3179 Book(s) Related to light in my darkness

For the sake of the so-called family heir, my husband Killian is prepared to kill my child!
That day, Killian locked me in an underground cold storage at ten degrees below zero, all because there is an ironclad rule in the Vittorio family.
The first-born son shall inherit the family’s Mafia empire.
My eldest brother’s wife Ira and I got pregnant at the same time.
To ensure his elder brother’s child is born first, Killian made this insane decision.
"My brother and Ira’s child has to be born first. This is what you owe them!"
He ignored my pleas and forcibly injected me with labor-delaying medicine.
"Allowing this child to be born at all is already the greatest mercy I can grant you."
Killian said to me with undisguised disgust.
I curled up in agony on the icy concrete floor, feeling the little life in my womb fading away bit by bit, shedding tears of utter despair.
"My baby… Mommy is so sorry for you…"

I'm the top account director at my firm, always on the road, running myself ragged on golf courses and client dinners. Some months I barely make it back to the office at all.

Right after I land a $300 million contract for the company, my boss decides to hand the whole thing over to a new intern.

My manager says I'm wasting company resources, that my attitude's a problem. My boss tells me to give the new hire a chance. The intern thinks she can just take over my job without breaking a sweat.

None of them get it. Without me, this project never gets off the ground.

I don't bother telling them that.

Once the handoff is done, I walk straight into our biggest rival.

And watch them beg me to come back.

My best friend Bella had a cluster of mushrooms growing on her back, every color you could imagine.

They throbbed like something alive, and the smell coming off them was like nothing I'd ever smelled.

She called it Moonlight Bloom, a gift straight from Viscount Lucas himself.

If she kept that thing on her body for forty days, not one more, not one less, until it bloomed its brightest spores, the viscount would marry her and take her into his estate.

So she refused to shower. Wouldn't let a drop of water touch her.

Everyone in the pack knew me as the one who always looked out for people, and I figured she'd been cursed with dark magic. So one night while she slept, I grabbed a bucket of soapy water and a stiff brush and scrubbed that thing clean off her back.

The next morning, she ran her hand over the raw patch of skin where it used to be, grabbed a silver dagger, and drove it straight through my heart.

"You jealous bitch! You just ruined my whole future!"

Bleeding out on the floor, that's when it hit me. She never cared how disgusting that thing was, or what it was doing to her body. All she cared about was marrying into money and status.

When I opened my eyes again, I'd gone back in time.

This time around, I decided I wasn't going to stick my nose where it didn't belong. I was going to sit back and watch that mushroom grow.

In a matter of life and death, the kidnappers forced my husband to choose who would walk out alive: my sister or me.

Declan chose me. My sister, Valerie, was executed because of it.

But in the three years following our rescue, Valerie's death became an uncrossable chasm between Declan and me.

He spiraled into heavy drinking, violently channeling all his resentment onto me.

It culminated in that dead of night, when he held my head forcefully underwater in the bathtub. With bloodshot eyes, he roared, "If I didn't have to save you, why would Valerie be dead?! Why wasn't it you?!"

As I suffocated, the man I loved snapped my neck with his bare hands.

When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day of the kidnapping.

Watching my husband feign his agonizing struggle in front of me, I feel nothing but a dead, numbing clarity.

Since I am going to end up dead whether he saves me or not.

Declan, in this life, I'll give you exactly what you want.

During a police operation to pursue a serial killer, my father-in-law was taken hostage by the criminals while protecting me, and was dragged behind a vehicle for several kilometers.
I urgently called my husband for help: “Cedric, Dad has been taken hostage by the criminals. Send more people right away!”
My husband was the police department’s top marksman—only his sharpshooting skills could target the enemy and save his father!
But to my surprise, my husband just sneered, “Dahlia, I’ve only been out with Nalisa for an hour. To win my attention, you’ll make up any lie, won’t you?”
Hearing the call end, I was frozen in shock.
Then, I received a message from Nalisa with 99 bed photos of her and my husband.
“Cedric says, if your dad dies, so be it. He has no time for you now—he’d rather die in my arms.”
Anger and sorrow enveloped me. Watching my husband’s father crushed to death by the vehicle, I finally understood:
He must have thought it was my father who was taken hostage.

