8967 Book(s) Related to the tyrant wants to live honestly spoiler

Clad in gray mist, kneeling on iron rocks, working as a menial laborer, everyone thought he was just a worthless nobody, groveling in the dust for an old pocket watch. His
in-laws found him filthy, his fiancée defected to a new master, and Lord Calder treated his obsession like a leash, subjecting him to arbitrary humiliation and summons at will.
Until that day, Calder shattered his last hope with an arrow, throwing him into the horde of zombies as a human sacrifice. Everyone thought he was doomed, but no one suspected—
the man kneeling in the mud wiping his boots was actually the reclusive lord of the strongest city-state in this wasteland, possessing S-class superpowers and ultimate weaponry.
He endured, solely for the truth and reckoning.
When he returned from the horde of zombies, radiating overwhelming power, the once high and mighty man knelt outside the city gates, weeping and begging him to open a path to survival.

All because I was unaware that Sophia had followed me on the mission, leaving her stranded in the chaotic dockyard.
My husband, Dante, was furious. He ordered his bodyguards to throw me into a seafood transfer warehouse.
“Cool off in the cold storage. Maybe then you’ll understand how helpless Sophia felt trapped in that container.”
It was a refrigeration unit for seafood, kept at a constant zero degrees, the air thick with the smell of fish.
I pounded on the door, pleading for help, but only Dante’s icy voice came through the intercom:
“Stop the act. The temperature in there won’t kill you. Stay inside and reflect until you learn your lesson.”
He cut the internal communication.
The temperature in the cold room kept dropping—someone had switched on the deep-freeze mode!
Shivering uncontrollably, I beat against the door until my nails left bloody scratches on the wall.
In agony, I curled into a ball. My consciousness faded, and my body grew stiff.
On the third day, Dante finally remembered me while celebrating the takeover of new territory.
In a rare show of mercy, he decided to have someone let me out.
But what he didn’t know was that my heart had already stopped beating from hypothermia long before.

I’d spent six years working under an alias for the High Council.
The day I came home, I happened to see my daughter being slapped by a woman and forced to kneel down.
I slapped the woman back and called my husband, Derek.
The call connected. In the background, I heard his newlywed wife giggling.
In a voice so cold I barely recognized it, he said, “No one can save you.”
Then he hung up.

That woman sneered, “Here, even the air you breathe belongs to Alpha Derek!”
She had no idea Derek only went from an ordinary Gamma to a Pack king because I’d been laying the road for him from behind the curtain.
Now he had his precious wife and son in his arms, and he still let them treat my daughter like a dog.

I smiled.
If he’d forgotten who lifted him onto the throne.
Then I wouldn’t mind dragging him down with my own hands.

“I’m the one deciding your fate, Derek.”
I took my daughter’s hand and looked straight at the man in front of me.
“Game over. Your Alpha era ends here.”

Freezing lake water flooded my lungs, swallowing every desperate breath as I sank beneath the ice.
On the shore, Oscar-winning actress Lauren looked down at me with a smile as elegant as it was cruel.
"Lexi, did you really think you deserved to be Mrs. Blackwood? Drowning in this lake is the price for stealing my spotlight."
Just when I thought the icy winter would become my grave, Sebastian Blackwood pulled me from the brink of death.
But the chill radiating from him was colder than the frozen lake itself.
Tilting up my bruised, blue-tinged chin, he ignored the mud clinging to my body—a man whose obsession with cleanliness was legendary. His voice was cold, commanding, and utterly merciless.
"Lexi, I told you before. Without my permission, you don't even have the right to die."
A shiver ran through me as I met the terrifying possessiveness burning in his eyes.
Only then did I realize the truth.
Every miraculous rescue. Every time he appeared out of nowhere when I was at my lowest. Every moment I believed he was the man who had saved me from hell...
It was all a lie.
He had never been my savior.
He was the devil who had dragged me into the abyss.
Making me the lead actress in Fallen Empire was never meant to launch my career. It was the first step in building a far more exquisite prison—a gilded cage where he intended to keep me by his side, forever.

The Alaskan winds cut across my face like knives, but only one thought consumed me—why hadn't Madison shown up to get me? In ten years, my sister had never failed to be there.

