1440 Book(s) Related to love story lyrics taylor swift

My husband suffered a massive heart attack mid-thrust inside my best friend.

Now, the ER doctors are clutching his surgical consent forms, waiting for me—the legal wife—to sign.

Over the phone, my mother-in-law shrieked in absolute despair while my best friend sobbed in terror.

I turned a deaf ear to them, taking my time to admire my makeup in the mirror.

There was absolutely no rush. Waiting until I changed into this pitch-black mourning dress to slowly watch his countdown to death wouldn't be too late.

After all, when my parents and my son, Noah, were lying in the morgue, I survived a dead-silent night exactly like this one, shedding tears until my eyes literally bled dry.

Now, it is finally my husband's turn to go to hell and atone for my family.

To give my daughter, Lily, a childhood connected to nature, I put on worn-out overalls and carved out a small vegetable patch at the edge of the estate.
That was until today, when a vicious dog lunged without warning, sinking its teeth into Lily's calf. Blood instantly stained the dirt.
I threw myself over my daughter like a madwoman to protect her, only to be viciously whipped across the face with a diamond-studded leash.
"Where did this lowly gardener come from! You hurt my dog—can your two worthless lives afford to pay for it?"
A young woman in a haute couture white dress, her pregnant belly protruding, sneered and waved her hand. "Where is security? Beat this crazy, pathetic woman and her little thief of a bastard to death, and throw them out of the estate!"
Holding my convulsing daughter, I said, "Beat us to death? Have you asked the master of the estate?"
The woman giggled coquettishly.
"My boyfriend is the master of this estate! With just one word from him, he could crush you like an ant!"
What a coincidence.
The "masters of the estate" she spoke of... I know them both.
One is my husband.
And the other... is my son.

Seven years ago, I unexpectedly transmigrated into the treacherous world of the North American mafia.
 
The System told me that as long as I accumulated a 100% "Angst Index" in this world, I could escape and return to reality with substantial rewards.
 
But after crossing over, I became the most pampered princess of the entire Koschei family.
 
My mafia father would buy all the roses in Manhattan just because I said I liked them. My genius doctor brother once climbed a mountain in a blizzard just to find medicine for me. And my fiancé, the heir apparent to the empire, still carried a scar on his chest from a fatal bullet he took for me.
 
I lost myself in the tender illusion they had forged.
 
Just when I had decided to give up everything and stay in this world forever, I overheard my father talking to my brother in his study:
 
"The brake lines are cut. Tomorrow, as soon as the crash happens, take advantage of the chaos in the ambulance to remove Elara's corneas. Do the transplant for Seraphina immediately."
 
Seraphina was the true blood daughter they had just brought back a month ago.
 
My fiancé, Silas, merely added, "Leave Elara alive, at least. She's called you 'Father' for so many years, after all."
 
Standing outside the door, my blood ran cold like ice.
 
So the next day, I gave them exactly what they wanted.
 
Amidst the deafening crash of the collision, feeling the agonizing pain of my legs being crushed, I watched my brother sprinting toward me, carrying an organ transplant cooler.
 
A long-absent electronic voice echoed in my ears:
 
[Congratulations to the Host. The Angst Index has reached 100%. You may return to the real world upon physical death.]
 
As blood completely swallowed my vision, a trace of twisted relief welled up in my heart.

Ninety-nine pearl necklaces correspond to ninety-nine fractures in my heart.

He was accustomed to using extravagant pearls to atone for his transgressions, yet on the day of my mother’s funeral, he chose to vacation with his mistress while plotting to take from me the ancestral home my mother left behind.

When the hundredth pearl arrived, I presented him with the divorce papers. The pain of my miscarriage still lingered, as he offered me a rare black pearl to "atone"; moments later, he was liking his mistress's posts.

He believed pearls could purchase my love, unaware that each bead counted down the moments of our marriage.

In the end, what does it matter if he risked everything to protect me?

I shall never turn back.

Temptation has a way of slipping past every boundary and challenging even the strongest resolve. What appears controlled, familiar, and respectable on the surface often hides emotions that are far more complicated beneath. Hearts are drawn toward connections they know they should resist. Unexpected. Irresistible. Forbidden.
Inside this collection, you will find stories like these:
A lonely wife finding comfort in the one man she was never meant to fall for... her bodyguard.
A woman torn between loyalty and unexpected feelings for her husband's quiet, brooding brother.
A young employee caught in a life-changing connection with her powerful CEO.
A student navigating an undeniable attraction to a professor twice her age.
And many more stories where boundaries are tested and forbidden feelings refuse to fade.
Every story explores love, temptation, and impossible choices.
Emotional. Addictive. Impossible to forget.
Several forbidden romances.
One unforgettable collection.
Will you dare to turn the page?

