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

At the engagement banquet, I was publicly jilted, publicly humiliated by the vampire viscount, and regarded as a worthless nobody. Everyone thought I was at their mercy.
Little did they know that beneath my cheap suit lay the holy mark of the chief arbiter who had defected from the Vatican .
The moment the holy light appeared, the darkness trembled.

Freya Ashford's biggest regret in life wasn't marrying me, but that she never truly looked at me. We were sleeping in the same bed but dreaming different dreams; she was researching immortality, and I was researching how to win her love—"It is an eternal power, and an eternal pain." This riddle led us down different paths. On the day of the prom, in front of the entire school, she pointed her finger at me and said, "You can't prove your love for me at all." But she didn't know that she would lose miserably.

For six years I kept the books nobody wanted to touch.
They called me the help. My husband signed my name to a loan I never saw. His mother told the whole family I was the reason there were no grandchildren.
At the anniversary gala, they planned to retire me quietly — and hand my desk to the woman my husband had been paying out of company accounts.
They forgot one thing.
Before I married into this family, I spent six years catching men who move money the way they do. I never stopped keeping a second set of books.
I let them think the game was already over.
It was — for them.

I warned my family and neighbors that the extreme cold would come in a year and a half, but they all thought I was crazy.
I had no choice but to prepare myself a year and a half in advance: renovating houses, building arks, stockpiling supplies...
When the extreme cold arrived, the neighbors who ignored the warnings turned into thugs, yet my brother still wanted to let them into the house; the bandits pretending to be wounded were exposed by me, but my brother still didn't believe me and let them in; I finally managed to defeat the spy bandits, but when I wasn't paying attention, my brother, in order to save his own life, personally handed the Ark to the bandit leader...

After rebirth, I switched wedding engagements with my sister Maya.

In my past life, she was forced to marry the West's most ruthless Alpha—Zane Blackwood. Three years. He never touched her. His "sister" Sienna stole the Luna's position, power, dignity. Maya became a joke. No mark, no status. She froze to death on a snowy night, not even left with a complete body.

And me? Married to someone I didn't love, drifting through life in a daze. When I woke up, Maya was dead.

Then I died trying to avenge her.

After rebirth, I kicked down the door and snatched the engagement: "This time, I'm going."

Rode my bike sixteen hours straight. Got ambushed on the road—cracked skulls with a wrench. Covered in engine oil and blood, I crashed into the Black Moon engagement party.

Sienna screamed: "Psycho!"

Damn right.

I grabbed that stone-faced Alpha, ignoring his death glare, and bit into his neck in front of everyone.

"Listen up," I licked the blood from my lips, "I'm your Luna now. And if that bitch messes with me—"

I leaned close to his ear:

"You're dead first."

My husband Dante's best friend Luigi died three months ago, and with his last breath, he made Dante promise to take care of his pregnant widow, Maggie. From that moment, Maggie invaded our lives, and I was only four months pregnant at the time.

Then Maggie got caught in a gang shootout. She needed an emergency blood transfusion, and she had this rare blood type—Rhnull. Turns out, I'm Rhnull too.

To save Maggie and her baby, Dante forced me to abort mine.

I am Jack Harrison, a useless programmer .
After inheriting my grandmother's mysterious bracelet and foreseeing the end of the world , I frantically hoarded goods, but my scheming girlfriend, disgusted by my behavior, ran off with a Hollywood movie star .
The apocalypse has broken out, the whole city has fallen, and she is crying and begging me to save her life.
Ah, too late!

On my eighteenth birthday, I didn't get a cake. I got a slap from my mother and my MIT acceptance letter crushed under her heel.

In their eyes, I wasn't a daughter—I was a walking blood bank, a spare part for my cousin Jennifer.

They took my blood, made me take the blame, even sent me to prison in her place.

In that car accident, my mother saved my cousin without hesitation and left me to bleed out in the wreckage.

"Save Jennifer first! That wretch is too stubborn to die!"

That's when I gave up on them.

But what truly broke me wasn't being sent to a mental hospital—it was the diary I found hidden in my mother's safe.

On my wedding day, my identical twin sister refused to take off my couture gown.
 
