9675 Book(s) Related to a heart for the ceo

On our first wedding anniversary, I walked into my husband's office and found him having sex with my best friend.

He didn't even apologize. Instead, claiming he was disgusted that I hadn't produced an heir in a year of marriage, he threw divorce papers in my face.

Five years later, I returned to New York with my new husband—Cassian Vitiello, the Godfather of the North American underworld.

Vincent ran into me at the docks. He handed me a business card, offering me a job as a nanny for his mistress's son.

What he didn't know was that the woman he was mocking was now the Donna—the woman the entire East Coast underground feared.

The world thought I was a broken man after rotting in the Abyss for five years. Even Moretti, the wealthiest mogul in Cold Harbor, dared to point a finger at my nose and demand I kneel.
He razed my estate, seized my daughter, and humiliated my past on a city-wide livestream.
What he didn’t know was that the moment his infrared scanners locked onto me, I had already initiated the sequence for a dormant orbital satellite that had been sleeping above us for five years.
When the skyscraper turns to ash, the man kneeling before me won’t be that arrogant tycoon—only a trembling corpse.
After all, in this city, I don’t believe in reason. I only believe in retribution.

With her husband feeling more like a distant roommate, Nikki, an ex-college soccer player, knows there's more out there for her but scared to leave the comfort of her normal, usual, secure life. One night, during a massive storm, lightening strikes as a new player, Shane, joins her team. The second their eyes meet, time stops. She knows this person has always lived in her heart and soul. What is this feeling? It's illogical, it's fantasy, it's supported by all of the physical evidence you could throw in front of her. What the hell even is a soul mate, anyways? There's only one way to find out without actually having to interact with the dark haired stranger in real life...inviting him to dream with her. Will he join her?

“One of the best thrillers I have read this year.”--Books and Movie Reviews (re Any Means Necessary)In the much-anticipated debut of a new series by #1 bestseller Jack Mars, when elite Delta Force soldier Luke Stone, 29, joins a secretive government agency, he is dispatched on the mission of a lifetime: a whirlwind race across Europe and the Mid-East to save the President’s daughter before she is beheaded by terrorists.In PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1), we see the forging of one of the world’s toughest—and most lethal—soldiers: Luke Stone. A 29 year old veteran who has seen enough battle to last a lifetime, Luke is tapped by the Special Response Team, a secretive new FBI agency (led by his mentor Don Morris) to tackle the most high-stake terrorism operations in the world.Luke, still haunted by his wartime past and newly married to an expecting Becca, is dispatched on a mission to Iraq, with his new partner Ed Newsam, to bring in a rogue American contractor. But what begins as a routine mission mushrooms into something much, much bigger.When the President’s teenage daughter, kidnapped in Europe, is ransomed by terrorists, Luke may be the only one in the world who can save her before it is too late.PRIMARY TARGET is an un-putdownable military thriller, a wild action ride that will leave you turning pages late into the night. It marks the long-anticipated debut of a riveting new series by #1 bestseller Jack Mars, dubbed “one of the best thriller authors” out there.“Thriller writing at its best.”--Midwest Book Review (re Any Means Necessary)Also available is Jack Mars’ #1 bestselling LUKE STONE THRILLER series (7 books), which begins with Any Means Necessary (Book #1), a free download with over 800 five star reviews!

To save my cousin from a car accident, my mother, a medical luminary, used me as a "human guinea pig" for twelve years.
When I was twelve, she made me inject myself with three injections of unproven new drugs every week;
when I was fourteen, she directly shoved toxic compounds into my mouth.
When my organs were irreversibly failing and I was vomiting blood in the ICU, she coldly tossed me a payment order:
"Stop pretending to be dead. Immediately kowtow and apologize to your brother, or no hospital will admit you."
As she wished, I was forced to leave the hospital and died at her glamorous new drug launch.
Later, that high-and-mighty mother, obsessed with fame and fortune, knelt for an entire night in a snow-covered fir forest, holding my crudely made urn.
Sadly, I will never forgive her.

Adrian Whitmore used to call me obsessive whenever I asked where he had been with my best friend. Then I lost our baby, stopped asking, and moved into the guest room. That was when the husband who had spent years pushing me away finally cornered me and demanded to know why I no longer cared.

In my previous life, an extreme cold apocalypse descended.