Until I walked in on my brother-in-law tangled up with some blonde bitch, and my world shattered. "Fallen through ice in a blizzard"? What a goddamn lie. They cut open her eight-month pregnant belly to steal her baby—while she was still conscious. They let her suffer for 47 excruciating minutes before she died.

I didn't break out of the psych ward to cry about it. I came back so these monsters can pay their blood debts in full. They think I was born wicked? Fine. Let me show them exactly how it feels to have your living body sliced open.

With her husband feeling more like a distant roommate, Nikki, an ex-college soccer player, knows there's more out there for her but scared to leave the comfort of her normal, usual, secure life. One night, during a massive storm, lightening strikes as a new player, Shane, joins her team. The second their eyes meet, time stops. She knows this person has always lived in her heart and soul. What is this feeling? It's illogical, it's fantasy, it's supported by all of the physical evidence you could throw in front of her. What the hell even is a soul mate, anyways? There's only one way to find out without actually having to interact with the dark haired stranger in real life...inviting him to dream with her. Will he join her?

The childhood love between “Kab Kluen” and “He Xing Yi” began with the close bond between their families, tied together by a promise that the two would one day marry.
But fate had other plans.
When Kab Kluen’s family had to return to Thailand permanently,
distance and time caused He Xing Yi to forget that childhood vow.
He found love with someone new and had no interest in marrying Kab Kluen anymore.
Yet fate intervened again.
On his deathbed, Kab Kluen’s father made one final request:
that He Xing Yi marry his son.
Though unwilling, He Xing Yi had no choice but to comply.
What followed were two long years of a marriage in name only.
Kab Kluen gave his all, hoping that one day, He Xing Yi would love him back.
But in return, he was met only with indifference… and heartbreak, again and again.
Where will this love—so painfully one-sided—ultimately lead?
Even Kab Kluen himself doesn’t know the answer…

“One of the best thrillers I have read this year.”--Books and Movie Reviews (re Any Means Necessary)In the much-anticipated debut of a new series by #1 bestseller Jack Mars, when elite Delta Force soldier Luke Stone, 29, joins a secretive government agency, he is dispatched on the mission of a lifetime: a whirlwind race across Europe and the Mid-East to save the President’s daughter before she is beheaded by terrorists.In PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1), we see the forging of one of the world’s toughest—and most lethal—soldiers: Luke Stone. A 29 year old veteran who has seen enough battle to last a lifetime, Luke is tapped by the Special Response Team, a secretive new FBI agency (led by his mentor Don Morris) to tackle the most high-stake terrorism operations in the world.Luke, still haunted by his wartime past and newly married to an expecting Becca, is dispatched on a mission to Iraq, with his new partner Ed Newsam, to bring in a rogue American contractor. But what begins as a routine mission mushrooms into something much, much bigger.When the President’s teenage daughter, kidnapped in Europe, is ransomed by terrorists, Luke may be the only one in the world who can save her before it is too late.PRIMARY TARGET is an un-putdownable military thriller, a wild action ride that will leave you turning pages late into the night. It marks the long-anticipated debut of a riveting new series by #1 bestseller Jack Mars, dubbed “one of the best thriller authors” out there.“Thriller writing at its best.”--Midwest Book Review (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!

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

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

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

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

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

Ugly. Good for nothing. Useless. Disgusting.
These are the words Zara hears every single day.


I was the Alpha's fated mate but my rejection was worse than one thousand needles pierced to my skin.
"I, Weston Bruce Furrow, Alpha of the Shadow Moon Pack reject you, Zara Liam Adolf of the Night Moon Pack. A pathetic runt weakling like you is no match for me."
I could feel my heart breaking, Tuna was howling inside me, and I could feel her pain.
"I, Zara Liam Adolf of the Night Moon Pack, accept your rejection..."


Being the Alpha's daughter doesn't shield Zara from the pack's cruelty. Especially when her own father is her worst tormentor.
Years later, the man she once hated most returns. The same man who rejected her, who humiliated her, and now, she doesn't understand why he's back. Worse still, she's being forced to negotiate with him.
Zara wants nothing more than to forget how he made her feel. But her pack needs protection, and he's the Alpha who can offer it.
Which means she has no choice but to put her pack above her pain.

