1583 Book(s) Related to hex maniac pokemon

Dante Ashford is my stepbrother, and the one person I should never have fallen in love with.

When I was ten, my parents died saving his family. The Ashfords took me in. He was good to me back then. Somewhere along the way, I fell for him.

When I was eighteen, he nearly died in an ambush. I donated blood, then a kidney to save him. I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, Vivian Ross sat by his bed—and he believed she was his savior.

After that, he pushed me away. Vivian became his fiancée.

In my past life, Vivian's crimes brought disaster to our family. Dante got on his knees and begged me to take her punishment. I refused. She died anyway. Then he pretended to love me, planned our wedding—and on that day, his assistant announced to everyone: "This wedding was a lesson to show Miss Elena Hayes what it feels like to be abandoned by the whole world."

I jumped from the church balcony.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment—him on his knees, begging.

This time, I said yes.

Dante, from now on, we're done.

The day I died in a foreign country, my boyfriend was in the spotlight with another woman.

He's the man I built from nothing. Five years ago, I saved a broke orphan fresh out of college from the gutter. He said he wanted to be famous, wanted to make it to the top of the hockey world. In exchange, he became my boyfriend for five years.

I gave him the best coaching staff money could buy. Bought an entire hockey franchise and made him the centerpiece. Called in every favor I had to make him MVP.

But while he enjoyed everything I gave him, he refused to make our relationship public. Said it would "hurt his brand." He could make headlines with reporters and models, but nobody could know I existed.

He even said on national TV: "Those owners who just throw money around are pretty boring. Hockey is about skill, not money."

So why did he lose his mind when he found out I was dead?

I almost died on the operating table trying to give Alexander Volkov a child, unaware he already had a pair of illegitimate twins with his childhood sweetheart.
My heart stopped when I saw the DNA results. Alec, the man who made the New York underworld tremble, the man who flew back on a private jet just to hold my hand, was a flawless liar.
I turned my face away, tears soaking the hospital pillow. My hand drifted to my belly. God had finally decided to give me a break after five years of needles and agony—I was pregnant. But now, it felt like the cruelest joke.
He pulled me into his arms, smelling of expensive cologne and... baby formula.
"Tell me what's wrong, honey. Whoever made you unhappy, I'll make them pay."
I stared into his lying eyes and made my decision.
I would vanish with his unborn child, leaving him to rot in eternal regret.

Jonathan’s way of loving was always paying in silence. After we broke up, he cleared my shopping cart, stocked up enough makeup remover to last me three years, trying his best to make up for it. But during those three years when I willingly waited for him to propose, he never said a word. Until one day, he found a small note I’d written in pencil three years ago in that wedding planning book: “It’s okay, I can wait.” He cried all night staring at that line, and the next day, he bought 17 copies of the same book. On the title page of each one, he wrote neatly: “Wait for me.” It turns out, the stupidest person takes three years just to learn to say “I love you.”

Forty-eight hours before my wedding, I was kidnapped and gang-raped, surviving by only a thread in the depths of despair.   When my mafia boss fiancé and my police detective best friend stood guard by my hospital bed with bloodshot eyes, I heard him suddenly switch to Navajo and ask her, "The death row inmates from the dark web—were they dealt with cleanly?"   My best friend chuckled, replying in the same language. "Don't worry. The guys who put their hands on Maya have been wiped out. Dead men tell no tales."   "Sacrificing Maya alone gave you the perfect excuse to wipe out the rival family and swallow the southern smuggling network, while earning me a high-level promotion. It was a damn good deal."   Amidst tearing, agonizing pain, it felt as if I had been plunged into an ice cliff.   They thought I could never understand this obscure tribal language, so they brazenly feasted on the spoils of victory built upon my very flesh and blood. But what they didn't know was that, to surprise my fiancé during our wedding vows... I had been secretly studying Navajo for an entire year.

My daughter has passed away, and my ex-husband abandoned us.

In my darkest hour, my first love, Lysander, reappeared; he covered the medical expenses, married me, and provided me with a home.

For five years, I believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Until that fateful day, four months into my pregnancy, when I overheard his conversation with a friend—

“To save Celeste, I thought... who knew it would lead to the death of Seraphina’s daughter?”

“As for Seraphina, she is a good wife, but alas... I do not love her.”

It turned out that my daughter’s death was no accident.

It was revealed that these five years of marriage were merely his quest for atonement.

The one he had always truly loved was Celeste—my ex-husband’s current wife.

As I lay on the operating table, I made a decision—

Since he had taken my daughter’s kidney, I would seize everything from him.

Including what he believed he would never lose: me.

