163 Book(s) Related to joe swason

I woke up, and my world collapsed.

Lying next to me was Sebastian—the golden boy, the heir to the Rhodes empire, and the nemesis who has tormented me for twenty years.

I fled. I swore to take that night to my grave. If I kept my mouth shut, no one would know.

But Fate has a twisted sense of humor. Five weeks later, two red lines on a pregnancy test slapped me in the face. I’m pregnant. And the father isn’t just my childhood nightmare. He’s the man who just bought my company. My new boss.

I tried to hide. He hunted me down. He scares off my dates. He tramples my pride. He invades my life like a tyrant. He mocks me in public, yet destroys anyone who touches me in private.

"Nancy, did you really think you could escape?" He pins me against the wall, his eyes dark, that familiar scent of cedar suffocating me. "Admit it. You hate me, but you need me."

On my eighteenth birthday, I didn't get a cake. I got a slap from my mother and my MIT acceptance letter crushed under her heel.

In their eyes, I wasn't a daughter—I was a walking blood bank, a spare part for my cousin Jennifer.

They took my blood, made me take the blame, even sent me to prison in her place.

In that car accident, my mother saved my cousin without hesitation and left me to bleed out in the wreckage.

"Save Jennifer first! That wretch is too stubborn to die!"

That's when I gave up on them.

But what truly broke me wasn't being sent to a mental hospital—it was the diary I found hidden in my mother's safe.

I had to claim Caleb tonight.

I had paid a six-figure premium to contract a high-level werewolf mate from the nation’s top "Fated Mates" agency. I had chosen him for his elite stats, the "absolute submission" guaranteed in his file, and most importantly, a face that could put any Hollywood A-lister to shame.

But over the last few months, things had completely derailed from my expectations.

He refused to let me touch him!

I have to figure out what's going on.

The day I walked in on my boyfriend screwing that blonde tramp, I dropped the homemade tiramisu right there on the floor—our two-year relationship smashed to bits, messier than the splattered cream.

I ducked into a bar, slamming back whiskey, when this guy in a sharp black suit sidles up, his voice smooth as silk laced with bourbon. I spat out, "Help me forget him," but ended up totally lost in the presidential suite. He backed me against the wall, tore open my blouse, his tongue circling my nipple before biting down hard, leaving me breathless. "You taste like candy, baby—tonight, I'm gonna eat you up."

But then my boyfriend FaceTimes, spots the guy behind me, and loses it, screaming, "Dad!"

I went ice-cold—my hookup was my boyfriend's stepdad? Even worse, this thirty-three-year-old powerhouse was Brooklyn's deadliest mob boss.

What began as a vengeful fling spiraled into a forbidden nightmare?

Have you ever been treated like a stand-in for your dead sibling by your own mother? I have.

Have you ever been murdered by your own mother? I have.

My name is Aira, and today is my sister Lily's birthday. It's also the anniversary of my death—the day the washing machine became my coffin.

"Why couldn't it have been you who died?"

After four long years, my mom finally got her wish.

For five years, my crime boss husband made me take off my wedding ring nine times—all for his precious damsel in distress.

When we first married, he promised me: "From now on, you're my queen, the queen of New Orleans."

But whenever Brianna came crying for help, he'd change his tune: "Mr. Parker saved my life, Claire. I owe his family everything."

And like a fool, I believed him eight times.

Eight times I watched from the shadows as he took another woman to our favorite restaurants.

Eight times I explained to the crew that our "separation" was just giving each other space.

Eight times I watched her move into my bedroom, use my dishes, sleep in my bed.

All for a man who kept making me slip off my ring, then slide it back on, over and over again.

Until the ninth time, when he said he needed to provide sperm for her fertility treatment, and I offered to leave.

He still thinks this is just another temporary break, expecting me to come crawling back in a month like always.

He'll never know I've already booked my ticket out of here.

My husband and parents wanted me dead. All because my sister was "dying."

They shoved a divorce agreement and an experimental surgery consent form at me.

I was supposed to be her donor.

But they didn't know I was the one actually dying.

Three days ago, they told me I had terminal bone cancer.

One month to live.

