87 Book(s) Related to family upstairs summary

“I am flawed in every way possible,” she said.

“Good, I never asked for perfection,” he replied immediately.

When Sapphire Conrad, the wayward daughter of the Conrad Family, was called back to New York after running away from home to Gisborne, she only had a plan.

Appear at the mansion, listen to whatever nonsense she had to say and say no to it, put up a strong font, then go back to her kids in Gisborne.

Using her energy while trying to get revenge on all of them is a total waste of time even though they deserved to be trampled upon for what they did to her, they are not worth her time and energy.

It sounds like an easy enough plan until she got there and was asked to get into a marriage of convenience.

Staying at New York was risky, she would be forced to face her ex-fiance who she had a nine years relationship with, the ex-best friend who snatched her fiance, her sister and mother who hate her with passion, and the list was longer than just that.

But she couldn't leave her twin brother who is in danger there and there is this tiny little fact that Mr. Alexander Antonio Aldine, the CEO of Triple A Group definitely won't let her go.

In the shadow of small-town whispers and a barren womb, Susan Hart faces the ultimate shame: three years married to Greg, no baby in sight. His weak seed confirmed by doctors, the family fortune hangs by a thread—no heir, no inheritance.

Desperate, she turns to the men who can deliver: rugged father-in-law Frank, with his grizzled stamina, and ripped brother-in-law Jake, Lily's fertile stud. What starts as a whispered plea in the bathroom escalates to raw kitchen poundings, warehouse fistings, and father-son tag-teams amid crates of grain.

"Family first," they growl, flooding her fertile depths. But Greg's rage simmers, Lily's suspicions sharpen, and Susan's body betrays her with shattering orgasms. One load could save her marriage—or shatter the Hart dynasty forever.

Will the breeding pact bind them in ecstasy... or bury them in scandal?

When my parents and my fiancé Gilbert asked me once again to donate my kidney to my cousin Yvonne, who was hospitalized with kidney failure, I didn't cry or scream.

I simply said one word: "Okay."

My parents and Gilbert were stunned. They rushed to have me sign the voluntary donation form, afraid I’d change my mind.

Some days later, they sent me to the operating room.

Dad said, "Yvonne will finally be saved. We're so proud of you."

Mom said, "After the surgery, we'll make it up to you."

Gilbert looked tenderly at Yvonne and said, "When you're better, where should we travel?"

What they didn't know was that the day I agreed, I'd just received my diagnosis, stage four cancer. Three months to live.

As I lay on the cold operating table, as the anesthesia began to take effect, I only wanted to know one thing:

If I die on this operating table, will they regret it?

As he got closer to climax, he was more aggressively gripping my hair, "you're mine and no one will ever take you from me," he whispered as my heart beat faster and faster in a panic.


Vivienne Layley lost her husband in a car accident. Over and over again she keeps running into Officer Aaron Jansen. Officer Jansen is not who he claims to be, a sinister motive is lurking just beyond Vivienne's view. She feels herself drawn to him, and something about him just made her couldn't stop thinking about him. Will Vivienne be able to escape his possessive and obsessive ways, or will Officer Jansen ultimately get what he wants?

This is a three-book series.

Book 1 - Healing Broken Hearts - Anushka is a single mother and CEO of a profitable acquisitions firm. The last thing on her mind is getting involved with a man when her last relationship was filled with abuse and lies. However, when she and her daughter, Dakota, go on vacation, they meet Jordan on the beach, and her plans begin to waver. Once secrets are uncovered, Anushka and her daughter may become targets of people they have never met. Will Jordan be able to show Anushka and Dakota that love can mend even the most shattered of hearts, or will they be torn apart before they have a chance at love?

Book 2 - Dakota - When someone close to Dakota is murdered while protecting her, she vows to get revenge. She confronts the man who her family believes is responsible, and she’s faced with the reality that things may not be what they seem. To complicate matters, a man comes into her life and wants to turn her world upside down. Can she have love, revenge, and an alliance with those who she thought were enemies, or will her world come crashing down when someone she trusts betrays her?

