7019 Book(s) Related to beginning after the end chapter 171

My husband swore I was the only woman he would ever love.
Then my half-sister handed me her ultrasound. His baby. Growing inside her.
Three years of marriage. Three years of building everything together. Gone in one moment.
I should have thrown the proof in his face.
But my doctor gave me news that made his betrayal feel like nothing.
So I did something he will never expect.
I disappeared.
Let him search. Let him lose his mind.
He will never find me.

"Use me to get back at your ex. Make him jealous. Even if he doesn't love you, he won't handle seeing you with someone else. Especially someone like me."
I blinked at him, confused. "Especially someone like you? Why would he be jealous? He doesn't even like me."
He smirked. "Trust me. Derek will lose his mind watching his ex-wife move on. He'll wonder if you ever loved him... and why you replaced him so easily. That's when he starts running back."
"Deal?"
His eyes glittered with danger. My brain screamed run. But I still found myself nodding.
"Deal."
Vanessa Holland thought signing divorce papers with Derek—a man with the emotional depth of a teaspoon—was the worst day of her life.
She was wrong.
Rock bottom has a basement... and Ryker Holland is waiting there, handsome, ruthless, and armed with a plan.
Ryker, Derek's half-brother and the real power behind the Holland empire, offers Vanessa a deal she's not supposed to refuse: Make Derek jealous enough to crawl back in humiliation, while Ryker secures the CEO throne he's been denied.
But this isn't kindness. Ryker is petty. He is cruel. And he wants to destroy Derek—piece by piece.
Vanessa is the perfect weapon: a discarded wife with nothing left to lose... and maybe just enough vengeance in her heart to play along.
Except fake dating Ryker doesn't stay fake for long.
Emotions blur. Lines cross.
The man she should fear becomes the one she can't stay away from.
Now Vanessa must decide: Is she Ryker's pawn? Or has she learned how to play the Hollands better than either brother ever expected?
Two brothers. One broken heart.
Revenge never looked this tempting...
And the Holland boys are going down—
one will break, and the other will enjoy every second of it.
Disclaimer: Contains morally grey characters, power games, manipulation, emotional cruelty, and a whole lot of chemistry. Reader discretion advised.

Will a man learn to love me if I’m good to him long enough?

I tried for seven years to warm his heart.
I thought if I just held on a little longer, he’d finally see me.
Because I loved him so deeply.

But what did I get in return?
His endless tenderness for another woman.
I pretended I didn’t care, until pneumonia landed me in the hospital.

On the day I was discharged, I found him standing there with our daughter, his whole world focused on caring for that woman.
Even my daughter, whom I’d raised with everything I had, wished that woman was her mother.

In that moment, my heart died completely.

I left the divorce papers, gave up custody, and walked back into the chemical industry.
So what if seven years of marriage had worn me down?
I was still the top genius in my field.

But the divorce I’d wanted so badly never went through.
The man who once couldn’t have been colder to me now held on to me tighter than ever.
Our daughter refused to leave my side.

When he found my divorce papers,
the always cold and arrogant man pushed me against the wall and growled:

“Divorce? You’re mine. For life.”

<>



Vanessa thought rock bottom was signing divorce papers with Derek Holland, a man with the emotional depth of a teaspoon. Turns out, rock bottom had a basement, and Ryker Holland was waiting for her down there with a smirk and a plan.

Ryker, Derek's older half-brother (aka the family's dirty little secret), shows up offering Vanessa a deal: help her make her ex-husband, Derek Holland, jealous enough to come crawling back. In exchange, he secures his position as CEO.

But Ryker isn't doing this out of kindness. He is petty and cruel. He would do anything to trample all over Derek, and now he has the perfect weapon. Vanessa, freshly dumped and just desperate enough to play along. And if she happens to enjoy making her ex suffer too? Well, that's just a bonus.

As Vanessa sinks deeper into Ryker's twisted world of fake romance, secrecy and family dysfunction, things start getting real. Because fake love? It's a lot easier to control than real feelings. And Ryker has no idea what to do when the game stops being a game.

