9103 Book(s) Related to in the grip of billionaire s obsession

Being Westbridge University’s first female quarterback is already hard enough without having to live with Kieran Vale, my brother’s arrogant best friend.
We can barely survive being roommates, so pretending to date should be easy, right?
Except somewhere between fake kisses, late-night arguments, and jealous glances, our fake relationship starts feeling dangerously real. Then a scandal threatens my football career, and Kieran becomes the one person standing beside me.
But when our secret is exposed, I have to choose between protecting my career and risking everything for the boy I was never supposed to fall for.

What happens when the CEO who doesn’t do love is the only man you’ve ever wanted?
Eighteen months ago, Karin Ellis shared one unforgettable night with a stranger in a Los Angeles hotel suite—a night that lingered long after morning came and they walked away without names, promises, or numbers.
Now that stranger stands before her as Adrien Vale: billionaire, media mogul, and her new boss’s boss.
Adrien is controlled, commanding, and entirely out of reach. A man who doesn’t believe in love, who keeps his world ruthlessly compartmentalized, and who has no intention of letting anyone close enough to matter. Yet the moment he sees Karin again, distance becomes impossible.
As scandal erupts around him and accusations threaten to destroy his empire, Adrien finds himself drawn to the one woman who unsettles his carefully ordered life. Karin knows getting involved could cost her everything—her job, her reputation, her heart. But when she uncovers the truth that could clear his name, walking away is no longer an option.
Adrien may not do love.
But he will protect what’s his.
And when loyalty turns to desire and desire deepens into something far more dangerous, Karin must decide whether the man who built his life on control is capable of risking it all for the one thing he swore he’d never need.

The main character get kidnapped by a rival pack and get saved by her two mates who are alphas of an allied pack with her father. they have a lot of struggles while getting to know each other including getting kidnapped a second time while pregnant The female shifter and her five mates will have many struggles including with their pups but they put their strength and loyalty to the test with many pack as they become the Alphas of Alphas and rule the entire Kingdoms and counsels.

His hands pinned me against the cold obsidian wall before I could even breathe. Draven’s golden eyes burned with raw hunger as he growled, “You belong to us now, little goddess.” Zale’s cool fingers traced my throat from behind, his voice like silk and sin. “Try to run and we’ll chase you forever.”

I came to Mythos Academy as a powerless D-Rank human. One collision with the two most dangerous S-Rank boys shattered everything. Now their fated bond consumes me. They hate each other, yet both crave me with violent obsession. While I fight bullies by day, I melt under their possessive touches by night.

But my blank slate soul is waking up. Ancient powers stir. A forgotten prophecy whispers that I will either save the mythical world… or destroy it.

Two apex monsters share my bed.
A war is coming for my blood.
And I’m starting to like how much they ruin me for anyone else.

"I came to Crestville for a cure, but the only cure is a tear from a love I've never been worthy of"

Iris was born under a weeping star...an elf too powerful for her own good, yet looked down upon by her own kind. When a strange disease begins turning her people to frozen ash, she infiltrates Crestville Academy, a brutal medieval fortress where vampires, werewolves, and fae heirs train in a savage hierarchy. Her mission: find the cure before her sister dies.

But the cure is impossible. It requires the mingled blood of all five bloodlines...and a single tear shed from true love.

Three dangerous alphas stake their claim on her the moment she arrives. Kaelen, the wolf heir who swears to protect her with his feral heart. Drystan, the vampire prince who hasn't felt anything in centuries, Theron, the shadow fae who whispers he's waited lifetimes for this girl.

They would die for her. But can any of them truly love her? And how does a girl who has never been loved make three monsters cry for her....when she's not even sure she knows what love is?

Some girls break curses. This one will have to break three hearts first.

Instalove alters the plan when an Army Ranger makes a calculated deal to wed a female rancher in a modern day marriage of convenience.    Army Ranger Tony Keaton is under a tight deadline. He’s got just 90 days to break ground, construct, and open the elite forces training camp he and his men have been planning since they left the military. The problem is his camp, which is on the grounds of the Purple Heart Ranch, needs access to the adjoining creek for their training exercises. Luckily, the stunning female rancher who owns that piece of land is willing to make a deal. Cattle rancher Brenda Vance is shedding ranch hands who can’t stand working for a woman. But she’s also bleeding money as she modernizes her property. To cover the debt of the technological advances, she agrees to sell the creek to Keaton. But the only way to cut through the red tape and transfer the land quickly enough to meet his 90 day deadline is to get married. Their iron-clad prenup protects her assets, but what will protect her heart? As Keaton and his unit of Army Rangers work the land with no problem taking orders from a woman, Brenda has dangerous dreams of this marriage lasting longer than the red tape requires. Dating isn’t on Keaton’s to do list, but a woman like Brenda makes him want to move love to the top of his priorities. Will these two stick to the deal and go their separate ways once the camp is up and running? Or will they change their plans and make this marriage of convenience last?

