3247 Book(s) Related to her triplet alphas chapter 16

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.

Loving him will cost them everything…

Not loving him will cost more.

Derek has one goal: survive high school without drawing too much attention or pissing off his pack’s alpha.

As the youngest son of the alpha, his life is governed by lycan hierarchy, tradition, and politics. With no signs of awakening a lycan spirit, his only value is what he can do for the pack’s image. He knows he’s only ever one misstep away from exile… or worse.

Then, he finds a boy trapped in a locker on orientation day, and everything changes.

Derek shouldn’t want Nikolias. He’s off-limits. A risk Derek can’t afford.

So why does it feel like he’s the only thing worth fighting for?

Nikolias has just lost everything: his parents, his home, and any sense of peace. Sent back to the town his family left years ago to live with his prejudiced and controlling uncle, who wants nothing to do with anything—or anyone—not human, he’s trying to do everything in his power to get out quickly.

But then he meets Derek again, and all of his plans vanish in the soft, yearning flecks of gold in Derek’s green-hazel eyes. He’s drawn to Derek in a way that’s impossible to deny, and he thinks Derek feels the same way, despite the danger their relationship holds for him.

As Moonshadow's politics turn deadly, Derek and Nikolai are caught in the crossfire of a war that had started long before they were born, and their bond becomes a threat and a lifeline that neither can afford to sever.

Because the heart wants what it wants….

And it never asks permission.

TW: Graphic Violence, Suicide Ideation, Suicide Attempt, Child Abuse, Cult-Like Behavior

Her hands slid up to his chest, palms flat, feeling the solid strength beneath his shirt. The fear didn’t vanish completely. But it quieted. Receded into the background. Logan’s thumb brushed her cheek, slow and grounding, as his other hand settled at her waist.

The kiss grew warmer. Slower. Logan felt it too, sharp and electric. His wolf stirred restlessly, recognizing something it shouldn’t, something it wanted to claim even as his mind warned him to stop. He broke the kiss first, breathing hard, forehead resting against hers.

“Emily,” he murmured, strained. “We should—” She didn’t let him finish. Her lips brushed his jaw, tentative, almost questioning. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Don’t send me away.”


After being betrayed forty-eight times by her mate, Oscar, Emily is drugged and offered to powerful wolves for his gain. Desperate and fleeing danger, she collapses into the arms of Lucas Walker, one of seven feared Alpha Brothers who rule the strongest pack. Drawn to her by an unstoppable pull, the brothers vow to protect her. But Emily’s past hides a darker secret, one that fate has bound to all of them.

I waited seven years for Lucas.
The moment our Mate Bond was finally sealed, our wedding night left me so exhausted I couldn’t even move and then my phone lit up with photos of him having sex in a car with Isabella, the widow of his dead brother.

Everyone told me not to overthink it. Our relatives brushed it off. Even the Elders stepped in to smooth things over for him.
But behind closed doors, Lucas showed his real face—Restore the Mate Bond or he would destroy my family’s company.

When I fought back, he slapped me so hard it shattered the twenty years of relationship between us. He froze my accounts, and my mother was rushed to the hospital because of sheer stress.
That still wasn’t enough. He demanded that I apologize publicly at a business gala, to the woman wearing his brother’s wedding gift. He even ripped away the moonstone necklace my mother left me.

I was shoved into a champagne tower, blood all over me. And he never looked at me once. All his tenderness was reserved for his sister-in-law.
Just when I’d finally gone numb, top-tier Alpha Finn walked in with a one-billion-dollar contract. “Your designs are worth this much. And I don’t like people touching what I’ve set my eyes on.”

Seven years of devotion wasted on a lie. This time, I’m tearing the fake Mate Bond to shreds and I’ll make every traitor pay!

“You are a danger to my health, AVIANA, let me have you,” Duncan drawled, his hands on my waist, pulling me against his hard member.

“I…I… “ i stammered. Even though I knew n was getting myself into dangerous territory, I couldn't stop myself from wanting him. Ever part of my body was screaming for his touch and I could no longer deny his touch.

“Tell me yes, let me pleasure your body,” he whispered against my neck,”

I moaned out involuntarily and before I could stop myself, I yelled,
“Please, fuck me!”

Aviana Grey is not just another woman with a vendetta—she’s a sharp, relentless detective who spent nearly two decades chasing shadows, determined to uncover the truth about her mother’s murder at the hands of the Iron Vine Mafia. After years of preparation, she finally gains the opportunity to infiltrate the Mafia, but her plans take an unexpected turn when she meets Duncan, their ruthless leader and Alpha werewolf. As she delves deeper into their world, she discovers secrets that blur the line between human and monster—and finds herself irresistibly drawn to the one man she’s sworn to destroy.

