173 Book(s) Related to hand jumper chapter 4

I'm a siren. Every fifty years, I need to eat a heart. Not just any heart—it has to be rotten to the core. The more evil, the better it feeds.
So when Arthur Pendleton, billionaire marine philanthropist and secret trafficking kingpin, spotted a helpless blind girl sitting alone at his charity gala, he thought he'd hit the jackpot.
He took me to his cliffside villa. Cooked me dinner. Drugged my milk.
Cute.
The drugs broke down the second they hit my stomach. His guard found out about the restraints the hard way—right before I snapped his neck.
Now Arthur is steering his yacht into open water, chasing a sunken treasure that doesn't exist, too drunk on greed to notice the strange singing in the fog, or that the blind girl in his passenger seat can see him perfectly fine.
He has no idea what's waiting in the deep.

I loved Callum Crane for five years. He said I didn't fit. Then he proposed — to my sister.
The same night, his brother called me with the most insane idea I've ever heard: marry him instead. Same day. Same venue. Right across the hall from my ex and my sister's ceremony.
I said yes. Not because I loved Emrys Crane. Because I'd rather set the whole thing on fire than sit in a pew and watch.
Here's the thing about revenge marriages, though. They're supposed to be fake.
Nobody told Emrys.
The man had a wrench set in his truck that only fit my grandmother's machine — bought years before I ever spoke to him. He'd been sneaking looks through my workshop window so often the stone wore down. He fixed my motorcycle three times and never mentioned it. He remembered that I stared at a piece of almond brittle for ten seconds once, and bought it for me weeks later.
Seven years. He'd been in love with me for seven years. Said nothing. Did everything.
And Callum? The man who told me I didn't fit?
He showed up at my orchard with an apology and a folder full of evidence against my sister, begging for a second chance.
I looked him in the eye and said: "Too late. Wrong harvest."
He tried five more times. It only got worse for him.

I am Athena the first born child of the Alpha Caden. I have come back to take my rightful position." She paused. 
"As Alpha."
Gasps and murmurs of wonder disbelief rose in the crowd. It had never been recorded in history that an Alpha werewolf should give birth to a female as a first child. But everyone saw the uncanny resemblance between her and the first queen the heard the Alpha voice of authority in her. But it how was it.
She let the noise die down before she continued.
"Although I never knew my father, you all knew him, Alpha Caden kind, considerate, passionate and respectful of his people. He entertained complaints from the lowest of ranks. Joined in manual labor and from time to time visited the poor. He was loved by many."
She let the whispers of agreement die down.
"I am nothing like him."

Nine and a half million followers. Penthouse in LA. More money than I ever dreamed possible.
I built my empire teaching people to transform themselves, to become beautiful despite their scars. What I never told them was why I needed to learn that skill in the first place.
Then she slides into my DMs: "OMG ScarlettGlow! We went to high school together! Your biggest fan here!"
Madison Blackwell. The golden girl who made my teenage years hell.
She has no clue that ScarlettGlow is actually Scarlett Murphy—the "nobody" she tortured until I disappeared senior year. Now she's broke, desperate, and literally begging me for attention.
I'm staring at her across this overpriced Beverly Hills restaurant, watching her panic over an eight-hundred-dollar guest fee while I casually pull out my black Amex.
The girl who once said I'd never amount to anything is now desperately trying to impress me.
Should I tell her who I really am?

I spent ten years following Ashton around like it was my job. He said jump, I jumped. He said he was hungry, I went and made him a sandwich. His homework, his fights, his messes — I handled all of it. I thought that's what being close to someone meant.
Then at the fall pep rally, in front of two thousand people, he strapped me to a platform, blasted me with paint, and let his girlfriend laugh at me through a megaphone.
I was the punchline. I threw up on camera. The video went viral before I even hit the ground.
So I did the one thing nobody expected — I vanished. New school, new city, new number. Every trace of him, gone.
I thought that was the end of it.
But Ashton doesn't let go of what he thinks is his. And what he's willing to do to drag me back? I wasn't even close to ready for that.