In a brutal betrayal, champion racer Vivian's life is destroyed by the man she loves. John, her partner and team owner, sabotages her car, causing a crash that kills their unborn child and leaves her gravely injured. He then coldly abandons her to celebrate with his true lover, Sharon—the rival he secretly engineered the accident for. As Vivian confronts the loss of her child and career, her suffering is magnified by the couple's relentless cruelty, culminating in John allowing Sharon to permanently cripple her legs. Emotionally and physically shattered, and forced into a humiliating existence, Vivian uncovers the full extent of their conspiracy. With every hope extinguished, she orchestrates a final, desperate escape from her nightmare, leaving a life of vengeance and sorrow behind.

Kaelani spent her life believing she was wolfless.
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.

But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.

Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.

When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.

For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.

Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.

But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.

And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.

Especially him.

She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.

Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.

Raven thought she knew the truth: Darius Pike is a monster.
To avenge her sister, Raven Casmir infiltrates the supernatural Midnight Academy, masquerading as a human girl with a death wish. She takes his spot on the hockey team. She mocks his Alpha authority. She plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse in the shadows of his billion-dollar empire.

Darius has never met a human he couldn’t break. Until her. The fiery-haired rebel doesn’t bow. She fights. She’s the ultimate forbidden fruit—the sister of the girl he once rejected, and the only person who makes his wolf lose control.

But as blood ties turn to betrayals and ancient MoonWolf powers awaken, Raven discovers the most terrifying secret of all: Her sister lied. And the man she swore to destroy is the only one who can save her from the darkness in her own soul.

She thought she was human—until she drowned.

She wakes in the body of a missing selkie princess in a hidden island kingdom… and quickly realizes she’ll be executed if anyone discovers the truth.

The only person who knows? Her guard—cold, loyal, and furious she’s taken the place of the woman he was sworn to protect.

When her unstable shifting magic reveals something impossible—both selkie and tideborn blood—he’s forced to keep her secret… because exposing her would destabilize the crown.

Now, bound by duty and necessity, they must secretly search for the real princess—before her magic exposes them both.

The legendary general Victor was sentenced to death, and everyone thought he had already been buried in the grave.
Until a phone call came through ,
"Dad, help!... They took Mom away."

"Turn around. I want to fuck you."
I blinked. "What?"
"I said turn...around."
Before I could speak again, he had me on my stomach, face buried in the sheets. I could smell the heat of myself in the fabric. His weight hovered behind me, knees against the bed, strong thighs pressed to the outside of mine, holding me still. My skirt was hiked up around my waist. I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.


Kristen Lockwood never expected to fall for her father's best friend. She only met Leo Moretti after her father’s death, when a stranger on a motorcycle showed up with a scar across his knuckles, a gun under his jacket, and eyes that looked at her like she was already dangerous.
He says he’s here to protect her, that it’s what her father wanted. But he watches her too closely, speaks too little, and sets rules she can't help but break. He acts like touching her would ruin them both.

The worst part is, she wants him to.

Leo Moretti is the leader of the Bloodhounds, a supernatural biker gang that guards the borders between worlds. He never met Kristen until now, never even knew she existed and definitely didn’t expect her to come crashing down his walls with her presence.
Now every moment between them feels like something waiting to snap. She wants to get under his skin. She wants to see what happens when he finally loses control. She wants to see how far he can go before he slams her into his bed.

Leo is not allowed to want her.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t.

Warning: Contains strong language, graphic sexual content, supernatural violence, and dark themes. Recommended for mature audiences only.

In a zombie apocalypse, survivors build a fortress-like base. My girlfriend and I are its lead researchers, racing to create the serum that could end the world’s collapse.

On a sampling run outside the walls, she chooses to save the “genius” colleague she just brought back—and leaves me behind to be swallowed by a horde.

With no way out, I inject myself with an unfinished prototype. I survive… but I come back as a zombie.

The difference is: I don’t lose my mind. I keep my human intelligence—and I can command other zombies. They bow instinctively, as if they’ve sensed a king.

