Family Saga

I spent six years working with the dead, earning money to save my son—enduring the stench and loneliness, clinging to hope.
I trusted my family, my husband, my parents, but they turned their backs on me.
They hated the smell of death on me, lied to me, and used my sacrifice for a fake sister.
All my efforts were for nothing; the hope I clung to was just a lie.
I walked away, broken and empty, whil...

On the day I got engaged to the heir of an elite old-money family, my own birth mother spread vicious lies about me in front of the entire crowd. She claimed I’d lived a wildly promiscuous life while studying abroad, and had even secretly given birth to a stillborn child with no known father.
Afterwards, she took my hand and sobbed out an apology, saying she’d only wanted to test whether my fiancé...

Five yeas ago, we were hosting a family dinner when I walked into the study and found my father with his mistress.

He looked at me, voice flat and cold: "Alice Russo, you don't tell your mother about this. Trust me, you can't handle the fallout."

I didn't listen. Ran straight to my mother in tears and told her everything.

That night, Mother had her people remove the woman from the property.

Th...

My wife was a fearsome Mafia queen in Chicago.
On the anniversary of our daughter's death, she didn't show up.
When I arrived, the male college student she was keeping was trampling on my daughter's black-and-white portrait.
Instead of scolding him, my wife shielded him in her arms: "Marco was just a child, why are you arguing with him?"
She thought I would be like a dog, forever subservient t...

The day the butler of Sterling family came to claim me, the folks back in my dusty hometown lined the streets with tears in their eyes, waving goodbye like I was headed somewhere better.
The moment I stepped into that mansion, armed guards pinned me down in the first-floor medical suite, demanding I donate bone marrow to their precious adopted daughter, Celeste.
I responded by ripping out Celeste'...

My name is Alessia Vitale, and I'm the unloved twin.

From the moment I was born, I was the "curse" while my sister Chiara was the "treasure." My parents' love, the family's pride—it all belonged to her. Until two years ago, when Rocco Benedetti, the most powerful man in Valentia, chose me. That was the only light in my life.

Then my sister came back from Europe.

She claimed I hired thugs ...

One month until the SAT.
Staring at my phone screen—at the pulsing number on "Oracle," the mandatory score prediction app that Elite Prep forced every student to install—I couldn't help but think it was all a joke.
In my previous life, every time I finished a practice test, this garbage system would automatically dock twenty points from my predicted score.
But skip class for a day? The number woul...

My husband lay dead in the living room. I wiped his blood clean, swallowed a sleeping pill, and lay down beside him to wait for dawn.
The police asked: Did you see the killer?
I said: I was asleep.
They didn't believe me. At his funeral, I was slapped, choked, and cursed by the entire town as a black widow. My ten-year-old son went into cardiac arrest on the spot and was rushed to the ER.
When he ...

Celia harbored a forbidden crush on her brother Lex, a secret that destroyed her life. Locked in a hidden prison camp on the border of Switzerland, she suffered abuse, illness and despair, even losing her voice. Lex, trapped by threats and lies, spent half a year in agony before discovering the terrible truth. He avenged her and ended the evil reign of his father. Yet they learned they were not bl...

For three whole years, as the "partner" of the bourgeois empress Victoria, I remained the most docile shadow of her business empire. Everyone thought I was a beautifully kept ornament, but only I knew that beneath this glittering facade, every shadow was a chaotic situation I had quelled with my own blood and flesh. It wasn't
until she used her daughter's final resting place as leverage to appeas...

Seven years ago, my wife and son committed perjury in court, conspiring to send me to a high-security prison, all so they could elope with that fraudster.
Seven years later, I was released.
My ex-wife, with her son, arrogantly tossed a business card onto my faded work clothes:
"Go kowtow to my new husband and apologize, and I'll give you a waiter's job."
Little did she know that just hours lat...

In my third year at the Eden Center, I forgot how to play guitar, forgot the rhythm of rock and roll, and forgot the name Melody.
They used twelve thousand electric shocks and seven hundred hours of sleep deprivation to scrub my name down to Number 2963.
Now, I'm their perfect instrument. No preferences, no pain, only commands.
My parents finally got the perfect daughter they'd always dreamed of—u...

Every time Mason tried to force me to back down, he would slam the divorce agreement onto the table.
Every time my parents wanted me to yield, they threatened to sever all ties with me.
What they wanted was simple: for me to give everything to my twin sister.
I once resisted, cried, and questioned them over and over—why was I always the one left hurt?
Until the doctor slid my medical test results ...

"Where is my son?"
My husband wouldn't look at me.
I had just come out of anesthesia. The bassinet next to my hospital bed was empty — except for a stack of cash, a christening card, and a ring pinned to the corner of the card.
The card had another woman's name in the godmother box.
That woman walked in behind my husband. She picked up the ring and slid it onto her own finger.
*"He's safe, sweet...

The day my mother succumbed to complications during childbirth, her younger sister, Vanessa, wed my father.

Fifteen years later, I beheld my husband accompanying Vanessa as she tried on seductive lingerie.

In that moment, I understood—what she truly coveted was never my father, but rather all that my mother and I shared.

My mother perished during childbirth, a casualty of an illicit affai...

In my past life , I was delivering supplies in the scorching heat of the apocalypse , only to have my ex-wife 's lover smash my head with a stick.
daughter, whom I've spoiled for sixteen years, looked at me with disgust: "Pretending to be a good girl is disgusting. Kill him and take his supplies."
When she opened her eyes again, her daughter had been reborn.
She cried and clung to my legs, begging...

My husband bought a necklace for the woman who killed my mother.

When I saw my foster sister Rebecca Rebecca wearing that emerald necklace with Aaron at the party, I knew history would repeat itself. Seven years ago, my mother lost everything the same way—her husband, her dignity, and finally her life.

I wouldn't follow in her footsteps.

So after slapping Rebecca across the face, I told everyon...

I used to think I had the perfect family.
My husband Nico started coming home less and less, always saying he had a meeting. But the truth was, he had another woman, Alessia. And it had been going on for a while.
The affair I could've handled. What really killed me was that my son Leo and my daughter Mia had known all along. They'd even started calling his mistress "Mom."
They thought I was cluele...

The Vane family has carried the vampire's curse for generations. Of every pair of twin sisters born into our bloodline, one will not live to see twenty-five.

Everyone assumed it was my sister — the one always coughing up blood.

Nobody knew that for twenty years, every full moon, the one gritting her teeth through the pain, never making a sound, was me.

The Divine took pity on me and gave me thr...

One hundred years married to Everett, and I've learned one thing: whenever he wants to push me into a corner, he throws the mate bond dissolution agreement in my face. Whenever my parents want me to cave, they hold the family name over my head.

They've always wanted the same thing — for me to hand over everything I have to my twin sister Rosalie, who's been sick her whole life.

I've fought it. I...