306 Book(s) Related to when did william afton died

Cleo Farris has one rule: never want what you cannot have. She breaks it the moment her stepbrother's best friend walks back into her life, older, sharper, and looking at her like she is no longer the girl he used to ignore.
Dash Calloway is eighteen. Too confident. Too perceptive. And living in the same house for the summer while their parents honeymoon across Europe. Cleo is seventeen, invisible by choice, and completely unprepared for a boy who argues with everything she says and somehow still makes her feel more seen than anyone ever has.
But when a secret gets out, Cleo loses the carefully constructed life she built to stay safe. Now she has to decide: keep surviving in the background, or finally take up the space she was always meant to fill, even if it costs her everything.

"Arthur, I want a divorce."

My husband was busy draping his suit jacket over Chloe's shoulders, his precious childhood sweetheart. He didn't even turn around, just let out a cold laugh.

"Oh, Evelyn. Playing the sick father card again? That trick's getting old." His voice was dismissive. "I moved your dad out of that private room to teach you a lesson. Maybe now you'll learn some manners around Chloe."

He was so certain I'd come crawling back like I had for three years, begging him to pay for Dad's treatment. So sure I'd be sobbing apologies by tomorrow morning.

What Arthur didn't know was that three hours ago, they'd wheeled my father's body into the cold hospital morgue.

And the divorce papers in my purse were already signed. I didn't need his money anymore.

Emilia Rutherford thought she left her haunted past behind, until a car crash, a cryptic warning, and a bloody trail bring it roaring back.
Now, in a town that feels too quiet and eyes that watch too closely, she’s pulled into a world she never knew existed. Shifters. Blood feuds. Secrets buried under generations of silence. Asher, the quiet farmhand with eyes like gold, knows more than he says.
And Victor... the ruthless Alpha with a claim on Emilia’s soul will stop at nothing to make her his. But fate has its own plans.
And Emilia may be the key to unraveling everything. When destiny collides with survival, only one truth remains: THE ALPHA MUST DIE!

After learning the hard truth of how her twin sister Dalilah brainwashed and manipulated her mind during thirteen years, turning her into a ruthless assassin who killed hundreds of innocents including her youngest brother and best friend Valerian, twenty-seven-year-old Princess Natasha Nicholai, is executed in front of the Imperial Palace.
Somehow, she gets sent back to the past right before Dalilah started putting her evil string on her mind, to when she was about to turn fourteen, and uses that as an opportunity to not let the past repeat itself, by getting her revenge on her sister and all the people who backed her, and saving her younger brother as well as protecting the innocents she knows will be Dalilah's targets.
But while also going after the truth about who stole her magic when she was 4yo, who sent her back and why did they do that, she will cross paths with Ethan Theodore, a dangerous and full of secrets guy, with ruby-red-eyes and who's destiny is directly linked to Natasha's

I died on the day my fiancé Song Jinnian got engaged to his white moonlight, Shen Zhiyi.

Shen Zhiyi wore the evening dress designed by Song Jinnian himself, smiling sweetly as she linked her arm through his, accepting blessings from every guest in the hall.

I was at the scene of a car crash on Highway 23, half a steel rebar piercing straight through my chest. Warm blood trickled down the cold metal, pooling into a stark, glaring red pool beneath me.

I called Song Jinnian seventeen times.

He hung up instantly on the first sixteen.

On the seventeenth ring, he finally answered.

The melodic music of the banquet hall hummed in the background. His voice was low, laced with unbridled impatience: “What’s your problem now? How many times do I have to say it—marrying Zhiyi is just a formality. Can’t you act your age and quit this nonsense?”

I tried to speak, but blood froth surged up my throat, stealing my ability to form a full sentence. All I heard was the busy tone as he hung up without a second thought, echoing in the empty car, one beep at a time, shattering my last shred of hope.

Song Jinnian would never know that the girl he dismissed as a spoiled, tantrum-throwing lady was pinned to the driver’s seat by that steel rebar.

Beneath my slightly bulging abdomen lay our two-month-old unborn child.

Trembling, I let go of the phone soaked in blood. With my final ounce of strength, I dialed the funeral home.

“Hello. Near Highway 23… please come collect a body from a car crash.”

A pause came from the other end, followed by the routine question:

“Who are you to the deceased?”

All around me, only the rain hammered against the car windows, and my breath grew fainter and fainter. I forced out my last words:

“I am… the deceased herself.”

Ryan loves me deeply—at least that's what everyone says. Seven years together, we look like the perfect couple to outsiders. But only I know he's betrayed me three times.