I risked my life nine times over to evolve into a high-tier Ice Plains Wolf, and just to find a piece of meat to keep my fiancée alive, I frantically tore apart wild beasts in the snow. Yet I was betrayed by her and her lover—they cut out my heart with an ice blade!

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn half a month before the apocalypse!

Time was running out. To awaken the highest tier of beast-human form, I needed an enormous amount of meat to provide energy.

Sports cars? Ocean-view villas? Billions in assets? I wanted none of it!

I immediately dumped my manipulative fiancée, liquidated all my assets into cash, bought a fully enclosed fortified meat processing plant, and frantically stockpiled hundreds of thousands of tons of high-calorie raw meat!

The extreme cold arrived as expected, turning the entire city into a frozen hellscape.

The scumbag pair who betrayed me in my previous life now knelt outside my impregnable airlock door, crying pitifully and begging me for scraps.

I stepped out of my fortress and looked down at them with claws sharp enough to tear through steel:

"Want meat? Go to hell and eat dirt!"

I was never supposed to exist in the Blood Moon Pack, low-born, no surname, no family to shield me.
Yet the Alpha chose me and called me “his one and only mate for this lifetime”.
He said he loved me.
So I endured. I stepped back. I forgave him again and again.
Until the day I was pushed down the stairs, dragged into the punishment grounds, strapped to an electric restraint bed, and heard them calmly discussing how far they should go this time; what kind of punishment would finally make the “real family” feel at ease?
That was when I understood in their world, I wasn’t a mate. I wasn’t family. I wasn’t even seen as a person. I was just a bargaining chip, but something disposable, something meant to be sacrificed when convenient.
So I learned to stay quiet, to remember everything, and to wait.
They thought I died in that fire.
But when I stepped back into the moonlight, I was no longer an Omega.

The day I signed the divorce papers, Ethan Frost lit up the night sky with thousands of drones spelling out, ‘Vivian Moore, I love you.’ The whole city celebrated his new romance.
On our daughter, Sophie’s birthday, he watched coldly as Vivian’s daughter snatched away her favorite Elsa princess cake—and didn’t even blink when I was shoved down the stairs. Bleeding and trembling, I looked up to see him tenderly massaging Vivian’s feet.
But what truly shattered me was the day Sophie struggled in the pool—Ethan held me back, eyes dark, roaring, “What do you want?”
Later, he scrambled to Sophie’s photo on his knees, crying “Where’s Sophie? Bring her out.” While I only felt absurd, I smiled through my tears “you will never see Sophie again—ever.”

Seven years ago, I signed a mate contract as Luna.
For my mother’s dying wish and for the Pack’s stability, I personally pushed a man with nothing to his name onto the Alpha throne.
I held the Pack together for him, expanded our businesses, and handled the filthy negotiations and the deals no one wanted to see in the light.
Everyone said—
I was calm, I was formidable, I was qualified.
Just… not much like a “gentle mate.”
Until that day.
I stood in the bedroom and watched my Alpha husband lay his hand over my paralyzed stepsister’s slightly rounded belly.
They told me it was for the greater good of the Pack.
That child would be registered under my name.
He would call me Mother.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream.
I just waited for the seven-year term to hit its end and activated the trust clause my mother left behind.
Accounts frozen.
Capital withdrawn.
The wolf empire I built with my own hands collapsed overnight.

My husband personally pushed me to hell - he made me jump into a frozen lake while pregnant to get a necklace to make Beta,Tara laugh.The mistress lived in our wedding house with her pregnant belly; They drove my mother to her death.

Until I jumped into the sea with my mother's urn.Everyone thinks I'm dead.But that rainy night, the Pack Doctor,Edmond Mccoy caressed the scar on my wrist, and his eyes was filled with the heat that had been repressed for many years: "Senior, your resentment, you should let them use blood to return."I will make them disgraced and stripped of everything.

"She's dying, can't you be more generous?" That's what my husband said.
So I was generous.
I gave her my husband's time when our daughter was in the ER for an allergic reaction she caused.
I gave her my once-in-a-lifetime concert ticket because "she deserved it more."
I even endured our daughter wishing I would die in her place.
But when he accused me of orchestrating a kidnapping to win his sympathy, I knew my generosity had run out. I threw the divorce papers in his face. He laughed, thinking I couldn't survive without him.
He's about to find out how wrong he is.