Everyone at Harlow University knows Callum Voss. The starting point guard, the dean's favorite headache, the boy whose smile has cleared more disciplinary hearings than any lawyer on retainer. He is the kind of person the campus bends around without being asked.

Nobody knows Wren Aldae. That is entirely on purpose.

Wren has spent two years building a life at Harlow that no one can touch: one close friend, zero social media, a journalism scholarship that pays tuition, and a rule about never writing stories that could blow back on her personally.

Then Callum Voss appears at her desk with a proposition. Someone has started a bet pool about his love life and the resulting media circus is one week away from costing him his athletic standing. He needs it to stop. She needs a front-page story before the scholarship committee meets. A fake relationship with a visible timeline and a clean public ending would solve both problems.

Wren knows better than to say yes. She says yes anyway.

Neither of them accounts for the fact that proximity is its own kind of problem.

She saved him… and paid the price.
Kastura Reed is just a medical student, living in the shadows of a world she doesn’t belong to. When a near-fatal attack throws her into the path of Don Alpha Alessio Draven, the ruthless, dangerous first son of the feared Draven family, her life spirals into chaos.
Alessio cannot forget her, the omega who dared to defy fate and save a man everyone else thought untouchable. But Alessio is not a man who lets go.
Dragged into a world of power, obsession, and desire, Kastura must navigate a line between survival and surrender.
With Alessio claiming her as his… and his fiancée, and the secrets of his world closing in, she soon realizes that love and danger are not avoidable, and one wrong move could cost her everything.
Will she resist the man who controls her fate… or become the one thing Alessio can never live without?

For twenty years, Lyra Solis was the perfect daughter, the perfect socialite, and the perfect fiancée. But the moment the Solis family’s biological daughter, Seraphina, returned from the Outer Rim, Lyra’s life became an expired contract.
The betrayal was total: her parents turned their backs, and her fiancé—the man she was supposed to spend her life with—spent his sacred Alpha rut in the arms of her sister.
To seal Lyra’s fate, Seraphina committed the ultimate crime: she hacked Lyra’s terminal to submit a Genetic Pairing Application. Under Alpha Prime Interstellar Law, the match is permanent. The bond is unbreakable. And the recipient is random.
Lyra didn't cry. She didn't beg. She simply walked away from the only home she ever knew to meet the stranger the system had chained her to.
She expected a commoner. She expected a life of obscurity.
Instead, she found Valerius Thorne.
He is a vision of lethal beauty: ink-black hair, violet eyes, and nine shimmering silver tails that speak of a lineage long thought extinct. Trapped in a violent, drug-induced rut and hunted by assassins, the Nine-Tailed Prince of the Empire is at his most vulnerable. When he clings to Lyra, whispering, "My star, did you come to take me home?" Lyra says yes.
What Lyra doesn't know is that she is a Null-Frequency, the only genotype in the galaxy capable of taming the most powerful Alpha in existence.
The Solis family thinks they threw her to the wolves. They have no idea she’s coming back at the side of a God.

Nora Vale inherits three million dollars and a ruined seaside motel from an aunt her family called impossible.

She tells no one. Not even Rowan, her exhausted mechanic husband, who has spent years letting his family drain him dry.

Instead, Nora tells one dangerous lie: her design studio has collapsed, and she has lost everything.

Rowan does not blame her. He does not leave. He takes her hand and says, "Then we rebuild. You and me."

But the inheritance is not just money. Harbor Mile Motel hides records of a predatory company buying coastal properties through debt, fear, and family pressure. Rowan's brother is involved. Nora's aunt may not have died as quietly as everyone believed.

Now Nora must learn that money can buy time, repairs, and lawyers, but it cannot buy trust. And Rowan must decide whether the woman who lied to test his love is still the woman he wants to build a future with.

Nora Vale inherits three million dollars and a ruined seaside motel from an aunt her family called impossible.

She tells no one. Not even Rowan, her exhausted mechanic husband, who has spent years letting his family drain him dry.