"Valerie, you've been working yourself to death. I booked you a flight to Switzerland—take Leo, go relax for a while." My husband Cedric set an Hermès scarf down on the table. "Early gift for our tenth anniversary."
I was thrilled, twirling in front of the mirror with the scarf, admiring how it looked.
That's when my son came around the corner, iPad in hand. "Mommy, a message just popped up. Daddy said he wants to give Seraphina a real family."
My mind just... blanked out.
I opened the message myself, and there it was—a whole year of secrets I never even knew existed.
So he wants to make things right with his old flame? Fine.
Then I get to take back everything I ever gave him.

When Trevor Sullivan had nothing, I gave up billions to follow him to Silicon Valley. Everyone said I was crazy in love with him, until his first love came back to the States right after he made it big.

Seven years of playing the perfect wife and mother, and then I hear him coaching our five-year-old daughter: "Ruby, you can't tell Mommy about my fake wedding with Amber. Not a word, okay?"

"But Daddy, Mommy's gonna be sad..."

"If you tell Mommy, Daddy won't love you anymore. Got it?"

My daughter trembles, nodding frantically.

I stand outside the door, my heart turning to ash.

For the woman he never got over, he doesn't just betray our marriage. He makes our five-year-old lie for him.

Everyone expects me to cry, to beg, to fall apart.

Instead, I dial the number I blocked seven years ago: "Dad, can the family jet still come get me?"

Trevor Sullivan has no idea. I was never some gold digger who needed him to survive. I was the one with everything who made myself small for his sake.

Two weeks before my due date, my husband Ethan is racing out the door into a stormy night.

All because his childhood friend Scarlett's apartment lost power, and she says her claustrophobia is kicking in.

I'm clutching my belly, telling him my water broke, begging him to look at the blood on the floor.

"You pulling this again? Last week wasn't enough? Scarlett's actually in danger."

He shakes off my hand. The door slams shut.

I'm standing in a pool of blood, watching his taillights disappear into the rain.

My baby won't have a father anymore.

The craziest thing I've ever done? Agreeing to Mason's idea—sex in the middle of nowhere.
But then his first love called, and he left me stranded out there. Alone. In the dead of night.

Jade was Lucian's secretary by day and his mistress by night.
It wasn't until she became his woman that Jade discovered just how ruthless and promiscuous Lucian could be. When she realized she might be pregnant, the man simply laughed and tossed the pregnancy test into the trash.
"Trying to trap me with a baby? Keep taking your pills."
On the eve of Lucian's engagement, Jade resigned from her job and ended their relationship.
But Lucian assumed she was merely throwing a tantrum. He waited for her to apologize and come crawling back to him, just as she always had before.
Days passed.
Instead of Jade, Lucian got the news that she had a new boyfriend.
His twin brother.
The man who shared his face and happened to be his sworn rival.
Overnight, Jade became his sister-in-law.
Lucian completely lost control. He searched desperately for Jade, determined to bring her back.
But Jade, who was pregnant, had vanished without a trace.

I thought telling Alpha Kane I was pregnant would be the hardest part of my day.

That was before I found my step-sister naked on his mahogany desk.
I remained committed to my role of Luna for three years while I suffered through his distant behavior because I viewed our mate bond as a holy connection. The moment he wiped her lipstick from his mouth, the bond that connected us to each other shattered in my heart because he had treated me as someone who lacked excitement.

He wanted me to weep while I accepted my lower-status position. I used my mother’s billion-dollar tech patents to lock him out, then I denied him on the pack intercom, before I entered the advanced security facilities of his most dangerous competitor.

Alpha Kaelen, the Lycan King, doesn't function as an uncontrollable animal. He possesses dangerous charisma which combines with his exceptional intelligence. I didn't request his protection; I established the terms for it. I presented him with the blueprints which would lead to our shared enemy's financial ruin. We are currently dismantling Kane's business empire together. Our formal agreement starts to dissolve into an irresistible attraction which develops during our nighttime strategy meetings and our executive boardroom business takeovers.

Kaelen discovers my hidden pregnancy secret, but he does not exile me from his presence. He displays a wicked grin while making his intention to take ownership of his opponent's offspring permanent. Kane will initiate a violent conflict to reclaim me as his possessions disappear and his remorse transforms into a primal fixation.

Will my charming, deadly protector permit me to handle my own conflicts or will we destroy everything my ex left behind?

I was the last of the Holy Bloodline. To the Nocturne Clan, I wasn't a Princess—I was a walking incubator, a terrified blood slave bound by the lowest pact to breed their pureblood heirs.
"I promise you... the next child you bear, I will let you raise yourself," my husband,the Vampire Prince, whispered, holding our newborn son wrapped in his sister-in-law's blanket.
He used my body as a shield against silver blades to protect his sister-in-law.
For nine years, I endured the silver whips, the boiling sunlight, and the agony of watching my babies handed over to another woman.
But when I discovered my husband was the very monster who slaughtered my families, I shattered heart turns to ash.
So, I give him exactly what he deserves—a pile of scorched ashes in a dark prison cell.
By the time the Vampire Prince realizes he cannot live without his wife, I am already “dead”.