Ava Duval gave up everything for love. She left a promising fashion career and poured five years of her life into building a multimillion-dollar empire from the bottom with her husband by her side.

She was a bubbly woman until she lost her children during delivery, and out of her husband's love, or so she thought, he adopted twins for her, and she raised them as her own.

She was blessed to have a supportive husband and did not hesitate to give him her kidney when she heard that he was terribly ill. She gave him pieces of herself until the truth surfaced.

Her pregnancy had been purposely sabotaged; the children were never adopted but are her husband's blood, borne by his mistress, and the kidney she had donated never went to her husband.

She realizes too late that she sacrificed everything for a man whose heart was with another woman. Now, she has to rebuild herself with the scars she has gotten from marriage.

Will she forgive him, claim her revenge for every cruel thing that has been done to her, or pick up the pieces and move on? Or will she do all three until her heart is finally satisfied?

Meet Yenn who thought his life will remain the same, but after
the game Arc of SHION released an announcement that every
player would receive $5 million and a chance to meet the
mysterious creator of the game if they finish 100 Arcs Hell
Mode. After getting the money, he was tricked into signing a
contract to stay in a private island where he met the other
people who had the same date and Jiwoon, his roommate who
was his rival in love and his sworn enemy but then….
Why did Jiwoon raped him?

In the Dragon Empire, bloodline determined everything. Only a female capable of hatching royal-grade golden dragons could wear the crown.
In my past life, I was nothing but a Red Drake—bottom of the food chain, not even blessed with wings. Yet after marrying into the royal family, I miraculously hatched a pureblooded Golden Hatchling.
But when my husband Valerius ascended to the Dragon Throne, his first act as king was to rip out my dragon crystal with his bare claws.
My own son Draken then ordered my body hacked to pieces and fed to the Abyssal Carrion Wolf-Lions in the depths below.
All of this because my half-sister had faked a bloodline awakening, transforming herself overnight into a so-called "Sacred Crystal Dragon."
My cruel husband had looked down at me with utter contempt: "Without my noble genes, how could something like you possibly birth such a gifted golden pureblood? Your filthy swamp bloodline has no right to the Queen's throne."
My son's disgust cut even deeper: "I don't want a flightless cripple for a mother. You make me sick. Only someone as noble and beautiful as Seraphina deserves to be my mother—she'd never force me to practice boring magic like you did."
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back at the Empire's quinquennial Bonding Ceremony.
My husband wasted no time choosing my sister as his mate. My son, Draken, eagerly dove his soul into her womb, ready to be reborn.
But this time, what crawled out of that egg was a Blind Mud Runt.

When my own family and fated mate forced me to leap into the abyss, I did not hesitate.
"You wicked woman, why don't you just die?" My brother Carl pointed at the cliff and roared. "Jump into the Abyss of Sin and atone before the Moon Goddess!"
My fated mate, Enzo, looked at me coldly. "You owe Lilith this."
They expected me to kneel and beg as I had so many times before, insisting that I had never harmed my adopted sister.
Instead, I simply nodded.
Under their horrified gazes, I threw myself over the edge. My body vanished into the silver flames below and turned to ash in an instant.
They did not know this was the seventh obedience contract I had made with the Moon Goddess.
Once I completed seven acts of absolute obedience, I could sever my old bonds and be reborn.
Goodbye, my family—the people I once would have died for.

The more I cry, the hornier my sister gets.

Not a metaphor. Stone cold reality. Me and pop superstar Melody share a sick "emotional link" — the worse I suffer, the more she glows on stage.

My husband Christian discovered this secret.

Then he chose to betray me and crawl into bed with Melody.

Now every time Melody has a big show, Christian locks me in the basement, force-feeds me depression pills, and blasts horror movies 24/7 until I'm totally broken.

My despair gets fed straight into Melody's energy, making her perform like she's possessed.

Tonight they're fucking to celebrate her win. Tomorrow's concert means draining me dry again.

Enough!

If my pain is your sex drug, I'm cutting off the supply completely.

I'm going to the medical center to freeze myself for one full year.

Let you two horny bastards screw each other to death!