"Liora, the bridal party is here," I pleaded.
 
But my father just smoothed her tulle train. "Let her wear it. You're twins, nobody will notice the difference."
 
My mother agreed, tossing a dusty-rose bridesmaid gown at my chest. "It's just a ceremony, Elowen. Just play along."
 
It was always like this. From the last slice of pie to my Ivy League spot... whatever Liora wanted, I had to forfeit. Now, it was my wedding.
 
I reached for my phone to call my fiancé, Kael, to stop this madness.
 
But Liora snatched it away with a wicked smirk. She unzipped the silk bodice of the dress, revealing her own initials—L.T.—meticulously embroidered right over the heart.
 
"Kael asked them to do it," she whispered.
 
My fiancé had spent a fortune just to fulfill his secret fantasy of marrying my sister. My dress was never meant for me.
 
So, I swallowed my tears, put on the bridesmaid gown, and quietly stepped aside. I needed to see just how deep their betrayal went.
 
Before heading to the altar, Kael brushed past me, slipping a thick envelope into my hand as his hot breath grazed my neck.
 
"Here's your tip for putting up with Elowen today," he whispered huskily. "Think you can manage calling me 'baby' tonight?"
 
He had no idea he was propositioning the wrong twin.

On yearbook photo day during senior year, I instinctively took my usual place beside Luke Ward.
A classmate spotted us and immediately started teasing.
"Come on, everyone, make room! Let the lovebirds stand together!"
I'd heard jokes like that more times than I could count, but they still made my cheeks burn.
I had a secret crush on Luke, and every time someone called us a couple, I couldn't help getting my hopes up.
Luke didn't say anything.
But just as the photographer snapped the picture and everyone shouted, "Cheese!" I heard a low, irritated voice beside me.
"God, this is so annoying. Can't she just stay away from me?"
My smile froze.
I knew that voice. It was Luke's.
I'd been born with congenital low vision, but my hearing had always been sharp. I couldn't have mistaken him for someone else.
After the picture, Luke turned and headed straight back to the classroom without waiting for me.
I stood there for a long moment before finally making my way inside.
On my way past the dream school wall outside our classroom, I stopped and reached for my index card.
I'd written Ashford University on it, the same school Luke had once said he wanted to attend.
I pulled it off the wall and slipped it into my bag.

In the apocalyptic freeze, temperatures plummeted to seventy below zero. The earth was encased in ice, and ice beasts roamed everywhere.

I risked my life to scavenge for food, covered in wounds, enduring cold and hunger, leaving all our meager supplies for my parents and brother.

I thought blood was thicker than water, that all the suffering and hardship was worth it.

But I never imagined that when our resources ran out, the family I'd protected with my life would reveal their true beastly nature. They ambushed and knocked me unconscious, tied me to an ice pillar, planning to use me as food rations—to eat me alive.

At the moment of near death, the ice jade my grandfather left me suddenly shattered. I awakened top-tier ice abilities, commanding frost and snow, controlling the extreme cold.

My kindness had been frozen to death by the bitter cold. Family meant nothing.

Those who betrayed me, deceived me, and tried to eat me—I wouldn't spare a single one.

My name is Brianna, Luna of the Sapphire Pack.
I used to think Warren Crawford was the best husband and father in the world.
Until the night of the full moon. My six-year-old daughter, Lydia, was slapped in public by him and locked in a dungeon—all for taking a piece of apple tart.
He claimed locking her up was to save a life.
Three years ago, Beta Roman took a fatal blade for Warren, leaving behind his widow, Lorelei, and their daughter, Clarissa. Now Clarissa was diagnosed with bone cancer, and the only matching trial subject was my Lydia.
My own husband personally sent our daughter onto the operating table.
I knelt outside the operating room, bashing my forehead against the floor until I bled, but he dismissed it as me making a scene.
Covered in blood, I rushed into the VIP ward holding a dying Lydia, begging him to save her. Instead, he ordered his guards to throw us out into the cold street.
Lydia died in my arms. Her last words were: "Mommy, if I die, will Daddy like me just a little bit?"
I had no answer for her.
At that very moment, her father was sitting in a VIP ward, peeling grapes for another woman’s daughter.
I spent three days handling my daughter’s funeral alone.
When I pushed open the front door holding her urn, I was greeted by a sky filled with confetti and balloons. My husband was hosting a lavish birthday party for that woman’s child.

