138 Book(s) Related to lili clinger

Death should have been the end.

Instead, I wake up choking on warehouse air, a stranger's hand around my throat.

This time, I remember the man who was desperate to kill me.

Victor Sterling.

"Your scream killed my daughter!"
"I'll make you pay double."

In every loop, he finds me and kills me.

Julian pulls the trigger on himself just to turn back time one more time.

This time, I'm not waiting to be saved.

If the world insists on killing me, it had better be prepared.

This time, I'm rewriting the whole damn film.

If darkness comes for me again, I'll meet it on my terms.

“So impatient.”
“Shut up and kiss me,” she responds.
He needn’t be told twice. In a beat, Lorcan scoops her up in a motion too fast for the human eye to see. Hooking her legs around his waist, he carries her toward the bed while their lips wage war. He is already incredibly hard for her, his trousers becoming excruciatingly uncomfortable by the second as his patience hangs by a thread.
“This…” he says and tugs at the back of her dress, “…needs to come off.”
“Take it off,” Elle just about orders him, as if she is the queen and he the servant.
He growls at the command – not a threatening sound that dares her to order him around again, but rather a lusty sound as the authoritative tone in her voice makes his loins pulse.


Every hundred years, a new vampire king is crowned and hosts a kingdom-wide ball where he is to choose a mortal woman to sire an heir. It is enforced on each noble family to send one of their daughters to attend the ball.
After her father’s death, Elle became a maid to her cruel stepmother and stepsisters. But when word of the upcoming ball reaches the ears of the Clandestine family, Lady Clandestine forms a plan that will keep her daughters out of the clutches of the vampire king: send Elle in their place, disguised as a noble.
For what are the chances that the vampire king will choose her? And if he does, he will never know she is but a common maid. However, if he finds out…the punishment will be deadly.

The Getty family went bankrupt, and her fiancé's family stood by coldly, offering no help. Rebecca Getty signed a contract and had a whirlwind marriage with her fiancé's uncle—Frederick Windsor.
After the wedding, Rebecca's only thought was to pay back the 100 million yuan with interest, set Frederick free, and let him be with his first love.
When she repaid 5 million yuan, Frederick's face darkened.
When she repaid 50 million yuan, Frederick left home for three days.
Finally, when she paid off the entire 100 million yuan, Rebecca was pinned against the wall by the man. "Divorce? Fine!!! I'll give you all my property, and I'll give myself to you too— the kind that follows you wherever you go!"
Rebecca: ……

After losing her mother, Rose’s world shatters further when her father, Thomas, remarries the cunning Melissa and arranges a loveless marriage between Rose and Connor Miller, the aloof heir of the wealthy Miller family. What begins as a forced union quickly turns into a tangled web of betrayal, power, and forbidden longing.
From the moment Rose meets her in-laws, she sense their genuine smiles . Her step-sister Anna shamelessly flirts with her fiancé, while Connor himself makes it clear he loves another woman. Caught between her father’s greed and the Millers’ cold expectations, Rose learns to harden her heart., until she discovers an unexpected gentleness in Sean Miller, Connor’s older brother.
Despite her attempts to stay distant, Rose begins to notice Sean’s quiet protectiveness, his steady support, and the way his eyes soften only when they meet hers. But love in the Miller household comes at a cost.
As Rose faces manipulation from her stepfamily, public humiliation from Connor’s affair, and shocking revelations, including the unhinged obsession of Nancy, Sean’s stalker, she begins to uncover just how dangerous loyalty and love can be. Every step she takes pulls her deeper into the Millers’ secrets, forcing her to choose between survival and surrendering her heart.
Through heartbreak, deceit, and unexpected tenderness, Rose’s journey becomes one of self-discovery and quiet strength. She learns that true love isn’t born from duty or wealth, but from the person who stands beside you when the world turns cruel.
In the end, after enduring every hurdle fate throws her way, Rose finds peace, and love , not with the man she was forced to marry, but with the one who saw her for who she truly was all along: Sean Miller.

After having unfairly killed in my original world, I surprisingly got into another world - the parallel world. I took over someone else's body and got powerful. And what's even unexpected was the fact that I married the strongest paladin, Duke Zaren Valkyrine, in exchange of my life, including my revenge. But I also am to kill him for my self gains.

