot
439
Views
0
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

Thaddeus Quell was nobody: a live-in husband turned doormat, slapped for clean floors, bankrupted by his mother-in-law's greed, cuckolded while he fetched groceries. Then his house burned with his wife, daughter, and tormentor inside. He rushed in. He saved them. He fell through fire.  

And something answered.  

A crimson ledger bloomed in his dying vision: touch the dying, see their death, let it happen for money, save them and pay with your life. Now Thaddeus is a billionaire walking corpse—gray hair spreading, organs failing, ghosts whispering vengeance. Every innocent he saves binds a fallen angel to his side. Every villain he lets die (or kills) feeds Echo, the growing shadow that wants the ledger for Hell's throne.  

He wanted to die.  

The system said no.  

Heaven said fight.  

Echo said come closer.  

Now Thaddeus must decide: become the balance-keeper who reaps the wicked and spares the helpless, or let Echo harvest his soul and every child still screaming in the dark.

Chapter 1

Thaddeus Quell had been walking home from the night shift at the warehouse, the one that paid just enough to keep the lights on in the house that was no longer his. 

The air was cold, December sharp enough to bite through his thin jacket, but he barely felt it. He was counting steps the way he always did, twenty-three blocks from the bus stop, turn left at the busted streetlamp, past the corner store where the clerk still called him “Mr. Quell” out of pity.

Then he smelled smoke.

Not the usual chimney drift of winter. This was thick, acrid, chemical. He quickened his pace, boots crunching on frozen gravel. When he rounded the last corner, the sight hit him like a fist to the sternum. 

A house was burning. His house. No, it had become his mother-in-law’s house. 

“Oh my God.”

The narrow three-story row home he had once owned outright was a torch. Flames licked out of every window on the ground floor, curling black smoke into the night sky. 

Fire trucks lined the street, red lights strobing across the snow-dusted pavement. Hoses sprayed arcs of water that hissed into steam before they even touched the siding. Firefighters shouted orders, but no one was going inside. The heat was too fierce; the structure too far gone.

Thaddeus stood frozen on the sidewalk, grocery bag still dangling from his wrist. The bag held two cheap steaks he’d bought on sale, his attempt at a small celebration for his daughter’s tenth birthday tomorrow. Now the plastic was melting against his skin.

He looked up.

Third floor. The bedroom window.

Three silhouettes pounded against the glass, faces lit orange by the inferno below. His wife, Mara. His daughter, Lily. And the devil herself, his mother-in-law, Madam Delores.

They were screaming. He couldn’t hear the words over the roar of the fire, but he knew what they looked like when they screamed. He’d heard enough of it over the years.

A firefighter spotted him, waved him back. “Stay clear, sir! Building’s unstable!”

Thaddeus didn’t move. Something cracked inside his chest: part terror, part a darker thing he rarely let himself name.

He thought, just for a second: Let it burn.

Let Madam Delores burn.

The thought shamed him instantly, but it had been growing for years, fed by every slap, every sneer, every time Delores reminded him he was less than nothing.

It had started eight years ago, right after he and Mara married. Delores moved in “temporarily” after her husband died. Temporary became permanent the day she declared the house too big for a young couple to manage alone. Thaddeus, trying to be the good son-in-law, agreed.

He took out loans to keep the witch and his wife happy, new furniture she demanded, a cruise she “deserved,” medical bills she refused to let insurance cover. 

He signed the papers without reading them closely. The house went up as collateral. The car too. When the payments fell behind, Delores smiled sweetly and told the bank he’d handle it. He lost everything. 

Delores and her daughter could help, instead, they bought the house and he became a tenant in his own life.

Within months he wasn’t a husband anymore. He was the live-in help.

Delores decided the floors needed waxing twice a week. She inspected them with a white glove. If she found a speck, she slapped him open hand, sharp, across the face while Mara watched in silence. 

He was used as a mail, and sometimes, when Delores was bored, she'd drop broth and mopped floor and tell him to clean again. Else, he'd be sent out of the house, his own house.

Good meals earned the same reward: a backhanded smack and a reminder that “any fool can follow a recipe.” He learned to cook bland food on purpose, just to avoid the praise that hurt worse than criticism.

And the worst of it, the thing that gnawed at him in the quiet hours was the day she sent him on an overnight errand to a cousin three hours away. “Family needs you, Thaddeus. Be useful for once.” 

He went, because saying no wasn’t allowed. While he was gone, the “family friend” stayed over. Gregory. The one Delores called “the son I should have had.” 

Thaddeus came home early, saw Gregory’s car still in the yard, upstairs, he heard the sounds from upstairs Mara was moaning out loud that it aroused him.