Two hours before the apocalypse, my fiancée stole my gray wolf and giant bear and gave them to a rich second-generation, leaving me only a dying ornamental fish.
"Go and wait to die in the apocalypse with your worthless fish!" she laughed triumphantly, thinking she had seized an invincible trump card.
I almost burst out laughing on the spot.
In their past lives, they died too young and had no idea that without absolute power, mutated beasts would only tear their masters apart first! They also didn't know that the golden dragonfish she had discarded as trash was the true ruler of the late apocalypse!
As the crimson rain of radiation fell, I coldly fed the "Sea God" that had begun to emit an eerie glow. Since you're all eager to pave the way with your lives, then I'll gladly accept the ultimate evolutionary law of the apocalypse!

A vicious-looking hit man, six foot three, was hunting me down.

I hid in a storage room at the mall.

With just a door between us, I suddenly heard what he was thinking.

[Damn it! Where did that rich girl in the white dress and the flat-brimmed hat go?]

[I need to finish this job. I've got a date with my girl!]

[Three whole years before she'd agree to meet me. I have to make this count. I have to make a good impression!]

[Nora. My Nora Blake. My baby. Hehehe.]

I froze.

Nora Blake... That was me.

Tricked onto a wilderness survival reality show, I was forced to act as my fake sister’s backdrop to protect the elderly woman who raised me. My fake sister constantly staged tricks for clout, and my blood brother threatened me with fatal consequences to sweep the family’s skeletons under the rug. I stopped surrendering and uncovered scam after scam during the live broadcast. The Hart family sought to erase my past. Instead, I laid all their shameful secrets bare for the world to see.

I've been married to my husband Jake for three years. In that time, I've been pregnant twice.

But each time, I lost the baby.

What took my children wasn't a medical condition, but a painting.

A black bird, painted by Jake's ten-year-old blind brother, Billy.

My in-laws claimed he had the gift—a psychic born with sight beyond sight. And the black bird was an omen. It marked my baby as cursed, a threat to the family.

To save my second child, I got the best amniocentesis report money could buy, proving the baby had no genetic defects.

It happened again anyway.

At three in the morning, I woke to the agony of another miscarriage and stumbled to the studio door.

That's when I found out the truth.

The Castellano family had a rule: before you turned twenty, you had to name a sponsor, someone who would vouch for you before the family.

Most people put down a parent. Some chose their fiancé. My parents had died years ago, so I put down Rafael. He was the Don of the Castellano family, and the man who had taken me in at twelve and raised me.

The next day, he sent the form back just as I’d filled it out. All he said was, “Fill it out again.”

When I asked why, his answer was cold. “Wren, I’m your adoptive father. That’s all. The way you feel about me isn’t appropriate.”

He thought I was in love with him.

From that day on, he took away every privilege I had. I was barred from the main house. He blocked my number and ordered his assistant never to mention me. When I tried to see him, the guards stopped me at the gate. “The Don won’t see you.”

After that, whenever we crossed paths at family gatherings, he turned and walked away.

Six months later, I was diagnosed with an incurable brain disease. The doctor said I had thirty days at most.

For seven years, I dreamed of carrying my Alpha mate's child. But when the day finally came, Caleb didn't celebrate. Instead, he gave our pup's birthright away.

To save his childhood friend Brenna from being executed for carrying a rogue's pup, Caleb publicly swore a blood oath claiming her unborn child as his heir.

He swore to me it was just a temporary lie. He promised I was still his only mate.

But promises can't keep me alive. Carrying his powerful Alpha bloodline is tearing my fragile Omega body apart, and Caleb is too busy protecting Brenna to give me the mate's scent I need to survive.

The High Fae were facing extinction, their bloodlines withering away.

Valerius, the Prince of the Shadow Realm, was a terrifying force of nature—ruthless and utterly cold.

I am Ella, a mere human who accidentally fell into a Shadow Rift, a mortal girl with nothing but survival on my mind.