Inside the base, that so-called genius is working with raiders beyond the walls, pushing a fake serum to control the troops and selling the defenses piece by piece to the enemy.

As the base collapses, the drugged soldiers turn on each other atop the ramparts. The chain of command snaps. Everyone is waiting to die.

Then—at the moment the walls give way and screams drown out gunfire—I stand on the ruins outside, raise my hand, and sweep it forward.

The horde behind me doesn’t attack the survivors. Like a disciplined army, it bypasses them and surgically crushes every invader.

Only then does the woman who abandoned me realize what she destroyed.

But I don’t need her regret anymore.

Five years ago, I knelt on marble floors, cleaning wine with my own dress while they laughed.

Five years later, they knelt before me, begging for forgiveness while I walked away.

They thought three hundred thousand dollars could buy my soul. They thought I was just another disposable substitute, another broken girl desperate enough to sell her dignity for her dying mother's medical bills.

Caspian Ashford wanted a replacement for his precious Scarlett. The Hampton elite wanted a servant to humiliate. They all wanted me to disappear quietly when they were done with me.

They got their wish—I did disappear.

But the girl who drowned in that yacht "accident" five years ago? She was weak, desperate, powerless.

The woman who returned as Elena Whitman?

I'm their worst fucking nightmare.

In my past life, I was cheated on.
My wife is having an affair with my fitness coach, and even our five-year-old daughter isn't my child.
I filed for divorce, and she left with nothing. I thought my life couldn't get any worse—but then the apocalypse came, and I was bitten to death by zombies.
In her last moments before she died, I saw her family of three nestled in her lover's secluded mountain cabin, with plenty of food and drink, passing away peacefully in their old age.
God gave me a second chance.
Back on the day we signed the divorce papers, I smiled and said to my ex-wife, "You can have the villa, but I want Julian's dilapidated cabin."

Six months ago, a yacht explosion consumed everyone I loved: my husband Leonard, my parents, and my brother.
I escaped only because of stomach pain that kept me from boarding. My adopted sister Claire became the sole survivor.
Since then, I've become an empty shell.
Even after being diagnosed with terminal uterine cancer, even while carrying my late husband's child, I've endured the agony of chemotherapy alone, exhausting what little strength remains to scrape together money for Claire—who hides away in a private care facility, claiming severe PTSD.
Until this winter day, with a blizzard approaching.
Dragging my dying body to my husband's memorial to pay respects, I discovered a credit card statement—charges made three months after his death.
Following the address on that receipt, I pushed open the door of a luxurious suburban villa.
Inside, it was warm as spring. My parents and brother, who should have been at the bottom of the ocean, stood there perfectly alive.
At the center of the room, my husband—the man I'd grieved for day and night—was kissing my adopted sister, his lips tender against hers.
The whole family was celebrating, raising glasses to toast the infant cradled in Claire's arms—barely a month old.
There had never been any disaster at sea.
It was all a meticulously planned hoax—their twisted way to erase me from their lives forever.

I died on the barren wasteland in a raging blizzard.
Before my death, many from the pack came to say goodbye.
Even Seraphina, my lifelong rival, came.
Only Kael, my Alpha mate of five years, was absent.
He was with that rogue Jennifer, watching the moon's reflection in Silver Moon Falls.
In my final moments, I received his mind-link.
"When the Moon Goddess guided me to find you as my fated mate, you were just a Beta. To inherit the Alpha position, I had no choice but to choose you. All these years I've been giving you suppressants, forbidding you from getting pregnant, and you agreed to it all. You've been a competent Luna."
"If there's a next life, I'll still choose you. In this life, rest in peace. I'll personally arrange your funeral."
Sensing this mind-link, my rival Seraphina sneered mockingly: "Karolyn, you really weren't cut out to be a Luna."
"In the next life, don't compete with me anymore."
Her words proved prophetic. When I opened my eyes again, we had both returned to the day of the Darkwood family's mate selection ceremony.
Kael said coldly: "Karolyn, the Moon Goddess has chosen you as my fated mate. You will be Darkwood's Luna."
Without hesitation, I stepped back and pointed to Seraphina.
"I think the Luna position is better suited for Seraphina."

