5726 Book(s) Related to i rejected my alpha as mate

The multi-million-dollar deal I worked my ass off to win back was handed over by my boss to a clueless new hire who could barely even read the material codes. And that same rookie had the nerve to mock me in public, saying I was nothing but his errand girl.
My boss went even further, tore up every rule in the book, and shoved a termination agreement right at me.
I didn't argue. I didn't make a scene. I took the severance and walked away.
Because I knew one thing better than anyone: without me, they wouldn't even make it through the manufacturers' front doors.
Sure enough, just days after I left, the entire supply chain fell apart, and the company's cash flow completely collapsed.
And when they started scrambling in desperation, running all over New York begging investment executives to save them, they walked straight onto my mother's turf.

My flame-red dragon Theodore, the one I'd raised for seven years, had become wrong.
Normally, if I left for more than a day, he'd slam into me the second I walked through the door—tail coiled around my arm, head nuzzling my neck, acting like a hatchling fresh out of the shell.
This time I pushed open the door and Theodore didn't even look at me.
I reached out to touch his scales. He shook my hand off, irritated.
That night I tried to let him coil around my arm to sleep like always. He actually whipped me with his tail, then flew up to the top of the cabinet with pure disgust on his face.
I stared up at that arrogant dragon head perched on the cabinet, something tight and cold coiling in my chest.
Finally, I'd had enough. I pulled the crystal orb from my sleeve.

I snapped photos of pale yellow baby clothes I’d bought at Target, posted them on Instagram captioned “Juno's wardrobe.”
Right after I put my phone away, my mother-in-law Genevieve called and berated me. She claimed I’d lost my mind after our stillbirth, insisted I wasn’t pregnant, and demanded I delete the post.
As soon as we hung up, my water broke.
Six hours later, I woke up worn out on a hospital delivery bed at Devereux Memorial Hospital. No baby cried anywhere.
My husband Elias sat beside me with bloodshot eyes. He pulled a lifelike silicone fake pregnancy belly out and set it on my lap, begging me to accept I wasn’t actually carrying a child. I screamed that I’d given birth and demanded to know where my baby Juno was.
Dr. Beckett and a team of doctors walked in, diagnosing me with pseudocyesis—phantom pregnancy. They said I’d only worn a silicone pad to fake a belly. My parents stood nearby, staring at me with shameful pity.
They forced me onto a psychiatric ambulance. I was locked in a windowless ward, drugged nonstop, tormented by the loss of my daughter, until every ounce of my will faded away...

My son Emery scored a perfect SAT and got early admission to MIT Physics. Eighteen years old. His future was limitless.

My billionaire husband Reid's assistant—his mistress in everything but name—suggested Emery attend some garbage local business school instead. Inherit the empire. Fall in line.

Emery said no. Reid exploded.

He locked my son in the lumber yard and ordered him to split five tons of oak. "No water until he's done. That'll teach him respect."

The sun was brutal. My son's asthma attacked. I knelt before Reid's mistress and begged for his inhaler while Reid crushed my right hand—my surgeon's hand.

I got the inhaler and ran back as fast as I could.

But I was too late. My son was already dead.

My husband is an angel on an earthly trial. Every time he feels something for me, he endures divine punishment — like his chest is being ripped open from the inside.

But he told me he'd take that pain gladly, as long as it was for me.

He left a mark on my collarbone. Activate it when you're in danger, he said, and I'll rip through anything to get to you.

I believed him.

Then came a mission where I got grabbed by an armed fugitive gang and held in an abandoned warehouse for three straight days of torture and abuse.

No water. No sleep. The tendons in my hands and feet cut one by one.

Half-dead, I used the last of my strength to activate the mark.

And I heard him talking to his angel companion.

"Beckett, why did you give those people Demi's location? You know what they'll do to her."

He didn't even flinch. "She'll be fine. She's the Chosen One — she can't die. They were going after Macie. I didn't have a choice. Once this mission's over, I can petition to stay on earth. I'll make it up to Demi. She gets it."

So that's the price of being understanding. Dying inside a trap he built for me.

My heart just shatters. And I stop fighting.

In my last life, my younger brother made a contract with an S-rank ghost, but it turned out to be completely useless, while I contracted a B-rank ghost, the Starving Ghost, which could not only devour monsters but also consume other awakened humans' ghost servants to evolve.
Under my protection, my family went from scavenging for scraps to living in a luxury mansion inside the government safe zone.
But on the eve of a ghost tide attack, I was prepared to stay behind and defend the base while sending my parents, my sister, and my younger brother away first.
Instead, they killed me, all to take my Starving Ghost so they could have an easier time surviving on the road.
After I died, they didn't even have time to tame the Starving Ghost before it devoured every one of them.
When I opened my eyes again, I had somehow returned to the day we formed our ghost contracts, and this time, my younger brother chose the Starving Ghost.

