7965 Book(s) Related to the secrets they buried at ashford

Laura Montez was born with grease under her nails and fire in her blood. At twenty, she runs a struggling custom bike shop in the city’s forgotten slums, races illegally at night, and fights every day to keep her sick younger sister alive. Two years earlier, her father was framed for corporate sabotage and sent to prison, her family was ruined, and Laura was forced to abandon her dream of becoming an engineer. Since then, she has hated one name above all others—Regal Empire, the powerful corporation responsible for destroying her life.

Nathan Conat is the polished, ruthless heir to that empire. Raised to inherit power instead of love, he knows how to acquire, manipulate, and win—but not how to feel. Sent undercover to clear Laura’s neighborhood for a luxury redevelopment project, Nathan expects to buy Laura out of his way.

Instead, he meets the first woman who refuses to bend.

When Laura humiliates him in her garage, Nathan becomes fascinated and under the guise of a false identity, he manoeuvres his way into her world.

But fascination turns to obsession, and obsession becomes something far more dangerous when Laura discovers he is the very man tied to her family’s ruin.

In a world built on greed, power, and lies, Laura and Nathan must decide whether love can survive the wreckage—or whether some hearts are only made to burn.

Since she could remember, Cassie Smith had been in love with Nathan Greg. When she left home to attend a university two states away, they transitioned from being best friends in school to friends with benefits. Their once-a-month weekends were the pinnacle of her life, when he would fly in to see her and she would have him all to herself for the whole, uninterrupted weekend.

Then he announced his impending marriage to her.

Cassie had to take action to restore order since her idealized world was in danger of collapsing. She wanted to be the woman Nathan married and had a happy life with because she needed him in her life. She thus devised a scheme to interrupt the wedding and kidnap the groom.

She later met Brian.
In order to make the groom envious and aid her in calling off the wedding, Brian Colleen, the reclusive aviation Billionaire, promised to pose as her lover. She began to doubt her allegiance to Nathan as a result of his stunning green eyes and the way he made her feel when he touched her. He's also Nathan's stepbrother, incidentally.
She couldn't deny that she felt something for Brian, but what would it indicate for her relationship with Nathan going forward? Should she continue on her current path and work for the happily ever after she had always envisioned with Nathan, or take a risk on a new relationship with Brian?

Please dear readers, I want to inform you all that this story is in series and I will be uploading all of them in the story, thank you all.

Mara Vale knew how to save ruined things.

Rotten silk. Smoke-stained lace. Wedding gowns torn by jealous hands or careless lovers. In the old brick shop her mother had left her, Mara could lift a century of dirt from a veil and make every hidden stitch disappear.

But on the night of her own wedding, there was nothing she could save.

Her fiance was in the hotel bridal suite with her stepsister. Her father called her ungrateful when she refused to smile through the betrayal. By midnight, Mara had lost her groom, her family, and the deed to the shop that carried her mother's name.

Then rain drove her into a garage on the wrong side of downtown, where a dangerous young mechanic caught her before she hit the concrete.

Dante Cross smelled like motor oil, wore a dirty white tank under his coveralls, and looked at Mara as if he had been waiting eight years to find her.

Everyone thought he was poor.

Everyone was wrong.

And when Mara's enemies dragged her onto a livestream and called her a thief in front of fifty thousand strangers, the man from the garage stepped between her and the slap meant to break her.

He did not ask permission.

He simply said, "Touch her again, and find out who owns this street."

I was reborn on the exact night my guardian, Caleb, was consumed by a drug-induced rut.

This time, I didn't hesitate. I dialed his fated Luna directly. "Your Alpha is in rut. You have ten minutes to come collect him."

In my past life, I loved the Alpha who took me in. I gave him everything when he needed it most, throwing myself into the fire just to save him, even bearing his pup.

But that same night, his precious "white moon"—Selena—went out for a walk, only to be dragged away and slaughtered by rogues.

She had mind-linked him thirty-three times before she died. But he was with me, delivering our baby, and he blocked her out.

For that, my reward was a silver collar piercing my scent glands in the cold dungeons. I was forced to watch my baby die in agony, my last sight in this world being Caleb’s eyes, filled with pure, unadulterated disgust.

"If you hadn't refused to call Selena that night, if you hadn't been such a whore begging for my bed, she would never have died."

"You and this bastard pup... the world is cleaner with you both dead."

I blinked, and the nightmare shattered. I was back. Back to the exact night the aphrodisiac triggered his rut.