"Call me brother," he whispered, pressing me against the wall, his erection hard against my stomach.
For twelve years, we played this dangerous game. By day, I was his obedient foster sister. By night, I was his obsession.
He never went all the way—saving me for marriage, he claimed—but he did everything else. His fingers knew every wet corner of my body. His mouth had tasted my pleasure a thousand times. He groomed me to be the perfect toy for his bed.
"You're mine, Julie. Only mine."
But then Lena came back.
Suddenly, the bedroom door was locked. Suddenly, I heard her screams of pleasure instead of mine.
He didn't touch me anymore. He looked at me with cold, dead eyes and said, "You're just a sister. Stop acting like a jealous lover."
He threw away twelve years of intimacy for a fresh body.
I packed my bags, leaving behind the lingerie he bought me, the toys we used.
When he finally realized Lena was a fake, he came running back, eyes wild, wanting to claim what he thought was still his property.
"Spread your legs for me, Julie," he begged, reaching for me.
I slapped his hand away. "Go fuck your sister, Daniel. I'm done."

I was a billionaire's canary. Never asked for it — but every time I slept with him, he paid another chunk of my mom's medical bills. Later he made me his secretary, and stupidly, I thought we'd built something real. Turns out I was wrong. He drained my entire savings to buy his mistress a $500K necklace. "What do you mean, your money?" he sneered. "Every penny came from me." I begged. He laughed. Then the hospital called: Mom didn't make it. That's when I stopped being anyone's canary — and started billing him back, in full.

I spent five years letting men degrade me at a club, all to save $300,000 for my blind brother Joren's eye surgery.
The day I finally raised the money, I excitedly told him he would be able to see again—only to discover he was never blind to begin with.
My husband’s "bankrupt" company had been thriving all along. My parents, who supposedly died in a plane crash, had been living luxuriously abroad.
My husband even took my "stillborn" daughter and gave her to my adopted sister.
My entire family conned me for five years to "teach me a lesson"—all because my adopted sister claimed I bullied her.
Now, they are forcing me to donate my liver to the woman who stole my life, threatening that I'll never see my biological daughter again if I refuse.
But what they don't know is that I have terminal liver cancer, and I only have two days left to live...

I saved Theron’s life, and in return, he lined up his eight grandsons before me. Whoever I chose would be the next Alpha of the Frostvale Pack. My wolf instantly recognized Rhysand—my fated mate. I chose him without hesitation.
On our wedding night, the moment I touched him, he broke out in hives and gasped for air. The doctor said he was allergic to me. Overnight, I became the city's laughingstock. For three years, I walked on eggshells, terrified to even step near my own husband.
Until he was dosed with a lethal aphrodisiac. If not cured within two hours, he would die. I threw caution to the wind and climbed into his bed. Through an entire night of skin-to-skin contact, there were no hives, no suffocation. His "allergy" had miraculously vanished.
But at dawn, his ex-girlfriend Linnea walked in. Rhysand looked at me like I was garbage. "If Linnea hadn't saved me last night, I'd be dead."
Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. But before I could even share the news, a raging fire buried that unspoken hope—along with my unborn child—in the ashes forever.
I finally understood. He was never allergic to me.
He just never loved me.

I was diagnosed with hemophilia when I was ten years old.
At first, my parents were terrified. They watched me closely, rushed me to the hospital over every bruise, every nosebleed. I was the fragile one—the child who needed saving.

Then years passed.
They got used to it.
They got tired.

By the time my twin sister was graduating and my family was finally breathing again, I was about to turn eighteen.
And that night, while everyone believed I’d be fine like always, I bled to death.

After two years of marriage, I finally got pregnant. I rushed to my husband's office with lunch to share the news, but his assistant mistook me for a sugar baby trying to trap the CEO. She dragged me into a back room and dumped scalding coffee on my head. When I tried to explain I was the wife, she laughed and called security. They stripped my clothes, kicked my stomach repeatedly, and destroyed my ultrasound photo. I begged them to call my husband, but they smashed my phone instead. By the time he found me, our baby was gone.