When my husband handed the project I bled for to his "depressed" childhood sweetheart, he told me to be mature. "You're my wife. You shouldn't care about the credit."

So, when I was in the hospital miscarrying our baby while he threw her a party, I didn't cry. When she posted selfies wearing my anniversary necklace, I didn't scream.

Julian thought he had finally broken me into the perfect, obedient housewife. He truly believed I was nothing without him.

What a pathetic joke.

He had no idea his entire "business empire" was secretly kept alive by my family's trust fund.

He certainly didn't know the "mundane paperwork" he blindly signed this morning was my resignation—and our divorce agreement.

I gave up my dream offer to Cambridge just so I could follow my heavily bullied childhood sweetheart to Princeton.

Yet, the day before we were supposed to submit our applications, I overheard him and his teammates laughing heartily:

"Man, you deserve an Oscar," one of them snickered. "You actually got the Vanderbilt heiress to drop Cambridge just by playing the victim?"

"To cause a rift with my family for me, and to serve as my shield against adversity—what a foolish heiress, impossible to shake off," Carter sneered to his friends.

"Once I drag her to Princeton, I can finally date Lily without her getting in the way."

I didn't storm in.

I quietly shredded my Princeton forms and submitted my Cambridge acceptance.

Carter seemed to have forgotten one crucial detail: without my family's money, he wasn't a tragic prince. He was just a stray dog.

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.

At our seventh wedding anniversary dinner, my husband Nathan audaciously discussed the name of the child his mistress Victoria was carrying, speaking in Spanish right in front of me.
They presumed I could not understand. Yet, not only did I comprehend every word, but I had also long ago uncovered evidence of their affair—including those passionate videos filmed in his car...
But when I vanished completely, he went into a frenzy.
When the news of the 'plane crash' broke, he spent fifty million dollars, deploying twelve rescue helicopters to search relentlessly through the storm for seven days and nights.
When the rescue team informed him that 'there were no survivors,' this once indomitable man knelt on the deck, weeping inconsolably like a child who has lost his mother.
Little did he know, there was no trace of me on that 'lost' plane.
And now, it was my turn to make him experience the true meaning of loss.

Nobody would believe that I, Sienna, the glamorous CEO's wife in the eyes of outsiders, couldn't even scrape together two decent outfits in my closet after three years of marriage.   And no one knew that every single cent I spent in private—from my brother's life-saving medical bills down to a pack of tampons—had to go through my husband's childhood sweetheart and personal assistant via a so-called corporate expense approval system.   I lived like a beggar, groveling for scraps under his assistant's watchful eye.   It wasn't until my critically ill brother's life-saving funds were maliciously rejected, turning my only remaining soft spot in this world to ashes, that this absurd marriage finally came to an end.

The day my mother succumbed to complications during childbirth, her younger sister, Vanessa, wed my father.

Fifteen years later, I beheld my husband accompanying Vanessa as she tried on seductive lingerie.

In that moment, I understood—what she truly coveted was never my father, but rather all that my mother and I shared.

My mother perished during childbirth, a casualty of an illicit affair.

I vowed not to repeat that tragic cycle.

Then I returned home, removed my wedding ring, and left behind the divorce papers.

I am the jubilant champion's girlfriend, the blissful woman who will reveal to him tonight, "We are to become parents." Yet, I overheard the brutal truth: "The very thought of her mother once climbing into my father's bed fills me with revulsion for every second of this five-year charade."

It turns out that five years of affection was nothing more than a meticulously orchestrated deceit.

In that moment of heartbreak and excruciating pain, our child slipped away as if making the final decision on my behalf. I incinerated all our memories, rendering them vapor in this world.

When that once indomitable champion finally realized his misplaced animosity, and in a desperate bid to find me, fractured his spine amidst the ruins while signing a pact with fate...I am the jubilant champion's girlfriend, the blissful woman who will reveal to him tonight, "We are to become parents." Yet, I overheard the brutal truth: "The very thought of her mother once climbing into my father's bed fills me with revulsion for every second of this five-year charade."

It turns out that five years of affection was nothing more than a meticulously orchestrated deceit.

In that moment of heartbreak and excruciating pain, our child slipped away as if making the final decision on my behalf.

When that once indomitable champion finally realized his misplaced animosity, and in a desperate bid to find me, fractured his spine amidst the ruins while signing a pact with fate...

Three years ago, to quell a mafia feud and save my father's life, I married Alessio.

Over the past three years, the occasional scraps of tenderness he threw my way had slowly tricked me into falling in love.

Until the day I nearly bled to death giving birth to our twins—only for him to immediately hand them over to his true love. His adoptive sister, Bianca, had been left sterile after taking a bullet for him years ago.