At 2:17 AM, six weeks postpartum, new mom Harper thought she was just responding to her baby's crying. Instead, she discovered her husband Kieran and their live-in nanny Anya in the most intimate embrace—right beside her daughter's crib.
In her most vulnerable moment, in what should have been the safest space in her home, the two people she trusted most were betraying everything sacred about motherhood and marriage. Worse yet, they thought she was just another "baby-brained" mom who would never catch on.

They seriously underestimated what a mother is capable of.

When Harper finds that mysterious $300 Victoria's Secret charge on their shared account, when she discovers Kieran's handwritten love notes hidden in Anya's room, when she overhears them mocking her "annoying" middle-of-the-night feedings—she realizes it's time to show them what a real "burning sensation" feels like.

So the next time they tried to sneak around, Harper secretly swapped out their lube for her own special blend.

If you want to play with fire, let me show you what burning really feels like.

Thirteen years. That's how long I loved Reid Holloway.
When he said he was being bullied, I believed him. When he kissed me on that rooftop, I thought he felt the same. When he asked me to transfer schools with him, I said yes without hesitation.
Then I heard him bragging to his friends: "She'd save her first time for me. Hell, she'd still be thinking of me on her wedding night."
The bullying was staged. The kiss meant nothing. He just wanted me gone—so his new girl could feel more comfortable.
He thought I'd beg. He thought I'd cry. He thought I'd never actually leave.
I left the country.
And ran straight into his stepbrother.

I was kidnapped at five. Found at sixteen. Dead at nineteen.
My parents are top transplant surgeons. The night I was murdered, they were saving my sister's life with a "legally sourced" donor heart. They signed the paperwork themselves.
That heart was mine. Cut from my chest while I was still breathing.
The sister they saved? She's the one who handed me to the killer.
For three years I lived under their roof. They slapped me for things she did. They called me ungrateful when I couldn't donate a kidney I'd already lost. They forgot my birthday to throw her a party.
And when I went missing, they didn't look for me. Dad said, "Even if she dies out there, she has no one to blame but herself."
He was right. I did die out there. And he's the one who signed off on what happened next.

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

Our ceremony was ambushed underground. One exit. Corvin was the only one who could move fast enough to carry someone out.
In my last life, he chose me — and left Niamh behind. She didn't make it. He spent five years after that making sure I understood what that meant. Every day I woke up was a day she couldn't. When I finally ran out of ways to leave quietly, I chose a window that faced east and walked into it.
Now I'm back. Same corridor, same chaos, same choice.
This time, I said: "Take Niamh."
The way his shoulders came down — like something he'd been holding for years, finally put down — told me everything five years together never did.
He promised to come back. He was already moving when he said it.
I knew I had to get out myself. But the ferals who'd killed Niamh last time found my corridor before I made it to the stairs.

Our plane went down on a deserted island. The boat fit two. My fiancé Callum was the only one who could drive it.
In my last life, he chose me — and left his childhood sweetheart Vesper behind. She didn't survive. He spent five years making sure I knew it was my fault. Every day I breathed was a day she couldn't. When I held a knife to my throat to get a divorce, he drove us both into the sea.
Now I'm back. Same island, same wreckage, same choice.
This life, I said: "Take Vesper."
The relief on his face — the way his whole body unclenched — told me everything five years of marriage never did.
He promised he'd come back for me. He didn't look back once.
I knew I had to save myself. But the bear — the same one that ate Vesper in my last life — reached the crash site before I could move.

My best friend could charm any man alive. I just didn't know how — not until it was too late.
Every boyfriend I ever had, she'd get close, turn on that pull of hers, and wait. They always fell. Then she'd send me the proof with the same sweet line: "Babe, you should be thanking me. I just saved you from another cheater."
Five boyfriends. Five "loyalty tests." Five relationships she destroyed and called it a favor.
I ran. Started over in a new pack. Found my fated mate — Callum Drake, the Alpha of Silver Ridge. For the first time in years, I felt safe.
On our mating ceremony day, she walked into my dressing room wearing an attendant's uniform.
She drugged my wine. Put on my robes. Crawled into my mate's bed.
I caught her. Threw her out. Thought it was over.
Months later, I was bleeding out in labor — and my mate stood over me, refusing to save me, because he'd been in love with her the whole time.
I died on that table.
When I opened my eyes, I was back. Same day. Same ceremony. Same best friend, same smile.
This time, I didn't scream.

