1822 Book(s) Related to just broken to twine

In my past life, when the apocalypse broke out, I braved the pressure and opened the fortress gates to take in my mother-in-law and brother-in-law, who had nowhere else to go.
They shoved my wife and me straight into a horde of zombies.
My wife and I were reborn seven days before the apocalypse. I turned my head and saw the same fear and coldness surging in her eyes as mine:
"This time, don't open the door."
"Never." I smiled coldly.
Not only would I keep the door shut—I would watch with my own eyes as those bloodsucking ingrates, who had drained me dry in my past life, were slowly devoured by hunger and despair right outside the gate.

In my previous life, my wife was addicted to black market gambling on football, which caused us to lose everything.
To make matters worse, a zombie horde then broke out.
We had no shelter and were quickly torn apart by a horde of frenzied zombies.
After being reborn, she planned to run off with all the money, then dump me and elope with her lover.
What she didn't know was that I had awakened the ability to read minds and knew all her plans.

Married for seven years, I lived my life like an absolute joke.
For the sake of my brother, my wife personally uprooted the roses I had so painstakingly cultivated. To please her uncle, my daughter pointed at my nose and called me a "bad daddy."
The entire family even held a vote to force me to donate my bone marrow. My wife, Elena, raised her hand without a second thought: "You'll just lose a little bone marrow. Liam will die without you."
In that moment, my heart died.
The surgery was a success.
As the anesthesia wore off, Elena was holding my hand tightly. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her voice trembled with remorse: "Aaron, I was a jerk before. As long as you were willing to save Liam, I will love only you for the rest of my life."
She thought I would be as pathetically grateful as a dog, begging for her affection and humbly forgiving her.
But I merely frowned in disgust and pulled my hand back as if shaking off garbage.
In the dead silence, I looked at this tearful woman before me and asked, politely yet confused:
"Excuse me, ma'am... who are you?"

At fifteen, my parents died on their way of volunteer teaching in underprivileged areas. I was adopted by the Miller family’s Don, Vincent and was brought up by himself. For ten years, he hauled me out of the mud, gave me a home, gave me favor no one else got and taught me what a “family” was supposed to mean.
On my eighteenth birthday, I climbed onto his bed and kissed him.
He called me disgusting with a face like ice. Later, he brought Isabella home, forced me to be her bridesmaid, and made me go with her to pick out wedding dresses and jewelry.
One shove from her was all it took for him to lock me in a pitch-black confinement room and he even had the light removed.
That was when I finally understood: everything I had could be taken back from me at any moment.

Kidnapping trauma leaves Camilla Alistair trapped in a ravenous, unrelenting sex addiction—one only Danieru Malaike, heir to the Malaike mafia, agrees to feed. Their deal is cold: he’ll sate her insatiable cravings, she’ll help him seize the family inheritance. Their contractual marriage simmers with feral, urgent passion… until Danieru’s first love, the scheming Rachel, returns as his secretary, hell-bent on stealing him back. Camilla’s pregnancy fans her paranoia, and a brutal clash leaves Rachel bloodied—shattering their fragile bond for good. But the final blow? Gut-wrenching CCTV of Danieru and Rachel in a fiery tryst. Broken, Camilla flees… straight into the arms of Zinan Xrezone. The stoic Xrezone family leader has loved her silently for years, guarding her from the shadows—and now, he’s not letting her go.

I begged my mom for ten dollars, but she smashed my head with a frying pan instead.

The next day, my mother posted on a forum asking:
"Hi everyone. My eldest son lied about the end of the world just to get ten dollars. I want to ask, how can I sell him on the underground black market to pay off his younger brother's $20,000 debt?"

The moment I saw that post, any remaining love I had for them died instantly. I snapped my phone's SIM card in half.

What she didn’t know was that a world-ending acid flood would descend upon New York tomorrow.

I had begged so bitterly for that ten dollars just to trigger the Ten-Million-Fold Return System to build a three-billion-dollar Doomsday Ark.