However, against my wishes, the Duke keep swaying my heart and his touches proved his affection for me.

I told him, "If you look at me that way, Your Grace, I'd mistakenly think that you love me."
"Don't worry, I won't ever love you." He said before kissing me gently.

Can I really keep pretending I don't love him, or can I muster the courage to kill him and unveil the secrets this world has?

"Do you really think I paid a million dollars for you to come here and mop the floor?"" My master, Alpha Devon said. He settled onto the couch, one hand resting on the cushion while the other playfully gestured for me to approach.


I am Aray, just 18, a possession of the most formidable alpha. "To me, you're nothing but a breeder, " his words sliced through me. I had long known that my love for him was hopeless and foolish. However, I was naïve to think that was the end of the story.

Witches and Werewolves lived under a curse, forbidden from using their powers or embracing their true nature. To break the curse, the Alpha had to unite through a child with a Witch descended from the first ones.

He refused to touch any virgin, let alone a witch. She had no knowledge of her lineage or her powers.
In a night of seduction, the two give in to desire, unaware of the trap set to end the curse.

But they will soon discover that the curse was the least of their problems. Enemies and even more powerful beings will emerge, seeking to end the life of their child and destroy their relationship.

On her 18th birthday, Emily faced betrayal. Her boyfriend turned out to be her sister’s mate. Not only did her father demand that she forgive her sister and her boyfriend’s betrayal, but he also asked her to preside over their wedding.
However, at the wedding, she met Prince Leon. He claimed that she was his mate. The prince had another engagement with another woman.
Emily’s best friend Lola told her that the best way to get the prince was to tie him to a bed.
"My sweet Emily, you only belong to me." Leon whispered on the bed.

For eight years, Cecilia Moore was the perfect Luna, loyal, and unmarked.
Until the day she found her Alpha mate with a younger, purebred she-wolf in his bed.
In a world ruled by bloodlines and mating bonds, Cecilia was always the outsider.
But now, she's done playing by wolf rules.
She smiles as she hands Xavier the quarterly financials-divorce papers clipped neatly beneath the final page.
“You're angry?” he growls.
“Angry enough to commit murder,” she replies, voice cold as frost.
A silent war brews under the roof they once called home.
Xavier thinks he still holds the power-but Cecilia has already begun her quiet rebellion.
With every cold glance and calculated step,
she's preparing to disappear from his world-as the mate he never deserved.
And when he finally understands the strength of the heart he broke...
It may be far too late to win it back.

Silvia lost everything in one night--her parents, her trust, and her mate. Coming home from their funeral, she found her "fated" partner, Zack, tangled with another she-wolf. "You'll always be my Luna... even if I seek out others," he said, smirking. Heartbroken but fierce,she rejected him--and turned to someone far more dangerous.

"I need help,"she whispered.
Sherman leaned closer, his voice like silk over steel. "I offer more than help, little wolf. I offer everything he couldn't give you."

Now married to Zack's powerful half-brother, Silvia plays a deadly game of loyalty, vengeance, and survival. But Sherman Carter doesn't help for free--and as their bond deepens,truths unravel.

Is Silvia just a pawn in Sherman's war?
Or is she becoming the Queen who'll burn the whole pack down?

When love, betrayal, and bloodlines collide, how far will one omega go to save her family--and destroy the mate who broke her soul?

Aria Graves was the perfect Luna.
After seven years of a marriage built on lies, She didn't break when the truth surfaced—she burned. Her revenge was clean and her rejection final. 
But fate wasn't done with her.
To protect his own secrets, her father used her mother's life as leverage and forced Aria to take her sister's place, sending her to the Silverfang Pack as a living offering to their ruthless Alpha King, Damien Rothwell.
Cold, commanding, and scarred by war, Damien should have killed her. Instead, he claimed her.
Yet the King is not the only one who wants her.
His half-brother, Ethan Rothwell, once the blind boy Aria taught to read, now returns a man who sees her more clearly than anyone else.
Now Aria stands between two brothers—one bound by duty, the other by love.
In a world where loyalty bleeds and desire burns, she must choose: the Alpha King who could ruin her, or the brother who would burn the world to save her.