On the eve of the apocalypse, magical beasts appeared in our world.
They possessed extraordinary abilities, and humans could master these powers by forming a contract with them.
In my previous life, my adopted brother chose a top-tier Wolf King pup.
But shortly after, the extreme heat apocalypse descended. The low-tier water snake I had contracted possessed the ability to conjure water and lower temperatures, inadvertently making me the envy of everyone.
Meanwhile, my brother’s Wolf King was universally despised for its excruciatingly slow growth and lack of immediate combat power.

Now, I have been reborn to the very day we chose our contracted beasts.
This time, my brother rushed ahead and snatched the water snake.
I know why.
He has been reborn, too.
But this apocalypse is not nearly as simple as he thinks!

Everyone says I married an iceberg.

Three years of contract marriage. He's never touched me once.

On our wedding night, I tried to move into his bedroom. He refused. I stood in front of him wearing lingerie. He just said, calm as ever, "You should get some rest."

I'm a healthy woman with a normal sex drive. Every day I'm burning up with my own desire.

I thought he didn't love me. So for both our sakes, I signed the divorce papers. Today, I'm telling him.

Then that afternoon, I suddenly heard his thoughts.

When I walked up to him in just a towel, he looked calm, staring at his laptop. But his mind was screaming: Holy shit. She's not wearing anything under that. Look at that skin. Her tits are huge. I can't take this anymore... no, I'll scare her. Fuck. I'm hard again.

Turns out under the ice, there's a volcano that's been buried for just as long.

I slip the divorce papers back into hiding and pour him a coffee.

New plan: make that volcano blow.

The second the avalanche came down, I called my mate. Karl. Captain of the Pack Guard's First Squad.

He dug me out, carried me onto the helicopter, and told the pilot to take off before the second rescue team even got there.

He didn't know Delilah was buried in the same slide. The girl he'd never gotten over.

By the time they reached her, she'd been under the snow for three hours in twenty below.

Karl stood in the morgue all night.

He came back the next day and just gave me a small smile. "It wasn't your fault. You were carrying our pup. Of course you came first."

For a month after that, he was gentler than he'd ever been. He cleared his schedule to take me to every checkup. Cooked for me himself. Put the crib together, the dresser too. Every single thing in the nursery lined up exactly right.

I thought that avalanche had finally buried Delilah. That it had given him back to me.

Until the day I went into labor.

He sent every doctor and nurse out of the delivery room. There was a silver scalpel in his hand.

The moment he cut me open, I saw the red in his eyes.

Our pup was still crying, small and weak, and he never even looked. He threw us both into the incinerator.

"If it weren't for you, Delilah would still be alive. Your life for hers."

Then I opened my eyes, and I was back at the moment the avalanche hit.

I was once the daughter of the Alpha of Dawn Pack.
After my parents were killed and I was kicked out of the Pack, I was left with nothing.
I was brought back to William’s Pack and became the one he treasured in the palm of his hand.
When the car accident happened, he shielded me with his body, saying he couldn’t live without me.

But after I was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, all I wanted was to quietly leave and not burden him.
However, after I tried to escape from the wedding, he captured me and imprisoned me.
Refusing to eat and losing weight, it was just the toll of my illness.
But he thought I was intentionally torturing him.

When his "resurrected" ex-wife, Jessica, returned,
At the celebration banquet, I merely gagged once while eating.
He flipped the table, shoved garbage into my mouth, and screamed for me to die.
I hid in the bathroom, wrapped in his clothes, vomiting blood, and no medicine could stop the cold shivers.
For the first time, I called him and begged him to let me go.
But all I received was his scolding and the merciless hang-up.

In her past life, Arabella Oberon was the lowest-ranking member of the Oberon family.

She genuinely took in Regina, the butler's daughter, only to be constantly manipulated by this cunning and manipulative woman.

Regina gradually stole the love from her three brothers.

Arabella was forced to give Regina blood transfusions time and again, her weight plummeting to a mere eighty-eight pounds.

Ultimately, under the relentless pressure from her brothers, she jumped out of a window in despair and died. Her last words were,

"What about Regina's blood transfusions?"

When she opened her eyes again, Arabella found herself reborn three years earlier—the very day Regina appeared at her doorstep crying, begging for help.