“You watched me burn… and chose to save your lover?” I whispered, hatred blazing in my eyes.
“Then I will watch you and your empire turn to ashes.”
“Wife, come home,” the cold Don said warmly. “The bed is empty without you.”
“Mommy, please come home,” my son cried with big fat tears. “I want to hug you to sleep.”
I laughed bitterly. “I hate you both.”
“Yes, Mommy,” they said at the same time, “we love you too.”
“WHY ARE YOU TWO NOT FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT?”
—----
Once, Elena Moretti was the perfect Mafia wife. Silent, loyal, and willing to sacrifice everything for her husband and son. And for that devotion, she was repaid with betrayal and death.
Reborn in the fifth year of her marriage, just before everything spirals out of control, Elena refuses to love blindly again.
This time, she chooses herself.
She divorces the man she once worshipped.
She walks away from the child who loathes her and calls another woman “Mom.”
But fate is treacherous.
The cold Mafia Don who slowly realizes he has lost the only woman who ever truly loved him.
The son who begins to feel the emptiness left by his mother’s absence.
Join Elena’s journey of self love, healing and a second chance at love.

Intro: I spent three years as a logistics mage in the Darkmoon Pack, chasing the wolf clan's female war goddess for a full year. I repaired her armor, mixed her potions, and secretly tucked protective charms inside her gear. She never once looked me in the eye. At the bonfire banquet, after enduring humiliation, I took the initiative to sever ties and walked away. Without my help, she lost everything. When I was reborn and returned, facing the one and only chance to win me back, she finally chose to make the first move.

To protect my son, I spent a grueling year trapped in an underground bunker on an isolated island. Outside the heavy steel door, the scratching and snarling of the undead never ceased.

When our supplies finally ran dry, I risked my life crawling through a narrow ventilation duct to find water—only to emerge into bright sunlight. There was no apocalypse.

My wife—who had supposedly been "torn apart" by the horde—was lounging in a silk slip, sipping champagne with my head of security. And those monsters pounding on my door? Paid actors.

They had staged this entire bio-crisis just to lock me away and drive me insane, all so they could legally seize my billion-dollar empire.

Watching their smug smiles, I slipped back into the shadows. I destroyed the island's entire communication grid and emptied the only vial of a real zombie virus into their central water supply.

Since you love playing doomsday survival so much... let's make it real.

I gave birth to three children for my ruthless mafia husband. And every single time, he tore the newborns from my blood-soaked sheets and handed them straight to my barren sister.
For seven years, I endured electroshock therapy and brutal captivity, reduced to nothing but a breeding vessel to complete their "picture-perfect" family.
He thought he had broken my spirit long ago. That’s why, when the assassins struck, he didn't hesitate to shove me into the line of fire as a human shield.
To protect his true love, he threw my bleeding, wounded body into a freezing water cell as their perfect scapegoat.
He thought tossing me a few scraps of mercy would have me crawling back to him, begging like a dog.
But he was dead wrong.
When the bone-chilling water swallowed me, I didn't panic or thrash. I simply smiled, letting the black depths drag me under.
Domenico could never have imagined that the cold, lifeless corpse he personally sent to the morgue was my perfect escape, seven agonizing years in the making.
He stole my babies. He stripped away every last ounce of my dignity.
So now, I’m going to take away everything he holds dear, piece by agonizing piece: his empire, his power, and the love he arrogantly thought he could control forever.

Seven years of marriage turned to ash the moment I discovered my husband had arranged for his sister-in-law to carry his dead brother's child—using his own sperm to continue the family bloodline.
Lorenzo Corvino—New York's most ruthless don—would drive three hours through a storm just to get me imported cherries. He held me at my mother's funeral, crying until dawn. He hospitalized a man for disrespecting me at a charity gala.
I thought I was the center of his world.
Until the private investigator's flash drive revealed the truth: Lorenzo at the clinic for Claudia's prenatal appointments, his hand on her pregnant belly, whispering "Marco would be so proud."
In the end, on the Corvino family's scale of priorities, continuing his dead brother's bloodline would always outweigh his infertile wife.
The night the yacht exploded, the New York sky burned red. The news reported the mafia don's wife had perished in the flames. He collapsed on the dock, clutching the charred wreckage, breaking down completely.
But he didn't know—
That "dead" woman was across the Atlantic on the Amalfi Coast, one hand on her seven-week baby bump, protecting the secret he'd never discover.
Seven months later, when he stepped into my new life and saw the infant with his deep brown eyes cradled in my arms—
This man who'd built an empire on violence and fear finally understood what he'd truly lost.
And I'll spend the rest of my life making sure he knows: some betrayals are so deep, even "I'm sorry" is more than he'll ever deserve.

