684 Book(s) Related to why did arnav gupta set himself on fire

My dad made me a smoothie every morning for six months. I thought it was love.
It was a muscle relaxant.
He'd been slipping just enough into my drink to make my fingers tremble at full draw — just enough to cost me first place at every major competition. Not enough to kill me. Just enough to let Laurel beat me.
Laurel. His mistress's daughter. The girl he bought custom diamond jewelry while giving me clearance-rack gear for my birthday. The girl he wanted to drop into my family, my home, and my spot on the podium.
I found the proof. Stopped drinking his smoothies. Clawed my way back to number one.
Then, two days before the National Youth Archery Trials — the one competition that decides everything — he picked up a steel rod and swung it at my right arm.
My drawing arm.
The bone cracked. Doctors said three months minimum. My coach couldn't look me in the eye. Every scout, every scholarship, every dream I'd bled for over three years — gone in one swing from the man who was supposed to protect me.
Trials start tomorrow morning. And I can't hold a bow.

Every time the clock hits 11:10 PM, I am brutally slaughtered in my apartment. And every time, I gasp awake ten minutes earlier to fight for my life. The deadbolts are secure. The windows are sealed. Outside my door, nothing but silence. Yet, the killer strikes precisely on time. Who is watching me from the dark?

My family let me die. My fiancé watched. My sister smiled.
I was the real daughter, dragged from the orphanage to donate my bone marrow, then thrown away like garbage. When the monsters came for the imposter, they shielded her and left me to rot.
But death wasn’t the end. It was a deal.
I woke with a system tethered to my pulse—one that trades public admiration for the power to survive.​ And behind these hands are two identities they never suspected: the legend whose music they worship, and the ghost in the machine who owns their secrets.
They think I’m back to beg for love.
They’re wrong. I’m here to collect.
This time, I won’t just take back my music and my name. I’ll make them need me—right before I watch them lose everything.
They wanted me erased.
I’m about to become the only name that matters.

All she yearns for was her father's dick buried deep inside her wet vagina, she would always get mad each time she caught a glimpse of any lady chatting with her dad. This feeling had to stop; she was lusting after her dad. There are many guys out there, trying their logical best to seize her attention for she was a beauty to behold, but all she wanted was her dad, her dad only. She always wished for her mom to always be on business trips, so she would have all the time with her hottie Dad.

It started as a mere attraction, a mere attraction from a daughter to her dad, but what started as a mere attraction became lust, pure lust.

Daniella is the only child of her parents, her mom was always on business trips, so she hardly took care of her only child. This made her grow fond of her young and super hot Dad. While growing up, both father and daughter fell in love with each other, but each of them tried to conceal their feelings for one another.

But such feelings of lust couldn't be hidden for long, such feelings of cravings couldn't be held back.

Would Daniella and her dad get to stop the taboo they were about to engage in?

Would the lust between them turn to love?

Read! To get all the answers.

Six days after Alexander lost all contact, I navigated my way alone to the Nightfall Gala to find him.

The guard's expression twisted into something peculiar when he heard my purpose.

"You're saying you are looking for your mate, Prince Alexander? And what is your name?"

"I am Cecilia."

The guard let out a harsh, mocking snort. "Stop causing a scene! A blind beggar trying to pull a scam? Don't think you can just impersonate her just because you know the name of the Prince's mate."

"Everyone knows the Prince just gifted Cecilia the millennia-old Abyssal Night Crystal to celebrate her pregnancy! What the hell are you?"

Just then, the giant LED screen cut to the Gala's live broadcast.

"Allow me to formally introduce my partner, Cecilia. Furthermore, she is expecting. Our family is about to welcome a new heir." It was Alexander's voice.

"Thank you all. This is the greatest gift Alexander and I could ever receive."

The moment that sweet, timid voice echoed through the hall, a string violently snapped in my brain. A sharp ringing pierced my eardrums.

—It was the voice of my twin sister, Elena.

On my birthday, I was dragged up to the attic and assaulted by several men.
I called my parents, brother, and boyfriend for help, but they all thought I was seeking attention and ruining my sister Sophie's celebration.
"Mia, stop it. We're busy preparing for Sophie's party. If you want attention, find another way."
This was the hundredth time they'd let me down.
But there won't be a hundred and first.
Because I'm already dead.

