9517 Book(s) Related to i became the lousy side top novel

Beneath the sprawling oaks of Bramblewood University, my parents hovered like proud paparazzi. In the center of their screens stood Liora, my childhood best friend, and Kael—my boyfriend of four years.

They stood pressed together, Liora's blonde curls brushing Kael's jawline. My parents shouted directions with absolute adoration. You'd think she was their flesh and blood, or the one wearing his promise ring.

I waited in the periphery for twenty minutes. Just one photo. That was all I asked. But my mother's eyes never left her glowing screen, completely blind to her real daughter suffocating in the shadows.

"I still haven't heard back from any firms," Liora sighed, slipping into a practiced pout.

Kael's focus instantly snapped to her. "Hey, don't stress. You can always work at my agency. I'll make sure you're taken care of."

"Send me your resume tonight, Leo," my dad chimed in eagerly. "Your first job sets the tone for your career. You absolutely cannot settle."

Before I could speak, my older brother, Joren, jogged across the lawn. He breezed right past me, zeroing in on Liora. "Don't panic about the job hunt," he promised. "My department is expanding next week. I'll personally fast-track your application to the top."

For two years my mother told the whole town that my sister Zoe was in a hospital in Switzerland.
She shut the heat off in my room with a wrench, because Zoe's ward is kept at sixty-five degrees. My dinner was always cold, because Zoe can't keep solid food down. I never got a birthday cake, because Zoe hasn't had one since she was seventeen.
The day I won the state 1600, she pulled the medal off my neck in the parking lot and didn't say one word the whole drive home. Then she walked me down to the basement, dropped it on the floor, and ground it under her heel until the ribbon came apart. She took a picture of it lying there. I'll send this to your sister. So she knows her little sister is keeping her company.
She came back down that night with a pair of garden shears. I fought her. She got a fistful of my hair, put my head over her knee, and cut it all off, because chemo took Zoe's.
Then I found something down there my mother never meant me to see.
My sister isn't where she said. And she isn't sick.

This was the most miserable Christmas I had ever experienced.
On Christmas Eve night, my husband brought his mistress home and demanded that I, his pregnant wife, leave with nothing.
On this day, I lost my husband and also lost the child in my womb...

They pulled my husband Beckett’s car out of the Avery River at four in the morning.
I was sitting in the reception area of the Ardenvale police station, having waited all night. Everyone thought I was just the pathetic wife—the one who had been humiliated at her mother-in-law’s birthday banquet, went home early, and panicked when her husband never returned.
No one knew that from the moment I dialed 911, this was exactly the news I had been waiting for.
He was dead. And I was the one who made it happen.

On the night my grandmother died, my husband Kael came home trailing blood.
His leather motorcycle jacket was soaked dark red, yet he flashed a savage grin: "I wiped the floor with those bastards tonight!"
For three years, he had treated our home as nothing more than a pit stop between reckless street races.
I’d finally had enough. "After the funeral, we're getting a divorce."
Before the words fully left my mouth, my phone rang. It was his riding partner, Lunn, his voice choking with sobs: "Sera... Kael drove off the cliff tonight. They only recovered bloody pieces of his helmet!"
But the "dead man" was standing right in front of me...

My husband often made me suffer for the sake of my younger sister, even divorcing me because of her.
My parents gave all their love to my sister and neglected me.
My husband and parents even had my sister perform surgery on me.
But they didn't know that my sister had no idea how to perform surgery.
It didn't matter though, because I no longer cared.
On Christmas Day, when they were celebrating, they finally remembered me.
But I was already dead.

For five years, I had turned Preston Tanner from a broke kid who could barely afford tuition into one of Silicon Valley's hottest young founders.
I thought we would do exactly what we had promised back in that garage—take our AI healthcare startup public, ring the opening bell together, and get married.
Until today.
At the product launch that would determine whether we landed our Series A, Preston stood before the press and credited the core algorithm patent I had spent seventy-two sleepless hours developing to a girl who couldn't even write Python.
"Sloane, you're already my fiancée," he said. "Willow needs this patent to strengthen her green-card application."
Staring at his utterly self-righteous face, I felt sick.
I didn't know when it had happened, but somewhere along the way, he had rotted from the inside out.
And if he was rotten, it was time to throw him away.