When the vaccine turned into a deadly virus, the dead rose with blood-red eyes. Marcus lost his lover in the apocalypse, discovered the dark conspiracy behind the zombie hordes. From a desperate survivor to a cold hunter, he burns for revenge and fights to save the last of humanity in the ruined world.

"What gives a scarred freak like you the right to stand next to him?"
Four years ago, a brutal attack left a hideous burn scar across the left side of my face. Ever since, I've hidden behind a black mask, fading into the darkest corners of St. Oak High. I thought if I just stayed perfectly invisible, I could survive high school in peace.
Then Michael came back.
He's the President of Model UN, an Ivy-League-bound genius, and the golden boy everyone revolves around. And me? I’m just a damaged outcast too terrified to show my own face.
The harder I pushed him away, the closer he got.
But when a video from four years ago surfaces—showing him throwing a punch just to defend me—his flawless future is suddenly on the line. That's when I knew I couldn't hide in the shadows anymore.
This time, even if it means exposing my ugliest scars to the harsh light of day, I will do whatever it takes to protect him.

In Heaven, there exists an iron law: during the Ascension Ceremony, if a bride fails nine times to complete the bonding flight with her groom's Divine Cloak, her soul is deemed tainted, and she will be cast into the Abyss for seven centuries of penance.
I was once Heaven's greatest warrior, until I threw myself before the hellfire meant for Archangel Gabriel—and lost my wings forever.
I endured eight Ascension ceremonies. Each time, Gabriel found a reason to delay.
Then came the ninth. My last chance. One flight bound to his Divine Cloak, and I would soar again—my name cleared, my honor restored.
But atop the ceremonial tower, he unclasped the cloak from his own shoulders and wrapped it around Irene, the trembling Healing Angel.
"Cecilia, Irene needs this more. You're strong—you'll survive the fall."
He'd forgotten one thing: without wings, this height would kill me.
I didn't beg. I simply met his eyes—and stepped off the edge.
I woke in the arms of the Demon Lord I'd once shown mercy.
He spread ten pairs of wings that blotted out the heavens and carried me back to Heaven as his queen.
And Gabriel—that proud Archangel—knelt at my feet, tears streaming, begging me to look at him just once more.

When my husband handed the project I bled for to his "depressed" childhood sweetheart, he told me to be mature. "You're my wife. You shouldn't care about the credit."

So, when I was in the hospital miscarrying our baby while he threw her a party, I didn't cry. When she posted selfies wearing my anniversary necklace, I didn't scream.

Julian thought he had finally broken me into the perfect, obedient housewife. He truly believed I was nothing without him.

What a pathetic joke.

He had no idea his entire "business empire" was secretly kept alive by my family's trust fund.

He certainly didn't know the "mundane paperwork" he blindly signed this morning was my resignation—and our divorce agreement.

In my past life, I replaced my runaway sister Beatrice and was forced to marry mob enforcer Rowan Sinclair.
She thought he was poor with no future, so she ran. My parents didn't even tell me before sending me in her place.
Rowan knew the truth. He carried it like shame, never truly seeing me—only cold stares and silent contempt. I spent years beside him like an unwanted ghost, carefully managing his world while he rose from despised smuggler to feared godfather.
Then his attitude began to change.
Just when I thought we might have a real future, Beatrice returned with tears and lies, claiming I'd stolen her place. Rowan believed her. My parents betrayed me. Everyone chose her.
When a rival family captured us both, guns to our heads, only one could survive.
Rowan pulled Beatrice into his arms and abandoned me without a glance.
They tortured me for three days. The baby in my womb died first. Its father never knew it existed.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back to that afternoon before it all began.

Seven years ago, Alpha Matthew's fiancée Elvira ran off with another alpha. I was just his assistant back then, harboring a secret crush but never imagining we could be together.

That night I picked him up from the bar. He was drunk and had been drugged. One night later I was pregnant, and Matthew became convinced I was the one who drugged him, that I'd schemed my way into becoming his luna. He hated me, but still gave me the title of secret mate. No mating ceremony, just a contract. My son and I lived in the guest wing of his estate for seven years.

Last night he drunkenly spun Liam around in circles. My son thought he was finally being accepted. But I heard the name Matthew was murmuring—Elvira. She was coming back, with her son.

I held my transfer request to the Eastern Region. This time, we're done waiting.

"Your wife is just making up another excuse to ask for money."