Instead, Nora tells one dangerous lie: her design studio has collapsed, and she has lost everything.

Rowan does not blame her. He does not leave. He takes her hand and says, "Then we rebuild. You and me."

But the inheritance is not just money. Harbor Mile Motel hides records of a predatory company buying coastal properties through debt, fear, and family pressure. Rowan's brother is involved. Nora's aunt may not have died as quietly as everyone believed.

Now Nora must learn that money can buy time, repairs, and lawyers, but it cannot buy trust. And Rowan must decide whether the woman who lied to test his love is still the woman he wants to build a future with.

After being forced to marry the alpha king, Katlyn feels her life is a living hell, but she never expected this sinister, frivolous alpha to become the perfect, adoring husband. 
"Honey, you're so sweet," he said, kissing her cheek

"Shit! I want her under me."
Alex couldn't take it anymore. He moved her hand to touch Irene's thick, full lips until Irene woke up and opened her eyes. Somewhat surprised, he managed to control her. They teased each other with their gazes.

Alex Matthew was a boss of all kinds of big business, one of which was dangerous narcotics. The police struggled to catch him and hired a spy from a secret agent. She is a female spy with a good reputation. Irene is her name.
Irene uses her psychometric abilities to find out Alex's loopholes. However, for the first time, she fails and gets into a heated relationship with the dealer while Irene is married to a police detective.
Infidelity and psychometry become a demonic circle.
Will Irene be able to get out of the hot relationship and return to her husband? Or is it the other way around?

“You are bound to me... You are bound to the notorious vampire king, my dear Athena,”

Athena Silvestri was born a hunter who was committed to her mission to avenge mankind from the hands of the evil creatures wandering in the forest and in the streets to penalize them for their crimes. Not until she encounters this irritating notorious vampire king, Arius Walther who is claiming her as his property. Athena was about to slay the vampire king, however, she realized of creating a game to capture all of her prey including the vampire king. Little did she know that even Arius had a plan for her.

In the game of love and hunting, who's heart will be the strongest? Who loses first?

Adele Valerith thought she had married the Alpha she loved.
Instead, she discovers that she was only a piece in a political bargain.
Tristan Blackthorn married her to unite their powerful packs. His secret agreement with his fated mate, Lilith Veyra, was to reject Adele after the merger and make Lilith his Luna.
But Tristan made one mistake.
He fell genuinely in love with his Luna.
Before he can decide what to do, Adele discovers the betrayal.
Then she drinks from a poisoned goblet.
Wolfbane destroys her from within, and she dies believing that either Tristan or Lilith was responsible.
But the Moon Goddess gives her another chance.
Adele wakes three months before Tristan first arrives.
This time, she remembers everything.
And most importantly, she remembers the goblet.
Instead of running, Adele walks straight back into the trap.
She agrees to marry Tristan again, determined to uncover the truth before the same fate can reach her.
But the second life doesn’t follow the first perfectly.
Some events happen exactly as Adele remembers.
Others change.
Tristan begins falling in love with her again.
Lilith becomes increasingly desperate.
Ironfang prepares for war.
A mysterious conspiracy reaches into Adele’s own family.
And the Wolfbane that killed her was prepared long before the wedding ever took place.
Soon Adele realizes her first death was not simply the result of a jealous fated mate or a faithless Alpha.
There is an ancient bloodline conspiracy behind it.
Even the Moon Goddess has been keeping secrets.
As war threatens to destroy the packs, Adele must uncover the person who truly killed her while deciding whether the Alpha she once loved deserves a place in her second life.
Because revenge was the reason she accepted her second chance.

“Where did you hide the body?”

That was the first thing he asked me. Not my name. Not why I was kneeling in the snow beside the grave.

Two years ago, I falsified a DNA report to protect my father. The mistake buried a woman’s justice—and raised a man’s revenge.

Vale Creed, the billionaire who built his empire on truth, doesn’t believe in forgiveness. He believes in leverage.

Now, he knows what I did.

His sister’s death, my father’s secret, one impossible lie.

And his proposal? Not love.

A contract. A punishment. A marriage.

Christmas is coming, and I’m trapped in his glass mansion—where every room hides a memory, every kiss feels like evidence, and every heartbeat sounds like a confession.

But the deeper I fall, the closer the truth gets to killing us both.

Nyra had died with a heart that cried out for justice after being betrayed by her husband and her step sister.
Only to reawaken on her wedding to him except this time, she is aware of his betrayal and would stop at nothing to make everyone that had ruined her life PAY…
Even if it meant falling into the arms of the tyrant Alpha Brothers.