Since she didn’t want it, I gave the throne of the Ark Queen to the female classmate who casually tossed me some charity.

Luna Wicken has spent her entire life believing she was just an ordinary girl, but on her 18th birthday, everything she thought she knew is shattered. Her supposed parents are revealed to be impostors, paid off by her real mother to keep Luna hidden from the world she truly belongs in. Even her name is a fabrication, and Luna realizes she knows nothing about who she really is.
As Luna's powers begin to manifest and the spell cast on her as a baby starts to break, she discovers that she is not just any witch - she is the forgotten werewolf princess and the most powerful witch of all time.

But her true identity puts her in grave danger; both witches and werewolves seek to exploit her power for their own gain. Among those drawn to Luna is Braxton Lykos, the cruelest alpha Of them all. lnstead of seeking to harm her, however, he claims Luna as his one true mate.

The bond between them is undeniable, but as Luna grapples with her newfound abilities and the dark forces that threaten to consume her, she must navigate a treacherous path towards self-discovery while fending Off those who wish to see her destroyed.

With enemies closing in from sides and the fate of the Lunas life hanging in the balance, Luna must confront not only external threats but also the darkness within herself. Can she harness her powers for good and prevent the impending catastrophe?
Or will she succumb to temptation and become the very thing she fears most? The fate Of all supernatural beings rests in Luna's hands a S she embarks on a journey of self-realization and ultimate sacrifice. while falling love.

Betrayed to death by my own brother, I was reborn before the apocalypse descended.
He rushed to seize the god-tier [Copy] talent first, leaving the trash [Purification] talent for me.
He thought that with this talent, he'd have no worries and reign supreme in the apocalypse.
Meanwhile, I quietly closed the last door of my fortress.
He didn't know that his prized copying ability had a fatal flaw.

Five years into my marriage, I took off my Donna necklace at the Rossi family’s New Year’s Eve banquet and Noah still thought I could never leave him.
He stood by the long table with his mistress, Amelia, and said in front of every capo, “Some people will never measure up to her. Not even close.”
I didn’t cry. I didn’t make a scene. I just turned and walked away. On my way out, my cousin Lucas, my fixer, handed me a cup of coffee.
Three days later, he brought me two pieces of news.
Amelia was four months pregnant. And Noah was trading family territory to get his bastard child recognized by the family.
“What are you going to do?” Lucas asked.
I stared out the window, thinking about the red lipstick stain on Noah’s shirt. Thinking about the smug look in his eyes when he told me, “I only helped her because I felt sorry for her.”
“Wait,” I said. “Wait until they think they’ve won.”
What Noah didn’t know was I was still holding one last trump card.

"Daddy... so cold... and it hurts..." When my precious daughter Mia whispered these words in her weak voice, my heart felt like it was being torn apart.
The life-saving medicine was just ten meters away, but that damned anti-magic barrier had become an insurmountable chasm between life and death.
What made me even more furious was that the vampire guarding the gate not only extorted my life savings, but also demanded I kneel like a dog and lick his boots before he would open the door.
He didn't know that if the door stayed closed, it wouldn't just be my daughter who died—his son and mother would perish too!

We’ve been married for five years. Then, she got pregnant with someone else's child.
In front of everyone, she said: "Ethan doesn't want this baby. You've always wanted one, right? Fine, take it and raise it."
In that moment, I finally understood: she wasn’t incapable of loving someone—she simply never saw me as a human being.
I took off my wedding ring, left it on the tray, and bought a one-way ticket to the North. My family said I wouldn't survive in the frozen North; she said that without her, I was nothing.
Three years later, she tracked me down using the GPS hidden inside that ring. She pushed open the door to my attic room, finding only a note I’d left: "Don't look for me. We're square."