Our team lost four games in a row. And somehow, that became my fault.
Team captain Reid stood in the locker room and told everyone I'd been giving performance enhancers to my ex on the rival team — that I had a problem with athletes, that I couldn't control myself. The guys laughed. Nobody stopped him.
I went to my supervisor Paige for help. She told me Reid noticing me at all was something I should be grateful for. That the way I dressed was basically asking for it.
Then the university president called me in and made things very clear: push this any further, and my academic future disappears.
Every single person with authority had already chosen a side.
So I climbed the stairs to Paige's office, hand raised to knock —
And stopped.
Because I could hear her through the door, clearly touching herself — whispering Reid's name.

Someone posted a love confession to me on the campus board the same week I got nominated for the Outstanding Thesis Award. By that evening, my roommate's boyfriend had already commented—claiming I'd slept with our professor and faked my entire thesis.
My roommate swore she'd handle it.
She didn't.
A used condom appeared at my lab bench. Photos of a woman leaving my advisor's building at 2 a.m. went viral. The university pulled my thesis. My professor told me to disappear quietly. My parents drove six hours to slap me and tell me my sister would never.
I lost my degree, my family, and my name. Then I lost my life.
The night I died, I finally saw what I'd missed in those photos—a detail that proved it was never me.
I woke up three weeks before my thesis defense.
I remember everything. And this time, I'm not keeping quiet.

My bestie Isolde and I were lured to a resort in another country.
Crescent Bay, a place that turned She-wolves into property.
Any wolf with enough money could have us for the night. That was the arrangement. That was what we were worth, once we were in.
When my husband Cael broke through the gates with a unit of Hargrove Pack warriors, I was in the back room counting the night's take. Top earner three months running.
Isolde was in the basement. Brain-dead. Pregnant. The machines were the only reason her heart was still beating.
Hargrove Pack put up half a million dollars for the name of whoever had trafficked us.
I was the only one who knew. I said nothing.
Vivienne — Cael's mother, Isolde's Luna — got down on her knees in front of me and begged. I closed my eyes.
Pack enforcers questioned me three times. I gave them the same answer every time, which was no answer at all.
Then Cael ran out of patience. He called for a witch to extract my memories and put them in front of everyone who had ever known me.

I've been engaged to the same man seven times.
Every time his first love Dove flies back, my engagement gets cancelled. And I get shipped off to another country.
But that's not the worst part.
Before I leave, I have to erase every trace of myself from our home. Take down the photos. Pack away my clothes. Remove my toothbrush so she won't feel "uncomfortable."
Seven years. Seven countries. Seven rings gathering dust in a drawer.
Zero marriage certificates.
He always promises we'll get married once she leaves. And like a fool, I believed him. Every single time.
Until now.
This time, I'm not coming back.

I hid in my best friend's closet to catch my fiancé cheating.
Through the gap in the door, I saw them on the bed. Tessa was blindfolded, wrists tied to the headboard with silk scarves. Callum's hands wrapped around her throat—some kind of breath play, I guessed.
Then her moaning turned to choking.
Her body convulsed. Her bound hands clawed at nothing. Her legs kicked against the mattress.
Then stopped.
Callum released her throat. Checked her pulse. Sighed.
And lit a cigarette.
He sat there scrolling his phone next to her body. No panic. No CPR. No 911.
Like this wasn't his first time watching someone die.
I bit my hand to keep from screaming. Blood seeped across the floor toward my bare feet.
Then he walked toward the closet.
I escaped that night. Barely. Ran three floors up to my neighbor's apartment—Dr. Neve Ashton, a trauma therapist. Beautiful. Warm. The kind of woman who made you feel safe just by existing.
She pulled me inside, locked the door, handed me tea.
"I called the police," she said. "They're on their way."
An hour passed. No sirens.
I looked at her. She smiled.