So when they threatened me into some back-alley surgery, I smiled.

I was already dying anyway.

I donated a kidney to my adopted sister.

Seven days later, I lay on the cold hospital bed, listening to my fiancé and family laughing down the hall.

They were popping champagne to celebrate my adopted sister's discharge.

No one remembered I had just had surgery. No one remembered my nut allergy.

When someone handed me a plate of almonds, I smiled.

I shoved them into my mouth, handful after handful, and swallowed them down. Then I told them I was done fighting for their love.

My fiancé demanded I postpone our wedding. My brother beat me until I bled and locked me on the rooftop to die.

After being abandoned eighty-eight times, I finally learned how to love myself—by cutting everyone who failed me out of my life.

Sebastian is dead.

And I'm the prime suspect.

I thought Lucy was the only one on my side, but there's always panic in her eyes. Black stockings showing up in my closet, red marks on my wrists I can't explain, texts sent from my phone that I never wrote...

The evidence keeps piling up, choking me.

My memory's slipping, the same broken nightmares on repeat. Strange perfume, cruel words, and the name "Leah" that won't leave my head.

Who is lying? Who's pulling the strings?

I can't tell what's real anymore. All I know is everyone's lying to me.

I need to find who's behind this before it destroys me.

I've been married to my husband Jake for three years. In that time, I've been pregnant twice.

But each time, I lost the baby.

What took my children wasn't a medical condition, but a painting.

A black bird, painted by Jake's ten-year-old blind brother, Billy.

My in-laws claimed he had the gift—a psychic born with sight beyond sight. And the black bird was an omen. It marked my baby as cursed, a threat to the family.

To save my second child, I got the best amniocentesis report money could buy, proving the baby had no genetic defects.

It happened again anyway.

At three in the morning, I woke to the agony of another miscarriage and stumbled to the studio door.

That's when I found out the truth.

My aunt was terrified I'd end up with a human. So she arranged a marriage herself.

The groom? Kael Voss. Alpha heir to the most powerful pack on the East Coast.

I had a Moonstone Mate Necklace custom-made for the occasion. Global commission. A hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

The day I went to pick it up, it was snatched right out of my hands.

The woman who took it? Chloe Hart. Kael's so-called childhood best friend.

She looked me up and down like I was a stray dog that had wandered in off the street.

"A hundred and eighty grand? Sweetheart, you can't even afford the tax."

Then she told me to get on my knees. Right there, in front of the whole store. Scream three times, "I'm a worthless stray Omega and I know my place."

I didn't kneel.

I threw her own words right back in her face and put her on the floor with one kick.

That's when Kael walked in. My fiancé. The man I'd never met until that very moment.

And damn... he was gorgeous.

I'll be honest, I'm shallow. Always have been. That face hit every single thing on my list.

So I walked right up to him, gave him my sweetest smile, and said, "Hi. I'm Judy. Your fiancée."

My husband, Zachary, chose to save his sister-in-law right in front of the kidnappers.

The kidnapper pressed the gun to my temple and asked, "Choose your wife or your sister-in-law?"

Zachary didn't hesitate. "Let Valerie go," he said.

He actually chose to save his sister-in-law! In that moment, even the baby in my belly seemed to stop kicking.

Later, they locked me in the basement. Drugs to delay labor were pumped into my veins over and over. Zachary wanted to save the "firstborn son" status for his sister-in-law's child.

When warm blood finally soaked through my skirt, I dialed the number I knew by heart with shaking hands.

"Zachary," I whispered into the phone, "our child... can't wait any longer."

I never imagined that the most humiliating secret of my life would be laid bare in a flimsy tent in the middle of nowhere.

Even less did I imagine that the person witnessing my unraveling would be Sebastian. He’s the CEO of a top-tier conglomerate, my direct boss, and, most damningly, my ex’s stepfather.

A freak accident left us stranded in the jungle late at night. Inside that cramped, suffocating tent, the air felt scorching, almost unbearable. Worst of all, in my rush to leave, I’d forgotten to bring the medication that suppresses my “craving disorder.”