I died—not in the way you'd expect, but slowly, painfully, while he was entangled with her.

He called her his savior, the woman who sold everything to rescue his failing empire. Little did he know, it was my money, my life's work, that he squandered.

The betrayal burned hotter than any flame, and I vowed he'd pay.

Now, he's gone—a leap from the heights he once ruled, his fall as swift as his rise.

Six hundred years into our marriage, I found out my husband had a son.

I had ended my border patrol three days early, wanting to surprise Valerius.

Not far away, Valerius was channeling his exclusive magic, teaching a boy how to weave the darkness.

"Dad! I did it!" The boy looked up. His bright eyes were a near-perfect reflection of Valerius's.

My mind instantly went blank.

Dad?

A woman walked over.

She draped a small cloak over the boy's shoulders, her hand brushing against Valerius's chest with practiced familiarity. "Valeri, the wind is picking up. He'll catch a cold now that he's sweating."

Valerius naturally wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "My fault."

The image of them huddled together like a picture-perfect family was an ice-tipped needle driven straight into my eyes.

The sharp sting made my breath hitch in my throat.

The man who had sworn before the Senate to love me for all eternity—the man bound to me by a Soul Blood Pact—had already betrayed me!

A sudden, agonizing cramp seized my lower abdomen.

It was an old wound from six centuries ago.

When the Sunfire Curse nearly reduced Valerius to ashes, I had offered my high-born pure blood and my womb as a sacrifice to forcibly block the hex for him.

The price was permanent infertility, along with an excruciating backlash of pain I had to endure every single month.

Back then, Valerius had held me, his eyes red and tear-filled. "I don't want any children! I would rather lose my seat in the Senate than ever betray you!"

Yet the scene before me crushed those words into fine dust.

I stumbled backward, my chest feeling as though it had been ripped open by bare hands.

I was terrified I'd lose control and rush over to scream at him.

Worse yet, in the face of this cozy, happy family of three, I was afraid I'd look like a pathetic, unwanted outsider.

Suffocation gripped my throat. I turned and fled.

Everyone says I'm the woman Jasper loves most.

But only I know that in his heart, I've always come second to Sadie.

Seven years ago, I shoved him out from under a collapsing rig and shattered my right ankle. I never skated competitively again.

He held me and swore that the day he won the Grand Slam, he'd marry me in front of the whole world.

I believed him. So I learned to be his support crew. I sharpened his blades, hand-sewed his costumes, dragged my bad leg around everywhere he went. I turned myself into the shadow that followed him.

Then Sadie came along. Young, healthy, able to do things I could never do again.

Tonight, Jasper wins the Grand Slam. The cameras circle him, the whole arena chanting for him to propose.

But he looks down at Sadie in his arms and smiles.

"Out of everyone, she's the one I want to thank most for this medal. I wouldn't have made it here without her."

That's the moment I stop wanting to stay.

I spent seven years being Preston Maddox's personal errand girl.

Did his homework, took his father's belt for him, cut off every friend I had because he said he didn't like me talking to other guys.

I told myself that if I was good enough, patient enough, he'd eventually see me.

Then came the school's centennial gala. In front of everyone, he locked me, a girl with severe aquaphobia, inside a water tank filled to the brim with ice-cold water, so Vanessa Sinclair could have a pretty backdrop for her ballet number.

The audience roared. He watched Vanessa take her bow with this soft, adoring smile on his face. The only time he glanced at me was when he noticed I'd made a mess, and all he did was wrinkle his nose.

The water rose over my head, and something in me finally understood.

To Preston Maddox, I wasn't even worth as much as a dog.

If a dog was drowning, its owner would at least care.

Me? I just disgusted him.

We'd agreed to spend summer break in the Hamptons. Right before break started, my boyfriend suggested we hit the water park out in the suburbs first, just to blow off some steam.

I thought it was a date. Just the two of us. But when I get to the gate, my best friend Sienna is standing there in a string bikini.

I tell her that's not safe to swim in. Her face goes cold and she tells me to mind my own business.

Colton frowns too and dumps his phone, a towel, and Sienna's makeup bag into my arms. "Vivienne, do you have to kill the mood? Sienna's scared to go alone. What's the big deal if I keep her company?"

In the wave pool, he holds her against his chest and the two of them roll around in the spray, laughing.

When they come out, Sienna takes the ice water I haven't even opened and takes a big swig, then hands it to Colton, and he drinks half the bottle right from where her lips were.

I stand there feeling like the hired help.

Two years of killing myself to be the understanding, easygoing girlfriend, and all it got me was a boyfriend who walks all over me without thinking twice.