Five years. That's what I gave Vaelor, Crown Prince of the Dark Elves.
I was already dressed for the betrothal ceremony when I caught his voice through the gap in the council hall door.
"You're really going through with it? The human?"
"Of course. The Alliance has kept a blade at our throats for years. Their leader's apprentice, given to us in marriage—that puts it away."
"But if she suspects—"
"She won't."
"And Lyseth—"
"Lyseth is who matters. The human is manageable."
I didn't make it out of the courtyard. A blade came from the darkness before I could summon a defense.
When I woke up, I remembered everything. Aldric. Isara. The Alliance. Five years of roads, every step.
Just not his face.
Aldric's messenger stone was on the nightstand. Short, direct: Return to the Alliance. Political marriage. Orc Royal House.
I wrote back: Seven days.

For years, I believed a rival family had stolen my children. Four of them — two baby boys, then my newborn twins. Every time, my husband wept. He swore revenge. He held me while I screamed myself sick.
Tonight I went down to the basement looking for him. The door was open a crack. He was kissing another woman.
"I threw both incubators off the cliff myself," he laughed. "Didn't even blink."
He killed all four. To clear a path for his mistress's son.
He runs the family now. He thinks grief has broken me — that I'll spend the rest of my life crying in the bed we shared.
He forgot one thing. I'm the old don's daughter. This family was never his.
It's mine.

On my wedding day, my mother walked in and took my gown off the rack. Then she handed it to Coralie — the sister my parents adopted, the one I've given half my magic to every month for five years.
The High Priest says my stars are cursed. So Coralie will marry Roland in my place. My fiancé. The man I nearly died healing.
My father tells me to think of the bigger picture. Roland won't even look at me. Not one of them looks back as they leave me alone in that room.
They think I'll stand here and take it, like I always have.
They don't know about the black whistle in my sleeve — the one a dying man pressed into my hand at the edge of the Abyss. Blow it, he said, and I'll come for you.
I've been good for too long.
I'm done.

In my last life, I was the one who stopped it.
The second I recognized what was in that cup—a cold medicine loaded with compounds that end any pilot's career on contact with a drug screening—I knocked it out of Ivy's hands. Reid shoved me so hard I hit the coffee table. He got his four stripes anyway. Then he publicly destroyed my reputation, stood by while his fans harassed me off the internet, and smiled when I was pushed down a flight of stairs.
I died knowing he never looked back.
This time, I come back as myself: senior aviation medical officer, five years into a relationship with a man I now see clearly. When Ivy holds out that same cup with that same bright smile, I already know exactly what's in it.
I take a step back.
"Drink it while it's hot," I tell him. "Don't leave a drop."
I spent one lifetime being everyone's safety net. Not this time.

They called me a hellcat. A she-wolf tyrant. The Luna who made her Alpha husband obey.
I held him together when his father died. Built his dying pack into a powerhouse while he flirted with she-wolves.
Then he brought home his "fated mate."
Everyone waited for me to explode.
Instead, I smiled. "I'll help you prepare the ceremony."
That's when my wolf—dormant for years—began to wake.

I came back to New York for one reason: to meet the man my mother arranged for me to marry.
I never made it to dinner.
His "sister"—the woman he'd been protecting since childhood, the one he clearly loved more than he'd ever love a fiancée he'd never met—snatched a twelve-thousand-dollar dress out of my hands at a Fifth Avenue boutique and had me thrown out. When I called him about it, he told me I should be grateful to be marrying into his family at all. Then he hung up.
An hour later, she accused me of stealing her ring. Had me pinned against the wall. Told his men to strip me down and film it for "evidence."
Nico laughed when I told him the whole Ferrante family would answer for this.
"With what? You?"
My name is Sera Vitti.
That's all I'll say.