5026 Book(s) Related to caught between my stepbrother and his friends

"She's not good enough for me. If you want her, I can give her to you."

I heard the man I'd secretly loved for thirteen years say those words.

That night, my heart shattered.

I drank until I could barely think straight, then brought a stranger back to my hotel room.

After one reckless night, I discovered that the man I'd spent the night with was none other than Adrian Vance—the young billionaire founder of Helion Bio, a biotech giant.

Unfortunately, paparazzi had captured our intimate encounter in the hotel hallway.

To keep the photos from turning into a scandal, he handed me a contract.

"Marry me."

Three months. A marriage of convenience.

In exchange, he'd give me half of his assets when we divorced.

It sounded like the perfect deal.

I thought I'd married a man who simply needed a wife.

There was never supposed to be anything between us.

Until the day Grayson fell to his knees, begging me to take him back.

A hand suddenly slipped around my waist from behind.

"I'm sorry, but she's my wife now. Please stay away from her."

"Connie and I have known each other for thirteen years! She's loved me for thirteen years. She could never love you!"

"But I've loved Connie for ten years, too. And I'm not letting her go. Not for anything."

My eyes widened.

Ten years?


I'd been in love with her for ten years.

But she had spent all that time chasing after Grayson.

Until the night she fell into my arms.

"Come back to my room with me," she whispered.

How could I possibly say no?

She thought our marriage was only going to last three months.

But she had no idea that this was just the beginning.

From the moment she kissed me, I'd made up my mind.

Whatever it took, I was going to make her stay.

“I want out of this marriage.”

The words were cold… ironic coming from the man who betrayed her five years ago.

But the broken woman he once discarded no longer exists.

She has rebuilt herself from the ashes… stronger, sharper, and untouchable. Now a powerful CEO and a devoted mother, she has no interest in reopening old wounds or letting the past back into her carefully rebuilt life.

Unfortunately, fate has other plans.

When the man who shattered her heart is suddenly thrown back into her world, buried emotions resurface… along with a secret powerful enough to change everything.

Because the little boy she fiercely protects may be his son.

Just when the past begins clawing its way back, another threat rises.

The woman currently by his side is not the type to walk away quietly. Ruthless, manipulative, and dangerously obsessed, she will stop at nothing to keep the man she claims as hers… even if it means destroying the woman he once lost and tearing apart the life she fought so hard to build.

This time, the stakes are higher.

And walking away may no longer be an option.

My five-year-old son had never hugged me first.

Whenever I reached for him, Ian stepped back, lowered his eyes, and politely told me I could go.

I thought he didn’t want me.

Then, on the night I was supposed to die, a mysterious reader thread appeared on my phone.

Look at him pretending he doesn’t care.

He wants his mother to stay so badly—but if he gets too emotional, his wolf ears will appear.

I canceled dinner and crouched in front of him.

“I’m staying home tonight.”

Hope lit his face before he could hide it.

Then he asked the question that broke my heart.

“Only tonight?”

Yes, I jumped from that rooftop. Wind screaming in my ears as I fell, thinking it might finally earn me one fucking tear from them. Instead, all I got was "she's so dramatic."
Now I'm staring at fifteen-year-old skin in the mirror. Downstairs, their fake voices call my name—identical to that "welcome home" afternoon three years ago.
Yvette rushes to hug me, sugar-sweet venom dripping from her lips: "Remember who the princess is." I give her the same plastic smile right back.
I hear the voice in my head crystal clear: This time, I'm not fighting for their love—I'm taking back the life that was always mine.

My little sister and I each bear a Heart-Seed Mark etched into our chests.
Inside each seed grow Heartbeat Petals—currency that can trade for anything under the boughs of The Heart-Root, the ancient devouring tree.
At eight years old, I plucked one petal to cure Mom’s terminal cancer.
At ten, I tore out another to mend my older brother’s shattered bones after his brutal fight.
At twenty-four, I sacrificed my third and final petal to wake my husband’s sister from a car-crash-induced vegetative state.
Now, two disasters struck at once: my father died in a horrific car wreck, and my husband’s mistress lost their unborn baby.
Both sides of my family flocked to The Heart-Root, all fixated on stealing my petals for their own wishes.
I tried to step aside and let my younger sister go first to make the trade, but Mom shoved me hard.
“Every bit of love we’ve poured into you these years, every petal came from us! You’d really hold out and refuse to save your own father? Ungrateful girl!” my mom snapped.
My husband’s mom cut in sharp as a knife: “A good wife knows her place. It’s your duty to bring that baby back for your husband. If only you’d given him a son yourself.”
They tied me tight to the tree trunk. I watched a girl standing nearby get torn apart by black, writhing vines when she had no petals left—her flesh dissolved straight into the tree’s roots to feed it.
But my Heart-Seed didn’t have a single petal left either...