Is Vanessa walking into a trap or building one of her own? Either way, the Holland brothers are going down. One's going to break, and the other's going to enjoy every second of it.

_Disclaimer:

This story contains morally complex and flawed characters, who often operate with hidden motives and questionable ethics. Themes explored include emotional manipulation, gaslighting, power imbalance, dual identities, and blurred lines between love, control, and obsession. Certain scenes may be intense or unsettling. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

In my last life, when the apocalypse hit, I forced more than fifty young tenants in the Silver Bay Apartments into a single fighting unit: sealed doors, rationing, rotating watches, quarantine—I bought us thirty days of safety with iron rules.
But when rescue was finally near, they dumped all their hunger and fear on me. My ex, Claire, and the gym rat Mason stirred up the crowd, beat me until I couldn’t stand, and locked me outside the door to the rooftop—leaving the horde to close in.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day before everything began.
This time, I won’t step up. I won’t save anyone. I’ll hide what I need to survive—and watch them destroy the building themselves.

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

On our fifth anniversary, Caspian gifted me a luxury yacht bearing my name. Everyone said I was the luckiest woman alive.
But when I finally conceived his child and prepared to share the news, his mistress sent me photos—him cradling a baby she'd given him, his eyes filled with a tenderness I'd never seen.
Five years of waiting, five years of infertility—all an elaborate lie.
He once whispered in my ear: "Even if every man in the world betrays his wife, I never will. You're my life. Without you, I can't survive."
I quietly packed, left behind my pregnancy report and all the evidence, and drove away. Three hours later, he received the call: my car exploded on the highway. No survivors.
From that day on, the most powerful man in Valen City lost his mind completely.

She never saw it coming. After five years of marriage, it took a DNA test to blow everything up.

The son she raised from birth? Her husband's kid with his ex. And somehow, both of them knew the whole time and said nothing.

It gets worse. She overheard her husband's actual plan: wait for the ex to come back, then push her out of the company "nicely" and hand her five million as a goodbye gift.

Five million? She single-handedly kept that company alive, pouring in her own money and connections to clean up his messes. And that's all she's worth?

She was done. She wanted everything back that was hers.

The ungrateful kid? She's over it. The husband chasing his first love? Good riddance.

But the moment she walked away for real, both of them came running back.

"Baby, please. Just give me one more chance."

She didn't even look up.

I was frozen for 100 years due to illness.
One hundred years later, the whole world was ravaged by strange phenomena, and humanity was huddled together in a few small places to survive.
I was awakened from my slumber by the investigation team. I thought I would be killed by the monster as soon as I woke up, but I found that the monster here was my good brother from college.
Besides him, the eerie owner of the barbecue restaurant, the matchmaking ghost who likes to harm people through blind dates, the S-class monstrous ghost in the cemetery... they are all my old friends...
The world a hundred years from now feels strangely familiar...

To save my cousin from a car accident, my mother, a medical luminary, used me as a "human guinea pig" for twelve years.
When I was twelve, she made me inject myself with three injections of unproven new drugs every week;
when I was fourteen, she directly shoved toxic compounds into my mouth.
When my organs were irreversibly failing and I was vomiting blood in the ICU, she coldly tossed me a payment order:
"Stop pretending to be dead. Immediately kowtow and apologize to your brother, or no hospital will admit you."
As she wished, I was forced to leave the hospital and died at her glamorous new drug launch.
Later, that high-and-mighty mother, obsessed with fame and fortune, knelt for an entire night in a snow-covered fir forest, holding my crudely made urn.
Sadly, I will never forgive her.

Seven years ago, my wife and son committed perjury in court, conspiring to send me to a high-security prison, all so they could elope with that fraudster.
Seven years later, I was released.
My ex-wife, with her son, arrogantly tossed a business card onto my faded work clothes:
"Go kowtow to my new husband and apologize, and I'll give you a waiter's job."
Little did she know that just hours later, at a top-tier financial summit across America, her seemingly untouchable new husband was kneeling at my feet like a dog.
And her proud multi-billion dollar empire was nothing more than garbage I could crush with a flick of my finger.