If he's that close with my best friend, he can't blame me for calling up his best friend since they were kids.

"Julian, can you come get me?"

My daughter helped my husband cheat.

My ten-year-old begged me to take her to a summer camp in Italy. My husband looked at her like she hung the moon. Booked the tickets right there.

I thought I was the luckiest mom alive.

Then I checked the pet camera from overseas.

There he was, fucking my daughter's riding instructor on our couch.

But what really killed me? What he said, "Don't worry. Nina wants that horse bad enough, she'll keep her mom in Europe as long as we need."

Back home, my husband dropped a receipt. Two identical limited edition watches.

He froze. My sweet daughter didn't miss a beat, "Dad used the other one to bribe someone so I could get my horse!"

They lied in perfect sync. That's when something in me broke.

They thought I was still that stupid, trusting wife.

What they didn't know?

I'd already signed a contract. Going back to my art career in New York.

On the way to the hospital to deliver my baby, rain was coming down in sheets.
Suddenly, my husband slammed on the brakes. He'd spotted his ex-girlfriend standing in the downpour with her child.
"She's struggling as a single mom. I'm just going to help her carry those groceries upstairs. Ten minutes, tops."
Clutching my belly through the contractions, I begged him, "But I'm about to give birth. I'm in so much pain."
He just locked the car doors with a click, his voice sharp with annoyance.
"Sarah, can you try to be a little more empathetic? She's soaking wet."
In those ten minutes, my water broke. Desperate to survive, blood on my hands, I crawled out through the back hatch.
While I was fighting for my life in the ER—
His ex posted a snapshot.
In the video, my husband was gently toweling off her hair. The caption read:
[So glad you're here.]

My husband's childhood sweetheart lost her entry for the competition,
so he gave mine to her.
It was I who saved him all those years ago,
and that's why he married me.
But he turned his back on me right after our wedding.
I've been childhood sweetheart all these years.
But this time,
I suddenly feel like this marriage has lost all its meaning.
After handing in the transfer request I had prepared long ago to the factory director,
I rejected his offer to stay.
I can't bear to stay in this place for another day.
I want to go to New York,
start a new chapter in my life,
and let everything that happened before just drift away. all its meaning.
After handing in the transfer request I had prepared long ago to the factory director,
I rejected his offer to stay.
I can't bear to stay in this place for another day.
I want to go to New York,
start a new chapter in my life,
and let everything that happened before just drift away.

Another fight with my boyfriend made me agree to my best friend's crazy idea to party at a nightclub. But then, she spiked my drink and I ended up in the arms of a terrifyingly handsome stranger, Michelangelo.

We spent the night together underneath his sheets, as he took me through wild realms of pleasure. But the next morning, he was gone.

And then I caught my boyfriend with my best friend so my life utterly shattered from that day.

Weeks later, I realized that I was pregnant, and I also got hit by the news of my boyfriend's wedding to my best friend.

Devastated, I moved to a Pack in New York City to start anew with my unborn child, and then three years later, guess who I bumped into? The one and only Michelangelo, the real father of my son.

But then, he lied that night. He didn't give me his full name or his real identity. He didn't tell me that he was the formidable Nico 'Michelangelo' Ferrari, a Mafian Alpha and an insane force to reckon with.

Realizing who he is sends me into a panic attack, but for some reason, he won't stop chasing after me, trying to convince me that he loves me, that he's my fated mate and that he wants to be with me and our son.

What the heck do I do?!

“You think I don’t have a heart, little one? You’re right. But if I did, it would already belong to you. And that’s far more dangerous.”

“You break the world with your hands, Nico. I mend it with mine. And maybe that’s why fate threw us together… to remind you even beasts can bleed.”

Born into one of the most powerful crime syndicates in Los Angeles, Serena Moretti has lived a life gilded with diamonds and shadowed by danger. As the prized daughter of the West Coast famiglia, her beauty is spoken of like legend, but in the underworld, beauty is no blessing. It becomes her curse when she is bound in marriage to Nico Romano, heir to the ruthless New York Mafia Empire, in a desperate attempt to end a feud painted in blood.

Nico is no ordinary heir. He is a man forged in violence, feared for his merciless precision, and infamous for ending lives with his bare hands, including his own father. The whispers about him are not rumours; they are warnings.
To the world, he is untouchable—wealthy, magnetic, and devastatingly handsome.

But to Serena, every glint in his steel-grey eyes hides the predator beneath, and every smirk is a reminder that a beast wears a man’s face.

In a world where loyalty is power and love is weakness, Serena’s only chance of survival is to do the impossible, claim the heart of a beast everyone swears doesn’t have one.

“I used to have ice surrounding my heart, but it melted the moment I fucked you,” Hardin said and she scoffed.

