386 Book(s) Related to long way down novel

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

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

At my ex-wife's century wedding engagement banquet, she pointed at my nose and humiliated me publicly: "A waste of space who lays bricks, get out!"
Her wealthy new lover pressed my face hard into broken glass and forcibly dragged away my desperately crying five-year-old daughter.
I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth, drew the "Ghost Mark," and dialed the Pentagon hotline that had been dormant for five years.
Three seconds later, twelve Black Hawk helicopters shattered the dome, and a special task force descended from the sky. A two-star general, amid the terrified gazes of the assembled elite, saluted me with a thunderous: "Ghost Commander, troops have arrived as ordered!"
My ex-wife, who had been so arrogant just moments ago, instantly collapsed to the ground.

For fifty years, I bathed in blood for my world, only to return home to find my wife dead and my daughter about to be sacrificed.
The High Priest stepped on my daughter’s head, branding me a traitor, and declared he would burn her to ashes. Scarred, broken, and with my magic depleted, I was bound to the pyre alongside her. Tens of thousands cursed us from below as the flames engulfed the stage.
Weeping, my daughter asked me, "Daddy, are you really a hero?"
I crushed the pendant on my chest.
Dragons, Dwarves, Berserkers—the million-strong allied army I had united over those fifty years descended across dimensions.
The High Priest slumped to the ground, trembling uncontrollably. "Who... who exactly are you?"
Staring into his eyes, I said only one thing:
"Dragons have reverse scales; touch them, and you die. You crossed the line!"

Lucille was one of the most skilled female assassins, and on the previous night, she embarked on a top-secret mission. However, the mission's details were leaked, leading to her untimely demise at the hands of a traitorous companion. She never discovered the identity of the person who betrayed her before her death. But by some miracle, she was granted a new life, and was reborn as a girl with the same name. Determined to uncover the truth and seek revenge for her family, Lucille seized her second chance at life. She planned to avenge her loved ones. However, her plans were complicated by Joseph, an apparently frail man who was actually skilled in martial arts. And he seemed to fall for her deeply, now this newfound knowledge only added to the complications of Lucille's revenge plan...

Maya has been secretly in love with Liam Miller, her best friend Chloe's older brother, for years even though she knows he is five years older and completely off-limits. When Liam gives her his hoodie in the rain and tells her she is growing up dangerously fast, Maya's carefully hidden feelings begin to surface. On Liam's twenty-first birthday they are left alone and share a kiss that changes everything, but Liam pulls away saying Maya is too young and this cannot happen. Maya tries to move on by agreeing to attend Spring Formal with Noah, but Liam cannot handle watching her with someone else. When their forbidden relationship explodes into a public scandal, they face backlash and accusations that tear both families apart, Maya and Liam must decide if their love is worth the price or if some lines should never be crossed.

Isadora Bellini spent her entire life living in the shadow of her twin sister, Giulia—but nothing hurt more than the moment their childhood best friend and her fated mate, Capo Lorenzo, chose Giulia over her. Shattered and humiliated, Isadora disappeared from the Luna Nera Clan, carving out a quiet life among humans. Eight years later, she’s dragged back to the one place she promised never to return—for Giulia’s funeral. What begins as a painful farewell quickly spirals into a storm of secrets, guilt, and dangerously unresolved emotions.
Lorenzo isn’t the same confident Capo who once broke her heart—he’s grieving, broken, and searching for answers. But so is Isadora. As truths begin to unravel—about Giulia’s betrayal, Lorenzo’s rejection, and a past that refuses to stay buried—Isadora finds herself caught between the scars of yesterday and the pull of a bond she tried to erase.
In a world where fate is sealed by blood and moonlight, and love can be the sharpest weapon of all… will Isadora risk everything to uncover the truth, or let her pain write the ending for her?
When love feels like betrayal, how do you trust what your heart still wants?

"Mommy, I don't need a daddy. Having you is enough."

When I heard my daughter say those words, I nearly broke down in tears.

Five years ago, an accident left me pregnant with twins. My father seized everything my mother had left behind and threw me out of the house. After I gave birth, he told me my son had died, leaving only my daughter Luna by my side.

For Luna's sake, I was forced to marry a man I'd never met—a husband in a vegetative state—and spent three years in France.