"White wolf! Kill that monster!"
That roar stole my eighteenth birthday and shattered my world. My first shift should have been glory—blood turned blessing into shame. By dawn they'd branded me "cursed": cast out by my pack, abandoned by family, stripped of my nature. My father didn't defend me—he sent me to a forsaken island where wolfless outcasts were forged into weapons, forced to kill each other until only one could leave.
On that island I learned the darkest edges of humanity and how to bury terror in bone. Countless times I wanted to surrender—dive into the waves and never surface—but the accusing faces that haunted my dreams pushed me back toward something colder than survival: revenge. I escaped, and for three years I hid among humans, collecting secrets, learning to move like a shadow, sharpening patience into precision—becoming a blade.
Then, under a full moon, I touched a bleeding stranger—and my wolf returned with a violence that made me whole. Who was he? Why could he wake what I'd thought dead?
One thing I know: now is the time.
I have waited three years for this. I will make everyone who destroyed me pay—and take back everything that was stolen from me.

Lorelai Voss died once.Betrayed by her fated mate.Used by her brothers.Sold to bear a cursed Alpha's heir.
But death didn’t end her story.It rewrote it.
She wakes up the day before her forced marriage—wolfless, but not powerless.
She remembers every lie.
Every hand that pushed her into the fire.
“You don’t get to tell me who I belong to,” she says, staring down her Alpha brother.
“I can save you,” she tells Alpha Keith, the strongest wolf on the continent.
“Now you owe me.”
This time, she’s not the pawn.
This time, she plays the game—and she plays to win.
With twisted loyalties, buried secrets, and a slow-burn romance that begins with distrust and ignites into obsession, Lorelai walks the line between justice and vengeance.
Will she destroy the monsters who made her…
or become something far more dangerous?
One thing is certain:
The girl they threw away is back—
and she didn’t return to survive.
She came to conquer.

I was reborn on the eve of the arranged marriage, and the first thing Liana and I did was swap our marriage contracts.
In my past life, gentle Liana had married Kael, the cold and ruthless Alpha of the Wolf Clan.
But Kael always put the scheming daughter of his savior first, condemning my cousin to a lifetime of endless grievance and suffocating misery.
As for me, with my fiery temper, I’d been wed to a mediocre, weak Beta.
He spent every day complaining that I “wasn’t a woman at all”. Endless quarrels and the crushing burden of the family eventually led me to a tragic end—dying exhausted on the battlefield.
Now I opened my eyes again, staring at the fateful marriage contract on the nightstand. I clenched my fists and looked at my teary-eyed cousin.
“Tomorrow, you’ll marry that Beta. And as for that cold-blooded Alpha? I’ll take care of him.”

When I woke up again, the air was torn apart by the staccato crack of gunfire.
I had been reborn. I was four months pregnant—exactly when Luca’s "first love" had conspired with a rival syndicate to ambush our estate.

In my previous life, the moment the shooting started, I hadn't hesitated. I immediately dialed my husband, the Don of the family.

To protect the heir growing inside me, he had decisively dragged me out of the line of fire first.

But the price was steep. His beloved Isabella took a bullet straight to the heart in the chaos, dying instantly.

Afterward, with bloodshot eyes, he told me he didn't blame me. He even stepped away from the mafia empire, remaining at the estate to play the perfect husband, solely to ensure I had a safe delivery.

I believed him. Until the day I gave birth.

During the sacred baptism in the family chapel, he tore off his mask and personally sent both me and our infant son to hell.

In my final moments, I would never forget the look in his eyes—a hatred that burned down to the bone.

"If it weren't for you, she never would have died," he had said, his voice ice-cold as I lay in a pool of my own blood. "She bled out that day. You and this bastard will bleed twice as much today."

"How much longer are you going to drag this out?! "My husband, Julian, kicked the bathroom door open, violently snapping my lipstick in half. "I don't have time to waste on a psycho. Find your own way to the gala!"
He snatched the unlabeled bottle from the vanity, dry-swallowed two capsules, and slammed it back down before driving off.
When I arrived at the gala alone, his mother asked where he was.
"He'll be here later," I said with a perfect smile.
But I knew he would never make it.

At Holy Oak High, being the Top Flyer isn't just a crown.
It’s a ticket to the upper class.
Girls would pay any price to stand at the top of that pyramid.
But I didn't understand that the spotlight hid a man-eating abyss until I had to put on that blood-stained uniform.
Listen. Do you hear that scratching sound coming from inside the locker?