Left with no other choice, I snuck into this shadow prince's bed in the dead of night.

On the day he pierced my chest to take my heart-blood to save the Witch Princess, I faked my death and ran away—carrying his half-Fae babies in my belly.

Years later, I was busy preening the starry wings of my seven little miracles.

He found me, dropping to his knees, as pathetic and desperate as an abandoned hound.

"Ella... do you really not want me anymore?"

When the car crashed, I took the brunt of the deadly, mangled steel for my brother, Damon, letting half of my face be sheared off and my spine destroyed.

When I woke up in the intensive care unit, he mercilessly tossed an Engagement Termination Agreement onto my hospital bed.

"You're disfigured now, practically a paralyzed cripple. Give Julian up to Lily."

"She's beautiful, healthy, and she's always been in love with him. Having her take your place at the wedding is the best option right now."

The hospital room door wasn't fully closed. I could clearly hear him and our adopted sister, Lily, whispering out in the hallway.

"Damon, you deliberately caused that crash just so I could replace her in the marriage alliance. What if she finds out?"

Damon's tone was indifferent. "She grew up stealing the spotlight as the family heir. Giving Julian to you is the least she can do. Once she signs the papers, I'll put her in the best private nursing home. Consider it compensation."

I bit down hard on my cracked lips. Tears smashed against the deep, bone-exposing lacerations on my face, burning so intensely it made me want to carve the flesh right off.

Lily's sweet voice drifted in: "I'll make sure to compensate her in the future, too."

But Damon, even if I don't sign, you'll both get exactly what you want very soon.

Because the doctor just told me that my body has gone into multiple organ failure due to the severe trauma. I only have a few days left to live.

For fifty years, I bathed in blood for my world, only to return home to find my wife dead and my daughter about to be sacrificed.
The High Priest stepped on my daughter’s head, branding me a traitor, and declared he would burn her to ashes. Scarred, broken, and with my magic depleted, I was bound to the pyre alongside her. Tens of thousands cursed us from below as the flames engulfed the stage.
Weeping, my daughter asked me, "Daddy, are you really a hero?"
I crushed the pendant on my chest.
Dragons, Dwarves, Berserkers—the million-strong allied army I had united over those fifty years descended across dimensions.
The High Priest slumped to the ground, trembling uncontrollably. "Who... who exactly are you?"
Staring into his eyes, I said only one thing:
"Dragons have reverse scales; touch them, and you die. You crossed the line!"

My daughter is fighting for her life in the ICU. The mother of the boy who put her there just offered me two million dollars and an NDA.
To prove she’s untouchable, she flaunted an ultra-exclusive black card.
But she made one fatal mistake.
I recognize that card. I designed it. Because she is my husband’s mistress—and she’s using my money to cover up my daughter’s tragedy.
She wanted to buy my silence. Now, I’m buying her son’s life.

For eight years of our hidden marriage, Caelen never publicly acknowledged my existence, nor our daughter Harper's.
On our daughter's eighth birthday, he threw a spectacular, city-wide welcome banquet for his childhood sweetheart, Seraphina, and her son, Leo.
Watching the glaringly perfect picture they painted as a "family of three," I suggested to my daughter that it was time to leave.
Harper, her eyes red, tugged at my shirt hem and pleaded, "Mommy, can we give Daddy three more days? Just three. If he still doesn't love me by then, we'll go."
Caelen had no idea that those three days were his final countdown as a father.

After my twin sister and I were accepted into the same elite university, our parents fully sponsored the freshman welcome banquet.

They told the university president, "This way, even at school, they can feel that parents will always be their unconditional support."

On the night of the banquet, my mother pressed a piece of paper into my hand.

"Elara, go to the podium. Read the address, and while you're at it, introduce your sister's upcoming toast. She needs the spotlight tonight."

Forcing down the tremors of an impending panic attack, I nodded submissively. "Thank you, Mother and Father, for arranging all of this. I'll read it right now."

Just as I was about to turn and read the address, a voice called out, stopping me.

"Elara, read the gratitude statement first. Remember, there's no such thing as a free dinner."

My father's voice cut through from the main table, ringing with an undeniable tone of command.

I froze at the podium.

