Abused

At the Met Gala, I heard my husband tell his friends in French that I'm "boring." That his 22-year-old girlfriend is "so much more exciting in bed."

He laughed when they asked if I knew. "Elle ne comprend même pas 'bonjour'." (She doesn't even understand 'bonjour'.)

What Marcus doesn't know: I spent two years at the Sorbonne.

Je comprends tout, Marcus. I understand everything.

The diamond ...

After being brought home by my biological parents, I thought I'd finally get the love I'd been missing.

But no matter what I did, they only blamed me for bullying my adopted sister. My husband would just look at me with disgust.

They thought I was cruel and evil. When my adopted sister was diagnosed with leukemia, they forced me to donate bone marrow to her.

I was forced to eat and exercise, ga...

I'm Riley. Orphan. Motorcycle mechanic. And the biggest fool in Texas.

For ten years, I thought oil tycoon Colt loved me. His adopted daughter by day, his woman by night. I actually believed his whispered promises in the dark.

Then I watched him announce his engagement to someone else.

"Your father saved my life. You're my responsibility," he said when I confronted him. Like I was some charity ...

I clutched my pregnancy test results in my hand, standing outside the door of Ethan's office.

I wanted to surprise my husband with this news.

Instead, I overheard a conversation about how to "permanently remove" me from his and our daughter's lives.

My mother stared at my body, fused to the sofa, and waited forty minutes before calling 911.
She cheerfully told my father the news, deciding they should celebrate with a nice dinner.
Of course.
After all, they could finally be rid of the burden I’d become—no more tormenting me, no more keeping me locked away.
They could go back to being the respectable parents everyone thought they were.
But—
Som...

At seventeen, I rescued Chen Yusheng from the black market.
At twenty-two, he crossed half the globe with two million dollars and begged to marry me.
I helped him run his business, and he became the biggest arms dealer in the Americas.
Then Gu Keyan appeared, and the seven years we shared turned to ashes in an instant.
I finally learned the truth:
the roses he gave me to sweet-talk me were just th...

Eight years ago, I was forced to marry Sicily's most dangerous man.

Louis De Santis, heir to the Santis crime family, decided he wanted me. Right in front of me, he brutally tortured and killed my fiancé Alessandro, then dumped the body in the ocean for the sharks. He used Alessandro's blood to write threats on the wall to my parents—I had no choice but to walk into that fortress he called home.
...

"Honey, please open the door! Please!"

Kate Sterling pounded desperately on the basement door, with only 15 minutes left before the interview that could change her life. Yet here she was, locked inside by the very man she loved most.

It all started with a single prophecy from their new neighbor, Anna Cross: "If Kate goes to that interview, your marriage is over."

Anna's predictions had never be...

Have you ever been treated like a stand-in for your dead sibling by your own mother? I have.

Have you ever been murdered by your own mother? I have.

My name is Aira, and today is my sister Lily's birthday. It's also the anniversary of my death—the day the washing machine became my coffin.

"Why couldn't it have been you who died?"

After four long years, my mom finally got her wish.

After months of being bullied at school, things got even worse—the bullies said they wanted to come to my house.
Wanted to see what kind of family a "dog" like me came from.
I begged them, sobbing, not to do it.
Because my dad is a serial killer. My mom is a twisted murderer. And my brother is a full-blown psychopath.
If they come to my house, they will die.

On the eve of my engagement, I dumped the far-famed alphaking, Jamal, and ran away with another man.I've been blaming myself for his memory loss until he almost killed me in the Deep Forest.After I found out that Jamal's memory loss wasn't real, he panicked.He forced me to watch him make out with another woman.I was sick and he had security kick me out."Stop it, Heaven, amnesia is a leftover trick...

Lunar Depletion Syndrome. Seven days.
That was my death countdown. And my Alpha mate Kael was still threatening me, demanding I use the last of my life force to save my sister.
On our third anniversary, he had given me a surgical consent form and dissolution papers as gifts.
How laughable.
Three years ago he had said my eyes sparkled like stars. Three years later he wanted me to close them forever...

The biggest mistake of my life was falling in love with my childhood best friend, Cole Blackwood.

I grew up with Cole. He was my childhood best friend. When my mom died in a car accident in high school, his mother Lillian, my mom's best friend, saw that my stepmother didn't like me and took me in. She arranged our engagement. Cole protected me from bullies in high school. I fell for him. We secre...

My family's company went bankrupt, and my father was critically ill.

I dropped out of school and worked multiple jobs every day.

Debt collectors beat me and broke my ribs, but I couldn't afford painkillers.

Every penny I earned went to expensive medicine, all to save my father.

Until I saw my father, who should have been bedridden on oxygen, holding a champagne glass at a hotel banquet hall.

...

For five years, my crime boss husband made me take off my wedding ring nine times—all for his precious damsel in distress.
When we first married, he promised me: "From now on, you're my queen, the queen of New Orleans."
But whenever Odette came crying for help, he'd change his tune: "Mr. Laurent saved my life, Cordelia. I owe his family everything."
And like a fool, I believed him eight times.
Eig...

I died the night I refused to postpone the engagement party.

The morning after my death, my parents were still having breakfast with my sister Blair, excitedly planning her award ceremony.

Before I died, the only person who answered my desperate call was my mother. I was being chased by kidnappers at the time, and I begged her to save me, telling her I was dying. But she said, "Stop being so dra...

I have been tormented by a strange illness for ten years, with blood draws and surgeries being commonplace.
My mother always encouraged me, saying, "Nian Nian, bear with it a little longer. The pain will be over soon. Mom and Dad are doing this to save your life."
Hoping to be cured as soon as possible, I gritted my teeth and endured ten years of painful treatments, even if it meant living like a ...

My six-year-old daughter Emily blurted, "I'm getting a new mommy!" while my son Jacob smirked.

"Oh my God, Nate—your sister? Pregnant with your kid? You sick bastard!" I screamed across the restaurant, my voice cracking like thunder as heads snapped around.

For eight years, I'd slaved like a nanny in our home—cooking, cleaning, raising Jacob and Emily—while he dismissed me as worthless. My own k...

When that dealer tortured me, my dad, a narcotics cop, and my mom, the city’s chief medical examiner, were busy celebrating my sister’s win in the volleyball semifinals. To get back at my dad for destroying his drug network three years earlier, that man cut my throat. Right before I died, I called my dad. Before I hung up, he said, “Cut it out. Serena’s game is what mattered most right now.”

I put up with my husband's cheating because I needed money for my brother's medical bills.

Until I found the heart donor report he'd been hiding in his study for three months. 98% match. He'd signed it "postpone."

That night, fireworks filled the London sky, his mistress laughing in the background. Standing over my brother's body, I finally got it—he'd been killing my brother all along.

I rippe...