The first time was three years ago. His brother died saving him, leaving behind his widow Sophia—Ryan's unforgettable first love. He married her behind my back. When I found out, I completely fell apart. I have dignity. I refuse to be the other woman. I wanted to leave, but he begged on his knees. "This is just to take care of my sister-in-law. Once I find the truth about my brother's death, I'll divorce her. Then we can get married."

I believed him. I forgot that a man never lets go of a lost love he's gotten back.

The second time was at last year's company anniversary. In front of everyone, he introduced Sophia as his wife. I watched them on stage, a knife through my heart. That night he explained, "It's just for show. Once everything's over, we can be together."

I believed him again.

The third time was two weeks ago. Surveillance footage showed Ryan with Sophia entering a hotel room. I rushed to confront him, but heard her voice outside his office. "Ryan, I'm pregnant. It's your baby."

Through the crack in the door, I see him hesitate. In that instant I understand.

He's going to keep her.

He spots me and rushes out in a panic. "It was an accident! Let me explain! After she has the baby, I'll give her money and make her leave. She won't be in our lives anymore!"

In that moment, I finally wake up. There will be no future for us.

I was taking six-year-old Arabella to fit her dress for the theater's grand opening.
As we crossed the intersection, a truck suddenly lost control and T-boned our car.
When I opened my eyes again, an agonizing pain ripped through me. I opened my mouth to call out Everett's name, only to hear his hushed voice seeping through the crack in the door—
"Staging an unavoidable accident was the only way to use the emergency room as a cover for the drug trial."
"Now that Ophelia's treatment is a success, there's naturally no need for that little bastard to live."
My Arabella. She was secretly wheeled into the operating room by him, used as a human guinea pig for his mistress Delilah's daughter, who had bone cancer. Her sweet, bell-like vocal cords were cruelly carved out and transplanted into another child's throat.
In that defining moment, I realized he had never loved my daughter.
But what he didn't know—the child he just murdered with his own hands was his one and only flesh and blood.

Three years of marriage. Three pregnancies.

Every time I confirmed I was pregnant, my sister-in-law Ophelia would walk into the chapel behind the manor.

Then my in-laws would drag me to the hospital and force me to abort the healthy baby.

The night after my third miscarriage, I dragged my weakened body to follow her into the chapel.

The moment I pushed open that door, my blood ran cold.

In that instant, I finally understood why my three children had to die.

I'm the forgotten eldest son of the Cross family.
My parents see me as a walking blood bag for my brother Colin, while my wife views me as a sinner destined to spend my life atoning for my mistakes.
When Audrey pressured me to donate a kidney, I agreed.
Not only did I agree, but I also liquidated all my assets and transferred them to my lab.
They thought I was foolish, that I was still begging for their love.
In reality, I was just tying up loose ends.
The night before the surgery, I coughed up a pool of blood.
Audrey laughed coldly over the phone: "Stop the act, Evan. You just want to dodge responsibility. You'll go to any lengths for attention."
The surgery was a "success."
Colin got the kidney he'd always dreamed of.
And I died in the recovery room.
My soul floated in the air as I watched Audrey push open the hospital door, wearing a smile that dripped with pity, ready to put on a show of "redemption."
"Evan, I know you've been wronged. Let's start over..."
The only response to her was the white sheet covering my lifeless body.

Three torturous years hauling bodies on the mortuary night shift, and I'd finally scraped together the cash for my brother Charles's heart transplant.
He just waved it off.
"My heart is fine. Mom and Dad didn't die in that gang war, either. I orchestrated the hit. You were the only casualty."
Nearby, my husband, Gerald, casually lit a cigar to deliver his own confession. "I never went bankrupt. 'Laying low' was just my excuse to avoid squeezing into that dingy funeral home dorm with you. I've been at the Long Island estate."
"I was going to punish you for another three years," Charles added, "but the stench of formaldehyde on you is nauseating. We couldn't take it anymore."
I froze, still clutching the credit card. Charles plucked the plastic from my numb fingers and shoved his phone screen in my face. A banking app stared back at me.
Balance: exactly zero.
"My name is still on the joint account," he sneered, tossing the card into the trash. "I drained it this morning. That blood money you made bagging stiffs is being handed out to street junkies as we speak. We'd never touch that filth."
Before the sheer absurdity of it could suffocate me, my parents walked in. Flanked by bodyguards, they kept their distance, eyeing me like a plague rat.
"You thought being the biological daughter gave you the right to ruthlessly bully Violet. We simply wanted to put you in your place."
"Swear you'll never cross Violet again, and you can remain a Falcone," my mother added coolly. "Otherwise, you're dead to us."
In the stifling silence that followed, my phone buzzed. A text from my oncologist.
[Mrs. Castello, the results are back. It's terminal. Do you consent to initiating the hospice and DNR protocols we discussed?]

