328 Book(s) Related to persephone: hades' torment read online

I've got a reputation on campus as a doormat with zero dignity. I bring Wyatt Langley food, do his homework, act as his emotional dumping ground. Been at it for a year.

His rich friends mock my cheap clothes and say I'm reaching way out of my league. He never stops them. Sometimes he even laughs along.

Finally, he announces in front of everyone that he's breaking up with me. His first love is coming back from Europe, so I need to get lost.

Everyone's waiting to see me cry.

I glance at the five million dollars that hit my account half an hour ago and say, with complete sincerity, "Okay. Congrats."

What nobody knows is that I put up with him, tolerated his rotten temper, for one simple reason. His mom pays way too well.

Now the money's here. Time to end this arrangement.

So why, the second I walk away, does he start tearing the city apart trying to find me?

The club is dragging everyone out to a tomb Blair Whitmore's family dug up in Egypt, and nobody asked if this was a good idea.

She even brings some so-called expert along. Everyone crowds around the dark opening, practically shaking with excitement.

I'm the only one who tries to stop it.

"There's a mechanism in there. It's dangerous. We shouldn't go in. We need to report it to the antiquities authority first."

They just laugh at me.

"God, Blair, you're unbelievable. Untouched site like this and you just land it."

"Right, and some people never say two words all semester and now they want in on the action."

My palms are sweating. They don't know I come from a family of manuscript conservators. I grew up surrounded by dead languages and schematics for ancient mechanisms. What nobody else can read, I read clearly.

The stele at the entrance is carved with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the warning is not subtle:

Whoever enters here will lose their soul to the void, and their bones will turn to dust.

Ten years ago, my parents worked for the Bellamys. He was their driver. She ran the house.

Then came the crash. I watched them shove Nash Bellamy out of the wreck, and it killed them both.

That's where the claustrophobia came from.

He knew. He knew all of it.

Then at homecoming, I showed up in a dress that matched Camilla's. She was the girl he'd always wanted. So he shoved me into the abandoned supply closet backstage.

The lock turned. On the other side of the door, he and Camilla were laughing like it was nothing.

"I'm pretty sure she's claustrophobic."

"Two hours in there. She'll learn."

I clawed at my own hands until they bled, couldn't get any air, and ended up wetting myself in a closet a dog wouldn't sleep in.

When the door finally opened, he pinched his nose and laughed and said I was disgusting.

I pushed myself up the wall, inch by inch, and looked at the face I'd been looking at for ten years. And I didn't want to cry anymore. Not even a little.

"Nash. I'm done chasing you."

Our engagement has gone unfulfilled for ten years.

My parents saved his family in that yacht accident. With their dying breath, they asked his family to look after me. In return, we go to city hall every year, trying to fulfill this obligation.

Ten attempts. Ten failures.

Elevator malfunctions, food poisoning, home invasions, car crashes... Every single time, I get hurt at the worst possible moment while he walks away without a scratch.

This makes ten. A truck slams into the passenger side, my head smashes against the window, and he's already running across the street, pulling that woman into his arms.

On my way to find him after they stitch me up, I hear his assistant's voice in the hospital corridor:

"Mr. Ashford, the truck driver's been taken care of. Money'll hit his account like we agreed... but is this really fair to Miss Bennett? It's been ten years, every single year—"

William's voice comes out low and tired. "I don't have a choice. Her parents saved me, but I'm in love with Emma."

I look down at the diagnosis. ALS. Late stage.

Turns out I've been trying to marry a lie this whole time.

For the top university in the North American wolf packs, transfer students aren't exactly breaking news. But this one sets the entire forum on fire.

It starts with a photo. A girl standing next to a tall, imposing man. Both faces are deliberately blurred, but that build, that presence... every wolf in North America recognizes it. The Alpha King. The caption reads: "Dad why'd you send me this 😭 I'm not ready to go public yet."

Minutes later, the post vanishes. But screenshots flood the forum.

"Moon Goddess above! Is that really the Alpha King?"

"The girl in the photo... could she be the royal princess no one's ever seen?"

The comments explode. Compliments flood in. Even my aloof boyfriend joins in.

Something feels off. I type out a comment: "The Alpha King keeps a low profile. His daughter should do the same. Posting photos like this... doesn't seem right."

Less than a minute later, the replies come.

"Who do you think you are to question her?"

"Can't stand seeing someone else do well, huh?"

My boyfriend chimes in too: "Quit it. You're embarrassing yourself."

I pick up my phone and dial a number. "Dad, since when do you have another daughter?"

