Family Saga

Three-year-old Mia arrived at the Bennett mansion in the rain, carrying a broken stuffed rabbit and an unpaid hospital bill.
“Are you Adrian Bennett?” she asked.
When the coldest billionaire in the city said yes, she held out the bill.
“Good. Dad, you owe me three years of formula.”
Mia came for food—not the Bennett fortune. But hidden inside her rabbit was the dying testimony of the mother the Be...

My Sister-in-Law Smashed My $350,000 Agate Bracelet, So I Canceled Her Brother's $98 Million Deal

Vanessa Liang lifted my red agate bracelet above her head in front of the whole Hale family.

It hit the marble floor with a clean crack.

My mother-in-law kept cracking sunflower seeds. "Broken things ward off bad luck," Margaret Hale said, smiling as if she had just made a toast.

My father-in-law ...

When we moved to the estate on the hill, all the bedrooms had already been assigned.
My parents had the primary suite.
My brother, Adrian, had the east wing.
The south suite, with its view of the Hudson—the nicest room in the house—was marked Grace's Room.
There was no room with my name on it.
In the hall, a worker was fastening brass plaques to the bedroom doors.
Not one of them read Claire.
Ten ...

I've always had a habit of taking people at their word.

In high school, a girl who liked bullying me broke our classroom projector.

When the teacher walked in, she shoved a broken piece into my hand and whispered, "Hold this. Don't say anything."

I raised my hand.

"Mr. Harris, she broke the projector and gave me this piece. She also told me not to say anything."

At twenty, during my first int...

At 2:17 a.m., I woke up five hours before my wife was supposed to die.
In my first life, my mother told me the two million dollars I had entrusted to her was gone. By the time I found enough money for my wife’s emergency surgery, I had lost her and our unborn child.
This time, I froze every account before my family could take another cent.
Then my mother called.
She needed $180,000 by morning—and ...

"I need you to help me fake a private jet crash. I want my husband to believe I'm dead. It’s the only way to save myself from him." I said.

I grew up in a family where I was always overlooked.

I was six when I went missing. Four years later, I finally returned home, but my parents already had another daughter, Chloe.

From then on, everything I owned belonged to her—my toys, my dresses, my frien...

I waited two years for a donor heart. When one finally came, my husband gave it to Odette Ashworth, the girl who had been living my life.
My cardiologist gave me one week. So I made arrangements to have my body cryopreserved.
And I donated it to the very lab where Odette worked.
The day I signed the papers, my son threw his arms around me and said he was so glad Mommy and Aunt Odette were friends ...

Three years into being Nathan Cole’s kept woman, I learned I was the missing daughter of one of the wealthiest families in the city.

I was about to go to them when I saw the news. Nathan had already taken his childhood friend to the party welcoming their daughter home.

When I got there, I found Vanessa Reed crying against his chest.

“What if Claire finds out?”

Nathan wiped her tears away.

“Sh...

The first time the system appeared, I thought it was a scam.
One wish per day, it said. Anything I wanted.
So I tested it with a hundred dollars.
That night, my mother handed me one bill. Then she smiled and told me she had bought my stepsister Mia a jacket worth two hundred.
That was when fifteen years of “coincidences” turned into math.
Every wish I had ever made came true.
And every time, Mia g...

For as long as I could remember, my family had insisted Vivian needed more because I could take more.
The pony I loved. The occasions meant to celebrate me. Time with my mother. If my twin wanted any of it, I was the one expected to go without.
Our induction into the Mafia Family was meant to be the exception. We were both daughters of Don Moretti. A crown was supposed to be waiting for each of us...

My boyfriend's stepsister was assaulted. She didn't survive it.

I knew the truth, but I refused to name the man who did it.

His parents got down on their knees and begged me. I didn't budge.

When the reporters showed up at my door, I chased them off with a kitchen knife.

He didn't leave me. He turned his back on his family and married me.

And then he made me pay. Every day, he brought people ...

All my life, my family said Lucia needed more because I was stronger.
My pony. My celebrations. My mother's time. Whenever my twin wanted something, I was expected to give it up.
Our Mafia Family induction was supposed to be different. We were both Don Romano's daughters. We were both supposed to receive a crown.
Instead, Lucia's custom crown held both our diamonds while mine sat tarnished and emp...

When I took my late brother's four kids to dinner at the restaurant my grandmother left me, and seven-year-old Leo asked for a refill of the bottomless garlic knots, I didn't expect the new manager to tell him to go eat out of a dumpster.
"I'm the owner's wife," she sneered, and called her husband to come deal with us.
The contact photo on her screen was Adrian. I knew, because I took it on our ho...

Dad brought his old friend's daughter home. I was the outsider.

Dad Brought His Old Friend's Daughter Home. I Was the Outsider.

An old friend of my father's had entrusted his daughter to our family.

She was outgoing and full of life. I was the quiet one, always studying for another exam.

Dad doted on her as though she were his own daughter. My two older brothers drove her to all the places tre...

I was breathtakingly beautiful.

When I turned eighteen, I became linked to a system that let me share my beauty.

My younger sister, Chloe Bennett, spent an entire night crying under her covers because everyone in her class had a cruel nickname for her. Without telling her, I gave her seventy percent.

By the end of summer, she was the prettiest girl at school. I was someone nobody noticed.

Mom ...

On the morning of the entrance exams, my parents locked me inside the family freezer to keep me from outshining Ethan.
They thought they were saving him from a prophecy.
By the time they realized the prophecy was a lie, I had already frozen to death with my hand still raised against the door.

The night before the gala where my rich family would finally claim me as their real daughter, I sent an email to my future self.
Have Mom and Dad really accepted me?
Does Spencer still hate me?
Julian and I are married by now, right?
A second later, my inbox exploded.
Dozens of photos, one after another, loading faster than I could scroll. Every single one was Julian—my Julian—wrapped around Camil...

I was reborn on the day my baby was murdered, and the first thing I did was send my son away from the Hale estate. When I returned to the party, a black stroller was floating in the pool. Everyone thought the dead child was mine. They told me I could have another baby while they protected the ten-year-old girl who had pushed the stroller in. Then my father arrived with my living son in his arms, a...

When I was seven weeks pregnant, my husband, Jacob, seated his mistress and their secret son at the head table of our anniversary dinner.
In front of everyone, he said, "Ella hasn't given me a child in four years. Why should I keep waiting?" His mistress was already tired of waiting to take my place.
So I gave them what they wanted. I faked my death in the car crash his mistress had planned and wa...

The voice in my head called itself the Favoritism System.
It said I was the false heiress, that the true daughter would come home and ruin me, and that my only chance was to steal everyone’s affection first.
I was ten.
So naturally, I cried and told my entire family.
Grandpa ordered DNA tests. Mom threatened to tear someone’s mouth off. My brother offered to drive me away in his toy truck.
The tes...