In the end, the reality was clear. I was just a breeding vessel, kept around merely to bear children for the only woman he ever loved.

My dignity, my flesh and blood, and my ridiculous love were unapologetically trampled into the dirt.

And when the devastating news of my father's brutal murder followed, the very last trace of weakness in my heart disintegrated into ash.

After being stood up for the ninety-ninth time while attempting to register for marriage, I sent my fiancé a breakup message. He had allowed me to be let down ninety-nine times, dismissing my asthma as mere pretentiousness and perceiving my sacrifices as acts of greed, all the while lavishing his patience upon another woman. It was only when he had his mistress select a cheap necklace for me and sketched explicit nudes of her that I realized these seven years were not a narrative of profound love, but rather an absurd farce playing out solely in my life. The moment I dispatched the breakup message, I never envisioned that this man, who viewed me as dispensable, would later pursue me with a frenzied obsession.

I took my fiancé, Julian, on a Caribbean vacation aboard my private yacht.
But he took the liberty of bringing Harper, a childhood best friend my family had financially sponsored growing up.
"Eve, she's practically your sister," he argued. "She hasn't had your luck in life. I brought her along to help you take care of her. Don't tell me you're jealous of your own bestie?"
Once on board, Harper feigned seasickness, melting comfortably into Julian's arms.
Yet, to chase views for her videos, she miraculously recovered, insisting on a cageless deep-sea dive with bloody chum.
When I forcefully stopped them, they started a live stream, framing me as an arrogant rich girl crushing a poor girl's ocean dream. They milked my warnings for millions of views.
Drunk on viral fame, Harper dragged Julian for a secret dive behind my back, instantly attracting a frenzy of aggressive bull sharks.
I dove in to save them without hesitation. But to escape, Harper kicked me straight toward the shark frenzy, while Julian scrambled up the deck without looking back.
I was torn to pieces alive.
They built their fame over my dead body, took over my trust fund, and indirectly caused my devastated parents to die in a plane crash while rushing to the Bahamas.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the first day of that fatal trip.

As I collapsed in a pool of my own blood, the mate-link deep in my mind flared with the thoughts of my Alpha husband, Cullen:
 
'I only had my men give Ayla ten lashes to let Selena vent her frustration. How is she bleeding this much?'
 
'She must be using fake blood again, trying to guilt-trip me into coaxing her.'
 
What he didn't know was that those ten lashes had claimed the life of our two-month-old unborn baby.
 
Nor did he know that I had just been diagnosed with terminal Wolfsbane Necrosis. I had permanently lost my werewolf healing abilities.
 
This wasn't the first time he had hurt me for Selena's sake.
 
When Selena suffered from insomnia, he extracted my heart's blood to use as her cure; when she needed to vent her temper, he turned a blind eye as his guards held my head under the freezing waters of the icy lake.
 
And this time, Selena had caused an absolute catastrophe, provoking a savage pack of rogue wolves.
 
Cullen looked down at my curled-up, trembling form, his tone leaving no room for argument:
 
"Since you are the Luna, you should bear the responsibility. Go to the rogue camp and take the fall for Selena."
 
"With a werewolf's physique, taking a beating won't kill you."
 
He didn't know that Selena had already bribed those rogues to torture me to death.
 
But I didn't cry and beg for myself like I usually did. I simply leaned against the wall and forced myself to stand.
 
"Fine. I'll go."
 
For a split second, a flash of astonishment crossed his eyes. He had no idea that those words were my final goodbye to him.

Minutes before the Stanford Hackathon began, my childhood friend decided to bail to help his girlfriend shoot a TikTok video.

I was just about to stop him when his inner voice suddenly exploded in my head: 'I actually got reborn?'

'Last time, I listened to Maeve and stayed for the competition, securing my spot at Stanford. But Sloane went to Malibu alone to shoot her video and fell off a cliff!"

'Even though I pushed Maeve off a roof to avenge her, I still lost the love of my life.'

'This time, I'm not losing Sloane. If Maeve dares to stop me again, I'll make her pay with her life all over again!'

My blood ran cold, and the words of persuasion died in my throat.

If he wanted his tragic romance so badly, he could have it.

A year ago, during the yacht shipwreck, Carter let go of his mistress Valerie's hand in the crushing waves, risking his own life to shove me onto the lifeboat.   Later, weeping by my hospital bed, he swore that staring death in the face had finally made him realize who the only indispensable woman in his life truly was.   I believed him. I wiped the slate clean of his infidelity, utterly convinced that a marriage forged in life and death would be indestructible.   Until tonight. The night of our third wedding anniversary.   Staring at the new notification lighting up his screen—【I'm in the suite downstairs waiting for you. Come fuck me like you did last night, or I'm jumping off the balcony. —V】—the truth finally hit me.