I have been tormented by a strange illness for ten years, with blood draws and surgeries being commonplace.
My mother always encouraged me, saying, "Nian Nian, bear with it a little longer. The pain will be over soon. Mom and Dad are doing this to save your life."
Hoping to be cured as soon as possible, I gritted my teeth and endured ten years of painful treatments, even if it meant living like a lab subject.
That was until I accidentally overheard my parents’ cruel conversation:
“Increase the blood draw even more. It doesn’t matter if she dies—she was only picked up to save Ying Ying. As long as she has a breath left, she owes it to us.”
At that moment, I finally understood: I was never sick at all.
The decade of daily treatments were nothing but a way to use me to extend the life of their biological daughter.

Carter and I have been together for five years. We never had actual sex.
During our most intimate moments, he would only ever slip a dark Violet Pearl deep inside of me. I honestly thought it was his way of cherishing me.
Until tonight.
I woke up totally naked to find a phone set up on the bed, its lens glaring right between my thighs, with a red "LIVE" icon blinking on the screen.
[The pearl matures Oct 31. Five years of cultivation!] the chat kept scrolling.
I checked the screen on my phone.
It’s October 30.

Since when is eating a snack before dinner a capital crime? All because of a bag of gummies, my parents beat the hell out of me, and a judge coldly sentenced me to death. I was absolutely convinced the candy was laced! It wasn't until moments before my execution that I accidentally found out the truth: my family... were never actually my family to begin with.

At my bedside, for what felt like the hundredth time,my family asked me nervously,“Are you still planning to look for Elias?”
I blinked in confusion, asking, “Who is Elias? Why would I look for him?”
And at that moment, the doctors declared me “recovered.”
I was finally allowed to leave the psychiatric clinic that had tormented me for more than a year.
They told me—that Elias never existed, that I had fallen into delusion, loving a man created by my imagination.
I understand that only by obeying them can I regain my freedom.

I just bought my daughter a ruby choker. But the moment I fastened it around her neck, my world came crashing down.
The shopkeeper called me a sick freak. My loving husband demanded an instant divorce. My best friend called me a monster.
Why? It’s just a piece of jewelry... right?

On a stormy night, an intruder broke into the estate and slashed my husband's throat.
I didn't call the police. Instead, I grabbed the bleach and scrubbed away every trace the killer left behind.
The next morning, my mother-in-law dug her nails into my arm. "Tell them! Who murdered my son?!"
"Lady Cordelia, if you saw anything, now is the time to speak." The police captain stepped closer, his voice hard.
I met his gaze without blinking. "The thunder was loud last night. I took my sleeping pills and heard absolutely nothing."

After my divorce, I fled to the unfamiliar streets of Seattle with my daughter. As a Black single mother, the crushing weight of surviving in a strange city nearly broke me.
That is, until David came along. A detective with the Major Crimes Unit, he became our safe haven, wrapping my daughter and me in his fierce, unwavering protection.
I thought I had finally made it through the darkness. I thought I was about to embrace a brand-new life.
Until our six-month anniversary. I showed up for our date full of joyful anticipation, only to accidentally witness him tenderly kissing a pregnant white woman.
With his two young children clustered right by his side...

It was my fourth time putting on a wedding dress.

To protect myself against my own parents, I hired a ten-man security detail.

I specifically chose the most isolated chapel in the suburbs.

Because at my first three weddings, they acted like absolute maniacs—destroying my rings and making me a complete laughingstock in front of everyone.

I just couldn't understand what kind of parents would do such a thing.

This time, I actually thought I could finally marry Liam in peace.

Until the bridal suite door was kicked open.

And my dad, once again, snatched my diamond ring away.

"Come see our wedding invitations!" I excitedly held up the document folder I'd grabbed from ,my fiancé, Lorenzo's study, showing it off to his men in his private safe house on the Upper East Side.

Lorenzo and I had been running ourselves ragged this month preparing for the wedding.

Lorenzo's guys raised their glasses, waiting to see our custom-designed invitations. I eagerly turned the folder upside down—

Marriage certificates, wedding photos, and a property transfer document came tumbling out onto the floor.