My adopted sister, Adriana, hit and injured Hadley Brooks—the prized mistress of Hartwell’s mafia boss, Dario Salvatore—and fled the scene.
Don Salvatore gave us exactly three days. And so, my husband and my parents all turned their eyes to me: Go take the fall for her. You always know how to fix things.
I agreed.
What they didn't know was that on that very same day, my doctor had given me my own deadline: I had, at most, three days left to live.

I was dead, and the whole world was celebrating for my sister.

For twenty-two years, I had been the hardest-working but most invisible daughter in the Sterling family, forever living in the shadow of my gymnastics prodigy sister.

Running a high fever, I begged my family to take me to the hospital, only to hear: "Don't you DARE ruin Bella's award ceremony!"

When I was tricked into the abandoned equipment room and used my last breath to call my boyfriend while lying in a pool of blood, all I heard was: "Grace, quit the drama! Bella's accepting her award on stage!"

On stage, thunderous applause erupted as Bella lifted the "Young Gymnast of the Year" trophy.

And I drew my final breath.

When they returned home triumphant, thinking I had run away in a tantrum, they had no idea I was already dead right under their noses.

When the stars begin to awaken, Aurelia discovers she is tied to an ancient force hidden since the birth of creation. Hunted by a ruthless commander sent to capture her, she is thrust into a living universe filled with war, dangerous secrets, and forgotten creatures. But the man sent to destroy her may be the only one who can save her. As love grows between enemies and buried truths rise, Aurelia must decide whether to save the universe… or let it burn.

When Bree Smith is dragged from Brooklyn into a mansion that feels too polished to be real, she tells herself she can survive it. New rules. New school. A stepbrother she’ll never speak to.

Then she meets Barth Aurick.

Arrogant. Untouchable. Beautiful in the most infuriating way.

They clash like sparks on dry ground; loud, reckless, impossible to ignore. But the more Bree fights him, the more she feels herself slipping into something dangerous.

Because this house isn’t just full of luxury.

It’s full of secrets.

And falling for Barth might cost her more than her pride.

Three years. He worshipped me by day and bedded her by night.
I saw everything. I felt everything—she made sure of that.
So on the night of his coronation, I severed our bond and walked away.
He bled. He knelt. He begged.
Too late.
When I wore white again, it wasn't for him.

This was the ninety-ninth time Shen Yunxiao had disappeared during my heat period.
This time, as always, I found traces of him through my sister Shu Lan's Moments.
[Heat season is here again~ Luckily, someone's been guarding me nonstop for seven days straight.]
The accompanying photo showed Shen Yunxiao kneeling on one knee, his head bowed, kissing the top of her foot in profile.
Unlike the past, I didn't yell or cause a scene. I just liked the post.
I'm a succubus. Since birth, I've been bound to Shen Yunxiao.
So, my succubus heat periods could only be resolved through him.
But he never gave me a second glance, never cared about any of my needs.
Even during my most severe heats, he'd still sit there in his suit, watching me curl up on the floor, trembling.
He knew that a bound succubus could only be loyal to one person.
I used to think he was naturally disdainful of succubi. But when I saw the tenderness in his eyes as he helped my sister Shu Lan through her heat...
That's when I knew. He wasn't disdainful of succubi. He was disdainful of me.
Convinced I couldn't leave him, he brazenly went on every date with Shu Lan.
But he didn't know that surviving one hundred heat periods on my own was the deadline I'd set for myself.
He also didn't know that by binding myself to a top-tier succubus, I could sever my connection to him, a mere human.
So, this was the last chance I was giving Shen Yunxiao.

Everyone in the Blood Moon Pack knew that our Alpha, Ethan Black, was devoted to his Luna, Elena Mourn.

Until he met his fated mate, Celine.

He wanted to sever our bond to be with her, but I refused. We became the pack's toxic couple—he resented me for not letting go, and I despised him for his betrayal.

To get rid of me without looking like the villain, this asshole staged a pity party—claiming a dark witch cursed him in battle, trapping his memories at eighteen, and now his wolf only responded to Celine as his "true mate."

"Elena, I'm stuck at eighteen... I still love you, but our bond is gone." His voice broke. "I'm so sorry for hurting you all these years. Maybe we're both better off apart."

Watching his fake performance, I said yes.