The so-called true love proven at death's door couldn't even survive the cheap lust of ordinary days.   My entire marriage was nothing but a grotesque joke.

For seven whole years, I believed I was suffering from severe amnesia.

I was grateful to my fiancé Vance for never leaving my side, and felt guilty for my sister Daphne's endless tolerance.

Until the eve of the wedding, when I opened a private group chat on Vance's computer named "Remaking Nora."

The over three hundred pages of chat logs were a cruel game that ate me alive:

"That idiot Nora 'forgot' her Stanford acceptance letter again today. Daphne, the spot is yours."
"Hide her wedding ring at the bachelorette party tomorrow night. Watching her frantically look for it like a dog will be absolutely hilarious."

Messages kept popping up in the group. They couldn't wait to see me break down in tears and self-loathing again because of my "amnesia."

I calmly took off the ring on my ring finger, preparing to pack my bags.

Since they wanted a Nora who couldn't remember anything so badly, I would grant their wish—

I would forget this wedding, along with the two of them, completely, and permanently clear them out of my life.

Last lifetime, my mate, Kael, had faked his own death just to openly sleep with his sister-in-law without judgment.

I screamed until my throat bled, pointing at the man pretending to be his dead twin brother.

For telling the truth, he dragged me to the sacred altar and burned my mark off my skin, while our four-year-old son was thrown into a pitch-black cell for crying out for her father.

We were banished, torn apart by rogues.

But the Moon Goddess is fair. She woke me up on the exact day of the funeral.

As the pack howls in mourning for their "dead" Alpha, I look at the man hiding in his brother's skin.

I won't expose him this time.

If Kael wants to play a dead man just to play house with his whore, I'll make sure he stays dead forever.

I was a broke scholarship student. Chloe was an old-money heiress and the untouchable cheer captain.

She paraded me through her elite world and even generously shoved me at her ultimate crush—Aston, the ruthless son of the school board director.

But when Aston and I actually got together, the princess bared her fangs.

She staged a severe fall to drain my meager savings, then framed me for stealing her family's heirloom necklace. And Aston? He dumped me immediately, sneering that I was just a cheap prop desperate to climb the social ladder.

Ostracized and cyberbullied by the entire school, I was locked on the rooftop during the Winter Formal and left to freeze to death in the snow.

But when I opened my eyes...

I was back at that deafening party. Right at the moment Chloe first introduced me to Aston.

The child I brought into this world through sheer determination now calls my husband's mistress "mother"; the youth who slew my father for my sake and was imprisoned, now confines me beyond the threshold, forcing me to hear his carnal symphony with his stepmother. Only then did I comprehend: the sixteen-year-old boy who committed patricide for me had long perished within the prison walls.

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.

My Mafia boss husband brought his late brother's widow and child back to our estate and demanded I move into the nanny's quarters..

This time, I didn't pull a gun and fight with him like I did in my past life. Instead, I brought out my suitcase to pack and make room.

Later, for our daughter's birthday, Julian gifted her a foal.

Beatrice's son cried and threw a tantrum, demanding it.

My five-year-old daughter calmly handed over the lead rope. "Daddy said Leo doesn't have a papa anymore, so from now on, my papa is his papa."

"I should learn to be generous."

At first, Julian was extremely gratified by our tolerance and maturity. But gradually, he panicked as he realized—

There was no more love in my eyes, and our daughter no longer opened her arms to ask for his hugs.

Little did he know, in our previous life, in order to protect that mother and son, he banished us to the subterranean water dungeon.

While my daughter and I contracted the plague, dying in despair amidst the stench and the gnawing of rats, he was holding that woman's hand in a brightly lit banquet hall, announcing to the entire Family that she would be under his lifelong protection.

Reborn into this life, my daughter and I no longer fought, no longer made a fuss.

But we also never needed Julian again.

"Mom, I only want to go to Paris with you, not Dad."

When my ten-year-old daughter said this with tears in her eyes, I thought she was expressing her love for me.

I was wrong.

In our Paris hotel, I accidentally overheard the phone call that changed everything—

"Don't worry, Lily will find a way to extend the trip. I promised to buy her that concert-grade piano."

"Having sex in your marital bed is so thrilling, much better than at my apartment."

"That little girl Lily cooperates perfectly, always managing to lead Sarah away."

In that moment, my world completely shattered.

I thought I was only being betrayed by my husband, but discovered that even the daughter I carried for ten months was their carefully orchestrated pawn.

The child I raised with my own hands was actually helping her father's mistress occupy my home and sleep in my bed.

When a mother discovers she's been deceived by those she loves most, her revenge will make everyone pay a devastating price.