With just one sneer from his trusted female assistant, my husband hung up my desperate call for help on that stormy night.

Safe in his warm conference room, he scolded me for being unreasonable and told me to "let the rain cool your head."

What he didn't know was that on that freezing night, because of his assistant's vicious lies and my inability to pay the medical fees, our newborn baby stopped breathing forever.

Three months later, discovering the horrifying truth, he searched frantically for me like a madman.

Finally, before our baby’s tombstone, a broken and desperate man knelt in the mud, begging me to take him back.

I just turned my back on him and walked away.

"We are over. Forever."

Three torturous years hauling bodies on the mortuary night shift, and I'd finally scraped together the cash for my brother Charles's heart transplant.
He just waved it off.
"My heart is fine. Mom and Dad didn't die in that gang war, either. I orchestrated the hit. You were the only casualty."
Nearby, my husband, Gerald, casually lit a cigar to deliver his own confession. "I never went bankrupt. 'Laying low' was just my excuse to avoid squeezing into that dingy funeral home dorm with you. I've been at the Long Island estate."
"I was going to punish you for another three years," Charles added, "but the stench of formaldehyde on you is nauseating. We couldn't take it anymore."
I froze, still clutching the credit card. Charles plucked the plastic from my numb fingers and shoved his phone screen in my face. A banking app stared back at me.
Balance: exactly zero.
"My name is still on the joint account," he sneered, tossing the card into the trash. "I drained it this morning. That blood money you made bagging stiffs is being handed out to street junkies as we speak. We'd never touch that filth."
Before the sheer absurdity of it could suffocate me, my parents walked in. Flanked by bodyguards, they kept their distance, eyeing me like a plague rat.
"You thought being the biological daughter gave you the right to ruthlessly bully Violet. We simply wanted to put you in your place."
"Swear you'll never cross Violet again, and you can remain a Falcone," my mother added coolly. "Otherwise, you're dead to us."
In the stifling silence that followed, my phone buzzed. A text from my oncologist.
[Mrs. Castello, the results are back. It's terminal. Do you consent to initiating the hospice and DNR protocols we discussed?]

The agony of flesh being torn apart still burned in my memory.
But I had been reborn.
I tremblingly touched the face in the mirror. Whole, unmarked. Was this real?
Just moments ago I had been struggling on death's edge, and now I stood in an 18-year-old body. Everything felt too surreal.
The entire pack still thought I was that naive Elena, forever living in the shadow of my pureblood sister Sarah. They didn't know I had seen the darkest truth.
The door suddenly burst open, and Sarah walked in carrying a cup of hot tea.
"Elena, don't stress yourself." Her voice carried an air of superiority. "Given your... situation, the Moon Goddess would be more forgiving."
Looking at her flawless smile, I was nearly sick to my stomach. This face, this expression—I had witnessed it countless times in my past life.
"About fated mates and all..." Sarah gently stroked my shoulder. "It's not something you absolutely have to follow. If you find Alpha Lucas too domineering, choosing a gentler Alpha would be a good option too. I'll stand by you either way."
Stand by me? I nearly laughed out loud.
In my past life, I had been blinded by these very words. I had given up other opportunities and chosen my fated mate Alpha Lucas, only to become a tool to mask his true feelings.
The truth hadn't surfaced until Sarah's birthday celebration. When the rogue wolves' claws had targeted her, that man who had claimed to love me for years hadn't hesitated to push me toward the pack.
As I collapsed in a pool of my own blood, the wolf claws having torn deep gashes across my flesh, I watched Lucas cradling Sarah protectively while she clutched her belly in panic.
"Save Sarah! Quickly, save her! The child in her belly..." Lucas had immediately rushed her to the medical room.
No one had paid attention to me lying in a pool of blood. In everyone's eyes, only Sarah had mattered.
"It's all my fault," Sarah had said weakly. "If I hadn't gotten pregnant, Elena wouldn't have been lashing out in jealousy..."
What? She had actually claimed I was lashing out in jealousy?
"Elena, I'm sorry... I'll make it up to you in the next life." Lucas had given me one last look, his eyes full of guilt.
Next life?
You got me killed, and you still wanted me to give you a chance in the next life? Dream on!

My three-year-old daughter hides behind the sofa whenever I try to hold her now.

“Mommy is scary,” she whispers, clutching her stuffed bear like a shield.

I thought it was just a toddler’s overactive imagination.

Until I checked the camera feed in my own bedroom.