"I, Dominic Thorne, hereby reject you as my fated mate." Those words shattered my soul in front of the entire pack. Eighteen years old, and I still couldn't complete a full shift—the "defective reject" everyone loved to mock. But what nobody knew was the monster sleeping inside me. When a stranger with golden eyes found me bleeding in the forest and whispered, "You're not broken. You're something the world hasn't seen in a thousand years," I realized my rejection was only the beginning. Something ancient is waking up inside me. And it's hungry.

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

I would often find myself staring into my son Leon's eyes, lost in thought.
One, a deep azure blue, was inherited from his father. The other, however, was amber.
I couldn't understand it. While Leon's lineage is indeed mixed, his other eye should have been silver—the mark of my bloodline, the symbol of the royal werewolf lineage.
Yet it wasn't. This question had haunted me for five years.
Then, by chance, I came across an ancient book in my husband Carlisle's study. It detailed the hereditary rules of eye color for the royal werewolf line:
Regardless of which race they intermarry with, the direct descendants of the royal werewolves will always inherit at least one distinctive eye.
This meant that a son I bore would definitely have silver pupils.
My hands began to tremble uncontrollably. I shared my fear—that we might have brought home the wrong child—with Carlisle.
He flew into a rage, snatched the book from my hands, and threw it into the fireplace.
"Selene, are you doubting my fidelity? Or suspecting that our son isn't your own? If Leon knew you doubted him, his heart would be shattered."
Carlisle stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Watching his retreating figure, my heart grew cold, piece by piece.
His reaction confirmed my worst fear, the one I desperately wanted to deny.
With the full moon just seven days away, I decided to abandon the plan of taking Leon back to the royal werewolf clan.

Anna Green walks in on her boyfriend cheating, only to realize she's not the only witness. A mysterious man stands beside her, watching the same scene unfold. He leans in and murmurs, "Want revenge?"

That night, she loses a boyfriend and picks up a husband.

What begins as a deal between strangers soon turns into something far more complicated. She thought it was just about benefits. He gave her exclusive love.

Now, tangled in a marriage she never expected, Anna wonders who's really in control, especially when the man she married refuses to play by the rules.

Scarlett Taylor looked at the test report saying she had a last-stage cancer, and the news of her husband, Everett Robinson, and his ex-girlfriend Amelia Martin getting married soon, and her world crumbled.
At that moment, she realized that her three years of marriage and love for Everett were nothing more than a joke.
Clenching the test reports in her hand, Scarlett decided to give up on this loveless marriage and live the remaining days of her life for herself.
At the gate of the divorce office, Everett sneered, "Scarlett Taylor, I am waiting for the day when you regret this!"
Scarlett looked at him and smiled mockingly, "The only thing I will regret is marrying you!" and left.
Two months later when Scarlett came back, Everett kneel in front of him, begging, "Scarlett, I regret it, Please forgive me and let's get back together."
Scarlett looked at him and sneered, "Get lost! I don't know you!"

Kane was an ex-convict — a nobody. His wife's family treated him like dirt.

They didn't know his secret.

Ten years ago, he was framed. But in prison, he became something else. Today, he is the Mercenary King — commander of millions.

He hides his power to protect his wife and daughter. He plays the loser. He takes the insults.

But when his enemies cross the line…

The Mercenary King will stop pretending.

In their first life, Vivienne married Prince Adrian and called it hell, while Elena married a poor Alpha’s son, Derek, and used her wisdom to help him become Alpha King—only for Derek and Vivienne to betray and murder her.
When both sisters are reborn, Vivienne rushes to steal Derek, believing she has taken Elena’s glorious future and left Elena with the cold, cruel prince.
But Elena knows a good life is not handed over by a husband or a throne.
Forced to become Adrian’s Luna Princess, she quietly rebuilds everything with her own intelligence and strength.
While Vivienne’s stolen sweet dream gradually turns into a nightmare, will the “terrible” prince becomes any different？

"Sign the paper. You get the money to save your family, and I get to stay on the ice. It’s strictly business."