I was once a world-renowned designer, but I retired for love, dedicating six years to my husband and daughter. But on our anniversary, he spent millions on my final masterpiece, only to place it around another woman's neck on live TV. My own daughter then ran on stage, sweetly calling her 'mommy.' My six years of devotion became a joke. When I asked for a divorce, he sneered, thinking I was just a housewife who couldn't survive three days without him. He has no idea that the legendary designer 'Octavia' he's desperately trying to meet is the wife he cast aside. Now, I’m back. And I'm ready to take back everything that is mine.

I'm Jennifer, a stay-at-home mom. I gave up my art career eight years ago to take care of my family. My husband Julian and my son Garry, they're my whole world.

But lately, I've noticed them getting closer to Mia, Julian's secretary. Little things. Garry asking where "Miss Mia" is. Julian mentioning her at dinner. I told myself it was nothing. I kept quiet. I put up with it.

Until last week, when Garry broke his arm playing hockey. The school called Mia, not me. She was listed as his emergency contact.

That's when I knew I was done.

From a young age, I understood that my asthma was a shackle for my entire family. My parents took turns caring for me, their hearts gripped by the fear of any sign of respiratory distress. In their fervent concern for my health, they even compelled my sister, Sophie, freshly accepted into university, to postpone her studies and return home to assist in my care.
At Sophie's eighteenth birthday celebration, I lingered at the edge of the crowd, my chest constricted, and my throat felt as if it were ensnared by invisible hands. I gently tugged at my mother's sleeve, my voice barely a whisper: "Mom, I... can't breathe. I want to go back to my room..."
In an instant, my mother whirled around, her eyes ablaze with fury, as though she had awaited this moment of eruption. She seized my inhaler and hurled it into the farthest corner of the room.
"If it's this painful, then go die!" she shrieked, her words cutting like a knife. "Stop using your illness to hold us hostage!"
The inhaler tumbled to the floor, rolling away like a forgotten piece of trash. I stared at it blankly, a sudden laugh escaping my lips.
And then, I truly died. Yet, in the wake of my passing, those who once found me a burden descended into madness.

When her marriage comes to an abrupt end, Sparkle tries to channel her pain into saving a dog that has been condemned to die after being involved in a terrible accident, but after a few weeks, she makes the horrible discovery that the dog she saved is, in fact, no dog at all. She saved a badly injured wolf she has mistaken for a husky. He's a powerful alpha who is very ruthless to humans, and Sparkle is no exception, or is she? Find out what becomes of Sparkle when Dalton finally regains his strength and reclaims his pack.


I saved a dying husky from being euthanized, not knowing I was bringing a billionaire Alpha werewolf into my bed. My husband divorced me because he thought I was infertile, kicking me out for a dog he was allergic to. I had nothing left but the injured animal in my backseat. I nursed him, bandaged him, and poured my broken heart out to him. But one morning, the dog was gone. In his place stood Dalton Roux, the most powerful Alpha in the city. He didn't just thank me. He kidnapped me to his mansion, claiming it was for my "protection." "You saved my life," he whispered, his voice dropping an octave as his hands roamed my curves. He pinned me against the wall, his massive erection pressing against my thigh, growling possessively.

Born between two kingdoms at war, Astrid Stone’s life has been marked by pain and misfortune, condemned to live as a slave within her own palace.
She is the princess no one wants, the shadow of a lineage that despises her.
When the new wolf king, Lysander Rowan, forces her to marry him to avenge his father, both are trapped in a union forged by hatred… and consumed by a desire neither can deny.
As their love grows and her true nature awakens, Astrid must choose between loyalty to her past or a forbidden love that threatens to destroy them both.
In a world where blood dictates destiny, can love defy the moon?

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 later, at a top-tier financial summit across America, her seemingly untouchable new husband was kneeling at my feet like a dog.
And her proud multi-billion dollar empire was nothing more than garbage I could crush with a flick of my finger.