Two years later, when I saw that once-successful man wearing a shabby suit, accompanied by his malnourished daughter at my charity auction, I only said coldly:

"She can come with me, but you—never deserve it."

The night Julian went public with the new cheer captain, everyone expected me to crash the party and completely lose my mind.

But the confession ended, and I never showed up.

What Julian didn't know was that at that exact moment, I was wearing his cousin's oversized shirt, sitting on the edge of his mattress, asking with perfect innocence:

"I just got your sheets wet. Where are we supposed to sleep tonight?"

Ever since the day Roman pressed a gun to my head and condemned me as his parents' murderer, I became the most lowly prisoner in this estate.
 
He didn't kill me. Instead, he kept me in line using my dying mother's medical bills and my adopted sister, Callie, as leverage.
 
For three years, he paraded various women into the master bedroom, leaving me to change their tangled sheets; he ground my dignity into the dirt in front of his men, and I swallowed the humiliation in silence.
 
Until the day he wrapped his arm around a pregnant Callie, flaunting her in my face.

I finally broke down, falling to my knees at his feet:
 
"My mother is dying, and Callie is the only family I have left. I'm begging you—direct all your cruelty at me. Just let her go."
 
Roman merely scoffed. Twisting his hand into my hair, he dragged me all the way into the great hall.
 
There, my "terminally ill" mother stood holding a glass of expensive red wine, her face flushed and glowing with health as she smilingly stroked Callie's slightly rounded belly.
 
"Look—it was all a lie." Roman stared at me like I was trash. "Who told you to be so stubborn and refuse to confess? I dropped some spare change, and your mother willingly faked her illness for three years. And your sweet little sister? She calls me her husband in my bed every single day."
 
A brutal chill pierced my bones. I couldn't believe that the very blood relatives I had sacrificed my life to protect were the leeches draining me dry.
 
Roman slammed a Divorce Agreement onto the coffee table. Under the asset division column was an utterly humiliating number: $1.
 
"Callie is pregnant with the family's first-born heir. Be a good girl and sign it—this one dollar is your severance pay."
 
He was so absolutely certain that I would go completely insane at the sight of this pathetic dollar.

He assumed that even with a gun to my head, I would bawl and cling desperately to my title as the Don's wife.
 
But after a brief, dead silence, I signed my name.
 
Then, I picked up that one-dollar coin.
 
"You're right. Our last ten years together are worth exactly one dollar."
 
From this moment on, whether it was my bloodsucking family or the man I had loved for a decade...
 
We were completely, entirely done.

A siren's tears turn to gemstones.

Mine were funding my boyfriend's entire career—but ordinary stones weren't enough anymore.

Deep-sea sapphires. That's what he was after.

So he brought a whip.

"Almost there, babe. Cry for me and it's over."

"Once I'm in, I'll marry you."

My vision blurred with tears—then something else flooded in.

Bright, scrolling, impossible words:

[LOL, by the time he gets his Council seat, he'll have wrung her dry and married the Arcane Princess instead.]

[Sandra, check out the vampire prince next door—he heard you screaming and thinks you two are having sex. He's crying under his blankets right now.]

[When you're literally dying in the finale, the prince is the one who carries you to the Eastern Sea. That's the only reason you survive.]

[Oh, and the prince is a purebred incubus hybrid. Eight-pack abs. Naturally compatible with desire-driven sirens. Stop suffering for this loser and go live your best life!]

My eyes lit up. I kicked the man in front of me straight into the wall.

Hopped next door, pushed open the door: "Kaelen, I hear you've got a nice body—prove it?"

My son was killed in a horrific car bomb assassination.

At his rain-drenched funeral, my husband, Enzo—a Mafia Don—held an umbrella over my head, only to suddenly state with icy indifference:

"Gianna is pregnant. It's my blood."

Gianna. The illegitimate daughter of the Lucchese family boss.

I stiffened, looking up in sheer disbelief.

"What the hell does that mean?"

He cast a careless glance at me, completely unbothered.

"To end the war between the Corsican and Lucchese families, I've been with her in secret for a while now. Now that she carries the Corsican bloodline, I must give her a proper title. She will be moving into the estate tonight. You will not only accept this, but you will also give her the respect she deserves as the mother of my child."

Forty-eight hours before my wedding, I was kidnapped and gang-raped, surviving by only a thread in the depths of despair.   When my mafia boss fiancé and my police detective best friend stood guard by my hospital bed with bloodshot eyes, I heard him suddenly switch to Navajo and ask her, "The death row inmates from the dark web—were they dealt with cleanly?"   My best friend chuckled, replying in the same language. "Don't worry. The guys who put their hands on Maya have been wiped out. Dead men tell no tales."   "Sacrificing Maya alone gave you the perfect excuse to wipe out the rival family and swallow the southern smuggling network, while earning me a high-level promotion. It was a damn good deal."   Amidst tearing, agonizing pain, it felt as if I had been plunged into an ice cliff.   They thought I could never understand this obscure tribal language, so they brazenly feasted on the spoils of victory built upon my very flesh and blood. But what they didn't know was that, to surprise my fiancé during our wedding vows... I had been secretly studying Navajo for an entire year.