He thought he'd won, never knowing I went along because three years ago, I took a hunter's wolfsbane bullet meant for him. The poison had been killing me ever since. One week—that's all I had left.

Before I died, I wanted one last look at his eighteen-year-old self, even knowing it was all fake.

My husband and I've been married for three years, and he's been messing around with her the entire time.

Hugging and kissing her on set, whispering flirty lines in interviews.

Everyone online calls me a pathetic stand-in.

I never get mad. I just smile and help him smooth over every rumor.

That is, until I accidentally got pregnant and secretly had an abortion.

He was furious, his heart shattered, demanding to know why.

I cupped his face and said calmly: "Because I don't love you."

The one I truly love is his dead brother.

After five years of invisible devotion, she watched her husband dote on another woman while her own daughter wished for a different mother. The birthday fireworks meant for her became a spectacle of her humiliation.

A renowned cardiac surgeon who had saved countless lives, she finally saved her own—by vanishing with nothing but signed divorce papers.

Three years later, she returned as the brilliant founder of a top medical institute, celebrated and desired worldwide. The man who once took her for granted now sees the empire she built without him. He searches desperately, begging for another chance.

But the woman he broke is no longer there—only the queen who rose from the ashes remains.

Can a heart he shattered ever beat for him again? And will the daughter who rejected her finally see what she lost?

"You broke up with me at a time I needed you most... You said I wasn't the one you love... You called me a whore... You said I wasn't your type to begin with... So what would you have me do?"

"Beg!" Michael answered instantly. "I expect you to beg for mercy."

"You don't deserve my plead, Michael. You don't worth my tears..." She was about to go further when Michael kissed her roughly to the point that she was having a hard time to breath.

"Is that why you sold yourself to Kelvin?" He asked after releasing her lips.

Nora wiped her lips with her knotted hands. She looked at him and without fear, she said, "Whoever I sell myself to is none of your business. As a whore that you called me to be, you shouldn't keep counts of how many men if I f**k with." Her response made Michael very angry. He had no choice but to push her and rape her only to find out she was still a virgin.

Would Nora be able to love again? What will she do if Michael begs for a second chance.

The story begins with a disastrous mistake: Serenity confesses to the wrong person. Instead of Tony—the warm, composed boy she has a crush on—she accidentally hands her love letter to Vince, the principal’s arrogant and rebellious son. Seizing the opportunity, Vince uses the letter to blackmail Serenity, forcing her into "unpaid domestic service" while relentlessly teasing and controlling her.
As the plot unfolds, Tony realizes Serenity’s true feelings, and the two officially start a relationship. However, their happiness is short-lived. Vince publicly sabotages them by spreading rumors, leaving Serenity deeply wounded. Through this pain, she finds her inner strength, finally learning to stand up for herself and confront her bully.
The ultimate climax occurs when Serenity discovers her mother is about to remarry the principal—Vince’s father. This twist turns her schoolyard enemy into her soon-to-be stepbrother. With school conflicts now bleeding into her domestic life, Serenity is torn between protecting her mother’s newfound happiness and the dread of living under the same roof as the person who hurt her most.

1

I catch them mid-twist on the SoHo couch we picked out together—Ethan's shirt crumpled on the floor, his hands fisted in Layla's hair, her dress hitched high on her hips, her head thrown back in a gasp that curdles my blood.
My fingers go slack on the doorknob; the Lombardi's bag, his favorite chicken parmigiana, my promotion celebration, slams to the hardwood.
Violet's world shatters the moment she walks into her own living room and finds her husband tangled up with her stepsister. The man she loved. The sister she trusted. Both betraying her in the most humiliating way possible.
Now, with her marriage destroyed and her heart in pieces, Violet vows to take everything from them—her husband's empire, her stepsister's peace, and her own power back.
But when a mysterious billionaire, Liam Knight, walks into her life offering partnership and passion, Violet finds herself torn between revenge and the chance to love again.
Will she burn her enemies to ashes… or risk her heart one more time?

Five years ago, I pulled a dying man from the depths of the ocean.
His name was Silas. When he woke up, he looked me in the eye and swore he'd marry me, that he'd protect me for the rest of his life.
I believed him.
I hid it from my clan, shed my tail, and followed him to land. I bore him a daughter—Winnie. I kept myself locked away in a villa, out of sight from the world. No wedding. No ring. Even the mermaid scales on Winnie's legs had to be covered up with layers and layers of concealer.
Until that night at the banquet. Zoe and her goons pinned us both to the tile by the pool, scraping the scales off Winnie's legs with a knife, sneering that this "filth" was such an eyesore.
I stroked her mangled calf, desperate for Silas to come save us. But Zoe said Silas was her fiancé.
Silas? Her fiancé?
Then what the hell am I?