Looking at the pitiful, tearful girl before her, Arabella smiled.

No more soft-heartedness.

No more groveling.

Instead, she "kindly" arranged for Regina to move into the servants' quarters, to earn her own living through honest labor.

Faced with her brothers who sided with her, she no longer bothered to please them.

And towards her former fiancé, Theodore, whom she had once fawned over, she remained cold, distant, and indifferent.

Moreover, in this life, they would discover that her identity was far more than just the eldest daughter of the Oberon family.

Alex has never known peace. Between a sick younger brother, parents whose love curdled into daily war, and a cheating ex who turned violent, she learned early that survival means never trusting too deeply and never hoping too much.
When one night of terror drives her into the path of three dangerous men who look like sin sculpted in flesh, her world shifts in ways she never could have imagined.
Reed, Rhett, and Rhys.
Three brothers with eyes like night and a power that hums in the air around them. They rule Denver's underground, their names whispered with equal parts reverence and fear.
Until Alex collides with their world.
What should have ended in disaster becomes something far worse. When her family is forced to relocate for her grandfather's funeral, Alex uncovers the unthinkable truth. The same three men who saved her, the ones who etched fear and forbidden desire into her mind, are her step-uncles.
Now she is trapped inside their mansion, surrounded by luxury that feels more like a cage than a refuge. The house is thick with tension. Reed's gaze is sharp and challenging. Rhys's words brush too close to danger. Rhett's quiet attention carries a weight she does not want to examine too closely.
They are older, powerful, and each of them carries a darkness that draws her in despite everything she knows she should resist.
Beneath the cold marble walls and glittering wealth lie secrets her father refuses to explain. Secrets about why he left this family years ago and what kind of empire his half-brothers truly built.
The Alcatraz brothers are not just men. They are predators in tailored suits, bound by blood and sin, ruling the underworld and loyal only to each other.

"What do you think I want to do Amelia?" Mr handsome asked as he brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, he placed his lips just below it as he sucked on it.
"Nngh don't do that" Amelia practically moaned as Mr handsome's tongue swirled on her sensitive spot, far too urgently. Amelia forced her hand out of his grip as she pushed his chest gently.
Mr handsome pulled out a red velvet box from his pocket, Amelia stared at it skeptically. "What is that?" She asked as she looked up at it.
Mr handsome thought she knew what it was but sadly she didn't.
"It's a wedding ring, Amelia. I'm agreeing to that tempting proposal of yours and I'll have my lawyer draft out the agreement," Mr handsome said as he stood up from the bed, standing in front of her as he put on a sexy smirk.


On her wedding day, Amelia’s world shatters when she catches her fiancé, Diego, betraying her with her best friend, Viola. Devastated, she flees, only to be involved in a car accident—yet a mysterious man saves her.
That man is Colton—Diego’s uncle—who, coincidentally, needs a wife for his own reasons. Seeing an opportunity for revenge, she proposes a deal: she’ll pose as Colton’s fiancée and take down Diego and Viola.
As their scheme unfolds, Amelia and Colton find themselves drawn to each other in ways they never expected. But their growing feelings are tangled in deception, old wounds, and unresolved secrets. When Amelia is poisoned and barely survives, Colton vows to uncover the truth and protect her at all costs.
Can their love survive the weight of revenge, or will the truth tear them apart?

"Fuck, you're so tight for me," Ryder growled against my ear, his hips slamming forward in a deep, punishing thrust that made my back arch off the bed.

I gasped, nails digging into his shoulders as he filled me completely, stretching me. "Harder... please..."
He pinned my wrists above my head with one large hand, the other gripping my hip hard enough to bruise. "You want it rough, baby? Then beg for it properly."

My body trembled under him, slick and desperate. The words spilled out before I could stop them. "Please... Daddy... fuck me harder."

A dark, satisfied rumble vibrated through his chest. He leaned down, teeth grazing my neck, voice low and filthy. "Good girl. Come all over Daddy's cock. Show me how much you need this.”


On my wedding day, I caught my fiancé Dylan Voss and my step-sister Helene fucking each other in a room.

Heartbroken and humiliated, I walked away from the altar. That's when Ryder Hawthorne—Dylan's powerful, ruthless stepfather—found me. He carried me to his penthouse, and in a haze of rage and need, I seduced him. We fucked like it was war: rough, and desperate. When Dylan walked in and saw me riding his stepdad—he felt betrayed and stormed out. I felt satisfied and vindicated. It was supposed to be one night. We were never supposed to see each other again.