He only imagined sex with her in his head for six years. He stood in the kitchen for an hour, holding a bag of groceries, until Gregory left whistling. Delores met him at the door, patted his cheek, and said, “Don’t be dramatic.”

Mara never denied it. She just stopped looking him in the eye.

He became smaller every year. Smaller wages, smaller voice, smaller space in the bed. He slept on the edge so Delores could have room when she “needed” to stay with Mara after nightmares. He told himself it was for Lily. Lily was the only one who still hugged him without being told.

Now Lily was up there, pounding on glass that wouldn’t break. Gregory wasn't there to save them. 

But his daughter was there too. 

Thaddeus dropped the grocery bag. Steaks thudded onto the snow. He ran.

A firefighter tried to grab him. He shrugged the man off and sprinted straight into the front door, shoulder first. 

The heat slapped him like a wall. Smoke poured into his lungs. He dropped low, crawled across what used to be the living room. The couch, Delores’s sacred leather couch, was a skeleton of springs and flame.

He knew the house by heart. Twenty steps to the stairs. He closed his eyes against the sting and counted them out loud, voice hoarse. The wooden steps groaned under his weight, superheated. His pants caught fire at the cuffs. He kept moving.

Third floor. Smoke so thick it was like swimming in tar. He found the bedroom door by touch, slammed his body against it three times until the charred frame gave. He stumbled inside, beating at the flames on his legs.

“Daddy!”

“Sweetheart!”

“My son…”

All three voices at once. He almost stopped moving, stunned. Delores had never called him son. Mara hadn’t called him sweetheart since the honeymoon.

No time for sentiments. 

He ripped curtains from the rods, knotted them together into a crude rope. The window was already cracked from the heat. He tied one end to the cast-iron radiator

“please God let it hold,” he prayed and lowered Lily first. She clung to him, sobbing. He kissed the top of her head once, then eased her down into the waiting arms of the firefighters below.

Mara next. As he helped her over the sill, she turned, pressed a quick peck to his cheek, something she hadn’t done in years. Hope, stupid and fragile, flickered in his chest.

“If I could save them, maybe things will change,” he said to himself.

Delores last. She gripped his arm hard enough to bruise. “I didn’t know you were Superman, Thaddeus.” The words were soft, almost wondering. For the first time in eight years, she looked small. “Thank you, son.”

He tied the curtain around her waist. She slid down safely.

Thaddeus exhaled, lungs raw, skin blistered. He looped the makeshift rope under his own arms, ready to follow.

The floor beneath him groaned once…silence…then gave way.

He fell.

Wood splintered. Beams snapped. He dropped through the second floor, through the first, into the basement inferno. 

Something heavy, a beam, maybe the refrigerator, slammed into his side. Pain exploded white behind his eyes. He hit the concrete hard, air driven from his lungs.

Darkness rushed in.

He lay there amid the flames, ribs broken, blood in his mouth. The fire roared like laughter.

He prayed for someone to come. For Mara to scream his name. For Lily to cry out. For Delores to realize, just once, that he mattered. Or any of the fire fighters. 

No one came.

The heat cooked him slowly. His lungs seized. Vision tunneled. This is it, he thought. This is how the useless man dies.

Then everything stopped.

The fire’s roar vanished. Pain dulled to a distant throb. He floated in black silence.

Crimson text appeared in the void, sharp and glowing, as if burned directly into his retinas.

REAPER’S LEDGER SYSTEM 

SECOND CHANCE OFFERED 

ACCEPT / DECLINE

A voice, low, genderless, and ancient spoke inside his skull.

“Harvest or hoard. Touch reveals fate. Choose.”

No explanation. No promises beyond survival.

Thaddeus coughed blood that wasn’t there anymore. He thought of Lily’s face at the window. Of Delores’s sudden softness. Of eight years of slaps and silence.

He thought: I’m not done yet.

“Yes,” he rasped. “I accept.”

The text pulsed once.

SYSTEM ACTIVATED 

CONTRACT SEALED 

HOST: THADDEUS QUELL 

BALANCE: 0

Light flooded his vision. Something yanked him upward, as if an invisible hand gripped his soul and pulled.

The fire roared back to life around him.