My mate—Alpha Jasper—knelt on one knee, proposing to me at my birthday party when Sienna Burrows suddenly appeared.
She was his fated mate once. His first love.
Dressed in the exact same backless red gown I was wearing, she stood there like a queen, regal and untouchable.
She let out a soft, mocking laugh. "Hah. Alpha Jasper, no matter how perfect a copy may be, it will never be me."
Alpha Jasper didn’t even spare her a glance. Instead, he turned to me, gently taking my left hand in his. His voice was deep, filled with emotion.
"Cynthia, will you marry me?"

“Wendy, are you absolutely sure you want to sign this document?”
The Elder’s voice rang in my ears—cold, distant.
“Once your bond with Alpha John is dissolved, you’ll lose everything tied to the Blackthorn Pack.”
I gripped the pen so hard my knuckles turned white.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
But just as the tip touched the paper—
BANG!
The door was kicked open with a violent crash.
Alpha John stormed in, eyes bloodshot, and wrapped his hand around my throat.
“You dare?!”
Blood slipped from the corner of my lips… but I laughed.
Because I knew—he would never discover the truth.
That his dear uncle, Alpha Vincent, was hiding in my closet at this very moment.
And the fresh bite mark on my lower belly… still burned from last night.
As if fate was mocking me, my sweet little sister Penny sent a message right then:
“Sis, wanna know a secret? That miscarriage you had? John planned it. He made it happen.”
Then the TV flickered to life with a breaking live broadcast—
There she was, Penny, gently stroking h

I used to be the nation's top lock-picking expert. I saved countless lives.

But I couldn't save my own daughter.

At the dock, two children were strapped to bombs.

The girl had less time—I should've saved her first.

But my husband Damien held a knife to his throat, forcing me to save the other one first.

His illegitimate son.

I compromised.

The moment I opened the lock, the kidnapper ripped off the girl's hood.

I never expected her to be Rosie.

My five-year-old daughter.

She looked at me.

Her lips moved, forming the word "Mommy."

Then the explosion tore through everything...

When the screen lit up, my heart stopped beating.
The woman twisting on the bed, breathless and flushed, was Rachel. The innocent girl we grew up with. The adopted sister I had fiercely loved and protected for over a decade.

And the hands claiming her body?
They belonged to my childhood sweetheart, Sebastian. On his finger glinted the very wedding band I had lovingly slipped onto his hand.

"I missed you so much..."
"You drive me crazy, baby..."

His hoarse moans coming through the speaker were agonizingly familiar. Those exact sweet whispers, the ones that used to make my heart flutter, now completely destroyed me.

To the outside world, we were the ultimate power couple. I ran his empire, exhausted myself to build his perfect life, while he bathed in everyone's envy. But who knew my flawless marriage was nothing but a sick, twisted lie?

Tears blurred my vision, but as the video ended, my sorrow morphed into something cold and lethal.

Sebastian thinks he is a master manipulator. He thinks he can have my loyalty while drowning in my sister’s bed.

Well, since he loves acting so much... I think it’s time I gave him a taste of my own performance.

Playtime is over. I am going to tear down his 'perfect husband' facade piece by piece, and I won't stop until I witness his total ruin.

"Come see our wedding invitations!" I excitedly held up the document folder I'd grabbed from ,my fiancé, Lorenzo's study, showing it off to his men in his private safe house on the Upper East Side.

Lorenzo and I had been running ourselves ragged this month preparing for the wedding.

Lorenzo's guys raised their glasses, waiting to see our custom-designed invitations. I eagerly turned the folder upside down—

Marriage certificates, wedding photos, and a property transfer document came tumbling out onto the floor.

Dead silence.

"Oh, these aren't our invitations..." I was still grinning foolishly. "Must be the wrong folder."

"Let me see which lucky lady is about to become a happy bride."

I looked down at the wedding photo. A beautiful brunette woman in an elaborate white gown smiled from the center of the picture, looking so blissful, so content.

When my eyes shifted to the groom beside her, my world collapsed.

It was Lorenzo. He wore a perfect black tuxedo, but he was tenderly embracing a woman I'd never seen before.

Y

Rosalie spent two years loving the man she thought was her fated mate.

On the night everything was supposed to begin, he rejected her, chose another woman, and watched as she was thrown into the Abyss to die.

But she survived.

Saved by the one man she never expected…his younger brother.

Now she is back with a marriage nobody can break, a wolf that refuses to awaken, and secrets powerful enough to shake an entire kingdom.

As betrayal turns into obsession, enemies close in, and an ancient prophecy begins to unfold, Rosalie must decide who she can trust before the truth destroys everyone she loves.

Because sometimes the greatest threat is not losing your mate…it is discovering you were never meant to belong to them in the first place.

When fate rewrites the bond, who will survive the consequences?

