159 Book(s) Related to this time.next year

My best friend, Elaina, had been a runaway bride eight times in three years. But that day, with flushed cheeks, she told me she had finally met her true love and actually wanted to get married.
On that exact same day, my 22nd proposal to Kieran was rejected—again. Over the past eight years, I handed over my paychecks to him, gave him all my jewelry patents, and turned down overseas job offers, all to get a wedding in return. Yet, all I ever got was his usual, "Just wait a little longer."
That night, I found out the man Elaina was going to marry was Kieran.

Twenty years ago, he took the blame for my murder, was branded with the Silver Flame mark, and banished to the wilderness. Twenty years later, I escaped from a prison-like marriage and searched the world for him. He wasn't there in the Alaskan blizzards. He wasn't there in the deep mountains of Romania. Under the polar night in the Arctic Circle, I called his name into the darkness. No one answered. Until a hunter told me: deep in the Yukon, someone had seen a lone wolf with the Silver Flame mark.

Before they threw me into that dungeon, I never imagined my stepsister and fiancé were capable of betrayal.

Reality slapped me hard across the face.

Daniel and Lyanna fucked right in front of me just to rub it in. My grandfather died of a heart attack after I went missing. My uncle was framed and locked away. My fortune was stolen, and my body was doused in boiling fish glue. Every single one of these disasters came down to one thing: I trusted the wrong people.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back three years in the past—Christmas Eve. Standing before me was Milos, devastatingly handsome, radiating the kind of raw masculine energy that made it impossible to look away. I made my decision on the spot: I was going to hold on to this man for dear life and make it up to him for every wrong I'd done.

What followed was a revenge tour against Daniel and Lyanna—and along the way, I happened to crush a few worthless scumbags and pull a few powerful figures out of the fire.

The Godfather of the Italian Mafia: "Audrey is my chosen successor."

The Patriarch of a top-tier noble house: "Audrey is the future head of this family."

A reigning King, overruling every objection: "Audrey is the child of my one true love—and she is my heir."

Milos pinned me against the wall, one hand tight around my waist, his jaw clenched as he growled: "Wife. Tell me the truth. How many secret identities do you actually have?"

I panicked and kissed him to shut him up. "Not that many," I managed. "Just... a hundred or so."

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

I'm sixty years old. My husband Marcus just whipped me with his belt — for burning an egg. My face is bruised, my hair is gray, and I gave up a full ride to Stanford for this man over forty years ago.
Then the phone rings.
The voice on the other end is mine — my eighteen-year-old self, calling on her birthday, gushing about how Marcus is out buying her a cake, how they're running away to Nashville together tomorrow.
She asks if I'm happy.
I tell her the truth: her boyfriend is in a cheap motel right now, in bed with her best friend. And those pretty promises about Nashville? He's planning to use her up and throw her away.
She doesn't believe me. Of course she doesn't.
But I know the motel. I know the room number. And I know what's behind that door.
If she walks away from him tonight, everything changes — for both of us.

On the day I received my late-stage gastric cancer diagnosis, the business proposal I’d pulled three all-nighters to finish was being fed straight into a paper shredder by my husband, Lu Ting.

Amid the deafening roar of the machine, his voice was cold and unapologetic: “Put Yingying’s name on this plan. She just got permanent employment and needs this achievement to get a firm foothold.”

I said nothing. My fingers crumpled the diagnosis report in my pocket. I turned around, opened the ticket-booking app, and booked a seven-day, six-night ultra-luxury customized honeymoon package for Lu Ting and his mistress Zhou Yingying—an overwater villa in the Maldives, with first-class flights for the entire trip.

When Lu Ting saw the order, he curled the corner of his mouth at me for once, speaking in a patronizing tone: “Finally being sensible. I’ll bring you a bag when I get back.”

I said quietly, “No need.”

You two will never come back.