“It was just a harmless sex, grow up kid, and let me go!”She yelled.

Freda was cheated on by her boyfriend because, he claimed she was bad at sex so he had to cheat.

Freda was angry so she went to the clubhouse with the intention of having sex with another man just to see if she was really bad at it. She didn’t know she ended up having sex with a mafia lord.

Later on, she was kidnapped by him who was lust after her after having sex with her.

He threatened to kill her best friend if she refused to be with him, having no choice, Freda agreed with an intention of killing him.

Slowly, she didn’t know how this hatred of hers turned into love, something she wasn’t willing to let go even if he was indifferent towards her.

“You’re just one of his sex toys Freda, I was once like you. When he’s done with you, he’d trash you,” Despite knowing all of this, would she let go or hold on it him?

Find out!

My daughter Lily was shot dead while she was performing on her own stage.
I rushed forward to shield her, and a speaker crashed down onto my right shoulder. The bone shattered.
My husband, Vincent, “shot the gunman dead” at once and sealed off the entire opera house.
When I woke up in the hospital room, the pain almost suffocated me. My right shoulder was wrapped in thick bandages, and when I tried to raise my arm, all I felt was a numb.
“…This isn’t what we agreed on.” The doctor’s voice was low and unsteady. “We only needed her blood sample for matching. Why did it have to go this far?”
“Lily’s blood type is a perfect match. This is the best possible outcome,” Vincent said. “I married Elena for this moment. I’ve been waiting for it.”
The doctor was silent for a few seconds. “But she’s your daughter… There’s no need to sacrifice a life, even if she is a Salaceno.”
Vincent cut him off. “You know how long an artificial heart can last. Camila’s daughter won’t hold out for long. I can’t put her through another surgery.”
“Camila’s child is the one I should cherish.”
At that moment, my blood ran cold. In his eyes, my daughter was nothing but an organ container.
He had no idea. All that talk about protecting his precious daughter—she wasn't even his.

A year ago, my ex abandoned me when I was broke and buried in debt, choosing the Russo family heiress instead.

On the day of his engagement party, he sent me a vicious text: "Wear a wedding dress to Plaza Hotel. Changed my mind. You're marrying me."

I showed up in white.

Luca and his crew waited at the entrance, ready to watch me humiliate myself.

He thought this was my degradation.

But what he didn't know was—I was getting married.

Just not to him.

To Dante Valentino—the most dangerous man in this godforsaken city.

"Harder, Daddy."
That's what I whisper in my sleep. Every night.
To a man whose face I've never seen, whose name I don't know, yet whose touch feels more familiar than anything I've ever known.
For weeks, the mysterious man from my dreams has haunted my nights. I told myself he was nothing more than a fantasy, a secret desire my mind created.
Until he walked into my reality.
My new boss was supposed to be my escape from those impossible dreams. Instead, he turned out to be the man who had been owning my nights.
Powerful. Ruthless. Dangerous.
The kind of man everyone fears, the kind of man I should run from.
"I own this place," he said, his dark eyes locking onto mine. "I own this empire, and I own you too."
I never expected the stranger from my dreams to be the infamous Mafia Boss. I never expected his world to be filled with enemies, betrayal, gunshots, and threats that could destroy everything I know.
But when danger comes for me, he is the only person standing between me and death.
He says I belong to him.
I should hate him for it.
I should fear the darkness that follows him.
But the more I uncover about the man behind the power, the more I realize that my greatest danger may also be the only person who can save me.

I promised her father I would protect her.

Lizzie Foster was never meant to be mine.
She was the spoiled mafia princess I was ordered to guard… the daughter of my dying best friend… and the young woman already promised to another man.

My duty was simple: keep her safe until her wedding day.

Then her fiancé betrayed her.
And the only way to protect her was to do the unthinkable—

marry her myself.

Now Lizzie is living under my roof, wearing my ring, carrying my name… and testing every last ounce of the control I’ve built my life on.

She wants a real marriage.
Not a cold arrangement. Not a contract signed out of necessity.
She wants affection, devotion, a husband who will look at her like she’s the only woman in the world.

And the more time she spends in my bed, in my house, in my life… the harder it becomes to remember this marriage was never supposed to happen.

She was my best friend’s daughter.
Too young. Too forbidden. Too innocent for a man like me.

But Lizzie is mine now.

And I’m not sure if I’m protecting her from the brutality of our world…
or from the darkness inside me.

Insatiable Desire is the first book in the A Marriage to the Mafia Princess Trilogy, a steamy dark mafia romance series where each book follows a different couple and their own dangerous love story.

As the tyrant ruling the underworld, Victor was ruthless and bloodthirsty, showing no mercy to anyone.

Women who tried to climb into his bed usually didn’t even get a whole corpse, yet I was the only one he kept by his side.