Three years later, I returned to Bay Harbor, only to be betrayed by my own father once again. While fleeing, I stumbled by mistake into the penthouse suite of a luxury hotel, where I spent the night with a mysterious man confined to a wheelchair.

The next morning, I left in a panic, convinced it was just another accident in my chaotic life.

Until later, when I took a job with the wealthy Stone family and met a quiet, withdrawn little boy named Cal—a child who seemed forgotten by the entire world.

I don't know why, but the moment I saw him, my heart ached inexplicably.

And at the same time, the man I had "taken advantage of" that night began closing in on the truth, determined to find me...

While I bled to death locked in a storage room, my fiancé Adrian was holding my sister's hand, comforting her.

He hung up on my final call for help, leaving only a voicemail: "If anything happens to Lena, the engagement is off."

My sister once said her birthday wish had always been for me to disappear.

That night, her wish came true early.

But my soul never left.

I watched everyone gather around her, singing happy birthday.

As she blew out the candles, I whispered in her ear:

"Enjoy it while it lasts. This will be your last birthday."

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

Spring is the season I dread the most.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

......

Elroy has severe OCD. In the ten years we've been together, he's never allowed me to eat in his car.
On our tenth anniversary, we made plans to watch the stars together.
But just as I reached the mountaintop, my phone rang—it was him.
"Something came up at work. I can't make it tonight. You go ahead and enjoy the view."
The moment he hung up, I saw his female classmate's post about returning to the country.
Catalina was sitting in his passenger seat, holding a half-eaten piece of cake in her hands.
【Someone was afraid I'd get hungry coming back so late, so he specially brought me this little cake～】
Another picture showed Catalina's shoes—still on—planted firmly on the passenger seat.
【He says I'm the only exception to his OCD～ I can do whatever I want in his car, hehe.】
I looked up at the twinkling stars above me, a bitter smile tugging at my lips.
This was the tenth time he'd abandoned me.
Every single anniversary without fail, this "female classmate" of his would show up.
I once tried to gently tell him: "I don't want to be interrupted like this every time."
Elroy looked at me with displeasure. "Interrupted? Catalina is my friend. Can you not be so petty?"
The cold wind howled across the mountaintop. Catalina's words stuck in my heart like a thorn, stinging until my eyes grew wet.
After ten years, I'm done with this relationship.

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.

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.

“Listen to me, dolcezza, I fuck. I dominate. I tie your hands, your legs and make you forget your own name.”

I pressed my lips tightly, refusing to give him the satisfaction that only his words was messing with my head, “You don’t scare me, Marco.”

His hands wrapped around my throat..not to hurt. Just enough to remind me I was his to command.

“No, but I do something worse.” His lips brushed my ear. “I make you beg.”

I hated him.

I hated the way my pussy ached fro his touch.

Most of all, I hated my body for betraying me…for wanting him.

“Say it,” he whispered. “Tell me who you belong to.”

“I don’t belong to anyone.”

He shoved my legs apart roughly, plunging two mighty fingers inside me, “Then why is your pussy soaked, bella? Hmm? Tell me…do you want my cock or my collar?”

I swallowed hard, “Both.”

Marco smiled…cruel, wicked, knowing. “Then be a good girl for daddy. Kneel!”

And I did.


Sold by her mother to a ruthless Italian mafia don, Cassandra’s new life is nothing like the peaceful future she dreamed of.



Forced into marriage with his cold son, Cassandra finds herself caught in a dangerous web of power, secrets, and forbidden desire.



But the real danger isn’t her supposed fiancee—it’s Don Marco, her ruthless father-in-law. It begins with whispered temptations and stolen glances, then escalates into late-night visits and nights of forbidden passion.



Just when she thinks she’s learned to navigate the madness, Marco’s son…once distant and disgusted by her—starts falling in love with her too.



Now, torn between a dangerous Don and his possessive son, Cassandra must choose between love, and a twisted form of power she never imagined wielding.


Who will claim her heart—and who will destroy it?

Meet Kamila Wilsons, a woman who left her wealthy family and expensive lifestyle, hid her identity just to marry the one man that she loves. A
man whom her family had warned her not to chase if she doesn’t want to be heartbroken. Turning a deaf ear towards her family, Kamila married with Arnoldo Morrison.

Arnoldo was against the marriage due to the fact that he never had feelings for Kamila. However, the both of them got together because of the Matriarch of the Morrison family, Grandma Megan.

