Left for Dead at the Docks
Daisy Swift · Ongoing · 6.8k Words
Introduction
I was saved, but Lilia Brown didn't make it. She bled out in the crossfire, her body left in the rubble. Damian pretended he didn't care and married me as planned.
For three years, he made me pay for her death—beating me, starving me, blaming me for the fact that she was gone.
In the end, he drove us both off a cliff instead.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the docks on the night of the ambush. This time, I stepped aside and let him save the woman he truly loved.
Chapter 1
When the armored car had room for only one passenger, Damian Russo chose me.
I was saved, but Lilia Brown didn't make it. She bled out in the crossfire, her body left in the rubble. Damian pretended he didn't care and married me as planned.
For three years, he made me pay for her death—beating me, starving me, blaming me for the fact that she was gone.
In the end, he drove us both off a cliff instead.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the docks on the night of the ambush. This time, I stepped aside and let him save the woman he truly loved.
......
"Victoria, get in!"
A bullet grazed my cheek, leaving a burning, stinging trail in its wake.
I blinked hard, my pupils constricting. I had seen this exact scene at the abandoned pier before. In my past life.
Hitmen from the rival Syndicate were swarming in like a tidal wave.
Right in front of me sat the armored extraction SUV. The driver was already slumped over the steering wheel with a bullet hole in his forehead.
The rear compartment was equipped with top-tier ballistic shielding, but it was packed solid with emergency weapons and communication equipment—there was no room for passengers back there.
Out of the three of us, only my fiancé, Damian Russo, had the biometrics and override codes to start the vehicle and get us out of here.
There was only one remaining seat—the front passenger seat.
Damian's eyes darted frantically back and forth between me and Lilia.
In my previous life, amid this exact hail of gunfire, Damian had made his choice.
"Victoria! Give me your hand!" Damian's voice was hoarse, screaming over the deafening roar of the gunfire.
I just stared at him, my eyes ice-cold.
I didn't reach out.
Under Damian's shocked gaze, I took a deliberate step back, pulling away from him without a second of hesitation.
"Damian, take Lilia."
I never want to carry the crushing weight of your dead true love ever again.
Damian froze completely.
He stared at me, his eyes wide with a flash of disbelief.
But a split second later, beneath that hypocritical mask of panic, was an almost uncontrollable wave of relief. The tight line of his jaw instantly relaxed.
"Victoria, this is your choice!" Damian grabbed Lilia by the shoulder and shoved her hard into the armored cabin.
With half his body already inside the vehicle, he threw one last sentence back at me: "I was going to save you, Victoria—you're the one who insisted I take Lilia! Hold on, stay out of sight, and don't move. I... I promise I'll bring a team back for you!"
He didn't spare me a single backward glance—as if terrified that if he lingered for even a second, I would change my mind and steal his precious dream girl's chance at survival.
It was utterly ridiculous.
In my past life, after those armored doors closed, Lilia hadn't lasted ten minutes out here. She'd been riddled with bullets, her blood soaking into the dirt of the pier.
When Damian finally fought his way back with a rescue team, all he found was a rapidly cooling corpse.
At her funeral, he had wept like a soulless walking corpse.
Yet, he turned to me with bloodshot eyes, gripped my hand, and said with unwavering resolve, "Victoria, we're keeping our engagement. We marry as planned."
How stupid was I? I thought it was a solemn vow born of duty and love, forged after he had lost everything.
Until our wedding night.
He had come in blackout drunk, kicked the bedroom door open, grabbed me by the hair, and forcefully slammed me against the hardwood floor.
Driving the heel of his dress shoe into my fingers, he stared down at me as I gasped in pain, his eyes swirling with a sick, twisted madness. "Does it hurt? You get to live, but my Lilia died in that damn rubble! This is all because of you! If I hadn't saved you, she wouldn't be dead! You owe her your life, Victoria!"
He had crucified me with a twisted, deformed moral shackle, forcing me to sacrifice my dignity for a lifetime just to honor his precious dream girl.
Damian hadn't chosen to save me in our past life out of love.
He simply knew that if he left me to die, every mafia family in the city would curse him as the bastard who abandoned his fiancée, and the wrath of the Corsica family would utterly consume him.
He gave me the chance to live last time. But he spent the rest of his life regretting it, ultimately taking out all of his own incompetence and bitter hatred on me.
Now, I had made the choice for him.
He got his true love. He even couldn't wait to dump all the blame for abandoning his fiancée squarely onto my shoulders: "You're the one who insisted I take Lilia."
Bang! Bang, bang!
The rival syndicate's hitmen were rapidly tightening their perimeter, and the hail of gunfire began zeroing in on my position.
I pressed my back against the cold, rough concrete pillar, calculating my next move.
Damian yelled that he would bring a team back for me?
The corners of my mouth twitched into a deeply mocking sneer.
In my past life, when he had left Lilia behind in the crossfire, his heart and mind were so fixated on his beloved girl that the second he broke through the blockade, he scrambled like a rabid dog to mobilize every available gun to come back and save her.
But this time? The person he loved most was currently sitting safe and sound in the passenger seat of an armored truck. Just soothing her frayed nerves would probably consume all of his attention.
Would he even remember the fiancée he had left behind to die?
Last Chapters
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The Family Sacrifice
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?
He Never Loved Me, Until I Left
I put away the divorce agreement with a wry smile.
When he and my son completely disappeared, he finally panicked.
Three months later .
He knelt down on the streets of Chicago in despair, begging me to remarry him.
My six-year-old son looked coldly at his biological father and said, "Get lost, you bad uncle! You don't deserve to be my dad!"
