8913 Book(s) Related to to the star and back

I was once the most exquisite rose in New York's underworld.
Leander Castello's wife. The mafia godfather's treasured queen. The woman everyone envied.
I thought he would be my salvation, my forever.
Until he snapped me in half with his own hands and threw me into the filthiest pit like trash.
He said he needed to teach me what betrayal costs.
So I was handed over to the Mexican cartel boss, Carlos.
Six months later, when he kicked down that iron door, I was on my knees in a pool of blood, crawling toward his feet like a beaten dog.
I thought he was just another client.
I opened my mouth, revealing my shattered teeth, forcing sounds like grinding metal through vocal cords destroyed by industrial acid.
I mechanically unbuttoned my shirt, displaying the crisscrossing cigarette burns and brands covering my skin.
I knocked my forehead against his shoe, silently begging him not to use the hose on me today.
He stared at my mutilated right leg, at my vacant eyes, and finally understood—
That rose had rotted away on the cartel's operating table, along with our child.
What's left now is just a living corpse.

A month before my boyfriend Samuel and I were supposed to get married, he asked me to let another woman wear my wedding dress and move into my house.

It all started three months ago when his "old friend" Dahlia returned from overseas, supposedly with less than a year to live. A week ago, Samuel told me that Dahlia's dying wish was to become a bride before she passed away, and he was the chosen groom.

I kept saying no. But he brought it up every single day, insisting he had to help Dahlia because she had helped him when his company was in crisis three years ago, and he needed to fulfill her wish.

I was furious.

But in the end, I gave up the house and left him.

"You drive me crazy, Lilith. Just one night... I’ll give you whatever you want. Please let me taste you," my billionaire CEO whimpered, pinning me against the wall, his hot breath brushing my ear.

He is obsessed with my new face, my body, and my ruthless attitude. He is willing to abandon everything just to get into my bed.

If only he knew that the flawless skin he’s kissing right now used to be covered in the acid his mistress poured on me.
If only he knew that I am his dead, naive wife—the one he threw into an ice cellar to die along with our unborn child, just to steal my family's inheritance.

"Anything I want?" I trace his jawline, smiling sweetly as my nail digs into his skin. "Then give me your empire, William. And your life."

I rose from the ashes with a new face and a hidden will. He wants to ruin my lipstick, but I came back to ruin his life.

My fiancé, Liam Miller, slapped me more than a dozen times in front of everyone over his childhood sweetheart.
Then he shoved me down a spiral staircase.
Both my legs were shattered. My skull cracked open. I spent an entire month in the ICU.
He never came to see me.
Not once.
He was too busy staying by Sophia’s side, planning her birthday party, and getting down on one knee in front of everyone to propose to her.
As for me, I couldn’t even get through the doors of his headquarters anymore. My access had been revoked. My position had been taken. Every trace of my place in his world had been erased.
Nine years.
From nineteen to twenty-eight, I gave him the best years of my life.
In the end, I had given them to the wrong man.
On the day I was discharged, I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cling to him and beg for answers.
I simply called my mother.
“Mom,” I said calmly, “that overseas mafia empire you wanted me to inherit? I’m ready to take it.”
There was a brief silence on the other end.
Then my mother said, “I’ve waited ten years for this day.”
The night before my flight, Liam’s messages flooded my phone.
“Emma, I was wrong. Don’t go.”
What do you think?
Would I ever look back?

For a whole year, my husband's childhood friend treated my high-end boutique like her personal closet.

Bags that ran a few thousand dollars, couture gowns worth tens of thousands. She took whatever she wanted and walked out, never once saying the word "money."

The store bled cash month after month. When I finally hit my limit and told her to pay up, she slapped me across the face in front of a room full of customers.

"You should be flattered I even shop here. And you've got the nerve to ask me for money?"

Garrett came rushing in with his coffee, and the first thing out of his mouth wasn't whether I was okay. He pulled her behind him and told me to apologize, then said if I didn't, he'd divorce me.