Her daughter lay dying—her only chance at survival resting in a bone marrow transplant from her biological father.
That man, the one Stella Johnson had once loved with all her heart, was nowhere to be found.
While Stella made call after call, hands trembling with desperation, Charles Hart was busy building a crystal castle for the daughter of his beloved white moonlight—lighting up the entire city with fireworks in her honor.
All Stella got in return was a cold, clipped response:
"I'm busy."
And then… silence.
She waited.
And waited.
Until the warmth left her daughter's tiny hand.
He never came.
Cradling the small urn, Stella stepped into the streets—only to be greeted by a cruel spectacle.
Every digital screen on the bustling boulevard played the same scene:
Charles, his white moonlight, and their daughter, smiling under the fireworks as they sang "Happy Birthday," basking in a future built on someone else's grave.
The love Stella once held for Charles didn't just die that night—it was burned to ash.
And from those ashes, something far stronger rose:
Hatred. Cold. Sharp. Unforgiving.

On our wedding anniversary, my husband spent the night with his mistress—and the media exposed everything.
I waited for him all day. William showed no guilt at all.
“You’re upset about the news? It’s just the media making up stories.”
I would have believed him—until I got an anonymous video.
In it, his mistress Delta Hughes walked into a hotel with him, arm in arm.
He didn’t leave until the next morning.
What else could a man and woman do alone in a hotel all night?
Was I supposed to lie to myself?
While William was happily talking to his lover, I handed him a document to sign:Divorce Agreement.
He was still planning to have a baby with me.
He had no idea—one month later, when the divorce took effect,
I would be gone forever.

My husband Lucius said: 'My real wife has returned.'
To keep him, for a month I clung to him, making love passionately...

I was reborn one year before my husband fell in love with another woman. This time, I successfully took her place and became the idealized figure, the one admired and longed for by my husband and her other suitors.

Betrayal.

A young woman, Elena Mendez, was deceived and murdered by her fiancé and her best friend. However, instead of dying, her soul was sent back to the day before her wedding, giving her the chance to relive her life. Only this time, with enough knowledge about the future to change her destiny. Now she seeks revenge against those who have wronged her, and she approaches her ex-fiancé's rival to help her take revenge on her ex-fiancé and best friend but in the process of vengeance spirals into a different web of emotions and now they see their self falling for each other but won't admit.

Will their relationship be all about vengeance or will something magical come out of it?

Lydia, a aspiring journalist, admired the hockey captain of Puck Predators, Jose Bailey, to the depths! He was her idol, her everything until the point he actually invited her on a date!

But things have taken quite a turn when she had a one night stand with the man.

In fact, this man is Levi, Lydia's idol's top rival and her new neighbor!

As Lydia delves deeper into the competitive world of hockey for her coveted interview, her initial bias against Levi and his team begins to melt away. The more she uncovers about Levi's life both on and off the rink, the more she finds herself drawn to the man behind the mask of rivalry. Just when Lydia's heart aligns with her true feelings, ready to take the leap and confess her love, Levi vanishes without a trace.

Will Lydia unravel the mystery of Levi's disappearance? Can Lydia reconcile the man she's come to love with the secrets he's kept hidden?

After Divorcing a Billionaire, Secretly Giving Birth to His Triplets

For three years, Chloe Stanhope endured her marriage with Quintus Ellington, only to conclude in divorce, earning herself the mocking title of a forsaken elite wife throughout the city of Phoenix. Six years later, Chloe returned to her homeland, accompanied by a pair of twins, and underwent a miraculous transformation into an internationally renowned healer. Now, she finds herself pursued by countless suitors, each vying for her hand in marriage. The first suitor pleads, 'Miss Stanhope, do your children need a father? I promise to care for them as if they were my own." The second suitor declares, 'Dr. Stanhope, I was captivated by your beauty and brilliance at first sight. I am willing to devote my life to loving you. Quintus Ellington's failure to appreciate you is simply his own blindness."