Book 3 - Dakota: Loyalty - Dakota has been tested by those she loves and by her enemies, but one thing has remained constant through it all: loyalty. She values loyalty above all else because she believes those who are loyal will have her back when she needs it. Throughout this story, her love, strength, and resilience will be tested time and again. She doesn't know who is on her side or who is on the side of her enemies. Will she survive, or will she sacrifice herself to save those she loves?

Make a delivery, get in, and get out. It seemed simple, but how could I know that I would meet the hottest guy ever? Just one look at him made my body shiver in anticipation and my heart race.

During bright and sunny summer holidays, a group of incredibly wealthy teenage friends embark on a lifestyle filled with luxury and unforgettable adventures. Staying in a stunning beachfront villa, their days and nights are a perfect blend of fun, relaxation, and excitement but filled with conflicts and drama.

The story revolves around six friends: Jake ( Jaxon), Maddie, Oliv (Olivia), Ethan, Liam, and Ruby, Together, they create a summer full of extravagant and memorable moments.

Their days are spent indulging in the finest things life has to offer. They host private yacht parties along the beautiful Hawaiian cost, take spontaneous trips to exclusive destinations in their private jets, and relax by their luxurious infinity pool. They savor gourmet meals prepared by world-class chefs and embark on high-end shopping sprees at prestigious boutiques. They find themselves at glamorous parties, exclusive club events, or enjoying intimate gatherings under the starry sky each night.

Despite their opulent lifestyle, the friends face the complexities of their relationships, personal ambitions, and the constant scrutiny of the public eye. Amidst the glamour, they navigate issues of trust, loyalty, and the search for true happiness.

Summer Kills is a vibrant and glamorous tale of friendship, fortune, and the limitless possibilities that come with immense wealth. This story offers a dazzling portrayal of the ultimate summer, where every day is an adventure and every night is a celebration.

One summer, Callisto and his family visited the town of Isabela, the place where the legendary Mt. Octover could be found. In a short time, Callisto met and fell in love with a strange girl named Stalin. However, their relationship wasn’t easy because Stalin had been cursed by a goddess named Estrella, and she had lost her sanity.
During their vacation, Sebastian and Dorothy, Callisto’s parents, reminisced their memories from seventeen years earlier, when they were a young couple. But not all those memories were pleasant; some were nightmares they wished to forget forever. Due to amnesia, however, Callisto’s father couldn't remember any of it.
Callisto had a sister named Ruth, but she wasn’t his sister by blood. Ruth was adopted from an orphanage. Unbeknownst to the family, she was actually one of Estrella’s minions.
Now it's your turn to accompany Callisto in his journey to unravel the mysteries of his parents’ past, the curse haunting his beloved Stalin, and the true intention behind Ruth’s return.

They said I killed them all.

My father. My daughter. My brother's legs. One explosion, one moment of selfishness, and I became the family murderer.

My husband Dominic—the most feared mafia boss in the city—drowned himself in whiskey. I drowned myself in something worse.

Three years on the pole. Three years with strangers' cash stuffed in my bra, their cocks shoved down my throat, their fists in back alleys, their cameras catching every degradation. Three years swallowing cum and shame to scrape together half a million for my brother's surgery.

Then the doctors found the tumor. Three months left.

One last show, I told myself. A blindfolded performance. Enough to pay off Ethan's debt before I died.

That's when someone ripped off my blindfold.

Dominic.

Behind him stood my very-alive father. And Ethan—on two perfect legs, kicking aside an empty wheelchair. And my adopted sister Vanessa, draped over my husband, flashing a diamond ring.

This whole performance? Her birthday present.

"Surprise, sweetheart." Dominic smiled. "The explosion was fake. We just needed to put you in your place."

Ethan laughed. "Three years of stripper money made one hell of a party, sis."

