8606 Book(s) Related to man in the iron mask true story

They told me my family died in the fire. They lied.
Foster care. Adoption. A garden. Fists. Silence. The only rule that kept me safe: Don’t make a sound. It hurts less.
Now I train abandoned dogs to trust again. Every one of them learns. I don’t.
My adoptive parents marry me off to Bluehaven’s most dangerous man to settle a debt. A prenup is placed in front of me. Separate rooms. Separate accounts. No feelings. I sign. My first choice. Can my life get any worse?
He pins me to the wall. His hands on my skin. My fingers in his hair. I’m shaking. He stops. Waits.
“Want you,” I say. “All of it.”
For the first time, being touched doesn’t have to hurt.
For the first time, a man isn’t something to fear.
I think that’s all there is. A contract. A body. Two broken people who don’t let go.
Until I’m called to a client’s home to check on a dog.
A photograph hangs on the wall.
The little girl in the photograph is me.

[WARNING: RAPE, TORTURE, MURDER, MATURE CONTENT 18+]
In the shimmering light of what was supposed to be her dream wedding, Hazel's life descends into a nightmare she could never have foreseen. As the celebration unfolds, the joyous occasion swiftly transforms into a horrifying bloodbath, leaving Hazel to wonder if anyone has survived.
The man she was meant to marry, her childhood lover... Was he still alive or not?
But the nightmare was far from over. Captured by a ruthless and deranged man who reigned as the king of the underground mafia, Hazel's life took a dark and harrowing turn.
Forced into his bed in a state of vulnerability and despair, Hazel faced a horror she had never imagined on what should have been the happiest day of her life.
But her body bears the scars of unspeakable cruelty; her innocence is forever stolen.
Her secret mission, the path she embarked on with purpose, has now spiraled into a dark and perilous mission for survival.
**
“You have no right to treat me in this way.”
Francisco, a man with a darkness that matched the shadows of his empire, gritted his teeth and issued a chilling warning, "I can be more cruel to you, detective."
‘I am not weak; just remember it, Francisco. I am not afraid of you…’

Plot and Description:
In the heart of Paris, "Passionate Encounters in Paris" unfolds as a tale of forbidden love and profound connection between Alexander Laurent, a driven American entrepreneur, and Amélie Dubois, a talented local artist. Their serendipitous meeting at an art gallery sparks an immediate attraction, drawing them into a whirlwind romance amidst the city's enchanting backdrop.

Amidst the iconic landmarks and cobblestone streets, Alexander and Amélie navigate the complexities of their burgeoning relationship. Alexander, captivated by Amélie's vibrant art and spirit, finds himself drawn to her passion and creativity. Meanwhile, Amélie is equally enthralled by Alexander's ambition and the depth of their emotional connection.

Their love story deepens with each intimate moment shared—the stolen kisses in quiet cafés, passionate encounters in Amélie's Montmartre loft, and heartfelt conversations under the Parisian moonlight. As they explore the city together—from the Louvre to the Seine—they discover new facets of themselves and each other, forging a bond that transcends the boundaries of their respective worlds.

However, their love is not without its challenges. Caught between their undeniable chemistry and the obligations that threaten to pull them apart, Alexander and Amélie must confront the realities of their situation. Yet, through it all, their love remains steadfast, a testament to the enduring power of passion and the timeless allure of Paris—the city where their hearts found home in each other's embrace.

“I’m pregnant.” Her voice cracked.
He stared at the test like it might explode. “How long have you known?”
“Three days.”
“Three days.” He repeated it like testing the weight of a lie. “Tell me, Bella. Whose is it?”
The question hit her like a physical blow. “Yours. It’s yours, Nathaniel.”
“Don’t lie to me.” His face was a mask of cold fury. “We haven’t shared a bed in months. So I’ll ask again, whose baby is it?”


Bella Martinez thought her loveless marriage to billionaire Nathaniel Blackwood couldn't get worse, until she discovers she's pregnant. But when Nathaniel reveals he's been sterile for seven years and accuses her of cheating, Bella's world crumbles. As she fights to prove her innocence, dark family secrets emerge that threaten to destroy everything. The truth about her pregnancy is more shocking than anyone imagined, and it will either tear the Blackwood empire apart or forge an unbreakable bond between two broken souls.

"I need to go now, Tasha, before your sister notices I am gone," Desmond said as he looked around for his boxers.
I turned his gaze to mine and said "I want you to fuck me, Daddy," I pleaded my voice low and sultry.
In the beginning, his words were like sweet poison, luring her deeper into his web of manipulation. She longed for the love she thought he could give, but instead, she found herself trapped in a toxic embrace.
Tasha, a beautiful young woman, finds herself entangled in a forbidden affair with her sister's husband, hoping to win his love and perhaps even lead him away from her sister. However, as emotions intensify and loyalties are tested, Tasha soon realizes that her misguided intentions have set off a chain of events that will forever alter the dynamics of their family.
Love, betrayal, and the intricate web of relationships collide in a story that explores the depths of desire and the repercussions of crossing forbidden boundaries.