My daughter was taken by rogues, and my husband didn't care.

But when his childhood friend went missing in another attack, he spared no expense searching for her.

I searched for our daughter alone. When I died in the wilderness, I'd been looking for fifty years.

As I bled out that day, I had only one thought—I'm sorry, Lily. I'm so sorry I couldn't find you.

Then I opened my eyes and found myself fifty years in the past, the night before the nightmare began.

I died the day I caught my fiancé cheating.

I had walked in on my cousin and my fiancé, completely naked in the backseat of a brand-new Porsche. It was a car bought with stolen money—embezzled from the estate of my recently deceased grandmother, Margaret.

Panic had set in the moment I discovered them. To stop me from calling the cops, he slammed his foot on the gas.

As a pool of warm blood spread beneath my head, I heard him lying to the first responders: "She’s mentally unstable. She threw herself right in front of the car."

I died exactly like that—labeled a hysterical, suicidal woman.

But just when I thought it was all over, my eyes snapped open.

The hot blood that had just blurred my vision, the shattering agony in my bones—it was all gone.

"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.

After being lost for ten years, I was finally brought home by my biological parents.
They stood in the cramped basement and asked me, "The family went bankrupt a month ago. You won't hold it against us for being poor, will you?"
Overcome with emotion, I hugged them tightly and shook my head fervently.
Later, my father was diagnosed with uremia and needed a large sum of money for surgery. To earn money, I worked three jobs a day, eventually collapsing from exhaustion and being diagnosed with a brain tumor. With no time for treatment, I rushed to deliver food orders.
Unexpectedly, I ran into my father—who should have been in the hospital undergoing dialysis—having booked an entire shopping mall to celebrate the adopted daughter's birthday. My mother, wearing an gorgeous gown I'd never seen before, smiled as she embraced the girl.
"Lily, our precious, Mommy and Daddy will give you everything you want."
My brother, who they said had died in an accident while searching for me, was dotingly putting a diamond necklace on the girl.
It turned out the family hadn't gone bankrupt at all—I just wasn't worthy.

After Nicholas got engaged, his assistant handed me a plane ticket.

"Leave. Don’t ever show your face in Silverlight City again."

"Otherwise, Mr. Jackson has more than enough ways to ruin you."

All those years I spent by his side, I was admired by everyone, living in the spotlight.

Yet when I finally left, I was reduced to a pitiful, laughable sight.

I said, "Fine."

But that very night, the flight plunged from over thirty thousand feet in the air.

For three years, Vivian secretly dated her best friend's brother. On her twenty-fifth birthday, he promised her everything would change. Instead, she watched him publicly claim another woman. Her stepsister. The same woman who had stolen her family, her inheritance, and now the man she loved. Only then did Vivian realize the truth. She was just the substitute.​
Heartbroken and determined to reclaim her late father's legacy, Vivian agrees to an arranged marriage. But she walks into the wrong private room. And proposes to the wrong man.​
"Let's get married. One year. No strings attached."​
The stranger studies her for a moment before smiling.​
"Fine."​
Until she finds herself married to the last man she ever expected. Zayn Harris. The billionaire everyone fears. And her ex-boyfriend's greatest rival.​
At first, their marriage is just a contract. No love. No promises. No future. But every time someone tries to humiliate her, Zayn is there. Protecting her. Defending her. Choosing her. For the first time in her life, Vivian is someone's first choice.
Unfortunately for Caleb, he realizes that too late. Because the woman he threw away is now wearing another man's ring. And unlike him, Zayn has no intention of letting her go.

Eva Fransis had everything—until the people she loved most took it all away.

Drugged and betrayed on her 18th birthday by her best friend, Eva's perfect life crumbled in a single night. A desperate escape led her into the arms of a stranger, and one forbidden night left her pregnant and alone.