My father still wouldn't look at me. "Learn to treat Vanessa right, or you're no daughter of mine."

The room exploded in laughter.

I stood there, diagnosis crumpled in my fist.

The explosion was fake. The crippled legs were fake. Everything was fake.

But the cancer eating my brain?

That was real.

From #1 New York Times Bestselling author Vi Keeland comes a new, sexy standalone novel.The first time I met Max Yearwood was on a blind date.Max was insanely gorgeous, funny, and our chemistry was off the charts. He also had the biggest dimples I’d ever laid eyes on.Exactly what I needed after my breakup.Or so I thought…Until my real date arrived.Turned out, Max wasn’t who I was there to meet. He only pretended to be until my real date showed up.To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.Before he left, he slipped me a ticket to a hockey game a few blocks away, in case things didn’t work out on my actual date.I tossed the ticket into my purse and went about trying to enjoy the man I was supposed to meet.But my real blind date and I had no connection.So on my way home, I decided to take a chance and stop by the game.When I arrived, the seat next to me was empty.Disappointed again, I decided to leave at the end of the period.Just before the buzzer, one of the teams scored, and the entire arena went crazy.A player’s face flashed up on the Jumbotron. He was wearing a helmet, but I froze when he smiled.You guessed it: Dimples.Apparently, my fake blind date hadn’t invited me to watch hockey with him, he’d invited me to watch him play.And so began my adventure with Max Yearwood.He was everything I needed at the time—fun, sexy, up for anything, and only around for a few months since he’d signed with a new team three-thousand miles away.Max proposed we spend the summer helping me forget my ex. It sounded like a good plan. Things couldn’t get too serious when we had an expiration date. Right?Though, you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

In order to get her family's love, she always pretended to be ugly and dumb. But instead of getting her family's attention, what she got was hatred and disgust.

What's more her family set her marriage, instead of her sister, to a cripple and impotent man.

On the day of her wedding, her own mother came to her and begged her. "Your sister deserves much better. You have to help her!"

Lost in despair, she agreed to meet her family's decision and married to her sister's fiancée.

On her wedding night, her husband looked at her and frowned, "You are too ugly."

So what do you think will happen when she marries to that man? Will she regret or there will be some miracle in her life?

Betty have been living a lie for as long as she can remember. She have been abused by her parents her whole life, even though she is a broken and abused girl in her own home. Outside of those four walls she is a force to be reckoned with! She is not afraid to do what she need to stay alive!

After months of being bullied at school, things got even worse—the bullies said they wanted to come to my house.
Wanted to see what kind of family a "dog" like me came from.
I begged them, sobbing, not to do it.
Because my dad is a serial killer. My mom is a twisted murderer. And my brother is a full-blown psychopath.
If they come to my house, they will die.

In my past life, when I eagerly handed my ultrasound to my gentle doctor husband, I didn't get a warm embrace. I got a scalpel. Without anesthesia.

The man I loved dragged me into a pitch-black basement to butcher me alive. My once-doting mother called me a filthy whore, treating me like a sickening stain on the family. My fiercely protective brother pinned me to a metal workbench, offering me up as a living sacrifice.

I died in utter agony, left to rot and be eaten alive by rats in the dark. Up until my last breath, I couldn't understand:

Why did a single piece of paper—a sonogram of a perfectly healthy baby—instantly turn my entire family into bloodthirsty monsters?

Natalie swore she would never come back to Blackwood Ridge.
Not after the memories. Not after the abandonment. And definitely not after the mother who chose ambition over her own daughter.

But when her estranged mother—now the powerful CFO of Sterling Crest Bank—asks her to return home for the summer, Natalie reluctantly agrees. Years ago, after her parents divorced, Natalie left town with her father and never looked back. While her mother built a new life with a wealthy husband and a stepson Natalie has never met, Natalie spent years trying to bury the hurt that small town left behind.