" When I don't get a thing...I ruin it," he said and then started laughing maniacally.

"And believe me nobody wants a ruined girl."

And now she understood her life is ended.

Ayzel is a beautiful, innocent orphan girl, trapped by an agent to trap a Mafia don. Under a planned scheme, she enters the Mafia's
den and becomes the victim of that ruthless Mafia don's lust. She comes to know that the day her mother died giving birth to her in an orphanage, the very day a bloody massacre happens in this family.
Will Ayzel accomplish the mission or get herself destroyed by that mafia don? will she find the secret of her paternity before it's too late?
will she be able to survive the web of lies, lust, and danger?

After a humiliating breakup, Athena’s best friend tricks her into helping their roommate, Jonas Parker, rehearse for a romantic comedy audition. One fake marriage license, several drinks, and one very questionable cousin later, Athena wakes up to discover she’s apparently married.
To her best friend.
And the entire internet knows about it.
Determined to fix the mistake, Athena plans to get an annulment immediately—until Jonas lands the role of a lifetime, and staying married suddenly becomes part of the deal. Jonas has spent years telling everyone exactly one thing: “We’re not dating.” Now he’s trying to convince the world that his accidental wife isn’t just his best friend. Because if their marriage falls apart, so might his acting career.
As if that isn’t complicated enough, Athena’s estranged billionaire father wants her to come home and claim her place as heir to his empire, her ex-boyfriend wants her back now that he knows she’s rich, and her new boss turns out to be Duke Montgomery—her former fiancé who still hasn’t forgiven her for breaking his heart.
With jealous exes, scheming socialites, corporate power struggles, fake relationships, family secrets, a charming stranger and a wedding neither of them remembers agreeing to, Athena and Jonas are about to discover that friendship is a lot easier than love.
And then Athena begins to notice something she never saw before. Maybe the person she’s been looking for has been standing beside her all along.
After all, what happens in Vegas was supposed to stay in Vegas.
Instead, it followed her home and it might just change her life forever.

I should know better than to hook up with the handsome stranger at my best friend’s wedding.   Especially when he runs off mid-kiss like Cinderella at midnight.    Is he a fugitive from justice? A player? Both?   I find out soon enough when he shows up at work—where I was just hired as a law partner defending white collar criminals. Yup, he’s one of them. And he’s depending on me to keep him out of jail.   He’s also just as hot, charming, and tempting as he was the night of the wedding. Talk about forbidden love.   The last thing I should do is get involved with a client, especially one who may be guilty of all kinds of things.    Not the least of which is stealing my heart.

Anna an orphan girl, manages to make ends meet running her small business until her lover, Ethan needs money to grow his business, she sacrifices everything she has to help him grow. She has to work so she accepts his offer to work as his secretary, where she is underpaid.
lillian(Ethan’s new lover) steps into the story and Ethan’s humiliation grows.

Things take another dramatic turn when, Mrs. Desmond the billionaire’s wife meets Anna and finds out that She is their long lost daughter, The heiress of Lenu Jewelers.
She seizes the opportunity and elevates her father’s company marvelously.

There, She meets Wesley a handsome guy whom She would fall in love with.

She had suffered humiliation and is ready to be her boss.
Ethan tries to get back into her life, but it is clear he wants only the Favour, as he still works with Lillian and her father, who is Anna’s company’s greatest rival.
Ethan feel intimidated and doesn’t accept defeat.
tries to further destroy and humiliate her because of this, but she has had enough and gives him a taste of his medicine.
She hits him with a sweet revenge, where he has to kneel and beg.

Dasy is a shooting Star who decides to reincarnate in earth, so She can find the love of her life, Patrick, who is also a shooting star and have been in love with Dasy since eternity. They both will fin each other the true love they have been dreaming among their reincarnations. But there is a little secret between them, everytime Patrick touch Dasy they shine and everything shakes as a strong equark around them. They must to keep their secret on safe, that they actually are shooting stars living as humans being otherwise they could finish being apart forever, because their love is too strong but as deep as dangerous.

Mya Evans never believed in monsters, until the night she walked into a warehouse and met Dante Cardello.
Cold, violent and powerful, the mob boss doesn’t forgive theft. He punishes it. But instead of putting a bullet in her father’s skull, Dante names his terms. Marriage, obedience and an heir within a year.
Mya swears she’ll never want him, never love him, never surrender her fire. But Dante has no intention of letting his unwilling bride remain untouched. He’ll break her defiance and teach her that everything that belongs to him stays his.
Enemies to lovers, forced marriage, age gap and breeding kink.
In Dante’s world, vows aren’t whispered at an altar.
They’re written in blood.