I die a miserable death in the dungeon, drained of three hundred years of pure blood. I owe it all to Elena and my ridiculously biased clan.

In my previous life, I am the Chief Executioner of the Night Abyss clan. During our hunt for the Alpha Wolf, she drops her weapon and throws herself into Lucas's arms, playing the helpless victim.

I take the beast's attack head-on and suffer severe injuries. The other knights just shield her, turning around to accuse me of being petty and jealous.

Prince Marcus blatantly favors his illegitimate daughter, Elena. He snatches my magic core, constantly puts me down, and even rips the core out of my loyal wolf familiar, Fenrir. In the end, he drains my blood dry just to feed her.

Now that I am reborn, I return to the exact night we hunt the high-tier Alpha Wolf.

I thought I was the happiest woman in the city.

My husband would gently help me into my shoes, rest his hand on my belly and whisper to our baby. My father would tie on an apron and cook dinner just for me.

Then a video from an unknown number shattered everything.

Inside a chapel, the four of them stood side by side.

My husband holding the hand of my father's mistress's daughter. My father arm in arm with the woman who once knelt before my mother begging for mercy.

And my wedding — the one the whole city had witnessed — had been nothing but a lie from the very beginning.

That evening.

He picked the bones from my fish, tucked a cushion behind my back, kissed my forehead — same as always.

I didn't confront him. I simply handed him a document to sign.

He thought I was still the naive little lamb he'd been deceiving all along. What he didn't realize was that he had just signed away his last card.

I came across a viral local post while scrolling through my phone.

LIVE: My fiancée is cheating on me. I’m in her house right now. Should I end her for good?

When I tapped into the post, what I read made the blood in my veins turn to ice in an instant.

I put a monitoring app on her phone. I’ve been listening for almost two weeks, and every single day she’s on the line with some random guy, flirting and talking dirty. She says yes to marrying me to my face, but she’s been cuckolding me behind my back. Tell me, bros—does this bitch deserve to die?

The comment section below had completely spiraled out of control. Hundreds of replies were all outright egging him on, not a single person telling him to stop. Every line oozed with the vicious glee of people who lived for drama and cared nothing for the consequences.

Hell yeah she does. You got cucked this hard, why keep her around?
Bro, stop all talk and no action. Go live, we’ll send you gifts. Rape her first, then kill her if you’ve got the balls.
You in Haicheng? Drop the address. Me and the boys will come over and help you out. My fists are itching for a fight anyway.
Pfft, and I thought you were tough. You’re already in her house and still dragging your feet? I bet you don’t even have the guts to kill a dog.

My fingers were shaking violently. Driven by a sick, twisting dread, I tapped into the poster’s profile—and with just one glance, every hair on my body stood on end.

This account belonged to Xiao Ming, the blind date my relatives had forced on me when I went home for the Lunar New Year.

His entire profile was filled with posts about me, spanning a full two weeks, starting the very day we’d met for that blind date.

He’d taken secret photos of me, paired with captions full of disgusting, delusional ramblings:

My fiancée went on a date with me today. She wore a white blouse with the neckline open so low, it’s obvious she was trying to seduce me.
She told me she works the front desk at a hotel. That’s her way of hinting I should take her to a room for the night. All women say one thing and mean another.
She says she has a boyfriend, but it’s just playing hard to get. She’s been dying to marry me this whole time.

But I’d said it loud and clear, right in front of the matchmaker, on the very day of that blind date: I’d been in a committed relationship with my boyfriend for three years.

That blind date was nothing more than a way to appease my family. I’d been polite but distant the entire time, and I hadn’t even accepted a single glass of water from him.

As for that nonsense about a hotel room? It was complete and utter garbage. I’d only casually mentioned that my job was working the front desk at a hotel, nothing more.

Just as a bone-deep chill washed over me, the post refreshed. A new line had been added to the main post, timestamped just three seconds earlier:

Truth is, I’m hiding in her house right now. She’s lying in bed scrolling through her phone, and she has no idea she’s already dead meat.

The very second that line finished loading, a clear, soft rustle of fabric came from the wardrobe right behind me.

For two and a half years, I survived on my husband’s measly $480 monthly allowance, trapped in a gilded mansion as his invisible, unpaid housekeeper while he lavished wealth and attention on another woman.

When Ethan finally offered me $13.2 million to sign a divorce and disappear quietly, I agreed instantly.

I did not grieve the end of my marriage. I rejoiced at my freedom.

What he never knew was that I was twelve weeks pregnant with his twins. I signed the papers, took his money, and walked away without a single tear, determined to raise my two children far away from his cold, cruel world.