When my boyfriend of three years won the student body presidency, I rented out the entire bar to celebrate. But when I came back with the cake, I heard deafening jeers from the private room.
"I bet ten grand I can get her to ditch the engagement her family arranged and elope with me before graduation."
"That uptight bookworm? Sweet-talk her a little and she's wrapped around your finger."
"Guess what would happen if she found out—even the money for my off-campus apartment with Marie came from her part-time jobs. Think she'd go ballistic?"
The cake box slipped from my hands. Cream splashed onto my white sneakers—the ones I'd worked three part-time jobs to afford, the ones he said he loved because I looked so "pure" in them.
Turns out what he loved wasn't my purity, but how cheap and controllable I was.
I didn't storm in and confront him. I simply turned around, stepped over the mess, and walked away.
Everyone seemed to forget—Calvin and I were never equals.
I am Athena Stavros, only heir to one of Europe's old money families.
And this three-year charade of being just another student was about to end.

The night I almost drank myself to death at a client dinner, my husband Alexander bought his first love a luxury yacht.

Maya posted it on Instagram that same night: "Best birthday gift EVER! You know who you are 💕🛥️~"

In the photo, she was in a bikini, champagne in hand, glowing with joy.

Then came the credit card alert—our joint account had been maxed out.

Before I could even confront him, Alexander called.

"Are you serious right now? Why'd you lock the card? Maya's been struggling with her depression—she needs to go sailing to clear her head! Why can't you show some compassion?"

I wanted to tell him that last night, I'd nearly killed myself closing a deal for his company.

But he'd already hung up.

Later that evening, Maya posted again—an extravagant jewelry set. The caption: "When someone truly GETS you 💎✨"

In the photo, she wore a diamond ring I never got, not even on my wedding day.

But by then, I was done caring.

Because I'd made my decision—to disappear completely.

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.

Five years ago, on my wedding day, my fiancé Vincent fucked my best friend in the bridal suite.

Five years later, I returned to New York with my husband—the most powerful Mafia boss in Naples. At Atelier Milano, my former best friend Bianca circled my custom gown like a vulture, pestering the staff about meeting the legendary Mrs. Salvatore.

She had no idea the woman she pitied as a pathetic nobody was the very person she was dying to impress.

My skirt was pushed up, and my inner thighs were rubbing against my stepfather’s jeans every time the plane shook.

“It’s okay, it’s just turbulence,” Raviel whispered, his arms wrapping tightly around my waist. I was sitting on his lap because the sudden shaking made it impossible to return to my seat. My butt landed right on his thigh, grinding against something hard. God, it felt beyond words. It felt so good, and dirty. I almost moaned in front of his face.

He was my mother’s husband. She was sitting just a few feet away, wearing headphones, completely oblivious that her daughter was practically dry-humping her husband. Raviel didn’t push me away. Instead, his palms moved up and down to caress my thighs. "You’re so tense, Claire," he murmured, his hot breath blowing in my ear.

That was just the beginning. In Hawaii, things got worse. Or better.
“Lie down on your stomach,” he commanded on the beach. He poured oil onto his palms, making them slippery and moist. As his hands touched my back, I shuddered. His thumbs massaged my buttocks, sliding dangerously close to my inner thighs. His fingertips occasionally rubbed my crotch, sending electric shocks through my body.

I knew it was wrong. I was a virgin, keeping myself for a future husband. But Raviel... he looked at me with a hunger that terrified and aroused me. "You have such soft skin," he said, his voice low and husky. I was soaking wet in my bikini bottom, fantasizing about my stepfather while my mother slept in the hotel room. I was a cursed stepdaughter, and I think he knew it.


Claire Osborn thought her life was finally stable when her mother married Raviel Marshal, a handsome, wealthy, and charming businessman. But beneath Raviel's perfect exterior lies a dark secret: he is a cold-blooded hitman. When a "vacation" to Hawaii turns into a tragedy and Claire's mother is murdered in a suspicious robbery, Claire is left alone with Raviel.

As they live together in his sprawling mansion, the lines between stepfather and stepdaughter begin to blur. Claire finds herself drawn to the dangerous man who protects her, unaware that he might be the one who pulled the trigger on her mother. Raviel, on the other hand, struggles to control his growing obsession with the innocent girl he swore to protect.

In a house full of secrets, surveillance cameras, and hidden weapons, a forbidden passion ignites. But as Claire gets closer to the truth about Raviel's identity and her mother's death, she must decide: is he her savior, or her worst nightmare?