Over the weekend, Alpha Kennard—my husband—and I were invited to attend a charity auction.
During the bidding, my husband's Beta, Joanna Morton, and I both set our sights on the same ruby necklace.
I was prepared to compete fairly, Until Alpha Kennard made the ceremonial bid for her.
"Queenie, you're nothing more than a dog I keep at home. What right do you have to compete with me?"
Just as everyone else withdrew from the bidding, I snapped my fingers at the auctioneer.
"Whatever Alpha Kennard offers—I'll outbid him by… one dollar."

I used to believe Lawrence Ashcroft must love me.

He was the football captain, the golden boy everyone adored, and he chose me—the girl who spent her life chasing perfection on the ice. But love shouldn’t feel like waiting outside a rink in the cold, refreshing my phone, wondering why he forgot me again.

Seven times.

Each excuse sounded softer than the last. Florence needed help. Florence was sick. Florence had no one else. And somehow, I was always supposed to understand.

Then I met Gavin Ashcroft.

Lawrence’s older brother was nothing like him. Gavin was cold, blunt, and intimidating. The first night I met him, he criticized me for being late. I thought he hated me. But when Lawrence abandoned me at the Ashcroft mansion, Gavin was the one who worried about my safety. When I got hurt, Gavin noticed. When I competed, Gavin came. When I tried to be strong, Gavin saw the pain I hid.

Now Lawrence says he wants to change. He waits outside my dorm, brings me medicine, asks for another chance.

But the more he reaches for me, the more I realize something terrifying:

My heart no longer races for the boy I once loved.

It races for his brother.

The night before her wedding, Leah Carter caught her fiancé Elias in bed with another woman.

Elias humiliated her, manipulated her, and even plotted to pass her off to another man like an object to be discarded. In her most desperate moment, Matto Moretti came crashing through the door — reeking of blood and violence, the kind of man the entire underworld feared without question. He put a bullet through Elias's shoulder without blinking, then caught Leah's chin between his fingers, his voice low and absolute:

"Your man slept with my woman. That makes you responsible for the debt. Sign the paper and marry me."

Leah's Perspective

I told myself I was nothing more than a canary in his gilded cage — a substitute, a stand-in for someone else's sin.

We had known each other for exactly one month, and none of it made any sense. He detonated into my life like a bomb: money, tenderness, protection — all of it arriving at once, all of it suffocating in its intensity. He behaved like a man completely undone by me, and yet we had barely known each other thirty days.

Was this love at first sight? I didn't think so. There had to be another reason. I didn't know what I was to him, or why he looked at me the way he did — like a man who had loved me for years. And I knew nothing about him. Nothing at all.

Matto's Perspective

She will never know that she has been mine since long before any of this began.

I am not proud of how I came to have her. But that doesn't matter. What matters is this: you have no idea how long I have loved you. It started before all of this — before the gun, before the contract, before she ever knew my name. She will never know the truth of it, and that is fine. She only needs to know that I love her in ways that would frighten her if she ever truly understood.

As long as she stays, I would give her everything. My empire. My fortune. My life, without a moment's hesitation.

The man the world knew as cold-blooded and untouchable had been loving Leah Carter in the dark for years.

He would make Elias pay for what he had done. He would unearth the truth of her buried identity — a secret twenty years in the making. And in every shadow she could not see, he would clear the thorns from her path before she ever felt them, becoming the sharpest blade she never knew she carried.

Matto gave Leah his wealth and his kingdom. More than that, he gave her his heart — fierce, honest, and entirely hers.

"You have been mine since that day, long before you knew it."

"The whole world may fear me. But you — you are only ever allowed to love me."

He did not marry her on impulse.

He married her because he had been planning it for a very long time, and he had never once intended to let her go.

Leah × Matto — You are the captive in my hands, and the only salvation I have ever known.

On the day of our mate bond, Alpha Samuel decided we were going to be a childfree couple himself.
He held my hand and said affectionately, “No kids. I only want you.”
However, he came home with a pup in his arms later.
He claimed a friend had died, leaving the child alone, and asked us to take him in “just for a while.”
I didn’t make a scene. I didn’t demand answers. I didn’t even ask twice.
I kept cooking and cleaning, swallowed the unease and told myself to trust him.
Until that night, when I asked him where my dog had gone.
He didn’t answer. He set a bowl of dog meat soup in front of me instead.
He said my spirit dog could hurt the pup. But the spirit dog could sense bloodline, its growl wasn’t for that pup. It was for the lie he’d been hiding for three years.
At that moment, I finally understood: the pup he called “alone in the world” carried the exact same blood as him.
So our agreement was a lie and the so called childfree was an excuse.
And he’d already arranged what my ending was like when the day I agreed to bond with him.

I've been secretly married to him for five years, but he's never treated me as his wife. Our six-year-old daughter has never called him Dad in public.

One drunken night, I got pregnant. He gave me a marriage contract that came with one condition: secrecy.