When that sickening desire surged through me like a tidal wave, when his body heat pressed against my back through his shirt, I could only bite my lip hard, teetering on the edge of shame and instinct.

“Mr. Blackwood, please… stay away from me.”

I died once.

In my last life, someone posted my photo on the company's anonymous forum, claiming I slept my way to the top.

The comment section exploded.

Colleagues whispered behind my back and pointed fingers.

A blurry video convinced everyone the woman in it was me.

I explained. I cried. I begged.

No one believed me.

The company forced me out. My parents kicked me out.

I walked to my death, condemned by everyone.

Then I opened my eyes.

Everything went back to the beginning.

The same post, the same accusation, the same man swearing in the comments he'd seen it all himself.

This time, I'm getting my revenge.

On my due date, my husband Russell locked me in an underground freezer at minus ten degrees.

The Pembroke family's unbreakable rule: the first-born male inherits the entire mafia empire. My sister-in-law Natasha and I were both pregnant, our due dates only one day apart. To ensure his brother's child was born first, Russell made this insane decision.

"My brother and Natasha's baby has to come first—this is what you owe them!" He ignored my desperate pleas and violent contractions, coldly shoving me into the freezer.

But that wasn't enough. They forcibly injected me with labor-delaying drugs. I curled up in agony on the freezing concrete floor, feeling my baby slowly slipping away, tears of despair streaming down my face.

My baby, Mommy is so sorry...

Everyone knows my husband is obsessed with me.

He's gone against the board for me, walked away from billion-dollar deals, dropped millions at charity galas. Everyone said I'd married into a fairytale. I believed it too.

Until the anonymous email.

In the photo, he was kissing a little girl's forehead—three years old, maybe four. He looked at her the way fathers do.

Three years of marriage. Countless failed IVF attempts. Then finally—I was pregnant.

I was about to tell him when his phone buzzed. He left immediately—for another woman and her child.

I was the only one who didn't know.

If the love was fake, if the marriage was fake—then I could disappear too.

In two days, the typhoon hits. My car will go off the cliff into the ocean. No one survives that.

I'll disappear from his world forever—me and the baby he doesn't know about.

I'm eight months pregnant, throwing up so violently I can taste bile, three "miracles" growing inside me.

Until that night at their celebration dinner, when I leaned against the wall and heard laughter from inside the private room.

I could hear the amusement in my husband Frank's voice: "Let's up the bet—another million. I'm betting two boys, one girl."

His mistress Ava giggled: "You already know the results."

"Of course," he said casually. "They're my children. Of course I know."

Then I heard it.

They talked about my womb like I was some kind of breeding machine.

They clinked glasses, debating "whose eggs were worth more."

They were even betting on "which baby would come out first."

And there I was, outside the door, my swollen feet barely holding up my aching, stretched body.

Inside, they were laughing and celebrating.

Celebrating their perfect little surrogate, carrying my husband's babies with his mistress.

Right then, the nausea just... stopped.

I just felt cold.

And slowly, a plan started forming in my head.

I used to believe my husband was my hero. When Julian Miller’s empire was falling apart, I made a desperate choice to save him. I spent a night in the suite of his fiercest competitor, Arthur Vance. Julian called me his hero and said he trusted me.

But he was lying to me for five long years.

Everything changed in an instant. Watching our daughter hang from a broken roller coaster, Julian didn’t attempt to save her. Instead, he reached for his phone to call his mistress.

To him, she wasn’t a child in peril; she was just a chance to wipe out a 'mistake' and start fresh with someone who had been in our lives since the very beginning of our marriage.

Now, people see me as a heartbroken mother and an ashamed wife. Julian thinks he’s buried me under his web of lies and his influence. But he overlooked one crucial point: I have nothing more to lose, and I'm ready to settle a score.

With the one man Julian fears most by my side, I’m stepping back into the light. And by the time I’m through, he’ll understand that the woman he treated like a pawn is the very one who will bring his whole world crashing down.

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.

I’m Maria, thirty years old, my body like a forgotten vine, aching to be watered and revived. Once, I thought marriage was my safe harbor, but my husband—that useless bastard—not only left me unsatisfied in bed, he betrayed my heart, screwing around with another woman. My pussy has long been dry, yet desire burns in my chest, forcing me to flee that cold, empty home and seek refuge in the vineyards of Provence, desperate for a breath of life.