But he was breathing.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

Mated to Her Alpha Instructor

Mated to Her Alpha Instructor

143.2k Views · Completed · Marina Ellington
I'm Eileen, an outcast at the shifter academy, all because I don't have a wolf. My only saving grace is a knack for healing that got me into the Healer's Division. Then one night in the forbidden woods, I found a stranger on the brink of death. One touch, and something primal snapped between us. That night tied me to him in a way I can't undo.
Weeks later, our new Alpha combat instructor walks in. Regis. The guy from the woods. His eyes lock on mine, and I know he recognizes me. Then the secret I've been hiding hits me like a punch: I'm pregnant.
He has an offer that binds us tighter than ever. Protection… or a cage? Whispers turn ugly, darkness closes in. Why am I the one without a wolf? Is he my salvation… or will he drag me to ruin?
Omega Bound

Omega Bound

2.4m Views · Completed · Veronica White
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
The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

6.7k Views · Ongoing · Sylvia Sylvester
Hidden all her life in the slums of Emberveil, Aerith has one rule: never let the dragons see her eyes. Fae are extinct, hunted, burned, and erased from the kingdom. Or so everyone believes. But on the night of her eighteenth birthday, when her forbidden magic stirs awake and her grandmother falls deathly ill, Aerith breaks the one rule meant to keep her safe. She enters the royal dragon pharmacy… and collides with a werewolf princess who drags her straight to the dungeon. There, in the deepest shadows of the palace, the youngest dragon prince sees her glowing eyes and instantly knows what she is. A fae. A secret the entire kingdom would kill for. What would be her fate? Another dead Fae? Or the Last Dragon's Fae Queen?

“Prince? Dickhead? Asshole? Or stalker?” A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “Maybe I should show you the one title I want you to use.” Before I could react, his hand closed around my chin, tilting my face up. His lips crashed into mine, hard, claiming, breath-stealing. When he finally pulled back, his voice was a rough whisper against my lips. “You could call me yours… because you are mine.”
From Substitute To Queen

From Substitute To Queen

1.7m Views · Completed · Hannah Moore
For three years, Sable loved Alpha Darrell with everything she had, spending her salary to support their household while being called an orphan and gold-digger. But just as Darrell was about to mark her as his Luna, his ex-girlfriend returned, texting: "I'm not wearing underwear. My plane lands soon—pick me up and fuck me immediately."

Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.

Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.

In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?

From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!
LOVING MY BILLIONAIRE STEPSON

LOVING MY BILLIONAIRE STEPSON

1.9k Views · Completed · Michael UDE
Before meeting Elliot Winter, Michelle’s life was a routine of beatings from her drunk dad to juggling part-time jobs. He was handsome, loaded, and had a smile that could melt ice.

There was also a twenty-year age gap between them, Michelle didn't care because their relationship was the only ray of sunshine in her rather bleak world. And when he popped the question she was more than happy to say yes. Michelle thought she had found her happily ever after, but she couldn't have been more wrong. With each year that passed Elliot became more of a stranger and less of the man she had fallen for, neglecting her and looking the other way when his mother treated her poorly, that was until the day their 5th anniversary rolled around, she caught him in bed with her sister.

Her love is replaced by hate, a swooning affection now burning rage. Well, two could play that game. That night, she dials her stepson's number with a single text that will change their lives forever.

‘I need you tonight’
The Deadly Mafia Princess

The Deadly Mafia Princess

8.9k Views · Ongoing · Tonje Unosen
Ro was taken from her real family when she was 1 year old. Those she believed is her parents have been abusive towards her do years. Despite she being a very feared gang leader of a well known gang, she can’t find it in her to stand up against what she think is her parents. The little girl in her wants their love which she never will get.
Her gang take the matter in their own hands, to try to save their leader from the horror of her home. What none of them know, they wasn’t her real parents, and now Ro will be sent away to live with her real family. That makes her closest members in her gang pack up and move as well. They don’t want to be far away from their leader.
Avery and the Cursed Alpha

Avery and the Cursed Alpha

3.8k Views · Completed · Lyra Lupine
After losing her mother to cancer and drowning in crushing debt, Avery Wellesley is running out of options. Her house is about to be seized, her job is hanging by a thread, and every door she knocks on seems to slam shut in her face.

Then a mysterious billionaire offers her a deal that sounds too good to be true.

Alexander Ravenswood is powerful, wealthy, and feared throughout Tenebrous City. Behind his perfect public image lies a deadly secret. He is the Alpha of the Nocturne Pack, cursed by an ancient bloodline that is slowly driving him toward madness and death. His only hope lies in finding the legendary Aethon Orb—or the prophesied mate destined to save him.

When Alex discovers that Avery can draw symbols connected to the long-lost artifact, he offers her a contract she cannot refuse: become his fake fiancée for six months in exchange for enough money to erase her debts and save her home.

What begins as a business arrangement quickly becomes something far more dangerous.