I watched a woman who looked exactly like me step out of the shadows of our antique mirror, slip into my husband’s bed, and kiss him.

A noble homecoming turns into a death sentence. Jessica uncovers dark abyss magic hidden inside gift chocolate. With no way to break the threeday binding curse, she lets her dying lover take its power. Revenge unfolds in full view at the grand temple engagement ceremony. Victory comes with an irreversible price: true love lives inside another woman’s skin.

I thought I was the luckiest person in the apocalypse.
My brother, a former special forces soldier, brought me supplies so I wouldn't have to face the horrors above ground.
My girlfriend comforted me over the radio, saying she'd cry in my arms once we could finally get out.
I lived underground for three years, grateful like a domesticated dog.
Until that day, when I pushed open the door, smelled fresh grass, and saw the swimming pool in the sunlight—that's when I understood that the so-called apocalypse was never outside, but behind the door they had locked me in.

A frat party Ouija board game awakened a deadly fae. Every fortune it grants comes with a fatal price. It offered me three. I refused them all.
But my boyfriend, crushed under student loans, craved the fae's riches. He took the money. He signed the deal. He opened the door.
I thought I would stay safe as long as I refused the fae's demands. Then my body started to weaken. My limbs thinned. My stomach swelled with something that shouldn't exist.
Desperate for answers, I found an old novel a story that mirrored my own. Hidden in its pages, a secret that might be the only way out.

"Fuck a whale like that? Dude, I'd need a goddamn forklift to dig through the rolls and find the hole. You could pay me a thousand bucks and I still wouldn't touch it. This isn't a date—this is a fear factor challenge."
Three months ago, those words boomed through the speakers at the frat party, filling every corner of the house.
That night, I was the joke. The fattest pig in their twisted little hunting game.
Three months later, I'm at the podium running for student body president. My waist dropped from 38 inches to 24, and this custom suit fits like a weapon.
Down below, the same people who laughed are staring up at me now. And that asshole who needed the forklift? He's face-down in the dirt like a kicked dog, waiting for me to end him.
My name is Leona. This isn't some crying fat girl's diary anymore. This is how I crushed every bastard who ever stepped on me—and clawed my way to the crown with blood and sweat.

My daughter died on her seventh birthday.
I held her in the cold ward as her body slowly lost all warmth.
Meanwhile, her father—my husband Vincent—was on a mountain top with his mistress, making love to her all night long.
He said, "She’s just a child. There’ll be better ones sooner or later."
He said, "Camila, you’re the only one I love."
He has no idea that he’s killed the only soul in this world that loved him unconditionally.
After the divorce, I am no longer the meek Mrs. Lucchese who begged for his affection.
Funeral, scandal, a worthless bastard...
Everything I lost, I will make him pay for—with his entire family.

In a sleek design world split between polished appearances and buried cruelty, Mara Ellison has spent years trapped behind a voice no one wanted to hear. While her family rewrites her illness and her fiancé speaks over her in the name of love, stolen records, public humiliation, and old betrayals force her to reclaim her life. Quiet but cutting, this is a story of emotional abuse, identity theft, and hard-won selfhood—framed by rain-soaked streets, hospital corridors, cold glass conference rooms, and a woman finally stepping into the light with her own voice.

Young love and devotion fell to his marital greed. In reckless indulgence, Nate ruined his lifelong lover and family. He sided with his mistress, ignored my agony and child loss, and pushed me into despair. Seven years later, the once-glorious Wall Street elite fell utterly abandoned and destitute. Repentant and desperate, he begged for redemption. But his belated love now only meets my cold, unwavering indifference.

At my engagement dinner, my fiancé asked me to sign the prenup that killed me once before.

Last time, Adrian smiled, kissed my hand, and promised I would never be alone again. Three weeks later, debt collectors came for money I had never borrowed, black veins crawled under my skin, and his dying mother walked out of hospice in pearls.

This time, I turned to the second page first.

My name was already printed there.

Beside it was a date that had not happened yet.

Under it was another bride’s name.

A woman declared dead twenty-three years ago.

Julian and I played house for five years—minus the actual marriage certificate. Because he bailed on me at the registry office twelve times. All for Mia, some intern.

First time: Mia screwed up her pitch.

Sixth time: Mia had the flu.

Twelfth time: Mia's ex showed up at our architecture firm throwing punches. Julian had to play knight in shining armor. I got knocked into a desk, cracked my head open—he didn't spare me a glance before whisking her off to the ER.