From the moment she arrives, Blackwood Ridge feels suffocating. The whispers, the memories, the people who still remember her family’s scandal—it all makes Natalie desperate to escape. So when an old acquaintance drags her to a local frat party on her very first night back, she throws caution aside and drinks far too much.

The night should’ve ended in disaster.

Instead, a mysterious stranger pulls her out before things spiral completely out of control. He had striking heterochromia—one eye a vivid emerald green, the other an icy ocean blue. The contrast was sharp and almost hypnotic. He takes care of her when no one else does. But when Natalie wakes up the next morning tangled in his sheets with almost no memory of the night before, panic sets in. Certain she made a terrible mistake, she prepares for the worst.

What she doesn’t expect is him.

Cold, guarded, and hiding secrets of his own, the last thing he wants is Natalie disrupting the carefully controlled life he’s built. Yet the more they collide, the more impossible it becomes to stay away from each other.

Madeline Quinn was supposed to spend the summer tracking whales—not falling for the two rugged, infuriating brothers who run the research boat.

Jake is steady and silent. Reid is sharp and impossible. They’re both off-limits.

And yet… the deeper she goes, the harder it is to come up for air.


“You should’ve stayed on the boat,” Jake said, voice quiet but firm.

“I’m not made of glass,” she snapped.

Reid pushed off the wall with one boot. “No, you’re made of trouble.”

“Reid—” Jake warned without looking at him.

“What?” Reid said with a shrug, moving a step closer. “Look at her. She knows what she’s doing.”

Madeline lifted her chin. “And what exactly am I doing?”

“Turning this into something dangerous,” Reid said, almost too calmly. His eyes didn’t waver.

Jake finally looked at her. “It already is.”

She swallowed. Her pulse thudded in her throat.

“You think I don’t feel it too?”

Reid’s lips twitched like he almost smiled. “Oh, she feels it.”
He stepped closer—just enough to make her catch her breath.
“But I don’t think she knows what to do with it.”

Jake stood now, his movements slower, more deliberate. “That’s enough.”

“No,” Madeline said, softer now. “He’s right. I don’t know what this is. With either of you.”

Reid’s voice dropped. “Then let us show you.”

A long silence. The kind that doesn’t feel empty—just heavy.

Jake’s gaze didn’t waver. “Together.”

Her breath hitched. Rain hit the windows. Her towel slipped an inch lower on her shoulder.

“God help me,” she whispered.

With a 28.6-second prediction ability, Kane Voss hides as an ordinary shop owner. His cold lawyer wife holds a buried family crime secret. Assets wars, deadly ambushes, and underworld battles break out. He unfolds his god of war aura, crushes all enemies, and tears down every hidden dark truth.

When I accepted the Global War Photography Award at the ceremony, a reality TV crew crashed through the velvet ropes, their cameras flashing like strobes at a crime scene.
"Ms. Evelyn Vance!"
The host shoved a microphone in my face. "After twenty years of silence, are you still holding a grudge against your father? Just because he saved the neighbor's orphaned child first and left you in that burning building?"
I looked up, past the blinding lights, toward the figure at the edge of the crowd. Robert Bennett.
He pushed through and stepped forward, his calloused hands trembling as they closed around my cold fingers.
"Nora, Kayla's parents didn't make it out. Under those circumstances, I had to get that newly orphaned child to safety first."
His eyes pleaded with me. "You're my daughter. You understand, don't you?"
I stared at those hands imprisoning mine, then pulled my lips into a cold smile and wrenched free.
"You've got the wrong person," my voice was ice. "There's no Nora here. My name is Evelyn Vance."

The day he proposed, Atticus knelt before me, holding the Hale family's heirloom necklace.
I thought I had finally survived the ordeal.
After eight years of unrequited love, being humiliated by his sister, nitpicked by his mother, and mocked by the city's socialites for being unworthy of the Hales... Until this very moment, when he personally fastened the heirloom around my neck. Everyone saw it. I, Clara, was finally accepted by the Hale family.
Tears in my eyes, I said yes, thinking it was the happiest moment of my life.
But just days after putting on that necklace, bizarre red rashes crawled up my neck. My pale skin rotted away piece by piece, and my internal organs went into irreversible failure.
The most absurd part? The exact same day I started rotting, his dying mother miraculously cured her terminal illness, and his sister's half-destroyed face was restored to flawless perfection.
Disfigured and barely looking human, I threw myself off the Harbour Bridge—
I opened my eyes, and I was back on the day of the proposal.