Here, I met Julian. That evening, under the grapevines, he fucked me hard. I know this is just the beginning. My body and soul will be reborn in this steamy affair.

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.

“Why is Elara dying on my stream?”

Sienna Vale laughed in front of half a million viewers while my heroine glitched on-screen, wearing the ring I designed and speaking the line I wrote.

Caleb didn’t ask if I was okay. He shoved the emergency laptop toward me and said, “Fix it before the investors panic.”

So I opened the live build.

But instead of saving his launch, I patched one line into the game credits:

Created by Maya Reed.

Running away from a forced marriage and right into the arms of a wild creature, Jade’s luck failed her yet again. Deciding at thye last minute that she’d rather die than stay married to a psychopath who had lost his mate, she made a last minute decision of fleeing which she ended up regretting.

Markov, a wild lycan creature who has been trapped in his beast form for hundreds of years. Alphas had tried over the years to eliminate him, but he had killed every single one of them. A cold blooded vicious beast who loses his mind once in his beast form. When he finds out that the woman whom he had almost killed in the woods was his mate, his sanity returned instantly.
She was the solution to his problems and also his doom. His curse would finally end, but only if she would be his.

Running from her past, Jade ends up running into her scary future. Can a man like Markov ever be tamed? Could she love a beast who has lost his sanity? Even after finding out that he had killed her parents in cold blood?
Will her love save Markov, or would her revenge end him?


“You can’t run from your fate, little rabbit. No matter how fast you run, I will catch you. You can hide, but I will find you. You might as well come with me willingly, and let us be done with this cat and mouse game. The choice is yours, my little Jade. The choice is yours...” His words sent down her spine, his deep baritone voice a promise of his deadly threats.

Aria Woods is a human girl who lives with her parents in the "Werewolf Kingdom". Her life is pretty plain she works at the farm with her parents during the day, and at night she secretly trains with her best friend Blair.

One night she met two vampires Ethan and Mason from the neighborhood kingdom. It changes her life as she fell in love with Mason. The hybrid inside her was emerging due to Mason's presence.

On the night of Aria's 18th birthday, they all met up at their usual spot and sensed many people closing in on them. Before they could figure out the situation they were under attack.

Will Aria transform into a hybrid to protect her loved ones? Will it change her life forever?

"Yes baby, just like that. Oh fuck yes! Yes!"

I opened my mouth as utter shock and pain filled my body. My husband was fucking my step sister on our wedding night. Hot tears dropped from my eyes as the wet sounds and moaning grew louder and louder.


Larissa, the esteemed Luna of the Tokenmoon pack, had it all. A loving husband and a strong pack. But it was all a lie. Stefan, her alpha husband, was the devil. He maltreated and abused her constantly while cheating on her with her step-sister. To make matters worse, he rejected her and sent her away. Heartbroken, Larissa was lost until she stumbled across her second chance mate. . . Kaden.

Kaden, handsome as sin and the alpha of Griffen-howl pack is a broken man. When his wife runs away with another man, while abandoning him and his son, he vows never to believe in love. But when a homeless woman, Larissa comes into his territory, it appears that he might be breaking those vows. She is his second-chance mate but will he be able to believe in love again?

Steamy, dirty stories with a kinky, forbidden twist. Each story is about 20,000 words so sit back, grab some holy water and relax! It's time to sink in 11 deliciously dark and twisted love tales! Highly erotic and brimming with dark desires, don't say I didn't warn ya!

