666 Book(s) Related to amazon lily one piece

On National College Decision Day, my two childhood best friends announced they were ditching the Ivy League to follow a scheming charity case to a garbage community college.
In my last life, I informed their parents.
It worked. Their futures were saved, but they killed me for it.
"Let go of me!"
Hayes had my wrist in a death grip, dragging me toward the edge. Ezra stood behind him, hands in his pockets.
"If you hadn't interfered, Willow would still be alive."
"Now it's your turn."
Then I was falling from the stadium bleachers.
I opened my eyes. Decision Day again.

The smell of antiseptic, the sharp sting of restraints biting into my flesh, and the pitying look on Silas's face as he stood by my hospital bed.
"Maeve, you're so sick. The baby is just a hallucination."
In my last life, consumed by despair and self-doubt, I threw myself off the roof of the psychiatric hospital.
But now, my eyes snapped open, my hands instinctively flying to protect my stomach.
My baby is still here!
I'm back—exactly one week before my child disappeared.

The stepbrother I grew up with was a golden boy, a star varsity quarterback everyone had high hopes for.
But for a street-level delinquent, he abandoned his Ivy League future.
Desperate to pull his life back on track, I tried to expose his toxic girlfriend.
Yet, he hated me to the bone for it.
For her, he ruthlessly dragged our family into the crossfire of a deadly gang dispute, causing us all to meet a violent, tragic end.
I never expected fate to rewind the clock.
To give me a second chance.

I am the most obedient lover by the side of Liam, the Alpha of the Blackwood Tribe.
I am also the only nameless stray in the entire tribe.
For five years, whenever Liam spent the night with other she-wolves, the next morning I would receive a large check or a deed to a house.
People in the tribe say I am a greedy leech.
That for money, I have thrown away the pride of a werewolf.
Even if Liam kissed another woman right in front of me, I would smile, straighten his collar, and then take the money he gave me.
Yes, I love money very much.
If they knew that this money was enough to buy the territories of three small packs, they would probably be green with envy.
As long as the money is good, betrayal doesn’t hurt that much.
Until today, when Liam brought back a pure-blooded white she-wolf.
He handed me a blank check, saying this would be the last payment he gave me.
My wolf spirit roared inside me.
It’s time for me to take the money, disappear, and return to being the queen I truly am.

After the crash, my husband, Darius, lost his ability to speak. The trauma to his cervical spine left him unable to even lift a finger.
The doctors said his only remaining way to communicate was to nod, or to shake his head.
Sitting by his hospital bed, I finally asked the question that had been eating away at me for three months.
"When the crash happened... were you on your way to see your mistress?"
Darius stared dead at me. Then, slowly, he nodded.

This was Killian’s tenth time bringing a stray werewolf into our bedroom.
I didn’t growl like before, nor did I threaten her.
I picked up the old cloak from the floor and handed it to the girl trembling in the corner.
“Leave through the back door. The patrol just passed.”
The girl glanced at me fearfully, grabbed the cloak, and ran out.
Killian leaned against the headboard.
Bare-chested, a cigar in hand, his expression was full of arrogance.
“She’s just a newly matured stray werewolf. Don’t scare her.”
“Elira, you come from noble blood. You wouldn’t make a fuss about this.”
“Tonight is her first transformation. I need to be with her. I won’t be back.”
I lowered my head, hiding my golden eyes.
What Killian didn’t know was—
that stray girl was carrying the highly contagious and fatal Rotting Sickness.

When the pain started, my mother-in-law called me a monster, then drove off like a madwoman. My doctor slit his own throat in front of me. My husband locked me away "for my safety."
I thought they didn't want my baby. That they were horrified by the child I carried.
But I was wrong.
The thing growing inside me was never my child at all.

I was diagnosed with hemophilia when I was ten years old.
At first, my parents were terrified. They watched me closely, rushed me to the hospital over every bruise, every nosebleed. I was the fragile one—the child who needed saving.

Then years passed.
They got used to it.
They got tired.

By the time my twin sister was graduating and my family was finally breathing again, I was about to turn eighteen.
And that night, while everyone believed I’d be fine like always, I bled to death.

They call it an "alpha team," boasting about our million-dollar AI equipment. I thought I just had terrible luck at work—the scanner bruising my arm, the coffee maker intentionally scalding me. Trapped by a $500,000 resignation penalty, I must survive tonight’s overtime. But in the dark copy room, the shredder is... breathing.