“Tianna! No! Stop it! Your brother is in the other room!”
Read and enjoy the experience of Valencia and Aaron, from friends with benefits to a real relationship. Will she leave Aaron for his sister Tianna? Read and find out!

Fourteen years ago, Isabella Winston died.

At least, that's what everyone believed.

One moment, she was trapped inside a sinking car beneath the icy waters of the Hudson River. The next, she woke up in her own bathtub and somehow fourteen years in the future.

Her husband is no longer the warm, easygoing man she remembers.

Her five-year-old son is now a nineteen-year-old stranger who looks at her with suspicion.

Her twins barely remember the mother they lost—one forever chasing affection, the other keeping the entire world at arm's length.

And the family she left behind has become something broken, distant, and unrecognizable.

Now Isabella faces an impossible challenge: rebuilding a family that never truly recovered from losing her.

Fourteen years have left scars on everyone.

Unfortunately for those causing the damage, Isabella Winston has returned to set things right.

After five years in a long-distance relationship, I boarded a more than 10-hour flight without telling him, touched down in the city where he lived, all to give him a surprise.
Hardly had my phone connected to the local network when I scrolled across a post pushed to my feed from the same city.
The title read: What’s the thing you’ve done that you’ve never regretted for a single second?
The top comment stared back at me, sharp and unmistakeable:
I got him drunk and slept with him on the day we graduated college. Back then, he promised his girlfriend he’d never see me again, but his heart softens the moment I cry. Now our kid is 4 years old, and I’m pregnant with our second baby!
The comments below were flooded with questions, and someone asked outright: OP, are you the other woman?
She replied with unapologetic audacity: The one who isn’t loved is the real homewrecker. Besides, that woman was abducted and molested before. She’s long been tainted, and she never deserved him in the first place.
My fingers began to shake uncontrollably. Every single detail lined up perfectly with my own life.
Desperate to calm my heart, which felt like it was about to hammer out of my chest, I stepped into a roadside convenience store to buy a bottle of water.
The second I looked up at the checkout counter, the blood in my veins turned to ice in an instant.
The woman standing beside the cash register was none other than Su Miaomiao—the same woman who’d lain in the same hotel bed with Lu Sinian on that night of our college graduation.
My feet felt nailed to the floor as I watched her walk out of the store with a smile on her face.
The very next second, she threw herself into the arms of a man across the street, tilting her head up to kiss him in a sweet, lingering embrace.
That man was Lu Sinian. My husband. The man I’d legally married, the man I’d spent five years in a long-distance relationship with, the man who’d vowed over and over again to love me and protect me.

At the auction, when Anna’s painting was sold for the highest price of the night, I died in a dim underground studio.

No one knew that the painting had stolen my inspiration.

I was the most talented painter in the Hale family, yet I lived forever in my sister’s shadow — only because our paintings always ended up strangely similar.

At first, people said it was the bond between sisters.
Later, after my sister stole my paintings and exhibited them first, I became the so-called thief who plagiarized her works, while Anna turned into a celebrated, sought-after painter.

“Hard work really is more reliable than talent.” That was what people loved to say.

Before the auction, my family locked me away in the studio.
“Don’t ruin Anna’s big night.”

My sister Anna handed me a piece of bread.
“Little sister, have something to eat. When the auction’s over, we’ll go celebrate with a nice meal.”

“Look how kind your sister is — she still worries you’re hungry.”
Mother kicked me hard.

But she never knew Anna had poisoned the bread.
After just one bite, my skin broke out in rashes, I could barely breathe, and pain tore through every part of me.