Before, I would've lost it. Screamed. Sobbed. Begged him to tell me who the hell he was actually planning to marry. And every single time, Julian would sigh and say, "Chloe, really? She's just an intern. Practically a child."

This time, all I said was: "Go ahead."

Then I turned around and took that job overseas.

When his thirteenth text came through—yet another registry office reschedule—I was already at the gate for my London flight.

This time? I'm choosing me.

The day college decisions came out, my parents bought my twin sister a Porsche.
It was my eighteenth birthday too. Nobody brought it up. I stood in the doorway in my diner uniform while the whole room sang her name.
That night the four of them went out to dinner to celebrate her. The car only sat four, so my father handed me a hundred dollars and told me to order myself something at home.
Four days later, six thousand four hundred dollars vanished from my account. Two years of washing dishes, gone to her sorority dues. My mother's name was on the account, so it wasn't even illegal.
I didn't scream and I didn't beg. I went upstairs and clicked Accept on the full ride to MIT that had been sitting in my inbox for three days.
Nobody in that house ever wanted me. So I booked a one-way ticket, cut myself out of the family photo, and left my key on the shoe rack.
I wasn't coming back. Not for graduation. Not for any of them.

Ryan loves me deeply—at least that's what everyone says. Seven years together, we look like the perfect couple to outsiders. But only I know he's betrayed me three times.

The first time was three years ago. His brother died saving him, leaving behind his widow Sophia—Ryan's unforgettable first love. He married her behind my back. When I found out, I completely fell apart. I have dignity. I refuse to be the other woman. I wanted to leave, but he begged on his knees. "This is just to take care of my sister-in-law. Once I find the truth about my brother's death, I'll divorce her. Then we can get married."

I believed him. I forgot that a man never lets go of a lost love he's gotten back.

The second time was at last year's company anniversary. In front of everyone, he introduced Sophia as his wife. I watched them on stage, a knife through my heart. That night he explained, "It's just for show. Once everything's over, we can be together."

I believed him again.

The third time was two weeks ago. Surveillance footage showed Ryan with Sophia entering a hotel room. I rushed to confront him, but heard her voice outside his office. "Ryan, I'm pregnant. It's your baby."

Through the crack in the door, I see him hesitate. In that instant I understand.

He's going to keep her.

He spots me and rushes out in a panic. "It was an accident! Let me explain! After she has the baby, I'll give her money and make her leave. She won't be in our lives anymore!"

In that moment, I finally wake up. There will be no future for us.

A bored demon out for a good time came after me and my worst enemy, and locked us in a room with no door.

The rules are simple. We each have to confess three secrets the other one has no idea about, for his amusement, and only then do we get out.

Weston raises an eyebrow, that lazy, punchable smirk on his face.

"After ten years of being at each other's throats, what could you possibly still be hiding from me?"

He doesn't know I never actually hated him.

He doesn't know that three months ago, at that masquerade, the woman he slept with was me.

And he definitely doesn't know the baby I'm carrying is his.

At eighteen, I gave my virginity to Hunter in his bed.

I swallowed all the pain and hesitation, naively believing that three years of a pathetic crush had finally earned my way into his heart.

Until the next morning, when I heard his teammates' unabashed mockery:

"Damn, you finally bagged the nerd? How was it?"

Hunter scoffed, his tone dripping with utter contempt.

"Just messing around. If I'm bringing a real girlfriend out, it's gotta be someone on Serena's level—head cheerleader."

I wordlessly opened my college application portal, deleted the garbage local state school I had picked just to stay with him, and changed it back to Yale.

He confidently thought I would follow him blindly, until he video-called me on opening day and completely lost his mind seeing who was beside me: his own stepbrother.

Siren's Reef only breeds women.
On this isolated island, Henrietta's orphanage takes in all fatherless girls. She raises us until our eighteenth birthday—the night of the "Coral Crowning," an annual coming-of-age ritual that supposedly earns the Sea God's blessing.
My sister Saffron and I are identical twins, raised wearing the exact same face.
But on this island, the same face doesn't spell the same fate. She was the one Henrietta spoiled from birth; I was the one allowed to trail behind her.
I thought it would always be this way. Until she died. Henrietta claimed Saffron broke the rules and was flayed alive by the serrated edges of the reef. But that day, I saw it with my own eyes: Saffron's signature dimple had appeared on Henrietta's cheek—where none had been before.

In my past life, when I eagerly handed my ultrasound to my gentle doctor husband, I didn't get a warm embrace. I got a scalpel. Without anesthesia.