But the trap was never the empty marriage or the tiny monthly allowance.
It was the hidden conspiracy behind his sudden expensive divorce.

Now my ex-husband is fighting to take back what he once abandoned—my children and me.
Only this time, I am no longer the desperate wife living on spare change.
I am rich, free, and unbreakable.

At the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, my ex-husband threw champagne all over me, and my wife publicly called me a "gold digger."

I held the tray, silent, like a clown being punished.

Three years ago, I lived in anonymity with her in a basement, cooking and doing laundry for her, all because of the pure stubbornness in her eyes.

In return, she embraced her father's killer and trampled me into the mud.

The divorce agreement was signed quickly, and she got into a Porsche with her enemy.

I laughed.
The next day, a Maybach pulled up in front of the law firm, escorted by eight bodyguards. The sole heir to the oldest conglomerate on the East Coast had returned.

While she was watching the cheap TV in the supermarket, seeing me marry a European princess, she was kneeling in front of a cold shelf, being verbally abused by a homeless man over a moldy potato.

The invincible Dragon Lord Kane returns from the Northern Frontier, only to find his daughter caged and his pianist wife trapped in a luxury lounge. He chains her in pain, summons 10,000 elite soldiers to rush her performance, while hidden demon forces creep in to destroy his family.

I thought my husband was my salvation.
Until I overheard him in the wine cellar, laughing and joking with my "attackers" from that night.
The gang rape that destroyed me was a show he orchestrated himself.

He married me only for inheritance rights.
He humiliated me, branded me, took away my child, and made my life a living hell.
But he forgot one thing—
The ancient blood oath of the Corleone family states clearly:
If a husband betrays his marriage, everything he owns shall belong to his wife.

This time, I'm no longer the rabbit waiting to be slaughtered.
This time, I write the ending.

I was the orphan Hayes Holt pulled from the foster system, the girl he raised for eight years.
In my past life, I drowned in his suffocating tenderness, mistaking his guardianship for love. When he brought Josie Rowe home and announced their engagement, I snapped.
I threw a hysterical fit, screaming my unrequited love until the scandal bled into every gossip rag in New York.
My reward was his cold disgust. Labeled "sick," I was shipped off to a psychiatric ward, where I died strapped to a table, my brain fried by forced ECT.
The very next day, Hayes gave Josie the Manhattan wedding of the century. To the world, I became nothing but a cautionary tale: the delusional slut who tried to seduce her adoptive father.
But fate pulled me back. Back to the exact moment I ruined my life. Back to the fatal question:
"Can't we be more than just father and daughter?"
Across the dining table, the ruthless CEO of Holt Holdings was painstakingly peeling a shrimp for me. At my words, his long fingers froze.
"Excuse me?"
In my past life, I missed the flash of pure disgust in his eyes and just cried, begging for his love.
But now, hearing his icy tone, the phantom stench of my own burning flesh filled my nostrils. A violent shudder ripped through me. Digging my nails into my palms, I forced a flawless smile and pulled my plate away.
"Dad," I said, the word tasting like ash. "Didn't you tell me to grow up? I can peel them myself. I won't bother you anymore."

I’d been secretly married for five years. My son’s fever wouldn’t break, and I had no choice but to bring him to work.
The chairwoman’s new male assistant threw a suspension notice in my face. “This is an office, not a daycare. Take your little bastard and get out.”
I laughed in his face, picked up my son, and pushed open the door to the chairwoman’s office.
In front of every executive in the company, I set my child down on her desk. “Mrs. Whitmore, your grandson is sick.”
“That fine son of yours hasn’t been home in a month. You can clean up this mess!”

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 would mysteriously jump up twenty points.
Back then, I actually believed in this bullshit algorithm. I completely gave up for an entire month, watching that predicted score skyrocket all the way to 1550.
But when I finally logged into College Board to check my real results, I'd scored a pathetic 400.
And that brilliant 1550? It appeared on my stepsister Dahlia's score report instead.
Disgusted that I'd embarrassed the Wright family, my father Harold froze my credit card without a second thought and threw me out of the family estate, clearing the path for Dahlia to claim Grandpa's ten-million-dollar trust fund all for herself.
That night, homeless on the streets, I was cornered by some thugs in a filthy Brooklyn alley and beaten to death.
Lying in a pool of my own blood, fading fast, I heard Dahlia's voice.
"Your GPA's been crushing mine since we were kids. I thought you, the so-called 'Straight-A student,' were supposed to be so smart."
She stood over me, mocking. "Turns out you got played by a prediction app. Pathetic."
That's when it finally clicked. My Oracle prediction system had been completely rigged from the source code—by Dahlia.
I shot up in bed, gasping, my shirt soaked through with sweat. I'd actually gone back in time—one month before the test.
Right now, the Oracle widget glowed eerily on my phone's home screen, displaying a single number: 1350.