He Thought I'd Never Leave
When he said he was being bullied, I believed him. When he kissed me on that rooftop, I thought he felt the same. When he asked me to transfer schools with him, I said yes without hesitation.
Then I heard him bragging to his friends: "She'd save her first time for me. Hell, she'd still be thinking of me on her wedding night."
The bullying was staged. The kiss meant nothing. He just wanted me gone—so his new girl could feel more comfortable.
He thought I'd beg. He thought I'd cry. He thought I'd never actually leave.
I left the country.
And ran straight into his stepbrother.
I Died While They Threw Her a Party
Their real daughter came home. She'd only been back two years. That's all it took to erase twenty-four.
When kidnappers grabbed us, I used my body as a shield. They beat me until something inside me ruptured. I was dying from internal bleeding, but no one could tell.
My parents wouldn't even look at me. "This is your fault! None of this would've happened if it weren't for you!"
"Get downstairs and apologize to your sister. If you can't, pack your things and get out."
They threw her a party at a downtown hotel while I died alone in my room.
I thought they'd be relieved. Maybe even glad. I thought they'd just move on like I never existed.
But when they finally learned the truth, they fell apart.
Bury Me in His Regret
The kidnapper pressed the gun to my temple and asked, "Choose your wife or your sister-in-law?"
Zachary didn't hesitate. "Let Valerie go," he said.
He actually chose to save his sister-in-law! In that moment, even the baby in my belly seemed to stop kicking.
Later, they locked me in the basement. Drugs to delay labor were pumped into my veins over and over. Zachary wanted to save the "firstborn son" status for his sister-in-law's child.
When warm blood finally soaked through my skirt, I dialed the number I knew by heart with shaking hands.
"Zachary," I whispered into the phone, "our child... can't wait any longer."
The Kidney That Killed Me
A few months ago, my sister was hospitalized with kidney failure. The doctor said she needed a transplant. My family's first thought was me—the backup daughter they'd kept around all these years.
When my husband Allen took my hand with tears in his eyes and said, "Only you can save her," I agreed without hesitation.
When the doctor explained the surgical risks and potential complications, I smiled and nodded my understanding.
My parents said I'd finally learned what sisterly love meant.
Even Allen, who'd always been cold to me, held my hand gently and said, "The surgery's safe. You're so healthy, nothing will go wrong. When you recover, I'll take you to Hawaii."
But they don't know that no matter how the surgery goes, I won't be around to celebrate.
Because I just got my own test results—I have terminal brain cancer. I'm going to die anyway.
After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms
From first crush to wedding vows, George Capulet and I had been inseparable. But in our seventh year of marriage, he began an affair with his secretary.
On my birthday, he took her on vacation. On our anniversary, he brought her to our home and made love to her in our bed...
Heartbroken, I tricked him into signing divorce papers.
George remained unconcerned, convinced I would never leave him.
His deceptions continued until the day the divorce was finalized. I threw the papers in his face: "George Capulet, from this moment on, get out of my life!"
Only then did panic flood his eyes as he begged me to stay.
When his calls bombarded my phone later that night, it wasn't me who answered, but my new boyfriend Julian.
"Don't you know," Julian chuckled into the receiver, "that a proper ex-boyfriend should be as quiet as the dead?"
George seethed through gritted teeth: "Put her on the phone!"
"I'm afraid that's impossible."
Julian dropped a gentle kiss on my sleeping form nestled against him. "She's exhausted. She just fell asleep."
Alpha Nicholas's Little Mate
What? No—wait… oh Moon Goddess, no.
Please tell me you're joking, Lex.
But she's not. I can feel her excitement bubbling under my skin, while all I feel is dread.
We turn the corner, and the scent hits me like a punch to the chest—cinnamon and something impossibly warm. My eyes scan the room until they land on him. Tall. Commanding. Beautiful.
And then, just as quickly… he sees me.
His expression twists.
"Fuck no."
He turns—and runs.
My mate sees me and runs.
Bonnie has spent her entire life being broken down and abused by the people closest to her including her very own twin sister. Alongside her best friend Lilly who also lives a life of hell, they plan to run away while attending the biggest ball of the year while it's being hosted by another pack, only things don't quite go to plan leaving both girls feeling lost and unsure about their futures.
Alpha Nicholas is 28, mateless, and has no plans to change that. It's his turn to host the annual Blue Moon Ball this year and the last thing he expects is to find his mate. What he expects even less is for his mate to be 10 years younger than him and how his body reacts to her. While he tries to refuse to acknowledge that he has met his mate his world is turned upside down after guards catch two she-wolves running through his lands.
Once they are brought to him he finds himself once again facing his mate and discovers that she's hiding secrets that will make him want to kill more than one person.
Can he overcome his feelings towards having a mate and one that is so much younger than him? Will his mate want him after already feeling the sting of his unofficial rejection? Can they both work on letting go of the past and moving forward together or will fate have different plans and keep them apart?
Omega Bound
Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life.
Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
Shattered Girl
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Was that too much?” I could see the worry in his eyes as I took a deep breath.
“I just didn’t want you to see all my scars,” I whispered, feeling ashamed of my marked body.
Emmy Nichols is used to surviving. She survived her abusive father for years until he beat her so severely, she ended up in the hospital, and her father was finally arrested. Now, Emmy is thrown into a life she never expected. Now she has a mother
who doesn't want her, a politically motivated stepfather with ties to the Irish mob, four older stepbrothers, and their best friend who swear to love and protect her. Then, one night, everything shatters, and Emmy feels her only option is to run.
When her stepbrothers and their best friend finally find her, will they pick up the pieces and convince Emmy that they will keep her safe and their love will hold them together?
Goddess Of The Underworld
When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates
"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."
I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.
Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.
"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."
New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.
Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates
When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.
But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