Forced into a marriage she never wanted, Eva endured years of abuse, humiliation, and heartbreak—all while her husband lived off her family's wealth. The final blow? Catching him in bed with the very woman who destroyed her life.

Now, Eva is done being a victim.

She wants a divorce. She wants her freedom. She wants to give her children the life they deserve.

But her husband refuses to let her go—not out of love, but greed.

And just when she thinks things can't get more complicated, a powerful stranger appears, claiming to be the real father of her children.

He wants them back.

He wants her back.

She spent years protecting her heart. Now she must protect her children—even if it means facing the man from that unforgettable night.

Can she break free from her past? Or will she be stolen by the man who already owns a piece of her?

So after this weird plague, basically all the alphas disappeared. Only a few packs had alpha bloodlines left, so they formed an alliance. Whoever could produce an alpha pup in the younger generation becomes the next pack leader.

I'm Natalia from Moon Stone pack. My dad's the alpha, I've got alpha blood, but I can't shift. So everyone treats me like garbage. My mom died young, dad remarried this beta luna who had Stella, my half-sister who's just a beta but gets treated better than me.

In my past life, at the mating ceremony, Damon picked me. I thought I'd won. Turns out the bastard was actually an omega using black magic to fake being beta. When we mated, we had an omega pup instead of an alpha heir.

What does this piece of shit do? Blames ME. Says I faked my alpha bloodline. Then he kills me and my baby and dumps our bodies with the rogues.

But I'm back. It's the mating ceremony again, except this time Damon's going after Stella instead of me. Which makes me think, did that asshole get reborn too?

To avenge my father, I married Philadelphia mafia don Salvatore and poisoned him with my own hands on our wedding night. I thought my revenge was complete, until I met his son Matteo at the funeral—a cold, handsome,dangerous man.

Matteo suspected from the start that I'd killed his father. According to plan, I was supposed to get close to him, seduce him, then kill the last Rossi heir when he trusted me most.

"You're trembling." He cornered me against the wall, his long fingers caressing my cheek. "From fear... or something else?"

"I..." Under his burning gaze, I couldn't find words.

"Don't be nervous, stepmother." He leaned close to my ear, his voice low and magnetic. "I just want to see how honest you are."

When the assassin falls for her target, when stepmother becomes obsessed with stepson, can this dangerous game have a happy ending?

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

Reunited, I became the “perfect wife” Julian had always dreamed of.
I didn’t ask where he was when he didn’t come home.
When his “one that got away” came to our door to provoke me, I greeted her with a polite smile.
I even caught them in the act, and instead of screaming, I thoughtfully closed the door for them.
The Elara who used to break down in hysterics over his infidelity was dead.

The woman standing here now was nothing more than a shell, existing solely for her daughter.
Finally, Julian began to panic. He knelt in the pouring rain, begging me to curse him, begging me to still love him—or even hate him.
But as I looked down at him, I didn’t just feel nothing. I felt sick.
"Julian, I don't hate you."
I just find every second spent with you utterly disgusting.

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.

I watched my boyfriend down on one knee proposing to another woman.
Turns out that he was cheating on me with her for two years.
Our five years together meant nothing to him. He claimed that he needed her money –connections and that I should be the one to play the role of a mistress. I refused.
I didn’t stick around. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I wanted something strong to numb my pain— and yes, I ended up in the loudest club.
Then I met him, Adrian Foster. The wealthiest and powerful CEO.
The moment I lost my balance, he caught me and pulled me straight in to his chest.
Fate? I didn’t believe in it.
But may be …. He did.

Today is the day I marry Lucian.

The woman in the mirror wore a gown of pristine white — but Joanna Ashford's eyes held nothing of a bride's joy. Her best friend Sia's whisper brushed her ear: Everything is ready. After the wedding, we'll meet at the tree-lined path behind the estate.

This was no wedding. It was a transaction between two wolf packs. And Joanna was the bargaining chip.