For three years, everyone at Spire Academy believed Liam loved me. Until I uncovered his secret plan: steal my academy recommendation to save Anna, and keep me waiting on the sidelines. He handed my future to another girl and threw me to a mad duke to be dissected. I escaped death by leaping into the Rift of Silence, only to be pulled from the abyss by Arnold, an ancient night lord. When Liam finally realized his sin, he begged for a second chance. But the girl who waited for him in the dark died in the rift. I have a new life, and I will never look back.

I died on the fourth night after Thanksgiving.
A blizzard had swallowed the entire town, and I was locked in an unheated attic.
My broken leg had turned black with infection. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. I tore four fingernails from their beds, but I still couldn’t claw my way through the door.
With the last of my strength, I held my old iPad against the frost-covered window.
On the screen, my twin sister, Lily, stood beneath the Alps, rosy-cheeked and healthy, raising a crystal glass. Our parents stood on either side of her.
My life was beating inside her chest.
The caption read: [Just the three of us. Finally, some peace.]
A single tear slipped into my hair.
I closed my eyes.
I had traded my life for hers.
Now it was time for them to learn how much that life had cost.

"Is lying the only skill you have left? Don't play dead until you actually land in a coffin!"
That was what my billionaire brother roared as he crumpled my stage-four cancer diagnosis and threw it at my face.
To him, I was a spoiled brat who needed a brutal reality check.
He engineered a fake DNA test, gave my identity to a manipulative orphan girl, and watched me get dragged to a disciplinary camp.
Now, he offers me an arrogant ultimatum: Stay quiet and wait half a month, and he’ll graciously allow me to come home.
I clutched my agonizing stomach and laughed until I cried.
Wait half a month?
I can't even guarantee I'll wake up tomorrow.
But I can't wait to see his face when he finally decides to forgive me, only to realize I've already been dead......

I think I'm dead.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in an abandoned amusement park, and my body was sitting on that slowly turning carousel.

I was only ten years old. I don't know how I died.

Detective Sarah, the blonde officer, promised to find the truth. So I followed her, watching her peel away layer after layer of lies—

In my diary, I wrote down all my fears and all my waiting.

On the phone, Mom sent that video of me laughing.

In the autopsy report, evidence of long-term abuse filled every page.

Mom had been saving money for three years, saying she'd take me away. That afternoon she picked me up from school and said, "We're really leaving this time."

Then what happened? Why did I die at the amusement park? Why was Mom's first reaction after my death not to call the police, but to—

I thought Mom came to save me.

Until I saw the text message she sent...

I catch my husband in bed with the live-in housekeeper.

He shoves her behind him. "She's only twenty. Barely out on her own, doesn't know any better. Can't you be the bigger person here?"

His mother points a finger in my face. "You're an orphan. If we hadn't taken you in, you'd still be out on the street begging."

"Be smart about this. Make room for Kaylee, so we can all live under one roof in peace."

They've both forgotten that back then he couldn't even make rent, and I worked three jobs to build his company for him.

Forgotten the year his company was going under, when I ran to three different banks across the city in a downpour chasing investors, passed out in the street, and lost the baby.

Four whole years of them looking down on me after that.

I say I want a divorce.

Preston just laughs at me. "You're a housewife. Walk out that door and you'll starve on the sidewalk by tomorrow."

I drag my suitcase onto the overnight bus and go home to a place I haven't set foot in for ten years.

It's the middle of the night when I get there. The streets are empty. Three men reeking of liquor block my way.

That hand is about to touch my face when a Harley roars up and stops right beside me.

The muscled guy on it has a cigarette in his mouth. He looks me over. "Need a hand?"

I’m Wren, hidden sole heir of Ravenwood Pack, living as a regular lone wolf at wolf academy. My roommate Brielle steals my exclusive pine pheromone, copies my relics, steals my elite quota and tricks my betrothed Alpha Kane with a fake royal identity. I challenge her to present the unforgeable Lunar Pearl at the ball. When my father, the pack Alpha, exposes her family’s theft, I reject the misled Kane and reclaim everything the imposter stole from me.

For three years, I paid so my sister could rebuild her life — her rent, her lawyers, her hospital bills, the shop she now runs in my name. Lucas, my fiance, always told me it was the right thing to do. I believed him, because believing him was easier than admitting how tired I was. I flew home two days early to surprise him. Instead, I opened my own front door and found my sister in his lap, wearing my robe, laughing in a voice I'd paid to keep happy for years. Ninety-nine empty perfume bottles stood along the wall — quiet witnesses to nights I never knew existed. Lucas didn't apologize. He asked me to be more understanding. My sister cried and called me cruel. I stood in the apartment I bought, surrounded by the people I built a home for, and realized I had never once been the one who got to be loved first.