Chloe lost everything in a single night. Her wicked step-family stole her grandmother's medical fund, and she just caught her boyfriend kissing her stepsister in the campus library.

At the edge of expulsion, Ryder, the wealthy, dangerous, and ruthless captain of the university hockey team facing a massive suspension right before the championship, offered her an ironclad contract.

No feelings, no real kisses. Just tutoring and public appearances.

But as late-night study sessions heat up and the boundaries begin to blur, what happens when the ruthless hockey god decides he wants to rewrite the rules and play for keeps?

"Ensure you go through those papers and sign the divorce. If there's anything you don't understand, contact my lawyer."
Grey's voice was cold as steel, not a flicker of guilt in his eyes.
"Yes, she's your sister, Lila—but I find love and peace with her. At least I can wake up every morning to a child's voice calling me Daddy."
Lila Sims never imagined her twenty-fifth birthday dinner would become the funeral of her marriage.
For three years, she sacrificed her career, her dreams, and herself for Grey Shun—the ruthless CEO of Bintex Ltd. Yet the more she tried to be the perfect wife, the deeper she sank into depression.
Until the night Grey pushed divorce papers across the table and confessed the ultimate betrayal—he found "love" with her sister, the woman who'd secretly given him the child Lila could never give.
Shattered but not defeated, Lila vows to burn down the lie she once called a marriage.
And to do that, she joins hands with Brian Carter—Grey's ex-rival, a dangerous man with his own agenda.
He promises to help her destroy Grey…
but he wants something in return: her heart.
Will Lila risk loving again just to complete her revenge?
Or will she realize that the greatest victory… is walking away before she's broken a second time?

"In our six years of marriage, you never named me Luna. You gave me nothing other than the position I maintained from when we built this company."
"My affair is my business. Your job is to shut up and obey your husband," Rune spat with a nonchalant look.
"No, I'm not built like that," I replied softly. "I can't be your slave, Rune. My love for you made me a fool once but no more."
"Where do you think you are going? It's one thing to build but it's another to have your people by your side. You are an Omega! A rat!"
"The document on your table is our divorce papers. Sign it and have it sent to the Salvatore's mansion in Echo City."


She was the humble wife of the Alpha, and also the mysterious rival who bankrupted him; when the scumbag took her job with his mistress, she threw out a divorce agreement: Sorry, this company is mine, and my father is the richest man in the world.
After divorcing her unfaithful husband, billionaire Silver seeks solace by returning to her home pack, hoping to start fresh and reconnect with her roots but home is not what it used to be.
Her father's legacy has left behind a tangled mess of debts, secrets, and enemies lurking in the shadows.
Caught in the storm, Silver is drawn to the pack's new young Alpha, a man wrapped in mystery, danger, and an intensity that unsettles her heart.
Their paths collide in ways neither of them expected, forcing Silver to face not only the darkness in her family's past, but also the forbidden spark threatening to shape her future.
Now, she must decide: will she fight the chaos consuming her world, or surrender to a desire that could destroy everything?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked at me. "Marry me."

In my past life, I was tricked into a trap by my neighbor, my leg broken, and thrown into acid rain to die. Reborn, I returned to nine months before the acid rain apocalypse. Meteorites struck, radiation contaminated, water sources dried up, and civilization collapsed. I still had one last chance to save myself and reverse the future. When I mortgaged my house, borrowed heavily from loan sharks, and finally found the water purification engineer whom everyone considered crazy, I was met with merciless ridicule. Faced with humiliation, I simply smiled faintly—"Do you know when water is more precious than gold?"

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.

The day my wife, Hollywood’s newly crowned Best Actress, landed an S-tier deal, she arrogantly tossed a separation agreement in my face.

“I’m moving into Beverly Hills. A salaried office worker like you will only drag down my status. If you can’t come up with a ten-million-dollar mansion, then get out of my life.”

She thought she had latched onto a media tycoon, and eagerly signed the “fake divorce loan” agreement I had tailored just for her.

What she didn’t know was that I wasn’t just the pathetic husband she thought I was. I was also a quantitative strategist from Wall Street, a man who could turn the markets upside down.