I was driving my dad's luxury car to pick up a friend when his secretary stopped me on the spot.
She mistook me for the lover who had sex with my dad in his office.
So she used car theft as an excuse to drag me into the basement, beat me up, and took nude photos of me.
When my dad found out, he asked me to apologize to her.
That's when I realized that in his eyes, his reputation mattered more than his own daughter.
If that's the case, he doesn't need to be the figurehead CEO anymore.

After ten years of marriage, my fated mate, Alpha Harvey, had slept with nearly every female worker in the Silver Claw Packhouse.
When I was seven months pregnant, his newly kept mistress, Yvonne Robson, offended the Alpha of the Eclipse Pack at a celebration banquet. Badly.
"Jasmine, you, kneel and apologize on her behalf."
The entire banquet hall fell silent.
I blinked at him, sure I had misheard. "Excuse me?"
"She's young," he said impatiently, as if this were a minor inconvenience. "She made a mistake. You're the Luna. You need to fix it."
I placed a hand over my swollen belly, my wolf snarling inside me. "I'm pregnant, Harvey. How can I kneel? What if it hurts the pup—"
He cut me off harshly. 'It's just kneeling. You've never acted so delicate before.'
He dragged me forcefully to Alpha Kenneth.
Then, before I could react, Alpha Harvey shoved me down, forcing my head toward the ground.
Pain shot through my knees as they hit the floor.
And then—a sharp, wet sensation beneath me.
M

A supportive brother gets to live a new life as one of the main characters in a Boy Love Game as “Gilbert Bedivere,” the son of a duke, who was his family’s pride.

His goal for this life is that he will have a slow living lifestyle, staying far away from problems.

But who would have known that getting too close to the main characters, who are his friends and his younger brother, would lead him away from the goal he has set!

Who are those main characters surrounding him…?

Hareve Lancelot… a white-haired boy with rainbow eyes who makes all the girls go crazy, as expected of the owner of the famous SM route and the user of the light magic. Even though he looks cold on the outside, who would have known he is super hot-tempered!

Nigel Gawain… an adorable-looking boy with silver eyes, the owner of the 3P route, but who would have known that he is just a fluffy boy!

Cass Bedivere… the protagonist of the game, with his golden eyes and hair, appears in the immoral love route. Even though he was born with dark magic, who would have known that he also has interesting relationships with other characters.

Not to mention many other characters that Gilbert has never met,

He now feels the problems lining up for him!

My Big Bad Wolf Series: Elysia & Alex-Book 1 (Nocturnal Collections)

She broke into his mansion. Now she’s trapped in his world.

A cunning thief with nothing to lose.
A powerful Alpha with everything to protect.
When Elysia Crinshaw is caught stealing from Alex Landry, she doesn’t go to jail, she’s claimed. Drawn into his world, she learns that freedom can be more dangerous than chains…and love more brutal than any cage.

The night before move-in, Vivian Owens’ housing collapses and her best friends betray her.

Her only lifeline? Crashing with her brother and his roommate —
Elias “Carter” Carter, the tattooed star point guard every girl wants.

One accidental aphrodisiac cookie night turns her into his willing little sub as he commands her

“Don’t stop, My Little Bubbles.”

But Carter’s gang past , a situationship with her own reconciled ex-best friend Kelly , draft pressure, and his own demons rip them apart again and again. Two pregnancies. Two brutal runaways. A jealous rival doctor who becomes a monster. Readers will scream at Carter, cry for him, and beg for more.

Some love don’t just break hearts — they start wars on and off the court.

Her hands slid up to his chest, palms flat, feeling the solid strength beneath his shirt. The fear didn’t vanish completely. But it quieted. Receded into the background. Logan’s thumb brushed her cheek, slow and grounding, as his other hand settled at her waist.

The kiss grew warmer. Slower. Logan felt it too, sharp and electric. His wolf stirred restlessly, recognizing something it shouldn’t, something it wanted to claim even as his mind warned him to stop. He broke the kiss first, breathing hard, forehead resting against hers.