At seventy-two, Richard Hayes finally asked my mother for a divorce.

He thought he was setting himself free.

He did not know Eleanor Hayes had been waiting ten years for him to say the words.

By sunset, his new woman would be calling my mother cruel.

By winter, he would be standing on her porch with two suitcases and nowhere soft to land.

And my mother, who had spent nearly half a century opening doors for him, would finally learn how peaceful a locked door could sound.

The door wasn't closed properly, and I overheard the truth that had been thirteen years in the making.

She called me a simp, said she never submitted an MBA application, and said her whole family was just waiting to live off my trust fund.

I didn't rush in at that moment—only a fool would give the other side a chance to perform.

I simply pressed the elevator button, got back into my car, and deleted all contact information within three seconds.

Then I began the liquidation: assets, contracts, guarantee agreements, cutting them off cleanly one by one.

Thirteen years is enough to feed a liar.

Next, she needs to know that the Grant family never does business at a loss.

Claire Bennett built her marriage the way she built her fortune: with clear eyes, sharp numbers, and no illusions about love. So when her husband, Ethan, announces that he is pretending to be poor for a younger woman, Claire is less offended by the affair than by the insultingly low breakup fee he plans to offer.

Then the game turns expensive. The young woman knows more than Ethan thinks, and the elite attorney hired to tear apart Claire's finances is Adrian Shaw, the broke student Claire once deceived, desired, and abandoned with two million dollars. To survive the divorce, Claire must outplay a husband who wants devotion without sacrifice, face the man who once offered her everything he had, and decide whether money can still buy the only thing she actually regrets losing.

My husband, Ethan Cole, had found a young woman to play poor with. He shared her rented apartment, wore matching outfits bought on clearance, and hunted down takeout deals. He called it getting back to his roots.

We'd had even less when we started out. A leaking basement. Cheap noodles because delivery cost too much. Now that we were rich, he missed being broke.

"It's just for fun. We're not sleeping together," he told me. "When I get bored, I'll give her two hundred thousand dollars to move on. You won't have to deal with her."

I didn't cry. I didn't throw anything.

After a moment, I asked, "Two hundred thousand? Isn't that a little cheap?"

Years earlier, I'd played the same game with a broke young man.

When I left him, I'd paid two million.

I died once. Madison shoved me into a zombie horde and watched them tear me apart.

She was crying, saying, "You have a duty to save everyone," and then she ran.

Now I'm back. Twenty-eight hours until the virus leaks.

She's still sitting in the front row, smiling at me: "Ethan, you're such a good person."

This time around, I decide who saves who.

This life, I'm only the Grim Reaper.

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

Seven years of marriage turned me into a joke.

My husband Christopher would drive across half of New York in a blizzard just to bring my sister Amanda a cup of mulled wine. My own son Ryan would point at my face and scream, "Aunt Amanda is a hundred times prettier than you! She should be my mom!"

In this house, the three of them were family. I was just the unpaid help.

I thought if I loved them enough, I could win their hearts. Until the day Ryan stomped on my architectural model—six months of work, my ticket back to the career I'd sacrificed. Christopher just shrugged. "Amanda wanted it as a toy for Ryan. Do you really have to make such a big deal out of it?"

Something inside me went quiet.

I signed the papers without a word. Left my ring on the table. Walked into the winter night and never looked back.

In my last life, I needed five million dollars to pay for my mother’s treatment. So I signed a three-year marriage contract with Everett and became the Mrs. Thorne everyone envied.

But throughout those three years, his heart belonged to Celeste, the woman he had never gotten over after she left for Europe.

She came back the day we buried my mother.

The day I was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Everett snapped at me over the phone for bothering him during surgery.

And when I took my last breath in a hospital bed, he was in France attending a conference with Celeste.

Until the moment I died, he never came to see me. Not even once.

Then I opened my eyes and found myself back on the day of my mother’s funeral.

Her body had barely been laid to rest, yet that evening, Everett raised his glass at a charity gala and announced that Celeste would become the new chief of neurosurgery at Thorne Medical Group. He looked at her with a tenderness he had never shown me, and the sight of it hurt.

The entire room applauded them.

No one remembered that I had buried my mother that very day.

I picked up a glass of red wine, walked straight over, and threw it in Everett’s face.

“A bitch and a bastard. What a perfect match. Hope it lasts forever.”

I pulled off my wedding ring and tossed it into the champagne tower. As glass shattered and cameras flashed around me, I turned and walked away.