Until I desperately took a job at Hawthorne Prosperity Group to save my dying grandmother…and discovered Ryder was my new boss. One rough, forbidden encounter in his office, and he offered me to be his personal slut, in return he'd pay Gran's bills. I had no choice and accepted.

Payback became obsession. My ex wants me back, but Ryder refuses to let go. Now I’m caught between revenge and surrender.

When Iris went to prison for her boyfriend, she discovered that he was about to marry Alpha's daughter.
It turned out that he had been using her all along and then abandoned her...
Iris fell into despair, but unexpectedly, she crossed paths with Marcus, Alpha's son and her former patient.
She became her ex's brother-in-law's wedding companion?! The most notorious playboy in the Pack?

Riley
New name, new look, new life. I've been careful to keep my past at bay. The last thing I needed was the stranger with those calm discerning eyes to cross my path. I must avoid him at all costs, even if he haunts my dreams and sends waves of heat across my skin. My focus is survival, not lust. Not even if he ignited a longing I'd never thought possible.

Draven
A mission. Find the missing girls and bring the perpetrator to justice. The retributive kind. I've grown used to the shadows but I am drawn to her light. Moth to a flame, the only way to quell my curiosity is to satiate it. But not too much. Not completely.

TEASER:
You want me, don’t you?” A simple question that warranted a simple answer.
“Should I have had you checked for a head injury?” he scoffed, a swift blow that knocked the wind out of my lungs and I realised I had been holding my breath. My lips parted, and my chest heaved, working overtime to replenish my body’s oxygen from those few moments of starvation.
Steeling my spine, I stepped forward, invading his space, oblivious to the eyes that were thrown our way. Or was I imagining that? Draven didn’t budge, a perfectly shaped brow elevated as he considered my movement with little interest. There wasn’t a single flicker of emotion to cross his features, not even that Godforsaken misleading smile made an appearance.
“Then you’ve no reason to threaten any man I may find interesting.” I breathed the words slowly, erotically.

"There is no us. There hasn't been for six years."
"You dropped divorce papers at my feet, Aidan. In front of cameras and everyone who mattered. Your mistress called me trash, and you stood there and said nothing."
"He is not yours, Aidan. He has a father. If I had been pregnant with your child back then, I would have gotten rid of it. You don't deserve anything from me."
Six years ago, Evelyn believed she had the perfect marriage.
On the night Aidan Smith celebrated his greatest achievement, she was ready to reveal the happiest news of her life. She was pregnant with his child.
Instead, she was publicly humiliated.
Aidan believed a cruel lie and chose his mistress over the wife who had loved him for years. In front of cameras and high society, he ended their marriage without knowing he was leaving behind a child who would change everything.
Heartbroken, Evelyn disappeared and started over.
Six years later, she returns as Evelyn Cole, a world renowned fashion designer and billionaire CEO. She built an empire, raised her son alone, and became the woman no one can look down on anymore.
Then fate brings her back into Aidan's life.
When the truth finally comes out, Aidan realizes the woman he abandoned was the greatest treasure he ever lost.
He wants his ex wife back.
But Evelyn Cole no longer belongs to him. And this time... he will be the one begging for her love.

Catherina Hanshaw Dalton has spent six years believing she lived a fairytale, married to billionaire Xavier Dalton, cherished by him, and building a life rooted in devotion, even amid one heartbreak she cannot control: their inability to have a child. Though Xavier assures her she is enough, Catherine senses his quiet disappointment, a wound deepened by the venomous hostility of his mother, Lydia Dalton. Lydia never misses a chance to insult Catherine’s infertility, idolize Xavier’s sister Mia and her children, or imply Xavier married beneath his status. Catherine endures it all, clinging to the one constant comfort, Xavier always defends her. Or so she believes.
This Christmas, however, Catherine’s dread of another humiliating Dalton family gathering turns into confusion. Lydia is gracious….kind, even. The manor is full of relatives, business partners, and esteemed guests, including Hunter Powell, Xavier’s ruthless business rival. The brief moment when Cathy’s eyes meet Hunter unsettles her, but nothing prepares her for Lydia’s “special Christmas gift.”
During the toast, Lydia presents Caroline Turner…a beautiful young woman who is allegedly four months pregnant through surrogacy…with Xavier’s child.

I was unwanted, unloved wolfless Luna,
When the world turned against me, my fated mate Damian included. I lost everything that used to matter.
But I gained something Unfathomable—my Lycan wolf, the last of my kind. Now I want more, the touch of another man that actually deserves me even when my mate refused breaking our mate bond.
Would I be granted this love?
What fate lies ahead for the trio of us?