“Emily,” he murmured, strained. “We should—” She didn’t let him finish. Her lips brushed his jaw, tentative, almost questioning. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Don’t send me away.”


After being betrayed forty-eight times by her mate, Oscar, Emily is drugged and offered to powerful wolves for his gain. Desperate and fleeing danger, she collapses into the arms of Lucas Walker, one of seven feared Alpha Brothers who rule the strongest pack. Drawn to her by an unstoppable pull, the brothers vow to protect her. But Emily’s past hides a darker secret, one that fate has bound to all of them.

I used to think love was supposed to hurt.

Sidney forgot me five times in one month, left me waiting in the dark, and always had a reason—Azalea needed help, his friends needed him, something else came first.

I told myself he loved me.

He just loved me lazily.

Then one night, after I missed the last bus from my competition, I called the Lawson house. Sidney wasn’t there. Elijah answered.

He was rude. Cold. Infuriating.

But he came.

When three men cornered me on an empty street, Elijah became a wall between me and danger. When I cried in my bathroom, he cleaned my bruises. When my calf cramped so badly I couldn’t stand, he knelt on the tile and fixed the pain with careful hands.

He never said sweet things.

He just showed up.

Again and again.

Soon, I started looking for him in every crowd, every rainstorm, every silent night. I told myself it was gratitude. Dependence. Anything but love.

Because falling for Elijah meant betraying Sidney.

But how long can a heart stay loyal to someone who never protects it?

They say the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. They never said anything about his soul.

I was a culinary prodigy on the verge of global fame until my fiancé and my best friend murdered me with my own carving knife to steal my recipes. My last thought wasn’t of love, but of a burning vow: If I get a second chance, I will serve them their just deserts.

I got my wish.

I woke up not in a morgue, but in the body of an omega slave, Number 74, in the brutal, wolf-ruled kingdom of the Lunar Fang Pack. I was weak, worthless, and slated to die in the kitchens. But they didn’t know who they were dealing with. The soul of a master chef still burned within me.

When I poured my rage and my grief into a simple broth for a dying slave, I discovered a truth that would shatter this world: my emotions are ingredients. My cooking is magic. A stew made with spite can poison. A cake baked with defiance can empower.

Now, my unique gift has drawn the attention of the three most dangerous Alphas in the kingdom.

Emperor Kael, the cursed and ruthless Alpha King
ho woman, not just the weapon.

Commander Cassian, his stoic, lethal protector,

Prince Raze, the visiting rival Alpha

They think I’m a pawn in their game of thrones. A tool to be used and discarded.

They have no idea.

I was betrayed for my recipes once. I’ll be damned if I let a trio of Alphas do it again. My menu is set, and this time, the main course is revenge.

The only question is: which of these powerful wolves will be the first to take a bite?

I accidentally entered an S-rank horror dungeon, but thought it was some immersive dating show.

Facing the bloodthirsty Ghost King BOSS:

Others: Begging for mercy.

Me (blushing): Those pecs, that battle-damaged look—where did they find such a gorgeous contestant? I'm obsessed!

When he tried to strangle me, I touched his hand. "You're so cold, let me warm you up~"

Ghost King: ???

Facing the psycho doctor with a chainsaw:

Others: Screaming and running.

Me (swooning): Doctor, those beautiful fingers are meant for piano, not chainsaws. Be sweet and put that down!

Doctor: ...

Facing the flesh-eating demon:

Me: Raw meat isn't healthy! Here, have some chocolate instead!

Seven days later, the dungeon collapsed.

Me, waving goodbye through tears. "Even though it was acting, you became my family!"

When the zombie apocalypse hit, my girlfriend called me weak and hypocritical. She said only the strong deserved to survive, then handed the map of the base I had spent two years building to a warlord and watched me bleed out in the dirt.

Then I opened my eyes and woke up four months earlier.

The warlord had not arrived yet.
I did not expose her. I did not beg her to stay. I quietly reinforced the walls, emptied the warehouse, and dug traps beyond the fence.

She passed the intel like before. She opened the gate like before. She thought she would win again, and she thought I would be softhearted again.

She only realized the truth after leading them into the warehouse and finding an empty cage.