Even though it was a perfectly heated banquet hall...

I felt a bone-chilling frost.

My mate, Valerius, was struck by a soul-splitting curse from hunters, fracturing him into a dual personality.

The rabid persona is brutal and cold-blooded. His heart holds only his childhood sweetheart, and he casts me aside like worthless trash.

Yet, when lucid, he is my deeply devoted lover—the man who sees me as his absolute salvation.

But the man who deeply loves me is slipping away.

It culminated on the night of the hunter ambush.

I dragged my shattered leg, barely surviving a sea of fire. Yet, to comfort his startled childhood sweetheart, he turned his back and walked away.

In the moment he left, I finally let go.

Because the eyes that had just abandoned me for her... were the deep, dark gold of his lucid state.

Later, when I accepted a deal to erase all traces of my existence and give them their happy ending, he completely lost his mind...

"Sorry, boss's strict orders. No one is to disturb the top floor tonight."
The bodyguards blocked my way, their guns aimed right at me. I was Dante's wife, standing there holding the soup I'd made for his stomach, yet I was being treated like a trespasser.
I ignored them and forced my way in anyway. Through the crack in the door, I saw everything perfectly clear. Dante didn't draw his gun on the woman who had once kidnapped me. Instead, the notoriously cold-blooded crime boss was using his personal handkerchief to patiently bandage her bleeding palm.

My husband, Daniel Whitmore, loves watching me lose my temper over Natalie. His childhood best friend. Every time I get jealous, he tells me it only means I love him more.

So every anniversary, Natalie gets to play "Mrs. Whitmore" for a few days, and our friends bet on how many hours pass before I snap.

The first year, Natalie puts on my nightgown and curls up in Daniel's arms for a photo. I'm livid — I snatch it right out of her hand. Daniel just laughs, kisses me, and says he always knew I'd never leave him.

The second year, he gives Natalie our bedroom and sends me to the guest room. He only lets me back in after he finds me crying outside the door. Then he whispers that she's leaving after one night.

Last year, Daniel brings Natalie to family dinner. She takes my usual chair, and his parents let themselves call her their daughter-in-law. I stand up to go. He stops me. "They're just teasing. Do you really have to blow this out of proportion?"

This year, they go bigger. Natalie pulls up to our house with a rolling suitcase and digs out the spare key. In front of all our friends, she tilts her head. "Daniel said I can be Mrs. Whitmore for seven days. You won't be mad at me, will you?" Daniel drops an arm around her shoulders and looks straight at me. If she really loves him, she'll get jealous.

Everyone expects the usual show — me sobbing, making a scene, Daniel laughing it off and calling the game done.

But this time, I walk back to our bedroom on my own and pack my bags. At the door, I lay my wedding ring and my house key in his hand.

"Seven days is too short. Tell her she can have my place. Permanently."

I gave thirty years to the son I raised.
He pulled out my oxygen tube and called me an old hag.
As I lay dying, my mate’s mistress leaned over my bed and told me the truth. The boy I raised was hers. My real son—my Alpha heir—was buried before his wolf ever woke.
Then the Moon Goddess sent me back to the day he was born.
That night, I switched the babies back.
Now she’s raising her own pup, convinced she’s raising my weak, worthless heir. And I’m going to watch her find out whose child she’s been hurting.

When my mafia husband moved his brother's widow and son into our home, I didn't shed a tear or throw a fit. Instead, I quietly packed our bags.

"It's hard for Alessia to raise a boy alone," I told him, not meeting his eyes. "My daughter and I will move out so you can take better care of them."

Later, on my daughter's birthday, my husband gifted her a vintage model car. The widow's son threw a massive tantrum for it.

Without a fuss, my little girl calmly handed it over.

"Papa said since you don't have a father anymore, he is your father now," she said softly. "I'm older. You can have it."

My husband was deeply pleased with our generosity. Yet, over time, he realized something was wrong.

I no longer looked at him with love. His daughter no longer reached for his hand.

He didn't know the truth. In my past life, his twisted devotion to that mother and son had literally killed us.

He threw us out into a blizzard, hoarding all the family's medical supplies and rations for them. He left us to freeze and starve to death in the snow.