Before I suffocated, I called my boyfriend Edd.
All I got was his cold scold:
“Lily, stop playing these cheap tricks!”

To the busy beep of the phone, I took my last breath.

When they came home triumphantly, thinking I was just being moody and refusing to join the celebration, they never knew I had stayed forever in that dark, quiet studio.

If there is one person Josie hates more than her aunt Beth, it's Richard Kingston. The boy who tortured her growing up. But she thought she'd seen the last of him years ago. So, why the hell is he showing up now to ruin her life? Why is he demanding she marry him, when she was planning on marrying her boyfriend James? And why does it seem like he's keeping secrets she doesn't want to unlock?

Saints and Sinners- She was the light to my dark.
The saint to my sinner. with her innocent eyes and devilish curves.
A Madonna that was meant to be admired but never touched.
Until someone took that innocence from her.
She left.
The darkness in my heart was finally complete.
I avenged her, I killed for her, but she never came back.
Until I saw her again. An angel dancing around a pole for money.
She didn’t know I owned that club. She didn’t know I was watching.
This time I won’t let her escape.
I will make her back into the girl I knew.
Whether she likes it or not.
2/ Judge and Jury- I can’t stop watching her.

I’m not even sure I want to.

Taylor Lawson, blonde, beautiful, and totally oblivious to how much dangers she’s in.

She’s also the one juror in my upcoming murder trial that hasn’t been bought.

The one who can put me behind bars for a very long time.

I know I should execute her.
After all that’s what I do.

I am the Judge.
I eliminate threats to The Family.
And Taylor is a threat.
But I don’t want to kill her.
Possessing her, making her love me seems like a much better plan for this particular Juror.

3/ Rags and Ritches-

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

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

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

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

They had spent a lifetime underestimating the quiet one.

They were about to learn what that costs.

Married to Declan Hargrove for three years, I kept my past locked away tight. I let no one near Greybell, and I never, ever mentioned the name Calloway.
Until Piper excitedly dug up the "incest scandal" between me and my own brother. The Hargrove family booked their flights that very night, vowing to fly to Greybell and tear my "white-trash" parents to shreds.
I knelt on the carpet, shaking and sobbing.
But hiding behind the curtain of my long hair, no one saw the truth. I wasn’t begging for my own life.
I was begging for theirs.
Because my brother, Reid, had already gotten the news. He was in Greybell right now, preparing an unforgettable "feast" for our arrogant guests.

Aurora is A simple maiden living in the occupied lands of Montenegro.

At a banquet truss, She was invited to the mansion of the Montenegro and one night changed her life when she met her siblings, Manuel and Ezekiel.
She discovered that the siblings had a strange feeling for her. She discovers that she also has a secret love for Montenegro.

How can he fight that love without hurting the other one?

From the heat of summer nights to the quiet of winter mornings, each book in The Seasons of Us series follows a journey of first love, heartbreak, and the fragile hope of starting over. With every season comes a new chapter, new beginnings, painful goodbyes, and moments that linger long after they’ve passed.

ORIGINALLY ON AMAZON

The car crash six months ago destroyed my body. I survive the agony only through the painkillers prescribed by my brother, Fletcher.
While shopping for my wedding dress, I simply swallowed a pill on schedule. My mother responded with a slap that made me spit blood. My father stormed in and kicked my ribs in without asking a single question.
I fled crying to my brother, only for him to grab me in disgust: "You are a disgrace to this family."
I called my fiancé. He rushed to the scene, took one look at the pill, and called the cops without hesitation: "The engagement is off. She makes me sick."
In just a few hours, I went from a bride-to-be to a death row inmate.
But as the gavel fell, I saw our family maid calmly swallow the exact same pill from the gallery…
I lunged at the railing, screaming at the judge. He leaned down, a chilling smile spreading across his face: "Linnea, this is all because…"

For six years, I sold my body to underground clinics as a human lab rat to cure my son's heart failure and pay off my husband's debts.