At eighteen, I gave my virginity to Hunter in his bed.

I swallowed all the pain and hesitation, naively believing that three years of a pathetic crush had finally earned my way into his heart.

Until the next morning, when I heard his teammates' unabashed mockery:

"Damn, you finally bagged the nerd? How was it?"

Hunter scoffed, his tone dripping with utter contempt.

"Just messing around. If I'm bringing a real girlfriend out, it's gotta be someone on Serena's level—head cheerleader."

I wordlessly opened my college application portal, deleted the garbage local state school I had picked just to stay with him, and changed it back to Yale.

He confidently thought I would follow him blindly, until he video-called me on opening day and completely lost his mind seeing who was beside me: his own stepbrother.

After hearing about my peanut allergy, my boyfriend's newly crowned campus queen added peanut extract to my signature cocktail.

Just one sip in, and my skin immediately erupted in hives. My throat started to close up rapidly.

I stumbled toward my canvas tote, pulled out my life-saving EpiPen, and yanked off the cap.

But the next second, my blood ran cold.

The emergency EpiPen had been swapped out for a tube of lipstick by my boyfriend.

Seeing my face turn purple as I collapsed onto the floor, the campus queen suddenly burst into laughter:

"Surprise! I specifically told Julian to swap it out!"

"You are such a fake. Anaphylactic shock from a single sip?"

I desperately gripped my boyfriend's cuff, letting out strained, wheezing gasps like a broken bellows:

"Julian... if you don't give me the real one... I'm really going to die!"

He peeled my fingers off him one by one and swatted my hand away in disgust, frowning slightly:

"Do you really think you're some delicate princess? It's just a drink. Are you seriously doing this?"

"Madison is right. You're just a drama queen making a scene!"

I gave up pleading for him to understand. Instead, I pressed the custom fountain pen in my pocket, triggering my old-money family's highest-tier SOS signal.

In this world, there exists a place called the Life Pawnshop.

As long as you possess enough Love Value—the genuine affection held for you by your family or spouse—you can trade it there for any miracle.

My biological brother, Noah, died in a car crash. My parents, my husband—everyone was forcing me to go to the pawnshop and use my Love Value to bring him back.

The pawnshop's laws were absolute and unforgiving: a sacrifice of a life for a life required the pawner to be of the exact same generation as the deceased, bound by deep ties of blood or fate.

That meant in this entire family, only I and the adopted daughter, Chloe, were eligible to make the trade.

But what my family didn't know was that I had already exhausted every last drop of my Love Value for this very family.

If someone with zero Love Value forcibly stepped onto the altar, the pawnshop's punishment mechanism would crush the sacrificer alive, skin and bone.

I severed our Mate Bond with my own hands.

In that moment, I lay unconscious, bleeding under the silvery moonlight, while he knelt some distance away, clutching his chest as if he had been hollowed out.

Once, he shielded me from nine silver stakes, only to crown another woman; he placed my protective pendant around her neck, then cast me into a water prison. He professed, “I love only you,” yet stood outside my hospital room, nursing her child as if it were his own.

I loathed him, resolved to leave.

I believed this was the end.

Little did I know, as I thought I had finally gained my freedom, he would chase after the debts of blood and regret, intruding upon the new life I was rebuilding—

To redeem a love that no longer sought redemption.

My husband, the terrifying Mafia Don, dropped fifteen million dollars on a luxury yacht just to throw a lavish, high-profile birthday celebration for his precious first love.

And today marks exactly seven days since I died of an infection in a Detroit slum, simply because I couldn't scrape together a few cents for antibiotics.

At the banquet, an oblivious guest tactlessly brought up my name.

Alessandro dialed my number for the first time in five years.

"Genevieve, if you've suffered enough, crawl back here and beg Elena for forgiveness."

That is, until the estate doors were violently shoved open.

A scavenger walked in, leading a little boy whose face was an eighty-percent match to Alessandro's.

The scholarship understudy in our ballet company was a notorious "clumsy sweetheart."

Right before the Principal Audition, she secretly laced the pain-relief cream she gave me with a high concentration of banned substances.

It led to me being reported for doping. I was expelled from the company on the spot, my reputation was ruined, and my ballet career was completely destroyed.

When I confronted her, she hid in my fiancé's arms, crying so hard she almost passed out.