Joanna had once been loved by her fated mate, Sebastian Lockwood — a border patrol Beta with nothing to his name but his integrity and the warmth in his eyes. Then her father, Roger Ashford, Alpha of the Shadow Pack, gave her a choice that was no choice at all: stand in that courtroom and destroy the man she loved, or watch her mother die on an operating table without a signed consent form.

She lied. Every word out of her mouth was a blade she drove into Sebastian herself.

He severed their bond in front of the entire clan before the gavel fell. He didn't look at her once.

She didn't know, as she watched him be led away in silver cuffs, that she was already carrying his child.


Sebastian survived the exile grounds the way only the most furious do — by refusing to die. He emerged harder, colder, and burning with a single purpose. When he walked into the Northern Pack's challenge circle and took down the old Alpha in under three minutes, no one was surprised. When he announced his chosen Luna — Sophia Carter, who had nursed him back from the edge of death — the crowd cheered.

He had built himself a life with no room for the past.

And then a chef in a flour-dusted uniform looked up from across a banquet hall, and his wolf went absolutely feral.


Joanna had spent three years building something small and stubborn out of the rubble of everything she had destroyed. A kitchen job. A tiny apartment. A son named Theo, with deep brown hair that curled at the nape just like his father's, and gray-blue eyes that saw everything.

Theo's ears hadn't developed properly. The bills were staggering. Every restaurant in the Northern Territory had been warned not to hire her.

She kept going anyway. Because Theo needed her to.


Sebastian paid off her debts without being asked. He transferred her a restaurant. He found her in his office on a full-moon night with his silver cuffs already snapped, and she stayed — and in the dark afterward he said: Move into my apartment. She said: Let's pretend this never happened.

Her wolf Nana came back at last, in a forest surrounded by rogues Sophia had sent to kill her, red fur erupting through torn skin. Go find Sebastian, Nana whispered before going quiet again. Tell him about Theo. He'll love Theo.


Tomorrow is the Moon Festival. Tomorrow is the marking ceremony that will bind Sebastian to Sophia forever.

Joanna has one chance left — and one question she cannot answer.

When Sebastian learns the truth about the courtroom, about the child he never knew existed — will he look at Theo and see his son?

Or will he only see her betrayal?

I kissed my ex-boyfriend's father. Now they're both obsessed.

For six years, Julian Hawthorne treated me like his dirty little secret—never good enough to claim, always convenient to use. Until I walked away and kissed the one man he can't compete with.

Victor Hawthorne. Billionaire CEO. Julian's adoptive father. Ice-cold control wrapped around something dangerously combustible.

It was supposed to be revenge. One forbidden kiss to prove I'd moved on.

But Victor hired me. Put me in Julian's face every single day. And now Julian wants me back—desperate, possessive, unraveling.

The twist? Victor acts like I don't exist in public. But behind closed doors, the way he looks at me could melt steel.

Julian's begging. Victor's silent. And I'm playing them both.

The problem? I'm starting to want the one I can't afford to lose.


⚠️ Forbidden romance. Adoptive father/son rivalry. She plays the game—until the game plays her.

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

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

Five years in hell, my beloved and best friend joined hands to push me into the abyss. The savior I trusted was actually a deadly fraud. Reborn from despair, Vito came through the light. I tore apart the scumbag and the evil woman, settled all debts, broke free from the shadow, stepped into the light, and lived the rest of my life only for myself.

The day my all-powerful wife personally handed me over to the mob's basement, she was shielding my identical twin brother, furiously accusing me of destroying his ability to carry on the family line.
To compensate for my brother's "trauma," my parents stood by and did nothing. Using her influence, my wife pressured me to take his place at a black-market clinic, testing a lethal drug.
They thought I was just going to suffer some physical hardship, that after enduring these two weeks, everything would be happily resolved.
But they didn't know I had already been poisoned by my brother. I was dying.
I died in agony on the cold operating table. As my body was being gnawed and rotted by rats, they were happily vacationing by the sea.
Only when the lies were exposed did my wife kick down the hidden door. Holding my maggot-infested, decaying flesh, she wept until she vomited blood, then went mad and swallowed a bullet. My parents watched their family shattered and wept on their knees.