I didn't cry, didn't make a scene. I picked the bill up off the floor, turned around, walked out, and made one phone call.

Three days later, Bianca comes back with five of her socialite friends, bragging that they're going to clean out every expensive piece in the place.

I hold my coffee and smile, tell them to take their time.

What she doesn't know is that three days ago, this store already changed hands.

Ice slammed through my veins.
My throat locked up, crushed by an invisible fist. My body convulsed violently, mouth gaping open and shut, but no air came.
Through blurring vision, I saw my polished stepbrother Damien standing there, watching his watch—counting down the seconds I had left.
And Sophie—that scholarship kid who used to sob over dead ants—stood holding the empty syringe, her smile twisted and ugly. "Don't worry, Charlotte. I'll take real good care of your Ivy spot and your boyfriend."
The darkness swallowed me whole.

47 deaths.
48 iterations.
He sold his brother a death trap and called it a farm.
When the dead rose, the experiment began—and the only way out was through.

Kael ruined my life, drained my divine blood, and framed me for murder in my past life. Given a second chance, I reject his fake tenderness and tear down every lie he built. The almighty Dark Duke who once played with my life now craves only my mercy. He abandons his army, destroys his status, and begs for my punishment. I end his tyranny, chain him with my golden blood, and turn my worst tormentor into my most obedient hound.

Oak Creek thinks my brother, Cole, is a saint. He saved the family legacy and adopted the orphaned daughter of a killer out of the goodness of his heart.
What they don’t know is the price of his halo: Me.
To keep his 'good guy' image, he sacrificed his real sister. He gave her my bed, my home, and my parents.
When I was driven out of town, sleeping in a vandalized trailer, he left me a note: Come home and apologize.
I did come back. But not to apologize.
I'm holding the microphone at the town's biggest festival, looking down at the two thousand people who threw trash at me.
I have a stack of receipts, an unedited tape, and the truth about how my parents really died.
Are you ready to meet the real Hale family?

Five years ago, on our wedding day, my fiancée Vivian was in the bridal suite fucking my best man.
Five years later, I returned to New York with my wife—the most powerful Mafia matriarch in Naples. At Atelier Milano, Brandon, the same "best man" who betrayed me, fawned over my custom-tailored suit, groveling to the staff about how desperately he wanted to meet the legendary Mr. Salvatore.
He had no idea...
The man he'd once written off as a pathetic loser was the very person he was now begging to impress.

Married for years, I caught my husband in bed with another woman.
He had nothing at all once; it was only after being with me that he became the CEO of a company and made his fortune.
I asked for a divorce, and he flew into a rage and locked me in a dog cage.
But what he never saw coming was that I had long been ready to take my revenge.

To save my dying brother, I signed a million-dollar contract: sleep with a comatose billionaire to secure an heir. My boyfriend swore it was just a harmless formality. One night. One permanently locked door. But as I nervously approached the mattress, the paralyzed heir suddenly opened his eyes. And he whispered a terrifying warning...

On our one-year anniversary, my husband Julian gifted me an antique ring.
Putting it on cost me everything.
I miscarried, grew paralyzed, and rapidly withered into a husk. And Julian? He convinced everyone that the trauma had simply driven a grieving mother insane.
Eventually, even I believed him.
It wasn’t until the moment of my murder that the truth finally clicked.
The ring wasn't a blessing; it was a parasitic siphon.
Then, I opened my eyes—
I was back at the anniversary dinner.

The adoptive brother I'd been secretly in love with for a decade took my virginity on the night of my twentieth birthday, fueled by alcohol.

I thought I had finally found love.

Until I stood outside his half-open apartment door and heard his teammates mocking me.

"Damn, Dax, you actually slept with Elara? That boring good girl?"

My hand froze mid-air above the doorknob.

Dax's tone was dripping with contempt. "Look closely at her face. It's exactly like Cassandra's, isn't it?"

"It's no big deal. She revolves around me every single day. All it took was crooking a finger."

"With Cassandra gone, she's the perfect stand-in to kill time."

The room instantly erupted into a fit of unbridled, mocking laughter.