My billionaire lover brought out a bespoke mermaid gown, declaring he would marry whoever could fit into it.
But in my past four lives, every woman who tried it on—whether an ambitious imposter or me, his true love—was brutally tortured and murdered by him.
In my fifth rebirth, the butler knocked on our door with a polite smile, "Mr. Voss says his true love is among you."
Since we four women would die no matter who wore it...
We exchanged a look in the dead silence, turned our heads in perfect unison, and locked our eyes onto the only man in the room.

When the dismissal bell rings, the night resets.
I'm Zoe, a high school sophomore living on campus, isolated by my entire family and the whole school. My "crime"? I reported my own little brother for campus violence.
The first time, I died in the dark by the track. The second time, shut inside the equipment room. But every time I opened my eyes, I was dragged back to the exact same starting point. Only the number on my arm—the countdown of how many lives I had left—dropped by one.
The man in the black mask always seemed to know exactly where I’d run and where I’d hide. But what truly sent shivers down my spine was this: every single time, my mother stood just a few steps away, quietly watching me take my last breath.
Once the number hits zero, there is no coming back. What do I have to do to survive this night?

After Nicholas got engaged, his assistant handed me a plane ticket.

"Leave. Don’t ever show your face in Silverlight City again."

"Otherwise, Mr. Jackson has more than enough ways to ruin you."

All those years I spent by his side, I was admired by everyone, living in the spotlight.

Yet when I finally left, I was reduced to a pitiful, laughable sight.

I said, "Fine."

But that very night, the flight plunged from over thirty thousand feet in the air.

“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 first love was adopted by our family, and he promised he would always be there for me.
But after my dad passed away in a car accident, I found him with another woman in our bedroom.
He told everyone Caroline was his true love—that he only saw me as a sister—and claimed I was the one who was pestering him.
I was shamed by everyone. The stress gave my mother a stroke, and Caroline even had someone run me over, costing me an eye.
Seven years later, holding flowers, I ran into them outside a convenience store.
Arthur's son looked at me pityingly. "Dad, this lady lost an eye… Is she selling flowers? Should we buy some?"

"Si... Sienna, you're drunk..." he rasps.
"Nope." I smile. "I know exactly what I'm doing. And... I've always wanted this."
"I've had a crush on you since forever... so I can never be wrong."
I never expected that crashing at my best friend's family lake house while her parents were away would lead to something forbidden. Her father—the man I'd known all my life—became the center of a night I couldn't resist. The attraction between us ignited into a dangerous, consuming connection that left me trembling until dawn. I slipped away quietly in the morning, hoping to forget and avoid him entirely.
But fate had other plans. Soon, I found him sitting across from me as my new boss. Every glance, every word carried an unspoken tension, a power struggle I couldn't escape. I tried to resist, but the pull between us was irresistible. In the privacy of my office, I indulged in the memory of that night, testing boundaries, surrendering to desire while he watched and controlled, reminding me who held the power.
Eventually, the line between defiance and submission, punishment and reward, blurred. And just when I thought our secret was safe... his daughter walked in, shattering everything.

I died on the second Sunday of May.
Mother’s Day.
My biological mother, the top neurologist in the United States, was standing in front of my corpse.
She looked at the bedsores all over my body, at the ribs that had been stomped broken, and explained coldly to hundreds of cameras:
“Trash from the bottom of society, covered in needle marks like this, doesn’t deserve to dirty my dissection table.”
She didn’t know that the “social garbage” she called a pill-seeking self-harmer was the son she had abandoned ten years ago.
When the cold scalpel cut open my chest, an old photograph stained with black blood slipped out.
The moment she saw it, the woman who had stood above everyone else—
went completely insane…

My family's company went bankrupt, and my father was critically ill.

I dropped out of school and worked multiple jobs every day.

Debt collectors beat me and broke my ribs, but I couldn't afford painkillers.

Every penny I earned went to expensive medicine, all to save my father.

Until I saw my father, who should have been bedridden on oxygen, holding a champagne glass at a hotel banquet hall.

His words pierced through, "Five years, the punishment she earned."

The bankruptcy was fiction. The illness, theater.