In their eyes, my wife Emma—an Ivy League tenured professor in biological sciences—is ruthless, rational, and obsessively clean.
For seven years, even when she washed her hands, she would only ever touch the right-side sink—hers.
Until that night at 3 a.m., when I pulled a strand of sandy-golden short curl—hair that belonged to neither of us—out of my men’s shower loofah.
And around the neck of a pre-med student named Lucas, I saw the antique silver cross my dying father left in my hands.
When I confronted her, my always-icy wife protected the little homewrecker, slapped me across the face, and called me a jealous, controlling chauvinist.
She thought I’d swallow it like a coward.
But she forgot: as a top cardiothoracic chief, the thing I do best is cutting out tumors.

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.

At the Morello family’s Christmas dinner, I stood beside Vincent, waiting for him to announce our engagement.
Instead, in the very next second, he walked in holding a little boy and claimed him as his son.
And the woman he said he was going to marry? Scarlett Morello. The one he had always introduced as his “sister.”
The whole room erupted in applause. I stood there frozen, like a nail hammered into the floor.
Later, in his study, he took my hand and said, “Scarlett is dying. Late-stage breast cancer. She only has six months left. After she’s gone, I’ll marry you.”
But there was no guilt in his eyes. No love, either.
Then he told me to go to his villa that afternoon, to take care of the woman who was supposedly “dying.”
I opened the photo he sent me. Scarlett was lying in a hospital bed, pale-faced, an IV in the back of her hand.
A professional tennis player who had been playing in an exhibition match three weeks ago, and who had dropped three grand at Louis Vuitton on Fifth Avenue just five days ago.
But sure. She was “dying.”
At three in the morning, I was curled up by the front door of my apartment, crying so long I lost track of time.
Then my phone lit up. A text from an unknown number:
[Elena, I’m downstairs. When we were kids, you told me that once I controlled the docks on the East Coast, you’d marry me. The docks are mine now. Does that promise still stand?]
I pulled back the curtain and there he was. Ethan Vitale, my first love, leaning against the door of a black Cadillac, lifting a hand in a lazy wave.
Three years ago, when he left New York, he was only a Capo.
Now, he was the Don of the Vitale family.
He didn’t rush me. Didn’t pressure me to come downstairs.
He came for one reason only, to let me know he was back.
I wiped away my tears and texted back:
[It still stands.]
Because I wanted to see for myself just how long that woman could keep up her act.

When the apocalypse struck, my brother Leo didn't hesitate to choose the offshore sanctuary.
In our past life, faced with a choice between a powerful inland warlord commanding a massive army and a leader clinging to a solitary island, Leo snatched up the first option.
But when a zombie horde overran the mainland and defenses collapsed, he fled to my island for refuge.
Jealous of how well I was surviving the end of the world, he and our parents knocked me unconscious in the dead of night and threw me into the ocean to drown.
Now that I've been reborn, Leo immediately took our parents to the maritime base, leaving the "dangerous" mainland to me.
He thinks the ocean is a natural barrier that guarantees his safety, that he can sit back and relax while the world burns.
But there's one thing he doesn't know.
Zombies aren't just static, mindless walking dead—they evolve.
And when they do, that offshore sanctuary will become a floating hell with no way out.

I gave my best friend my kidney and he fell in love with someone else.
He is not my boyfriend.
Even though I've seen his lips on mine, even though he gets jealous, even though he acts like he owns my heart—he has never asked me out.
I've loved him for as long as I can remember.
I know everything about him. I take care of him. I never forget his birthday, his habits, or the way he smiles when he thinks no one is watching.
When he was sick and needed a donor, I didn't hesitate.
I couldn't watch my best friend die. So I gave him my kidney.
I thought that meant something.
But he loves someone else now—someone new, someone who doesn't even love him back.
I can't confess.
If I lose him as my best friend, I lose everything.
So I stay silent. I suffer alone.
And I keep asking myself the one question I'm too afraid to say out loud, What if he has always loved me too?

When I woke up with a hangover, I found a handsome and naked stranger sleeping beside me.