She dropped to her knees in the mud, begging the warlord to take her with him. But the strong man she chose kicked her off the truck and left her for the dead.

At last, she tasted the rule she worshipped.

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

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

I signed.

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

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

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

They thought the money bought my silence.

They have no idea what it bought.

Missing for five years, I dragged my slightly crippled left leg back to the slums.

Only to see my once-gentle wife wearing a cheap, fraying apron, being mercilessly humiliated in front of a greasy sink.
My five-year-old son was cowering beside a pile of garbage, clutching a broken toy, trembling in fear.

A high-and-mighty tycoon slapped a three-million-dollar IOU across my face. A thug kicked a plate of rancid, rotting meat scraps to my feet, sneering, "Lick it clean, and I'll waive ten thousand in interest."

Desperate to protect me, my wife pushed me away, only to be brutally kicked into the muddy water by a bodyguard, revealing a back covered in a suffocating, horrific lattice of burn marks and whip scars.

Everyone thought I was just a crippled piece of trash—a useless man who couldn't even protect his own wife and child.
That was, until I reached into my coat and pulled out a black satellite phone that had gathered dust for five years.

"Disable Ghost Silence Protocol. Initiate full takeover."

That night, eight heavy attack helicopters tore through the clouds, blotting out the sky.
Hundreds of fully armed, elite special operatives descended from above. Dropping to one knee in the freezing mud, they roared in unison: "Welcome back, Young Master!"

The entire city’s municipal assets, the police force, the underworld—both the light and the dark—could be reduced to ashes with a single thought from me.

I took off my tattered jacket and draped it gently over my wife's trembling shoulders. Then, I crushed the tycoon's mechanical prosthetic limb with my bare hands. My voice was calm, yet it sent a chilling shockwave through everyone present:

"Three million? I just did the math on the scars you owe my wife..."
"Now, you owe me thirty billion."

An epic cold snap struck, causing temperatures to plummet to minus eighty degrees Celsius.
My fiancée and best friend occupied my hillside villa, laughing hysterically as they watched a video of me nearly freezing to death.
In their eyes, once I turned into a solid block of ice, they could rightfully inherit my vast fortune and live in this warm, doomsday Noah's Ark.
But what they didn't know was that the video was n't real at all .
I stood in the temperature-controlled bunker twenty meters below them and cut off their main power.
The hunt was about to begin.

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

Before the apocalypse in my previous life, my adopted sister blindly believed an online post claiming an extreme global freeze was coming. She forced me to spend everything on raw meat and heavy winter gear. When the "Extreme Heat" apocalypse actually arrived, all her supplies rotted into putrid waste. To vent her frustration, she locked me in a cage and left me to be baked alive in the scorching heat.
Reborn, I smiled and helped her hoard ten tons of raw meat and heavy leather jackets, watching as she dreamed of becoming the Queen of the Wasteland...

"Aveline, a world without you means nothing to me."
The dragon's scalding blood splattered across my tombstone, melting the thick blanket of snow.
Five minutes ago, he had severed the crimson fox's head—vengeance for me.
I died at the hands of my most cherished companion, died in a carefully orchestrated betrayal. I'd wielded the full power of the Court to elevate that pitiful low-born wretch to godhood, only for him to join forces with my dear sister and plunge a blade into my heart from behind.
And the dragon war god I had scorned—the one I'd humiliated and treated as nothing more than a beast slave—defied imperial decree, razed an entire city, and severed his own life force. All for me.
I watched his dragonfire extinguish completely in the bitter cold. My soul reached out to embrace him, but passed through nothing but endless snow.
Until a blinding light pierced through my vision.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself staring up at the familiar domed ceiling of the Celestial Hall.
I had returned to three years ago, to the Binding Ceremony that sealed my fate.
Reborn into a second chance, those vermin who climbed to power on dragon bones will finally get the hell they deserve.

I used to believe the most beautiful sound in the world was a baby's first cry.

Until I watched my three children die, one by one, at the hands of a woman with the sweetest smile.