Ophelia was born the weakest wolf in the pack, mocked, beaten, and treated like nothing. All she ever dreamed of was the day the Moon Goddess would give her a mate who would love her despite her flaws.

But when her fated mate was revealed, he didn’t claim her. He crushed her.

“I, Alpha Dominic, reject you as my mate. You will never be my Luna.”

The words tore her apart, and the pack’s laughter sealed her fate. Cast out, abandoned, and left to die, she thought her story had ended.

But the broken girl they discarded rose. The weak omega become stronger than them all. And the Alpha who rejected her bow at her feet.

Over the weekend, Alpha Kennard—my husband—and I were invited to attend a charity auction.
During the bidding, my husband's Beta, Joanna Morton, and I both set our sights on the same ruby necklace.
I was prepared to compete fairly, Until Alpha Kennard made the ceremonial bid for her.
"Queenie, you're nothing more than a dog I keep at home. What right do you have to compete with me?"
Just as everyone else withdrew from the bidding, I snapped my fingers at the auctioneer.
"Whatever Alpha Kennard offers—I'll outbid him by… one dollar."

She never saw it coming. After five years of marriage, it took a DNA test to blow everything up.

The son she raised from birth? Her husband's kid with his ex. And somehow, both of them knew the whole time and said nothing.

It gets worse. She overheard her husband's actual plan: wait for the ex to come back, then push her out of the company "nicely" and hand her five million as a goodbye gift.

Five million? She single-handedly kept that company alive, pouring in her own money and connections to clean up his messes. And that's all she's worth?

She was done. She wanted everything back that was hers.

The ungrateful kid? She's over it. The husband chasing his first love? Good riddance.

But the moment she walked away for real, both of them came running back.

"Baby, please. Just give me one more chance."

She didn't even look up.

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

To save my cousin from a car accident, my mother, a medical luminary, used me as a "human guinea pig" for twelve years.
When I was twelve, she made me inject myself with three injections of unproven new drugs every week;
when I was fourteen, she directly shoved toxic compounds into my mouth.
When my organs were irreversibly failing and I was vomiting blood in the ICU, she coldly tossed me a payment order:
"Stop pretending to be dead. Immediately kowtow and apologize to your brother, or no hospital will admit you."
As she wished, I was forced to leave the hospital and died at her glamorous new drug launch.
Later, that high-and-mighty mother, obsessed with fame and fortune, knelt for an entire night in a snow-covered fir forest, holding my crudely made urn.
Sadly, I will never forgive her.

To pay off my father’s debt, I married a wheelchair-bound vampire duke’s heir.
He couldn’t hear me or answer, so I told him everything—my heartbreaks, humiliations, and deepest secrets.
I thought no one would ever know.
Then one morning, he regained his hearing and asked, “Who did you say you had a crush on last night? Say it again.”

Three years ago, I exhausted everything I had in the Abyss Game to save my critically ill wife.
Three years later, my wife and her lover became an inseparable pair in the Abyss Game. To save their own lives, they used my only sister as a substitute, sending her to a dangerous situation where she was devoured by ghouls.
They thought I had lost everything and could be humiliated at will.
But when I chose to accept becoming the master of the Abyss Game, why did they suddenly kneel down and beg for mercy?

I have been tormented by a strange illness for ten years, with blood draws and surgeries being commonplace.
My mother always encouraged me, saying, "Nian Nian, bear with it a little longer. The pain will be over soon. Mom and Dad are doing this to save your life."
Hoping to be cured as soon as possible, I gritted my teeth and endured ten years of painful treatments, even if it meant living like a lab subject.
That was until I accidentally overheard my parents’ cruel conversation:
“Increase the blood draw even more. It doesn’t matter if she dies—she was only picked up to save Ying Ying. As long as she has a breath left, she owes it to us.”
At that moment, I finally understood: I was never sick at all.
The decade of daily treatments were nothing but a way to use me to extend the life of their biological daughter.

In my previous life, an extreme cold apocalypse descended.