That ten million dollars became the seed capital I used to short the tycoon backing her.

When she was ruined at her movie premiere, burdened with crushing debt, and crawled barefoot like a stray dog up to the hillside mansion, begging hysterically for me to remarry her, I was already toasting a successful acquisition with my Wall Street partner.

Then I watched coldly as the security guards threw her into the Los Angeles night like a piece of rotten industrial waste.

I think I'm dead.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in an abandoned amusement park, and my body was sitting on that slowly turning carousel.

I was only ten years old. I don't know how I died.

Detective Sarah, the blonde officer, promised to find the truth. So I followed her, watching her peel away layer after layer of lies—

In my diary, I wrote down all my fears and all my waiting.

On the phone, Mom sent that video of me laughing.

In the autopsy report, evidence of long-term abuse filled every page.

Mom had been saving money for three years, saying she'd take me away. That afternoon she picked me up from school and said, "We're really leaving this time."

Then what happened? Why did I die at the amusement park? Why was Mom's first reaction after my death not to call the police, but to—

I thought Mom came to save me.

Until I saw the text message she sent...

In my past life, my Mafia Don husband left me and our unborn baby to burn just to save my half-sister.

Reborn, I watched him crush my fingers in a door to protect her once again.

"Hurt her, and we get a divorce," he sneered.

He thought the threat would break me. He didn't know his signature was already on the divorce papers hidden in my bag.

On the day of their lavish wedding, I took the hand of his deadliest rival, looked down from a helicopter, and pressed the detonator to his estate.

In my past life, I kindly took in my girlfriend and brother, only to be pushed into a torrent of acid rain and melted alive. When I opened my eyes again, I was back a month before the apocalypse, only to find that my girlfriend had also been reborn! She was secretly plotting on the balcony to drain my assets to build her and her best male friend's post-apocalyptic love nest? I scoffed, decisively sold all my possessions, and bought a private island in the Pacific to build a top-tier fortress. When the mutated red rain descended and zombies swept the globe, I sipped iced whiskey in a temperature-controlled greenhouse, quietly watching that despicable couple starve and die in their Los Angeles penthouse, tearing each other apart like wild dogs for survival…

My pre-wedding party was in full swing.

 

Yet, the center of attention wasn't me, but Julian's childhood sweetheart, Blair. She had just announced she was auctioning off her "first kiss."

 

My fiancé, Julian, bought that kiss without a second thought.

 

Amidst the roaring cheers of the crowd, they locked lips. They looked like the perfect match, made in heaven.

 

In that moment, I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene.

 

I casually pulled out my phone and replied to the email from the Paris headquarters: "I accept. I am ready to start immediately."

I made Sebastian Grant date me for a year because I'd saved his life.
Even though he couldn't stand me, I pressed myself against him when he tried to leave, traced my fingers down his chest when he turned away.
When his friends talked trash, I left marks on his neck and sent him out where everyone could see them.
Then an anonymous text arrived: [I'm the one you saved that day. Not Sebastian.]
The photo attached turned my face white.
What would Sebastian do when he found out?

On my birthday, my husband hands me a snow-white hamster with a smile and says keeping it in the house will bring us good luck.

My seven-year-old son names it Snow.

But the second I see its red eyes, my blood runs cold.

Because in my last life, I got the exact same gift on this exact same day.

Back then I treated it like something precious. I fed it the best food, bought it the biggest cage, cleaned out the shavings every single day.

And every night it burrowed into my blankets, bit through the skin at my wrist and my throat, and drank my blood a little at a time until there was almost none left.

I begged my husband to get rid of it. All he said was that I was paranoid, that I was faking being sick to get attention.

My son planted himself in front of the cage and screamed that Snow was better behaved than me.

Then, on our wedding anniversary, I collapsed in the bathroom and never woke up.

My spirit drifted near the ceiling, and only then did I finally see it.

That hamster climbed down off my body and turned into a woman in a white dress, and threw herself into my husband's arms.

His eyes went red and he said now that she'd drained me dry, she could finally take her real shape again.

My son ran to her and sweetly called her "Hamster Mommy."