A marriage was supposed to be a sweet journey for a woman who had just been accepted by her in laws but Kamila’s was the opposite. Being treated as a servant wasn't one of the roles of a married woman. Her in laws all treated her like dirt. Her husband continuously cheated on her with his lover, Iraida Evans whom his grandmother had always looked down on.

After witnessing her husband having sexual intercourse with his lover in their matrimonial bed, Kamila couldn't take the torture anymore. She has reached her limit of endurance. She couldn't let her heart to be continuously played with as if it was some toy.

Kamila reached out for the divorce papers, signed her name and left the Morrison mansion with a promise that she would come back and make them loose everything they had ever worked hard for love? She has three elder brothers who dote on her.

Kamila went back to her family and started her plot against her ex in laws until she met Ethan, her childhood friend whom she had bumped into years ago

I'm an OB-GYN. On Valentine's Day, I pulled a ring out of a woman's vagina.

It turned out to be my husband's wedding ring.

An hour before, he'd texted me. Said he loved me. Said he was too busy with work to come home.

I wanted a divorce. Needed one. But then I found out—our marriage was never registered.

In his manor, I was nothing. Just a fake wife.

He grabbed me by the throat—right in front of his mistress. Called me "damaged goods." Said I'd spent a year in another man's house.

But that year, I went as a hostage in his place.

I ran. Made it to the cliff's edge, covered in blood. And the man who saved me? The mafia godfather who'd held me captive that whole year.

He looked at me. "Marry me."

“I will call you, and you will come, everytime. If I want you on your knees, you get on your knees. If I want you on the bed, you get on the fucking bed. You belong to me. You are my pet. Mine. You said you would do anything to live? This is what it will cost. I am a very dangerous man with dangerous enemies, and friends. You do what I want and I let you be. You tell me no, and I shatter your jaw. Do you fucking understand me?” He snarls, waving his gun in the air.

I don’t understand but I nod still. “Okay.”

“You have a very skilful mouth. If I catch you fucking around, I’ll make you beg for death. You belong to Nathaniel Bianchi. Don’t ever forget that.” He seethes, and I nod.

“Yes, I belong to you.”

I don’t want to belong to him, but I want to live, and if this is the price to pay, then I will.


Asher witnessed what he shouldn’t have. A murder that shattered his world. Nathaniel Bianchi is a Don on a mission. For over a decade, he has hunted the people responsible for his parents’ deaths, and now that search has led him to Asher Donovan, an innocent chef he is determined to claim and to taint. To survive, Asher agrees to do whatever Nathaniel demands. He doesn’t expect to become Nathaniel’s possession, his pet, but there is no turning back. Boundaries blur, and what begins as control and desire quickly spirals into something deeper, something more dangerous than either of them anticipated.

Both men carry demons, Nathaniel’s are dark and lethal, Asher’s are buried and raw, but they are willing to fight for a chance at each other.

I was trained to seduce, to deceive, and to kill if I had to. Love was never part of the mission.

My body became my weapon, the one thing no man could ever truly own. I couldn’t give life so I learned to use sex as a tool to take whatever I wanted.

As one of O.A.S.I.S.’s top operatives, I’ve faced warlords, dictators, and men who thought they owned the world. None of them ever got under my skin until billionaire playboy, Zayne Beaumont, walked into my crosshairs.

He’s infuriatingly charming, dangerously beautiful, and the reason my pulse forgets its rhythm. But when his past comes for him in the form of Dominik D’Angelo, the ruthless Mafia Don who wants him dead—my world fractures in ways no training could prepare me for.

Because Dominik doesn’t just want revenge.

He wants me.

Now I’m trapped between two men—one who tempts my heart, and one who consumes my soul. Both powerful, dangerous, and willing to burn the world to claim me.

And I’m the prize neither of them intends to lose.

Five years in captivity. They said Nora would be free after five years of working for the mafia king but they lied. Now Nora is forced to work permanently for the dangerous mafia king, executing dangerous cons with Noah, her only ally and her most dangerous temptation. The one man who makes her feel human again. But in a world built on lies, trust can be deadlier than betrayal.