I’d taken a poisoned bullet for him, and nearly bled to death on the rotting floor of a safe house giving birth to his son.

He once kissed the bullet scar on my shoulder and promised me that when he sat on the godfather’s throne, I would be his only family matriarch.

But the moment he slipped on that black onyx ring symbolizing power, he carried another woman into the master bedroom of the manor.

I burst for the door, and he ordered his bodyguards to pin me outside, forcing me to listen to their sounds of passion all night long.

I banged on the door like a madwoman, so he slammed my paintbrush-wielding right hand in the heavy oak doorframe and crushed it mercilessly.

I finally caved when he threatened to cut off my mother’s hospital treatment.

Lucia Romano vanished thirteen years ago. Kidnapped as a child, she disappeared before the marriage contract binding her to Alessandro De Luca could ever become real.

Alessandro De Luca swore he would never obey a marriage contract but fate had already chosen for him.

Now the ruthless heir of a powerful mafia empire, Alessandro has lived by one rule....he will marry only for love, or not at all. The missing girl from his past is nothing more than unfinished business he still intends to close. Then one night he rescues a broken woman from a trafficking ring. She calls herself Lia.

Haunted by trauma and stripped of her past, Lia remembers almost nothing about the life she once had. Alessandro, only meant to protect her… until protecting her becomes something far more dangerous.

Because the powerful mafia boss who refused an arranged marriage is now falling for a woman he believes is a stranger. But fate has its own cruel design. The girl Alessandro has spent thirteen years searching for…is the very woman he’s beginning to love.

From #1 bestselling author Blake Pierce comes a heart-pounding new mystery series.In the cornfields of Nebraska a woman is found murdered, strung up on a pole, the victim of a deranged killer. It doesn’t take long for the police to realize a serial killer is on the loose—and that his spree has just begun.Detective Mackenzie White, young, tough, smarter than the aging, chauvinistic men on her local force, finds herself called in grudgingly to help solve it. As much as the other officers hate to admit it, they need her young, brilliant mind, which has already helped crack cold cases that had left them stumped. Yet even for Mackenzie this new case proves an impossible riddle, something the likes of which she—and the local force—have ever seen.With the FBI called in, together, an intense manhunt ensues. Mackenzie, reeling from her own dark past, her failed relationships, and her undeniable attraction to the new FBI agent, finds herself battling her own demons as her hunt for the killer takes her to the darkest places of her mind. As she delves into the killer’s mind, obsessing over his twisted psychology, she finds that evil truly does exist. She only hopes it will not be too late to extricate herself from it, as her entire life collapses around her.As more bodies turn up dead and a frantic race against time ensues, there is no way out but to find him before he kills again.A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, BEFORE HE KILLS marks the debut of a riveting new series—and a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #2 in the Mackenzie White Mystery series will be available soon. Also available by Blake Pierce is ONCE GONE (A Riley Paige mystery—Book #1), a #1 bestseller!

“Divorce? Divorce?” Camilla brokenly asked her husband. She couldn't believe what she heard.

“Yes, I think we should just get a divorce.” Caesar barked.

Camilla Garrison was betrayed by her fiance, by sleeping with her step sister.

That wasn't enough; she was also chased out from the house her maternal grandfather left for her and was tricked by her blood brother and father to sign her company in their name.

Devastated and heartbroken, she left the country with the help of a friend, where she will change her name to Phoenix Gilbert and get married to her ex fiance Trillionaire uncle just to get revenge.

After Camilla had over a quarter of her problem, a found secret would destroy everything.

She also have a lot of enemies to overcome.

Dive into this story and see how Camilla did all this. What would be Caesar's reaction when he found out Camilla had lied about herself?

What would also happen when he found out his wife was his nephew's ex?

Her Ex-fiance also wanted to win her back?

I suffered a head injury when I was little, so I’m a bit slow at everything I do.
My brother is the greatest hero in my heart, so I copy whatever he does—including being a simp.
He simped for a witch, so I did the same for her younger sister. But just as I was being relentlessly humiliated by the sister, and even dragged to the brink of death, my brother quit.

As a wolf princess, I gave up my beast core, my dignity, and three years of life for my mate’s throne. I walked willingly into the lion clan’s darkest kennel camp, enduring beastly torture and dog-like degradation. I survived on rot and poison, clinging to false hope. Until I returned and learned the bitter truth: my wolf mate destroyed me with his own hands. The war was fake, and my hell was his deliberate choice.