I dug my nails fiercely into my palms, opened my phone, and found the email I had deliberately ignored for a month.

[Florence Academy of Fine Arts — Exchange Program Confirmation]

"They said I was just a piece of trash, only fit to be a substitute bride for the lunatic Abyssal Dragon Duke." I smirked, twisting the bone bracelet that sealed my venomous power. My fake sister wept pitifully, "Visenya, at worst, I'll bear the Duke's wrath myself." Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea. When the bloodthirsty Duke finally cornered me, he didn't tear me apart. Instead, he kissed my fingertips and chuckled. "So, my little bride, shall we slaughter the Emperor and take the throne for fun?" "Deal," I smiled. "But if you drag me down, I'll kill you too."

My fiancé was going to humiliate me at our own wedding.

I know because I heard him think it.

I'm Isabella Rossi — mafia heiress, future bride to Lorenzo Falcone, the golden boy of New York's underworld. Our marriage was supposed to unite two empires.

I also have a secret. I can read minds. But only when people want to use me, hurt me, or destroy me.

Lorenzo's thoughts had been silent for three years. I thought that meant he loved me.

The night before the wedding, I finally heard him. The mistress he'd planted in the crowd. The fake pregnancy reveal. The plan to humiliate me at the altar so he could play the victim — and steal my family's power in the chaos.

I was born able to see threads tying certain people to one another. A thin red thread stretched right above Mom and Dad’s heads.
I hurried over to Mom at once. “Mom, why is there a red thread connecting you and Dad?”
Mom laughed when she heard me, booping my nose fondly.
“That’s proof that Daddy loves me.”
Later, at our family gathering, Aunt Celia brought me a present just like she always did.
“Luna? Come see what Auntie brought you.”
I trotted over and found a cloth doll.
Just then, Dad walked up, knelt down beside me, and stroked my head.
“Luna, what do you say?”
I glanced up at Dad, then turned to look at Aunt Celia.
Little me was filled with huge confusion.
“It’s weird. Why is there such a thick red thread connecting Dad and Celia?”

Landon Rhodes and I grew up together, both dreaming of becoming top chefs. But I knew he was the one with a palate kissed by God.

So when Rowan Stone, this street-rat punk, got her claws into him, I took the drinks, the smoke, the slaps for him. When he wanted to skip the National Young Chefs Competition to stay with her drunk ass, I dragged him back to the culinary lab.

He won the championship, got recruited by a three-star Michelin restaurant, graduated and made millions. I became the most invisible prep cook in his kitchen.

Until Rowan wrapped her car around a pole during one of her episodes, and he lured me into a basement.

"This is all your fault! If you'd minded your own damn business, she'd still be alive!"

His foot came down on my right hand. Bones cracking. My fingers ground to pulp.

All those 5 AM trips to the fish market for him. All those nights watching stock simmer for forty-eight hours straight. All the praise he soaked up at final practicals. My sacrifices, and all I got in return was his hatred.

"These worthless hands that can only cut vegetables deserve to rot in the ground with her."

The pain swallowed me whole.

When I wake up again, I'm back to that afternoon when he said he was going to the bar to find her.

This time, I won't stop him.

At seven years old, he pulled me from the rapids—and for the eleven years that followed, I loved this man I called "Uncle."

Then Sophia appeared. She accused me of pushing her down the stairs, and Michael didn't spare me so much as a glance before throwing me out into the storm. I knocked until my hands were raw and bleeding. He never opened the door.

Three years later, he showed up at my workplace, demanding I "come home" with him. His pregnant girlfriend flaunted a twelve-week ultrasound, cooing about how the baby already "looked just like him"—then staged yet another fall, told yet another lie, let out yet another shriek, casting me once more as the heartless monster.

But this time, I won't beg.

This time, I know secrets they don't.

Because that miscarriage three years ago? That baby? That ultrasound?

None of it was real.

The question is—how much has Michael already lost, and can he see the truth before the one person who ever truly loved him is gone for good?