All orchestrated because his stepdaughter suffered from depression, and I was her entertainment.

When the doctor finally spoke to me, "Days. You have only days."

I laughed.

The dying one had never been my father.

It had always been me.

On the night my grandmother died, my husband Kael came home trailing blood.
His leather motorcycle jacket was soaked dark red, yet he flashed a savage grin: "I wiped the floor with those bastards tonight!"
For three years, he had treated our home as nothing more than a pit stop between reckless street races.
I’d finally had enough. "After the funeral, we're getting a divorce."
Before the words fully left my mouth, my phone rang. It was his riding partner, Lunn, his voice choking with sobs: "Sera... Kael drove off the cliff tonight. They only recovered bloody pieces of his helmet!"
But the "dead man" was standing right in front of me...

For six years, I wore Pack silver. I sold my blood. I scrubbed silver out of Pack den floors. I slept on a basement floor — all to pay off my mate's Pack debt and buy my brother's wolfsbane antidote.
Today, with the receipt finally signed, my brother looked at me and said:
"Seren, I was never poisoned. Our parents aren't dead either. The Rogue raid six years ago — I arranged it. The only wolf hurt that night was you."
My mate stepped up behind him: "I never lost my Pack rank either. I've been at the estate the whole time."
Then my parents — the ones I'd buried seven years ago — walked through the door.
The Pack physician had given me forty-eight hours left to live.
They were going to remember every single one.

My parents raised me for twenty-four years. Then they found out I wasn't their biological daughter.

Their real daughter came home. She'd only been back two years. That's all it took to erase twenty-four.

When kidnappers grabbed us, I used my body as a shield. They beat me until something inside me ruptured. I was dying from internal bleeding, but no one could tell.

My parents wouldn't even look at me. "This is your fault! None of this would've happened if it weren't for you!"

"Get downstairs and apologize to your sister. If you can't, pack your things and get out."

They threw her a party at a downtown hotel while I died alone in my room.

I thought they'd be relieved. Maybe even glad. I thought they'd just move on like I never existed.

But when they finally learned the truth, they fell apart.

The day my all-powerful wife personally handed me over to the mob's basement, she was shielding my identical twin brother, furiously accusing me of destroying his ability to carry on the family line.
To compensate for my brother's "trauma," my parents stood by and did nothing. Using her influence, my wife pressured me to take his place at a black-market clinic, testing a lethal drug.
They thought I was just going to suffer some physical hardship, that after enduring these two weeks, everything would be happily resolved.
But they didn't know I had already been poisoned by my brother. I was dying.
I died in agony on the cold operating table. As my body was being gnawed and rotted by rats, they were happily vacationing by the sea.
Only when the lies were exposed did my wife kick down the hidden door. Holding my maggot-infested, decaying flesh, she wept until she vomited blood, then went mad and swallowed a bullet. My parents watched their family shattered and wept on their knees.

My brother Soren is a figure skating prodigy. Every dollar in our house, every hour, every scrap of attention — all his.
Me? I'm the kid who doesn't need to be seen.
The night before Nationals, I told my mom my stomach hurt so bad I could barely stand. She said I was making trouble. Dad told me to take a painkiller and tough it out. Then they loaded up the car and drove two hundred miles to watch Soren skate.
They didn't come home until Sunday night. By then, I'd been dead for over a day.
I called her. Again and again. She had her phone on airplane mode.
Now I'm a ghost, drifting behind their car on the highway home. They're laughing, complaining I didn't even text Soren a congratulations.
I wonder what their faces will look like when they walk through that door.

At four, they shattered both my legs. At six, they ruptured my left eardrum. At seven, they took my right eye—said I'd earn more sympathy begging blind.
After twelve years in hell, my billionaire parents finally found me.
The girl who stole my life grabbed my wrist, nails digging into my skin. "Dare take what's mine, and I'll break whatever's left of your legs."
I smiled, unclipping both prosthetics to show empty pant legs. "I don't have legs left."
She was terrified.