Behind me, Everett said through clenched teeth, “Without the Thorne family, you’re nothing.”

He had no idea that I would never go back to him again.

Just as my business partner called to gloat, the loan shark's hitmen were frantically hacking at my security door.

"Arthur, I've been reborn too. I embezzled that ten million in company funds to build a doomsday bunker. Enjoy taking the knife for me!"

Listening to the voice through the receiver, I simply smashed the window and vaulted from the second floor, not wasting even half a second on his bullshit.

Building a private shelter with ten million in dirty money? He had absolutely no idea just how terrifying the monsters that would rip apart the earth's crust in thirty days truly were.

Dragging my bleeding arm, I charged into an underground internet cafe and forcibly hacked into the highest early warning system of the Overseas Defense Agency.

Half a year later, the Abyss descended. His proud bunker was crushed like papier-mâché during the very first beast tide. As he scrambled for his life through the mud like a pathetic bug, he looked up—only to see a national-level steel fortress stretching for thousands of kilometers across the horizon.

And there I was, clad in a black-and-gold Supreme Commander uniform, looking down at him from hundreds of meters above.

For a whole year, my husband's childhood friend treated my high-end boutique like her personal closet.

Bags that ran a few thousand dollars, couture gowns worth tens of thousands. She took whatever she wanted and walked out, never once saying the word "money."

The store bled cash month after month. When I finally hit my limit and told her to pay up, she slapped me across the face in front of a room full of customers.

"You should be flattered I even shop here. And you've got the nerve to ask me for money?"

Garrett came rushing in with his coffee, and the first thing out of his mouth wasn't whether I was okay. He pulled her behind him and told me to apologize, then said if I didn't, he'd divorce me.

I didn't cry, didn't make a scene. I picked the bill up off the floor, turned around, walked out, and made one phone call.

Three days later, Bianca comes back with five of her socialite friends, bragging that they're going to clean out every expensive piece in the place.

I hold my coffee and smile, tell them to take their time.

What she doesn't know is that three days ago, this store already changed hands.

Lunar Depletion Syndrome. Seven days.
That was my death countdown. And my Alpha mate Kael was still threatening me, demanding I use the last of my life force to save my sister.
On our third anniversary, he had given me a surgical consent form and dissolution papers as gifts.
How laughable.
Three years ago he had said my eyes sparkled like stars. Three years later he wanted me to close them forever.
They all said I had finally matured, learned the spirit of sacrifice expected of an older sister. The joke was, I hadn't been moved by love.
I was just tired.
Why struggle when death was inevitable?
Rather than dying alone in the wilderness, it was better to die on the operating table and become the perfect sacrifice in their story.

"Give Paige the tickets. I'll buy you a new bag tomorrow."

That was Caleb's first sentence to me on our five-year anniversary. His black Maybach idled at the curb. Paige stood closely behind him, wiping her tear-stained face. She had just climbed out of his passenger seat; I was just holding the two Nova VIP passes that took a miracle to score.

"She needs a distraction," Caleb added, fully expecting my usual quiet surrender.

I looked at them. No screaming. No tears. I just placed the tickets into his hand, turned on my heel, and left.

Let them enjoy the show. There was no space for me in that crowded arena, just like there was no space left for me in his world.

Everyone says he loved me more than anything. So I chose to answer that love with death.

Forbes cover stories, tearful speeches at charity galas, shutting down Fifth Avenue every Valentine's Day just to watch fireworks with me. They said he ruled a business empire but would kneel in front of the entire world and call me his reason to live.

I used to believe it.

Until I discovered my perfect husband had built another home with another woman. A warm one, filled with laughter and his child.

So I chose to disappear the night the storm swallowed everything.

They say he spent three days on his knees at the cliff's edge, screaming my name into the black ocean. The man worth billions couldn't even find his wife's body.

When the rescue team recovered that burned-out car, he finally opened the safe I'd left for him. Inside was a positive pregnancy test and a divorce agreement that would never be signed.

By then, nothing mattered anymore.

My name is Maya Wilson. I'm seventeen, I have 100K TikTok followers, and I just watched my dad destroy our family for a twenty-five-year-old homewrecker named Ashley.

"Ashley makes me feel alive again," he said, dismissing seventeen years of marriage like a bad business deal.

"We'll be one happy family," she smiled, standing in our kitchen like she already owned it.

That's when I knew: Mom needed my protection.