With five days left before I was to leave the Black-Fig Pack and marry into the Pear Pack, I packed away everything Kael Thorne had ever left behind.
For five years, I had cherished his lost cufflinks, dried wildflowers he casually picked, and even a used handkerchief.
Now, they meant nothing to me.
I remembered every rejection and every scar he gave me, but I had completely lost the feeling of loving him. It was as if the Moon Goddess herself had severed the bond in my soul.
Kael thought I was just playing hard to get. He didn't know I had already chosen a new life—and that I would never return.

"Mom, I don't need a baby brother or sister. I already have a sister."
I happily pulled out a pair of baby shoes, only for my seven-year-old son to violently snatch them and slam them into the trash can.
It was in that exact moment I discovered that the Alpha leader I had deeply loved for eight years had built a lavish underground mansion long ago—housing his mistress and secret daughter!
And my "obedient" son had been joining his father there every single month, playing happy family with them!
When the shock caused me to hemorrhage, leaving me lying alone on a freezing operating table undergoing a miscarriage, my husband was off comforting his mistress and illegitimate daughter.
In that instant, my love shattered completely. I relinquished custody of my son, left a signed divorce agreement, and walked away without looking back.

I'd been out of Coldwater for two weeks when my family asked me to go back behind silver.

"It's three nights," Mom said. "You did three years. Three nights won't kill you."

They had no idea it would. I'm dying. The only thing still holding my body together is my mate bond, and three nights away from Silas is all it will take.

For three years in Coldwater, a parcel came for me every month. A blanket, a sweater—something that smelled like home. I slept wrapped in them every night, sure it meant my family hadn't given up on me.

It was my twin sister who sent them.

I didn't know what she'd soaked them in.

After three years of agonizing IVF, I was forced into three abortions. The reason? My mafia in-laws’ pet bird stared at my belly and shrieked, "End it."
Even when I was carrying healthy twins, my own parents held me down and forced abortion pills down my throat. My husband—the man I once took a bullet for—watched coldly. "Listen to the bird. Abort."
Lying in a pool of blood, I finally discovered the horrific truth. There was no "sacred bird." My marriage, my ruined womb, and all the IVF tortures were actually part of a terrifying conspiracy.
On my fourth pregnancy, the bird finally decreed, "Keep it!"
As the whole family treated me like a queen and rejoiced to welcome their precious heir, I quietly walked into the operating room.
Armed with lethal evidence, I crashed their grand succession ceremony.
You want an heir? I’ll send you all to hell instead.

When my husband's eight-year-old "nephew" Noah was diagnosed with acute leukemia, the whole family begged for my help.

They needed my six-year-old daughter, Molly—the only perfect match.

Against my instincts as a head nurse, I agreed.

But the second Molly's stem cells were harvested, their gratitude vanished.

To avoid paying for my daughter’s mandatory sterile recovery room, Noah's mother live-streamed a crying fit in my lobby, accusing me of medical extortion. My husband, Grant, stood by in utter silence.

Without the isolation bed, my baby girl contracted a severe infection and died. My mother-in-law simply sneered outside the ICU, "Dead is dead. Better than wasting more money."

Three months later, Noah relapses.

Now, my phone is blowing up. The same people who watched my daughter suffocate in her own fluids are desperately begging me to use my hospital registry access to save him again.

Standing by Molly’s tiny headstone, I look down at the confidential DNA report I pulled from the hospital database.

They think I don’t know Noah is actually Grant's illegitimate son. They think I'll just hang up and cry.

Instead, I swipe to answer the call. It's time to make them pay.

To protect my older sister's piano championship, my own brother crushed all ten of my fingers.
To win my sister's favor, my fiancé hired someone to kick the baby out of me.
After surviving a fire that nearly killed me, I finally woke up.
And when I returned, I blasted the hard proof of their affair and their schemes all over the internet. As I watched them lose their minds, lose everything, and drop to their knees begging for mercy, I let out a cold laugh, turned around, and claimed the top of the world!