For seven years of marriage, I've been silent in front of my wife.
It's not that I don't have anything to say; it's just that she can hear everyone's voice—except mine, which seems to trigger her sensitivity.
I've tried everything to change my voice, even going under the knife to fix my vocal cords.
But no matter how hard I try, she just ends up in pain, covering her ears.
I've broken down countless times, feeling like I've let her down.
Until the day of our daughter's birthday.
My daughter stood at the front door, grinning, and said, "Mom, can I pretend to be voice-sensitive like you?"

On the day of our seventh wedding anniversary, I tried to send a work email using my husband's account, but the connection was too poor to go through.
When I clicked into the drafts folder, a glaring message caught my eye:
"Tingzhou, I've prepared a new battle outfit~ Ready to drain you dry."
Seconds later, that draft vanished, replaced by a new one:
"Naughty girl, get the ultra-thins ready and wait for me."
Only three people knew the password to this email account: me, my husband, and his first love...
Watching their increasingly explicit flirtations,
tears streamed down my face uncontrollably.
Turns out, no matter how many years you spend by someone's side, it all crumbles the moment their first love returns.
I steadied my trembling fingers, sent the email, and cleared the history.
Then I dialed a number that had been dormant for seven years.
"I give up. I'm willing to come home for the arranged marriage."
On the other end came my godfather's familiar, authoritative voice,
"Get rid of anything that shouldn't be left behind. Make it clean."
My hand trembled as it touched my lower abdomen. "Okay."
"Someone will pick you up in three days."

Betrayal cuts very deep, but who says revenge can't be sweeter and satisfying?

Married to the one man who once claimed he loved her wholeheartedly, Claire is broken when she finds out about her dear husband’s endless escapades. To make matters worse, he had also been cheating on her with his secretary and had gotten her pregnant, yet he tortured her physically, mentally and emotionally and wasn't remorseful about it.

Determined to take revenge on him for the intentional pain he had caused her over the years, she set out to shatter his world completely. She does the unthinkable, and is about to turn the tables in the most shocking way.

At twenty one, Liyana Whitmore inherits everything—billions, power, and a legacy built to shake the world.
There’s just one problem.
To claim it, she has to live for five years under the guardianship of Matthew Everleigh—her father’s closest friend… and the man she once swore she’d marry(at age seven,by the way).
Now he’s older, colder, and hiding secrets she was never meant to uncover.
And someone out there?
Wants her dead?!

Aurora Baylee, a vampire, is in an illicit relationship with a werewolf. Her father and all the vampires strongly opposed the relationship. She decides to go with her boyfriend Igor. However, the father manages to capture them and punish Aurora to ashes.

Life passed for a thousand years. Aurora returned to life as an ordinary human. She is a company owner engaged in hospitality and she is also a hitman. She goes on a mission and reunites with Igor.

Igor is sure that Aurora is his lover. He struggled to get it back. However, everything he did didn't work out, and Aurora didn't believe everything Igor said. Just when Igor almost made Aurora believe, Marcus came, who was Aurora's father in the past. Marcus intends to finish off Aurora and Igor because of past grudges that destroyed all his people.

Will their thousand-year love have a happy ending? Or did Marcus again manage to finish off Aurora like a thousand years ago?