That was supposed to be one of the most anticipated days of my life—the wedding of my best friend, Sarah.
But when I put on my bridesmaid dress, she called me a bitch.
"Get out." Sarah looked at me like I was trash.
"I don't want to see you at my wedding."
I stood frozen in place, staring down at the broken Cartier bracelet she had given me, now lying scattered on the floor.

I'm a blind girl, and I've always been close with the old lady living next door.
One day, I caught the smell of blood coming from her apartment.
Worried something had happened to her, I pushed her door open—and instantly realized my mistake.
I had walked right into a murder scene.
The killer was still there.
I had to take a chance.
Betting that my pale, sightless eyes could fool those blood-crazed ones.
I stepped into the blood-soaked room, smiled toward where the body lay, and called out,
"Ma'am, the store has oranges on sale—I brought some over for you..."

I'm a forensic audio specialist. I make a living digging up the truths people deliberately erase from static and noise.
My 19-year-old brother was accused of pushing a billionaire's bride to her death at her wedding.
The police presented their "smoking gun" recording. I heard exactly twelve seconds missing from it.
Those twelve seconds hold the truth about how the bride really died—and the billionaire family's dark secret that will get both me and my brother killed.
They smashed my equipment, threatened my life, bribed the cops, and tried to bury the truth forever.
But what they don't know is—
Some voices refuse to stay silent. Even when they're cut out.

I chased after my first love, Joe, for years and finally worked up the courage to confess—only to overhear him plotting to get me drunk as a plaything.
Just when I was in utter despair, his mafia brother, David, showed up and saved me from deep sorrow. He treated me gently like I was made of glass, gifted me a private estate, got down on one knee and proposed, saying he'd had a crush on me for years.
I thought I'd finally escaped hell and found my one true love—until his “lover” Ann came back with a boy who looked exactly like him and stole every bit of his attention.
David swore Ann was just my stand-in, but he kept leaving me for her again and again, even throwing himself in front of bullets for her in a shootout, saying, “For you, I can risk my life.”

Arriving in a strange world filled with cultivators, Chu Che suddenly becomes the owner of an Entertainment system... Specifically, he becomes the owner of an Entertainment Park.
[Chu Che: What? I get to own an Entertainment Park in another word?
Author: Zip It MC. I'm talking.
Chu Che: ("")] ....
The young Chu Che begins his rise to the top.
And along his path, he becomes a legendary master who countless people dare not offend.
[Emperor Hoshi]: Hahahahahahaha! I've just broken through after watching the 7th season of one piece! As expected of the entertainment park!"
[The Great Elder Pei Mo]: "Damn You Park Owner! How can you close the park now? I was just about to rank up in the Elder Scrolls game!"
[Fairy Wei Wei]: "This game is too much! How can I fall into a pit of snakes just like that? No way. I'm not reconciled! I, Fairy Wei Wei, must become victorious in this game of snakes and ladders."
[Goddess Laila]: ... ~Oooooooooo! Why is it so tragic? What happened to senior John Snow? How can he be dead? Owner, you go in there and save him now!"
(--)
...
The mighty Chu Che opened an 'Anime, Gaming, & Fantasy Entertainment Park, which shattered the reality of many and led to the rise of countless experts.
Thus, the young man became the most invincible man to all.
.
Thank you, everyone!
I will post daily, so stay tuned!
......

Ethan interposed his finger on her lips and gently silenced her. "Shh, babygirl," he cooed, "It's alright. I am here now." And without warning, he strode over to his desk and, in one fluid motion, bent Ava over it.
He lifted the exquisite gown, exposing her lissome frame and revealing her slender legs. With a primal instinct, he used his teeth to rip off her panties, relishing the sound of the fabric tearing. Her scent, a mix of jasmine and musk, was alluring, and he could feel his arousal growing with each passing moment.
He traced back up her spine with his lips, teasing her with light feathery kisses. With one hand, he reached down between her legs, caressing her clitoris, his fingers moving in slow, circular motions that made her lose herself. The way she responded to his touch was electric, and it made him crave her even more.
Will they continue their secret affair after a family member threatens to expose them? What happens if Ava's fiancé and Ethan's wife find out?
What will Ethan do when both his wife and mistress discover that they are pregnant?
Is he the father?