As they search for the missing Orb, Avery is drawn into a hidden world of werewolves, ancient prophecies, and deadly pack rivalries. Powerful enemies want Alex's throne. A jealous Alpha heiress wants Avery gone. And a ruthless rival Alpha will stop at nothing to claim the Orb for himself.

But the greatest secret of all may be Avery herself.

Because the closer she gets to Alex, the more impossible truths begin to surface about her past, her strange abilities, and the destiny that has been waiting for her all along.

With a curse threatening Alex's life, enemies closing in from every side, and a forbidden bond growing stronger by the day, Avery must decide whether to walk away from the dangerous Alpha who needs her—or risk everything for a love written by fate itself.

In a city where secrets kill and destiny cannot be escaped, can a fake engagement become a love powerful enough to change the future?
Taste of Fate: The Vampire King's Human Mate

Taste of Fate: The Vampire King's Human Mate

3.5k Views · Ongoing · Miranda Carr
I never knew my blood could kill a king—until I met one. Sebastian, the ruthless and immortal King, rules with precision. For centuries, he's ruled with ruthless precision, his heart as cold as the stone throne beneath him. One moment, I'm nothing. The next, I'm his obsession. His touch burns like ice fire. His stare follows me through shadows. And when he feeds from me—God help me—it feels like drowning in darkness and craving more. He tells me my blood is unlike any he's tasted, that my scent drives him to the edge of madness.


He reached for the back of my head and pulled me up just enough to reach my neck. When his fangs slid into me, the pain was instant, electric. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My hands found his shoulders, clawing for something to hold. My legs kicked. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

He moaned against my throat as he drank, and the sound was devastating.
Let Them Kneel

Let Them Kneel

235k Views · Ongoing · My Fantasy Stories
Kaelani spent her life believing she was wolfless.
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.

But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.

Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.

When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.

For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.

Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.

But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.

And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.

Especially him.

She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.

Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
They'll Regret This

They'll Regret This

5.1k Views · Completed · Charlotte York
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.
His Lethal Obsession

His Lethal Obsession

2.2k Views · Ongoing · Olivia Chigozie
"Big Kai?"

He didn't respond but moved his eyes around the room, scanning the place.

"Wha...what are you doing here?"

His icy blue eyes returned to me, sending shivers down my spine. Then further dropped to my dress and then back to my eyes.

"The shit going on downstairs, what does it mean?" he asked, making my legs as weak as they are eager to flee.

"It's....it my wedding,"

He scoffed darkly. "Excuse me?"

I swallowed. "I am......getting married,"

He let out a humorless laugh, looking away and giving me lesser comfort. He looked at me with a demonic frown.

Terror washed me.

"Every single motherfucker/human being here, be it adult or child, including you, will burn before that happens,"

〽️〽️〽️

The quiet but pathetic life of Twenty-year-old Mia Jefferson changed the night she found a few months old interracial baby boy abandoned in a dumpster on her way home. She saved him and kept him in her care for almost a month until she was taken by a deadly gang who accused her of abduction. She thought it was it for her until the ruthless gang leader, Nathaniel Kincaid, known on the streets as Big Kai and the father of the baby appeared and added to her punishment. At the point when Mia is about to give up, Nathaniel makes her his baby's nanny as the only way to convince him that she is not the abductor. As she picked up her care for the baby, Nathaniel watched her every move consistently, placing his heart in a dark and passionate risk.
Reborn To Rule: I Will Seize The Throne!

Reborn To Rule: I Will Seize The Throne!

1.8k Views · Ongoing · Khira
"Aveline Ashkaar." Rhaedon's voice was low as his golden eyes held mine. "The moment you offered yourself to become my Luna, everything about you became mine. Your life, your obedience, your blood... including the abilities that flow through it."

He paused, his gaze never leaving mine.

"And I don't share what's mine."



I died on my son's death anniversary, betrayed by the man I'd devoted my entire life to, and the woman who stood by, smiling as I took my last breath… was my very own sister.

When I opened my eyes again, I was five years in the past—before the betrayal, before my death and before the beginning of it all.

This time, I refused to marry the man who destroyed me.

Instead, I walked straight into the arms of the only man the entire Empire feared—Crown Prince Alpha Rhaedon Ashkaar.

Rhaedon was everything Lucien wasn't.

Dangerous. Competent. Powerful.

And the perfect weapon for my revenge.

He wanted the throne. I wanted vengeance.

It should have been the perfect alliance, but revenge was never that simple.

With every step I took toward my revenge, another secret from my first life came to light. The deeper I dug, the more I realized I wasn't the only one playing this game.

And by the time I uncovered the truth...

Walking away from Rhaedon Ashkaar was no longer an option.