I’m Tanya, a surrogate’s daughter, an omega with no wolf and no scent.
On my 18th birthday, when I planned to give my virginity to my boyfriend, I found him sleeping with my sister.
I went to the bar to get drunk, and accidentally had a one-night stand with the handsome stranger.
I thought he was just an ordinary werewolf, but they said he was Marco, the alpha prince and the most powerful Lycan in our kingdom.
‘You slut, you’re pregnant! Fortunately, Rick is kind enough to let you be his mistress and save you from shame.’ my stepmother said, tossing a pregnancy strip on the table.
Rick was an old pervert. No she-wolf could keep up with his sexual demand. No she-wolf could survive with him more than 1 year.
When I was in despair, Marco came to my rescue. He got down on one knee, took out a ring and said he would marry me.

I thought Marco married me because he loved me, but later I found that was not the truth…

In a frantic movement, he tries to move his hands towards me but he can’t because of the handcuffs. He groans and leans up to me. He wants to take control but he can’t. I laugh mischievously and kiss him now, putting my tongue in his mouth and he forcefully kisses me back, exploring my mouth. He becomes even harder and I moan from the intensity of him.
He growls through gritted teeth and it sounds like a promise to torture me with pleasure. It sends tingles down my spine and between my legs. My hands caress his muscular arms, they run up to the handcuffs and he clenches his hands into fists like he is trying to control some strong force within him. I am excited to see him battling with his desire. I want to tease him even more.
I laugh. "Seems like I'm in control after all."
******
I’m Ellie, an orphan. I fall in love with my daddy’s friend, Austin. He’s the Alpha King. He’s my adoptive father. And he’s twice my age.

Ellie accidentally has a one-night stand with a stranger the day her adoptive father returns from war.
Wow, this stranger is so hot and good in bed! He’s much better than her scary guardian, only the room is too dark to see his face.

When bloodthirsty, ruthless Alpha Austin learns his little Ellie had a one-night stand with a man, he is furious.
"Who is that guy?"
"You have no right to know who he is!"
"If I find out who that stupid male dog is, I'll make him regret doing this to you!"
"He isn't a stupid male dog. He’s the best man I've ever met. He's sexy, he's strong and he makes me happy!"
Until one day, Austin finds that stupid male dog is him…

"You need to get a lady pregnant!!" Aurelio Dad's loud voice rang in his head and he slowly put down the magazine he had used to cover his face giving his dad a questioning look.

"Dad... excuse me?" he replied clearly shocked by his dad words.
****
Aurelio Bertram, a 24 years old handsome billionaire, Grandson of a mob boss and the son of a highly recognized business man in the City, and for Aurelio..he is the combination of both but was temporarily nothing. His family happened to be one of the most feared and respected family in the city.

Just when he had thought of taking his revenge on one of his childhood rival and an enemy to his family, and to go for one of a huge party event, his dad and Grandpa weren't ready to allow him but since he was of age to take over their family business, he put a condition that Aurelio must get a Lady that'd get him a child to be a heir to him but it didn't go as expected.

Aurelio Bertram, known as a Man whore in his family and he thought it'd be easy to fulfill his task but no, this time no single Lady got pregnant until he met;

Erica James, A middle class hotel waitress, she's simple, has a very good body shape that'd make men drool over her. Her parents left her since highschool since she didn't further her educations for her own reasons, they believed nothing good would come out of her. But then after one night Aurelio spent with her, she got pregnant and thought of running away with the pregnancy out of shame but how would she run away with the All powerful Aurelio Bertram's Child...??
A child that would be his heir?!...

Kiera Scott is a 21 years old single lady, she Lives alone since she graduated from high school. Sometimes her friends comes around to visit her. Luckily enough for her she's the only daughter of her family and very pampered. She's pretty... The perfect definition of beauty can be told alone by looking at her. She's loved by everyone and works in a very good company and paying one...loved by her colleagues..... But! The only problem is her Boss.

He's Tibby Wilf ...