18+ Forbidden Temptations (Steamy Collections Erotica)
Coach and Cheerleader
Principal and Student
Step-brother and Step-sister
Teacher and Student
Step-father and step-daughter
Father’s best friend and 18 year old daughter
Professor and college student
Secretary and Ceo
Maid and master
Younger boy and older woman
Doctor and female student

"I'll marry you."
Lauren Greene never thought those words would escape her lips. But with her mother's life hanging by a thread and emergency surgery costing more than she could ever afford, desperation left her with only one choice—marry a crippled stranger.
Alexander Magnus, the reclusive billionaire heir who lost his parents in a tragic hit-and-run and survived the accident that left him disabled, had spent twenty years abroad rebuilding himself. He returned home ready to take over his father's empire—and marry the woman he had loved silently for years, Melissa McCarthy.
But on the day of their court wedding, Melissa never showed up.
Instead, Alex crossed paths with Lauren, a woman willing to trade her freedom for a chance to save her mother.
Their marriage of convenience was meant to be nothing more than a transaction—until real feelings began to slip through the cracks.
And just as Lauren and Alex start to find a fragile rhythm together, Melissa suddenly returns, determined to reclaim Alex as hers.
Tom Devon—the ruthless billionaire rival who has fallen for Lauren—steps into the picture, vowing to take her away.
With jealousy rising, secrets unraveling, and Lauren's mother's shocking death pointing fingers toward Alex, their world threatens to crumble.
Will Lauren fight for the man she's beginning to love? Or flee, like she always has?
And can Alex and Lauren survive the chaos closing in around them or is their happy ending destined to shatter before it even begins?

“You disgust me.”

I blinked back the tears that wanted to fall and forced myself to move forward. This was just another challenge I had to face, another hurdle in my mission.

I couldn’t let Hunter break me, no matter how much he seemed to enjoy tormenting me. I would survive this. I had to. Even if it meant swallowing my pride and scrubbing floors until my hands bled.


As an Omega from a rival pack, Faelen Earhart’s mission is clear: infiltrate the ruthless Howle Wulf Pack and pose as a servant. But blending in proves harder than expected, especially when she catches the eye of Alpha Hunter Blackethorn—a notorious playboy who loathes weakness and makes Faelen’s life a living nightmare. Despite his cruelty, Faelen finds herself drawn to him, sparking a dangerous attraction that’s as thrilling as it is confusing.
When Faelen uncovers an imminent attack from her own pack, she faces an impossible choice: remain loyal to her pack or protect the man she’s come to care for. Her warning changes everything, forcing Hunter to confront his own feelings. In the battle that follows, Faelen’s courage will redefine her loyalty, Hunter’s heart, and the future of both packs.

Warning: Mature content!

He let his hand squeeze her breast gently through the gown she wore, then he applied a little bit of force. He heard her make a whimpering sound into his mouth and he swallowed it up. He released her hands and pushed her to himself with his hand while caressing her breast.


His unwilling slave…

Fiery and innocent, Lady Roksolana was once the esteemed and privileged daughter of the sultanate king. Until she was captured by the enemy, the all powerful and devilishly charming Sultan, Sheikh Jamal Aamil.

The ruthless king…

Worshipped as a god by his people, sinfully hot Jamal takes ahold of Roksolana during an attack and back to his palace. Drawn to her exotic beauty, he tries to bends her to his seductive whims. Except that Roksolana refuses to suppress her bold spirit for any man, especially such an arrogant one like Jamal, who sees her as nothing but his possession, a jewel in his harem and a slave to slake his pleasure on.

Bound together by desire…

Soon, Roksolana finds herself succumbing to his sensual touches and in the process falls in love with him. But with another danger in the air, ememies scheming wicked plots and his favorite mistress raging with jealousy, will these two be able to find love in the midst of all the chaos?

A thrilling tale of love, lust and desire.

Warning: Mature Content

“You should never feel shy around me Céline..." He trailed off as his eyes moved from her face to the mound of soft skin peeking out from atop her shirt. His fingers moved dangerously low, creating a path from her neck to her cleavage.

Goosebumps formed on her skin, wherever his cold fingers traced. Céline held her breathe, her folds getting wet.


Innocent, beautiful but heartbroken Celine Fayet is out for revenge. Unable to find peace until her parent's death is avenged, she chooses one wickedly enticing option to get the money she so desperately needs; marry Damien Culhane, sexy multi-millionaire.

Except that Damien, drop dead gorgeous with his panty dropping smile, has no plans of getting married. Content with his playboy ways, he cruises among the elites, leaving a trail of aching hearts wherever he goes. Until he meets stunning Celine who makes him want to have a rethink.