When I was ten, my parents faked a messy divorce and turned my life into a sick reality show.
They split up me and my twin sister, Romy. She got the Alpine mansion and my mother's luxurious lifestyle.
I was dumped in a moldy basement, scrubbing diner plates and clinging to my physics books to survive my father's "gambling addiction." 
For eight years, I starved to pay off his staged debts. Then, on our eighteenth birthday, Romy casually texted me a link to StreamLens, an exclusive voyeur site for bored billionaires, followed by a few stabbing messages:
[Surprise, sis. Mom and Dad never actually split. We're perfectly happy ]
[It's honestly sad watching you skip meals, but you know how it is.]
[You were the "older sister," so they chose you to be the one raised in the dirt.] 
I clicked the link. The site's #1 live feed was a giant split screen titled: "The Twin Experiment: Raised Poor vs. Raised Rich—Which Sister Comes Out on Top?" 
On the left: me, freezing in a leaky cellar. On the right: Gareth and Marissa playfully hugging Romy on a velvet sofa, slicing into a massive birthday cake. The debt, the loan sharks, my absolute misery—it was all just entertainment. 
Through the feed, Romy stared straight into the hidden camera, flashing a sickly-sweet smile. 
“Smile for the cameras, sis. Your suffering bought us this gorgeous house.”

I thought I was the woman David couldn’t live without.
For our marriage, I gave up my career to stay in the kitchen, learning to cook all his favorite meals, and I endured every bit of hostility from his family without complaint.
I thought that was what love looked like—quiet devotion, two people growing old together. Until our third wedding anniversary.
During the World Cup final broadcast watched by millions, I saw him in the stadium stands… kissing my younger sister.
By the time I made it home, Lily already had my house key in her hand, standing in my own home like she had every right to be there.
“Don’t you understand?” she whispered with a smile. “You can’t even give him a child. What makes you think you deserve to be his wife?”
David didn’t stop her. He didn’t defend me. He just watched. And let it happen.
What they forgot was simple. That house? It was mine. Not his.

I suddenly awakened the ability to read minds. But I heard my fiancé, Joey Jones, mocking me in his mind: He had already arranged for an assassin to “send me off” at our wedding in the church. What was even more disgusting was that he promised I would become the Donna of the Jones family, but in his heart, he was fixated on his stepmother, Rory—his father’s widow, who was only a few years older than him.
With only three days left until the wedding, I no longer cried or begged for love. Instead, I contacted my first love, Nate, who was a police officer: “How about being the male lead at my wedding?”

BLURB
"You're the only one who can wake me. Now you'll carry my curse, and my crown."
When Aria Silverthorn's fiancé and stepsister publicly accused her of being Omega-born fraud, stripping her rank and dignity, she lost everything. Cast into the Forsaken Lands to die, she survived three months of hell—and desperation drove her to the forbidden Moonfall Crypt, where Alpha King Kael Nightfang has been entombed for five years.
The Council claims he died heroically. The truth? They poisoned him with wolfsbane silver, trapping him in death-sleep when he discovered their corruption.
When Aria touches his tomb seeking shelter, the impossible happens. He wakes—but only she can anchor him to life. Only her touch keeps him from slipping back into the void. Their bond is immediate, undeniable, and dangerous.
Kael should be dead. The Council made sure of it. For five years, his consciousness has been trapped between life and death, aware of every agonizing moment.
Until Aria.
She's his anchor. His prison. His salvation. And he's not letting her go, not when she's the key to his revenge and reclaiming his throne.
But their bond goes deeper than magic. They're true mates,a connection so rare it hasn't occurred in centuries. A bond the Council will kill to prevent, because true mates can challenge their entire corrupt system.

The year the gas swallowed the world, I helped design and build Dome City with my own hands, keeping the last survivors alive.

I thought I was protecting hope.

Then I stumbled onto the Council’s secret: the poison outside is fading—but they chose to hide it. Worse, they plan to manufacture and release more gas, locking everyone inside forever, under their rule.

Before I could expose the truth, the person I trusted most struck me from behind.

My girlfriend—Vera Walker.

She took my evidence, stripped my access, and traded me for a higher rank.

When I woke up, I was outside the Dome in toxic fog—my identity erased, my lungs burning, my vision slipping.

They dumped me like trash, certain I wouldn’t last the night.

They forgot one thing.

Dome City is my blueprint, my welds, my pipes—my work.

And I’m back.

Seventy-two hours before my wedding, I stood in front of the fitting mirror at a bridal shop.

My best friend sent me a social media post, and the red exclamation mark in the message box stung my eyes sharply.

The post’s title read: Guys, my boyfriend is getting married to his current partner. What should I do?

The comment section had already erupted into chaos.
“Dude, are you out of your mind? You’re the other woman here!”
“You’re the homewrecker and you dare post this to get roasted? Where’s your shame?”