I risked my life nine times over to evolve into a high-tier Ice Plains Wolf, and just to find a piece of meat to keep my fiancée alive, I frantically tore apart wild beasts in the snow. Yet I was betrayed by her and her lover—they cut out my heart with an ice blade!

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn half a month before the apocalypse!

Time was running out. To awaken the highest tier of beast-human form, I needed an enormous amount of meat to provide energy.

Sports cars? Ocean-view villas? Billions in assets? I wanted none of it!

I immediately dumped my manipulative fiancée, liquidated all my assets into cash, bought a fully enclosed fortified meat processing plant, and frantically stockpiled hundreds of thousands of tons of high-calorie raw meat!

The extreme cold arrived as expected, turning the entire city into a frozen hellscape.

The scumbag pair who betrayed me in my previous life now knelt outside my impregnable airlock door, crying pitifully and begging me for scraps.

I stepped out of my fortress and looked down at them with claws sharp enough to tear through steel:

"Want meat? Go to hell and eat dirt!"

Beta Malcolm and I were at the Civil Affairs Bureau, ready to register our marriage. We were just waiting to take the final photo when he got a phone call and left.
He abandoned me right there at the marriage registration office, leaving me stuck in an impossible situation.
I called him—no answer.
I messaged him—no reply.
In the end, I had no choice but to call his childhood sweetheart’s number. Beta Malcolm answered.
“Rowena, can you stop being so annoying? Queenie twisted her ankle—I need to take care of her today. Stop calling and waking her up. We’ll reschedule the registration.”
I bit my lip and murmured into the phone,
“This makes it the seventh time we’ve rescheduled.”
“So what? The Civil Affairs Bureau isn’t going anywhere—it’s not like it’s going to disappear!”
My face was blank, but it felt like my heart was being carved open.
A staff member looked at me with pity and asked,
“Alpha Rowena, are we still doing this?”
I gave a small nod.
“Yes. Let’s go through with it.”

"She's dying, can't you be more generous?" That's what my husband said.
So I was generous.
I gave her my husband's time when our daughter was in the ER for an allergic reaction she caused.
I gave her my once-in-a-lifetime concert ticket because "she deserved it more."
I even endured our daughter wishing I would die in her place.
But when he accused me of orchestrating a kidnapping to win his sympathy, I knew my generosity had run out. I threw the divorce papers in his face. He laughed, thinking I couldn't survive without him.
He's about to find out how wrong he is.

My pack's golden girl—my adopted sister—vanished. On my eighteenth birthday—the day my wolf should have awakened—my parents dragged me to a witch.
"Show us what you did to her."
Fine. Let them look.
Let them see who drugged me the day I came home. Who stole credit while I bled. Who smiled while planning my destruction.
They chose their precious Rosalie over me for three years.
They wanted the truth?
They were about to choke on it.

Daphne Anderson has always longed for genuine love, whatever the form. She searched for it in her father and his horrid second wife even after her mother’s demise. Temporarily, she had found a sort of true love with her fiancé, until everything shattered when she caught him cheating.
Barely a week after the shocking discovery, she is presented with news of her father’s failing business – debts that ran into millions, failed investments and an impending bank foreclosure. The proposed solution was getting married to some Mysterious billionaire.
It was such a ridiculous offer - one that she would’ve tossed in the bin, if she were in her right senses. But being fresh out of a nasty breakup and her father’s sudden poor heart conditions, she flings caution to the wind and serves herself up as the ‘sacrificial bride’, especially if it’d stop everyone from breathing down her neck.
Daphne finds herself trapped in a web of family secrets, shocking revelations - and newfound desires… She has to make choices that will determine the pathway of her life. Will she find the strength to break free from the suffocating expectations and forge her own path? only hoping the sun doesn’t set on her fate yet? as time can be her greatest ally or foe.

Ava Duval gave up everything for love. She left a promising fashion career and poured five years of her life into building a multimillion-dollar empire from the bottom with her husband by her side.

She was a bubbly woman until she lost her children during delivery, and out of her husband's love, or so she thought, he adopted twins for her, and she raised them as her own.

She was blessed to have a supportive husband and did not hesitate to give him her kidney when she heard that he was terribly ill. She gave him pieces of herself until the truth surfaced.