“When you think that life cannot get better, Blake Pierce comes up with another masterpiece of thriller and mystery! This book is full of twists, and the end brings a surprising revelation. Strongly recommended for the permanent library of any reader who enjoys a very well-written thriller.”--Books and Movie Reviews (re Almost Gone) A MURDER IN PARIS is the debut novel in a charming new cozy mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone has received 1,500 five-star reviews.Diana Hope, 55, is still adjusting to her recent separation when she discovers her ex-husband has just proposed to a woman 30 years younger. Secretly hoping they would reunite, Diana is devastated. She realizes the time has come to reimagine life without him—in fact, to reimagine her life, period.Devoting the last 30 years of her life to being a dutiful wife and mother and to climbing the corporate ladder, Diana has been relentlessly driven, and has not taken a moment to do anything for herself. Now, the time has come.Diana never forgot her first boyfriend, who begged her to join him for a year in Europe after college. She had wanted to go so badly, but it had seemed like a wild, romantic idea, and a gap year, she’d thought, would hinder her resume and career. But now, with her daughters grown, her husband gone, and her career no longer fulfilling, Diana realizes it’s time for herself—and to take that romantic year in Europe she’d always dreamed of.Diana prepares to embark on the year of her life, finally turning to her bucket list, hoping to tour the most beautiful sights and sample the most scrumptious cuisines—and maybe, even, to fall in love again. But a year in Europe may have different plans in store for her. Can A-type Diana learn to go with the flow, to be spontaneous, to let down her guard and to learn to truly enjoy life again?In A MURDER IN PARIS (Book #1), Diana hopes to kick off her journey, and find new love, with an unforgettable night at the Versailles ball. But when the dramatic night takes a harrowing turn she could never expect, Diana realizes she will have to solve the crime—or else have her trip end in disaster.A YEAR IN EUROPE is a charming and laugh-out-loud cozy mystery series, packed with food and travel, with mysteries that will leave you on the edge of your seat, and with experiences that will leave you with a sense of wonder. As Diana embarks on her quixotic quest for love and meaning, you will find yourself falling in love and rooting for her. You will be in shock at the twists and turns her journey takes as she somehow finds herself at the center of a mystery, and must play amateur sleuth to solve it. Fans of books like Eat, Pray, Love and Under the Tuscan Sun have finally found the cozy mystery series they’ve been hoping for!Book #2 (DEATH IN FLORENCE) and book #3 (VENGEANCE IN VIENNA) in the series are now also available!

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?

My mad mother, in her final moments, pressed a set of Russian nesting dolls into my arms.
"These cost me thirty years of my life. In return, they'll give you three ways out of death."
The first doll told me to go to a bar and bring home the third strange man I met.
The second doll, she said to open on the eve of my wedding. There was no note inside. Only a photograph — my groom, killing a woman wearing the exact same wedding dress as mine.
Three years later, on the eve of another wedding, I opened the last doll. I read the note, smiled, and dropped it in the trash.
It was only later that I understood —
This mad woman saw more clearly than anyone sane in this world.
Mom, I'm sorry.

Seven years ago, I was Velmoor City’s youngest surgeon. A bloodied nursing assistant knelt at my feet, weeping that her thug boyfriend was going to beat her to death. I gave her my guest room.
On her chemo bed, my mother gripped my hand, begging me to kick that woman out. I said she had nowhere else to go.
Later, I caught her wearing my pajamas in my own home. Then, I caught her and my husband naked in his office. Immediately after, a fatal medical error was pinned on me, and my medical license was revoked.
My husband looked at me arrogantly and said: I can liquidate everything I own to settle this for you. On one condition—divorce.
What he didn’t know was that I was pregnant. On the day of the divorce, the judge read out the division of assets: $26.30.
Seven years later, I took a catering gig at a billionaire’s mansion. Less than half an hour into the banquet, his seven-year-old daughter pointed at my seven-year-old daughter. “She stole my ten-million-dollar diamond necklace!”
I looked up and finally recognized him. The billionaire was my "bankrupt" ex-husband. And the woman clinging to his arm, dripping in diamonds, was the nursing assistant who had once knelt at my feet.

I'm crouched on this fucking balcony clutching a pregnancy test, hands shaking like a leaf—two blazing red lines staring me in the face. I was such a goddamn fool thinking I'd tell Remy about our baby tonight. What a sick joke!
The banquet hall's roaring below and there's that bastard on stage, arm wrapped around Olivia, shouting "This winery has NO future without her!" Each word slams into me like a sledgehammer. TEN FUCKING YEARS! When he was drowning in debt, I sold every piece of Mom's jewelry to save his ass!
Then the son of a bitch hurls a box of abortion pills at me like I'm garbage: "Kill it, or Olivia's daddy pulls his money."
I'm glaring at that box and it hits me—ten years of my life pissed away on this piece of shit, and now even the innocent baby growing inside me is worth less than his blood money! I gave him everything and he's ready to murder our child for a fucking check!