The man I loved dragged me into a pitch-black basement to butcher me alive. My once-doting mother called me a filthy whore, treating me like a sickening stain on the family. My fiercely protective brother pinned me to a metal workbench, offering me up as a living sacrifice.

I died in utter agony, left to rot and be eaten alive by rats in the dark. Up until my last breath, I couldn't understand:

Why did a single piece of paper—a sonogram of a perfectly healthy baby—instantly turn my entire family into bloodthirsty monsters?

There's a heavy iron door at the end of the hall. Anyone who steps inside returns with eyes full of hatred. That’s all it took for the basement to turn my gentle fiancé into a predator and my loyal best friend into an enemy. Now, I'm trapped with a mother who claims the violence is all in my head. I have to open that door.

On the day I died, Roland was rolling in the sheets with his adopted sister, Lavinia.
When the hospital called with my death notice, he scoffed. It was just drawing some blood, how could anyone die from that? He was certain I was just throwing a tantrum again, desperate for his attention.
The day he received my ashes, he personally smashed the wooden urn to the ground. His expensive leather shoes ground my ashes into the floor over and over as he coldly announced he was going to marry Lavinia and throw a grand wedding—the exact wedding I had begged for when I was alive but never got.
It wasn't until the day before their wedding that his assistant, Desmond, rushed in, trembling.
"Sir, it's bad... We pulled the security footage from the hospital, and... the madam's autopsy report."

I was the only top-tier Healer in the entire pack.
The blind witch in the Black Forest told me that if I hid my true bloodline and used my Healer gift to save one hundred dying wolves — no payment, no recognition — my mother's spirit would break free of the curse and find peace with the Moon Goddess.
For twenty years, I'd kept my bloodline a secret, saving ninety-nine wolves on the brink of death. Just one more, and it would all be over.
Then the call came. A six-year-old boy. The Alpha's only son. Dying from bloodline backlash. I was the only one who could save him.
I said no.
The whole pack turned on me. My fiancé called me a cold-blooded monster. The Alpha threatened me with treason. They offered gold, titles, everything — even got on their knees.
None of them knew why I refused. None of them knew what that Alpha took from me twenty years ago.
Save his precious heir? He should've thought about that before he destroyed everything I loved.

Half human, half wolf—my blood can heal anything. To keep the peace, the elders offer me to the pack's War God.
"I'd rather sleep with a rock than a half-blood," Zane spits.
The wind rips away the herbs masking my scent. He freezes mid-sentence.
"Mine," he growls, claiming me on the spot.
He warns me to stay away from the Alpha—he hates half-bloods, and he'll kill me.
But when Zane leaves for war, it's Lucius who collapses at my door, drenched in blood.
"Medicine won't save me. You already know what will."

Five years ago, my ex-boyfriend Jason said coldly when he abandoned me: "Charlotte, you're not worthy of my dreams."

Five years later, when I saw him again, he had become Floreton's tech mogul while I remained a simple sculptor. His new fiancée—a wealthy heiress—sneered at my modest attire: "Someone like you can actually afford to book a top-tier wedding venue?"

She stole my venue, crushed my fingers, and forced me to kneel and apologize: "Say you don't belong here!"

Jason stood by watching coldly, just as indifferent as he was on that rainy night five years ago.

I desperately thought this was my fate, until that familiar, furious voice echoed throughout the entire venue:

"What bastard touched my woman!"

My Bradley had arrived.

This time, I would be the one laughing last.

They left me to freeze to death in our basement freezer.

The night before prom, my foster sister Leila came crying that I'd burned her Ivy League recommendation letter. My birth parents didn't even listen to one word of explanation—they threw me into that frozen hell in forty-five below.

I beat on that door until my fingers were shredded, screamed until my throat tore apart, but all I could hear from upstairs was their laughter celebrating Leila. Even Justin—the boy I'd loved since we were kids—texted calling me a fucking psycho.

As I drew my last breath, I heard Leila's soft voice outside the door: "Rest in peace, sister."

Now I'm a ghost, watching them lose their minds when the truth comes out.

"I agree." I signed away my life to save the girl who framed me. My mate didn't even look up from her tears to notice I was dying. "Stop pretending. This much blood loss won't kill you," he said, storming out with her in his arms. What he didn't know? That contract wasn't a healing pact—it was an execution order. And I'd just started my 72-hour countdown to burn his entire kingdom down with me.