Reborn, we won't fight them for him anymore.

Because we will never need Dante Moretti again.

My daughter was murdered on her eleventh birthday during a brutal snuff livestream on the dark web.

The chat was flooded with the sick revelry and obscene tips of twisted buyers.

"Break her legs a little more."
"I want to hear her cry out."

Lying in a pool of blood, my daughter cried out in sheer despair: "Mom... save me... it hurts so much..."

Watching my daughter take her last breath amid violent convulsions, I clawed at my own fingers until they were torn and bloody.

The police told me it was her elegant ballet instructor, Serena, who had sent her to hell. And the one who helped Serena cover her tracks was my husband, David.

In my utter despair, I swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills.

When I opened my eyes again, I had been thrown back to the very day I was supposed to take my daughter to her ballet class.

Sitting in the passenger seat, dressed in her ballet tutu, my daughter looked at me with eyes full of anticipation.

"Hurry up, Mom. Ms. Serena said we're rehearsing the solo for Swan Lake today."

The blood in my veins instantly ran cold.

As the only mute player in this horror game, I thought I was screwed.

Turns out the boss knows sign language.

Thank God! Perfect!

Then he gets everything completely wrong.

I sign "help me," he reads it as "you're hot."

I sign "danger," he thinks I'm saying "I like you."

I sign "get lost," and he goes, "You want me to come closer? Okay."

The worst part? I curse him out in sign language, calling him a psycho pervert.

He just smiles and says, "Baby, you're so good at flirting. I can't even bring myself to kill you now."

Me: ...

My teammate whispers to me, "Please stop signing. Every time you do, he stares at you even more like a psycho."

My brother Soren is a figure skating prodigy. Every dollar in our house, every hour, every scrap of attention — all his.
Me? I'm the kid who doesn't need to be seen.
The night before Nationals, I told my mom my stomach hurt so bad I could barely stand. She said I was making trouble. Dad told me to take a painkiller and tough it out. Then they loaded up the car and drove two hundred miles to watch Soren skate.
They didn't come home until Sunday night. By then, I'd been dead for over a day.
I called her. Again and again. She had her phone on airplane mode.
Now I'm a ghost, drifting behind their car on the highway home. They're laughing, complaining I didn't even text Soren a congratulations.
I wonder what their faces will look like when they walk through that door.

I had been married for seven years, thinking I had the perfect family.

Until Christmas Eve, when I saw a delivery order for apartment 702. The note read: severe mango allergy.

My husband's allergy. The one that could kill him.

I flew downstairs and pounded on the door.

My husband opened it. The same man who was supposed to be "out of town on business."

A pregnant woman appeared behind him.

And my six-year-old son stood behind her, glaring at me with cold eyes:

"Make her leave, Mom. She's crazy."

My world shattered.

I just landed my dream job on Wall Street, but the celebratory champagne came with a bizarre side effect. I can suddenly see the exact probability of someone killing me floating above their heads. My parents? 5% and 70%. The fiancé I ran to for safety? A blood-red 100%.

Three months pregnant, I took a part-time job at a bar.

On my first night, I found my husband drinking with his friends in a private room.

Ethan Grant leaned back on the couch and lifted his vape.

“Is four hundred and fifty thousand a month too little to give your wife?”

His friend jumped up. “That's not enough? What the hell is she spending it on?”

“Maybe she's keeping another guy on the side.”

The room went quiet. Ethan's expression hardened.

“She said she was broke last night, so I sent her another hundred and fifty thousand. This morning she asked for a divorce. Said if I couldn't afford to support her, I shouldn't bother.”

I stood outside the door, shaking with anger. Then I looked down at the small swell of my stomach.

I shoved the door open and went straight at him. Before he could react, I slapped him.

“Tell me. How many wives do you have?”

His eyes were bloodshot. He answered through clenched teeth.

“Just you.”

I stared at him. “Then why do I only get a hundred and twenty dollars a month?”