He promised her dying father he'd protect her. Always.
Dante Moretti grew up under Liliana's dad—a powerful mafia boss who taught him everything and treated him like a son. When the old man was killed, Dante swore he'd keep Liliana safe, no matter what. For years, he watched over her like a big brother, making sure no one ever hurt her.
Now Liliana is 21 and back home. She's beautiful, curvy, and done with Dante's rules. She wants to date, go out, live her life. But Dante won't let any guy near her. He scares them all away.
He tells himself it's because he's her guardian.
He tells himself she's like family.
But the truth? He doesn't want anyone touching her... because he wants her for himself.
One night, the jealousy boils over. One touch changes everything. What started as protection turns into something dark, hot, and completely forbidden.
In Dante's dangerous world, love is a weakness enemies can use. Old secrets about her father's death are coming out, and rivals are watching. But Dante can't let her go. Not now. Not ever.
She's his to protect.
She's his to have.
And some lines were meant to be crossed.
A steamy, possessive mafia guardian romance full of forbidden love, intense jealousy, and off-the-charts passion. Perfect for fans of dark, obsessive alphas and the women who bring them to their knees.

"Only one woman leaves alive. Choose, Jared."

My husband didn't even hesitate. He rushed past me, untying his weeping mistress, Natalie. "I choose her! Take Danika!" he screamed, refusing to look at me as I sat bound to the chair. He walked away, leaving me alone with the man paid to rape me. The monster laughed, unzipping his pants, thinking I was a broken doll. But he forgot I had nothing left to lose. As he forced himself on me, my hand found a pen in his pocket. I didn't beg for mercy. I plunged it straight into his eye socket.

Danika, the perfect wife of upcoming businessman Jared Fox is known to the world as a naive, beautiful wife who loves her husband to the core, however, no one knows just how dark her life is.

Enter Lysander Laurent-Ashworth, cold, disciplined, and feared across the business world for his ruthless precision. To everyone else, he is untouchable. To Danika, he is the stranger who saved her, and the man who seems determined to shield her, even from the truths she can’t remember.

Bound by a dangerous agreement neither of them fully understands, Danika finds herself drawn into Lysander's world but Lysander might just do anything to protect her. Absolutely, anything.

Two sisters. One man. A love neither can afford to lose.

Isabella and Mariah couldn't be more different. Isabella, the elder sister, lives a life of privilege polished, poised, and married into wealth. Mariah, on the other hand, knows the taste of struggle. She works double shifts, counts coins at the end of every month, and dreams of a love that will finally make her feel seen.

Their worlds collide when they both meet Eli, a mysterious homeless man who carries himself with quiet strength and eyes that seem to hold centuries of pain. To Isabella, he’s a forbidden thrill raw, real, and far from the sterile perfection of her husband’s mansion. To Mariah, he’s salvation someone who understands her loneliness and fights his own silent battles.

Neither sister knows that Eli hides a truth powerful enough to destroy them both. He’s not a drifter; he’s the estranged heir of a powerful billionaire, cast out after rejecting his family’s empire. As the sisters fall deeper into his orbit, secrets unravel, and loyalties are tested.

When the truth comes to light, love turns to rivalry, and desire turns to war. The sisters will learn that sometimes love isn’t measured by what you have but by what you’re willing to lose.

Eva Fransis had everything—until the people she loved most took it all away.

Drugged and betrayed on her 18th birthday by her best friend, Eva's perfect life crumbled in a single night. A desperate escape led her into the arms of a stranger, and one forbidden night left her pregnant and alone.

Forced into a marriage she never wanted, Eva endured years of abuse, humiliation, and heartbreak—all while her husband lived off her family's wealth. The final blow? Catching him in bed with the very woman who destroyed her life.

Now, Eva is done being a victim.

She wants a divorce. She wants her freedom. She wants to give her children the life they deserve.

But her husband refuses to let her go—not out of love, but greed.

And just when she thinks things can't get more complicated, a powerful stranger appears, claiming to be the real father of her children.

He wants them back.

He wants her back.

She spent years protecting her heart. Now she must protect her children—even if it means facing the man from that unforgettable night.

Can she break free from her past? Or will she be stolen by the man who already owns a piece of her?

My best friend could charm any man alive. I just didn't know how — not until it was too late.
Every boyfriend I ever had, she'd get close, turn on that pull of hers, and wait. They always fell. Then she'd send me the proof with the same sweet line: "Babe, you should be thanking me. I just saved you from another cheater."
Five boyfriends. Five "loyalty tests." Five relationships she destroyed and called it a favor.
I ran. Started over in a new pack. Found my fated mate — Callum Drake, the Alpha of Silver Ridge. For the first time in years, I felt safe.
On our mating ceremony day, she walked into my dressing room wearing an attendant's uniform.
She drugged my wine. Put on my robes. Crawled into my mate's bed.
I caught her. Threw her out. Thought it was over.
Months later, I was bleeding out in labor — and my mate stood over me, refusing to save me, because he'd been in love with her the whole time.
I died on that table.
When I opened my eyes, I was back. Same day. Same ceremony. Same best friend, same smile.
This time, I didn't scream.

"You will be married to the King of Grok on the fourth night, and that's final!"

I fell to my knees, the cold marble digging into my skin. I had studied for years in the flickering candlelight, memorizing every herb and poison to pass the healer's exam. I wanted freedom. I wanted to save my mother from the servant's quarters. I placed second. I thought I had won my life back.