In the year 3000, magic and technology flourish side by side.
Wielders of magic are no longer myth… They’re real and revered.
“Joel,” a humble wizard living a quiet life,
accidentally spends his last coin on gemstones,
leaving him broke and desperate!
To make ends meet, he becomes a livestreamer,
broadcasting his mysterious magical lifestyle
just to get through each day.
But then…
His streams catch the attention of “Jaden,”
the heir to a gemstone empire and an art collector obsessed with a centuries-old painting of a ginger-haired, opal-eyed wizard—
a figure he’s searched for his whole life.
Until finally… he finds Joel online.
Is it fate, or something more, that draws them together?
Can Joel unlock the mysteries of Jaden’s past?
A timeless love story infused with magic and technology will change both of their lives forever…

Before the apocalypse hit, my ex-girlfriend called me, laughing like a maniac: "Jack, you pathetic loser—still playing that stupid farming game? Gonna whack zombies with a hoe? Open the door right now, get on your knees, and beg us, and maybe we'll throw you some table scraps."
I listened to the faint scrape of a tactical knife being drawn on the other end of the line, and silently glanced at my computer screen—at the maxed-out Greenfield Manor game, with its gold cap glowing at [999,999,999] .
"You misheard." I dropped my voice, lacing it with just the right amount of embarrassment. "I was checking the weather forecast."
The other end erupted in unrestrained laughter: "Then forecast this—how you're gonna die today!"
I hung up without changing my expression, flipped open the system, and spent a million on the [Absolute Defense Shield] —then brought out a steaming plate of roasted meat.
Forecast?
I forecast that tonight, you'll be gnawed down to bare bones by zombies.

His determined enough not to let her go again. So he take all his courage to say these words to her.

"Why can't it be? Why can't it be the two of us? Why can't we be lovers? Only friends?

Her psychological condition is the main reason.

Her emotion is always splitting.

The young man belongs to a wealthy clan, he is a billionaire who had a dark past unknown to the society where he belongs at present. Only the lady knew his deepest secret, his past. She played the big role in his life long time ago…

When they meet again, the memories of his past comes back to him. Then the billionaire hope that maybe at present time they can be more than just friend but then again the lady wants to say goodbye to him.

Would she stay? Or would she say goodbye?

Will can they be lovers? Or will can't be?

R-18 WARNING
Eva Green is an 18 years old college girl who loves to live her life on her terms. She lived with her mom alone while her dad died due to cancer when she was only 16.
After her dad was gone, she helped her mother Ella emotionally and mentally. She also told her to start dating.
Ella finally understood her daughter's words and started dating.
After dating a few men she meets Mark Nelson who is just perfect in every aspect.
Mark Nelson was a playboy in his college time but with time and age now he wanted to settle and start his own family. He is nine years younger than Ella but he didn't mind.
Mark found Ella and felt she had great potential to become a good wife. Just like he wants but when Ella invites him to her home for lunch.
Everything suddenly changed.
He met Ella's daughter Eva for the first time and got attracted to her sexually. She was a complete beauty with a hot body and bold attitude.
What would happen?
When Mark began to attract his girlfriend's daughter Eva and started to have an unavoidable desire.
What would happen?
When he comes to know, Eva feels the same desire for him but tries to hide it.
Will he be able to still restrain himself from the sexual thirst for her?
What would happen?
When Eva found herself getting sexually attracted to her mom's boyfriend. What does she do?
What would the future hold for them?
When their attraction turned into lust and they would cross their all boundaries just to be together behind Ella's back even it's just for one month.

Mohit Paul is a young and dynamic Fashion designer. He is sinfully handsome, having girls drooling over him but to their dismay, he barely gives them another look.

He is bisexual, but prefers to be with men . Until one fateful night.... When he meets Srusti.

Srusti is a simple, sweet and innocent girl.

join their journey, to see who gets bewitched by whom....

Evelyn Hart has spent her entire life being the topper of her class, captain of the debate team, and terrifyingly good at mathematics.

Asher Collins has spent his entire life being the bully of his class, high school's golden athlete and devastatingly charming at seduction.

They are complete opposites, living in entirely different worlds, yet same.

So what happens when the two of them strike a deal neither can afford to refuse?

Evelyn tutors Asher after school and in return?

Asher teaches her seduction.