The poster was firing back furiously, every word oozing unapologetic madness:
“We’ve been inseparable since we were kids! His first love, first kiss, first time—all mine!”
“He doesn’t even like that old hag; he’s only marrying her out of obligation!”
“Who’s the real mistress, anyway?”

I should have swiped past it like a silly joke, but my gaze was locked onto the poster’s profile picture.

It showed two hands laced together. Peeking out from the man’s wrist was a dark green watch dial—a Richard Mille Valentine’s Day limited edition. It was the seven-figure engagement gift I’d bought him by selling my mother’s last precious heirloom, the only one of its kind in the world.

My heart was squeezed tight by an icy hand, plummeting to the bottom in an instant.

I tapped into the account’s homepage. The second my finger swiped open the photo album, a dizzying, world-spinning sensation crashed over me.

In the photos, the man holding the girl closely was none other than Lu Yanchen—my fiancé, who was supposed to marry me in three days.

I stared at the screen. All the wedding hopes and love I’d saved up over three years shattered into nothing but dust at this moment.

I couldn’t believe it, yet I had to. The man who’d loved me for three years and sworn to protect me forever had been lying to me from start to finish.

My wife and in-laws have been acting strange lately.

They've always hated the Texas farm, but now they suddenly care about me and the ranch.

My wife, who used to complain about me spending money on the "doomsday bunker" farmhouse project, is now actually encouraging me to complete it.

They even say I've been working too hard and bought me a plane ticket to Mexico.

Just as I'm about to take the ticket, a barrage comment appears before my eyes—

【Don't go! Your wife has been reborn from the apocalypse—she wants you to die out there!】

Three years ago, Grant divorced me while I was pregnant.
That same day, I was in a car accident, and our baby didn’t survive. Grant never found out because he was celebrating another woman’s birthday.
Three years later, he decided that the son I had raised was his. He took the boy away without permission and exposed him to a cat, triggering a severe allergic reaction that nearly killed him.
When Grant finally knelt and begged me to take him back, I told him only one thing:
“I stopped loving you a long time ago.”

For the three years since I returned to the Hart family, I had always been the wildly out-of-place “burden.”

Vivienne, the family’s beloved fake heiress, broke a contract on her own and provoked a local gang. She was taken hostage and tortured in an abandoned auto repair shop.

To save his precious sister, my brother, Ryan, did not hesitate to trade me to the gang in exchange for Vivienne.
“She’s a movie star, and you’re just a useless nobody. It’s only natural for you to take her place and suffer a little.”
He looked coldly at the gang members who were eyeing me like hungry wolves, and violently shoved me toward them.
“Tonight, she belongs to you.”

Right before they dragged me away, I managed to call my husband, Alex, begging for help. But he rejected me ruthlessly, acting as if my plea was some cheap scam:
“Stop playing the victim. Why would they ever hurt you? Hurry up and clean up this mess. Don't let a girl like Vivienne face those thugs all by herself.”

Bang.
The heavy iron doors of the gang’s hideout slammed shut.
There were no negotiations. What greeted me was a merciless rain of fists, my clothes brutally torn to shreds, and the blinding flashes of cameras.
Amidst the ultimate degradation, they took photos of me, pinched my jaw, and violated my dignity over and over again.

At 4:00 AM, I was tossed out onto the street in front of my own house like a piece of discarded trash.
Upon dragging myself inside, Vivienne immediately began dropping hints to the family, implying that I was the one who tricked her into signing the illegal gang contract.
My family cursed me, telling me to drop dead.
My heart plummeted into a bottomless abyss of darkness. Numbly swallowing the bloody foam pooling in my mouth, I let out a hoarse, broken laugh.

“Since my return was a mistake from the very beginning…”
“Then why didn’t they just let me die?”

At 17, I saved William from the black market.
At 22, he crossed half the globe to marry me with two million dollars.
I built his empire for him, turning him into the biggest arms dealer in the Americas.
Then Karen appeared, and our seven years turned to ashes.
I finally saw the truth:
The roses he gave me were the ones Karen had rejected.
His so-called love was nothing but a hypocritical act for money.
To him, I was just a prop for show, a tool for his business, and a machine for sex.

