7861 Book(s) Related to that was then this was now

After I retired, I was willing to do the dirtiest work at a small auto repair shop—just to give my sick daughter an ordinary childhood.
I endured my mother’s insults, my eldest brother’s wage cuts, my younger brother’s extortion.
But they actually joined forces to steal my daughter’s life-saving money for gambling, then sold me into an illegal mine to pay off their debts.
When the iron chain locked around my wrist, when my daughter cried in despair, the killing intent that had slept in my blood for three years finally woke up completely.
They had no idea I was once the iron-blooded God of War—commander of a million troops, the name that made enemy nations tremble.

I was supposed to hate him. Instead, he stole everything: my freedom, my breath, my heart.

When Yara’s life collides with Rafael’s, it’s not by chance... it’s by force. Powerful, dangerously handsome, and untouchable in his tailored black suit, Rafael is the kind of man whispered about in fear. He’s ruthless. Cold. A man built on secrets and sins. The last person Yara should ever want.

But hatred is fragile when desire cuts deeper. Rafael grips more than just her wrist.. he grips her every thought, every heartbeat, pulling her into a storm she cannot escape. The closer she gets, the more his darkness feels like home… and the more dangerous it becomes to stay.

Every touch is a risk. Every look, a temptation. And when the lies between them shatter, Yara must decide if surrendering to the man she was supposed to hate will destroy her or set her free.

Stolen By the Man I Was Supposed to Hate is a dark romance thriller full of obsession, secrets, and a forbidden love that burns hotter than revenge.

"I married you only to destroy you."

That was the only reason FBI agent Sophia Carter accepted a new identity as Evelyn Russo and married Lorenzo Moretti, the most dangerous mafia boss in Italy.

Her mission was to infiltrate, gather evidence, drag Lorenzo to prison, and save the children and women that Lorenzo Moretti had kidnapped for trafficking.

But life as a Don's wife was never as simple as she had imagined. Behind the luxurious mansion, the armed men, and the secrets of the Moretti family, Sophia found herself trapped in a game she did not understand.
The closer she got to Lorenzo, the harder it became to distinguish lies from reality.
But one thing never changed. If her identity as an FBI agent was exposed, then at that very moment, she would die at her own husband's hands.

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.

Charlotte Hayes never dreamed of becoming Mrs. Hawthorne.
After a life-changing night left her pregnant, Ethan Hawthorne was forced to marry her to take responsibility for their unborn child and protect the Hawthorne family's reputation. But the marriage Charlotte believed would be the beginning of a happy family became the beginning of her nightmare.
Inside the Hawthorne Mansion, she was treated not as a wife, but as a servant. Every day, she was humiliated, overworked, and starved by the Hawthorne family. To make matters worse, her former best friend, Vanessa Caldwell—the woman the Hawthorne family had always wanted Ethan to marry—slowly took her place and stole her husband's heart.
When Charlotte uncovered the secrets of the Shadow Circle, a powerful organization controlling the country's biggest corporations, she became a threat they couldn't afford to leave alive. Before she could expose the truth, she was murdered in a staged accident.
But death was not the end.
Charlotte opened her eyes in the body of Olivia Whitmore, the sole heiress of Whitmore Enterprises, who had also died under mysterious circumstances on the very same night.
This time, she won't return to fight for love. She'll return to uncover the truth, destroy the people who ruined her life, and seek justice for both herself and Olivia.
But what happens when the man who once abandoned her falls in love with her all over again... without realizing that the woman he's desperately trying to win back is the very wife he once failed to protect?
When Ethan finally learns the truth, will regret be enough to win Charlotte back... or has he already lost her forever?

Seventeen-year-old Nora thought her biggest problem was surviving senior year—until she fell for Leo, her brother’s best friend and the one boy she was never supposed to want.

Leo is everything she shouldn’t touch: older, dangerous, and hiding something behind those icy blue eyes. When Nora discovers his secret—that he’s a vampire—her world shatters. But instead of running, she lets him in… and one bite binds their souls together forever.

As Nora struggles to balance love, loyalty, and the darkness that now lives inside her, a new person emerges: Killian, a powerful mafia king who sees her not as prey, but as an equal. His offer could change her fate—or end it.

Caught between two worlds and two loves, Nora must decide who she really is…
and what she’s willing to become.

Because the way they look at her—
might be the thing that saves her… or destroys her.