In a clash of stunning attraction, these two begin to play wicked sensual games and even as Celine knows that the deal between them is businesslike, she finds herself falling head over heels for Damien.

But when she discovers a deadly secret, something that makes her choose between vengeance and Damien, devastated Celine is stuck between her head and her heart. Who should her loyalty lie with? Damien? Or her dead parents?

A thrilling tale of love, lust and revenge.

Innocent Sally Greens is made to replace her sister Renae at the altar in a bid to secure a very important partnership between her family and The ruthless Colbert Family. Her marriage is doomed before it even begins and soon enough she finds herself entangled in a web she created. On one hand is her loving obsessed husband and on the other hand is the promise she made to Renae in exchange for a sisterly love. The story uncovers a lot of dark secrets about the main objective of the marriage, family ties and deep rooted betrayal from hidden characters. Will innocent Sally evolve into a ruthless character to protect the ones she love?.

“ Go fuck yourself Leonardo” She muttered
“ Nah Isabella, if I am going to be fucking anyone it will be you princess” he replied teasingly
“You wish, and I will say it again, go fuck yourself,” she said again but this time louder
“Say fuck one more time, princess, just say it,” he said in a threatening voice as he walked closer to her.
“Fuck yourself,” she said it again before she could stare back at him again.
The air crackled with tension as his lips forcefully met her, a collision of passion and desire. His hands gripped her waist tightly, pulling her closer as he devoured her mouth hungrily. She tried to stop him but she couldn't, his hands were so strong and all the senses in her body wanted that kiss more than anything. The kiss was intense, and the world melted away around them as they lost themselves in the overwhelming sensation, leaving them breathless and longing for more.

Isabella Rossi, a calm sheltered Nineteen-year-old is kidnapped by a dangerous Mafia lord Leonardo Romano who had taken fancy of her the first time they met when she was just fourteen when he came for a meeting with her Dad. Leonardo Romano uses her as leverage to find out about the past that led to his father's death while still trying to claim her. As she learns more about her father's past and the secrets he may be hiding, Isabella navigates her growing feelings for the man who wants to claim her as his own. Will she succumb to the allure of power and danger, or will she uncover the truth behind her father's link to the mafia boss and the real reason behind her kidnap?

Olivia

Sold to pay off a debt, sinfully hot Matteo has thrown me into his dark mansion, with no intention of letting me go. He's dominant, ruthless, cold… And he's also something wicked—a sexy as hell alpha male.

I should run the second he puts his rough hands all over my innocent body. I shouldn't let him tear my panties off. But I do. He's going to break me, turning me into his slave. He demands complete obedience, and I want to resist. I do. But my dark, rebellious heart won't let me.

Matteo

I've never wanted to ruin someone as much as I want to ruin her. She's the picture of innocence. Soft skin free from the toil of real work, pretty lips for sucking and the defiance in her eyes. I can't wait to break her. To make her beg for mercy. To cry out my name when I steal the one thing she's never given to another man.

She thinks she can charm me into letting her go. But she doesn't recognize the way the devil dances in my soul. I never expected her to become my obsession. But she is. And now I need to get rid of her before she consumes me.

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.

I suffered from a severe congenital heart defect.

And my mother, Jamie, had terminal bone cancer.

My family was not a happy one. It marked the third year since my father, Nelson, had openly and unapologetically betrayed their marriage.

That morning, my mother swallowed a handful of painkillers and forced herself to stand up from her wheelchair.

She asked her best friend, Zoey, who was also my attending physician, to forge a medical report.

Zoey trembled with anger, her tears dropping heavily onto the paper.

"Jamie, are you crazy? Your bones are being eaten away by cancer cells every single day. You're in so much pain you bang your head against the wall all night. Why would you fake a clean bill of health?"

"Do you think that bastard Nelson will change his mind and come back to you just because you pretend to be healthy?"

I thought I was the perfect wife and mother, until I heard my husband outside his office, laughing, calling me a "prison warden" and planning to use our daughter as cover while he ran off to Tuscany with his grad student.