I had the gift of beast-speech, and beasts never lied to me.
When my sister, Valora, brought me a wild berry tart, a forest finch shrieked, "Poison!" In my past life, I believed it. I flipped the tray, cursed her, and was thrown into the dungeon like a madwoman. In this life, I did the opposite. I ate it. I vomited blood, and my spirit wolf died instantly.
When it was time to marry, a raven warned me that my Alpha fiancé was a "disfigured madman." In my past life, I broke the engagement and married a Beta, only to be tortured to death by him and his mistress. In this life, I insisted on marrying the Alpha. But on my wedding night, a blood-soaked, disfigured monster was waiting for me.
When my mother-in-law, Liora, coughed up blood in front of everyone, a nightingale cried, "Give her White Dittany for the poison!" In my past life, I force-fed her the herb, and she bled from her eyes and died. In this life, I stopped anyone from giving her the herb. But that night, she died anyway.
Listen to them, and I die. Ignore them, and I still die.
Then, I opened my eyes. I had been reborn, back to the exact moment everything went wrong...

On our wedding day, Declan sent me out to Long Island. We'd been together seven years.

He said he'd left his grandmother's lucky cufflinks at the family house.

But when my car died in the storm, I opened my bridesmaid's Instagram live.

Declan was sliding my custom diamond ring onto Phoebe's finger—my adopted sister, the one with the bad heart.

My own parents were crying in the front row. My bridesmaids were cheering.

They'd turned my wedding into a dying wish ceremony for Phoebe.

Hours later, alone in the ER, I called forty-seven times.

No one picked up.

Not until after I lost the baby and disappeared from Manhattan.

That's when Declan finally came apart.

In my last life, my mother-in-law locked me in the attic, and my wife openly cheated on me with the neighbor. Even when I was dying of terminal cancer, they bled me dry until my very last breath! Now that I've been reborn, the extreme-heat apocalypse is just around the corner. In this life, I'm living for myself. I spend every last cent of my savings stockpiling three years' worth of supplies and building a heat-proof survival villa! Now I can sit back and watch my mother-in-law's family struggle to survive in the deadly heat. Beg on their knees for my forgiveness? No! I will never forgive them!

All I wanted was a quiet place to live. I drained my savings and paid eighty thousand extra for the one unit on the row with a private backyard.
On my very first day, I found my neighbor's son beating my new hydrangeas with a stick while his mother stood there filming him and laughing.
Bianca says the yard belongs to everybody. Her husband is vice president of the HOA board, so around here, whatever he says is the law.
I showed them my deed. I called the police. I sent a certified letter. Every single time the answer came back the same. This is a civil matter, ma'am. Maybe try being a better neighbor.
Then her son put a rock through my living room window, and the HOA fined me two hundred and fifty dollars for putting a lock on my own gate.
Fine. They want that gate open? It stays open.
I just made one phone call. A truck is already on its way.

On my birthday, I was dragged up to the attic and assaulted by several men.
I called my parents, brother, and boyfriend for help, but they all thought I was seeking attention and ruining my sister Sophie's celebration.
"Mia, stop it. We're busy preparing for Sophie's party. If you want attention, find another way."
This was the hundredth time they'd let me down.
But there won't be a hundred and first.
Because I'm already dead.

My downstairs neighbor tagged me in the building group chat at ten p.m.
His wife just had a pup, he said. Pups need moonlight, he said. So starting tonight, my private moon terrace belongs to his family.
He'd even pay me rent. Ten dollars a month.
For the terrace of a three-million-dollar penthouse.
When I said no, he reminded me he wasn't just my neighbor. He's my supervisor at the Calloway Group, and my probation review sits in his hands. Hand over the door code, or I'd never survive at that company.
He kept saying it. I can crush you at the Calloway Group.
Funny.
My mother owns the Calloway Group.
I was going to let him dig his own grave quietly. Then his family broke into my home, walked up to the one thing on that terrace worth half a million dollars—
And smashed it.

A hormonal condition pushed my weight to two hundred pounds, and for three years, this boarding school made sure I never forgot it.

The ringleader was the guy every girl worshipped.

And beside him stood his girlfriend, the one who always stepped in at my worst moments with a soft voice and a sympathetic look, like she was doing me a favor.

Everyone called her an angel. Only I knew the truth: every time she "helped," things got worse.

One day, she handed me a candy in front of everyone. "Here. Something sweet always helps."

I didn't feel like I had a choice.

That night, a demon showed up at the foot of my bed.

"Congratulations. You ate the pact candy. I'll grant you three wishes — money, beauty, lifespan. You name it, I'll make it happen."

My whole body shook. Three years of humiliation, and finally there was a way out. Wealth, beauty, revenge. All I had to do was ask.

Then the demon's expression shifted, eyes full of cruel amusement.

"There's a catch, though. The real pact-holder is someone else. Whatever you wish for, the one who gave you that candy gets double."

The words I was about to say died in my throat.

Then, slowly, I smiled.

Double?

That's way more interesting than three wishes.