"Eve, I really just wanted to help you perform perfectly... I'm so stupid, I can't even tell the difference between muscle rub and banned drugs."

My fiancé held her, comforting her, and then yelled at me instead:

"She was just trying to be nice! Why do you have to be so cruel to a young girl?!"

Later, as I spiraled into severe depression, they tricked me into going to the river under the guise of "getting some fresh air."

While my fiancé went to park the car, she took the opportunity to shove me hard off the icy steps, leaving me to drown alive in the freezing river.

When questioned by the police, my fiancé didn't hesitate to commit perjury to clear her name, insisting I had jumped because I couldn't handle the scandal.

I opened my eyes again. I was back to the day before the Principal Audition.

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.

In my third year of marriage to Cassius, I saw his childhood sweetheart Serena post a photo on a luxury yacht with the caption: "My man always knows what I want."

That yacht was supposed to be my birthday gift.

I called the dealer. "Mr. Vitale transferred it to Miss Monte."

Cassius called immediately. "Stop checking up on me. I owed her this. Why are you so insecure?"

That night, he kicked my medication across the floor. "Stop reminding everyone I owe you my life."

Three years ago, I gave him my gas mask during a shootout. The toxins destroyed my lungs.

When he burned my face with an iron, he drove me to the hospital—until Serena called crying about a burst pipe.

He shoved me out into the pouring rain. "You're not going to die. She needs me more."

For the first time in three years, I realized I should stop saving a man who'd already chosen someone else.

Three years ago, I devoted my family's entire fortune to rescue my husband from the mire of impending bankruptcy. I once believed this was a mutual journey of love, until that day revealed the chilling truth — I had merely been nurturing a self-consuming wolf.
The metallic scent of blood still hung in the air of the delivery room when he signed the document relinquishing life support, trading our newly born child for a flicker of hope for his beloved.
As I lay in a pool of blood, dialing his number, I could hear the heavy breaths of him and his mistress on the other end.
The explosion of the yacht cast flames upon the sea, and in that life-or-death moment, he unhesitatingly let go of my hand.
They all believed I had perished beneath the waves.
Very well.
Now, my wedding invitation lies within his reach.

My twin sister was revered as the sun of our pack. I was the dark moon, condemned as an omen of disaster.

At my mate-binding ceremony, our parents stormed the altar. Claiming her wolf spirit was dying, they forced me to surrender my fated mate to her.

They seemed to have forgotten that today was my coming-of-age. An un-mated Daughter of the Dark Moon would be offered as a sacrifice to the ruthless Alpha of the Winter Pack.

With red, tear-filled eyes, I begged my mate, Kayden, not to abandon me. Instead, he slowly withdrew his hand.

"Maeve, she's your blood sister. I have to bond with her to save her life."

"As for being sacrificed to the Winter Tyrant, that's just a myth the elders made up to scare you."

My father stood by, reprimanding me with sheer impatience:

"What sacrifice? It's nothing but folklore! Can't you suffer a little grievance for your sister's life?"

To prevent me from ruining the ceremony, they dragged me into the damp, dark dungeon.

Up on the altar, my family joyfully continued the celebration.

But they didn't know the Grand Elder had come to me three days ago.

The moment my binding failed today, the emissaries of Winter would come to collect their due.

From today on, I would plunge into the frigid deadlands of the far North, bound to remain by that bloodthirsty tyrant's side until the day I die.

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."

Fresh off the operating table after barely surviving a miscarriage, I received a $50,000 bill—every cent spent on a waterbed and aphrodisiac aromatherapy on a yacht.
 
I called my husband, the only other person who knew about that account.

Over the phone, he sounded gentle yet aggrieved: "Honey, how could I afford a luxury yacht? It must be a banking error. You just lost our baby; please rest well. My flight to New York is taking off soon, and I'll be right by your side the moment I get back!"
 
I didn't expose the deafening sounds of the wild party in his background. I simply hung up.
 
He thought his lie was flawless. He had no idea that as the hidden heiress of the Windsor Consortium, that priceless yacht, the Poseidon, was actually a coming-of-age gift from my grandmother.
 
I ripped the IV out of my arm and dialed a number I hadn't called in years since marrying beneath my station.
 
"Grandma, you were right. He doesn't deserve me. I'm going to the ship to catch him red-handed."

I was dragged to the stand of the MRI Memory Court by my own flesh and blood.

Their demand? To forcibly extract my kidney to keep their uremic adopted daughter alive.

A guilty verdict meant losing not just my bodily autonomy, but my freedom for the rest of my life.

Bathed in the global spotlight, my parents performed as tragic heroes, while their adopted saint cried a river of deceit.

They thought they had cornered the perfect victim, waiting for the world to send me to the slaughter.

But the moment the memory holograms ignited and reality bled through, the hunters instantly became the hunted.