When I was rushed to the ER with food poisoning, I heard the doctor shout, "We need to pump her stomach, now!"
But my mother, Catherine, calmly stopped the doctor's hand.
"No hurry," she said coldly. "Give her a sedative first."
My brother Austin panicked. "Mom! If you don't detox her, she could die!"
But my mother's voice was ruthless, low and sharp:
"If she dies, she dies. As long as her uterus is still warm, that's all that matters."
"Did you forget our plan? Sarah's transplant surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. If Elena wakes up now, what if she runs away?"
"Our priority is keeping her uterus safe for Sarah—not saving her life."
In that moment, the burn in my stomach was nothing compared to the chill in my heart.
I forced my eyes open and saw my brother—the one who'd always protected me—hesitate for a moment, then slowly let go of my hand.
"...Okay. You're right, Mom. Saving Sarah comes first."
The moment I closed my eyes, I made a decision: If I survived, this life would never belong to this family again.

My parents and twin sister faked their own deaths so she could steal my college acceptance.

I believed it. Sobbed until I couldn't breathe when the cops showed me photos of the burnt yacht. Thought my words—"I hope you all die"—had somehow made it happen.

Two weeks later, I found my sister's backup Instagram: "Finally ditched the boring sister! Bahamas is paradise 🏖"

Something inside me snapped.

Wanna play dead? Stay dead.

I took their death certificates. Canceled their social security numbers. Drained every joint account—every last cent. Sold the house to John, the kind of guy even cops don't mess with.

One month later, they came home tanned and loaded with designer bags, expecting to find me broken on the streets.

What greeted them instead were cold gun barrels pointed at their heads.

The day college applications were due, Fern Whitmore wouldn't stop crying — and my two childhood best friends were completely wrapped around her finger.

They actually threatened to give up their Ivy League spots to follow her to community college.

I tried everything to talk them out of it. Nothing worked. So I went behind their backs and called both their parents.

Their parents showed up that same night and put a stop to it. Applications corrected, crisis averted, everyone back on track.

Or so I thought.

Fern lost her two personal ATMs, and one night she posted a goodbye message on social media and swallowed a bottle of pills.

Nash and Declan didn't blame her for it. They blamed me.

They lured me up to the roof. Both of them shoved their hands against my chest.

"Maren." Declan's voice was ice. "You ruined Fern's future. Go apologize to her in hell."

I fell twelve stories.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at the beginning.

This time, I'm not saving anyone.

“Dad… please… help me…” I pleaded, my shattered ribs piercing my lungs, blood soaking the stretcher.
But Richard, the hospital's top surgeon and my biological father, didn't even glance at me. Instead, he rushed to the next bed.
“Don't be afraid, Chloe. I'm here,” he cooed to his stepdaughter, who merely had a tiny scratch on her arm. “Get the best equipment over here now!” he roared.
As the heart monitor flatlined and my soul left my broken body, I realized the chilling truth: in the choice between life and death, my father gladly let me die.

Oscar winner Adrian Pierce announced his divorce at midnight.

Hours later, his ex-wife ended a ten-thousand-word farewell with one line for me:

Claire Sutton, you won.

Adrian is yours.

By breakfast, half the internet wanted to know why I'd destroyed their marriage.

I wanted to know, too.

After all, I'd been secretly married for eight years.

Why would I want her ex-husband?

On my twenty-fourth birthday, my grandfather dropped the bombshell: I was an orphan.
After learning about my biological family, I decided to do something nice. I bought a limited-edition sports car as a gift for the father I had never met.
But at the dealership, I was publicly humiliated by my brother's mistress.
To clear up the misunderstanding, I called my brother.
When he arrived, it was only to back her up.
"This birthmark is ugly; let me help you get rid of it."
My own brother used a cigar to burn off the birthmark behind my ear and had my suffering broadcast on the mall's LED screen.
"Listen, if anyone dares to treat this woman’s injuries, I’ll have their license revoked in this city for good!"
But he didn’t know that the grandfather who raised me was someone no one in this city could even dream of looking up to.
When my grandfather arrived with a top-notch medical team and armed mercenaries, sealing off the entire building, my arrogant brother finally realized his mistake.

My uncle has a hunting cabin in Alaska. Every December, I stay there for a few days.

This year he wasn't there—left me the keys.

When I walked in, I noticed there was a new deer head mount above the fireplace.

Not a whitetail deer. A moose. Very large.

But I noticed its eyes weren't made of glass.

Those two eyeballs looked... too real.

The pupils even contracted in the light.

I texted my uncle asking when he'd shot this moose.

He replied: "What moose?"

I looked at the mount again.

Its lips moved slightly.

Not the rise and fall of breathing, but... trying to form a word.