On our seventh wedding anniversary, my Alpha husband missed the candlelit dinner for the seventh time.
He rushed off to rescue an Omega surrounded by vampires, leaving me alone in the villa.
That same night, a jarring photo spread through the pack.
Damien, covered in blood, held Rose tightly in his arms, his lips pressed against her forehead.
Everyone was waiting for me to be jealous, to rage.
But I didn’t scream or argue like I used to.
Instead, I poured out his favorite champagne, closed my eyes calmly, and prayed to the Moon Goddess.
“You once said I have a destined mate.”
“If he will make me strong and free me from this wretched marriage, let him come for me in seven days.”

For a whole year, Aurora waited for a cornea transplant. Her husband, Oliver, stole it at the last second for his mistress, Claire. Twelve unanswered calls later, Aurora caught him at the hospital, tenderly accompanying Claire to her prenatal checkup.

Aurora begged him to stay, however, Oliver merely threw the divorce papers right into her face. She signed in ten seconds flat and walked away. When her toxic sister-in-law came to mock her, Aurora ripped her to shreds.

Everyone expected Aurora to crawl back crying. Instead, she listed her wedding ring on a pawn site, packed her bags, and vanished.

She left without a backward glance. So why is the man who signed those papers in a furious rage suddenly turning back?

"Everyone in Cedar Hollow can tell you exactly what I did. I just can't."

Twelve years ago, Vanessa Dalton walked out of Larkspur Quarry alone, covered in her best friend Jo Calloway's blood. Jo's body was never found. Vanessa never remembered what happened. The evidence disappeared with the storm, but the town reached its own verdict long ago: she was guilty.

Now a renowned forensic genealogist who solves decades-old cold cases using DNA, Vanessa is forced to return home when her dying mother leaves her no choice. She's spent years helping strangers uncover the truth, while refusing to investigate the one mystery that destroyed her own life.

Sheriff Scott Bradley wants her gone. His father ruined his career trying to prove Vanessa murdered Jo, and Scott inherited both the badge and the hatred. But when someone steals a hidden box of evidence from the Calloway case, and Vanessa begins remembering fragments that contradict everything Cedar Hollow believes, a second car at the quarry, another voice calling her name, and Jo alive long after the moment she was supposed to have died, they're forced into an uneasy alliance.

As Vanessa and Scott reopen the town's darkest secret, every new clue exposes another lie. Someone has spent twelve years protecting the truth, and they'll kill to keep it buried.

Because Jo Calloway wasn't the only person who disappeared that night.

My husband Eric couldn't speak after a car accident three years ago. Three years of silence. Not one word.

To pay for his rehab, I worked four jobs at once—worked until I was coughing up blood, until I collapsed. Winter nights, Leo and I huddled under one threadbare blanket. When my son spiked a fever and I had no money for medicine, I stayed up all night pressing wet rags to his burning forehead.

Eric? His only communication was cold texts, ordering me around. When Leo reached for a hug, he'd push him away like our son didn't exist.

I endured it all. Because deep down, I believed the accident was my fault.

Until that night.

I was hauling equipment at Selena's concert—Selena, the pop star everyone knew—when a mystery guest in a mask stepped on stage. They sang together, voices blending like they'd done this a thousand times.

That voice. That lightning-shaped scar on his elbow.

My "mute" husband of three years.

I followed him backstage. Through the door, I heard Selena's laugh: "Congrats, Eric. Your mute act is almost over—you won the bet."

Three years of sacrifice.

All of it just a game. A bet with his first love.

The day I found out Quinn Prescott had pulled strings to give away my Ivy League recommendation to some transfer student, I packed up everything he'd ever given me and dumped it on his doorstep.
The next day, I found that same box in the dumpster outside my building.
Quinn's face was twisted with irritation.
"Drop it. So what if we don't go to the same college? You can get a full ride anywhere on your own, but Paula can't even afford tuition without that recommendation letter."
He let out a cold laugh. "And if this actually blows up, I promise you—it won't be me walking away with regrets."
I pressed the UCL acceptance letter tighter against my back, looking at him one last time with perfect calm.
He looked exactly like he always did when he knew he'd already won—like the outcome wasn't even a question.
But Quinn, I don't need you either.
My one-way ticket to London was already booked. We never had to see each other again.