Everything fell apart. Then my daughter, in front of everyone: "That's just our annoying nanny."

I tried to hold on to what was left of our family, but my daughter shoved me down the stairs. I lost the baby, and my husband just checked his watch while I bled out on the floor.

They locked me in and left for Italy.

Alone in the hospital, they told me I'd lost the baby and had "memory damage."

Now they're back, expecting the same obedient wife.

She's gone.

And I'm done loving them.

I used to be the nation's top lock-picking expert. I saved countless lives.

But I couldn't save my own daughter.

At the dock, two children were strapped to bombs.

The girl had less time—I should've saved her first.

But my husband Damien held a knife to his throat, forcing me to save the other one first.

His illegitimate son.

I compromised.

The moment I opened the lock, the kidnapper ripped off the girl's hood.

I never expected her to be Rosie.

My five-year-old daughter.

She looked at me.

Her lips moved, forming the word "Mommy."

Then the explosion tore through everything...

He proposed to me the day he woke up from coma.

I was so happy, and thought I would finally have my happily ever after.

I was wrong.

Three years later, I was slapped with divorce papers, and lost my baby.

My husand had chose my sister, and abandoned me.

And that was his worst mistake.

I thought that after twenty years with the Sterlings—even as an adopted child—I'd at least count as family. But the day they found their biological daughter Victoria, they announced they were throwing me out and planned to humiliate me at the family gathering. Based on what right?

Even more disgusting was how my almost-fiancé Blake immediately started fooling around with Victoria, eager to watch me get kicked to the curb!

When everyone was lining up to step on me, it was Alexander—the one I'm supposed to call "stepbrother"—who protected me. In his apartment, when he stood behind me gripping my hand as I chopped vegetables, his breath grazing my ear before he finally bent down to kiss me... my heartbeat went completely erratic.

My biggest regret? Trusting my husband with my mother's life.

The day the mudslide hit, I was on my knees. Begging him to send a helicopter.

He told me to wait. Twenty minutes. But when the helicopter came, it went for his adoptive sister Vivian instead.

I held my mother in the ruins. Her body was shutting down. I waited. Waited until she went cold in my arms.

When he finally showed up at the hospital, the first thing he said? Accused me of faking it. Said I just wanted attention.

In that moment, my heart died too.

Later, I found out Vivian wasn't even sick.

She said "I don't feel well"—that's all it took. And he left my mother and me to die.

Called me a lunatic. In front of everyone. All for her.

I was ready to leave. For good. Then someone shattered my mother's ashes.

On the day I got engaged to the heir of an elite old-money family, my own birth mother spread vicious lies about me in front of the entire crowd. She claimed I’d lived a wildly promiscuous life while studying abroad, and had even secretly given birth to a stillborn child with no known father.
Afterwards, she took my hand and sobbed out an apology, saying she’d only wanted to test whether my fiancé truly loved me enough to stand by me. I was foolish enough to believe her, and drank the calming tea she’d personally handed me.
When I opened my eyes the next morning, everything was destroyed. I lay in my bedroom, disheveled and half-dressed, and the man beside me was none other than my younger sister’s boyfriend.
In the end, my fiancé married my sister. And I was mercilessly disowned and cast out by my own family.
But twenty years later, every single one of them would come to regret what they’d done.

I remember that frost-covered train door like it was the last thing I ever saw. Because it was.
The escape spot I’d spent three years scraping together? My fiancée was sitting in it, wearing my parka. Her brother had my hiking boots on his feet. Her mother clutched the medical kit I’d carried six miles through ash-covered roads. And Caleb Frost—the ex she’d sworn was just “someone from the past”—stood in the seat that should have been mine, lifting my silver emergency flask in a toast.
While I froze out in the subzero ash storm, my lungs burning like they were filled with shards of broken glass, they turned their backs to me under the warm yellow light inside.
Then I woke up.
The calendar read May 3, 2041. Exactly one year before the Yellowstone chain eruption would turn the northern hemisphere into a frozen grave.
On the TV, experts were still downplaying the volcanic tremors, insisting there was no immediate risk to the public. My fiancée walked into the bedroom wearing one of my white shirts, carrying coffee in the blue mug she’d bought with my card. She reached for my forehead, asking if I’d had a bad dream.
None of them know I’ve already died once.
They’re still plotting how to make me pay for her brother’s failed investments, how to sneak texts to her old boyfriend, how to use me as their most obedient, most useful doormat until the world ends. I’ve sold the downtown office towers, mortgaged the lakefront house, bought the abandoned geothermal station no one wanted in the dead mountains, and signed a stack of engineering contracts they’ll never bother to read.
They still smile and thank me, tell me I’m the best fiancé in the world.
They have no idea who will be holding the key to the door, when the sky goes dark forever and the snow never stops falling.