Today, my biological brother kicked away the medicine I bought with half my life.

"Lucas was never sick. We faked the medical records to teach you a lesson for upsetting Virginia."

My husband coldly chimed in:

"I never went bankrupt either."

Even the son I bled to birth stabbed my arm, screaming, "A bloody monster like you doesn't deserve to be my mom!"

I finally realized my entire life was a meticulously crafted scam.

With my organs rapidly failing and only ten days left to live, I stepped onto the edge of the balcony.

"You're right," I smiled at my husband and brother, watching the color completely drain from their faces. "Six years of my life isn't enough to apologize to her."

"So I'll pay you with my corpse."

In my last life, my younger brother made a contract with an S-rank ghost, but it turned out to be completely useless, while I contracted a B-rank ghost, the Starving Ghost, which could not only devour monsters but also consume other awakened humans' ghost servants to evolve.
Under my protection, my family went from scavenging for scraps to living in a luxury mansion inside the government safe zone.
But on the eve of a ghost tide attack, I was prepared to stay behind and defend the base while sending my parents, my sister, and my younger brother away first.
Instead, they killed me, all to take my Starving Ghost so they could have an easier time surviving on the road.
After I died, they didn't even have time to tame the Starving Ghost before it devoured every one of them.
When I opened my eyes again, I had somehow returned to the day we formed our ghost contracts, and this time, my younger brother chose the Starving Ghost.

After years of marriage, my husband and son see me as a disgrace.
Time and again, they abandon me to care for another woman, and this time, I finally wake up.
They are not worth my love！
But when I officially ask for a divorce, they suddenly claim that I am the one they truly love.
What is going on?

They told me the baby was gone, but they didn't tell me my heart was being carved out, too.

I woke up on the operating table, paralyzed. Through my blurred vision, I saw my beloved husband, Marco, trembling with excitement as he held my medical chart.

"Her blood is perfect," he whispered. "It is a perfect match for Isabella. We can proceed with the transplant now."

"Finally. It wasn't in vain that I brought her back." My revered father let out a sigh of relief. "If it weren't for this day, how would someone who wandered outside for so many years be qualified to step into this house again?"

When my husband said "I love you," he actually meant "Your heart is perfect for the woman I truly love."

I couldn't scream; I couldn't move.

I could only watch helplessly as the silver scalpel pierced toward my chest, while my sister, Isabella, lay on the operating table next to me, smiling in her sleep.

I was never a long-lost daughter, nor was I a beloved wife.

I was just a mobile blood bank waiting to be slaughtered.

"Help! Somebody help me! Julian is trying to kill my baby!" I scream at the top of my lungs, bursting into my gender reveal party.

Just minutes ago, Julian was my perfect, doting husband. Then he opens my unborn baby's genetic screening report. The unadulterated ferocity and revulsion simmering in his eyes makes my entire body shake. He grips my arm, demanding I terminate the pregnancy.

I already died once because of that piece of paper. In my past life, they dragged me to a freezing lab, pumped me full of drugs, and murdered my child before locking me in an asylum.

This time, I hide behind the guests. But my parents storm in. After seeing the report, instead of saving me, Dad kicks me squarely in the stomach.

"You shameless little whore," he spits.

They are about to drag me out the back door when two police officers step through the glass doors. The cop hands me the confiscated report.

I look down at the printed words... and finally understand.

Three years ago, a private plane crash took my father, my mother, my brother Carter, and Grayson, the man I'd loved for seven years and was about to marry.

To hold onto everything they left behind, I cried until my eyes were raw, destroyed my stomach, and fought my way through boardrooms and Wall Street vultures.

On countless nights, I held their photographs and cried until I passed out.

What I never understood was why Willow, the foster sister we'd taken in, vanished without a trace after the crash.

Until today, three years later, when I drive back to the family estate with a diagnosis in my bag telling me I have three months to live.