When they shoved me into the flames, I fought through the blinding pain to call my brother, Ethan Bennett. Fire licked at my skin, twisting my vision, but the call finally went through.

"What is it now?" He sounded distracted, like he was checking off a guest list.

"Ethan, please, help—" My voice was shattered, choked by the searing heat.

"Can't you just give it a rest for one single day?" he snapped, cutting me off. "Selina and I are getting married this weekend. If you pull another stunt, I swear I'll—"

The call died right as the flames swallowed me whole.

Agony consumed every nerve before my eyes closed for good, his unfinished threat still echoing in my ears.

But the good news is, Ethan... you don't have to swear anymore. Because I was dead.

A past generations’ wrongful case makes Julian mistake innocent Sienna for his foe’s daughter. Exploiting her crush, he ruins her Cambridge dream on graduation night, destroying her family. For five years, Sienna works in a sleazy club to fund her sick mother’s care.
Their unexpected reunion leaves Julian torn between disgust and secret affection. When the truth surfaces, consumed by regret, he cancels his wedding and spends all his wealth to atone. Yet Sienna’s love is long gone. After settling her family with his money, she leaves forever.

"You have two months to live." The doctor's death sentence was still ringing in my ears when I found the receipt in his pocket.

[Four Seasons Hotel. Romance Suite. Check-in: 3:00 PM.]

3:00 PM. The exact moment I was begging the doctor for painkillers, Alexander was in a hotel bed with another woman.

I looked at him, sleeping soundly beside me. I had loved this man for five years, sold everything to help him succeed. Now, in the final countdown of my life, he gave me the most fatal blow.

"I'm exhausted from meetings," he had lied, smelling of Santal 33 and another woman's sex.

I clenched the receipt until my nails dug into my flesh. I wouldn't tell him about the cancer.

I would use whatever time I had left to make him regret ever being born.

That wedding in Rome was the last time I ever saw him as his “stepsister.”
I was the Roxie family’s only daughter. After my father remarried, my mother and I moved into the Corleone estate, and from that day on, Elias became my stepbrother—also the one obsession I should never have touched.
Out in public, he was always calm and controlled. At home, though, one line from him “Don’t call me brother” made my heart race.
Until the day he held Sophia’s hand in front of a priest and announced he was going to marry her.
I was outside the venue, bending down to pick up empty bottles because I needed dialysis money. He crushed them under his shoe in front of everyone, humiliated me, and forced me to trade my dignity for cash, like he was nailing the word “step-siblings” onto a pillar of shame.
He hated me. He said I’d “gotten back at him” in the filthiest way. I just smiled and never explained.
Because he would never know the truth: back then, the reason I shoved him away with everything I had was only because I wanted him to live a little cleaner.
That night, he locked me in a pitch-dark storage room. Outside the door was wedding music. Inside was my blood and the suffocating despair.
When he finally opened the door… I was already dead.

Spring is the season I dread the most.

Because every spring, my mere existence becomes a lethal weapon against my own son.

Theron told me he suffers from a highly rare condition: Maternal Stress Rejection Syndrome.

If I so much as get near Flynn during the spring months, it triggers severe asthma attacks and terrifying asphyxiation.

To keep our boy alive, Theron takes him away to an isolated treatment center for three months, every single year.

And I stay behind, swallowing antidepressants by the handful just to survive the crushing guilt.

That is, until I found a photo hidden in Theron's burner phone.

In the picture, my husband and my son are tightly embracing another woman.

The so-called Maternal Stress Rejection Syndrome was nothing but a sick lie—a meticulously crafted excuse so my husband could spend the season playing "happy family" with his first love.

......

I had just arrived abroad for a legal conference when my best friend sent me a video.
An unfamiliar woman was chatting while pushing Dexter’s mother, Jenny, around the neighborhood, claiming to be Dexter’s wife.
My hand, holding the phone, froze.
If she’s Dexter’s wife… then who am I?
I immediately called my husband and asked,
“Did you change family doctors?”
He paused for a second, then replied with a laugh, “Yes. Mom didn’t like the old one, so we switched. I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet. Why do you ask?”
I forced a casual chuckle. “No reason. I just missed you.”
After hanging up, I rushed home overnight.

By an accident, she became the glamorous daughter of Ocean family. When the real daughter comes back, she, as the false daughter, she neatly leaves this time. After being bullied by them, she decides to take what was taken from her past life and holds it firmly in her own hands. Dealing the bitch, kicking cheating philandering men, then goes to the top. She thought she would be alone all the time, but she never thought there is lifetime love awaiting for her...