But the King didn't give me a badge of honor. He gave me a death sentence.

"Raven Thorne shall be wed to the King of Grok," he announced, his voice echoing in the silent hall. Princess Ellie, the woman who had tormented me for years, slapped her hands over her mouth to hide her cruel laughter. She was supposed to marry the Beast. Now, I was the lamb being sent to the slaughter in her place.

They say King Liam drinks the blood of his enemies. They say he is more monster than man. And now, I have to walk into his bedroom, wearing the Princess's silk gown, and pray he doesn't tear me apart.

I looked at the King, tears streaming down my face. "I'll do it," I whispered, my voice trembling. "But my mother must be safe."

I sold my body and soul to a monster to save her. But when the carriage door opened and I finally looked into the Beast's golden eyes, I realized the terrifying truth...

He wasn't a stranger. He was the man I met in the woods.

"Do you enjoy this? Ignoring me like I don't exist? Do you have any idea how humiliating this feels, waiting for you like some fool?" After three years of a cold, loveless marriage, Selene Henderson finally gathers the courage to walk away from her distant billionaire husband, Sebastian Kingsley.
She's ready to file for divorce... until a tragic accident changes everything. When Sebastian wakes up with no memory of the woman he once pushed away, Selene finds herself trapped in a marriage she was desperate to escape—this time with a man who suddenly looks at her like she's his whole world.
But can love born from broken memories survive the truth of their painful past? Or will the secrets she's been hiding destroy them all over again?
"Are you always this shy around your own husband, wife?" his voice dropped into a low, dangerous growl, his hands anchoring me against the wall.
"We didn't... we didn't use to do this," I gasped, trying to look away from his piercing gaze.
He leaned in, his breath hot against my lips. "Then your body has a better memory than my brain. Because right now, it's telling me you belong exactly right here."

Dema never expected her new job to end with a marriage proposal from her billionaire CEO.
But with the tabloids destroying his family's reputation, Rami needs a wife—fast.
One year, a quiet divorce, four million dollars. That's the deal.
Thrown into a world of luxury, scrutiny, and impossible expectations, Dema struggles to keep up while Rami treats their marriage like another business arrangement. Yet beneath his cold rules and perfect composure, something unspoken flickers between them.
Just when Dema begins to wonder if their pretend marriage is becoming something real, she overhears a late-night phone call that makes her blood run cold.
Because maybe she wasn't chosen.
Maybe she was used.
And maybe the deal was never the real trap.

In my last life, the heatwave collapse began with me turning an abandoned warehouse into a safe zone. I stocked it, fortified it, and brought my girlfriend inside. That same night, she slid the bolts open from within and let an armed crew storm the place. They threw me out to die.

I survived the heat, only to learn too late that it was just the warning. The real purge came next, when brutal cold hit overnight and froze me to death in the snow.

Then I opened my eyes and found myself back one month before disaster.

While everyone else rushed to buy water and fans, I was the only one who knew the heat was just the beginning. The deep freeze was what would really wipe people out.

This time, I explained nothing. I poured everything I had into diesel, insulation, winter stoves, generators, and turned that warehouse into a fortress built for the cold.

She came again, just like before. This time, I never let her through the door. So she ran straight to the armed gang and had them surround my warehouse for three full days.

She thought trapping me inside meant she’d already won.

What she didn’t know was that in just a few more days, the freeze would arrive.

And the people outside had no fuel, no winter gear, no way to stay warm.

They weren’t waiting for me to break.

They were waiting for their own deaths.

My son Emery scored a perfect SAT and got early admission to MIT Physics. Eighteen years old. His future was limitless.

My billionaire husband Reid's assistant—his mistress in everything but name—suggested Emery attend some garbage local business school instead. Inherit the empire. Fall in line.

Emery said no. Reid exploded.

He locked my son in the lumber yard and ordered him to split five tons of oak. "No water until he's done. That'll teach him respect."

The sun was brutal. My son's asthma attacked. I knelt before Reid's mistress and begged for his inhaler while Reid crushed my right hand—my surgeon's hand.

I got the inhaler and ran back as fast as I could.

But I was too late. My son was already dead.

The basement mats still reeked of sweat. I had barely crawled onto them, hoping to sneak a glance at Selena’s bond ritual, when a rough hand seized the back of my collar.
A white wedding gown was forced over my body, the fabric biting into my skin. The brutal yank dragged me across the floor and into the hall. My knees slammed against the cold stone, pain blazing through me like fire.
Candlelight filled the room, flames snapping and hissing. At the center hung a massive black-and-white portrait. My body turned to stone—this wasn’t a moonlit ritual at all. This was a funeral.
“Selena. Kneel.”
Ulrica’s voice cut like ice. A heartbeat later, his polished shoe dug into the crook of my knee. Agony shot up my leg, bones threatening to shatter as I collapsed before the mourning altar.
“Sherry is my true Fate Mate.” His lips curled in a cruel arc as he looked down on me. “You? You’re nothing but a mistress. Apologize to her—that’s the rule.”

She is extraordinary.


The moment she steps into my line of sight, she eclipses the world.