At the bar, I watched Ethan get publicly dumped and made a crazy proposal fueled by liquid courage—a three-month fake dating contract.

I thought this was my only chance after twenty years of secret crushing. Until his ex showed me the text: "With Mia? Pretty convenient. She's been following me around since we were kids."

So I was just a tool.

The day we broke up, he shouted with red eyes: "I've been crazy about you for twenty years!" I thought he was acting, until his mom handed me a worn journal—

That careless comment I made at thirteen, "I'm never marrying Ethan," he'd remembered for twenty whole years.

Every page of that diary was filled with my name...

Five years after breaking the mate bond, Vincent became one of the youngest Alphas of the North, worth hundreds of billions, with a fiancée who was a perfect match for him — the daughter of Silver Claw Pack’s Alpha.
But I had already disappeared from his world, my name now only whispered in rumors about me being a bar hostess at Midnight Howl Bar, catering to Alphas and nobility.
When someone mentioned my name to him, he simply held his fiancée’s hand with a cold look in his eyes.
"I don't know her."
At his bonding ceremony, everyone congratulated the "perfect match."
But I, floating in the air, watched as Vincent stood beside his dazzling Luna.
What he didn't know...
He was the only Alpha I ever loved.
What he didn’t know...
I had been dead for a year.
Before I died, I was desperately earning money just to get our daughter the treatment she needed.
Then one day...
He found me at the Midnight Howl Bar where I worked in life, catching a faint but familiar scent of me. That moment...
His wolf spirit completely lost control.

The year the gas swallowed the world, I helped design and build Dome City with my own hands, keeping the last survivors alive.

I thought I was protecting hope.

Then I stumbled onto the Council’s secret: the poison outside is fading—but they chose to hide it. Worse, they plan to manufacture and release more gas, locking everyone inside forever, under their rule.

Before I could expose the truth, the person I trusted most struck me from behind.

My girlfriend—Vera Walker.

She took my evidence, stripped my access, and traded me for a higher rank.

When I woke up, I was outside the Dome in toxic fog—my identity erased, my lungs burning, my vision slipping.

They dumped me like trash, certain I wouldn’t last the night.

They forgot one thing.

Dome City is my blueprint, my welds, my pipes—my work.

And I’m back.

I’m Leona, and I’ve hidden a forbidden love under the moonlight of the werewolf world for nine long years—an unspoken bond with my brother’s closest friend, Alpha Nick.
When he looked at me and said, “I’ll find someone better for you,” there was a flicker in his eyes I couldn’t read. But when he turned away, it was to chase after his ex-girlfriend, Selene, crashing through the forest branches like gravity itself answered her call. “His wolf never resonated with ours.” Aris, my wolf, howled inside me.“You’ve spent years trying to spark fire in frozen stone.”
And yet, I was the fool who mistook the instinct for fated love.
In my past life, when I was seven months pregnant and trapped beneath an avalanche during a winter patrol, he was tucked in a border cave listening to Selene sing ballads under moonlit stalactites.
When I was curled in pain from stomach ulcers, he was busy tuning her purification crystals.
Even when I was shoved into the river by Selene, it wasn’t my drowning body he s

I spent six years working with the dead, earning money to save my son—enduring the stench and loneliness, clinging to hope.
I trusted my family, my husband, my parents, but they turned their backs on me.
They hated the smell of death on me, lied to me, and used my sacrifice for a fake sister.
All my efforts were for nothing; the hope I clung to was just a lie.
I walked away, broken and empty, while they panicked at my absence.
The pain is real, the betrayal is real—and there’s no going back.
But my family, my husband, my own son, even my parents, turned their backs on me.

Seven years ago, my father, the Wolf King, listened to the slander of his new lover and personally brought a bowl of abortion poison to my mother.

My mother fought desperately to turn her head away in resistance, but he forced it down her throat anyway.

In her absolute despair, she let out a harrowing scream, vowing she would never see him again in this lifetime!