Her pregnancy had been purposely sabotaged; the children were never adopted but are her husband's blood, borne by his mistress, and the kidney she had donated never went to her husband.

She realizes too late that she sacrificed everything for a man whose heart was with another woman. Now, she has to rebuild herself with the scars she has gotten from marriage.

Will she forgive him, claim her revenge for every cruel thing that has been done to her, or pick up the pieces and move on? Or will she do all three until her heart is finally satisfied?

Born between two kingdoms at war, Astrid Stone’s life has been marked by pain and misfortune, condemned to live as a slave within her own palace.
She is the princess no one wants, the shadow of a lineage that despises her.
When the new wolf king, Lysander Rowan, forces her to marry him to avenge his father, both are trapped in a union forged by hatred… and consumed by a desire neither can deny.
As their love grows and her true nature awakens, Astrid must choose between loyalty to her past or a forbidden love that threatens to destroy them both.
In a world where blood dictates destiny, can love defy the moon?

I was once a world-renowned designer, but I retired for love, dedicating six years to my husband and daughter. But on our anniversary, he spent millions on my final masterpiece, only to place it around another woman's neck on live TV. My own daughter then ran on stage, sweetly calling her 'mommy.' My six years of devotion became a joke. When I asked for a divorce, he sneered, thinking I was just a housewife who couldn't survive three days without him. He has no idea that the legendary designer 'Octavia' he's desperately trying to meet is the wife he cast aside. Now, I’m back. And I'm ready to take back everything that is mine.

I'm Jennifer, a stay-at-home mom. I gave up my art career eight years ago to take care of my family. My husband Julian and my son Garry, they're my whole world.

But lately, I've noticed them getting closer to Mia, Julian's secretary. Little things. Garry asking where "Miss Mia" is. Julian mentioning her at dinner. I told myself it was nothing. I kept quiet. I put up with it.

Until last week, when Garry broke his arm playing hockey. The school called Mia, not me. She was listed as his emergency contact.

That's when I knew I was done.

From a young age, I understood that my asthma was a shackle for my entire family. My parents took turns caring for me, their hearts gripped by the fear of any sign of respiratory distress. In their fervent concern for my health, they even compelled my sister, Sophie, freshly accepted into university, to postpone her studies and return home to assist in my care.
At Sophie's eighteenth birthday celebration, I lingered at the edge of the crowd, my chest constricted, and my throat felt as if it were ensnared by invisible hands. I gently tugged at my mother's sleeve, my voice barely a whisper: "Mom, I... can't breathe. I want to go back to my room..."
In an instant, my mother whirled around, her eyes ablaze with fury, as though she had awaited this moment of eruption. She seized my inhaler and hurled it into the farthest corner of the room.
"If it's this painful, then go die!" she shrieked, her words cutting like a knife. "Stop using your illness to hold us hostage!"
The inhaler tumbled to the floor, rolling away like a forgotten piece of trash. I stared at it blankly, a sudden laugh escaping my lips.
And then, I truly died. Yet, in the wake of my passing, those who once found me a burden descended into madness.

My name is Arthur, Atlantic City’s number one pauper and absolute peerless coward.
On the outside, I roar with sheer arrogance: "The debt collector has returned from Hell!"
On the inside, I’m sobbing hysterically: "Mommy, save me! I really don‘t want to act tough!"
My name is Arthur, a complete coward whose hands shake even when trying to kill a chicken.
That was, until I was bound to a completely unhinged [Absolute Bully System].
[Ding! Novice Bully Quest: Crash the Mafia banquet and splash red wine on the face of the corporate heiress!]
[Ding! Advanced Quest: Steal the Underground Godfather's wife!]
[Ding! Ultimate Quest: Walk right up to the Underground Godfather and slap him mercilessly across the face!]
"Screw you! I don't even have the guts to kill a chicken, and you want me to beat up the Emperor of the Underworld? No way! I'd rather starve to death than dig my own grave!"
[Ding! Host's refusal detected. Punishment impending: Serial sphincter rupture resulting in explosive public diarrhea, accompanied by penile retraction into the abdomen, and the reverse fracturing of all 206 bones. It will take seven days and seven nights for you to finally die! Countdown: 3 seconds.]
"... System Daddy, I was wrong."
To avoid dying of explosive diarrhea, I had no choice but to let the System control my body, kick the doors open, heft a Gatling gun, and laugh maniacally: "So you're supposed to be the Underground Emperor?!"
But deep down in my heart, I was wailing uncontrollably: "Mommy, save me! I really don't want to act tough anymore!"