In a world where war is eternal, can Elijah ever hope to escape her fate?
The fiendish war had raged on since long before Elika was born, neither side showing compassion. The battles raged on through the centuries untamed and savage, no side allowing quarter. The deaths were heinous and unprincipled; those who died would not rest silently. Their sinful battle would continue onward, the souls forever locked in limbo where they would endure the tortures of death lingering on their monstrous souls
Darkous hates them all, except for Hades, and soon, Elika would know first hand the pain he can inflict

I was falsely accused of killing my sister. My husband personally sent me to prison. Three years later, he picked me up, and that very night he stripped off my clothes and fucked me brutally.

He said, "The child your sister and I had together has a heart condition. You have to give birth to a baby to save him. This is what you owe your sister!"

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!"

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."

"Happy anniversary, darling. Look what I brought you." My husband's snow-white python once felt like proof of his love—until I remembered dying with it wrapped around my throat. In my past life, I doted on that "gift" for an entire year, never once suspecting its true nature, while my husband and daughter quietly counted down the days until I stopped breathing. Reborn on the very night he presents that same box again, I swear this time will be different.

"Shhh! Do not make a sound.. or I won't refrain myself to tie you up!" His grip on my wrist tightens.

I need to get my book from him, in which I wrote all of my erotic fantasies.
Fantasies that he is slowly turning real in his evil ways.
It's like I gave the devil an instruction manual on how to seduce and toy with me.
And he is exactly doing what a devil does.

When Ryan Damison, a pure breed asshole gets his hands on a personal book filled with erotic fantasies, how things cannot go kinky?
How can he let go of this golden opportunity to toy with his Nemesis's sister, whose book is now under his claws and soon she will be too..
What evil tricks will pop out from his magic bag when he decides to have her as his trophy at any cost?
Grab your wig, because the shit is about to go down!

An alien attack in an area requires Victoria Della as a medical soldier to be directed to the battlefield with her arch-enemy, Sean Edwin, the team commander.

Victoria and Sean do not always get along, when they meet they always argue, tease, or tease each other. There is rarely any attention between them. Victoria receives a secret mission from her superior to negotiate with an alien leader who reportedly has technology beyond human capabilities. Although Victoria does not understand what it means at all, she still accepts the mission and is helped by someone.

Who would have thought, that the person who helped Victoria was Sean? On the battlefield, they guard each other until the secret mission is almost complete but something happens that makes one of them have to sacrifice. Who will do it when love begins to grow in their hearts?

Four years ago, I left on a top-secret mission, and everyone assumed I was dead.

Four years later, I returned expecting a joyful homecoming, only to be struck by a devastating nightmare: three years ago, a local cartel hanged my wife from the rafters, and my ten-year-old son was locked in a cellar, suffering unimaginable abuse.

Right now, in a local dive bar, my enemies have a gun pressed to my head. They’re laughing, mocking me, thinking I'm just some washed-up, helpless veteran they can easily crush.

But what they don't know is that just ten minutes ago, I severed the only fiber-optic cable connecting this town to the outside world.

The hunt has officially begun...

"What kind of sick game are you playing?" my husband, Mark, snapped through the phone.
I stared at my heavy plaster cast and said nothing.
In my previous life, distant relatives brought a bag of cash to my clinic, begging me to bump my cousin up the surgery waitlist. I refused.
By morning, the money vanished.
Security footage showed someone in my scrubs, with my exact face, stealing it.
My colleague, Sarah, and my husband accused me of taking the bribe. They destroyed my career. My cousin died waiting.
Driven mad by grief, her parents ran me down with their truck.
Reborn, when I saw the new surveillance footage, I finally understood who she was.