Since then, the soul bond between my parents was completely severed.

My father, however, brushed it off, dead certain that my mother was "blocking the bond" to throw a temper tantrum.

Until today, when the vampire army massed at our borders, specifically demanding a royal blood slave.

To protect his new lover's daughter, my father seized me to take her place.

He set fire to my mother's beloved sea of moonflowers, pointing at the soaring flames and roaring: "If you come out and beg me, I'll spare Aria's life!"

But even as the inferno reduced half the courtyard to ashes, the space behind that tightly shut door remained in a state of dead silence.

He didn't know—

The severed bond wasn't a tantrum.

Because of that bowl of poison seven years ago, my mother had drawn her last breath that very night.

Our engagement has gone unfulfilled for ten years.

My parents saved his family in that yacht accident. With their dying breath, they asked his family to look after me. In return, we go to city hall every year, trying to fulfill this obligation.

Ten attempts. Ten failures.

Elevator malfunctions, food poisoning, home invasions, car crashes... Every single time, I get hurt at the worst possible moment while he walks away without a scratch.

This makes ten. A truck slams into the passenger side, my head smashes against the window, and he's already running across the street, pulling that woman into his arms.

On my way to find him after they stitch me up, I hear his assistant's voice in the hospital corridor:

"Mr. Ashford, the truck driver's been taken care of. Money'll hit his account like we agreed... but is this really fair to Miss Bennett? It's been ten years, every single year—"

William's voice comes out low and tired. "I don't have a choice. Her parents saved me, but I'm in love with Emma."

I look down at the diagnosis. ALS. Late stage.

Turns out I've been trying to marry a lie this whole time.

I spent two years quietly building something I thought was worth building.
Full recovery support after birth, someone checking in on meals, leave approved the moment you asked for it. I worked out a deal with the best facility in the city and covered the difference myself, out of my own account. Not a cent of company money.
I did it because I'd watched a good employee disappear from the company the year she got pregnant. No announcement. Her desk just cleared out one day.
Then one of them posted about it.
She called it surveillance. A golden cage. The comment section called me a predator. By morning it was trending.
Here's what none of them knew: not a single dollar of that program belonged to the company.
So I listened to what they wanted and gave them exactly that.
I shut the whole thing down.

After losing control due to alcohol, I slept with the guy next door.
He was an incredibly responsible man. When he sobered up, he proposed to me.
Later, I found out that the woman he loved most had gone abroad that night.
So, I hid my deep love for him and played the role of a perfect, obedient wife in the wealthy family.
In countless quiet nights, we were in perfect sync, yet we kept our distance, never crossing boundaries.
My friends all said I could never leave him. I thought so too.
Until one day, I found his second phone.

I loved Julian for ten years, carving every sweat-stained day into my love for him.
He once said I shined brighter than any gold medal.
Yet in five short minutes, he handed my dream, my glory, and my whole world to a scheming transfer girl.
Betrayed, discarded, and broken on the fencing strip, I lost my first love and everything I fought for.
Until the retired cold Olympic champion stepped out of the dark midnight shadows.
He offered me hellish training and a sharp blade of revenge.
I buried my soft heart, handed over my soul, and vowed to make every traitor pay.

I gave birth to three children for my ruthless mafia husband. And every single time, he tore the newborns from my blood-soaked sheets and handed them straight to my barren sister.
For seven years, I endured electroshock therapy and brutal captivity, reduced to nothing but a breeding vessel to complete their "picture-perfect" family.
He thought he had broken my spirit long ago. That’s why, when the assassins struck, he didn't hesitate to shove me into the line of fire as a human shield.
To protect his true love, he threw my bleeding, wounded body into a freezing water cell as their perfect scapegoat.
He thought tossing me a few scraps of mercy would have me crawling back to him, begging like a dog.
But he was dead wrong.
When the bone-chilling water swallowed me, I didn't panic or thrash. I simply smiled, letting the black depths drag me under.
Domenico could never have imagined that the cold, lifeless corpse he personally sent to the morgue was my perfect escape, seven agonizing years in the making.
He stole my babies. He stripped away every last ounce of my dignity.
So now, I’m going to take away everything he holds dear, piece by agonizing piece: his empire, his power, and the love he arrogantly thought he could control forever.