I shattered my knee in a blizzard getting our hockey captain Carter the wristguard he demanded.
Everyone on campus knew I was his desperate little errand girl. I told myself he was just testing my loyalty because the injury left him scared to let people in—until I stood outside the locker room and heard him say while the guys were losing their shit laughing:
"Luke's sister? Her brother destroyed my leg. She gets to be my punching bag. Fair trade."
"This weekend at the party, round thirteen—I'm dumping her in front of everyone and kicking her to the curb."
My hand found the paper in my pocket—my diagnosis from three years ago: permanent nerve damage, right hand. The souvenir I got from saving his life.
Suddenly the whole thing felt obscene.
If he wanted to play games so badly, I was more than happy to blow up his final round myself.

After being stood up for the ninety-ninth time while attempting to register for marriage, I sent my fiancé a breakup message. He had allowed me to be let down ninety-nine times, dismissing my asthma as mere pretentiousness and perceiving my sacrifices as acts of greed, all the while lavishing his patience upon another woman. It was only when he had his mistress select a cheap necklace for me and sketched explicit nudes of her that I realized these seven years were not a narrative of profound love, but rather an absurd farce playing out solely in my life. The moment I dispatched the breakup message, I never envisioned that this man, who viewed me as dispensable, would later pursue me with a frenzied obsession.

Four years ago, I left my boyfriend when he had nothing.

Now, he's a billionaire. And he's forcing me to marry him—just for revenge.

Every day it's a different girl. Now there's a pregnant influencer he flaunts in my face, destroying what's left of my dignity.

"Kneel and beg her, and I'll give you money." He holds another woman and smirks at me.

I don't cry. I don't scream. I just swallow the blood rising in my throat.

He doesn't know my brain tumor is terminal. I have thirty days left.

I've already signed the organ donation papers. I just want to die in peace.

I stopped loving him a long time ago.

The day the Gryphon army marched home in victory, my sister's husband came back safe. My husband, Tobias, died on the ice.

Everyone pitied me, and I believed them. I mourned him for years, handed over every resource the Elven Realm had to offer to Crown Prince Nathaniel, and helped him lock down his claim to the throne.

It took me years to find out the man who came back wasn't Nathaniel at all. It was my "dead" husband, Tobias.

He killed his own brother, stole his face with forbidden magic, all so he could marry my sister Sabrina and make her his queen, official and out in the open.

"Sabrina and I are the real thing. Pretending to be my brother, that was for the good of the kingdom."

They framed me for treason and threw me into the Pit of Judgment. As I burned, I watched the two of them hold each other while the kingdom cheered.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the army came home.

My sister begged me to stop grieving, tears in her eyes. "Nathaniel" swore he'd give me a life of luxury. The old king stood in front of everyone and promised to grant me anything I wanted.

This time, I didn't cry. I chose to remarry without a second thought.

Tobias thought wearing his brother's face was all it took to sit on that throne. What he didn't know was that without me, he never stood a chance of getting there at all.

I just get back from three months of hell on the northern border, dust still on my jacket, when Grandpa's calls start blowing up my phone.

"Seraphina! You need to swing by Black Ridge City and meet your fiancé!"

The old betrothal, arranged before I was even born. The guy is Derek, son of the Black Ridge Pack's Alpha.

I couldn't care less about the engagement, but I owe the elders that much respect.

So I send my unit back to base and head into the city alone, figuring I'll grab a gift and get this over with.

I find a necklace I like at Tears of the Stars, the fanciest jewelry store in town. The sales clerk looks at me like I'm trash. "That necklace runs eight million dollars. You break it, you'll be washing dishes for the rest of your life and still not pay it off."

I'm reaching for my black card when a wall of perfume hits me.

A woman dripping in jewelry storms in with a pack of bodyguards, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "What kind of gutter wolf is this? Keep talking and I'll have someone skin you and turn you into a rug. That necklace is mine. I'm Derek's girl."

I actually laugh, I'm that pissed off. Call up my dear fiancé right there on the spot.

"Derek. Your girl just told me she's going to skin me and make me into a rug."

Ten years ago, on the day my family was destroyed, Ezra Ashford promised to marry me.
Ten years passed. He refused to honor that promise, and he refused to mark me. The feral instincts in my blood were growing wilder by the day, pushing me to the brink of madness—yet he turned around, announced his engagement to Ophelia, the beloved daughter of the Silvermane Pack, and casually sold me off to Rhysand, a scarred, half-burned monster who cleaned corpses for a living.
On his wedding night, Ezra actually abandoned Ophelia, kicking down my door in his tailored tuxedo.
Only to freeze in his tracks.
I sat naked on the edge of the bed. Rhysand, the supposedly lowly corpse cleaner, had me wrapped in his arms. The bite mark on the back of my neck was still bleeding.

My husband broke my leg, and I was even sued by him and thrown into prison.

Three years later, when I was finally released, I thought the nightmare was over.

But Dante was waiting for me at the prison gates. "Welcome back to hell, Elena."

He forced me to work as a lowly cleaner in his company, while my former friends and his lover Sofia trampled my remaining dignity into the dirt.