Her name was Isabella, my husband's cousin. She would tenderly offer tissues after my miscarriages, frantically call for help when I fell down the stairs, thoughtfully make soup to comfort me after I lost each child.

She was such a talented actress. So convincing that even my mafia don husband said, "Isabella is more suited to be the lady of this house than you are."

But they didn't know—

A docile sheep, once it learns the wolf's rules, becomes far more dangerous than any real wolf.

When Dominick smashed Antonio's skull with the holy chalice, when Isabella screamed through her miscarriage in the basement, when blood splattered across the Virgin Mary's face...

Every July, my husband left for a business trip to France—so for seven full years of marriage, we never once got to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
This time, I flew all the way to France to surprise him, and mid-flight, I stumbled across a social media post.
My dream girl finally agreed to be with me. How do I make the frumpy, worn-out wife back home file for divorce on her own?
The OP poured out his grievances in the comment section:
When my dream girl suddenly moved abroad, I married her former best friend to keep me company through the hard times, just so I wouldn’t lose touch with her completely.
Now she’s finally said yes to being with me, and I’ve made enough to give her the lavish, privileged life she deserves.
I want my wife to find out about my affair herself so I can get a clean divorce without a fight, but she’s so painfully oblivious. I’ve come home reeking of my dream girl’s perfume on purpose, and every single July I fly here to France for our private time together, watching the lavender bloom in Provence with her. She never noticed a thing.
Perfume. July. France.
Those matching details made my fingers go numb. A deafening buzz exploded in my skull. A bone-deep chill washed over me, and I prayed with everything I had that it was all just a terrible coincidence.
Until I read the final line.
Just got a spending alert from her supplementary credit card—she bought a flight to France. I’m heading to pick up my dream girl now, might as well keep an eye out for her, just in case.
The plane touched down. When I stepped into the arrivals hall, I lifted my head almost instinctively.
There stood Shen Sinian, the man I hadn’t seen in two weeks, in a crisp, tailored suit, a bouquet of roses in his hand, locked in a passionate kiss with a woman with a stunning, willowy figure, her back to me.
He opened his eyes by chance, and through the crowd of travelers, his gaze locked directly with mine.

My son was killed in a horrific car bomb assassination.

At his rain-drenched funeral, my husband, Enzo—a Mafia Don—held an umbrella over my head, only to suddenly state with icy indifference:

"Gianna is pregnant. It's my blood."

Gianna. The illegitimate daughter of the Lucchese family boss.

I stiffened, looking up in sheer disbelief.

"What the hell does that mean?"

He cast a careless glance at me, completely unbothered.

"To end the war between the Corsican and Lucchese families, I've been with her in secret for a while now. Now that she carries the Corsican bloodline, I must give her a proper title. She will be moving into the estate tonight. You will not only accept this, but you will also give her the respect she deserves as the mother of my child."

In my past life, the night before the National Cheerleading Championship finals, my "best friend" Lily, the scholarship student I'd been sponsoring, handed me a brownie she claimed she'd "baked herself."

She knew I had a deadly peanut allergy. Yet she'd loaded it with concentrated peanut butter.

When I collapsed on the locker room floor, hives erupting across my skin, my throat swelling shut until I couldn't make a sound, Lily just covered her mouth and nestled into my boyfriend Liam's arms, whimpering: "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I'm such an idiot. I mixed up the peanut butter with chocolate... you won't blame me, right?"

Of course I blamed you.

The quarterback I'd loved for three years didn't call 911. Instead, he frowned down at me convulsing on the ground.

"Chloe, stop faking, okay?" Liam's voice dripped with annoyance. "Lily already apologized. Why do you have to put on this dramatic show to scare her? You're always so controlling."

Controlling?

My airway was closing. My lungs were on fire. I was dying, and I couldn't force out a single word to tell him.

They didn’t call an ambulance until I stopped moving, but by the time it got there, it was too late. I was already dead.

When the police questioned him, Liam gave false testimony to protect Lily. He claimed I was afraid of losing the competition, so I tried to use an allergic reaction to avoid competing, but accidentally ingested too much of the allergen and died.

The man who said he loved me let me die with the reputation of a coward.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on that day.