I once thought I’d married the perfect husband, Kael, pouring all my heart and soul into trying to have a baby—until the birth certificate and adoption agreement in the study safe shattered every beautiful lie.
He and my dearest friend, Celeste, had long ago secretly had an illegitimate child,
and even plotted to trick me into being his foster mother, keeping me in the dark for the rest of my life.
What was even crueler was that on the very day I uncovered the truth, the doctor gave me the news—I was pregnant.
Once I faced the harsh truth, I resolutely faked a shipwreck to flee, going into hiding with my unborn child and leaving my old life behind.
He searched the entire world to find me, casting aside all his pride to beg for my forgiveness with a humble heart—but he could never win me back, not ever.

I died in a rainy day. For twenty-eight years, I clung desperately to my adoptive family, craving nothing but warmth and a home. Yet all my devotion was nothing but a joke.
Everyone in the household loathed me, quick to side with my adoptive sister Isabelle over every lie she spun. I gave my whole heart to my fiancé Damien Sterling, believing he would be my salvation. But when the truth surfaced, he looked at me like I was filth beneath his shoes, his face twisted with contempt.
“You were never more than a distraction,” he snarled. “Isabelle is the only one I love. Can’t you see how tainted you are?”
Those words shattered me more than any injury. Abandoned by everyone I cared about, I had nowhere left to turn before they arranged my death.
But somehow, I’m twenty-two again—returned to that fateful year before all my nightmares unfolded.This time, I’ll burn down everyone who destroyed me.

"We're done, Arthur."

That was how I ended a ten-year relationship with my childhood sweetheart.

He didn't take it seriously. He just smirked and asked, "How many days is this tantrum going to last? Three? A week?"

Then, his phone lit up. It was her—the helpless scholarship student he had been protecting.

"I'm on my way," he promised her softly, turning his back on me without a second thought.

He walked away, assuming I would always be his safety net.

What he didn't realize was that my answer was forever.

Ten years of being his fool, and I was finally cutting the cord.

When my CEO husband threatens divorce for the 99th time, this time trying to force me to hand over a million-dollar project to his assistant Chloe, I finally stop fighting.
I give him the project without a word.
He's thrilled. Thinks I've finally accepted my place. To reward me, he announces we'll throw a grand celebration for our fifth wedding anniversary.
Chloe finds out and falls apart. Locks herself in the supply closet. Can't bear the thought of watching us celebrate five years of marriage.
Arthur panics. Suddenly the anniversary party becomes a "client dinner" he can't reschedule. He'll take Chloe instead—she's been handling that account, after all.
"You understand how business works," he tells me. "We can celebrate privately later."
I see the photo she posts: Chloe in the restaurant he booked for us, wearing the dress he picked out, his hand covering hers across the table.
I tell him I understand.
He's satisfied. Promises we'll do something even better next month.
He doesn't know I've resigned. Doesn't know he signed the divorce papers three days ago when I slipped them into his contract stack.
We don't have a next month.

To everyone in town, I was just a sixty-five-year-old retired man.
I lived in an old house, drove an old car, and showed up at the same diner every night to eat the cheapest meal on the menu in my usual corner.

Then one night, the waitress who always refilled my coffee sat across from me after closing, eyes red, and told me her boyfriend had disappeared.
People were watching her, pressuring her to hand over a “ledger” she had never even seen.

I wanted no part of it.
I had left that kind of life behind a long time ago, and I had sworn never to use my hands for anyone again.

But the next day, she didn’t show up for work.
Her phone was dead. She was gone.

I went into their territory alone.
They thought they were dealing with nothing more than a nosy old man.
By the time I started moving, they realized they had picked the wrong target.

Fourteen years ago, Isabella Winston died.

At least, that's what everyone believed.