I push open the heavy door and hear laughter. I see my family—the family that's supposed to be dead—gathered around Willow and her three-year-old son, singing happy birthday.

Turns out no one in this world ever loved me at all.

Why do they all get to live while I'm the only one who have to die?

I’ve fought battles for the Empire for eighteen years, laden with honors and standing as its strongest bulwark—until an unexpected sneak attack by the enemy left me comatose.
When I opened my eyes once more, I found my daughter stripped naked by her classmates and paraded along the road on a dog leash.
My wife, whom I’d cherished and held dear above all else, had been forced to kneel before other men and endure unspeakable humiliation.
Even my elderly mother was driven to her knees, begging desperately for mercy.
How could the family of an Imperial General have fallen to such a miserable plight?
Three years. I was only unconscious for a mere three years…
Hatred spread like wildfire in my heart. I, Leon, have returned. From this day forward, I will let none of those who bullied and humiliated my family escape retribution.

My husband and I couldn’t get pregnant after we got married, and we really wanted a baby of our own,

We tried IVF, and after three failed rounds I finally got pregnant,

But then my husband and my parents suddenly started pressuring me to get an abortion...

On the third day after the Ice Age began on Earth, the temperature plummeted to minus fifty degrees Celsius, and human civilization disintegrated in the extreme cold.

My name is Anson, an ordinary convenience store clerk. After the apocalypse broke out, I risked my life to drive to pick up my mother-in-law Martha and her family and take them to a shelter.

Along the way, I unexpectedly discovered a large supermarket with abundant supplies, and I collected supplies with my wife Erin, mother-in-law Martha, father-in-law George, and brother-in-law Tom.

Just as we were about to leave with two trucks full of life-saving supplies, my mother-in-law, Martha, tricked me into going deep into the warehouse to move some goods. Then they locked the iron gate and drove away, leaving me to die in the supermarket surrounded by icy beasts.

In that moment of despair and waiting for death, the [Ice Fishing System] activated in my mind...

Seven days before the apocalypse, my vampire parents forced me to hand over three million to buy a house for my baby brother in full.

As an actuary, I knew that order would collapse in seven days and the money would become worthless. So I not only readily agreed, but also used their family's records as collateral to raise millions in high-interest loans, building an impregnable, top-secret fortress.

Seven days later, an unexpected change occurred.

The debt-collecting gangs and the endless horde of zombies drove them to the brink of despair. Meanwhile, I sat in a temperature-controlled safe house, sipping freshly ground coffee, calmly watching the cannibalistic karmic retribution unfold on the security camera.

In the apocalypse, there is no family affection, only the probability of survival.

Ariella Hayes was seventeen years old when she learned that grief had a taste.
It tasted like burnt sugar. Like the batch of croissants she’d left in the oven too long the morning after the funeral, too numb to hear the timer, too broken to care. Like the coffee, she drank black now because adding cream felt like a luxury she didn’t deserve. Grief tasted like everything and nothing.
Mostly nothing.
She was thinking about this at 4:47 a.m., lying in bed and staring at the water stain on her ceiling that resembled a reaching hand. She’d been awake since three. She was always awake from three, that gray hour when the world was silent enough to hear all the things she tried not to think about during the day.
Like how it was her fault.
How she should have been the one in the car.
How her mother hadn’t really looked at her in six months.
The timer screamed, and Ariella dragged herself out of bed, moving through the apartment like a ghost, past her mother’s bedroom door, down the narrow stairs to Hayes & Daughter Bakery. The name felt like a lie now. Her grandmother was gone. Ethan was gone. Soon the bakery would be gone too, and it would just be Ariella and her mother in an empty building, haunting the space where their family used to be.

She is about to embark on a life-altering journey as she enters a contract marriage with billionaire heir Aiden Frost, all in a bid to rescue her family’s struggling bakery. As they step into this pretend union, neither of them anticipates how their arrangement will evolve into a haven, where they might uncover feelings that challenge their initial intentions.

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.