Tibby Wilf is a sex freak, crazy, mean, extra arrogant... He hates being corrected... But Kiera keeps crushing on him.

her mom would always tell her her to quit her job since she has a boss as like him, but she keeps refusing cos she loves him but she never knew he was a sex addict.

He'd always scold her when she's wrong and not...till she got used to it


Kiera heard a female loud voice as she hurriedly ran to a room wondering who could that be
She doesn't wants to be seen by anyone cos her boss said so. if she by mistake let anyone see her in his house she'd lose her job.
panic took over as she ran in...just then Wilf walked out of the bathroom with towel around his waist
"you!!" he called as she turned back shocked to see her boss half naked.
"arrgh!" she screamed and shut her eyes
"what you doing here?" she asked
"I should ask you that!" he fired back as she opened her eyes
'gosh...so hot' she gasped inwardly
"I'm hiding... please" she whispered as she walked closer to him
"hey... stay back" he hurriedly said as she staggered back
"arrgh!" she screamed as he pushed her back but unfortunately... his towels fell of his waist.

"Shut your fvcking mouth close!!" Zach yelled out of anger.
Madison had been frustrating him for the past few days and deep down it hurts him, it was an emotional frustration.
"I thought you liked it wide open huh" she replied with a smirk and walked to his table.

He felt his body twitch at her dirty words, she had known him too well.
"I am remaining a Doctor!, Who do you think you are to tell me to quit my profession?!' she yelled out and he stood up from his table and walked to her while he was opening his suit jacket.

" Wha-wha--"
"I am your Daddy like you cried last night, and you are mine" he replied and crashed his lips on her before she could say anything.


Darly Madison, a well trained medical doctor and surgeon has been living a peaceful life until one day her best friend asked her to go with her to a night Party in one of the popular hotels in the city.

There she had a one night stand with no other person but Zach Westley, a dominant and possessive Mafia boss.
Now her world changes from being a surgeon to being claimed by the Mafia.

Mara Vale was the intern everyone forgot.

She carried coffee into rooms where decisions were made, fixed printers no one thanked her for, and watched her ideas appear under another woman's name. At Vane & Co., she was told to be grateful for the badge that barely opened any doors.

Then, one stormy night in the sealed archive, Mara found a file the board had hidden for twenty years.

It said the company was still searching for its missing heiress.

It said someone had buried the real girl inside the lowest rung of the business.

And beside the photograph of a vanished child with Mara's eyes, someone had written one instruction in red ink:

Do not let her rise.

He calls me Sage, a blank canvas he reshapes to fit his whims. My Alpha, Kieran—the King of the North—blindfolds me each night, his whispers soft against my ear as he breathes my name.

Yet his intense stare cuts right through me, fixated on the distant moonlight he craves but can never touch. The irony stings—he looks at another through my eyes, just as I scour him for echoes of my fiancé, lost to me ten years ago. We serve as flawless stand-ins for each other, offering warmth in this prison of hate and longing, even as we tear at one another's wounds.

When the harsh truth strips away our last veil of illusion, how will this deceitful game we've played finally unravel? "You are not my Alpha," I whisper, "you are just my moon." But when that moonlight dims, can our shattered spirits still navigate the infinite shadows to find home?

They told me my daughter drowned. Too much to drink, a slick deck, a terrible accident.

Then they put a number on her, slid the check across the table, and asked me to sign away the right to ever ask how she died.

I signed.

They didn't ask what I'd do after.

I changed my name. I spent three years earning a desk in their building, close enough to hear the man who buried her joke about the father who "made some noise, took the money, and went away."

He doesn't know my face. None of them do.

They thought the money bought my silence.

They have no idea what it bought.

The folder slid across the table toward Hannah's husband. Sign here. Family helps family.

What the Whitfields never once thought to wonder was that the quiet daughter-in-law they'd spent four years bleeding had almost three million dollars they couldn't see.

She'd hidden it for one reason: to keep the only good man in that family from being turned into their wallet.

Now they wanted his signature. His house. His name on their debt.