"Knock on this door over the noise one more time, and you're dead!"
Calling the cops was useless, and I was too broke to move.
Driven practically insane, I recklessly tore open the black box from the dark web—the seller promised that if I just followed the instructions, it would "eliminate the noise at the source."
Less than half an hour later, the deafening rager upstairs completely stopped.
Three mornings later, a homicide detective pounded furiously on my door.
"The father and son upstairs are dead."

Since marrying into the Sterling family, I've been pregnant three times. Not one of them survived.

Every time the DNA test report arrived, my mother-in-law would drag me to the clinic for an abortion.

They said the fetus had genetic defects. But I secretly went to an outside hospital for tests, and the report clearly stated everything was normal.

After my third miscarriage, I followed my in-laws to the basement I was forbidden to enter.

I held my breath and pressed my eye to the crack in the door.

In that moment, I finally knew why they had to kill my babies.

Rejection, Moon Goddess, Omega, Alpha King, Alpha Queen, Soulless, Runt.
When Amberle Crest's mate rejects her on her eighteenth birthday, She realizes that living in a pack where the majority would rather use her as a slave than treat her as an equal is not worth the pain. She becomes the notorious wolf, Fire Foot, vowing that everyone would regret how they treated her, as she leaves her pack in the past.

Now a ghost forgotten by those that tormented her, Amberle does whatever it takes to survive as a lone wolf. A fateful day changes her lonely life to one full of happiness and hope--until ghosts from her past call for aid in ridding their pack of the Soulless who threatens all wolf kind.
Faced with new friends, old foes, and the threat of a building army, will Amberle be able to fight the ghosts of her past to cherish the pack she has found or will an old mate claim her before a second chance mate can show her what being treasured by someone is all about?
Rejection Series includes three books, Rejection on the Full Moon (Book 1), Rejecting the Future Moon Goddess (Book 2), and Rejection to the Alpha King's Daughter (Book 3).

Madam, your fetus is perfectly healthy, and all indicators are completely normal," Dr. Helena said with a smile as she looked at the image on the ultrasound machine.
"Really?" Emily slowly sat up on the hospital bed. She glanced down at her slightly swollen belly, gently placed her fingertips over it, and a look of worry crossed her face.
This was her second child. Her first pregnancy had also gone perfectly at every prenatal check-up, yet in the end…
"Everything is stable for now," Dr. Helena comforted her. "Rest assured, what happened last time was just an accident. Take good care of yourself this time, and come to the hospital right away if anything feels wrong."
The moment Emily thought of her first baby, a dull ache welled up in her heart.
It had been a baby boy.
Both of her children with her husband Watson were conceived through IVF.
When the first pregnancy succeeded, she had been overjoyed. She prepared the nursery, bought tiny baby clothes, and even started thinking of names.
But shortly after the baby was born, it passed away.

When I called my husband with trembling hands, clutching my cancer diagnosis, all I heard was his sweet laughter with his young, hot influencer girlfriend. Ten years of marriage, and when I needed him most, he chose betrayal.

In divorce court, I was painted as the "crazy ex-wife" while the entire internet mocked me. Everyone took their side. No one knew I was fighting for my life.

Until the day he finally learned the truth.

I died once.

Spent seventy years as a housewife the first time around. Biggest regret? Never felt my heart race.

Met her in this life, and that's when I learned what being alive actually meant. In this world where assassins pay in gold coins and seek sanctuary at Continental hotels, we became a duo called "Swans," hunting down the man who destroyed her family. Every single day, dancing on a razor's edge.

Two years ago, the explosion killed Raven Hayes right in front of me.

To survive, I married a naive tech heir, slipped into silk dresses and started doing the charity gala circuit, tried to convince myself this was the peace I wanted.

Until that enemy became a High Table member and announced a hundred-million-dollar bounty on me to the world.

I used to be scared. Used to run. Used to ask why it had to be me.

But sitting at my vanity, staring at this stranger's face in the mirror, all done up like some socialite, I suddenly realized none of it mattered anymore.

I'm going to die eventually anyway. Might as well die looking like myself.

He hung up on me while the killer's knife plunged into my body.