My Alpha, Ryan, not only cheated but also declared that our marriage was "open" and told me not to interfere with his relationship with Beta Emily. I was both furious and heartbroken. In order to get back at him, I followed the advice of the rogue wolf Luke and made him my "fake boyfriend" to provoke Alpha Ryan. Just then, the young and beautiful Omega Alex stormed into my life like a whirlwind, fervently pursuing me. I’m determined to take back what’s mine and make those who have hurt me realize that I, Julie, am not someone to mess with!

In my past life, I died in a freezing, damp basement.
The person who destroyed me was Evelina, the daughter of my father’s mistress. She set a trap at a charity gala, dragged my reputation through the mud, and forced me into a hellish marriage—all so she could strip away everything that rightfully belonged to me.
When I opened my eyes again, I was twenty-two. The gala that sealed my fate was happening tonight.
Before the banquet officially began, I seamlessly swapped two champagne flutes, handing her meticulously woven trap right back to her. When the scandal detonated, sending shockwaves through the ballroom, my eyes landed on Killian—the Vance family's notoriously cold-blooded illegitimate son.
The trust fund my mother left me was still firmly under my control. I walked straight up to him and laid my chips on the table.
My enemies had retreated to the shadows, waiting to strike back. But I was going to use their own conspiracies as stepping stones, clawing back everything I owned, one piece at a time.

In their eyes, my wife Emma—an Ivy League tenured professor in biological sciences—is ruthless, rational, and obsessively clean.
For seven years, even when she washed her hands, she would only ever touch the right-side sink—hers.
Until that night at 3 a.m., when I pulled a strand of sandy-golden short curl—hair that belonged to neither of us—out of my men’s shower loofah.
And around the neck of a pre-med student named Lucas, I saw the antique silver cross my dying father left in my hands.
When I confronted her, my always-icy wife protected the little homewrecker, slapped me across the face, and called me a jealous, controlling chauvinist.
She thought I’d swallow it like a coward.
But she forgot: as a top cardiothoracic chief, the thing I do best is cutting out tumors.

At the family dinner, a Wall Street rising star flaunted his power in front of me, boasting that he was the chief agent of the "Godfather of the Underworld."
My ex-wife's family fawned over me like dogs, pointing their fingers at me and taunting, "You spineless, gigolo trash, you're not even worthy to carry Mr. Victor's shoes!"
Victor, even more smug, turned on speakerphone, trying to use my privileges to curry favor with my wife.
I stood silently in the corner, coldly pressing a blood-red command: [Permanently Delete Account].
The next second, the system's cold pronouncement came through his phone: "Warning, you have overstepped your authority and have been banned across the entire network!"
The room fell silent instantly.
They had no idea that I was the true Godfather, the one who controlled a multi-billion dollar empire and ruled the Western underworld!

My brother chose my enemy, and the man I loved joined forces with her to sell me into a club.
Pregnancy, miscarriage, imprisonment, beatings—every cry for help I made was dismissed as "just an act."
It wasn't until I was truly dead that they lost their minds, dropping to their knees at my grave and sobbing that they were sorry.
But by then, I could no longer hear them.

I loved Finley for two years.
Until 1:00 AM on a Tuesday, when his best friend, Orion, sent me a half-naked photo and a jarring voice note."
If I actually bag her, don't go flipping out on me. A deal's a deal."
I booked the first flight out to confront him, only to catch the boy I loved naked and thrusting into another woman.
But that wasn't even the part that broke me.
When my roommate bypassed the hockey team's private Discord server, I found a channel named: #locker-room-bets.
There was my boyfriend, typing the words that shattered my world: "She's boring... She's like a lost puppy, you can't shake her... Play with her all you want."
My loyalty and two years of my life were nothing but a sick joke.
The entire hockey team had put money down on when I would willingly spread my legs for his best friend.