What happens when two most powerful mafia cross each other path. Will love bloom between them or will destroy one of them.
Nico Ricci mafia leader of Rome with extreme power and brutality across him. No feelings for anyone not even for his Dad, what will happen when a girl will enter in his life just like him but have feelings for her closed one, can go to any extent to protect them.

Rebecca touched the door's handle to open it but before she could push the door, the man grabbed her waist from behind and came closer to her ears, and said in a husky tone " Times Up! You are too late!!"
Hearing him, her heart skipped a bit because his touch didn't make her feel disgusted but it just felt like a romantic touch.
She becomes rigid for a moment in her place and does not understand what happened all of a sudden?
And before she could understand anything. The man took her in his arms and shortly pressed her lips with his lips. He kissed her wildly until she felt suffocated. Her head becomes dizzier.
She was forced by a stranger to spend a romantic night with him.
But when she wakes up the next morning, she is alone in bed and only left with his diamond ring which he left for her as compensation.
Seeing herself in this horrible situation, She's broken mentally and physically.
And when she is hardly trying to forget the incident as a nightmare, she learns that she is about to become a mother. On hearing that, her whole world becomes in turmoil.
What will she do now??
Will she give birth to this child or will she kill her/him in her womb????

Sahil is a very handsome man and is a certified Casanova who loves to flirt with every girl around. Girls are falling for him every now and then. While he doesn't do love. All he wants is pure flirting and one night stands with no strings attached.

Sahil is hiding something, he did, to get out of a situation. His father put him in that situation along with Manyata.

Manyata Singh Rathore is a beautiful, sensible and independent girl. She hates him with everything in her she doesn't even look at him. She wants to teach him a lesson.

Sahil is confused about her behaviour, as no girl has ever been able to resist his charm.

Let's find out if the certified Casanova would be tamed or not....

She is very sweet and quite childlike, has a different kind of innocence, while he is way too mature. She is too open minded whereas he is a very traditional man. She can make friends in a minute but he can't. She is an extrovert, while he is an introvert. She is shopaholic, while he hates it.She is too carefree and he is too cautious. She never thinks before doing anything and he thinks too much. Vidhi Singh Rathore and Shubhashish Singh Shekhawat are as different as chalk and cheese. But as they say that opposites attract ...Let's see if they can resist this attraction between them…

Rohit gets shocked when a beautiful girl slaps him all of a sudden. She is trying to protect her friend. He finds her very interesting.

Sia is a beautiful girl who is very protective towards her friend. She even slaps a stranger while trying to protect her friend.

Rohit is falling for her but Sia has trust issues due to some incident that happened in her past.

Let's enjoy this journey to see what happens next.

They called me the kingdom’s light.

They worshipped me… until they decided I was a threat.

On the night I was meant to become queen, my sister smiled as she betrayed me.

My fiancé watched as I was condemned.

And then he threw me into the abyss. They thought I died.

But something down there was waiting for me. Now I’m back. Not as a princess.

Not as a saint. But as something far worse. I wear a servant’s face. I bow my head.

I play their game. And the man who killed me? He can’t stop watching me.

Touching me. Wanting me. If he discovers who I am, he’ll destroy me again.
But this time… I’ll destroy him first.

Vanessa, an omega in the Blood Moon Pack, suffered a devastating blow when the Alpha's son spurned her in favor of another. Seeking solace elsewhere, she eventually returns to her pack, only to be greeted by tragedy: the untimely passing of the beloved Luna, the woman who raised her.
In the midst of grief and upheaval, Vanessa’s world is further rocked when she discovers she's been chosen as the Alpha's second chance mate. Alpha Alexander, grappling with unexpected emotions and the significant age gap between them, struggles to come to terms with this twist of fate—especially considering Vanessa was once rejected by his own son.
As tensions rise and emotions run high, Alpha Alexander’s conflicted feelings lead him to make a rash decision: to punish Vanessa for a drunken mistake made in the heat of the moment. But as the lines blur between duty, desire, and resentment, both Vanessa and Alpha Alexander find themselves on a collision course with destiny.

Cecilia never imagined that her childhood sweetheart would betray her for her Stepsister. She aims to fulfill her and her mother's dream of becoming a famous actress. However her Stepmother and stepsister is still out to get her and she had to avoid all her malicious Schemes.