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.

When the Tide Took Him — A Romantic Suspense Novel
Four years ago, on a fogchoked night in coastal Maine, Silas Ward vanished without a trace. The town moved on. The police closed the case. But Eveline Shore never stopped searching—or feeling the echo of the boy she once loved whispering, “Eve, I’ll always find you.”
When Eveline discovers a torn page from Silas’s notebook hidden inside the abandoned lighthouse—written in his unmistakable handwriting—everything she believed shatters. The message warns that she “wasn’t alone” the night he vanished…and that someone has been watching her ever since.
Determined to uncover the truth, Eveline is drawn into a dangerous web involving Silas’s best friend, Jonas, whose guilt and evasiveness suggest he knows far more than he’s willing to admit. And when a mysterious man named Rowan arrives—someone who knows Eveline’s name, her past, and the night Silas disappeared—the pieces begin to fall into place in the most terrifying way.
Silas didn’t vanish by accident.
He was taken.
And the person who pushed him off the cliffs that night wasn’t after him.
They were after her.
As Eveline uncovers the chilling truth and the secrets Silas died to protect, she realizes he survived the fall—not to save himself, but to keep her alive. Their longawaited reunion becomes a heartbreaking confrontation with betrayal, sacrifice, and the dangerous legacy she never knew she carried.
Set against the haunting backdrop of early2000s coastal Maine, When the Tide Took Him blends deep emotional romance with escalating mystery and suspense.
A story for readers who crave love that endures, secrets that haunt, and endings powerful enough to stay with them long after the final page.

She watched her boyfriend drop to one knee, not for her, but for another woman.
Humiliated. Betrayed. Disowned by her own mother. Krystalina is left with nothing, no dignity, no home, not even a single penny to her name.
Just when she thinks life cannot be cruel, London's richest and most ruthless lawyer offers her a lifeline.
A marriage contract. A surrogacy agreement.
Strict rules : No emotions. No s****l intimacy. No attachment with the baby.
But rules are meant to be broken.The moment passion blurs the lines, secrets begin to unravel and the truth behind his cold proposal threatens to destroy them both.
Can a relationship born out of betrayal survive their love?


"You've been a very bad girl, Mrs Ashton. Always disobeying me." His thumb brushed over my lower lip, possessive, stealing my breath. "I don't want my baby to be ill-mannered, like you," he said calmly.
Tears welled in my eyes at his audacity. "Then you should terminate the contract."

Cael Morrow has one rule: never look too long at anyone. Because when he does, he sees the date they'll die. He's kept that secret buried since he watched the numbers above his family's heads count down to zero. Now he's seventeen, living under the roof of his mother's new husband, and trying to survive a school where his new stepbrother, Rowe Daltry, runs everything.
Rowe is cold, controlled, and the most feared boy at Harken Prep. He doesn't do feelings. He doesn't do questions. And he definitely doesn't do the quiet, damaged boy; his father just moved into the room down the hall.
But when Cael accidentally reads Rowe's death date, and it's closer than anyone could imagine, everything changes. Cael can't leave. Rowe won't let him. And the truth about what Cael can see is only the first secret between them that could destroy everything.

Four months pregnant, I was full of joy and wanted to tell my gang-boss boyfriend.
He had sworn that if we had a child, he'd stay away from the underworld, and live a normal life with me.
But when I appeared at his stronghold holding a first aid kit, I was treated as a bitch who wanted to seduce the boss and suffered cruel abuse.
The most ironic thing was that my husband and I were only separated by a wall, but his subordinates told him "another slut is pestering you", making him miss the moment when I needed him most.
When I woke his memory with a lullaby, it was all too late—our child had...
The good news had become a dirge. Having lost everything, I understood a truth:
Real revenge is not taking away life, but making the enemy fall into the abyss when they are happiest.

I stayed in this city for Dorian, pushed my way into his company, and saved every penny for three years just so we could build a home together.
But an anonymous flash drive shoved a video of him cheating in our bed right into my face. The next day, a promotion announcement handed the position I’d bled for to the very woman who seduced him.
With my dignity crushed to dust, I had only one person left to rely on—my gentle, almost obsessively devoted stepbrother, Ambrose.
He promised to make those scumbags tear each other apart. He promised Dorian would crawl back to my feet like a dog.
He offered me a "secret recipe" with immediate results.
I expected a deeply satisfying revenge. I never imagined what that so-called recipe actually was...

Six days after Alexander lost all contact, I navigated my way alone to the Nightfall Gala to find him.