Dead silence.

"Oh, these aren't our invitations..." I was still grinning foolishly. "Must be the wrong folder."

"Let me see which lucky lady is about to become a happy bride."

I looked down at the wedding photo. A beautiful brunette woman in an elaborate white gown smiled from the center of the picture, looking so blissful, so content.

When my eyes shifted to the groom beside her, my world collapsed.

It was Lorenzo. He wore a perfect black tuxedo, but he was tenderly embracing a woman I'd never seen before.

On our seventh wedding anniversary, my Alpha husband missed the candlelit dinner for the seventh time.
He rushed off to rescue an Omega surrounded by vampires, leaving me alone in the villa.
That same night, a jarring photo spread through the pack.
Damien, covered in blood, held Rose tightly in his arms, his lips pressed against her forehead.
Everyone was waiting for me to be jealous, to rage.
But I didn’t scream or argue like I used to.
Instead, I poured out his favorite champagne, closed my eyes calmly, and prayed to the Moon Goddess.
“You once said I have a destined mate.”
“If he will make me strong and free me from this wretched marriage, let him come for me in seven days.”

As the tyrant ruling the underworld, Victor was ruthless and bloodthirsty, showing no mercy to anyone.

Women who tried to climb into his bed usually didn’t even get a whole corpse, yet I was the only one he kept by his side.

I’d taken a poisoned bullet for him, and nearly bled to death on the rotting floor of a safe house giving birth to his son.

He once kissed the bullet scar on my shoulder and promised me that when he sat on the godfather’s throne, I would be his only family matriarch.

But the moment he slipped on that black onyx ring symbolizing power, he carried another woman into the master bedroom of the manor.

I burst for the door, and he ordered his bodyguards to pin me outside, forcing me to listen to their sounds of passion all night long.

I banged on the door like a madwoman, so he slammed my paintbrush-wielding right hand in the heavy oak doorframe and crushed it mercilessly.

I finally caved when he threatened to cut off my mother’s hospital treatment.

On the second floor of this old Victorian house is a long hallway with a dark red rug. Six doors are evenly spaced along its walls.
We lived here peacefully for ten years.
Until last month, when my seven-year-old sister, Maeve, suddenly refused to set foot in it.
The adults dismissed it as a childish phobia.
Until late one night, hiding under the covers, she pressed her face to my ear and whispered:
"Don't count the doors."

The smell of antiseptic, the sharp sting of restraints biting into my flesh, and the pitying look on Silas's face as he stood by my hospital bed.
"Maeve, you're so sick. The baby is just a hallucination."
In my last life, consumed by despair and self-doubt, I threw myself off the roof of the psychiatric hospital.
But now, my eyes snapped open, my hands instinctively flying to protect my stomach.
My baby is still here!
I'm back—exactly one week before my child disappeared.

I am the most obedient lover by the side of Liam, the Alpha of the Blackwood Tribe.
I am also the only nameless stray in the entire tribe.
For five years, whenever Liam spent the night with other she-wolves, the next morning I would receive a large check or a deed to a house.
People in the tribe say I am a greedy leech.
That for money, I have thrown away the pride of a werewolf.
Even if Liam kissed another woman right in front of me, I would smile, straighten his collar, and then take the money he gave me.
Yes, I love money very much.
If they knew that this money was enough to buy the territories of three small packs, they would probably be green with envy.
As long as the money is good, betrayal doesn’t hurt that much.
Until today, when Liam brought back a pure-blooded white she-wolf.
He handed me a blank check, saying this would be the last payment he gave me.
My wolf spirit roared inside me.
It’s time for me to take the money, disappear, and return to being the queen I truly am.

This was Killian’s tenth time bringing a stray werewolf into our bedroom.
I didn’t growl like before, nor did I threaten her.
I picked up the old cloak from the floor and handed it to the girl trembling in the corner.
“Leave through the back door. The patrol just passed.”
The girl glanced at me fearfully, grabbed the cloak, and ran out.
Killian leaned against the headboard.
Bare-chested, a cigar in hand, his expression was full of arrogance.
“She’s just a newly matured stray werewolf. Don’t scare her.”
“Elira, you come from noble blood. You wouldn’t make a fuss about this.”
“Tonight is her first transformation. I need to be with her. I won’t be back.”
I lowered my head, hiding my golden eyes.
What Killian didn’t know was—
that stray girl was carrying the highly contagious and fatal Rotting Sickness.