“Kaite, I hope you can give Lily and me your blessing.”

Terry held another girl’s hand in front of everyone, while I stood among the crowd like a complete stranger.

Three years ago, I was the one who stayed by his side when he was an unknown tennis player. I analyzed his matches, studied his opponents, and supported him through every setback.

I thought we would reach the top of the tennis world together.

But I never imagined that he would deny our past at his celebration party, turning me into everyone’s joke.

When both my love and my dream were taken away, I thought my life had reached its lowest point.

Until the man who once stood at the top of the tennis world appeared.

Percy—a tennis prodigy whose career was destroyed by rumors and betrayal.

He saw the truth hidden behind the numbers. He saw my hard work. He saw my worth.

When everyone wanted me gone from the tennis team, he was the one who stood beside me and said:

“Kaite, you don’t have to be afraid.”

To prove myself, I decided to stay.

I will show everyone that I am not just someone standing behind another person. I am a talented data analyst with my own place in the world of tennis.

And Percy is no longer the forgotten genius everyone abandoned.

But I don’t know why this man, who I just met, knows so much about me…

Tracy's life shatters the day her sister asks her to deliver a simple package.She never reaches her destination.Instead, she wakes up bound inside a van with ten other terrified women, on her way to be sold. But before she was taken, Tracy had a dream she can't forget. As her dying mother faded into darkness, she whispered one chilling warning:Never trust your father.Sold into the household of one of the country's most powerful billionaire families, Tracy is forced to work as a maid inside a mansion where every smile hides an agenda and every locked door conceals another secret. The family who bought her seems to know far more about her than they should—and the closer she gets to the truth, the more she realizes her kidnapping was never random.Caught between two enigmatic billionaire brothers, dangerous family secrets, and a conspiracy that reaches back to her mother's death, Tracy must uncover who betrayed her before she becomes the next victim.Because someone has been waiting for her all along.And if her mother's final warning is true, the most dangerous person in Tracy's life isn't inside the mansion...It's the man she's called Father her entire life.

He wasn’t searching for love.

He wasn’t ready for him.

But some things—like family, and falling—happen when you least expect them.

When Ezra Anderson's sister dies, he inherits three young children and a crumbling rural property he's nowhere near prepared for. Overwhelmed, heartbroken, and freshly dumped, Ezra turns to the one person he shouldn't: Sebastian Brown—the gentle, steady Omega child psychologist he once shared one reckless night with... and never dared to call back.

Sebastian offers a safe harbor. Routine. Warm hands and a softer kind of strength Ezra didn’t know he craved.

What starts as survival—two men building a life for three grieving kids—soon strains under the weight of something deeper. The Omega in Sebastian draws Ezra like gravity, making every glance burn and every touch linger. The lines between family and something more blur until Ezra can no longer pretend.

One night becomes two. Secrets slip into routines. And somewhere between sneaking into beds at night and morning coffee, Ezra faces the one truth he swore he'd never have to:

He might not be as straight, or as strong, as he thought.

As his Alpha instincts pull him closer to Sebastian’s Omega warmth, the world outside keeps pressing in. Desire stops hiding. And when the outside world comes knocking, Ezra is forced to choose:

Keep pretending... or hold on to the only thing that feels like home.

SNEAK PEEK:

“I’m not in love with you. I just… don’t know how to breathe when you’re not there.” - Ezra

“I’m not gay. I’m just yours.” - Ezra

“You keep saying you’re not mine… but you keep choosing me.” - Sebastian

“You’re allowed to love me, you know.” - Sebastian

NB: 18+ (Tissues highly recommended.)

In the delivery room, several nurses pinned me down on the operating table.

They were going to forcibly take my eight-month-old baby out of me.

The pain was tearing me apart. I locked my eyes on my husband Xavier Davis, who was standing to the side, and screamed at him in a hoarse voice.

"You animal! That's your child too. How can you do this to him..."

Xavier stared at me, his face completely blank. He didn't say a single word.

"Hurry up! Mia needs the cord blood!"

Julia, standing next to Xavier, snapped impatiently at the doctor.

She was Xavier's stepmother, only two years older than him. Her husband had died not long after she got pregnant, and Xavier had been taking care of her ever since.

Recently, Julia's one-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. She needed a newborn's cord blood for a transplant, so she set her sights on my baby.

And Xavier agreed to it. That was when I found out the two of them had been sleeping together for a long time.

Julia had nearly bled to death giving birth to their daughter, and lost any chance of having another child.