My water broke in the basement where my mafia husband had locked me up. Upstairs, doctors were waiting on his brother's widow.

I begged him over the guard's phone to let me go to a hospital. He heard me crying. Then he told the guard to keep the door shut until her baby was born.

I pressed a hand against my belly. Our daughter was still moving.

When footsteps stopped outside the cell, I called for help again. The man at the door was carrying a medical bag. The guard didn't reach for the key. He told the man to keep me quiet.

The day before spring break, Cole Bennett asks me, red in the face, if he can borrow my empty place up in the hills for one night.

I figure he's planning a birthday party for me, so I don't think twice about handing over the code to the estate.

I've already decided that night is when I'll tell him who I really am.

Eight o'clock on my birthday, I push open the brass doors of the estate, worth millions by themselves.

Music blasts through the great room. The place is packed with people from school, all of them craning their necks, gushing about how gorgeous the house is.

I hold back a grin, ready to go find him and see what he's got planned.

Then I see her in the middle of the crowd, everyone crowding around her, glasses raised.

Sloane Bishop.

Five years in hell, my beloved and best friend joined hands to push me into the abyss. The savior I trusted was actually a deadly fraud. Reborn from despair, Vito came through the light. I tore apart the scumbag and the evil woman, settled all debts, broke free from the shadow, stepped into the light, and lived the rest of my life only for myself.

My husband's mistress sent me a video to rub it in, claiming she had just beaten my "pathetic, begging mother" bloody and kicked her down the stairs.
I froze, glancing up at my actual mother sitting right across from me, quietly sipping her coffee.
Bewildered, I zoomed in on the video.
When I made out the scar on the wrist of the woman lying in the pool of blood, a cold sweat broke out over my body. I frantically called my husband.
But he interrupted my plea with extreme impatience: "Shut up! Roxy was right to teach her a lesson. She was just taking out the trash for me!"
Since he insisted on indulging his precious mistress's death wish...
I wonder if he'll still be able to say she was right to teach her a lesson when he sees his own grandmother's corpse.

When I was six, my father and his mistress drove my mother to jump to her death. Suicide is a sin, and the Church said her soul could not enter Heaven. So I set out to save her the only way I could: with my Rh-null "golden blood," I worked ninety-nine miracles of life.

Then came the hundredth call. The hospital needed me to save my father's illegitimate son.

One of my employees went online and dragged me, claiming I'm making them sacrifice their health for a paycheck and forcing everyone to work over Thanksgiving.

Here's what actually happened. My company gives nine days off for Thanksgiving. Volunteer to work overtime, get triple pay, with a $500 daily meal stipend and a $5,000 bonus. No one gets penalized for not working.

The whole internet's tearing into me for making employees sell their lives for cash. So I give her exactly what she wants and send out a company-wide notice:

To protect employee mental health, the building gets locked and the power gets cut over Thanksgiving. No one is allowed to work for any reason. Anyone who does gets fired.

The minute that email goes out, the employees who were counting on overtime to pay their mortgages lose it. Now they're all crowded outside the building, begging me to open the doors.

To win back his one true love, my husband sent me, pregnant and vulnerable, straight into the clutches of a rival mob's dungeon.
I was torn apart by vicious dogs, a brutal end for both me and my unborn child.
After death, my spirit drifted back home, only to hear him coldly chuckle, "Let her learn her lesson; she won't come back until she admits she was wrong."
It wasn't until a mangled, rotting body was dumped at his feet, and he saw the blood-soaked wedding ring on its finger, that this heartless mob boss finally snapped...

"Are you always this damn sensitive?" my husband snapped, his hands lingering on his ex’s waist.
I stood there, holding our 5th-anniversary cake and my pregnancy secret. He canceled our romantic dinner just to comfort her.
So, I threw the cake away. Next, I'll throw him away.

For nine years, I lived as my twin sister’s replacement Luna. I raised her pup as if she were my own. I treated that man as my fated mate. What I got in return was the Pack that unanimously decided I was the monster who “killed Edna”, and the sinner Ann swore should go to hell.
At Ann’s birthday banquet, I accidentally knocked over a framed photo. Ann shoved me in front of a room full of Alphas and elders, drenching me in red wine, smiling as she said I wasn’t worthy of touching anything of the House.
I thought that if I endured nine years, I could finally leave. Then Eric suddenly changed his mind.
Ann stuffed the corpse of the little bird I’d been raising into a gift box and threatened me with a sweet smile. “You’re the next.”
When I dragged my suitcase to the door, she shifted to wolf in front of everyone, slammed me to the ground, her fangs pressed against my throat.
What they didn’t expect was that my real backer had returned, the Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, my biological father, David.