Seventeen seconds. That was our final call after seven years of marriage.

He was at the hospital with my "depressed" stepsister, convinced I was just being dramatic again. He didn't even let me finish.

I died that rainy night, taking a secret with me he'll never know.

Three days later, my husband—the city's chief medical examiner—caught a brutal case: female victim, face destroyed by acid.

He worked the autopsy with his usual precision. Methodical. Clinical. Until the facial reconstruction software completed its rendering.

When he recognized my face on that screen, blood exploded from his mouth.

He hit the floor hard.

There are no unmated males in our pack.
Every she-wolf in Hollowfen is promised to someone when she turns eighteen. We just don't get to know who until we walk into the Choosing Hall.
Girls go in wearing white. They come out flushed, shaking, barely able to stand. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them talk about what happens inside.
My sister Thessaly turned eighteen this spring. Gran told her she couldn't attend the Choosing.
She went anyway. She came back on shaking legs, with blood between her thighs and a smile she couldn't wipe off her face.

“Do you, Alex Snow, take Jennifer Walker, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Soon to be husband looks at me with the eyes of a beast, ready to rip me apart at any second as he says tightly “I do”

Although he just vowed to take me as his wife, to hold, love, and cherish, his ‘I do’ vowed something else entirely.

It was an oath to make me suffer horribly at his hands.

As soon as the words “I do” left my mouth I was certain, I just sealed my fate by marrying Alex Snow.

And my fate was crystal clear, death is coming for me sooner rather than later.

In a small town called “Snow”, known in all of Alaska for its huge illegal smuggling business on the border of America and Canada, Alex Snow; the new leader of the Snow clan that controls and dominates the smuggling territory, forces Jennifer Walker into marrying him against her will.

After his father gets murdered at the hands of Jenny’s father, Patrick Walker, the Snow clan vows to take their revenge on the whole Walker bloodline.

But killing the responsible man sends both families into a blood feud as both clans vow to make the other one pay.

The only way to stop that bloodbath from turning into a m******e, and claiming more innocent lives was a peace offering in the form of marriage from both families.

Jennifer’s world turns upside down as she turns out to be the one Alex Snow asked to marry specifically to stop that war.

Her only thought at that moment was “He is going to make my life a living hell”

The town Snow and everything it illegally represents is real inside the world I created in this book. It’s as real as you make it to be, but It doesn’t exist in real life

Blurb:

“Now honey, what was that about earlier?” Mom demands after a beat, her voice even. Controlled. Measured. Like she's always been.

I look at her. At her copperry red hair much like my own, conflicted. And my eyes water.

It's about how I can still feel Grayson's touch on my skin mum. How his tongue has done things to me. Things too unholy to describe.

About how the scent of him—the mere thought of him—makes me heady.

And now, you’re marrying his father?

Grayson's bad news for goddess’ sake!

I want to tell her all that, but I don't.

I Can't.

“You didn't even stop to think about it,” I say instead, not liking the crack in my voice at the end.

“Probably because there was nothing to think about,” mother shrugs, frowning in concern. “What is this really about Ginny?”

Ginny. The five letter syllable that somehow sounds so different—sinfully different—when he says it.

“You've been acting weird ever since I mentioned coming back.. Is there something I should know?” she probes.

And then..

Her face grows pale.


Ours is a story that was never meant to be written.

A broken symphony, A perfect imagery with cracks.

He was my living torment, I was his subject. His prey. His Forbidden fruit.

We weren't meant to love. To feel so deeply. To Burn.

But we did anyways.

And the inferno we created?

Blew out of proportion.

Destroying everything we once thought we knew.

Again, we weren't meant to love,

But our story was a destructive force of nature,

Bound by soul-ties that could not be denied.

The night before our engagement party, my fiancé gifted me a million-dollar yacht—with another woman's name carved on the hull.

Not mine. "Serena"—his first love, the one who got away.

Five years of patience. Five years of sacrifice. And this is what I get?

"Stop overreacting," Austin said without a hint of shame. "She's severely depressed. I'm just trying to comfort her."

Comfort her? What about me?

When Serena tried on what should've been my wedding dress, when Austin demanded I "be the bigger person" yet again—I finally snapped.

I threw the engagement ring. It cracked against his face.

Austin's hand shot up in fury.

The door exploded open.