Six months ago, my parents started fostering a girl named Lila Mercer.
Six months ago, Mom repainted the guest room and strung fairy lights over the bed. My room still has the same furniture I've had since I was twelve.
Six months ago, Dad started coming home for Sunday dinner. Not for me. I'd been eating alone at the counter for years by then.
Six months ago, Mom posted a photo of the two of them at the farmers market. Caption: our family is growing. I saw it during third period and locked my phone hard enough to crack the case.
So when I picked up the family iPad tonight and a notification popped up from an app I didn't recognize, I wasn't shocked. Just tired of being right.
The app was called Beacon.

My family ignored my calls while I was dying in our basement. They thought I was trying to ruin my younger sister's graduation.
That night, my brother finally came looking for me. My sister wanted the cookies I used to bake for her.
I was right beside him when he demanded that I come home.
He couldn't hear me. My body was still downstairs.

I was dead, and the whole world was celebrating for my sister.

For twenty-two years, I had been the hardest-working but most invisible daughter in the Sterling family, forever living in the shadow of my gymnastics prodigy sister.

Running a high fever, I begged my family to take me to the hospital, only to hear: "Don't you DARE ruin Bella's award ceremony!"

When I was tricked into the abandoned equipment room and used my last breath to call my boyfriend while lying in a pool of blood, all I heard was: "Grace, quit the drama! Bella's accepting her award on stage!"

On stage, thunderous applause erupted as Bella lifted the "Young Gymnast of the Year" trophy.

And I drew my final breath.

When they returned home triumphant, thinking I had run away in a tantrum, they had no idea I was already dead right under their noses.

There are no unmated males in our pack.
Every she-wolf in Hollowfen is promised to someone when she turns eighteen. We just don't get to know who until we walk into the Choosing Hall.
Girls go in wearing white. They come out flushed, shaking, barely able to stand. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them talk about what happens inside.
My sister Thessaly turned eighteen this spring. Gran told her she couldn't attend the Choosing.
She went anyway. She came back on shaking legs, with blood between her thighs and a smile she couldn't wipe off her face.

My stepsister and I tumbled down the stairs together. As someone with a blood clotting disorder, my spleen ruptured—I was bleeding internally, desperate for surgery to stop it.
But my mother—the renowned chief of surgery—pulled every specialist from the ER. To consult on my stepsister's condition.
All she had was a sprained ankle. Not even a scratch. Yet mom insisted on running every test in the book. And me? Left alone on that cold floor, bleeding out, half my body already soaked in blood.
I clutched at her pants, begging her to save me. But she kicked my hand away and looked at me with pure disgust.
"Lily, are you really so desperate for a man's attention that you'd pull a cheap stunt like this? Your sister's foot is swollen—and you have the nerve to fake your death here?"
In the end, I died alone in a corner of that ignored ER.
But when they wheeled my cold body out of the morgue—and they finally learned about my clotting disorder—
That mother who claimed to hate me completely lost her mind.

Alpha Kayle and I have spent the last five years locked in a brutal dance of hatred, resentment, and twisted duty.

He didn’t choose me as his Luna. He was forced—bound to me by the will of his parents and the Elders, not by love, not even by desire. Just obligation.

And Kayle?

He was the most ruthless Alpha alive. All sharp edges, broad shoulders, and cold, wild blood. The kind of man who doesn’t take orders—except, apparently, when it came to me.

So he punished me. Every. Single. Night.

He brought different women into our home, into our bed, like I wasn’t even there. And he made sure I heard every moan, every scream, every fake cry of his name echo through the walls.

The entire pack knew. They watched, whispered, laughed. I became the sad, silent Luna. The biggest joke in the werewolf world.

And still, I stayed. Because leaving would’ve meant surrender. And I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.

I thought love was enough.
I thought saving the Ember Claw Pack with everything I had—my heart, my loyalty, even my body—meant something. It led to a Moon Ceremony… and a marriage to Alpha William, the man I gave my soul to.
But love doesn’t protect you from betrayal.
Especially not when the one he truly wanted was never me.
I was glowing with the joy of carrying our pup when I walked in on him—holding her.
Quinn.
The fated mate everyone believed to be dead. Alive. Back. In his arms.
And me? Just the mistake he settled for.
"I only married you out of gratitude," he said, barely meeting my eyes.
Then, turning to Quinn with a softness I never got, he added, "If she hadn’t sold her ancestral land to save the pack, I would’ve never completed the Moon Ceremony with her."
And the final blow?
"So what if she found out? I’ll just say I thought she was you that night we slept together."
That night—The one I thought meant everything.
But it didn’t end with him.