They thought they had broken me.

They thought I would just kneel and accept my fate.

But they were wrong.

I will endure this hell, and I will make everyone who destroyed my life regret the day they crossed me.

While cleaning my husband's study, I accidentally knocked over my coffee.
Wiping down his laptop, I stumbled upon an open online document—a five-year log of sexual encounters.
One glance left me dizzy.
The latest entry was from yesterday. My husband, Ethan, had been away on a business trip for a week.
【2 hours 32 minutes. Ethan—only when you’re drained can I finally rest easy.】
【You little tease, so greedy! Don’t worry, big brother will make sure you’re full.】
The other editor of the document was someone I knew—Mia, his childhood sweetheart. Her ID: ExcavatorDiggingCilantro.
Trembling, I read through all 99 pages of the online log.
So this was how many times my husband had cheated on me.
When no tears were left, I pulled out the two-way radio I hadn’t touched in six years.
“Three days. The rose returns to its place.”

My daughter has been blind since birth. On her eighteenth birthday, she finally received news of a matching cornea donor.
Our whole family was so excited we couldn't sleep that night. My husband and daughter eagerly prepared for the surgery, their hearts filled with hope that she would soon see the light.
But I suddenly slammed my hand on the table and, amidst the family's stunned gazes, proposed a divorce on the spot.
My husband's face turned ashen as he demanded harshly, "You want a divorce just because I'm going through with our daughter's surgery?"
I curled the corner of my mouth and enunciated every word: "That's right. Because you're going through with her surgery—this marriage is over."

After a one-night stand with him, I left hundreds of dollars for him.
I thought we have no relations any more, but in reality, he was actually my fiancé’s brother!
I never imagined I would develop feelings for him.
It’s a forbidden love, a secret that can’t be spoken...

I woke up and found a man lying beside me.
In my previous life, he was a lawman who arrested me.
But in this life, I won’t be bullied by him!
I never imagined I would develop feelings for him.
But he actually treated me with tenderness and confessed his love to me!

On the day of our seventh wedding anniversary, I tried to send a work email using my husband's account, but the connection was too poor to go through.
When I clicked into the drafts folder, a glaring message caught my eye:
"Tingzhou, I've prepared a new battle outfit~ Ready to drain you dry."
Seconds later, that draft vanished, replaced by a new one:
"Naughty girl, get the ultra-thins ready and wait for me."
Only three people knew the password to this email account: me, my husband, and his first love...
Watching their increasingly explicit flirtations,
tears streamed down my face uncontrollably.
Turns out, no matter how many years you spend by someone's side, it all crumbles the moment their first love returns.
I steadied my trembling fingers, sent the email, and cleared the history.
Then I dialed a number that had been dormant for seven years.
"I give up. I'm willing to come home for the arranged marriage."
On the other end came my godfather's familiar, authoritative voice,
"Get rid of anything that shouldn't be left behind. Make it clean."
My hand trembled as it touched my lower abdomen. "Okay."
"Someone will pick you up in three days."

I was drugged with an aphrodisiac by my competitors, and Pierce Pei dumped me in his older brother's room.
Pretending to be delirious from the drug's effects, I seduced his older brother all night long.
The moment I opened my eyes the next morning, I blushed and complained to Pierce, "You were way too rough last night. I can barely get out of bed."
"But you were so amazing last night. I really, really liked it."
Pierce froze. He threw away every gift I had ever given him.
Later, after all his black cards were canceled, he stormed furiously into his brother's office.
There, he saw the cold and aloof eldest son of the Pei family kneeling on one knee, putting shoes on my feet.

Elroy has severe OCD. In the ten years we've been together, he's never allowed me to eat in his car.
On our tenth anniversary, we made plans to watch the stars together.
But just as I reached the mountaintop, my phone rang—it was him.
"Something came up at work. I can't make it tonight. You go ahead and enjoy the view."
The moment he hung up, I saw his female classmate's post about returning to the country.
Catalina was sitting in his passenger seat, holding a half-eaten piece of cake in her hands.
【Someone was afraid I'd get hungry coming back so late, so he specially brought me this little cake～】
Another picture showed Catalina's shoes—still on—planted firmly on the passenger seat.
【He says I'm the only exception to his OCD～ I can do whatever I want in his car, hehe.】
I looked up at the twinkling stars above me, a bitter smile tugging at my lips.
This was the tenth time he'd abandoned me.
Every single anniversary without fail, this "female classmate" of his would show up.
I once tried to gently tell him: "I don't want to be interrupted like this every time."
Elroy looked at me with displeasure. "Interrupted? Catalina is my friend. Can you not be so petty?"
The cold wind howled across the mountaintop. Catalina's words stuck in my heart like a thorn, stinging until my eyes grew wet.
After ten years, I'm done with this relationship.