Julian Cross—New York's most dangerous billionaire—stepped inside, his presence filling the room like a storm.

"You dare lay a hand on my woman?"

I was frozen for 100 years due to illness.
One hundred years later, the whole world was ravaged by strange phenomena, and humanity was huddled together in a few small places to survive.
I was awakened from my slumber by the investigation team. I thought I would be killed by the monster as soon as I woke up, but I found that the monster here was my good brother from college.
Besides him, the eerie owner of the barbecue restaurant, the matchmaking ghost who likes to harm people through blind dates, the S-class monstrous ghost in the cemetery... they are all my old friends...
The world a hundred years from now feels strangely familiar...

I was nine months pregnant, soaking in the tub, when an anonymous email popped up.
The first attachment was my husband’s medical report. [Severe Azoospermia. 100% Sterile.]
I touched my swollen belly. If Arthur was sterile, whose baby was this?
The second attachment was a news article. [Billionaire's Pregnant Wife Drowns in Master Bath.]
The publication date was tomorrow morning. I thought it was a sick prank.
Then, the bathroom door opened. My husband stood there, loosening his tie.
"You look beautiful tonight," he murmured.

I was reborn on the exact day I was supposed to sign the marriage contract with the Alpha Kael.

I didn't hesitate. I crossed out my name and wrote my stepsister's instead. Let her have the bastard. I took my mother's estate back and headed straight to the underground shifter bar.

"Bring me the hottest wolf warriors you've got. All of them," I told the bartender, slapping a wad of cash down.

I was done being the obedient Luna.

On our first wedding anniversary, I walked into my husband's office and found him having sex with my best friend.

He didn't even apologize. Instead, claiming he was disgusted that I hadn't produced an heir in a year of marriage, he threw divorce papers in my face.

Five years later, I returned to New York with my new husband—Cassian Vitiello, the Godfather of the North American underworld.

Vincent ran into me at the docks. He handed me a business card, offering me a job as a nanny for his mistress's son.

What he didn't know was that the woman he was mocking was now the Donna—the woman the entire East Coast underground feared.

Five years ago, my sister vanished the night before her wedding. She left behind a crying newborn in a crib and a mafia heir on the verge of losing control.

And I was forced into her place—the temporary bride, the contract wife, the whispered “replacement” in every gilded hallway.

I thought I only had to survive five years. Five years to earn what I was promised, and then walk away from this city of shadows and blood.

I clawed my way through bullets, politics, and betrayal. I earned respect. I gained power.
And somehow... I tasted a tenderness I was never meant to have.

Now, with only ten days left on our marriage contract, I thought everything was finally under control. I thought freedom and power were within reach.

Until she came back—wrapped in grace, dripping secrets, smiling as if she owned the world she abandoned.

She looked at me and said, “Little sister, give me back my life.”

Six months after our breakup, I ran into my ex-boyfriend, Arlo, at the Beach Club's VIP party.
His new girlfriend, Calliope, tapped her champagne flute to demand everyone's attention.
"Let’s propose a toast to Arlo, who finally crawled out of his pathetic past."
Arlo wrapped his arm around Calliope and threw a mocking glance at my dress.
"The smartest thing I ever did was letting that charity case pay off my fifty-grand car loan."
"Once I got my Varsity jacket, I dumped her for my actual queen."
A collective gasp ripped through the room.
Everyone thought I would storm out in tears, but I just smiled and signaled for the show to go on.
"What exactly are you raising a glass to, Juno?"
I leaned back in my chair and looked at her calmly.
"I’m just celebrating that you guys are having fun on my turf."
"YOUR turf?"

My husband thinks a "tragic surgical accident" left me completely blind. Now, he's moved his mistress right into our house to be my nurse. They openly whisper about my life insurance while preparing my afternoon tea. They think a blind wife is the perfect prey. But are they sure I'm in the dark?

The day after Lucian was titled Duke, he locked down the estate to find the woman who climbed into his bed.
In my first life, I claimed the honor. He grabbed my hand and sneered, "That woman has a scar."
I froze to death in the ice cellar.
In my second life, Martha slashed her own hand and stepped forward. He ripped her collar open. "She has a cross tattoo on her chest. Do you?"
His hounds tore her throat out in the snow.
Now we're in our third life. The Duke just issued a three-day ultimatum, dead certain that the woman is hiding in the Duchess's wing.
Martha and I stared at each other. We're the only two maids serving the Duchess.