One moment, she was trapped inside a sinking car beneath the icy waters of the Hudson River. The next, she woke up in her own bathtub and somehow fourteen years in the future.

Her husband is no longer the warm, easygoing man she remembers.

Her five-year-old son is now a nineteen-year-old stranger who looks at her with suspicion.

Her twins barely remember the mother they lost—one forever chasing affection, the other keeping the entire world at arm's length.

And the family she left behind has become something broken, distant, and unrecognizable.

Now Isabella faces an impossible challenge: rebuilding a family that never truly recovered from losing her.

Fourteen years have left scars on everyone.

Unfortunately for those causing the damage, Isabella Winston has returned to set things right.

“You don’t love me, do you?” Luke whispered, pinning my wrists above my head.

His body pressed mine into the bed, hot, heavy, inescapable. His mouth brushed my ear, gentle enough to feel like a kiss, cruel enough to feel like punishment.

“It’s okay,” he murmured.“Your body is mine.”

I left Luke Morrison unconscious in an ICU eight years ago and rebuilt myself in London—elite auctioneer, an ocean between me and the past.

Then my brother's condition crashed. I'm back in Pennsylvania, standing behind an auction podium at his company's charity gala.

A little boy runs through the crowd and wraps his arms around me: "Mama, you came back."

"Daddy shows me pictures every day," Asher says.

Every. Single. Day. How long has this been going on?

Luke's watching with ice-cold eyes. The bullied boy I left behind? Gone. Replaced by a tech billionaire who makes predators look soft.

"Get in," he says. Not a request.

Then he takes me back to his home.

His penthouse is frozen in time—the art I chose, the books I organized. Our past preserved like he's been waiting.

"You owe me eight years, Mia," he says, showing me the scar. "The girl who watched them destroy me and did nothing. This time, you don't run."

When he fucks me, it's worship and punishment. Making me pay for every day I was gone.

"I've waited eight years for this. Every breath you take belongs to me."

He's not just possessive. He's broken. And Asher is the perfect weapon to keep me trapped.

He made sure he protected her, till she got on her feet again.

When the Whites went bankrupt, Katherine was "sold" by her ex to tycoon Alexander for $1M. He trapped her, took her nightly but ignored her, clung to his childhood sweetheart, and spied on her — until a study diary revealed his 12-year unspoken love behind the cold control.

On the third day of the apocalypse, I was bitten by a zombie while saving a child and was abandoned outside the camp by everyone, left to die.

Three years later, I became the legendary "Masked Monster," secretly protecting those who had betrayed me.

They nailed me to a cross, preparing for a public execution.

Until the Corpse King invaded.

I tore through my chains and charged into certain death, all to protect a girl who still remembered my name.

She raised her gun with tears streaming down her face, aiming at my head.

He married me because I look like her.
For three years, I played the role. I cooked his meals. I warmed his bed. I smiled when he forgot my birthday. I stayed quiet when he left in the middle of the night to hold her hand.
I told myself it was enough. I told myself I didn't need his love.
Then I got pregnant.
He said he hated children. So I didn't tell him. I was going to keep it. Our baby. The only thing that was truly mine.
But my body had other plans.
When I called him from the hospital floor, bleeding out, begging for help—he didn't come. He said I was lying. He was too busy with her.
That night, I lost everything.
The baby. The hope. The lie I'd been living.
Now he's calling me. Again and again.
But the substitute wife? She's not picking up.

No tears. No scene. Just one thing —
A divorce agreement on the dining table, and she walked out the door.
Under Reason for Divorce, she wrote: Husband's sexual dysfunction.
For the first time, Fu Yuting's cold composure cracked. He tore the papers apart.
She just smiled. "That's fine. I made copies."
Three years she loved him. Three years he hurt her.
The moment she finally let go — he realized the woman who had lived for him would never look back.