The luxury cruise ship in the high seas had become a floating steel coffin for the beautiful CEO and me.
Just a door away, the corridor was teeming with slithering, tentacled Mimics. The wet, crunching sounds of them chewing on raw flesh were enough to make anyone’s scalp go numb.
Inside the pitch-black storage cabin—measuring barely three square meters—the usually aloof and untouchable Ice Queen of the corporate world was so terrified she had her flawless body pressed desperately against my chest.
In this extreme claustrophobia, her scalding body heat generated a fierce friction against me in the face of absolute despair.
"Keep me alive. Everything I have... is yours."

"I absolutely love your huge, thick cock, James. Just let me ride it tonight, and I'll pay you to be my secret whore," my wife's sister-in-law purred, climbing into my bed completely naked, her wet, dripping pussy grinding against my thigh.

I threw her naked body onto the floor like trash. For three years, I played the pathetic, submissive househusband to my arrogant wife, Emily. I endured their endless humiliation, hiding the fact that I was the billionaire heir and lethal ex-special forces agent keeping their pathetic family alive.

But today, the three-year contract hit zero.

When a rival mafia boss kicked down our door, threatening to massacre everyone, my wife's sister Rhea desperately ripped her dress open, exposing her heavy, bare breasts, begging the boss to fuck her raw right there on the floor if he spared her life.

I’d had enough.

I stepped forward, snapping the necks and shattering the bones of a dozen armed guards, leaving them choking on their own blood. As my fleet of twenty armored Rolls-Royces surrounded the villa, my true identity was finally revealed.

Seeing my unimaginable power, Rhea crawled to my feet, shoving her massive tits against my leg, begging to suck my cock and share my bed with my wife.

I slapped her across her slutty face, tore up the marriage contract, and walked out.

Behind me, Emily collapsed, sobbing hysterically. "If I had just spread my legs for him... if I had just let him breed me and fill my womb with his heir, I would be the queen of the world..."

She's begging for my seed now, but should I lock her in my basement and make her pay for the last three years?

Just before my wedding, my fate mate, my Alpha fiancé, Micheal, stripped me of my wedding dress—our wedding dress—and handed it to his mistress, Becky Porter.
Not only that, but he locked me in the dressing room like some rabid wolf he needed to contain.
"Becky has a terminal illness.She just wants to experience being a bride before she dies."
I lunged forward, my wolf howling inside me. Alpha's strength pressed against mine, his dominance forcing my muscles to lock. My claws twitched, itching to break free.
"You bastard!" I snarled, my breath ragged.
Micheal barely blinked. Instead, he let out an exasperated sigh, shaking his head .
"She’s dying, and you can’t even show a little compassion?" His tone dripped with disappointment, as if I were the villain here. "You’re only losing a wedding, but Becky… Becky is losing her dreams and her life."

In our third year of surviving the wasteland, my companions and I finally realized it was all a reality show.

The elites and billionaires on the outside had built a massive dome, tossing us into this irradiated hellhole to be tortured. They broadcasted it globally, watching us drink toxic wastewater and eat mutated meat, treating us like monkeys in a zoo.

The mole in our team knelt in the mud, sobbing, begging me to understand that it was all a script—that as long as I played along, I could live.

Without a second thought, I swung my blade. Right in front of ten million VIP viewers, I chopped off his leg.

"Crappy script," I sneered, kicking aside the severed limbs and blood on the floor. Gripping my machete, I walked toward the real world beyond the heavy gates.

To those who used our lives for entertainment: I'm coming for yours.

My ex and I used to live inside a romance movie.

She was the heroine’s best friend. I was the hero’s loyal sidekick. When the leads got their happy ending, we—the two “extras”—ended up together like an afterthought.