Maeve and I dragged a dying animal out of the rain. We thought we were saving a life. Instead, we invited a monster to our door for a blood oath. In my first life, I accepted the oath and died screaming. In the second, Maeve took my place and was skinned alive. This is our third chance.

I was his most obedient blood slave. When he needed strength, I offered my blood; when he was irritable, I endured his temper. Even when he held his new lover and prepared for their wedding, I stayed silent at his feet. He thought I was born to bow, never realizing the poison hidden deep in my veins—the poison meant to end him. And when he bit into my skin for the final time, what he drank wasn’t power but his own doom. As his bloodline collapsed before my eyes, he finally fell to his knees, trembling, begging me for mercy. I only looked at him and smiled. He never understood—I was never his plaything. I was merely waiting for the right moment to take my revenge.

My dad was a highly decorated narcotics detective. Fifteen years ago, they framed him for corruption and claimed he swallowed his own gun. It ruined our family.
But tonight, everything changed. I was digging through his old evidence box when a heavy, battery-less police radio suddenly crackled to life.
"Pumpkin, I'm bringing a turkey home."
"Dad! Don't go to the motel today!"
Right before my eyes, the ink on his autopsy report physically shifted. "Suicide" twisted into "homicide."

My mom ran an exclusive underground fertility clinic. Her dark red serum smelled like rotting blood, yet the rich still lined up with massive checks for her "perfect designer embryos."
I’d watch her lock desperate young surrogates into a soundproof room. A few minutes later, the whole floor would shake.
Strangely, when the girls stumbled back out—looking entirely drained and aged by years—they would weep and kiss my mom’s hands in gratitude.
It never made sense to me.
Until the day I saw a pitch-black mass frantically clawing just beneath a surrogate's flat stomach.
I finally knew what kind of "embryos" my mom was actually planting inside them.

Sophia and I fought over who would wear that emerald ring to change our fate.
In my first life, I claimed the emerald ring, thinking I would become a billionaire heiress.
That was until late at night, when I accidentally opened that underground iron door and he strangled me to death with a piano wire: "Your pathetic wailing isn't her at all."
Given a second chance, I backed away and let Sophia take it.
A few days later, she died in the ice cellar with her tongue severed. Right before she died, she let out a blood-curdling whimper: "A true devil is hiding behind that door!"
Waking up for the third time, we trembled in sheer terror as the ring was offered to us once again.
Just who exactly is the daughter he is looking for?

James Johnson bought me from the black market for five million.
I went from being a mercenary to his bodyguard, and also his plaything to satisfy his desires.
Countless intimate nights gradually changed the nature of our relationship.
Until he risked his life to save me during a gang shootout.
His restrained feelings finally broke free, and he proposed to me.
But today, five years later.
Right after James took control of the Johnson Family, he quickly got engaged to Julia, the daughter of the Smith Family, the biggest arms dealer.
I confronted him, only to overhear his conversation with a friend.
"I told Sophia I'd marry her just to make her give everything for me, even die for me. After all, those brothers fighting me for the inheritance are all crazy."
His friend laughed. "But she's risked her life for you for six years. That's pretty cold."
"Doesn't matter. With her background, she was never fit to be a mafia heir's wife anyway."
I stood outside the door and let out a bitter laugh.
Back in my room, I contacted Marshall Johnson.
"I promised to keep James safe until he became head of the Johnson Family. The mission's complete now. Please give me my freedom as agreed."

After my miscarriage, my psychiatrist husband offered to erase the painful memories to help me forget them.

During the three months I was dumped in a rehab facility, he took our daughter and his cousin on a European vacation.

Now that they're back, he assumes I’ll go right back to being that meticulous, perfect wife.

But I didn't.

He deliberately provokes me, thinking my coldness is just me playing hard to get.

He has no idea that the brainwashing procedure didn't just wash away my pain—it completely severed my love for him.

My name is Elena Ross, and I’m a sex addict. This is the secret I guard with medication. But right now, the blizzard has sealed the road and cut off my escape. In this narrow car, the man sitting beside me is the one forbidden fruit I absolutely cannot touch—Silas Thorne. He’s not just my boss; he’s my ex-boyfriend’s stepfather.