When the pain started, my mother-in-law called me a monster, then drove off like a madwoman. My doctor slit his own throat in front of me. My husband locked me away "for my safety."
I thought they didn't want my baby. That they were horrified by the child I carried.
But I was wrong.
The thing growing inside me was never my child at all.

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.

They call it an "alpha team," boasting about our million-dollar AI equipment. I thought I just had terrible luck at work—the scanner bruising my arm, the coffee maker intentionally scalding me. Trapped by a $500,000 resignation penalty, I must survive tonight’s overtime. But in the dark copy room, the shredder is... breathing.

"Knock on this door over the noise one more time, and you're dead!"
Calling the cops was useless, and I was too broke to move.
Driven practically insane, I recklessly tore open the black box from the dark web—the seller promised that if I just followed the instructions, it would "eliminate the noise at the source."
Less than half an hour later, the deafening rager upstairs completely stopped.
Three mornings later, a homicide detective pounded furiously on my door.
"The father and son upstairs are dead."

Since marrying into the Sterling family, I've been pregnant three times. Not one of them survived.

Every time the DNA test report arrived, my mother-in-law would drag me to the clinic for an abortion.

They said the fetus had genetic defects. But I secretly went to an outside hospital for tests, and the report clearly stated everything was normal.

After my third miscarriage, I followed my in-laws to the basement I was forbidden to enter.

I held my breath and pressed my eye to the crack in the door.

In that moment, I finally knew why they had to kill my babies.

At my bastard father's birthday party, I was drugged by my sister Emily—and worse, she planned to have her boyfriend assault me. As the substance coursed through my veins, desire began overwhelming my rational mind. But in that moment of vulnerability, my contract husband saved me. I found myself burning only for him. What started as his attempt to help me through the drug's effects became a night of raw, passionate intimacy that shattered every boundary we'd carefully constructed. In his arms, I discovered a hunger I never knew existed, and he claimed me with a possessive intensity that left us both breathless...
*
When Amelia Thompson signed that marriage contract, she never knew her husband was an FBI undercover agent.
Ethan Black approached her to investigate Viktor Group—the corrupt corporation where her late mother worked. To him, Amelia was just another lead, possibly the conspirator's daughter he was sworn to destroy.
But three months of marriage changed everything. Her warmth and fierce independence dismantled every defense around his heart—until the day she vanished.
Three years later, she returns with their child, seeking the truth about her mother's death. And he's no longer just an FBI agent, but a man desperate to win her back.
A Marriage Contract. A Life-Changing Inheritance. A Heart-Shattering Betrayal.
This time, can love survive the ultimate deception?

I sacrificed everything to save my mother—even my freedom.

The night I won the award that was supposed to fund her life-saving surgery, I walked in on my fated mate tangled in bed with my best friend.

He said I was “too boring to love.”
She whispered my mother was “better off dead.”

Broken and desperate, I made the deal I swore I never would—I sold myself to Alpha Damien Gatsby, heir to the Gatsby empire.

Cold. Ruthless. The most powerful Alpha in Faellac City.

But I didn’t expect his touch to set my blood on fire.

And I never imagined the man with the coldest heart would steal mine.

Now the mate who betrayed me wants me back.

The Pack that rejected me wants me silenced.

And the Alpha who owns me… refuses to let me go—even if it destroys us both.

I thought my husband was my salvation.
Until I overheard him in the wine cellar, laughing and joking with my "attackers" from that night.
The gang rape that destroyed me was a show he orchestrated himself.

He married me only for inheritance rights.
He humiliated me, branded me, took away my child, and made my life a living hell.
But he forgot one thing—
The ancient blood oath of the Corleone family states clearly:
If a husband betrays his marriage, everything he owns shall belong to his wife.

This time, I'm no longer the rabbit waiting to be slaughtered.
This time, I write the ending.

I died the day I caught my fiancé cheating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I clutched my pregnancy test results in my hand, standing outside the door of Ethan's office.

I wanted to surprise my husband with this news.

Instead, I overheard a conversation about how to "permanently remove" me from his and our daughter's lives.