Chloe Hudson gave up everything—including her health—for a man who never loved her. Married to Hank Collins only in name, she's endured a year of cold rejection while he lavished his love on another: her own half-sister, Irene. Just when Chloe decides to walk away, a twist of fate changes everything—she's pregnant. But instead of joy, her news is met with cruelty. Hank demands she abort the child, claiming only the woman he loves deserves his baby.
Heartbroken but not broken, Chloe chooses to fight—for her child, her dignity, and a future beyond betrayal. As secrets unravel and loyalties are tested, a familiar figure from her past steps in: Ryan Cooper, a man who once loved her and never stopped.
Will Chloe finally find the love she deserves? Or will her past drag her down before she can rise?

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

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

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.

My name is Nora Monroe. Thirty-two weeks pregnant, ready to pop anytime.
This morning, my husband Everett left town, leaving me and my cat, Piper, alone at home.
Deep into the night, a strange woman called. Her voice was gentle, apologetic—she said my cat Piper had somehow wandered downstairs. She was severely allergic to cat dander and couldn't bring her up to me. I grabbed my coat, ready to head down, when the baby suddenly gave me a vicious kick. The pain sent me collapsing back onto the sofa, unable to move.
The woman on the phone urged me over and over. I looked up, my eyes falling on the corner of the living room.
Piper was sitting right there, staring unblinkingly at me...

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

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

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

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

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

My daughter trembles, nodding frantically.

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

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

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

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

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

“You were never his, Wren. You were always mine.”
Denzel Thorne’s voice was low, dark, and laced with a hunger he’d buried for years. His fingers traced her jaw with deliberate slowness, tilting her face toward his. “I watched you marry another man. I stayed in the shadows while he broke you, piece by piece.”
His thumb brushed her lower lip. “But now? Now I’m done watching.”
*
Three years of marriage. Three years of lies.
Wren Taylor never expected to catch her husband, James, cheating. With his own brother’s wife.
Before she could even confront him, his brother Benjamin was dead. James claimed Wren’s suspicions were nothing but jealous delusions—then moved his widowed sister-in-law and her son into their home without so much as a word to Wren.
No consent. No respect. No love left at all.
As James flaunts his devotion to Ava and her child, Wren becomes a ghost in her own house. Humiliated. Ignored. Discarded.
She decides to fight for her freedom—even if it costs her everything.
But just when she hits rock bottom, he reappears.
Denzel Thorne. The boy she once loved. The man she never stopped wanting.
Now he’s the most powerful Don in the underworld. Ruthless. Untouchable. And utterly obsessed with the woman he was never allowed to have.
He takes her hand and teaches her how to destroy the ones who broke her. Every move brings them closer. Every touch resurrects a desire neither can control.
But Denzel has secrets. Dark ones. And when Wren discovers the truth behind his empire, their fragile love story may not survive the fall.

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

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

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

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

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

Aella Moore
- A 27 years old American woman, with gray eyes. A woman who is very jolly and always smiling amidst of everything that happened in her life. A daughter who cares for her parents more than her own life. An Aunt who protects with all of her might and a lover who loves more than she can thought she can.

Vincent Nicholas Johnsons
- A 29 years old Australian cold hearted busi-nessman, with blue eyes. The Australia’s most eligible bachelor and the man who would have everything in a silver platter.

Aella and Vincent who were just acquaintances in the beginning but little did they know they both have the same stories. They were not looking for love at that time because they both just got their heart broken, both came from a long term relationship but when that time when they two met through a relative, tell their stories and got to know each other. They both want to make sure that they will not be hurt again this is why they were hesitant and pretending that they are not falling with each other at first. Will they overcome every obstacle that life will throw them?Will their get the approval of their families? Will they face the tragedy of their past together, all the pain and sacrifices they’ve been through? Will it all be worth it?

Three years ago, my twelve brothers died in the desert at night. A traitor stepped over my death notice and took the place that should have been mine. Three years later, I hide in a run-down convenience store, wiping shelves. I endure being spat on, having my beer stolen, and being called trash—I endured it all. Because I'm waiting. Waiting for someone to return, waiting for an answer. Some ask me: Is it worth it, for a bunch of dead men? I don't know if it's worth it. I only know that when they were alive, they called me Captain. Three years in seclusion, all for the day the God of War returns!

After 3 years of bloody battles, the War King returns, only to hear his fiancée Elena “fell to her death”. But he finds she’s alive, pregnant, and imprisoned. He swears to slaughter all enemies and protect his woman and unborn child.

Four years ago, I left my boyfriend when he had nothing.