"What's going on? Her water already broke. Why isn't the baby coming?" The doctor was sweating with anxiety.

Julia picked up a pair of scissors and handed them to the doctor, her voice completely casual.

"Just cut open her uterus. Then the baby comes out."

My eyes went wide with shock. I shook my head desperately. "No. Please, no..."

As a housewife, I never forgot a single milestone: every wedding anniversary, my husband’s 7th career anniversary, and the birthdays of my husband and daughter. Yet, my own birthday was always ignored. Both my husband and daughter only cared about that outsider woman. Finally, one day, I chose to walk away and revive my vintage shop business. Now... they are the ones filled with regret.

My name is Riley Harper, a girl everyone at school bullies at school because I'm chubby and too quiet. They laugh and call me names in the halls, post mean snaps about me like it's nothing.

And my worst enemy? Easton Caldwell the star quarterback of our school who walks around like a bad boy but has a heart of ice. He used to bully me... until his little sister needed a babysitter, and guess who got the job? Me. Now I live in his fancy house, eat at his table, and see the real him every single day.

He hates me. Or at least, that's what he says. Because he's still in love with his ex-cheerleader girlfriend Cass and wants her to take him back, he helps her spread lies about me and makes my life a living hell.

But living under the same roof changes everything. Late nights encounter when his little sister falls asleep between us. Accidental touches in the kitchen. The more time we spend together, the more his cold stares turn warm... protective and something dangerous.

I started standing up for myself both at school and home. I stop hiding in hoodies. I shine in ways no one expected. And just when Easton finally admits he can't stop thinking about me, someone else from his world steps in—someone who used to bully me too, but now looks at me differently. Like he wants me.
But the biggest secret? The boy who once made my life miserable is now so in love with me that he might break his own heart to protect mine.

His fingers traced down my side, slow and teasing, until he reached my thigh, he gripped it hard and lifted it higher around his waist, the change in angle had me gasping as I felt the hard nudge of his very hard and well sized shaft.
"You're sensitive, " he murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction.
I wanted to give a reply, show him I was still in control but damn it, he moved and he pushed that little monster inside me with deliberate, frustrating slowness and it was like the room tilted.
"Oh my……"

The day Emilia lost everything, she met a mysterious man who she ended up having a passionate night with, but it only left her longing for more.
Little did she know, her forced wedding was about to bring them together again.
But this time, as brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Torn between duty and desire, Emilia must decide: resist the attraction or give in to her heart's desire.

In my previous life, the apocalypse struck.
I fought desperately to protect the shelter, but she, overflowing with compassion, opened the door and let in infected people, causing the defenses to collapse completely and my only sister to die tragically.
Afterwards, she showed no remorse, instead turning around and currying favor with a warlord, enjoying privileges at the expense of her comrades. And I, in this betrayal, was devoured alive by a horde of zombies.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back three days before the tragedy.
Watching her once again attempt to morally blackmail everyone, and preparing to open that deadly door to demonstrate her "kindness," I threw her into the darkness.

“You Killed my father and brought down his empire, cheated on me with my best friend and humiliated me, now watch as I do the same to you!”

The infamous Mafia Mistress.

After a long time of trying to discover the identity of the mafia mistress everyone in Palermo had gossiped about, Giovanni Moretti, the mafia Don was shocked to find his ex wife standing before him.

And she was spilling threats!

Now Giovanni needed not only to reclaim the new version of Maya he had found but also the hidden heir he discovered he had.

His return is fueled by a single desire: to reclaim Maya and his son, Dante, as his own.

Maya had found solace in the hands of Carlo, a rival Mafia boss who vowed to give her the revenge she so badly wanted. And soon it's not just about revenge but about a struggle to love and to be loved.

Caught between her duty to Carlo and the ghost of her past, Maya must now confront a love triangle that could either solidify her power or tear her world apart. As spies infiltrate, and enemies close in, Maya must decide whether to seek revenge or redemption. Will her burning desire to destroy Giovanni cost her everything she’s fought for, or will it be the key to finally setting herself free?

I thought ten years of childhood sweethearts could weather any storm.

Until that night when Charles rushed out after her call, leaving me alone in bed with his child growing inside me, not knowing how to tell him.

Seraphina Blackwood, tech dynasty heiress, threatened Charles with her father's billion-dollar empire to marry her. And me? Just an orphan girl who seemed to mean nothing in Silicon Valley's power games.

When I watched him remove our wedding ring, when I saw their sweet photos at the hospital, when I lay bleeding on the floor and he chose her... I finally understood that maybe love really can't survive against money.