When that dealer tortured me, my dad, a narcotics cop, and my mom, the city’s chief medical examiner, were busy celebrating my sister’s win in the volleyball semifinals. To get back at my dad for destroying his drug network three years earlier, that man cut my throat. Right before I died, I called my dad. Before I hung up, he said, “Cut it out. Serena’s game is what mattered most right now.”

I thought my husband was cheating, so I followed him to catch him in the act, only to witness him kill someone on our wedding anniversary.

His hands were still covered in blood when he touched my red hair and asked me what was wrong.

Was he the legendary "Red Hair Reaper"?

When the police came knocking the next day, I told them everything.

But they would never know—even the murder I "witnessed" that night was nothing but a performance staged for them from beginning to end.

My three-year-old daughter hides behind the sofa whenever I try to hold her now.

“Mommy is scary,” she whispers, clutching her stuffed bear like a shield.

I thought it was just a toddler’s overactive imagination.

Until I checked the camera feed in my own bedroom.

I watched a woman who looked exactly like me step out of the shadows of our antique mirror, slip into my husband’s bed, and kiss him.

When they shoved me into the flames, I fought through the blinding pain to call my brother, Ethan Bennett. Fire licked at my skin, twisting my vision, but the call finally went through.

"What is it now?" He sounded distracted, like he was checking off a guest list.

"Ethan, please, help—" My voice was shattered, choked by the searing heat.

"Can't you just give it a rest for one single day?" he snapped, cutting me off. "Selina and I are getting married this weekend. If you pull another stunt, I swear I'll—"

The call died right as the flames swallowed me whole.

Agony consumed every nerve before my eyes closed for good, his unfinished threat still echoing in my ears.

But the good news is, Ethan... you don't have to swear anymore. Because I was dead.

"Did you bring one back?" My mom, Siobhan, urged.
I pushed my half-empty mug to the center of the cafe table. The campus buzzed around me, students stressing over minor things like finals.
"I’m still at school, Mom."
"The Summer Solstice is in exactly one month, Maeve." The line crackled.
"If you cross that water empty-handed, Finn is going to the pens. Are you going to let your own brother be taken?"

My daughter begged me, tears in her eyes, to take her to gymnastics camp—just the two of us.

I thought it was her way of proving she loved me.

I was wrong.

In that hotel room in Toronto, I overheard my husband's voice—with another woman.

“Don't worry, Sophia will find a way to stay a few more days. I promised her that blue limited-edition leotard.”

“Her body now… after giving birth, it's ruined.”

In that moment, my world collapsed.

I thought I'd only been betrayed by my husband.
But the daughter I raised with everything I had—she was his accomplice.

The child I nurtured with my own hands kept clearing the path: so that woman could sleep in my bed, wear the lingerie I could no longer fit into, sneer in front of the mirror at every single mark my body earned from bringing life into this world.

I once believed that giving up my career would be enough to hold my family together.

But they joined hands to tell me: my sacrifice was never honored. It was a joke.

When a woman who has given everything to her family finally wakes up—

Her revenge will make every single one of them remember exactly what they did.

My daughter Lily was shot dead while she was performing on her own stage.
I rushed forward to shield her, and a speaker crashed down onto my right shoulder. The bone shattered.
My husband, Vincent, “shot the gunman dead” at once and sealed off the entire opera house.
When I woke up in the hospital room, the pain almost suffocated me. My right shoulder was wrapped in thick bandages, and when I tried to raise my arm, all I felt was a numb.
“…This isn’t what we agreed on.” The doctor’s voice was low and unsteady. “We only needed her blood sample for matching. Why did it have to go this far?”
“Lily’s blood type is a perfect match. This is the best possible outcome,” Vincent said. “I married Elena for this moment. I’ve been waiting for it.”
The doctor was silent for a few seconds. “But she’s your daughter… There’s no need to sacrifice a life, even if she is a Salaceno.”
Vincent cut him off. “You know how long an artificial heart can last. Camila’s daughter won’t hold out for long. I can’t put her through another surgery.”
“Camila’s child is the one I should cherish.”
At that moment, my blood ran cold. In his eyes, my daughter was nothing but an organ container.
He had no idea. All that talk about protecting his precious daughter—she wasn't even his.

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.