On the third day of the outbreak, I sat in my company’s executive conference room, gripping the red toy car I bought for my six-year-old son.

Outside the door were zombies filling the building. Beside me were six executives still breathing only because I was.

They wanted meetings. They wanted to wait for rescue. They wanted to chain me with morality.

But I wanted one thing—my son was still in daycare. Three days. No one went for him.

At dawn, I opened the door they’d barricaded shut.

I can shoot. I can clear a path. I will carve my way through to bring him back.

Anyone who stands in my way dies.

In my previous life, I chose the werewolf and gave birth to the Arbiter, only to be burned alive by the younger sister I loved most.
When I was reborn, I knelt before the Oath Stone, handed my marriage pact to her, and watched her gloat in triumph before choosing Sylas, the elf everyone else avoided.
Everyone was waiting to see me make a fool of myself—until the day of the wedding, when he came carrying a gown blessed by the Sacred Tree, lowered his eyes to me, and said, "In this life, I will never fail you."

Silver poisoning struck, and my mother's life hung by a thread.
I knelt and begged my partner Selene to use the 100,000 gold coins from our war spoils to purchase Moonlight Holy Water, but she coldly refused with a sneer: "An ordinary silver poison patient isn't worth wasting resources on." She then turned and spent 80,000 coins on a necklace for her male lover.
My mother died in my arms as I ground my teeth and swallowed my tears of blood.
But when the patrol came to collect the body, she finally discovered—the one sent to be buried deep in the mass grave wasn't my mother at all, but her own biological mother.
She had personally buried her own mom!

I was Sophia Corleone. The wife Michael kept hidden from the world. The woman who should have stood beside the Don. And the woman he left to die.
The Morettis tied me up at a dock on Long Island. With the last of my strength, I called my husband. My voice broke with terror: “Michael, please… save me. I’m at the Long Island docks. They’re going to kill me.”
But all I got was his impatient roar, “Sophia, are you lying for attention again? You’d make up something this pathetic just to get me home? God, you make me sick.”
The call cut off in my ear. And then the Morettis killed me.

I once believed that if I was obedient enough, my birth family would finally love me. Instead, they gave everything to Anna, the fake heiress—my competition spot, my reputation, even my kidney.
Then I opened my eyes and returned to the year it all began.
This time, I won’t beg. I won’t yield. My achievements, my dignity, and my life belong to me.
When everyone called me vicious, Damian Sterling draped his jacket over my shoulders and asked in a low voice, “Am I an outsider?”
I leaned into him and smiled. “Of course not.”
But soon I discovered he was being slowly poisoned—and the culprit might be someone closest to him. Worse, the truth behind my death in my previous life may be darker than I ever imagined…

1

When we moved to the estate on the hill, all the bedrooms had already been assigned.
My parents had the primary suite.
My brother, Adrian, had the east wing.
The south suite, with its view of the Hudson—the nicest room in the house—was marked Grace's Room.
There was no room with my name on it.
In the hall, a worker was fastening brass plaques to the bedroom doors.
Not one of them read Claire.
Ten years earlier, Grace's father had been my dad's underboss. He had gone into a burning warehouse to rescue Adrian from the Bellinis. He hadn't come out.
Standing over his coffin, Dad had declared that Grace would be his daughter from then on.
What the Don said was law in our family. Somehow, though, I was always the one expected to cover the cost of that promise.
I asked Mom where I would sleep.
“You're going off to grad school soon, aren't you?” she said, as if it were obvious. “What would you need a bedroom for?”
Then she turned back to the pink curtains she was choosing with Grace.
Adrian knelt on the floor, lifting different fabric swatches for them to see.
Nathan, my boyfriend of three years, was putting up Grace's paintings. He insisted on hanging each one himself; apparently the movers couldn't be trusted with them.
Sitting on a packing box, I finally got it.
Nobody had overlooked me by accident.
They thought Grace should have the room, the family, even the boyfriend I had believed was mine.
I brought up the agreement on my phone.
A federal research site in the Nevada desert. Classified work.
A five-year commitment, with no outside contact.
I added my signature.
Ten days from now, I would be out of their lives. And I wouldn't be coming back.