What followed was a war fought with laptops and lies, fake pregnancies and real heartbreak. A battle between a broken housewife discovering her strength, a teenage girl wielding digital weapons, and a woman who thought she could manipulate her way to victory.

Six months later, Mom would be accepting awards. Ashley would be gone. And Dad?

Dad would be begging for forgiveness he'd never get.

My water broke in the middle of my family’s tiny clinic.
Thirty-six weeks pregnant, breech baby, emergency C-section. I only had one request: not City Center Hospital.
Because the man I had been hiding from for eight months worked in a hospital.
I told myself there were hundreds of doctors in the city. It would not be him.
Then the operating room door opened.
My ex-boyfriend walked in wearing scrubs, looked at my chart, looked at my belly, and went completely still.
He was not just the man I had left.
He was the anesthesiologist about to put a needle in my spine.
And when our daughter was born wearing his exact face, there was no hiding left.

I died watching my fiancé check another woman for scratches while three bullets tore through my chest.

I was his human shield. She was his true love.

Then, I blinked—and I was back. Reborn on the exact day I was supposed to sign our Mafia marriage pact.

Matteo slammed the sacred blood-oath on the desk. "Sign the damn paper, Serena. And stop being jealous of Anna. She’s fragile."

He wanted me to be his Donna. To run his casinos, bleach his dirty money, and take the bullets, while he played house with his sickly-sweet stepsister.

In my past life, I cried and signed my soul away.

This time? I smiled. I picked up the gold pen and signed the Bride line.

But I didn't write my name. I wrote Anna.

I tossed the contract at his chest, packed my bags, and walked out of the underworld forever.

Have a nice wedding, Matteo. Let's see how long your empire survives when your fragile little princess gets the throne.

In seven years of marriage, I miscarried five times. I nearly died on the operating table.

My husband, Lorenzo Castellano—the mafia king who controlled the entire East Coast—gripped my blood-stained hand and choked out: "It's okay. You're all I need."

I believed him.

Until our anniversary, when I smelled her perfume on his shirt and discovered the truth: his sister-in-law had given him a three-year-old son—those same deep brown eyes I'd bled five times trying to create.

The cruel irony? Just the day before, two pink lines had appeared on a pregnancy test.

That night, the explosion lit up the entire ocean, our private yacht burning like a funeral pyre.

The man who made all of New York's underworld tremble finally learned what it meant to lose.

He lost his wife.

And the child he would never know existed.

I’ve been guarding a door in the Nevada underground for a hundred years. The system marks this place "Abandoned," and the official records claim I don't exist.
When the investigation team arrived, the leader was my old signal corpsman. He pretended not to know me and ordered his guards to drag me out like a piece of dead weight.
They shoved a young lad from the Rex family into the breach as bait, and while everyone screamed in horror, no one dared to move.
So, I jumped down to fish the kid out, using a bottle of beer to force back the tentacles reaching from the dark.
Then, I pulled on that dusty old uniform and pressed my palm against the master console—all thirty-two security protocols verified instantly.
The lead technician collapsed in shock: "This clearance level is restricted to the Chief Architect only."
He was right. I am.
The thing I’ve kept locked behind that door for a century woke up, whispering: "What do you want?"
I said: "Dinner."

I drank myself into a stomach perforation, all to secure investment for Mu Jingshen's company.

As I was wheeled into the emergency room, blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. I heard a doctor shouting: "Where's the next of kin? We need a signature for surgery, now!"

My hands shaking violently, I dialed Mu Jingshen's number.
His contact was saved under "A Hubby", pinned to the very top of my contact list, just so I'd never miss a single call from him.

The call connected, and I forced out every last bit of my strength to speak, my voice weak and trembling:
"Jingshen, I need emergency surgery. Can you come sign the consent forms for me, please..."

But it wasn't his voice that came through the line. It was Shen Wanrong's, sweet and cloying: "Jiejie, Jingshen's busy giving Huanhuan a bath right now."

The sound of running water stopped.
I heard him ask who was on the phone.

Shen Wanrong spoke in a hurt, plaintive whine: "It's Jiejie... Jingshen, do you want to take the call? What if it's an emergency?"

But he just said, his voice flat and dismissive: "Ignore her. Nothing could ever be more important than being here for Huanhuan's birthday."

Huanhuan was Shen Wanrong's pet dog.