"What is the ultimate favoritism your partner gives you?"
On the third day after the IVF procedure, I came across this trending question on a werewolf forum.
Just as I was about to scroll past, a highly upvoted answer pierced straight through my eyes.
"I'm newly pregnant with the Alpha's cub, so I can answer this question."
"The favoritism is this: even though I’m not his official mate, he lied to the one at home—claiming she’s infertile due to health issues—just so I could conceive."
"He said: 'A human body is like a broken vessel. Only a strong she-wolf like me deserves to carry his cubs.'"
In the photo, the ruby necklace that belonged exclusively to me was hanging around her neck.
Trembling, I finished reading every word.
So this was his idea of a beautiful future—sowing his seeds in his lieutenant's bed.
So the agony of egg retrieval I endured was, in his eyes, nothing but the useless struggle of a broken vessel.
I laughed until tears fell.
Back then, I defied my father and even cut ties with my family just to marry this stray wolf.
"Ella, sooner or later, you’ll come crying back, begging for our forgiveness."
Now, it turns out I really have failed.
I pulled the IV needle from the back of my hand and dialed the number I’d blocked five years ago.
"In three days, I will return to the Hunters' Legion."

A horrific car crash left me paralyzed.
The doctors said I'd never walk again. With no family left, my Aunt Martha and Uncle Thomas took me to their isolated farmhouse.
They cared for me, promising their treatments would help me walk again. After everything I'd been through, I thought I'd finally found safety.
Until today, when the feeling in my legs suddenly came back—but something told me not to tell them.

While I bled to death locked in a storage room, my fiancé Adrian was holding my sister's hand, comforting her.

He hung up on my final call for help, leaving only a voicemail: "If anything happens to Lena, the engagement is off."

My sister once said her birthday wish had always been for me to disappear.

That night, her wish came true early.

But my soul never left.

I watched everyone gather around her, singing happy birthday.

As she blew out the candles, I whispered in her ear:

"Enjoy it while it lasts. This will be your last birthday."

I bled to death on a cold hospital bed, my unborn child gone, all because I took a shift for my coworker.
Heaven granted me a second chance. I opened my eyes, sitting safely at my office desk. Before I could shake off the nightmare, Vanessa clicked her heels toward me.
"Claire, can you cover for me at the investor party tonight? It’s my anniversary with my boyfriend."
In my past life, I agreed, only to be locked in a private room by monsters and tortured to death. This time, I looked her in the eye. "No."
Vanessa was stunned. Because of my refusal, she missed the crucial meeting and was mercilessly fired by the director.
I thought I had escaped hell and saved her life too. But when I got home to my loving husband, I realized the true nightmare had just begun...

"You useless thing."
My husband Cassian stared at me coldly. "I thought marrying a Costa daughter would get me something, but it turns out to be nothing. And your sister, on the contrary, has become the family heir."
With that, he wrenched off our wedding ring and smashed it violently onto the ground.
"I should have chosen her in the first place, not you." Those were his final words to me.
In my previous life, I was an unrecognized illegitimate daughter of a mafia family. I obediently accepted the arranged marriage, bared my heart to my hypocritical relatives, and believed wholeheartedly in my husband's promises.
But in the end, all I got was the iron chains of the dungeon, dying with eternal regret and the unresolved truth behind my mother's tragic death. My mother and I were nothing but stepping stones in their power struggle.
Yet when I opened my eyes again, I was back three weeks after my mother's passing — at the engagement scene that decided my entire fate.
This time, I'll make every single one of them understand: they made the wrong choice!

I am a Kitsune exiled from the East. Every twenty years, I must consume a soul soaked in pure sin to grow a new tail and survive.
With only ten days left to live, I was desperate. Then I met Julian. He gently paid off my crushing debts with a smile so warm, I almost thought I’d met an angel.
Until he leaned in close. Beneath his expensive woodsy cologne, I caught the heavy, undeniable stench of fresh women's blood.
I lowered my head, hiding the sudden thrill in my eyes.
I had finally found my monster.

My mother was dying, and I—the fallen heiress of the Sterling family—had no choice but to ask my husband for the $200,000 stipulated in our prenuptial agreement, less than a week after our wedding.

He transferred the money without a word.

But that night, the way he looked at me changed.