If I met her a hundred times, I would fall a hundred times.


My soul will only ever tremble for her.

One reckless night shatters perfect Blakely Torres' life, leaving her implicated in a murder that threatens to tarnish her family’s legacy. Forced to retreat to her family’s ancestral mansion, Blakely finds herself entangled with “The Voids,” men who live beyond the bounds of morality, defies nature, pushing her into desires she’s never faced and testing her trust and control.

Grim Reapers. Saving lives. Lessons in love. 

(Previously published as Drinking With Death)

For some, it's a fictitious world, but for Debra's friend, it will become her life. 

For once, nothing is going right in her world, but she always has her friend to help her, right?

Right?

Ushering souls into the afterlife was something she scoffed at…until it became all too real. 

Now she is attracting men like she is one of the seven sins.

Can she deal with her business having unexpected troubles, help others before Death takes them, and have a love life when one wasn't expected?

Or will becoming Death take it all away?

Grab a glass of wine and read this Women's Paranormal Fiction story. Just be careful when taking a sip since the laughs can be dangerous! ​

I swear, I hate my husband.

At my birthday party, my husband whispered to his mistress in French that he missed her. His voice was low, but I heard it all—the black lingerie, the bit about how pregnancy makes you more sensitive. His French clients around us were laughing. He turned and put his arm around me, claiming he was just helping his clients come up with sweet nothings.

He doesn't know I understand every single word. Just like he doesn't know that inside my body, I'm carrying his other surprise. And his mistress—she's pregnant too. Two wombs, one secret.

Confrontation would be too cheap. Tears are worthless. I quietly started cataloging the hidden networks my father left behind, activating the Swiss accounts.

In seven days, Zoey Smith will cease to exist. And what will my husband's reaction be?

Ness is tired of her predictable life—arguing with her family, working a dead-end job, and daydreaming about the kind of grand adventures she reads about in books. So when her best friend Joe suggests a trip to the infamous RoseWood Park, a forest rumored to swallow people whole, she doesn’t hesitate.

Trapped in a nightmare world where time moves differently, they encounter two boys who disappeared decades ago yet never aged.

The forest gives adventures... but at what cost?

“I’ll die in ten days without my second chance mate…just claim me, Asher… before it’s too late.” I pleaded.

“If I do, I’ll never love you again. That's worse than you dying…”

Banished. Cursed. Unclaimed.

Phina thought being chosen as a mate by a powerful Alpha would save her. Instead, she was used, betrayed, and thrown to the wolves—literally. Now cursed to die unless she's claimed within ten days, she's dragged before the one wolf feared by all: Asher, the ruthless Rogue Alpha King.

When their eyes meet, sparks fly. One word seals their fate: “Mate.”

But Asher is cursed too—one night with any woman, and he loses all ability to love her. He fights the pull. She begs for survival. Every moment burns with forbidden heat…
Until desire wins.

Will claiming her break the curse—or destroy them both?

Eloise has been in love with her older brother's best friend, Nonso, since she was a little girl. She was twelve when he left for Kensington College to chase a boxing career. Heartbroken, she waited patiently for his return.
Six years later, Nonso is back—a college athlete champion now running a boxing scholarship program at her high school. Eloise is convinced the universe is finally bringing them together.
But Nonso doesn't see it that way. To him, she's still the little girl he used to carry to bed and kiss goodnight. Still Oliver's baby sister. Nothing more.
Eloise becomes deeply infatuated with making him see her as the young woman she is now. But what she doesn't know is that Nonso isn't the perfect man she idolises.
He's a man with an insatiable appetite for sex, not the soft, gentle soul she believes him to be. He doesn't love or get emotionally invested in the women he sleeps with.
Eloise refuses to give up. If Nonso wants to keep calling her Little Ruby, she'll just have to give him every reason to see the woman standing in front of him. She pushes every button he has, testing his patience and slowly cracking the resolve he's built around her. And the closer she gets, the more Nonso begins to question the boundary he never thought he'd have to defend—and the harder it becomes for him to hold on to the one thing he's always been certain of: That Eloise is nothing more than his best friend's little sister.
But how long can he keep telling himself that lie?

I was cruising leisurely down a desert highway when three Harley motorcycles pulled up behind me, claiming one of their crew was injured.

I pulled over to help — and they stole my truck.

I called the police — and the cops arrested me as an accomplice.

In my previous life, I was cruelly exploited by my wicked stepmother.
Not only was I drained of my military discharge money, but I was also driven into a subterranean warehouse that could collapse at any moment.
In darkness and despair, I was frozen to death by a cold wave that dropped surface temperatures to minus 60 degrees.
The moment I opened my eyes again, I had reincarnated back to three days before the outbreak of the cataclysm!
Staring at my stepmother's face, which was filled with greed and harshness, I wasted no words, threw on my heavy coat, and marched straight toward the underground warehouse.
For I knew that with sufficient supplies and energy, this nuclear-grade subterranean warehouse would become the ark of the apocalypse!

irectly in front of me.
Only the night before, she’d been curled up in my arms, her warm fingertips brushing my collarbone, our bodies tangled in tender, loving intimacy.
Yet the toe tag fastened around her ankle was etched with cold, unflinching words: Su Wan, Female, 22. Cause of death: fatal fall from height. Time in morgue custody: 365 days.
She had been dead for an entire year.
Just what in the hell was the woman who’d gasped beneath me night after night, who’d lived beside me day in and day out for six whole months—the woman I’d called my girlfriend?