It turned out the thing was my husband's old love, the one who'd died young. He'd used black magic to hide her inside a pet's body.

And I was nothing but a container. A blood supply.

Now my eyes are open again, and the cut on my finger is still warm.

This time, I won't let a single one of them get away.

Six days after Alexander lost all contact, I navigated my way alone to the Nightfall Gala to find him.

The guard's expression twisted into something peculiar when he heard my purpose.

"You're saying you are looking for your mate, Prince Alexander? And what is your name?"

"I am Cecilia."

The guard let out a harsh, mocking snort. "Stop causing a scene! A blind beggar trying to pull a scam? Don't think you can just impersonate her just because you know the name of the Prince's mate."

"Everyone knows the Prince just gifted Cecilia the millennia-old Abyssal Night Crystal to celebrate her pregnancy! What the hell are you?"

Just then, the giant LED screen cut to the Gala's live broadcast.

"Allow me to formally introduce my partner, Cecilia. Furthermore, she is expecting. Our family is about to welcome a new heir." It was Alexander's voice.

"Thank you all. This is the greatest gift Alexander and I could ever receive."

The moment that sweet, timid voice echoed through the hall, a string violently snapped in my brain. A sharp ringing pierced my eardrums.

—It was the voice of my twin sister, Elena.

To fulfill my twin sister Chloe’s arranged marriage, I became Landon Moore’s stand-in bride.
For three years, I played the role of the gentle, obedient wife—cooking soup to warm his stomach, sharing his bed on lonely nights, and even taking care of his beloved ‘sister’, Shannon. When he was drunk and stumbled into my room, I endured it all in silence.
Everyone mocked me for being pathetic, a dog begging for scraps of affection. Even Landon sneered coldly, “I will never love you.”
Until the day he stabbed me three times—for Shannon. The world blurred into a sea of blood. I smiled as I closed my eyes, took the fifty million he transferred to me, and vanished without a trace.
Years later, he found me deep in the mountains, kneeling in the mud like a madman, begging me to come home. But by then, I had built schools, with my grandmother, lived a life that glowed with its own light.

Three days before my wedding, I found a spreadsheet on my fiancé’s laptop.
It was called Operation Prank Nora.
Five years of my life, itemized and checked off. The fake terminal diagnosis. The fellowship I gave away. The condo I signed over to my best friend.
And one new row, still blinking: Fake wedding.
My fiancé. My best friend. My stepbrother. The doctor who told me I was dying. They’d built a group chat around my tears and a running bet on when I’d figure it out.
They thought I’d cry. They thought I’d hand Ethan to Maddie with my blessing, like a good dying girl.
Instead, I made one phone call to my wedding planner.
On Saturday, two hundred guests are going to see a slideshow.
I won’t be there to watch.

Born into a legacy of power, privilege, and bloodshed, she’s known only a life behind mansion gates—where even friends are assigned, choices are made for her, and cake for breakfast is a normal dilemma. But when her family arranges a marriage with a stranger from a rival empire, she decides it’s time to break free. Dressed as a servant, identity erased, she climbs the wall that separates her from the world she's never known.
But freedom comes at a cost.
Just as she’s about to leap into the unknown, the night ignites in flames and screams. Her home burns. Her family falls. And from her perch above it all, she watches in horror as the only life she’s ever known is destroyed.
"Mummy!" she cries, but no one hears her.
Because she was never meant to escape—she was meant to disappear.
A coming-of-age mafia thriller where one girl’s quest for freedom collides with a brutal betrayal, and survival becomes her only choice.

Millie’s world is small and safe. It revolves around her parents and her two childhood best friends, Daxton and Sammy. They are her constant, her comfort, her definition of home. To her, that’s all she’ll ever need.
Or at least, that’s what she tells herself. Because deep down, she has always believed she would never be enough to be chosen.
Then Alan moves in next door. Raised by a single mother, Alan has spent his life earning everything the hard way. He has ambition, discipline, and a future built with his own hands.
But there’s one thing he’s never had…a real childhood... and someone who stays. And when he sees Millie, surrounded by laughter and warmth, he knows he’s found what he’s been missing.
He doesn’t just want to be part of her world. He wants her. Slowly, patiently, he begins to break through her walls.
For the first time, Millie feels something unfamiliar, something terrifying—Love.
But just when she starts to explore these newly felt feelings, everything changes.
Daxton, her protector, her closest friend, the one who has always stood by her, confesses his deep-seated feelings for her.
Now Millie stands at a crossroads she was never prepared for.
The boy who feels like home…Or the one who makes her want more.