One day, During her birthday which is also thesame day as her Stepsister's, she fell into one of her schemes, she meets a cute but rude little girl and save her. His father offers to repay her with his body. "Marry me!"

Cecilia: (........)!!?

Little Girl: (......)!

That same day, her Stepmother came with a proposal for her to marry someone from an influential family for their family business .Thus Cecilia accepted the offer due to her suffering. Cue lots of Comedy, sweet moments between Cecilia and the Little Devil probably Big devil too.

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.

irectly in front of me.
Only the night before, she’d been curled up in my arms, her warm fingertips brushing my collarbone, our bodies tangled in tender, loving intimacy.
Yet the toe tag fastened around her ankle was etched with cold, unflinching words: Su Wan, Female, 22. Cause of death: fatal fall from height. Time in morgue custody: 365 days.
She had been dead for an entire year.
Just what in the hell was the woman who’d gasped beneath me night after night, who’d lived beside me day in and day out for six whole months—the woman I’d called my girlfriend?

They told me the baby was gone, but they didn't tell me my heart was being carved out, too.

I woke up on the operating table, paralyzed. Through my blurred vision, I saw my beloved husband, Marco, trembling with excitement as he held my medical chart.

"Her blood is perfect," he whispered. "It is a perfect match for Isabella. We can proceed with the transplant now."

"Finally. It wasn't in vain that I brought her back." My revered father let out a sigh of relief. "If it weren't for this day, how would someone who wandered outside for so many years be qualified to step into this house again?"

When my husband said "I love you," he actually meant "Your heart is perfect for the woman I truly love."

I couldn't scream; I couldn't move.

I could only watch helplessly as the silver scalpel pierced toward my chest, while my sister, Isabella, lay on the operating table next to me, smiling in her sleep.

I was never a long-lost daughter, nor was I a beloved wife.

I was just a mobile blood bank waiting to be slaughtered.

My brother Miles blames me for our parents' deaths.
So he chose to adopt the deaf Vivian instead of keeping me.
Later, I met Sullivan.
He gave me a grand confession. He chose me, resolutely.
He also said I hired someone to assault Vivian—that I didn't deserve sympathy.
Five years after being cast out of my family, a dismembered female body was found inside a carnival mascot costume.
Miles, now a police officer, led the investigation. Sullivan, now a forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy.
They saw the bloodstained hearing aid and immediately called Vivian.
"I'm fine. I just saw the news—some big case. Should we tell Sis to be careful too? What if something happens to her?"
They refused, almost in unison.
"The moment she killed our parents, she stopped being my sister."
"She was jealous of you. She did too many terrible things. If she's dead, she had it coming."
My soul hovered in the air, watching them. I laughed until I cried.
But when they found out the victim was me—
Why did they both go mad?

Vanessa, an omega in the Blood Moon Pack, suffered a devastating blow when the Alpha's son spurned her in favor of another. Seeking solace elsewhere, she eventually returns to her pack, only to be greeted by tragedy: the untimely passing of the beloved Luna, the woman who raised her.

In the midst of grief and upheaval, Vanessa’s world is further rocked when she discovers she's been chosen as the Alpha's second chance mate. Alpha Alexander, grappling with unexpected emotions and the significant age gap between them, struggles to come to terms with this twist of fate especially considering Vanessa was once rejected by his own son.

As tensions rise and emotions run high, Alpha Alexander’s conflicted feelings lead him to make a rash decision: to punish Vanessa for a drunken mistake made in the heat of the moment. But as the lines blur between duty, desire, and resentment, both Vanessa and Alpha Alexander find themselves on a collision course with destiny.

“When you think that life cannot get better, Blake Pierce comes up with another masterpiece of thriller and mystery! This book is full of twists and the end brings a surprising revelation. I strongly recommend this book to the permanent library of any reader that enjoys a very well written thriller.”--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Almost Gone) LEFT TO DIE is book #1 in a new FBI thriller series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews. FBI special agent Adele Sharp is a German-and-French raised American with triple citizenship—and an invaluable asset in bringing criminals to justice as they cross American and European borders.When a serial killer case spanning three U.S. states goes cold, Adele returns to San Francisco and to the man she hopes to marry. But after a shocking twist, a new lead surfaces and Adele is dispatched to Paris, to lead an international manhunt.Adele returns to the Europe of her childhood, where familiar Parisian streets, old friends from the DGSI and her estranged father reignite her dormant obsession with solving her own mother’s murder. All the while she must hunt down the diabolical killer, must enter the dark canals of his psychotic mind to know where he will strike next—and save the next victim before it’s too late.An action-packed mystery series of international intrigue and riveting suspense, LEFT TO DIE will have you turning pages late into the night.Books #2 and #3 in the series – LEFT TO RUN and LEFT TO HIDE – are also available for preorder!