Then the credits rolled, and real life didn’t. The heroine died in a car crash, the hero fell apart, and my girlfriend chose that moment to leave me.

She said she was done being a supporting role. She wanted the spotlight—she wanted the heroine’s place.

I didn’t beg. I left the city alone and started over from nothing.

Five years later, I returned with my own company group—and ran into her again at a charity gala.

She still looked flawless, moving through the room of power and money, keeping up the image of success. She assumed I was still the same guy trailing behind someone else, and she spoke to me with that familiar, pitying superiority—offering to “help” me back into the circle.

Until the lights dimmed, and the host read my name with respectful clarity, inviting me to the stage.

That was when she realized the gala’s biggest sponsor was me—and the “sidekick” she thought she’d left behind was now someone she could never reach again.

Seventy-two hours before my wedding, I stood in front of the fitting mirror at a bridal shop.

My best friend sent me a social media post, and the red exclamation mark in the message box stung my eyes sharply.

The post’s title read: Guys, my boyfriend is getting married to his current partner. What should I do?

The comment section had already erupted into chaos.
“Dude, are you out of your mind? You’re the other woman here!”
“You’re the homewrecker and you dare post this to get roasted? Where’s your shame?”

The poster was firing back furiously, every word oozing unapologetic madness:
“We’ve been inseparable since we were kids! His first love, first kiss, first time—all mine!”
“He doesn’t even like that old hag; he’s only marrying her out of obligation!”
“Who’s the real mistress, anyway?”

I should have swiped past it like a silly joke, but my gaze was locked onto the poster’s profile picture.

It showed two hands laced together. Peeking out from the man’s wrist was a dark green watch dial—a Richard Mille Valentine’s Day limited edition. It was the seven-figure engagement gift I’d bought him by selling my mother’s last precious heirloom, the only one of its kind in the world.

My heart was squeezed tight by an icy hand, plummeting to the bottom in an instant.

I tapped into the account’s homepage. The second my finger swiped open the photo album, a dizzying, world-spinning sensation crashed over me.

In the photos, the man holding the girl closely was none other than Lu Yanchen—my fiancé, who was supposed to marry me in three days.

I stared at the screen. All the wedding hopes and love I’d saved up over three years shattered into nothing but dust at this moment.

I couldn’t believe it, yet I had to. The man who’d loved me for three years and sworn to protect me forever had been lying to me from start to finish.

BLURB

My breath hitched, my chest heaving as Salvatore's finger thrust into my pussy. I clenched my teeth, my fingers squeezing the bedsheets as I shamelessly parted my legs even wider.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice was a low growl.

“No,” I breathed. “Faster…please,” I moaned loudly.

I knew Salvatore's and my attraction to each other was forbidden; he was the heir to a wealthy family, and I was just a maid in his house. But I have had an attraction to him since I met him and couldn't control it.

We both couldn't.


Lyra Whitman is from a poor home and has faced constant bullying in school. She and her mother finally moved away to a new city, where they her mother works as a maid for the Sinclair's, one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the county.

Lyra cannot help but fall for their son, and she is surprised to see that he feels the same. Knowing the dangers of being together due to their different backgrounds, they are forced to navigate their relationship in secret.

A short contemporary domestic-drama romance. Clean to sweet. Happily ever after.

My husband's family slid the folder across the table — sign here, family helps family, it's just a signature.

What they didn't know: I had almost three million dollars in an account none of them could find. I silenced the alert before the number could glow.

They think we're the broke ones. For four years they've bled the kindest man I know dry, dressing every demand up as love and cashing it. So I let them keep believing it — and I built a wall they will never see.

They're about to find out what happens when you spend a lifetime underestimating the quiet one.

And this time, I'm not the one who pays.