"So the Sterling family is drowning in fraud scandals. I guess greed really does run in the blood."

From that day on, Theodore never looked me in the eye again.

He started openly parading other women at social events, letting everyone mock me as a gold-digger who only married him for money.

Today is my birthday. I'm sitting in the emergency room with unbearable stomach pain.

Meanwhile, Theodore is throwing a party for his new girlfriend.

Clutching the $185 emergency room bill, I call him.

"Theodore, let's get a divorce."

"Here we go again. How much are you trying to extort from me this time?"

For the tenth time, James Smith left me behind because of a call from his female student.
But it was as if I had become a different person—I no longer doubted that there was something ambiguous between James and his student.
Even on our wedding anniversary, when he abandoned me in the remote mountains for Sophia's sake, I bore no resentment.
Eventually, James began to sense something.
"Emily, you seem different," he said.
I shook my head with a smile.
Because I had simply made a different choice from the one in my past life.

Carlisle said that he would marry me when he became the godfather.
Gritting my teeth through the pain, I dug the bullet out of my arm and bandaged the wound out of habit. By the time I finished the whole process, I was already drenched in cold sweat from the agony.
The last candidate had been secretly taken care of by me ten minutes ago.
I returned to the dessert shop and hid the ring I had spent over a month designing inside a strawberry mousse cake.
Carlisle loves the cakes I make by hand the most. Tonight, I’m going to propose to him—I can’t wait for him to marry me anymore.
"Boss, one strawberry mousse cake, please make it quick."
I looked up at the customer who had just walked in and immediately lowered my head, afraid she might recognize me.
It was my stepsister, Karina.
"We’re closed. No cakes today."
Karina pointed at the cake I had just packed. "Isn’t there one right here? I’ll take this one. I’ll pay double."
I was about to refuse when Karina’s phone rang. "Sweetheart, why aren’t you back yet? Our son is getting impatient."
Karina put the money on the counter, grabbed the cake, and walked away. I didn’t stop her.
Because I saw the person on her video call—it was my fiancé, Carlisle.

In his eyes, I had always been "understanding." Understanding enough not to fight, not to make scenes, not to ask for status.

He said we couldn't go public now, but it was for our future.

Only later did I realize that his "future" never included me.

He chose power, chose arranged marriage, chose to keep me hidden. When I finally left, he started having regrets, started saying he loved me.

But by then I understood—he wasn't regretting losing me. He panicked because I was no longer obedient, no longer his.

So I never gave him another chance. I turned and walked away.

But that was only the first step.

I chose to let the truth surface at his moment of greatest triumph, to let him taste what it feels like to lose everything.

There's a heavy iron door at the end of the hall. Anyone who steps inside returns with eyes full of hatred. That’s all it took for the basement to turn my gentle fiancé into a predator and my loyal best friend into an enemy. Now, I'm trapped with a mother who claims the violence is all in my head. I have to open that door.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"The scouts are coming tomorrow, and you want to ditch the regional finals just to take care of her after a botched cosmetic procedure?"

I tipped off the school board to stop him from ruining his life.

Because of me, he won the championship and secured his draft pick. But because he stood her up, his girlfriend dumped him.

Years later, he sat at the top of a billion-dollar sports enterprise, while I was a researcher working for him.

Out of nowhere, he brought a carbon-fiber hockey stick down on my hands, crushing my finger bones to splintered dust

"Maeve, you cold, calculating machine," he spat. "This is your karma."

When I opened my eyes again, the agonizing pain was gone.

I had just been given a second chance.

On Halloween night, a sharp stench of chlorine and cheap booze woke me up.
I opened my eyes to a man grinning at the bedroom door.
It was my husband, David, soaking wet and showing off the liquor he’d vanished hours ago to buy.
I cursed him out, called him a liar, and demanded a divorce. He just kept that idiotic smile.
Then my phone rang. It was his best friend, Mark.
"Claire, David drowned drunk in the pool!"

I caught my husband sleeping with my sister, so I burned it all down.
The fire burned fierce, swallowing that abandoned cabin in the woods, along with my shattered marriage.
With the stench of gasoline still lingering on my fingertips, I thought I had finally buried the man who betrayed me.
Until the next morning, when he walked through the front door without a single scratch.
My mind reeled.
If he was still alive... then who the hell did I burn to a crisp last night?