Eliot and Revean must face the sins of their fathers and hope that at least one of them survives. Our parents decided our future long before we were born. We have no say in what happens now.
Well, she doesn't, because she's mine. I will make her pay for what was taken from me.
All her dreams of a normal life are about to vanish. Replaced by a nightmare from hell. Death might be her best option.
But I won't let that happen. I'll get my pound of flesh. I'll make her suffer.
I am the devil she thinks I am.
So why do I find myself starting to worry about her.

21+ is not for teenagers or children.

"Don't blame me if... argh!" Nick growled, desperate. "Fuck off!"

"If what?"

"If that thing goes in by accident, you know it's a risk, Vanilla," Nick growled as Vanilla teased him more and more.

The girl felt soft and squishy and warm, Nick could feel her. Vanilla teased Nick, even more, rubbing it gently while groaning and kissing the corners of Nick's lips again and again.

"Nick... I... I seem have changed my mind."

Nick caught his breath. "Vanilla, if you keep moving there's a chance it will get lost inside."

"He won't get lost unless you lead him."

"Vanilla, it's not fucking jokes."

My husband doesn't love me. He cares even less for the boy who carries his blood.
 
On the day I gave birth to his heir, Rhys Calloway didn't even glance at the bassinet. The ruthless Don of the Calloway Syndicate simply had a soldier place the child in my arms before walking out, eager to return to the violence of his empire.
 
But tonight, the ice finally broke. His former fiancée—the woman he had actually intended to crown—was returning from Europe.
 
Rhys came home reeking of aged bourbon, his dark eyes glassy with a terrifying euphoria. For the very first time, he actually scooped our son into his arms, a rare, chilling laugh vibrating in his chest.
 
Startled, Leo clung to the broad shoulders of the man he was forbidden to claim as a father.
 
He looked down at me, his voice a terrified whisper in the cavernous foyer.
 
"Mama, what's wrong with him? Why is Sir acting like this?"
 
I knelt, gently pulling my son from Rhys's slackening grip.
 
"The woman he truly loves is coming home, baby," I whispered, fighting the sting of tears. "Which means our time here is up. We have to pack."

I found out my entire relationship with the golden boy of hockey was just a sick, twisted bet with his ex-girlfriend.

I gave Felix Sawyer my firsts, my heart, and my absolute devotion, only to stand frozen in a parking lot listening to him and his friends laugh at my pathetic existence. "The whole thing with Bethel was just a bet," he had smiled, shattering my world.

Years later, I’m no longer that naive college nerd. I’m playing in the championship finals, and the only thing standing between me and the trophy is the demon who ruined my life.

"Let's make a bet," Felix whispered, cornering me in the locker room before the game, his smug face inches from mine. "If you win, I'll crawl in the snow. But if I win... you belong to me."

I accepted, fueled by pure, unadulterated hate. I was going to crush him on the ice. I was going to make him bleed tears.

But I didn't.

I watched in absolute horror as the final buzzer blew, and the scoreboard mocked my failure. Felix skated toward me, the crowd chanting his name, a dangerous, predatory smirk on his face.

"A bet is still a bet, darling," he mouthed. And tonight, he was coming to collect his prize.