My mom runs a laundromat, and that afternoon she had to step out for something urgent.
Before leaving, she made sure to remind me: don't forget to finish the load in machine number seven.
I found the old clunker tucked away in the back room and bent down to reach inside the drum, trying to straighten out the tangled clothes.
That's when my upper body suddenly wedged itself in tight—I couldn't pull back out no matter how hard I tried.
I was stuck there, ass in the air, frozen in the most humiliating position imaginable.
And that's when Matthew Bennett walked in—the college professor who always comes by to pick up his dry cleaning.
To my shock, he mistook me for a sex doll. His hot, thick dick pressed against my thighs...

My best friend Lily was brutally assaulted and tragically took her own life.
But I fiercely protected the monster who did it.
Lily’s mom knelt down and begged me, but I just closed the door coldly.
When the villagers came with torches to smash my home, I didn't hesitate to unleash my dog to drive them away.
"Ivy, you cold-blooded monster! We treated you like family, and you protected the beast who drove Lily to her death for a whole decade!"
"Today, I’m going to show the whole world who this man is—the one you’d rather be cursed by everyone than expose!"
But when my deepest memories were violently torn open and the culprit's face appeared clearly on the giant holographic screen...
The high and mighty Emma instantly drained of all color and collapsed to the floor.

My influencer roommate paid a small fortune to grow a tub of "all-natural" beauty mud in our bathroom.
Ten days later, the thing crawled out of her face — in front of three hundred people at a party.
And I'd known it was coming from the day I first saw what she was growing.

I came back to New York for one reason: to meet the man my mother arranged for me to marry.
I never made it to dinner.
His "sister"—the woman he'd been protecting since childhood, the one he clearly loved more than he'd ever love a fiancée he'd never met—snatched a twelve-thousand-dollar dress out of my hands at a Fifth Avenue boutique and had me thrown out. When I called him about it, he told me I should be grateful to be marrying into his family at all. Then he hung up.
An hour later, she accused me of stealing her ring. Had me pinned against the wall. Told his men to strip me down and film it for "evidence."
Nico laughed when I told him the whole Ferrante family would answer for this.
"With what? You?"
My name is Sera Vitti.
That's all I'll say.

I was severely injured and blinded by saving Alpha Caden
After marrying, I became pregnant
Only to catch my Alpha in an affair with Beta Ava
Alpha Caden coldly mocked my uselessness
And even allowed Ava to poison me
Causing a miscarriage and disposing of my body in the sea
When I despaired, I was saved by Healer Zane
After Alpha Caden learned the truth, he was driven mad with regret
Now, I return stronger than ever.
Are you ready for my revenge?

On the winter solstice, I brought my parents to the Higgins Pack, hoping to surprise my Alpha mate and perhaps mend our growingly distant mate bond. But I never imagined that this would become the spark that finally woke me up.

Instead of a warm welcome, my parents and I were humiliated and tormented by Jacqueline—the female Beta housekeeper Alpha Chandler trusted the most. Worse still, Alpha Chandler believed Jacqueline's lies and froze my bank cards, leaving me unable to pay for my parents’ hospital treatment.

My mother died because of that. And my father lost his voice.

“They are your parents too! Have you forgotten all the years they raised you? When you were a stray pup with no name, they were the ones who took you in! Before you were a Higgins, you were a Fleming!”

And what did he say?

“Faking illness for pity? Don’t try to guilt-trip me with your moral high ground.”

My parents weren’t just Alpha Chandler’s in-laws—they were also his adoptive parents...

My five-year-old daughter, Anna, had barely wandered into the herb garden when she accidentally stepped on a wolfsbane plant.

For that…Alpha Brian ordered his warriors to throw her into a thorn cage—said it was to teach her a lesson.

But no one noticed the soul-eating spider that sank its fangs into the back of her neck. No one heard her crying as the venom tore through her little body.

No one… except me.

I clutched the iron bars and screamed through the thorns, “Alpha Brian! She’s allergic to spider venom—please! She’ll die if we don’t help her!”

But he didn’t even spare us a glance.

He had his arm around her. Vivian. His precious mistress.

“This garden was a gift for Vivian,” Brian said coldly, eyes full of something I once believed was love. “No one enters without my permission. Your daughter needs to learn consequences.”