On the execution platform, my noble and beautiful wife used her dagger to carve open my chest.
My nominal adopted son pressed a red-hot iron into my skin, branding me with the "F"-class mark of the lowest outcast, draining my transcendent bloodline dry.
"The Storm Kingdom has no use for a cripple with zero beast-spirit affinity. You belong rotting in the abyss!"
They cut the chains and kicked me into the Black Abyss—a place from which no one returns—then turned to carve up my throne.
They thought I was as good as dead.
They had no idea that the deepest darkness of that abyss harbored the most terrifying ancient demon in existence.
Two weeks later, as they raised their glasses to toast the new king's coronation, I kicked down the castle gates, wielding the ember-fire of annihilation and a tide of ten thousand beasts.
Looking down at the woman who once stood so high above me, now groveling in the mud and begging for mercy, I tossed the bloodstained broken blade onto the hem of her dress:
"Remember this forever—it was you who took a nobody you crushed beneath your feet and turned him into a king you'll kneel before and never win back. Now, hand over your lives."

Sofia is an eighteen-year-old who has been bullied and tortured her whole life. When she realized that her only hope of going through school was to attend a school only for boys, she took a bold step and cut her hair to look like a boy and got into Blairwood Academy.

She has to try her best to make sure nobody finds out her real identity, or she would be kicked out. But it's difficult to hide it, especially from her roommate, Scott Blackwood, an icy nineteen-year-old who she always managed to get on his bad side.

“You will not sleep until you are finished with AGENT ZERO. The author did a superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. The description of the action scenes transport us into a reality that is almost like sitting in a movie theater with surround sound and 3D (it would make an incredible Hollywood movie). I can hardly wait for the sequel.”--Roberto Mattos, Books and Movie ReviewsIn this much-anticipated debut of an epic spy thriller series by #1 bestseller Jack Mars, readers are taken on an action thriller across Europe as presumed-CIA operative Kent Steele, hunted by terrorists, by the CIA, and by his own identity, must solve the mystery of who is after him, of the terrorists’ pending target—and of the beautiful woman he keeps seeing in his mind.Kent Steele, 38, a brilliant professor of European History at Columbia University, lives a quiet life in a New York suburb with his two teenage daughters. All that changes when late one night he gets a knock on his door and is abducted by three terrorists—and finds himself flown across the ocean to be interrogated in a basement in Paris.They are convinced that Kent is the most lethal spy the CIA has ever known. He is convinced they have the wrong man.Do they?With a conspiracy around him, adversaries as smart as he is, and an assassin on his tail, the wild game of cat and mouse leads Kent on a perilous road—one that may lead back to Langley—and to a shocking discovery of his own identity.AGENT ZERO is an espionage thriller that will keep you turning pages late into the night.“One of the best thrillers I have read this year.”--Books and Movie Reviews (re Any Means Necessary )Also available is Jack Mars’ #1 bestselling LUKE STONE THRILLER series (7 books), which begins with Any Means Necessary (Book #1), a free download with over 800 five star reviews!

“A MASTERPIECE OF THRILLER AND MYSTERY. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone) CITY OF PREY (An Ava Gold Mystery—Book 1) is the debut novel in a long-anticipated new series by #1 bestseller and USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose bestseller Once Gone (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews. In the rough streets of 1920s New York City, 34 year-old Ava Gold, a widower and single mom, claws her way up to become the first female homicide detective in her NYPD precinct. She is as tough as they come, and willing to hold her own in a man’s world.But when a psychotic serial killer unleashes a rampage, murdering young women across the city, Ava will have to search the dark canals of the twisted killer’s mind if she has any hope of hunting him down. With psychological profiling still in its infancy, and mocked by most, Ava will be even more alone as she follows her instinct, and hunts him down in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.Just when it seems the stakes couldn’t be higher, Ava comes to an awful realization: she herself may be the next target.Amidst the speakeasies, jazz clubs, mafia-run prohibition rings, horrific mental asylums and dangerous back alleys of the city, can Ava achieve what all the men cannot: enter the sick mind of a killer, and stop him before more women die?A heart-pounding suspense thriller filled with shocking twists, the authentic and atmospheric AVA GOLD MYSTERY SERIES is a riveting page-turner, endearing us to a strong and brilliant character that will capture your heart and keep you reading late into the night.Books #2 and #3 in the series—CITY OF FEAR and CITY OF BONES—are now also available.