My name is Michael Carson. On the surface, I'm a small-time analyst in Dallas, but nobody knows that I'm the sole heir to a multi-billion dollar financial empire.

The father's factory was on the verge of bankruptcy, but his wife transferred the money to her mother to open a beauty clinic, saying, "Your dad's lousy factory should have gone out of business long ago."

Her father suffered a heart attack and urgently needed surgery. She then said, "He's over sixty years old, is it worth it?"

I tolerated it. Until she discovered my true identity, she immediately turned on me, threatening divorce and taking half of my assets.

At that moment, I understood—some people don't deserve kindness.

I dialed the family number I hadn't contacted in five years.

They will never forget what happened next.

At Holy Oak High, being the Top Flyer isn't just a crown.
It’s a ticket to the upper class.
Girls would pay any price to stand at the top of that pyramid.
But I didn't understand that the spotlight hid a man-eating abyss until I had to put on that blood-stained uniform.
Listen. Do you hear that scratching sound coming from inside the locker?

Three years ago, on their way to attend my graduation art exhibition, the cruise ship carrying my fiancé and my family caught fire.

Over the past three years, I downed sleeping pills countless times, desperately wanting to follow them into the afterlife. Every single time, my adopted sister, Serena, saved me, crying hysterically as she shoved her fingers down my throat to make me throw up.

"They are already gone! Harper, you can't keep living in the past. You have to live on for their sake!"

After fainting from yet another high fever and being rushed to the hospital, I was diagnosed with terminal leukemia.

The doctor said I had a month left, at most.

I refused their advice to find a bone marrow match. Clutching my family's belongings, I decided to go back to our old estate in the suburbs for one last look.

While I was walking in a daze, a little boy running wildly crashed hard into my legs.

A male voice that had haunted my dreams for years rang out from behind me. "Alistair, if you keep running off, what will you do if Mommy and Daddy don't want you anymore?"

In an instant, it felt like I had been plunged into freezing water. I froze in place.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My husband's foster sister, Delilah, gets poisoned and ends up paralyzed. My husband, Grayson, the Don of this whole crime family, doesn't even bother checking the security cameras. He just throws me, two months pregnant, into the cistern where they punish traitors.

"Tessa, hand over the antidote, or die."

I kneel in the freezing swamp water and beg him. I didn't poison her.

He answers with a kick to the stomach.

For three straight days, I suffer down there. Leeches tear into my skin. My baby turns into a pool of black blood and dissolves into the filthy water. By the end, my vocal cords tear to shreds, my body goes cold, and I stop breathing.

His men get on their knees and beg him to spare me. He just sneers.

"That woman's always been good at playing the victim. No food, no medicine. Let her keep soaking."

Three days later, he finally walks into the cistern, and it's only to give me an ultimatum.

"Crawl out and apologize to Delilah on your knees. Otherwise I'll strip you of your title and sell you off to a trafficking ring. You'll wish you were dead."

No one answers him.

He has no idea. I already am.

The night before the SAT, I brought homemade pastries from our bakery to share with the whole class.

The next day, over thirty students collapsed at the testing center. The exam was voided.

I became the target of everyone's rage. My family fell apart. I ended up in a detention cell.

The internet tore me apart. My classmate Lainey Prescott went on camera sobbing, saying all she wanted was for me to own up to what I did.

While I was in detention, I found out my mom had a mental breakdown and jumped off the overpass outside of town.

That same night, I went into the river too. The water was freezing.

When I open my eyes, Lainey is right there. She's holding that same sheet of paper with everyone's signatures, smiling like nothing's wrong, eyes just as calculating as I remember.

I'm back.

And this time, I'm not making anything for anyone.