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.

In my boyfriend Arthur's world, everyone could be labeled with an ER triage tag: green for minor, yellow for observation, red for critical.   As the emotionally stable one, I was forever the green tag in his life.   But my best friend, who cried and threw tantrums, was the red tag he never left the side of.   Two years ago, with my mother on the verge of death from heart failure on one side, and my best friend threatening suicide while drunk over a bad breakup on the other—he chose the latter without hesitation.   Until tonight. Separated by a single door, I watched him pull my best friend into his arms, kissing her with a greedy, desperate loss of control.

Three weeks after my son's death, I found the blood-stained cloth doll meant to "ward off disaster" with his name stitched on it.

Right there, in the hands of my husband's mistress, who was giggling as she idly toyed with it.
 
"The psychic said my life force was too weak to keep the baby, and that I needed a substitute to take the curse."
 
"I only sewed Leo's name into the doll. I never imagined... he would actually get sick and die."
 
"Declan, do you think Leo traded his life for our baby's?"
 
Through the crack in the door, the same man who had sobbed until he passed out at the funeral was gently stroking his lover's belly. "He was just unlucky. As long as our baby is safe, that's all that matters."
 
I turned away, pulled up the invitation for Chief Medical Examiner from the International Criminal Court in The Hague that I had shelved for a month, and hit accept.

From a young age, I understood that my asthma was a shackle for my entire family. My parents took turns caring for me, their hearts gripped by the fear of any sign of respiratory distress. In their fervent concern for my health, they even compelled my sister, Sophie, freshly accepted into university, to postpone her studies and return home to assist in my care.
At Sophie's eighteenth birthday celebration, I lingered at the edge of the crowd, my chest constricted, and my throat felt as if it were ensnared by invisible hands. I gently tugged at my mother's sleeve, my voice barely a whisper: "Mom, I... can't breathe. I want to go back to my room..."
In an instant, my mother whirled around, her eyes ablaze with fury, as though she had awaited this moment of eruption. She seized my inhaler and hurled it into the farthest corner of the room.
"If it's this painful, then go die!" she shrieked, her words cutting like a knife. "Stop using your illness to hold us hostage!"
The inhaler tumbled to the floor, rolling away like a forgotten piece of trash. I stared at it blankly, a sudden laugh escaping my lips.
And then, I truly died. Yet, in the wake of my passing, those who once found me a burden descended into madness.

In my past life, when I eagerly handed my ultrasound to my gentle doctor husband, I didn't get a warm embrace. I got a scalpel. Without anesthesia.

The man I loved dragged me into a pitch-black basement to butcher me alive. My once-doting mother called me a filthy whore, treating me like a sickening stain on the family. My fiercely protective brother pinned me to a metal workbench, offering me up as a living sacrifice.

I died in utter agony, left to rot and be eaten alive by rats in the dark. Up until my last breath, I couldn't understand:

Why did a single piece of paper—a sonogram of a perfectly healthy baby—instantly turn my entire family into bloodthirsty monsters?

For a century, Carlos and I were the most envied lovers of the Dawn Court—yet our story ended in a cage of mutual, agonizing torment.

He loathed me for shattering a forbidden spell to forcefully awaken his memories, a desperate act that drove his precious half-elf, Lilia, to plunge to her death from the Astral Tower.

And I resented him for completely erasing our sacred vows. The very man who had once taken a lethal dragon's breath to save my life had awakened only to draw his blade against my throat—and offer his heart to my closest friend.

For the dark centuries that followed, he chained me in a sunless dungeon, using every conceivable cruelty to break my spirit.

Right up until my mana withered and I drew my last, agonizing breath, the venom he had spat through gritted teeth still echoed in the darkness: "Cecilia, you disgust me. I would rather have never remembered you at all."

In the cold embrace of death, clarity finally pierced my obsession. I understood then that I never should have used the ashes of our past to chain a man whose heart had already moved on.

I opened my eyes and found myself thrust back to the exact day Carlos returned hand-in-hand with Lilia, his memories entirely wiped clean...

My husband's mistress sent me a video to rub it in, claiming she had just beaten my "pathetic, begging mother" bloody and kicked her down the stairs.
I froze, glancing up at my actual mother sitting right across from me, quietly sipping her coffee.
Bewildered, I zoomed in on the video.
When I made out the scar on the wrist of the woman lying in the pool of blood, a cold sweat broke out over my body. I frantically called my husband.
But he interrupted my plea with extreme impatience: "Shut up! Roxy was right to teach her a lesson. She was just taking out the trash for me!"
Since he insisted on indulging his precious mistress's death wish...
I wonder if he'll still be able to say she was right to teach her a lesson when he sees his own grandmother's corpse.