I hate Beckett Hayes.
I hate his stupidly perfect face.
I hate the arrogant smirk that has sold millions of jerseys.
I hate that half of Chicago seems to worship the ground his skates touch.
But mostly? I hate what he did to my brother.
Eight years ago, Beckett Hayes destroyed my family. I haven't spoken to him since.
So naturally, on the first morning of my dream job with Chicago's hottest professional hockey team, I find him leaning against my office door.
Older. Bigger. Hotter. And wearing the same infuriating smile I remember.
My new job should have nothing to do with Beck. Until another one of the captain's scandals lands him in trouble and management decides I'm exactly the person he needs.
Now I'm traveling with him. Managing him. Arguing with him. Trying very hard not to notice what years of professional hockey have done to his body.
Then a photograph of us nearly kissing goes viral.
Suddenly everyone wants Beckett Hayes and Sloane Mercer together. The team. The sponsors. The fans. Everyone except me.
Because I know exactly who Beck is. At least, I thought I did.
But the closer I get to him, the more the story I've believed for eight years starts falling apart.
Beck didn't destroy my brother. He protected him.
And the man I've spent almost a decade hating? He's spent every one of those years wanting me.

When I was ten, my parents faked a messy divorce and turned my life into a sick reality show.
They split up me and my twin sister, Romy. She got the Alpine mansion and my mother's luxurious lifestyle.
I was dumped in a moldy basement, scrubbing diner plates and clinging to my physics books to survive my father's "gambling addiction." 
For eight years, I starved to pay off his staged debts. Then, on our eighteenth birthday, Romy casually texted me a link to StreamLens, an exclusive voyeur site for bored billionaires, followed by a few stabbing messages:
[Surprise, sis. Mom and Dad never actually split. We're perfectly happy ]
[It's honestly sad watching you skip meals, but you know how it is.]
[You were the "older sister," so they chose you to be the one raised in the dirt.] 
I clicked the link. The site's #1 live feed was a giant split screen titled: "The Twin Experiment: Raised Poor vs. Raised Rich—Which Sister Comes Out on Top?" 
On the left: me, freezing in a leaky cellar. On the right: Gareth and Marissa playfully hugging Romy on a velvet sofa, slicing into a massive birthday cake. The debt, the loan sharks, my absolute misery—it was all just entertainment. 
Through the feed, Romy stared straight into the hidden camera, flashing a sickly-sweet smile. 
“Smile for the cameras, sis. Your suffering bought us this gorgeous house.”

My daughter has been blind since birth. On her eighteenth birthday, she finally received news of a matching cornea donor.
Our whole family was so excited we couldn't sleep that night. My husband and daughter eagerly prepared for the surgery, their hearts filled with hope that she would soon see the light.
But I suddenly slammed my hand on the table and, amidst the family's stunned gazes, proposed a divorce on the spot.
My husband's face turned ashen as he demanded harshly, "You want a divorce just because I'm going through with our daughter's surgery?"
I curled the corner of my mouth and enunciated every word: "That's right. Because you're going through with her surgery—this marriage is over."

Before the zombie outbreak, I was a hardcore doomsday prepper. I hoarded countless supplies, but when the apocalypse actually arrived, I ended up turning into a zombie myself. Just as I was overwhelmed with panic, my girlfriend and the guy she was cheating on me with brought a mob of thugs to smash down my door...

On my first day as an intern at the zoo, the old director assigned us animals to care for.
In my previous life, my classmate Jack chose the easy-to-care-for African elephant, while I was forced to take on the brutal Siberian tiger.
A month later, the apocalypse struck, and the Siberian tiger successfully evolved, leading me to escape the encirclement.
Jack's elephant, however, couldn't outrun the mutated species and was torn to pieces. Driven
by jealousy, the surviving Jack incited a mob to brutally beat me and the giant tiger to death, dismembering and cannibalizing us.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the animals were assigned.
Jack had already taken the Siberian tiger, pushing the elephant to me, and I knew he had also been reborn.
But what he didn't know was that the Siberian tiger he had devoured was also reborn with me.

Betrayed and bleeding out, heiress Kira Summers dies at the hands of her treacherous family.

Across worlds, Alpha King Adrian Draven begs the moon goddess for redemption after losing his mate to his own fatal mistakes.

The universe answers…with a vicious twist.

Kira awakens in his mate's body: fierce, powerful, and utterly unforgiving.

In a realm of wolves, witches, and pack politics, she trusts no one…least of all the Alpha who thinks he can tame her.

He wanted his lost mate back.
He got hellfire in heels instead.

And this new Queen? She's ready to burn it all down.

They left me to die in a burning lab while saving my faker sister. Big mistake.