After her mother’s funeral, Lena Ward returns to a small town and a house built on silence: a sealed sunroom, a will that forbids witnesses, and a sister blamed on a storm fifteen years ago. As buried records, sedatives, and a hidden trust fracture the family’s righteous facade, a chilling truth begins to surface beneath concrete and grief. Dark, tense, and emotionally sharp, this is a cold-case family thriller of rain-soaked memory, courtroom reckoning, and a child’s toy waiting under the floor.

Three years ago, I saved the life of Alessandro Gambino, New York's most powerful mafia boss.

He fell in love with me, a bartender.

His family was dead set against us, but his love won out. We got married.

After we married, he disappeared every month for "punishment day," claiming his family beat him with sixty-six lashes for breaking their rules by staying with me. Watching him suffer tore me apart.

Actully, I'm Sloane Lucchese, sole heir to the largest arms empire on the East Coast, hiding from a family war. I decided to reclaim my family name as soon as possible, so his family would finally accept me.

Finally, on our fifth wedding anniversary, I found out I was pregnant, and my father called to say they'd announce my return in two weeks.

I was going to tell Alessandro everything that night, both pieces of good news.

But that same day, I stumbled onto a secret—one that would destroy me completely.

For fifty years, I bathed in blood for my world, only to return home to find my wife dead and my daughter about to be sacrificed.
The High Priest stepped on my daughter’s head, branding me a traitor, and declared he would burn her to ashes. Scarred, broken, and with my magic depleted, I was bound to the pyre alongside her. Tens of thousands cursed us from below as the flames engulfed the stage.
Weeping, my daughter asked me, "Daddy, are you really a hero?"
I crushed the pendant on my chest.
Dragons, Dwarves, Berserkers—the million-strong allied army I had united over those fifty years descended across dimensions.
The High Priest slumped to the ground, trembling uncontrollably. "Who... who exactly are you?"
Staring into his eyes, I said only one thing:
"Dragons have reverse scales; touch them, and you die. You crossed the line!"

I was once the "Abyss Sovereign" who made the entire dark world tremble.

To protect her, I willingly buried my true name and spent five years as a humble mechanic in a wealthy family.

I swallowed countless cold stares and humiliations, seeking only a moment of peace.

But these fools, for the sake of family interests, dared to push her to the brink of destruction!

Since retreat only invites further aggression, I have no choice but to don once more that blood-stained crown.

When my steel torrent crashed through the manor gates, those privileged elites who once trampled me underfoot could only tremble desperately in the mud!

Ten years ago, my parents worked for the Bellamys. He was their driver. She ran the house.

Then came the crash. I watched them shove Nash Bellamy out of the wreck, and it killed them both.

That's where the claustrophobia came from.

He knew. He knew all of it.

Then at homecoming, I showed up in a dress that matched Camilla's. She was the girl he'd always wanted. So he shoved me into the abandoned supply closet backstage.

The lock turned. On the other side of the door, he and Camilla were laughing like it was nothing.

"I'm pretty sure she's claustrophobic."

"Two hours in there. She'll learn."

I clawed at my own hands until they bled, couldn't get any air, and ended up wetting myself in a closet a dog wouldn't sleep in.

When the door finally opened, he pinched his nose and laughed and said I was disgusting.

I pushed myself up the wall, inch by inch, and looked at the face I'd been looking at for ten years. And I didn't want to cry anymore. Not even a little.

"Nash. I'm done chasing you."

When the earthquake struck, my fated mate—Alpha Cassian—instinctively shielded me with his body, taking the full impact and breaking nearly every bone.
In the hospital room, the girl next door sighed enviously. "Luna Yolanda,Alpha Cassian risked his life to save you. He really loves you."
I forced a smile. "Yes."
But just last night, after I had fallen asleep, he slipped into the bathroom and spoke in a gentle voice, comforting his eighteen-year-old mistress—Rosalind Graves.
"I'm fine, don’t cry, be good."
"As long as I think of you, I'm not afraid of anything."
Cassian and I grew up together. From first love to now, it has been ten years.
We are the Blue Moon Pack’s model mates—admired by all.
No one knows he has a secret lover.
A girl who looks just like me when I was eighteen.