On the day the apocalyptic flood swallowed the city, I died on a fractured overpass.

The man who crushed my fingers under his boot was my brother-in-law, the very man I had sacrificed everything to support. And standing safely out of reach, watching coldly as the muddy torrent swallowed me whole, was my supposedly sweet and devoted fiancée. In her arms, she fiercely clutched her "son"—who was hoarding the last of my survival rations.

In the very last second of my life, she nestled into the arms of her ex-boyfriend and left me with a single, contemptuous sneer: "Let's go. Forget about this useless trash."

It turned out that working my fingers to the bone and emptying my life savings had all been a pathetic joke—a long con orchestrated by a pack of bloodsucking parasites.

But when I opened my eyes again, I had returned to exactly one year before the apocalypse began.

My fiancée was standing there, holding a cup of hot coffee and sweetly begging me to invest another million into her brother's business.

I just smiled, gently pushed her hand away, and turned around to liquidate every single asset to my name. With that money, I secretly constructed a state-of-the-art, deep-sea underground fortress.

Later, when the monstrous floodwaters inevitably tore the city apart, they stood on the balcony of their doomed mansion, desperately falling to their knees and begging my icebreaker for salvation.

Sitting inside my perfectly secure command cabin, I took a leisurely sip of hot coffee and softly gave the order:

"Open fire. Don't let this trash dirty my deck."

My sister climbed out her window the night before her wedding. So my family pinned her veil over my face and sent me in her place.
I'd been her stand-in my whole life — same face, same hair, the daughter they could afford to lose. Nobody looks twice at a bride behind a veil.
The Falcones figured out I was a fake before the vows. They broke my hand for the insult. And the don himself — the man this whole city only says quietly — took one look at the mess they'd made of me and told them to throw me out with the trash.
Then his eyes dropped to the locket my dead mother left me, lying on his marble floor.
And the most feared man in the city went very, very still.
He had no business knowing my mother's name. So why did he say it like a prayer?

I thought eight years of devotion could warm a frozen heart, but it turned out to be nothing more than a nightmare of being someone’s stand-in.
Jazzy’s poisoned chocolate, the scalding hot water, and Azrael’s gaze that never strayed from his dead wife—each one a blade carving into my soul.
They said I stole her dresses, wore her necklace.
But who saw the nights I stayed awake for the pack, the dangers I took on for Jazzy?
It wasn’t until I was cast out of the territory that I realized—there was never a place for me here.
Then the ruby ring burned against my skin, and the Silverfang wolves came for me.
Only then did I learn the truth my father had hidden all along—
I was never anyone’s shadow.
I am the heir of royal blood.
And those who once hurt me will one day watch as I rise from the ashes—reborn.

Dad was in critical condition and had just been wheeled into the operating room.
My husband—also Dad’s attending surgeon—was nowhere to be found.
I stood in the corridor in my pajamas until past midnight, hands shaking as I kept calling Jason.
When the call finally connected, a sweet, girlish voice spilled through the speaker:
"I’m watching the Eiffel Tower lights with Jason!"
A male voice followed, impatient and familiar—Jason’s:
"Is it her again? Ava, tell her to stop calling. The lights are about to go out. Can she stop making a scene?"
A chill sliced through me. Before I could speak, the line went dead.

Six months into the apocalypse, I risked my life to pamper my girlfriend like a princess, only to be betrayed by her and the camp leader .
My legs were broken, and I was thrown over the wall to be eaten by dogs ; hundreds of civilians I had once protected turned on me .
On the verge of death, I unexpectedly rescued a mysterious prodigy, instantly binding myself to an endless space and granting me divine healing abilities . My severed limbs regenerated instantly, and I had access to countless top-tier resources .
Returning to the camp fully healed, I stomped on the leader's knee and kicked my scheming ex-girlfriend into a horde of zombies .
In this damn apocalypse, from this day forward, I am the one and only new king .

“Eight hundred million. Pay up, and your son lives.”
The Rogue’s voice on the other end of the line was cold as steel.
“Or are you really going to let your own blood die over a little money?”
Stella’s reply was chillingly calm.
“Do whatever you want.”
She turned, pressing down on her father’s trembling hand before his pen could touch the page—
the deed of their ancestral lands, the very foundation the Moon Howl Pack had guarded for generations.
Her father’s face went pale with shock.
“Stella! You love Dean more than anything… That boy is his only heir. How could you be so cruel?”
She gave a bitter smile, but not a word, before walking away with finality.
Blood-stained memories from her past life surged through her mind—
She had once loved Dean blindly.
The moment she heard their son was kidnapped, she never questioned it.
She emptied the pack’s vault, forced her father to mortgage their territory… and in the chaos, her mother’s illness returned and took her life.