“Smile, Natalie,” Callum whispered before he walked onstage.

So I smiled while he thanked another woman for the crisis plan I had written. I smiled when he pinned my grandmother’s sapphire brooch to her dress. I even smiled when his message came in, canceling our nineteenth appointment at the county clerk’s office.

Then I walked out with our unsigned marriage license papers in my purse and called the one CEO he hated most.

By the time Callum realized I wasn’t waiting anymore, I had already taken my name, my work, and my future back.

It had only been seventeen minutes since my wife passed away. My daughter was sobbing on the phone.

"Dad, they're trying to drive me out."

I stared at the medical report in the doctor's hand.

The first natural antibody carrier.Toxin levels in the blood: zero.

The same poison that killed my wife, that killed my six-year-old son…had left me completely unharmed.

The doctor lowered his voice."Mr. Miller, you have to stay. They're sending people to pick you up."

I let out a cold laugh.

"My daughter is trapped in the basement storage room right now. Is anyone here going to help her?"

Silence fell over everyone.

I grabbed the glass water cup from the bedside table.

"Five years ago, they handed me a disciplinary penalty and fired me from the rescue team. Everyone said I was good for nothing."

The cup smashed against the floor.

I picked up the longest shard of broken glass.

"Today, I'll show you all how a useless man saves lives."

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.

I once believed that love could transcend life and death.

Until the terminal stage of Moon Eclipse Disease, when my husband personally gave the life-saving opportunity to my younger sister—that orphan girl I had rescued.

He said the pack needed a gentle Luna like her.

My son clung to her, calling her 'Mom.' My parents crowned her with what should have been mine.

Fine, so you all want me dead?

Then I'll stake everything on one final gamble.

After I die, I want every single one of you to be tortured by the truth.

Four years ago, I left my boyfriend when he had nothing.

Now, he's a billionaire. And he's forcing me to marry him—just for revenge.

Every day it's a different girl. Now there's a pregnant influencer he flaunts in my face, destroying what's left of my dignity.

"Kneel and beg her, and I'll give you money." He holds another woman and smirks at me.

I don't cry. I don't scream. I just swallow the blood rising in my throat.

He doesn't know my brain tumor is terminal. I have thirty days left.

I've already signed the organ donation papers. I just want to die in peace.

I stopped loving him a long time ago.

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.

A witch prophesied at my birth—I carried special blood, I could bear the strongest children.

Two Alphas I'd loved for ten years—the Wolf King's sons—swore they'd protect me forever.

Then she showed up. Maggie. My cousin. All wide-eyed innocence, claiming she had the same gift.

Suddenly, I was the jealous one. Every trap was mine, meant to hurt her. Every wound on me was fake. She cradled the silver fox I'd killed, tears falling right on cue.

They handed me the moonflower wine. Bryan said, "Don't ruin the mood."

When they accused me of treason, Ronald said, "Exile."

They dragged me past the borders themselves. Poison fire in my veins, bones breaking under moonlight.

I hit the ground. The last thing I saw was Maggie's smirk...

Everyone said I was just a shadow of Ethan, that I was nothing without him.
So during the tryouts, to comfort his "scared" sweetheart, he let go mid-jump, almost costing me my life.
He was betting I couldn't leave him, that I'd forgive him like I did the last eighteen times.
But he lost.
This time, I didn't cry or throw a fit.
I simply tossed the apartment key that symbolized our seven years together into the trash, then turned and walked toward my own world championship.