7459 Book(s) Related to the clockwork scarab

Lydia's POV

"The patient in Bed 7 has been here three months now, right? Not a single family visit."

"Her husband just pays the bills and leaves. Doesn't even look at her. Poor thing."

I lay in the hospital bed, listening to two nurses whispering outside my door. My fingers rested weakly against the edge of the mattress.

Three months ago, I was diagnosed with late-stage cancer.

My husband, Sebastian Carter, came once. He stood in the doorway—didn't step inside—signed the papers with a blank expression, and never came back.

Sebastian was a writer. He locked himself in his study all day, leaving me to spend night after night alone in the living room. We lived under the same roof like strangers from different worlds.

I'd grown used to this hollow marriage. I didn't even bother calling him anymore.

Footsteps echoed outside.

I turned my head toward the door. Sebastian stood there in his familiar charcoal coat, his face expressionless.

"You came." I was surprised. I forced myself to sit up, my body weak and trembling.

Sebastian didn't answer. He walked straight to the bedside and set a document on the nightstand. "Sign it."

I picked it up. The words at the top read: 'Divorce Agreement.'

Victoria discovered that I hadn't submitted any supplemental medical expense claims for two weeks.
She assumed I had finally been disciplined and had given up what she called "the exploitative nature of the lower class."
Little did she know, my backpack held the signed divorce papers and my mother's death certificate.
As I turned to leave, I was still wearing the discounted trench coat she'd casually given me three years ago when we got married.
What she didn't know was that I, a deep-sea geology genius from MIT, willingly endured three years of her humiliation and ridiculous rules, just so my mother could stay in her conglomerate's private hospital to prolong her life.
Now, my mother has died because of unpaid bills , and even her ashes are carried by me in a cheap canvas bag.
Now that my loved one is dead, there's no need for me to continue being her obstructive dog on Wall Street. The lives she owed with those approval forms, I will settle with the collapse of her entire conglomerate empire.

Extermination just got a whole lot more fun.

When lifelong friends Reggie, Joel and Cody, fail to win the Virtual Reality Elite championship, they’re forced to find real work. The guys sign a pest control contract, ridding space stations of infestations.

ShimVens have been spreading rapidly across the galaxy.

The bugs eat through wiring, destroying space stations and ships.

Reggie took the job because the pay was good and the work sounded easy. Cody and Joel are skeptical, but Reggie convinces them it’s easy work. Just spray the bugs and done, right?

Not exactly.

They soon learn these pests are deadly. They’ll have to rely on their gaming skills if they are to survive.

And they’re going to need better weapons. Oh, and a mercenary who knows how to kick ass.

These three immature guys go off to save the universe…all by accident.

Men in Black meets Ghost Busters. Intergalactic Pest Control will have readers hooked from the beginning.

--- Caution for strong language and graphic scenes involving lots of bug guts.

Extermination just got a whole lot more fun.

The ship took a lot of damage defeating the queen ShimVen. However, the gang isn’t deterred and gear up for a brand-new job.

A surprise is waiting for them.

It has razor-sharp teeth and a really bad attitude.

To defeat these alien pests, the Notches are going to have to get creative. They soon learn this new infestation is wide-spread.

To survive, they’re going to need to level up.  

Cody is still convinced that the infestations across the galaxy aren’t coincidental.

An evil corporation might be behind the swarm of deadly bugs.

The gang is going to need proof. But first they must stay alive and exterminate.

Men in Black meets Ghost Busters.  Intergalactic Pest Control will have readers hooked from the beginning.

--- Caution for strong language and graphic scenes involving lots of bug guts.

My name is Jack Morris, a bottom-rung janitor on the docks.
Every day, people walk all over me, and I live on moldy bread.
Until one day, an old man I saved handed me a photograph. "This is my granddaughter. She's being held at the Black Swan Casino."
That used to be my place. Ten years ago.
Her father was a brother who died in my place.
I was once the king of the underground.
And now, at the banquet celebrating the tenth anniversary of my death, they're treating that old man's granddaughter like a toy.
If my disappearance only made those animals more brazen...
Then they can finish that drink and celebrate their own deaths next.

A gang boss ground my treasured staff into dust with one boot. “A gutter-bred bastard from the slums, and you’re hiding something this delicate? Cripple him. Let him learn who runs this turf.”
I stared at the silver-white powder on the floor. It was the last relic my brothers left me.
I once swore these hands would be used only to save people, never to kill again.
But today, even the heavens refused to allow it.
I lifted my head slowly. The elven ears I’d kept lowered in submission rose one by one in the dark, sharp as a wolf’s.
“You’re asking me who runs this turf?”
My fist snapped out and caved in the boss’s nose.
I twisted backhanded. Three elite enforcers had their bones shattered in an instant, collapsing like sacks of rotten meat.
I grabbed the boss by the throat with one hand and hoisted his two-hundred-pound body into the air, eyes cold as if I were staring at a corpse.
“Three years ago, when I laid down the rules in this district, you didn’t even know where you were playing in the mud.”
“My things are not for you to touch.”

Extermination just got a whole lot more fun.

The gang goes to a high-end space station for a “regular” job and quickly learn there is nothing simple when it comes to pest control.

These vermin want to tear off their faces.

Rats with razor-sharp teeth and a team mentality might be the worst monsters they’ve encountered. Cody can’t shake the feeling that there is an underlining conspiracy to all these pests. One that points to Layton Corporation.

To kill the boss, they are going massively multiplayer.

Taking down this evil corporation will also require the big guns.

That’s the only way to take out this big bug!

Men in Black meets Ghost Busters. Intergalactic Pest Control will have readers hooked from the beginning.

Caution for strong language and graphic scenes involving lots of bug guts.

The global freeze descended, and the apocalypse arrived right on cue. I seized all the critical supplies and evacuated first, leaving "the perfect base" behind for the two traitors who backstabbed me. They thought it was heaven, but little did they know that the entire fortress was a precision trap constructed of deception, scarcity, and despair. As the outdoor temperature plummeted to minus eighty degrees, I sat by the window, roasting venison and watching them through high-definition infrared, coldly observing as they lost their humanity in the desperate fight for a single bowl of sawdust.

After I retired, I was willing to do the dirtiest work at a small auto repair shop—just to give my sick daughter an ordinary childhood.
I endured my mother’s insults, my eldest brother’s wage cuts, my younger brother’s extortion.
But they actually joined forces to steal my daughter’s life-saving money for gambling, then sold me into an illegal mine to pay off their debts.
When the iron chain locked around my wrist, when my daughter cried in despair, the killing intent that had slept in my blood for three years finally woke up completely.
They had no idea I was once the iron-blooded God of War—commander of a million troops, the name that made enemy nations tremble.