On our one-year anniversary, my husband Julian gifted me an antique ring.
Putting it on cost me everything.
I miscarried, grew paralyzed, and rapidly withered into a husk. And Julian? He convinced everyone that the trauma had simply driven a grieving mother insane.
Eventually, even I believed him.
It wasn’t until the moment of my murder that the truth finally clicked.
The ring wasn't a blessing; it was a parasitic siphon.
Then, I opened my eyes—
I was back at the anniversary dinner.

or fifteen years, I loved Nolan Mercer from a distance. He was golden, decent, and way out of my league. I was the tycoon’s unwanted fifth kid who learned early to take what she wanted.

Then a glowing romance system popped up and told me I was his destined love interest. So I stopped being nice.

I trapped him into marriage. I dragged him into bed every chance I got. He told me he hated me every day, and I didn’t care. Fate said he was mine.

Six shameless months later, the system came back screaming: [ERROR! You’re not the heroine. You’re a side character. Leave the male lead immediately.]

Fine. I handed my cold, miserable husband the divorce papers and wished him luck with his real love.

There was just one problem.

The man who swore he’d do anything to get rid of me suddenly won’t sign. He’s “forgetting” cuff links under my pillow, drinking himself stupid at galas, and cornering me in stairwells to beg me not to leave.

Turns out the system got a lot more wrong than just me.

Three years ago, my best friend Juliana Pierce was raped and jumped from a twelve-story building. I was there. I saw everything. I know exactly who did it.

Alexander Knight—Juliana's boyfriend, brilliant scientist, the man I've secretly loved for seven years—has spent every moment since hunting for answers. He believes I'm shielding a predator. He's dedicated his life to making mine hell.

Now I'm dying of ALS, and Alexander's dragged my broken body onto his "Memory Judgment Stage" for the world to see. His new technology can rip memories straight from my brain and broadcast them as holograms.

"Tell them who killed Juliana," he shouted.

I refuse. So he cranks up the machine, letting the neural probes tear through my dying brain. My hand shatters. My body convulses. But I won't break.

Until the memories start bleeding out anyway.

And when Alexander sees the rapist's face—Completely loses his mind.

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.

My serpent mate has locked me in the castle, nine months pregnant. A dozen serpent guards watch me day and night. I can't even leave the room.

A month ago, his brother died in a hunting accident. He became the serpent clan leader. Then he brought back his brother's widow, the woman he grew up with. His first love.

He said he needed to take care of his brother's widow. He told me we'd all live together in the castle, nice and peaceful.

I said no.

I'm his mate. I'm a beastman. My pride won't let me accept that. And they grew up together, childhood sweethearts. How could I not think about it?

She came to him in tears, heavily pregnant. She said I poisoned her medicine, that I wanted to kill her and the baby.

He believed her.

He decided I was just some rogue beastman with no background, jealous and vicious, only after his title and money. So he locked me in this freezing castle while he camped outside her delivery room.

When labor hit, I screamed for a healer. I swore I never hurt her. I just couldn't live with her under the same roof. I only ever loved him.

He just laughed. "You're good at acting. I don't believe a word out of you. Once she delivers safely, I'll deal with you. Don't think you can trick me into coming back."

But when a trembling guard reported "Your mate and the child... they didn't make it," he lost it completely.

The Solarien family had two daughters.
Aurelia, the younger, was their pride and joy, soon to marry Duke Lysander beneath a reputation she had never earned: the so-called genius enchantress.
I, Vespera, was nothing more than the family's hidden workhorse, locked in a basement and valued only for what I could produce.
For years, I churned out enchanted gear to fund their lavish life while they used me as a stepping stone for Aurelia without a trace of guilt.
I let them bleed me dry, clinging to the faint hope that they might someday treat me like family.
Then, on the eve of my wedding, my parents stole the gown I had spent three years pouring my blood and sweat into, all so Aurelia could make a grand impression.
They threatened my fiancé's life and forced me to cut my wrist, using my blood to reverse the runes and attune the enchantment to her instead of me—even though the backlash could cripple my magic for life.
The moment I watched my blood soak into that gown, I gave up on my family for good.
For all the family pride they fought so desperately to protect, there had never been room for me.

Only after I lost the promotion did I find out that my broke boyfriend secretly owned the company I worked for.

He'd voted against me.

One of his friends asked him, “Aren't you worried Nora Bennett will find out you've been lying to her and raise hell?”

Blake Whitmore gave a casual laugh.

“Why would I be? It doesn't take much to make her happy again.”

“Chloe's different. She's been a princess her whole life. When she wants something, she has to have it. I can't stand seeing her upset.”

“It's just a director's job. If she wants it, I'll let her have her fun.”