I hadn't slept in six months, perfecting the neural serum that would save Mom's life. One vial. One chance. Then my adopted sister Mia grabbed it and smashed it on the floor, sobbing about how cruel I was to a "disabled" person.

Mom and Dad ate it up. My fiancé Ryan nodded along—probably because he was banging Mia every chance he got. When fire trapped me in the lab, they carried out "paralyzed" Mia and left me hammering on reinforced glass, choking on smoke.

Want to know the best part? That manipulative snake hopped out of her wheelchair and sprinted to safety the second she thought no one was looking.

Second chance at life? Hell yes.

I'm watching Mia lift that test tube again, ready to destroy everything. But instead of lunging forward like last time, I lean back in my chair.

"Smash away," I say with a shrug. "I'm not the one who'll suffer."

Let's see how this plays out when I'm not the naive fool.

In my last life, the city became a locked-down apocalypse zone.
My “family-first” elite father shoved my older brother into a raider’s shotgun just to survive.
My pampered socialite mother thought I was dead weight—and personally threw me into a tide of infected.
When I opened my eyes again, it was the third day after the world collapsed.
Watching my mother still dilute her luxury face cream with the last half case of water—while my father lectured me about principles—
I drew my tactical knife and pinned it clean through the solid oak table.
“From now on, supplies are split. Rot here and prove it to me.”

An accident took my sight when I was a child. From that day on, my world was nothing but darkness.

When I was little, Derek, my childhood sweetheart, held my hand and swore he would be my eyes and protect me for the rest of my life.

But as we grew older, he began to see me as a burden just because I was blind. He fell for my bright, outgoing younger sister, Lilith.

He often hid my cane and watched me struggle to find my way. Then he and Lilith would laugh at me together.

Today was my coming-of-age mate party. It was supposed to be the day Derek and I became mates.

Instead, he brought in five werewolves and had them pretend to be him so I would have to pick him out from among them.

He said that if I chose him correctly, we would mate today.

But I could smell every one of them clearly.

Not a single man among the five was Derek.

Then again, whether I chose him or someone else had stopped mattering a long time ago.

I was carrying Don Elijah’s child. But on the exact day I went into labor, the man I loved dragged me to an underground freezer—standing at a deadly minus ten degrees Celsius—and locked the heavy metal door.

The reason? The Varro Mafia family’s ironclad rule: the firstborn son inherits the entire empire. His brother’s wife, Elena, was also pregnant, our due dates separated by a single day.

To guarantee his brother’s child secured the throne, Elijah callously snuffed out my hope.

"Elena’s child must be born first," he demanded coldly. "This is what you owe them!"

He ignored the warm rush of my broken water. He ignored my agonizing, tearing contractions. He shoved me into the icy darkness, violently injecting me with a drug specifically designed to halt my labor.

Curled up on the frost-covered concrete, freezing and completely alone, I clutched my stomach in sheer agony. In the suffocating cold, I felt the terrifying stillness. I felt the tiny, fighting heartbeat inside me slowly, torturously fading away.

Hot tears streamed down my face, freezing before they hit the ground.

"My baby..." I whispered into the pitch-black void, my heart shattering into a million pieces. "Mommy is so sorry..."

Elijah sacrificed our child out of blind loyalty to his brother. But when he finally opens that frostbitten door, he won’t merely find a broken woman—he will face the terrifying, irreversible ruin of his own legacy.

"I'm six weeks pregnant with Asher's baby," my husband's mistress texted me, attaching a photo of a torn condom wrapper on my husband’s desk.
"If he really loved you, what am I?"
I just called a secret number.
"Are you sure you want to activate the Ghost Protocol?" my brother asked over the encrypted line.
"Once done, your identity is erased. You will cease to exist."
"Do it," I replied coldly.
My billionaire husband thinks he can keep his perfect marriage and his wild mistress.
He has no idea that his gentle, low-profile wife is actually the most dangerous princess of the New York Mafia.
I gave him a 15-day countdown.
On the final day, he opened his "anniversary gift"—only to find his cheating evidence and a house completely emptied of my existence.
He tore the city apart looking for me, going insane.
But how do you find a woman who never legally existed?

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.