（There is a lot of sexual and stimulating content, minors are not allowed to read!!!）
She prepared for pregnancy and did her best to take care of her drunken husband.
Afterwards, her husband kicked her out, simply because his first love had returned.
After the divorce, she made it to the cover of Time magazine, reaching the peak of her life.
Her ex-husband pursued her all the way to the Civil Affairs Bureau, whispering tenderly, "Will you remarry me?"

At my mother's funeral, I stopped outside the lounge.

Through the door, I heard Julian—my fiancé—delivering a cold warning to my father:

"You can stop obsessing over Harper, Richard. She's with me now. Don't bother her anymore."

My father immediately tried to use me to suppress him. "Don't forget you're marrying Sloane next week! If she finds out you're screwing the orphan her mother took in..."

Julian cut him off. "She'll never know. Just like she'll never know her mother didn't actually die of depression. She killed herself because she caught you two together."

Father's counterattack threw me straight into hell:

"What right do you have to judge me?! When Sloane was frantic, calling you for help, what were you doing? If you hadn't been rolling around in a hotel bed with Harper, if you hadn't lied to Sloane that you were 'on your way,' her mother would never have died!"

A violent ringing filled my ears.

I slammed the door open, stormed in, and slapped Julian across the face with every ounce of strength I had left.

The man I was supposed to marry in seven days merely turned his head. It took him exactly one second to suppress his shock.

"Since you heard everything, good. Better to accept reality now, so you don't break down later."

"For the sake of the Vance family heir you're carrying, the wedding next week proceeds as planned."

"But I have responsibilities to Harper, too. That tie won't be severed."

“When you think that life cannot get better, Blake Pierce comes up with another masterpiece of thriller and mystery! This book is full of twists, and the end brings a surprising revelation. Strongly recommended for the permanent library of any reader who enjoys a very well-written thriller.”--Books and Movie Reviews (re Almost Gone) A MURDER IN PARIS is the debut novel in a charming new cozy mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone has received 1,500 five-star reviews.Diana Hope, 55, is still adjusting to her recent separation when she discovers her ex-husband has just proposed to a woman 30 years younger. Secretly hoping they would reunite, Diana is devastated. She realizes the time has come to reimagine life without him—in fact, to reimagine her life, period.Devoting the last 30 years of her life to being a dutiful wife and mother and to climbing the corporate ladder, Diana has been relentlessly driven, and has not taken a moment to do anything for herself. Now, the time has come.Diana never forgot her first boyfriend, who begged her to join him for a year in Europe after college. She had wanted to go so badly, but it had seemed like a wild, romantic idea, and a gap year, she’d thought, would hinder her resume and career. But now, with her daughters grown, her husband gone, and her career no longer fulfilling, Diana realizes it’s time for herself—and to take that romantic year in Europe she’d always dreamed of.Diana prepares to embark on the year of her life, finally turning to her bucket list, hoping to tour the most beautiful sights and sample the most scrumptious cuisines—and maybe, even, to fall in love again. But a year in Europe may have different plans in store for her. Can A-type Diana learn to go with the flow, to be spontaneous, to let down her guard and to learn to truly enjoy life again?In A MURDER IN PARIS (Book #1), Diana hopes to kick off her journey, and find new love, with an unforgettable night at the Versailles ball. But when the dramatic night takes a harrowing turn she could never expect, Diana realizes she will have to solve the crime—or else have her trip end in disaster.A YEAR IN EUROPE is a charming and laugh-out-loud cozy mystery series, packed with food and travel, with mysteries that will leave you on the edge of your seat, and with experiences that will leave you with a sense of wonder. As Diana embarks on her quixotic quest for love and meaning, you will find yourself falling in love and rooting for her. You will be in shock at the twists and turns her journey takes as she somehow finds herself at the center of a mystery, and must play amateur sleuth to solve it. Fans of books like Eat, Pray, Love and Under the Tuscan Sun have finally found the cozy mystery series they’ve been hoping for!Book #2 (DEATH IN FLORENCE) and book #3 (VENGEANCE IN VIENNA) in the series are now also available!

Five years later, after receiving a letter, Cale Smith finally returned.

What awaited him was a dying daughter and the woman he loved, about to be forced into marriage.

The entire city was celebrating the wedding.

They thought Cale Smith was a worthless loser.

They were wrong.

He was Godkiller.

The most feared figure in the dark world.

A single word from him could mobilize thousands.

A single command could lock down an entire city.

And now—

When he saw his daughter wasting away...

When he saw another man taking his woman...

He finally unleashed his fury.

Will the wedding proceed as planned?

No.

On this day, there will be no wedding.

Only judgment.

When Iris went to prison for her boyfriend, she discovered that he was about to marry Alpha's daughter.
It turned out that he had been using her all along and then abandoned her...
Iris fell into despair, but unexpectedly, she crossed paths with Marcus, Alpha's son and her former patient.
She became her ex's brother-in-law's wedding companion?! The most notorious playboy in the Pack?