The day he proposed, Atticus knelt before me, holding the Hale family's heirloom necklace.
I thought I had finally survived the ordeal.
After eight years of unrequited love, being humiliated by his sister, nitpicked by his mother, and mocked by the city's socialites for being unworthy of the Hales... Until this very moment, when he personally fastened the heirloom around my neck. Everyone saw it. I, Clara, was finally accepted by the Hale family.
Tears in my eyes, I said yes, thinking it was the happiest moment of my life.
But just days after putting on that necklace, bizarre red rashes crawled up my neck. My pale skin rotted away piece by piece, and my internal organs went into irreversible failure.
The most absurd part? The exact same day I started rotting, his dying mother miraculously cured her terminal illness, and his sister's half-destroyed face was restored to flawless perfection.
Disfigured and barely looking human, I threw myself off the Harbour Bridge—
I opened my eyes, and I was back on the day of the proposal.

The day college decisions came out, my parents bought my twin sister a Porsche.
It was my eighteenth birthday too. Nobody brought it up. I stood in the doorway in my diner uniform while the whole room sang her name.
That night the four of them went out to dinner to celebrate her. The car only sat four, so my father handed me a hundred dollars and told me to order myself something at home.
Four days later, six thousand four hundred dollars vanished from my account. Two years of washing dishes, gone to her sorority dues. My mother's name was on the account, so it wasn't even illegal.
I didn't scream and I didn't beg. I went upstairs and clicked Accept on the full ride to MIT that had been sitting in my inbox for three days.
Nobody in that house ever wanted me. So I booked a one-way ticket, cut myself out of the family photo, and left my key on the shoe rack.
I wasn't coming back. Not for graduation. Not for any of them.

Five years into living with my stepbrother Gideon, the scholarship girl he sponsored moved into our house.
To repay his "generosity," she made a habit of slipping into his bed at night. By day, she took it upon herself to "fix" my antisocial, withdrawn personality.
Three days before St. George Prep's graduation ceremony, she brought me a glass of juice wearing that nauseating sugar-sweet smile.
"You know, Charlotte, your peanut allergy is probably psychosomatic. You just need some exposure therapy. Let me help you get over it."
That night, my throat closed completely. She'd deliberately laced my drink with concentrated peanut extract.
I convulsed on the cold hardwood floor, vision tunneling as oxygen fled my lungs.
In the last second before darkness swallowed me whole, I clawed desperately toward the half-open door.
Standing in the hallway were my boyfriend Dylan and my stepbrother Gideon.
They simply watched me suffocate. Then Gideon calmly reached out and shut the door.
I died from anaphylactic shock.
Three months later, as a ghost tethered to this world, I watched her stride onto Stanford's campus. Wearing my clothes. Carrying my acceptance letter. Burning through my trust fund.
Through the crowd, I saw Gideon—my ice-cold, unreachable stepbrother—gently cradle her face and press his lips to hers.
Then I gasped awake.
I was back. Three days before graduation.

Six months ago, my parents started fostering a girl named Lila Mercer.
Six months ago, Mom repainted the guest room and strung fairy lights over the bed. My room still has the same furniture I've had since I was twelve.
Six months ago, Dad started coming home for Sunday dinner. Not for me. I'd been eating alone at the counter for years by then.
Six months ago, Mom posted a photo of the two of them at the farmers market. Caption: our family is growing. I saw it during third period and locked my phone hard enough to crack the case.
So when I picked up the family iPad tonight and a notification popped up from an app I didn't recognize, I wasn't shocked. Just tired of being right.
The app was called Beacon.

“Dad… please… help me…” I pleaded, my shattered ribs piercing my lungs, blood soaking the stretcher.
But Richard, the hospital's top surgeon and my biological father, didn't even glance at me. Instead, he rushed to the next bed.
“Don't be afraid, Chloe. I'm here,” he cooed to his stepdaughter, who merely had a tiny scratch on her arm. “Get the best equipment over here now!” he roared.
As the heart monitor flatlined and my soul left my broken body, I realized the chilling truth: in the choice between life and death, my father gladly let me die.

On the third day of the outbreak, I sat in my company’s executive conference room, gripping the red toy car I bought for my six-year-old son.

Outside the door were zombies filling the building. Beside me were six executives still breathing only because I was.

They wanted meetings. They wanted to wait for rescue. They wanted to chain me with morality.

But I wanted one thing—my son was still in daycare. Three days. No one went for him.

At dawn, I opened the door they’d barricaded shut.

I can shoot. I can clear a path. I will carve my way through to bring him back.

Anyone who stands in my way dies.