The guard's expression twisted into something peculiar when he heard my purpose.

"You're saying you are looking for your mate, Prince Alexander? And what is your name?"

"I am Cecilia."

The guard let out a harsh, mocking snort. "Stop causing a scene! A blind beggar trying to pull a scam? Don't think you can just impersonate her just because you know the name of the Prince's mate."

"Everyone knows the Prince just gifted Cecilia the millennia-old Abyssal Night Crystal to celebrate her pregnancy! What the hell are you?"

Just then, the giant LED screen cut to the Gala's live broadcast.

"Allow me to formally introduce my partner, Cecilia. Furthermore, she is expecting. Our family is about to welcome a new heir." It was Alexander's voice.

"Thank you all. This is the greatest gift Alexander and I could ever receive."

The moment that sweet, timid voice echoed through the hall, a string violently snapped in my brain. A sharp ringing pierced my eardrums.

—It was the voice of my twin sister, Elena.

On my birthday, I was dragged up to the attic and assaulted by several men.
I called my parents, brother, and boyfriend for help, but they all thought I was seeking attention and ruining my sister Sophie's celebration.
"Mia, stop it. We're busy preparing for Sophie's party. If you want attention, find another way."
This was the hundredth time they'd let me down.
But there won't be a hundred and first.
Because I'm already dead.

My billionaire lover brought out a bespoke mermaid gown, declaring he would marry whoever could fit into it.
But in my past four lives, every woman who tried it on—whether an ambitious imposter or me, his true love—was brutally tortured and murdered by him.
In my fifth rebirth, the butler knocked on our door with a polite smile, "Mr. Voss says his true love is among you."
Since we four women would die no matter who wore it...
We exchanged a look in the dead silence, turned our heads in perfect unison, and locked our eyes onto the only man in the room.

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.

After hearing about my peanut allergy, my boyfriend's newly crowned campus queen added peanut extract to my signature cocktail.

Just one sip in, and my skin immediately erupted in hives. My throat started to close up rapidly.

I stumbled toward my canvas tote, pulled out my life-saving EpiPen, and yanked off the cap.

But the next second, my blood ran cold.

The emergency EpiPen had been swapped out for a tube of lipstick by my boyfriend.

Seeing my face turn purple as I collapsed onto the floor, the campus queen suddenly burst into laughter:

"Surprise! I specifically told Julian to swap it out!"

"You are such a fake. Anaphylactic shock from a single sip?"

I desperately gripped my boyfriend's cuff, letting out strained, wheezing gasps like a broken bellows:

"Julian... if you don't give me the real one... I'm really going to die!"

He peeled my fingers off him one by one and swatted my hand away in disgust, frowning slightly:

"Do you really think you're some delicate princess? It's just a drink. Are you seriously doing this?"

"Madison is right. You're just a drama queen making a scene!"

I gave up pleading for him to understand. Instead, I pressed the custom fountain pen in my pocket, triggering my old-money family's highest-tier SOS signal.

I think I'm dead.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in an abandoned amusement park, and my body was sitting on that slowly turning carousel.

I was only ten years old. I don't know how I died.

Detective Sarah, the blonde officer, promised to find the truth. So I followed her, watching her peel away layer after layer of lies—

In my diary, I wrote down all my fears and all my waiting.

On the phone, Mom sent that video of me laughing.

In the autopsy report, evidence of long-term abuse filled every page.

Mom had been saving money for three years, saying she'd take me away. That afternoon she picked me up from school and said, "We're really leaving this time."

Then what happened? Why did I die at the amusement park? Why was Mom's first reaction after my death not to call the police, but to—

I thought Mom came to save me.

Until I saw the text message she sent...

The day I get diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, I can finally stop selling plasma.

For five years, I thought I was paying for the fire that killed my parents and son, left my brother disabled. Selling plasma, joining drug trials, doing the worst jobs imaginable, all to pay back a debt that wasn't even real.

The doctor says I have a few weeks left. I clutch the diagnosis report and head home to tell them.

The moment I push open the door, I see my parents in the kitchen, the ones who supposedly died in the fire. My brother, who was supposed to be in a wheelchair, stands there raising a glass, laughing with my husband.

My brother shrugs like it's nothing. "The broken leg was fake the whole time. You were the only one hurt in the fire. We just wanted to teach you a lesson, make you appreciate things."

"We were going to tell you eventually." My husband pats my shoulder. "Go apologize to Vanessa. Stop giving her a hard time."

"All the money you gave us went to Vanessa," Dad says. "That's what you get for throwing your bio-daughter status in her face."