But what I didn't know was that while I started my new life in Switzerland, there was a man secretly protecting me with his kidney, his heart, his everything...

Until his assistant appeared at my little bakery, desperation in his eyes: "Ms. Thorne, please, you have to save him!"

During the Yearbook photoshoot, the photographer smiled and gestured for the couples to move closer together.
But Daniel pressed his hand against my shoulder and pushed me straight to the edge of the group, then turned and pulled Harper to his side.
"Harper and I are this year's Valedictorian and Salutatorian. It makes sense for us to stand together—it'll look better for the Yearbook spread."
This wasn't the first time he'd pushed me away.
When I brought him my AP Calculus mistakes, he barely glanced at them before saying my foundation was too weak—don't waste his time.
But when Harper, ranked second in our class, brought him basic algebra questions and played dumb, he didn't notice a thing.
He'd even FaceTime with her until two in the morning, patiently breaking down every single step.
When I wanted to study with him at the library, he'd frown and say I was breaking his focus.
But when Harper dropped just two points on a quiz, he'd skip track practice entirely to take her to the beach and cheer her up.
Right before the photographer pressed the shutter, he couldn't help teasing, "You two are a couple, right? You look like prom king and queen material!"
Daniel looked at Harper, his smile proud and tender. "We're always on the same wavelength."
Harper blushed and ducked her head as the guys from the team whistled and hollered around them.
I stood outside the noise, gripping my phone so hard my knuckles went white. The camera app I'd opened hours ago had already timed out.
The dark screen reflected the dress I'd tried on for hours last night, and the curls I'd ironed over and over again.
God, how stupid of me.
The spot beside him was never meant for me.
And now? I don't want it anymore.

In my previous life, I was cruelly exploited by my wicked stepmother.
Not only was I drained of my military discharge money, but I was also driven into a subterranean warehouse that could collapse at any moment.
In darkness and despair, I was frozen to death by a cold wave that dropped surface temperatures to minus 60 degrees.
The moment I opened my eyes again, I had reincarnated back to three days before the outbreak of the cataclysm!
Staring at my stepmother's face, which was filled with greed and harshness, I wasted no words, threw on my heavy coat, and marched straight toward the underground warehouse.
For I knew that with sufficient supplies and energy, this nuclear-grade subterranean warehouse would become the ark of the apocalypse!

Introduction: Three years ago, to pay for my sister's medical treatment, I willingly took on the role of a servant to the wealthy heiress Daisy, becoming a smuggling criminal and struggling to survive amidst humiliation. Daisy's family, with their cruel hearts, took advantage of the impending apocalyptic cold wave to murder both my sister and me. Reborn, I am determined to rewrite our fate. When hunters who revel in harming unarmed civilians besiege our shelter, I raise my gun—in this apocalyptic cold wave, anyone who dares to harm my sister will die!

Three years since I married into the Hawthorne family, I had already lost two children.
And the one who decided whether my babies lived or died wasn't a doctor—it was a potted plant in the manor's living room: the Crimson Orchid.
In this family, if the petals withered and reeked after drinking the pregnancy blood, it was an unbreakable rule: the child had to go.
The first two times, all I could do was lose my children in despair under the anesthetic mask at some underground clinic.
To save my third pregnancy, I secretly went to a top medical center out of state for an amniocentesis.
The diagnosis, there in black and white, proved it: my baby was perfectly healthy and carried the purest family bloodline.
I thought I was safe this time. But when my finger blood dripped into the black soil again, the orchid once more oozed foul-smelling black water.
My in-laws crushed my medical report underfoot without mercy and had their people drag me toward the operating table.
I couldn't understand it: the scientific evidence clearly confirmed my child was healthy and pure-blooded.
Why did they insist on trusting a mutated, stinking flower and killing their own grandchildren over and over again?

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.

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.

At the engagement party, Julian tore up our agreement on the spot, selling me for a single dollar to Callum, a man rumored to be a bloodthirsty, crippled psychopath.

Our mutual friend frowned.

"Are you out of your mind? Sylvia stayed by your side through your hardest three years, and you're really going to send her off to be tortured by a freak like Callum?"

Julian casually swirled the whiskey in his glass.

"It's just a little punishment. Rosie is carrying my child and needs a title, but Sylvia is too damn proud. Not only did she refuse to step down, but she also upset Rosie and affected her pregnancy."

"Callum is a twisted cripple. Give it three hours, and she'll break down completely. By then, she'll obediently accept Rosie's existence and even willingly stay as my hidden mistress."

The friend looked at my retreating back and couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you afraid you'll push her too far, that she'd rather stay with that psycho than come back to you?"