“Chen Lu Xian,” a brilliant surgeon, meets his end—
only to awaken as “Chen Lu,” a disfigured and worthless noble son.
When fate takes a dramatic turn,
his new goal becomes clear: vengeance
and rising again as a miracle physician of unmatched skill.
Lu Xian uses a restaurant as a front…
while secretly operating a hidden clinic behind the scenes.
He trains handmaidens in the healing arts,
alongside their practice in martial cultivation.
Fate entangles Lu Xian with the Fourth Prince,
a war-torn man bearing wounds from the battlefield.
That one act of healing… alters his life forever—
when he is forced into marriage!
From celestial physician to imperial consort of the Fourth Prince,
how will Chen Lu use his wits to survive the treacherous tides of court intrigue?
A path lined with schemes, love, and fierce battles lies ahead…

To surprise her I ended my business trip early only to catch my fiancee entangled with my best friend of ten years in our marital bed

The next day at an elite gala she publicly announced the engagement was over then drove me out into the freezing downpour like a drowned dog mocking me in front of everyone as a worthless castoff

She did not know that the Wall Street financial predator who had hidden his edge for love had finally had his shackles cut off by their own hands

Back in New York I struck back by shorting the Roland family empire watching coldly as that sanctimonious friend devoured her family fortune piece by piece then tossed her into a dungeon on a remote island overseas to torment her at will

Months later when she crawled out of a dark cell on the verge of a breakdown clutching my dress shoe in the stinking mud and sobbing as she begged humbly that she would do anything if only she could stay by my side

I merely wiped the mud she had smeared on my trousers and let a filthy wet wipe drift onto her face

Some trash once you throw it out you never pick it up again

My first love was Liam— a powerful Alpha who swore he would claim me when the Blood Moon rose. Beneath the sacred crimson light, I believed the Moon Goddess would bind our destinies together.
But the night that was meant to mark the beginning of my happiness turned into my ruin.
In front of the entire pack, Liam did not claim me.
He chose my stepsister.

Blair Thompson thought her new job at Laurent Holdings would be the fresh start she desperately needed.
Instead, on her very first day, the company’s cold and unreadable CEO proves he already knows things about her he shouldn’t.
Her habits, Her apartment, Her past.
And when anonymous messages begin appearing on her phone moments after he watches her, Blair realizes something terrifying—
Someone has been following her long before she walked into that office.
But the deeper she digs into Alex Laurent’s world, the more dangerous the truth becomes.
Because Blair was never hired by accident.Her parents’ deaths were never accidents.
And the powerful men now hunting her. Trapped between a violent organization, buried family secrets, and a man whose obsession feels both protective and deadly, Blair must decide who to trust before the truth destroys her completely.
Because in Alex Laurent’s world, love and danger have always gone hand in hand.
And once he starts watching someone…
He never stops.

Charlotte Pierce is used to surviving in motion. New towns, new schools, the same old house on the edge of nowhere, and the same rule that keeps her standing. Keep her twin brother, Charlie safe. Keep his hockey dream alive. Keep her own needs quiet. She works too much, sleeps too little, and saves the one thing that still feels like hers for the middle of the night, when she can lace up her worn skates and carve freedom into dangerous frozen ice. Charlotte and Charlie shifted once, years ago, and never understood what it meant. They had no pack, no guidance and no protection. Just two twins clinging to each other and pretending the voice in their heads was stress, imagination, or loneliness. Then they move to Wellington.
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)

Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.

Eden was born into power but raised in shadows—a girl with fire in her hips and rage in her heart. Salvatore, her cold and deadly stepbrother, has spent years pretending not to want her. But one forbidden night ignites a chain of blood-soaked secrets, obsession, and betrayal. When Eden discovers she’s pregnant with his child, their world spirals into something darker, deeper, and far more dangerous. In a world ruled by violence, family, and loyalty, their love is a sin neither of them can stop—and it just might burn everything down.

She baked his pack to perfection for five years, only to overhear she was just the “cheaper version” of his fated mate.

When Alpha Brian slaps her, abandons her in flames, and chooses the villainess who faked everything… Angela walks away, rejects him forever, returns home as the hidden heiress of a powerhouse pack, marries the Lycan King who worships her and watches her ex spiral into madness.

To fulfill a dying comrade's final request, I spent twelve years living in the shadows to protect his daughter. I took bullets for her, laundered her black-market assets, and eventually handed over my entire stake in the security empire. In her eyes, I am her father’s murderer; in mine, she is a mission—the only flicker of light left in my life. Until that fateful banquet, when she personally shoved me into the sights of mercenaries. Watching my blood bloom across her dress, she hooked her arm around my nemesis and ordered coldly, "Clean it up." In that moment, twelve years of devotion collapsed, and a heart that beat only for her finally learned to freeze. This time, I’ve decided to personally destroy the monster I raised.