At the engagement party, Adrian walked in with pregnant Celeste: "Sorry, the engagement is off."

"Why?" I stared at him intently.

"The baby is Adrian's," Celeste sobbed, "I can't let my child grow up without a father..."

"You're just an orphan with no money or connections," Adrian looked at me coldly, "You're not good enough for me."

Just when I was completely humiliated, butler Steven found me. "Miss Hayes, we've been searching for you for twenty-three years. You're the long-lost heiress of Hayes Corporation."

A week later at the family reunion banquet, Adrian knelt before me: "Iris, please give me another chance!"

"You can stay by my side," I looked down at him condescendingly, "but not as my boyfriend—as my servant."

But when Celeste accidentally miscarried, the truth shocked everyone...

When Alpha Alex chose to abandon our biological son Lucas in the fire and instead saved the son of Omega Isabella, my world shattered.

In an instant, I became a pitiful creature crushed under their feet.
Isabella humiliated me—forced me to lick the dirt off her shoes like I was nothing.

Lucas died in agony, and I wasn’t even allowed to attend his funeral.

But as the truth slowly began to unravel, I realized with horror that behind all this suffering…
lay a secret powerful enough to destroy me.

What should I do now?

Can anyone tell me—
how do I escape a fate that feels like a nightmare I can’t wake from?

This one word Mate should bring hope, but for a shroud wolf like me, it feels more like a curse. I’m Gianna Greco, the illegitimate daughter of a great warrior, with a dormant wolf spirit. For me, love has always been a dangerous gamble.
I risked everything for Enzo Caruso, only to be rejected in front of the whole pack—crushed but alive. I found a new purpose in the mountains, training to fight and leading a resistance against Alpha King Matteo's tyranny.
But fate is cruel. Now, I’m back with the pack that abandoned me, forced into captivity under Alpha Stefano, a ruthless general. Despite the fear, I’m drawn to him, and I fear he might be my second chance mate.
One more rejection, though, might just destroy me.

Bruce Diamond, millionaire heir to a wine empire, is about to find out that when love takes root, it springs eternal.Rita Diamond, mother to Bruce, selfish, pinning; a woman who understands everything about how the world works, and who believes that to keep the rich from falling back into poverty, the rich must purify their lineage from marriage alliances with peasants.And she would do anything to achieve this. In the middle of a broiling feud between race and economic status, is the pretty, unassuming Mary Cortez, the woman that Bruce will find he can't live without. It begins at the hotel owned by the Diamond family, where Mary works.An alliance of love written in the stars, as they say. Bruce would meet Mary, be stricken with a love he has never felt before. But sometimes, the same love that makes us want to stay, is the same one that makes us want to protect those that we love from being hurt by us. Bruce leaves one afternoon without saying goodbye.This sets in motion a story of betrayal, and a murderous plan to keep apart two lovers who will fight to be together. A story of pain, and rain, and dark clouds, and how in due time, everyone often gets what they want, if they try hard enough, even the vilest people among us.

At my engagement party, a sex video of my fiancé and his secretary was exposed to the public, making me the laughingstock of the entire city. Seeking revenge, I got drunk and spent the night with my ex-boyfriend from years ago—William Brown, now the "King" of the legal world, whom I had dumped in our youth. I even humiliated him with money afterward.

I thought it was just a ridiculous mistake, but as my father's condition deteriorated and the battle for the family fortune intensified, he turned out to be my only lifeline. He closed in on me step by step, setting traps at every turn, leaving me to wonder: should I submit to him, or become his enemy?

However, I gradually discovered that his motives for getting close to me seemed far more complicated than a simple transaction...