Now, he's a billionaire. And he's forcing me to marry him—just for revenge.

Every day it's a different girl. Now there's a pregnant influencer he flaunts in my face, destroying what's left of my dignity.

"Kneel and beg her, and I'll give you money." He holds another woman and smirks at me.

I don't cry. I don't scream. I just swallow the blood rising in my throat.

He doesn't know my brain tumor is terminal. I have thirty days left.

I've already signed the organ donation papers. I just want to die in peace.

I stopped loving him a long time ago.

When he found out I’d injured my leg and couldn't scrub in to deliver the billionaire's baby tomorrow, my boyfriend’s first reaction wasn't concern. He gritted his teeth and snapped, "Hannah, you did this on purpose, didn't you? Why today of all days? Are you really throwing away your entire career just to spite me?!"
I didn't argue. I just stared at the medical chart labeled Eleanor Whitlock, my fingers trembling.
In my past life, I took this assignment. I was drugged and locked in a supply closet. A few hours later, the mother and baby were dead—and the security footage showed a nurse with my face poisoning them. I died in a damp prison cell, branded a murderer.
Reborn into this life, I just wanted to escape this fatal trap.
But somehow, the security cameras had once again captured "me" walking into that delivery room.

The night before the SAT, I brought homemade pastries from our bakery to share with the whole class.

The next day, over thirty students collapsed at the testing center. The exam was voided.

I became the target of everyone's rage. My family fell apart. I ended up in a detention cell.

The internet tore me apart. My classmate Lainey Prescott went on camera sobbing, saying all she wanted was for me to own up to what I did.

While I was in detention, I found out my mom had a mental breakdown and jumped off the overpass outside of town.

That same night, I went into the river too. The water was freezing.

When I open my eyes, Lainey is right there. She's holding that same sheet of paper with everyone's signatures, smiling like nothing's wrong, eyes just as calculating as I remember.

I'm back.

And this time, I'm not making anything for anyone.

Eilidh MacLeod thought she had escaped. Seven years after walking away from a cold marriage and a ruthless man, she has built a life of quiet stability with her son, Finlay.
But ghosts don’t stay buried forever. When Ruaridh MacKinnon—her powerful ex-husband—suddenly steps back into her world, her worst nightmare comes true. As the new owner of her company, he is now in control of her professional fate. And if he looks too closely, he may uncover the one secret she swore to protect.

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

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

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

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

Aston Whitmore thought I loved him. Truth is, his mother bought a year of my life for a million dollars.
He thought those 3 AM study sessions were about redemption and romance across class lines. He didn't know I was never watching his pretty face—I was watching the countdown to my mother's kidney transplant payment.
I froze this trust fund prince's credit cards, cut his internet, and nailed him to that desk until his eyes went bloodshot cramming calculus.
When he turned into a guard dog in front of the whole cafeteria, publicly staking his claim on me, all I was calculating was the date that final payment would clear.
Today, he burst through the mansion door clutching his Yale acceptance letter, ready to give me some grand confession.
I was already thirty thousand feet up on a flight to Zurich, staring at that million-dollar deposit notification, face blank as I pulled out the SIM card, snapped it in half, and tossed it in the trash.
No note. No goodbye.
Just one notarized Service Completion Certificate sitting on that empty desk. Terms fulfilled. Transaction closed.

To honor a vow to "protect her for a lifetime," I used my flesh and blood to shield her from a fatal impact in a deadly car crash. My heart was severely shattered, leaving me barely clinging to life with a pacemaker.

Concealing my identity for five years, I single-handedly dragged her from bankruptcy and crowned her the new royalty of Wall Street.

Yet, on the eve of her IPO, just to curry favor with a powerful tycoon, she knocked away my life-saving medicine, forced me to kneel and shine shoes in public, and finally kicked my gravely ill body out into a sub-zero Brooklyn blizzard.

My dying pleas for help only earned her impatient mockery: "Save your playing dead tricks for the ghosts."

When my pacemaker completely shattered in the howling snow, that submissive Arthur died.

Armed gunships descended, and a military-grade tactical heart violently rebooted my pulse! When I opened my eyes again, I was the Supreme Commander who cast terror over the global underground.

When I crushed her capital empire with a single hand and the truth was finally revealed, she knelt in the muddy rain, frantically slapping her own face, sobbing and screaming to give her life back to me.