Mike Costa was supposed to be the sole heir to the Mafia, but he was betrayed and “abandoned” by his own brother Lucas in a yacht explosion, and everyone believed he was dead.
Five years later, he returns—cold-blooded, powerful, and unshakable. The entire underground world of New York is reshaped beneath him.
Just as Mike is about to settle everything once and for all, Lucas forces him into a political marriage with Chicago’s top family, using the secret of his true identity as leverage.
And when Mike first meets the woman at the top of that power hierarchy, she completely changes the rules of this marriage contract—this time, hunter and prey are no longer clearly defined.

My life had been a nightmare until one accident changed everything.
One moment, I was the girl Ethan Blake rejected without a second glance.
The next, I woke up inside his body.
Ethan Blake.
Captain of the hockey team. King of the campus. The same guy who told me to stop wasting everyone's time and just die.
Now I wore his face, carried his name, and lived his life.
And I remembered every cruel thing he had done to me.
So I started returning the favor.
I smiled in front of his friends while tearing apart his perfect reputation piece by piece. I turned his world upside down while everyone still believed I was him.
But Ethan wasn't gone.
And he wasn't willing to stay silent.
The more I took from him, the more desperate he became to reclaim his body.
Even if it meant coming back to me—
On his knees.
Begging.

In my previous life, I was the heir adored by the entire Golden Moon Pack. My sister, Delphine, was cast out with our disgraced father, left to struggle for survival in the frozen wastelands of the North.
Ten years later, on the eve of my coronation as Luna, Delphine, driven mad by jealousy, infiltrated the temple and set it ablaze with black fire.
She clutched my throat and dragged me into death with her, all because she believed I had stolen the life that should have been hers.
She thought I had received all the Moon Goddess's favor.
She never knew that remaining in the wealthy Golden Moon territory had been nothing but a living nightmare.
Our mother, desperate to replenish the family treasury she had squandered, locked me in a dungeon and drained my blood for ten years—
She treated me like a living blood bank, planning to hand me over to a six-hundred-year-old vampire lord as payment for her debts.
So when the black fire consumed us, all I felt as I looked into Delphine's face twisted by jealousy was absolute relief.
When I opened my eyes again, we had both returned to the Blood Moon Choosing Ceremony at the age of eighteen.
This time, before the Elders' Council could even announce the contracts, Delphine lunged madly toward our mother on the throne.
Seeing the greed and ecstasy she could barely contain in her eyes, I said nothing. I simply turned and walked toward my father, who stood in the corner of the hall, leaning on an iron crutch.
She thought she had finally seized a crown.
She had no idea that she had willingly thrown herself into a bottomless abyss filled with her own blood.

Before the apocalypse hit, my ex-girlfriend called me, laughing like a maniac: "Jack, you pathetic loser—still playing that stupid farming game? Gonna whack zombies with a hoe? Open the door right now, get on your knees, and beg us, and maybe we'll throw you some table scraps."
I listened to the faint scrape of a tactical knife being drawn on the other end of the line, and silently glanced at my computer screen—at the maxed-out Greenfield Manor game, with its gold cap glowing at [999,999,999] .
"You misheard." I dropped my voice, lacing it with just the right amount of embarrassment. "I was checking the weather forecast."
The other end erupted in unrestrained laughter: "Then forecast this—how you're gonna die today!"
I hung up without changing my expression, flipped open the system, and spent a million on the [Absolute Defense Shield] —then brought out a steaming plate of roasted meat.
Forecast?
I forecast that tonight, you'll be gnawed down to bare bones by zombies.

At the age of eighteen, Luciano Costa was abandoned by his parents.
From a student to a fighter in the underground boxing world.
It took him seven years to become the acknowledged king by twenty-three families.
They called him "the ghost".
A person who leaves no trace but can determine life and death.
But no one knew that this ruler of the underground world was being slowly consumed by an inexplicable curse within his body.
His life is counting down.
Until he met Cecilia Helsing, who was known as the "Sleeping Beauty".
This is the sole heir of the Helsing family who suddenly fell into a deep sleep three years ago.
In order to find the clues to break the curse, Luciano was forced to marry her and become the son-in-law of the Helsing family.
Cecilia was also revived by him, but Cecilia looked into his eyes and said, "Marriage is okay, but don't touch me."

“Sign the contract. Be my incubator. And I will let you live.”
That was the deal I made with the tyrant named Damon Lexton.
I was his medicine. His prisoner. He did not love me—only the rare blood in my veins that kept him alive. When I died in the fire, he did not mourn his wife. He mourned the loss of his cure.
Five years later, I returned from the dead with a new face and a heart of stone, ready to watch him suffer.
Then my five-year-old son walked into his office.
“Hey, Old Man. Are you the one who made my mom cry?”
Damon stared at the child—the son he once called a bastard. For the first time, the tyrant fell to his knees.
He cornered me against the wall, his eyes burning with madness and obsession.
“You can run, Anna. But you and our son belong to me. I used to need your blood to live. Now I need your heartbeat to breathe.”