Chloe Sinclair.

The woman they'd brought in from outside to take the position I'd worked for.

Something I'd fought so hard to earn was just a toy she could have for the asking.

I blinked back the sting in my eyes, looked down at my phone, and answered the recruiter.

“Hi. I'd like to accept the offer in Pittsburgh.”

"They said I was just a piece of trash, only fit to be a substitute bride for the lunatic Abyssal Dragon Duke." I smirked, twisting the bone bracelet that sealed my venomous power. My fake sister wept pitifully, "Visenya, at worst, I'll bear the Duke's wrath myself." Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea. When the bloodthirsty Duke finally cornered me, he didn't tear me apart. Instead, he kissed my fingertips and chuckled. "So, my little bride, shall we slaughter the Emperor and take the throne for fun?" "Deal," I smiled. "But if you drag me down, I'll kill you too."

On Halloween night, a sharp stench of chlorine and cheap booze woke me up.
I opened my eyes to a man grinning at the bedroom door.
It was my husband, David, soaking wet and showing off the liquor he’d vanished hours ago to buy.
I cursed him out, called him a liar, and demanded a divorce. He just kept that idiotic smile.
Then my phone rang. It was his best friend, Mark.
"Claire, David drowned drunk in the pool!"

Five years ago, my family burned to death in an "accident."

My loving husband Clifford signed the papers himself—shipped me off to a mental institution without a second thought.

Inside, Becky carved up my face with shattered glass. The same orphan I'd put through school. Then she rebuilt herself to match my features and stole my life—my husband, my son, everything.

Now she marched into the clinic where I scrub floors, dragging my biological child behind her, demanding I apologize to him like some servant.

She has no idea what kind of monster she created.

I’ve had a lot of things stolen from me by my stepsister, Paloma Thorne.
My father, my boyfriend, my baby, my thesis, my future...
When I was twenty-two, I walked into the university lab and caught Paloma and my boyfriend, Milo, tangled naked together. I miscarried on the spot. Later, as I lay in the hospital bed, Paloma used a secretly recorded sex tape of Milo and me as blackmail, sealing off my last possible way out. I didn't scream or cry. I just signed the papers, grabbed my suitcase, and left.
In Calder City, I met the mafia don, Darius Harlow. He was calm, dominant, and gave me a sense of security so overwhelming it was almost suffocating. So, I married him.
It wasn't until four years later, when I returned to Ellsworth for Paloma's wedding, that the illusion shattered.
The night before the wedding, standing outside a closed door, I heard her voice.
"Darius, I was the one who let go seven years ago. Let me make it up to you tonight. Please?"
The next second, I heard my husband's heavy breathing.
Only then did I realize that for the past four years, I was nothing but Paloma's stand-in.

I'm a forensic audio specialist. I make a living digging up the truths people deliberately erase from static and noise.
My 19-year-old brother was accused of pushing a billionaire's bride to her death at her wedding.
The police presented their "smoking gun" recording. I heard exactly twelve seconds missing from it.
Those twelve seconds hold the truth about how the bride really died—and the billionaire family's dark secret that will get both me and my brother killed.
They smashed my equipment, threatened my life, bribed the cops, and tried to bury the truth forever.
But what they don't know is—
Some voices refuse to stay silent. Even when they're cut out.

The first time Tyler laid eyes on Ellie, he thought she was a quiet, shy, introverted girl.

Then she opened her mouth and shattered that illusion.

“Are you trying to sleep with me? Why are you staring at me?”

After a night of passion, she woke up and calmly eyed his abs like she was appraising merchandise.

“Here’s your tip. Thank you for your work last night!” she smirked, a dollar bill tucked between her fingers.

Does she think I am a gigolo? Tyler sneered.

Then one day, a message from Ellie lit up his phone:

[I’m getting engaged. Are you going to take me away? Gigolo?]

He scrambled to his feet, rushing to the engagement ceremony.

This time, no one could stop him from taking her.

The door kicked in like it was being hit by a train. “Where is she NOW!” He growled asserting his dominance. How did he find me?! I hid under the covers, afraid of what he would do if no one answered. Afraid he would carry out what he said to me, thinking I didn’t hear. Aggressive, irrational, and dominant for something that he didn’t know he had until I first shifted. Is he going to rip me apart…. or rip off my clothes.

The grandson of the Wolf King cursed to wait for his mate for his brutality and arrogance, offended the Lady Moon. A single comment was taken offense, causing him to wait for her to literally be born.