When Trevor Sullivan had nothing, I gave up billions to follow him to Silicon Valley. Everyone said I was crazy in love with him, until his first love came back to the States right after he made it big.

Seven years of playing the perfect wife and mother, and then I hear him coaching our five-year-old daughter: "Ruby, you can't tell Mommy about my fake wedding with Amber. Not a word, okay?"

"But Daddy, Mommy's gonna be sad..."

"If you tell Mommy, Daddy won't love you anymore. Got it?"

My daughter trembles, nodding frantically.

I stand outside the door, my heart turning to ash.

For the woman he never got over, he doesn't just betray our marriage. He makes our five-year-old lie for him.

Everyone expects me to cry, to beg, to fall apart.

Instead, I dial the number I blocked seven years ago: "Dad, can the family jet still come get me?"

Trevor Sullivan has no idea. I was never some gold digger who needed him to survive. I was the one with everything who made myself small for his sake.

Terminal. One month, maybe less.
I folded the report and put it in my bag. The doctor asked if there was family I could call. I told him there wasn't.
My husband rang while I was crouched against the hospital wall, waiting for the pain to pass. I could hear waves behind his voice. He didn't ask what the doctor said. He wanted to know why his money hadn't come through yet. His first love needed it for her art show.
So I sent him all of it. My savings, and the last of what my mother left me. Ten years, settled in one transfer.
Then my legs went, and a pair of freezing hands caught me before I hit the ground.
The pain stopped the second he touched me.
"Your kind calls us reapers. Give me your soul, and I'll keep the pain off you until the end."
Weston took one look at him and decided I'd hired an actor to make him jealous.
He thinks I'm trying to win him back.

Ten years ago, Justin Ben watched helplessly as his mother was murdered before his eyes while the people responsible destroyed his family overnight. His little sister disappeared during the chaos and was left to survive alone on the streets, while Justin himself vanished from Boron City completely.

Everyone believed the frightened boy died long ago.

But they were wrong.

Ten years later, Justin finally returns, no longer as the weak teenager they once hunted, but as the legendary God of War whose name alone terrifies armies and powerful men alike.

Now, the people who betrayed his mother and stole everything from his family are about to face the nightmare they created.

This time, Justin is not returning for forgiveness.

He is returning for revenge.

The last thing Kael remembered was the knife in his back.
Not a metaphorical knife—an actual blade, six inches of obsidian steel, buried between his shoulder blades by the woman he was supposed to marry. Princess Elara of the Celestial Court. The Golden Rose of the Nine Heavens. The most beautiful woman in the realm, and the most treacherous.
He'd died on the steps of the Temple of Eternal Light, surrounded by cheering nobles who thought they were witnessing the execution of a demon spy. They weren't wrong, exactly. Kael was from the Underworld. But he wasn't a spy.
He was the Crown Prince.
And now, three hundred years later, he was back.

I’m a billionaire heir, and I used to say yes to my girlfriend no matter what.

She swiped my card like it was hers, partied until sunrise, and while I lay in a hospital bed, I was still cleaning up her messes.

She never visited me once—yet I couldn’t let her go. I would have given her everything.

Until an accident made me realize the truth: my love wasn’t real. It was hypnosis.

Her father wanted control. He bribed my psychiatrist and rigged my treatment—so the moment I saw her face, I’d lose control, give in, and hand over whatever they wanted.

All that devotion was manufactured.

Now the hypnosis is gone. She thinks I’ll keep being her ATM.

She has no idea that the first thing I did after waking up was make her—and her father—pay.

I died—not in the way you'd expect, but slowly, painfully, while he was entangled with her.

He called her his savior, the woman who sold everything to rescue his failing empire. Little did he know, it was my money, my life's work, that he squandered.

The betrayal burned hotter than any flame, and I vowed he'd pay.

Now, he's gone—a leap from the heights he once ruled, his fall as swift as his rise.

The day the IVF succeeded was when I realized Michael had deceived me all along.
He had only used me as a surrogate for my sister.
When I confronted him, he tested me, forcing me to kill someone. "Afraid to pull the trigger? Doesn't seem like my kind of woman," he sneered.
I tried to run, but he caught me.
He kept me locked away, forced me to eat foods I was allergic to until I needed my stomach pumped, and chained me to the bed while he went off with her.
I cried until I had no tears left—and finally learned how to hold a gun.