In their eyes, my wife Emma—an Ivy League tenured professor in biological sciences—is ruthless, rational, and obsessively clean.
For seven years, even when she washed her hands, she would only ever touch the right-side sink—hers.
Until that night at 3 a.m., when I pulled a strand of sandy-golden short curl—hair that belonged to neither of us—out of my men’s shower loofah.
And around the neck of a pre-med student named Lucas, I saw the antique silver cross my dying father left in my hands.
When I confronted her, my always-icy wife protected the little homewrecker, slapped me across the face, and called me a jealous, controlling chauvinist.
She thought I’d swallow it like a coward.
But she forgot: as a top cardiothoracic chief, the thing I do best is cutting out tumors.

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 was once the supreme ruler of the global underworld, stepping down from my throne just to cook hot meals for my daughter. Yet, my arrogant brother-in-law mistook my silence for weakness. He smashed my home, tried to hand my wife over to a Mafia Don for his own career, and even stole my Black-Gold Skull Coin as a tribute!
Fine. You want to play? I'll grant your wish.
With a single keystroke, I initiated the DEFCON-1 combat protocol. Instantly, one hundred thousand of the world’s most elite mercenaries went berserk, locking down the entirety of New York City!

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.

After one year of marriage, her husband discovered Ella's two children from outside.
Ella was unable to defend herself and chose divorce.
After leaving with nothing, her ex-husband Joshua came to Ella, saying the children were his.
To bring the two children back to the Thomas family, Joshua appeared in front of Ella every day, enthusiastically trying to win over the children.
"Ella, remarry me, and from now on I'll do whatever you say."
Ella pulled the children closer, "Sorry, ex-husband, I have a new husband now."
At that moment, Joshua felt like the sky was falling.
How could his wife and children be with another man.

Kael Ardent spent his entire life trying to prove he belonged in the powerful Ardent family. Cold, disciplined, and brilliant, he finally earns the spotlight… only for it to be stolen once again by the one man who always eclipses him.

Adrian Ardent.

The charming golden son. The notorious playboy. The stepbrother who never misses a chance to remind Kael he’ll always be second best.

But one reckless night changes everything.

After a humiliating party, Kael ends up in a secret club, blindfolded and in the arms of a stranger. The next morning he’s left with fractured memories, a body that knows something happened… and Adrian laughing in his face as if none of it ever occurred.

Now Kael can’t tell what was real and what was a drunken illusion.

Except for one terrifying truth: The more Adrian pretends nothing happened… The more Kael begins to suspect he’s hiding everything.

I've always been a little slower than everyone else.

Ethan Walker used to promise he'd wait for me. We'd been best friends since we were four.

Then Madison Reed came along, and he stopped keeping that promise.

At dinner, they'd leave before I finished eating. At the beach, they disappeared while I was still struggling to swim back to shore.

I kept making excuses for him.

Until the night I arrived late to a party and heard one of his friends ask, "Where's Alice? Thought she was coming with you."

Ethan let out an annoyed sigh.

"She's probably still getting ready. You know how slow she is."

"Why didn't you wait?"

"Because it's exhausting. Everything takes twice as long with her around. I'm not spending my whole life waiting for her."

I stood outside the door, unable to move.

I'd spent years trying to catch up to him.

I never realized he'd been counting the minutes until he could leave me behind.

Ethan and Madison had been planning to attend UCLA together for months. They'd already made it clear that they expected me to go with them, too.

He assumed I'd follow, just like always.

But I quietly accepted my offer from the University of Washington instead.

Ethan was right about one thing.

He shouldn't have to spend his life waiting for me.

So this time, I chose Seattle.

And I gave him a future without me.

At twenty-nine, Dominic Brooks owns this city's underworld.

This year, I'm pregnant again. Finally.

But on our daughter's death anniversary, he doesn't show. Five hours. Nothing.

I find him at our casino with some girl draped all over him. The same girl I pulled out of a trafficking ring two years ago.

She's laughing loud enough for everyone to hear. "His wife won't stop crying about that dead kid. God, he's so over it."

He kisses her. Right in front of me.

Three days later, he tears up our daughter's grave. His mistress wants a swimming pool.

The shovel comes down. My unborn baby goes with it.

Years ago, Dominic taught me the rules of our world. How we handle traitors.

Time for a reminder.