They had spent a lifetime underestimating the quiet one.

They were about to learn what that costs.

They paid me a fortune to authenticate a masterpiece. It took eight seconds to know it was a forgery — and eight more to understand I was the forgery they'd hired.

The brushwork was my great-grandmother's. The woman they let die in a county ward, calling herself a liar for daring to say the paintings were hers.

The Ashford name sits on three centuries of art, scholarship, and law. None of it is theirs. He stole her words. His wife stole her paintings. They built a dynasty on a woman they erased — and never learned her blood runs in me too.

I'm the lawyer they brought in to seal one more theft. I said no.

By the time they remember her name, they won't have one left to sign.

They put the calm ones on graveyard. I'm calmer than calm - I can't read a face to save my life, but give me a voice and I'll tell you what you ate for dinner and what you're lying about.

3:07 a.m. A woman calls. A struggle. The line dies.

By sunrise there's no body, no report, and the call I logged has wiped itself clean - like it never rang. The whole city is asleep on it.

But I've never trusted the system. I keep my own copy of every call.

He erased her. I kept the tape. Now he just has to find out the night guy nobody looks at has been listening the whole time.

I’m the only person on Earth with a clinically proven antibody capable of neutralizing this rare deadly virus.
I caught the virus when I was six. Its mortality rate was staggeringly high, and everyone thought I’d never pull through. Against all odds, I recovered entirely on my own. By some strange twist of biology, my body made the world’s sole antibody that could fight this virus off.
Once I turned eighteen, I signed up to donate my serum as a volunteer.
For twenty years straight, rain or shine, I showed up to donate free of charge—107 separate donations in total. Each time, I pulled a gravely ill patient back from death’s brink.
I’m no saint living to save the whole world. Every last donation was done for my mother.
Back when I was six, my father’s infidelity drove my mother to take her own life. What happened was cruel beyond measure, completely unforgivable.
A fortune-teller once told me my mom’s lingering resentment ran far too deep. To free her trapped, wandering soul for good, a blood relative of hers had to finish exactly 108 acts of good deeds.
Twenty years in, only one deed remained. Just one more, and my mother’s spirit could finally rest in peace.
But when the hospital sent out an urgent emergency SOS this time around, I did something I’d never done in two decades.
I turned their request down flat.

They built a hundred-year name on a scholarship they stole from a dead girl.

This morning that name landed on my desk. Brooke Hale, applicant. One signature away from the federal clerkship her family has won, somehow, in every generation since 1962.

I'm the one who signs.

I wrote three words instead. Recommend denial. Then I sat with my hands flat on the file so they'd stop shaking.

The Hales think it's a cold case. A girl named Iris, ruled ineligible sixty years ago, gone quiet, gone poor, gone.

They don't know Iris was my great-grandmother.

They don't know I kept the letter.

My locker door swings open and the hate mail tumbles out like confetti from hell. Murderer's daughter. Your dad killed kids. Die like them.
Three weeks since the news broke, and they just keep coming.
I'm on my hands and knees, frantically shoving the notes into my backpack while the hallway erupts in laughter. Sarah steps over me like I'm roadkill.
The first time I drowned, I thought it was an accident. The second time, I thought I was losing my mind. But by the third time—watching Blake's lifeless body sink next to mine in that chlorine-burning water—I finally got it. Time isn't moving forward. It's stuck, like a broken record, spinning back to the day Blake could still dive like an Olympic champion, before the accident stole everything from him.
This time, I won't let him jump in after me.
I have to save Blake from me. But I'm drowning in more than just pool water, and I don't know how to surface. I don't know how to stop this endless loop of death and guilt and love that's killing us both, over and over again.
How do you break a curse when you're the one who cast it?