One of my employees went online and dragged me, claiming I'm making them sacrifice their health for a paycheck and forcing everyone to work over Thanksgiving.

Here's what actually happened. My company gives nine days off for Thanksgiving. Volunteer to work overtime, get triple pay, with a $500 daily meal stipend and a $5,000 bonus. No one gets penalized for not working.

The whole internet's tearing into me for making employees sell their lives for cash. So I give her exactly what she wants and send out a company-wide notice:

To protect employee mental health, the building gets locked and the power gets cut over Thanksgiving. No one is allowed to work for any reason. Anyone who does gets fired.

The minute that email goes out, the employees who were counting on overtime to pay their mortgages lose it. Now they're all crowded outside the building, begging me to open the doors.

Rhye Gosling demanded she marry him after their accidental nerve-wracking one-night stand. Little did she know, he was the most powerful Alpha in the werewolf community, a world she thought only existed in the book. How hard could it be? Yet, the handsome and demanding Alpha would change her life to the full extent, bringing her laughter and tears, hatred and love, and into the chaotic world of magic and wonder where werewolves and demons existed and would do everything to bring the Alpha to his knees.

Racked by confusion and changes in her body, Diana found herself irresistibly drawn to Andrew. Passion ignited and threatened to consume them both. However, she was unprepared for the reason he had sought her out and the danger that lay ahead. Regardless, sharing a love of conquering their goals, this unlikely pair began to form an unexpected bond that led them to a place neither of them ever expected to be.

He knelt in the dirt, begging to see the daughter he abandoned, but I pointed to the man beside me: "She calls him Daddy now."

Ryan looked like a ghost. Stomach cancer had eaten away his arrogance, leaving only skin and bones. He stared at Grace—the baby he thought was dead, the baby he tried to replace with an orphan. "Zoey... I'm her biological father. Please."

I held Chris's hand, feeling his warmth, so different from Ryan's cold betrayal. "Biological?" I scoffed. "You're just a sperm donor who chose his sister over his wife."

Grace hid behind Chris's leg, looking at Ryan with fear. That look broke him more than the cancer ever could.

"You have Lucy," I said, turning away. "And her child. Go enjoy the family you destroyed us for." I watched him vomit blood into the grass, realizing too late that he had traded a diamond for a stone. He would die alone, while we lived happily ever after.

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.

My daughter helped my husband cheat.

My ten-year-old begged me to take her to a summer camp in Italy. My husband looked at her like she hung the moon. Booked the tickets right there.

I thought I was the luckiest mom alive.

Then I checked the pet camera from overseas.

There he was, fucking my daughter's riding instructor on our couch.

But what really killed me? What he said, "Don't worry. Nina wants that horse bad enough, she'll keep her mom in Europe as long as we need."

Back home, my husband dropped a receipt. Two identical limited edition watches.

He froze. My sweet daughter didn't miss a beat, "Dad used the other one to bribe someone so I could get my horse!"

They lied in perfect sync. That's when something in me broke.

They thought I was still that stupid, trusting wife.

What they didn't know?

I'd already signed a contract. Going back to my art career in New York.

Nineteen times. That's how many times Lucas promised to marry me, only to leave me standing alone because of her.
Today was supposed to be our day. But as I stood in the biting cold outside the restaurant, watching him carefully help Selena into his Maybach, the marriage application still tucked in my purse, I finally understood—that "someday" would never come.
"Let's reschedule the registration, okay?" he'd said without even looking at me.
I walked straight to HR and submitted my resignation. Then I accepted the offer from the Morinetti family—his sworn enemies.
As I boarded my flight to the West Coast, my phone exploded with messages.
"We agreed to go to City Hall today. Where are you?"
I glanced at the screen one last time, then powered it off.
"We're done."