Julian let out a light scoff.

"Absolutely impossible. She loves me so much she'd give her life for me. Even if she takes a trip to hell, she'll only beg me to be her savior."

I picked up that one-dollar coin from the floor, without a single tear or tantrum.

Later, Julian broke into Callum's estate like a madman, begging me to go back with him.

But the disabled man from the rumors simply stood up, pulled me securely behind him, and sneered, "My wife. Is she someone you are even fit to touch?"

"Help! Somebody help me! Julian is trying to kill my baby!" I scream at the top of my lungs, bursting into my gender reveal party.

Just minutes ago, Julian was my perfect, doting husband. Then he opens my unborn baby's genetic screening report. The unadulterated ferocity and revulsion simmering in his eyes makes my entire body shake. He grips my arm, demanding I terminate the pregnancy.

I already died once because of that piece of paper. In my past life, they dragged me to a freezing lab, pumped me full of drugs, and murdered my child before locking me in an asylum.

This time, I hide behind the guests. But my parents storm in. After seeing the report, instead of saving me, Dad kicks me squarely in the stomach.

"You shameless little whore," he spits.

They are about to drag me out the back door when two police officers step through the glass doors. The cop hands me the confiscated report.

I look down at the printed words... and finally understand.

My brother was jealous after I won a $50 million lottery jackpot, so he tricked me into believing an extreme ice-age apocalypse was coming.
Because I trusted him, I spent every last dollar my parents and I had—fortifying the house and stockpiling supplies.
Two weeks later, he told me that there was no coming apocalypse. It had all been a lie.
Just when I was drowning in despair, hail started falling in the middle of summer.
The deep freeze apocalypse had really begun.

I've been able to see clocks above people's heads since the day I was born. As long as the hands keep moving, the bond between us is still alive.

Once the hands spin backward and stop at zero, that bond is finished.

When I was seven, the clock over my best friend's head just stopped one day. She drowned in the reservoir the next morning.

When I was fifteen, my grandfather's clock started ticking backward, slower and slower, until it stopped completely. He died peacefully in his sleep that same night.

When I was eighteen, my father, a drunk who lied about everything, slammed the door on his way out. I watched his clock vanish completely and knew right then he was never coming back.

Ever since, clocks scare me. I'm always afraid of watching someone I love get taken away from me.

So I keep my head down, holding on tight to the quiet, stable life I've fought so hard for.

Then tonight, I watch the clock above Marcus Hargrove's head start spinning backward.

What scares me even more is Willow's clock doing the same thing.

While I'm still trying to figure out why, the storm hits that night. He walks out on his daughter while she's burning up with fever and having convulsions, and runs straight to another woman.

His clock jumps back another notch.

"I gave Julian Sterling everything: my love, my loyalty, and the child I carried in my womb. In return, he watched my best friend push me down a flight of stairs and did nothing as I lost my baby.

Now, my brother is behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, and my husband is demanding I sign a lie to protect the woman who shattered my life. He thinks I’m a broken bird with clipped wings. He thinks I have nowhere left to turn.
He’s wrong.

Julian forgot one thing about the woman he married.

I’ve called my father. I’ve set the clock. I have seven days to play the grieving wife before I strip Julian of his fortune, his name, and his freedom.

The countdown to his ruin starts now.

Sofia married into a brutal mafia clan, trapped in a hollow marriage to distant crime lord Edward. For three years, she's fought a shameful, burning craving for his eighteen-year-old son Ryan—a brooding werewolf heir with golden beast eyes and primal hunger simmering beneath his quiet coldness.
When a risky highway escape forces her onto Ryan's lap, repressed longing erupts into forbidden friction.
Hidden from Edward's line of sight, Ryan marks her, staking primal claim to the woman who should only be his stepmother.
Torn between crippling guilt and addictive obsession, Sofia surrenders to his feral passion.
Until one day, the door swung open...
The taboo stepmother-stepson forbidden love was exposed.

Dad was in critical condition and had just been wheeled into the operating room.
My husband—also Dad’s attending surgeon—was nowhere to be found.
I stood in the corridor in my pajamas until past midnight, hands shaking as I kept calling Jason.
When the call finally connected, a sweet, girlish voice spilled through the speaker:
"I’m watching the Eiffel Tower lights with Jason!"
A male voice followed, impatient and familiar—Jason’s:
"Is it her again? Ava, tell her to stop calling. The lights are about to go out. Can she stop making a scene?"
A chill sliced through me. Before I could speak, the line went dead.