Five years, I bled for Dario. Took a bullet for him. Cleaned up his dirtiest books. Drank myself into the ER just to keep his bosses sweet.
Then he slid divorce papers across the table and told me to sign. His mistress was pregnant; the family needed a "proper" heir, and I was in the way. So I signed—and let him strip me of everything I'd built.
Three hours later, a rival crew ran his car off the bridge. He survived. But he will never father a child again.
Now he's pouring a fortune he can't spare into his mistress's baby, showing off his "heir" to every boss in New York. He thinks his bloodline is finally safe.
He has no idea whose child he's really raising. And I'm the only one who does.

I was reborn on the very night George White—Don of the White family—was drugged and lost his mind to pure, animal lust.
This time, I didn't offer myself as the cure.
Instead, I gave him the woman he truly wanted. My sister.

In my past life, I fell in love with the Don of the White family. George.
When I learned he'd been drugged—stripped of every shred of reason—I made the choice I could never take back.
I didn't push him away. A month later, I was pregnant.
The family council forced him to marry me. For the heir. For the name. For everything except love.
On the morning of our wedding, my sister Leah couldn't bear it. She fled the estate alone.
That night, a rival family's killers found her.
Before she died, she called George ninety-nine times.
But George was at my wedding. The wedding I had begged for. So he never answered. Not once.

Lucille was one of the most skilled female assassins, and on the previous night, she embarked on a top-secret mission. However, the mission's details were leaked, leading to her untimely demise at the hands of a traitorous companion. She never discovered the identity of the person who betrayed her before her death. But by some miracle, she was granted a new life, and was reborn as a girl with the same name. Determined to uncover the truth and seek revenge for her family, Lucille seized her second chance at life. She planned to avenge her loved ones. However, her plans were complicated by Joseph, an apparently frail man who was actually skilled in martial arts. And he seemed to fall for her deeply, now this newfound knowledge only added to the complications of Lucille's revenge plan...

Aria walks into a wedding searching for answers—only to lose everything in the space of a single, shattering moment. Rejected by the man she thought loved her, stripped of her job, mocked, dragged out, and left with nowhere to sleep, she wanders the night praying for mercy.
But mercy comes in the most unexpected form.
Magnus Thane Dravon, a man of power, pride, and impossible walls, crosses her path twice in one day—first mistaking her for trouble, then becoming the only person standing between her and real danger. He should’ve left her to fate. Instead, something in her fear, her stubborn courage, and her quiet vulnerability pulls at a part of him he thought no longer existed.
Two broken moments.
One unexpected connection.
A night that changes everything—and awakens feelings neither of them is ready to face.

"Is this your way of seducing me?" Clifton looked at the woman before him, wearing only a thin nightgown, her perfect curves exposed to his eyes.
"I admit, I'm attracted to you." Clifton suddenly lowered his head, his thin lips biting down on my collarbone, his fingers trailing down from my full chest, slipping between my thighs.
I was pinned down on the bed by Miranda, feeling the pleasure he brought to my body.
"Be good and let me in." Clifton thrust into me forcefully.
After suffering betrayal from her ex-husband and cousin, Miranda married the disfigured and disabled Clifton as his contract wife to cover her company's losses.
But an accident led Miranda to discover that Clifton was neither disfigured nor disabled—he was actually the underground king who controlled the entire city.
Miranda became afraid and prepared to leave this terrifying man, but Clifton kept dragging her back: "The contract is void. I want not only your body, but also your heart."
This time, will she truly fall in love with this dangerous man?

"It's still her." Three words.
That was all it took for the carefully constructed world of my last five years to shatter into dust at my feet. Zane didn't even have the decency to look away as he said it.
For twenty years, I had been the third wheel. The reliable shadow to Jovienne's brilliant sun. I had buried my own feelings for Zane so deep I almost forgot they existed, only daring to dig them up and confess them after Jovi had left the country and broken his heart.
We built a life. A marriage.
I truly believed, in my foolish, hopeful heart, that it was my happy ending.
Now Jovienne was back, and the illusion was gone. The love of my life saw me only as a consolation prize.
As my world collapses, the last person I expect comfort from is her husband—a man as cold and polished as he is powerful.
Vance sees the same betrayal in my eyes that he sees in his wife's.
Leaning in, his voice a dangerous whisper, he proposed the unthinkable: "They are living in the past. Let's be each other's revenge. What do you say, Nerissa?"
I should avoid at all costs. It was a game that could burn our broken worlds to the ground.
But as I looked into his eyes and saw the same raw, humiliating betrayal reflected back at me, the answer poised on my lips wasn't "no."
It was a terrifying, thrilling question. "What," I whispered, my voice steadier than I felt, "did you have in mind?"