My husband Michael's father and my own father shared the same name—Robert. His was Robert Carter; mine, Robert Smith. I once thought it a sweet coincidence, until that 3 AM phone call turned this quirk of fate into a living nightmare.
The nursing home called to say Robert Carter had died, but when Michael returned from his business trip, he assumed it was my father who had passed. "Old Robert's finally gone," he smirked. "Should've moved him to the cheaper nursing home ages ago." Can you believe it? His own father—the man who'd left him an inheritance—and there he was, helping his medical intern mistress cover up malpractice, dismissing the death as "just some useless old man."
He has no idea he's protecting his father's killer. No clue I've seen through his cold-bloodedness all along.
I wonder, when the truth finally hits him, how will this absurd tragedy end?

I was "Ghost," the undefeated legend of the underground racing circuit. To uncover the truth behind the tragic fall that left my sister, Sylvia, in a coma, I disguised myself as a timid, pathetic scholarship student and infiltrated Spencer Academy—an elite world ruthlessly ruled by old-money families and the hockey dynasty.

I thought my petty revenge was flawless when I slashed a bully's tire with a razor blade hidden in my sleeve. But I was caught red-handed by the academy's most feared predator: Rowan King, the "Tyrant of the Ice."

He was Sylvia's rumored boyfriend. More importantly, he was the last person to see her that night.

With a single glance, he shattered my "good girl" facade. He knew my true identity as the street racer "Ghost," and he knew exactly why I had sneaked into his school.

I should have treated him as my prime suspect. But between his fiercely dominant advances and his reckless, deadly protection, he was making my heart race entirely out of control...

When I scrolled across that photo of Tyler with his arms wrapped around Rachel at 2 AM, I nearly shattered my phone against the wall. That bastard—maintaining our "just scratching an itch" arrangement while wooing her with soulmate bullshit?

With anger burning through my veins and my skin flushing hot, I stormed off to the jazz bar determined to expose him.

But who could have guessed that in the middle of this dramatic showdown, I'd discover the truth about Seth—the one secretly marking up my sheet music, the one who decked Tyler for me?

Maybe this gut-wrenching betrayal was actually the universe's twisted way of pointing me toward something real.

My husband Ronald's best friend Clyde died three months ago, and with his last breath, he made Ronald promise to take care of his pregnant widow, Jennifer. From that moment, Jennifer invaded our lives, and I was only four months pregnant at the time.

Then Jennifer got caught in a gang shootout. She needed an emergency blood transfusion, and she had this rare blood type—Rhnull. Turns out, I'm Rhnull too.

To save Jennifer and her baby, Ronald forced me to abort mine.

I woke up, and my world collapsed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's when I gave up on them.

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

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?

I had to claim Caleb tonight.

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

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

He refused to let me touch him!

I have to figure out what's going on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I loved Finley for two years.
Until 1:00 AM on a Tuesday, when his best friend, Orion, sent me a half-naked photo and a jarring voice note."
If I actually bag her, don't go flipping out on me. A deal's a deal."
I booked the first flight out to confront him, only to catch the boy I loved naked and thrusting into another woman.
But that wasn't even the part that broke me.
When my roommate bypassed the hockey team's private Discord server, I found a channel named: #locker-room-bets.
There was my boyfriend, typing the words that shattered my world: "She's boring... She's like a lost puppy, you can't shake her... Play with her all you want."
My loyalty and two years of my life were nothing but a sick joke.
The entire hockey team had put money down on when I would willingly spread my legs for his best friend.

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

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

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

And like a fool, I believed him eight times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was supposed to be her donor.

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

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

One month to live.

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

I was already dying anyway.

I donated a kidney to my adopted sister.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sebastian is dead.

And I'm the prime suspect.

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

The evidence keeps piling up, choking me.

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

Who is lying? Who's pulling the strings?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I didn't kneel.

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

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

And damn... he was gorgeous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I died once.

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

The comment section exploded.

Colleagues whispered behind my back and pointed fingers.

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

I explained. I cried. I begged.

No one believed me.

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

I walked to my death, condemned by everyone.

Then I opened my eyes.

Everything went back to the beginning.

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

This time, I'm getting my revenge.