I touch the diagnosis in my pocket. Everything was a lie. The only truth is that I'm dying.

After three years of agonizing IVF, I was forced into three abortions. The reason? My mafia in-laws’ pet bird stared at my belly and shrieked, "End it."
Even when I was carrying healthy twins, my own parents held me down and forced abortion pills down my throat. My husband—the man I once took a bullet for—watched coldly. "Listen to the bird. Abort."
Lying in a pool of blood, I finally discovered the horrific truth. There was no "sacred bird." My marriage, my ruined womb, and all the IVF tortures were actually part of a terrifying conspiracy.
On my fourth pregnancy, the bird finally decreed, "Keep it!"
As the whole family treated me like a queen and rejoiced to welcome their precious heir, I quietly walked into the operating room.
Armed with lethal evidence, I crashed their grand succession ceremony.
You want an heir? I’ll send you all to hell instead.

My five-year-old son, Emrys, was poisoned by the deadly "Silver Eclipse." The only cure, Moonbloom Serum, had been seized entirely by my husband, Corvin, to save it for his nine-month-pregnant mistress, Melisande.
He froze all my bank accounts, forcing me to pawn the ring that symbolized my status as Luna and brave the dangerous black market just to secure the antidote.
But by the time I rushed back to the hospital, covered in blood, my child’s organs had already failed. He was gone.
When I threw the death certificate and divorce papers in Corvin’s face in despair, he just looked at me with mockery, accusing me of using our own flesh and blood to put on an act for his attention.
At that moment, all my love for him died completely. I took my son’s ashes, left the Ashmere pack, and decisively severed a mate bond that had tied us together for years...

"Marry me before I die, and after that, I will make sure your daughter will get a new heart. Just marry me, and say 'I do' in front of my parents." - SPADE CEDRIC VASILE

To fulfill his promise to his parents, Spade was prepared to marry without the binding of so-called love, just a pure contract until his dying day. Yet, would Spade still wish for death when his heart slowly fell for his wife, who wished for nothing more than for his life to be extended? Will the heavens heed his plea to prolong his days, if only to remain with the woman who ignited his desire to live?

When I was nine months pregnant, my husband, Torin, forced doctors to extract my baby's cord blood to save his ex-wife's son. My baby died of suffocation ten minutes after birth, right before my eyes.
Instigated by his biological mother, my stepson sneaked into my room late at night and poured silver powder all over me. My skin rotted; the scars would last forever.
Later, the hospital ward caught fire, cutting off my escape. On the brink of life and death, Torin glanced back at me, scooped up his ex-wife, and walked into the safe zone without looking back.
Even later, he knelt in the ruins, hands dripping with blood, digging through the rubble brick by brick.
Until his subordinate stepped up behind him and choked out, "Alpha... we found the Luna's body."

I died on the second Sunday of May.
Mother’s Day.
My biological mother, the top neurologist in the United States, was standing in front of my corpse.
She looked at the bedsores all over my body, at the ribs that had been stomped broken, and explained coldly to hundreds of cameras:
“Trash from the bottom of society, covered in needle marks like this, doesn’t deserve to dirty my dissection table.”
She didn’t know that the “social garbage” she called a pill-seeking self-harmer was the son she had abandoned ten years ago.
When the cold scalpel cut open my chest, an old photograph stained with black blood slipped out.
The moment she saw it, the woman who had stood above everyone else—
went completely insane…

On the night my grandmother died, my husband Kael came home trailing blood.
His leather motorcycle jacket was soaked dark red, yet he flashed a savage grin: "I wiped the floor with those bastards tonight!"
For three years, he had treated our home as nothing more than a pit stop between reckless street races.
I’d finally had enough. "After the funeral, we're getting a divorce."
Before the words fully left my mouth, my phone rang. It was his riding partner, Lunn, his voice choking with sobs: "Sera... Kael drove off the cliff tonight. They only recovered bloody pieces of his helmet!"
But the "dead man" was standing right in front of me...

For six years, I wore Pack silver. I sold my blood. I scrubbed silver out of Pack den floors. I slept on a basement floor — all to pay off my mate's Pack debt and buy my brother's wolfsbane antidote.
Today, with the receipt finally signed, my brother looked at me and said:
"Seren, I was never poisoned. Our parents aren't dead either. The Rogue raid six years ago — I arranged it. The only wolf hurt that night was you."
My mate stepped up behind him: "I never lost my Pack rank either. I've been at the estate the whole time."
Then my parents — the ones I'd buried seven years ago — walked through the door.
The Pack physician had given me forty-eight hours left to live.
They were going to remember every single one.