I flicked the ash from my cigar, my gaze as cold as looking at trash: "My wife died in the blizzard. You are just a stranger who crawled up by stepping on half my life."

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 adopted sister, Cordelia, conspired with her biological mother to harvest my organs alive, yet she had the audacity to claim I paid thugs to rape her.
My biological parents didn't bother to ask for the truth. They cursed me, calling me a vicious bastard, and threatened to break my legs.
My fiancé, Caspian, coldly announced the cancellation of our engagement, declaring he would marry the very murderer who killed me.
I had been dead for exactly three days. No one cared. My body was rotting back in a moldy storage room.
Through it all, my soul was trapped in the manor, forced to witness this absurd farce.
But what they didn't expect was that when they finally learned of my death—
Everyone went completely insane.

My younger sister, Freya, was preparing for her advanced training in New York the following week, so she dragged me to the dance studio to help her correct her movements. I put on my dance shoes as usual and stood in the center of the floor, ready to demonstrate a turn.

The moment my foot slipped, I didn't even have time to react.

My body hit the ground hard, and the sharp pain from the back of my head nearly made me lose consciousness. I lay on the cold floor, my throat tight, unable to even cry out for help.

When Mother rushed in, she didn't spare me a glance.

She immediately helped Freya up and took her to the hospital. I missed the critical window for treatment and died on the way to the hospital.

The child I brought into this world through sheer determination now calls my husband's mistress "mother"; the youth who slew my father for my sake and was imprisoned, now confines me beyond the threshold, forcing me to hear his carnal symphony with his stepmother. Only then did I comprehend: the sixteen-year-old boy who committed patricide for me had long perished within the prison walls.

My sister climbed out her window the night before her wedding. So my family pinned her veil over my face and sent me in her place.
I'd been her stand-in my whole life — same face, same hair, the daughter they could afford to lose. Nobody looks twice at a bride behind a veil.
The Falcones figured out I was a fake before the vows. They broke my hand for the insult. And the don himself — the man this whole city only says quietly — took one look at the mess they'd made of me and told them to throw me out with the trash.
Then his eyes dropped to the locket my dead mother left me, lying on his marble floor.
And the most feared man in the city went very, very still.
He had no business knowing my mother's name. So why did he say it like a prayer?

Torn between the man she loves, and the man who loves her....

Cordia has always been strong-willed, but she knows her family expects her to accept the hand of her childhood friend, Jaris, in marriage. As the conflict continues to escalate, Cordia hopes it will last long enough for her to find a way to free herself without breaking her friend’s heart.

On the eve of war, Cordia meets a mysterious newcomer. There’s just something about Will that she finds both intriguing and dangerous. She makes a plan to write to him. Perhaps by the time the war is over, Will’s feelings for Cordia will have blossomed into love.

But by the time war begins to wind its way through Missouri, one of these men will be dead, and Cordia will find herself betrothed to a man she loathes. Will she have the courage to follow her heart, or will she do as she is told and acquiesce to a loveless marriage to a heartless traitor?

Bonus story Cordia's Hope!

Forbidden love on the frontier....
Hope is content staying in her hometown of Lamar, Missouri, focusing on her life as a schoolteacher instead of finding love. But when she hears the truth about her parents' romance during the Civil War, how her mother Cordia set out to find her father Will after a deadly battle, Hope is determined to have that sort of adventure as well.

Accepting a teaching position in a frontier town in Texas isn't quite what she was expecting--there are no marauders or gunslingers--but there is one man with a shady past, and when the entire town tells her to stay away from Judah Lawless, Hope finds herself drawn to him.

Is Judah dangerous, or will Hope finally find the romance she's been looking for?

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

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

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

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

The hunt has officially begun...

Lysa loved Damian for seven years, yet hypnotic manipulation warped his memories, leading him to brand her the killer of his parents. With his own hands, he cut her bones and implanted canine fur, transforming her into a deformed half-human beast and subjecting her to endless humiliation and torture. She watched her mother die a brutal death and was forced to swallow her mother’s cremated ashes. At the brink of death, her ancestral sea spirit pendant awakened, shedding her mangled hound form to birth a tyrannical deep-sea siren. Once the scheming fake heroine’s lies were laid bare, Damian descended into madness, drowning in desperate remorse. Wielding the immortal power of a siren, Lysa cast all her tormentors into an endless living hell—and she would never grant them forgiveness.