I thought time would change everything. I stood by him through the company's darkest days. When I was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, he didn't come. When our daughter was born, he was in a meeting. Every moment that mattered, he wasn't there.

Then that clumsy intern showed up.

From that point on, he gave her all his attention and patience. He broke his own rules for her again and again. That's when I finally understood: when someone doesn't love you, they just don't.

So I took my daughter and disappeared from his world completely.

But why did that calm, controlled man lose his mind?

I’d worked at my husband’s company for three years, only to be fired by him right when a promotion was within my reach.
It was all because I’d been swamped with overtime work one day and neglected the cat he’d given me.
When I came home that night and found the cat food hadn’t been refilled like usual, my husband, who had always treated me with tenderness, flew into a rage for the first time.
“If you can’t even take proper care of a cat, then don’t come to work at all. Stay home and raise it full-time.”
I parted my lips to explain myself, tears clouding my eyes, but he wouldn’t listen to a single word I said. The very next day, he instructed the HR department to dismiss me from the company.

For three years, I was Julian Vance’s perfect shadow.

By day, I was the flawless executive secretary who kept his multi-billion-dollar empire running without a single hitch. By night, I was his secret, contract wife a convenient arrangement kept hidden behind the closed doors of his penthouse to satisfy a dying man's wish. I loved him in the quiet darkness, enduring his coldness, his family’s venom, and the cruel taunts of his elite childhood friend, Victoria.

But three months ago, the illusion shattered. When I was trapped in a hospital room losing our unborn child, Julian was on a red carpet with Victoria. His message to me through his assistant? “Do not interrupt important business meetings with minor domestic emergencies.”

That was the day Vivian Lane died.
The moment our three-year contract expires at midnight, I slide two papers across his mahogany desk: our signed divorce decree and my immediate resignation.

Julian scoffs, arrogant and completely convinced I’ll be crawling back to him within a month when my bank account dries up. He thinks I'm a penniless outcast with nowhere to turn.

He has no idea that while I was playing his submissive secretary, I was quietly building my own foundation. Now, his biggest corporate clients are jumping ship to my new boutique firm, and an international venture capital network has just hired a legendary, anonymous digital strategist known as "The Cipher" to engineer a hostile takeover of Vance Enterprises.

That strategist is me.
As his empire begins to bleed out brick by brick, the billionaire who once looked down on me finally drops to his knees. But I’m no longer his secretary, and I’m no longer his wife. If he wants me back, he’ll have to survive the ruin I’m about to bring to his doorstep.

For five years of marriage, Sibel devoted herself completely to her husband and son, even giving up her own career for their family.
Then she was rushed to the hospital with acute cholecystitis, writhing in pain. Her husband arrived with their son, only to walk right past her and rush to the woman he cherished most, his adopted sister.
"She’s terminally ill. You should take care of her," her husband said.
Her son added, "You’re only Mom because you cook and do housework."
In that moment, Sibel realized that her five years of sacrifice had been nothing but a joke.
She filed for divorce, walked away with nothing, and returned to the world of medical research. But just as she was ready to start over, she was framed, thrown into detention, and nearly left to die in a pool of blood.
Everyone thought Sibel was nothing without a man.
But when she returned as a world class medical expert, when the truth was finally exposed, and when the man who once treated her like she was worthless knelt before her with red eyes full of regret...
She looked down at him and said,
"You once said I wasn't good enough for you. Now you're not good enough for me."

Ethan and I grew up together. We were supposed to exchange rings at the altar, make our vows. But on our wedding day, he left me standing there to go save his so-called suicidal ex. Almost killed my parents from the shame.

Four years later, I'm back in Portland with my husband. The city isn't that big, and of course fate decides to throw him in my path again.

He has the nerve to ask me to be his mistress.

I hold up my left hand, the ring catching the light. "Are you blind?"

I'm two months pregnant with Tristan's baby when Brielle, the woman he'd do anything for, shoves me down the stairs.

She calls it an accident. I lose the baby.

I beg my husband to do something about it. Instead, he shields her and turns it around on me.

"Brielle saved my life in that fire. The whole Merrick family owes her. So drop it."

That debt. Always that debt.

Three years. No matter how many times Brielle humiliates me, degrades me, Tristan only ever has one answer: "I owe her my life."

But the truth about that fire? I'm the only one in the world who knows it.

I tried to tell him once. He laughed in my face. "Adeline, you're so desperate for attention you'd make up something like that?"

So I shut my mouth. Buried the truth. Buried whatever was left of my heart along with it.

The man I trusted with my life just handed my child to the woman who killed them, and called it loyalty.

I'm done.

I pull up the number I blocked three years ago and hit call.

"Dad. I'll take over the company. I'll go through with the engagement to Everett. But I have one condition. I want Tristan and Brielle ruined beyond recovery. Nothing and no one left."