I used to be the executive chef at a three-Michelin-star restaurant in New York. Then I worked in my son’s kitchen for three years without being paid a cent.

I sold my old house in Brooklyn to cover the restaurant’s startup costs. I even used my retirement savings to pay for the restaurant’s premium ingredients.

That night, I prepared an entire dinner for eighty guests by myself. By the time I finished, it was after midnight, and my stomach hurt from hunger. My protégé, Leon, cooked me a steak with an extra piece of Wagyu.

I had barely taken my first bite when my daughter-in-law, Jessica, stormed in and knocked the plate to the floor.

“David, get in here! Your mother’s hiding in the kitchen, stuffing herself with our most expensive ingredients!”

Leon jumped to my defense. “Chef paid for that herself!”

Jessica sneered. “With what money? David’s the one supporting her.”

But David hadn’t given me a cent in three years.

I looked at my son, waiting for him to stand up for me.

Instead, he tugged irritably at his tie. “Mom, taking the restaurant’s most expensive food without asking is stealing.”

Jessica pressed harder. “Today it’s beef. Tomorrow she’ll be stealing from the register.”

David nodded. “Just apologize to Jessica, Mom.”

I laughed in disbelief and ripped off my apron.

“Apologize? I quit.”

The biggest regret of my life was letting my son intern at our family company.

Jonah had barely started his internship when another intern named Presley Shaw accused him of sexual assault. Of course, the security cameras on that floor just happened to be down for maintenance that day.

I panicked. I listened to my husband, Curtis, and privately paid Presley two million dollars to keep quiet. I thought money could buy us peace.

Instead, she posted the transfer records and a recording of our conversation online, accusing us of paying her to make the accusation disappear.

The backlash was overwhelming. My son, who wouldn’t hurt a fly and spent most of his time painting alone in his studio, was doxxed. Obscenities were spray-painted across our front door. The police took him away, and while he was being held in jail awaiting trial, the pressure kept mounting until he saw no way out.

In the end, he slit his wrists, believing it was the only way left to prove his innocence.

The company collapsed into bankruptcy. In the chaos, Curtis drained our accounts and ran off with Presley.

Only then did I understand. From the beginning, they had set the whole thing up to destroy my son and me.

On the anniversary of Jonah’s death, I jumped from the roof of our company building.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Jonah was supposed to begin his internship.

This time, I would never let my son go anywhere near that hell again.

My husband Spencer quit his job to manage a rising model's career. In six months, she dropped the weight, blew up online, and turned into a supermodel — magazine covers, major runways, deal after deal.

Meanwhile, I watch myself expand by the day. Bloated. Double chin forming. Skin getting worse.

The whole world calls me greedy, lazy, out of control. Even my parents call to tell me to watch what I eat. And there's nothing I can say to make anyone understand.

Then one night, I catch them on the balcony, voices low, thinking no one can hear: "Forget about that fat cow. Once she drops dead, the house and the insurance are all ours."

That's when it finally makes sense.

Camille has a system tied to her. And it's tied to me.

Every pound I gain, she loses one.

I'm the fuel. The stepping stone. The inheritance they're waiting to collect.

She gets thin while I get fat?

So as long as I keep eating, she keeps losing weight?

Good.

I go ahead and spend a hundred grand booking a reclusive private chef for a full month. No limits on ingredients, price doesn't matter. The more extravagant, the better.

I'm going to eat whatever I want and actually enjoy my life.

Let's see how long she stays thin while I'm out here actually living my life.

Landon Rhodes and I grew up together, both dreaming of becoming top chefs. But I knew he was the one with a palate kissed by God.

So when Rowan Stone, this street-rat punk, got her claws into him, I took the drinks, the smoke, the slaps for him. When he wanted to skip the National Young Chefs Competition to stay with her drunk ass, I dragged him back to the culinary lab.

He won the championship, got recruited by a three-star Michelin restaurant, graduated and made millions. I became the most invisible prep cook in his kitchen.

Until Rowan wrapped her car around a pole during one of her episodes, and he lured me into a basement.

"This is all your fault! If you'd minded your own damn business, she'd still be alive!"

His foot came down on my right hand. Bones cracking. My fingers ground to pulp.

All those 5 AM trips to the fish market for him. All those nights watching stock simmer for forty-eight hours straight. All the praise he soaked up at final practicals. My sacrifices, and all I got in return was his hatred.

"These worthless hands that can only cut vegetables deserve to rot in the ground with her."

The pain swallowed me whole.

When I wake up again, I'm back to that afternoon when he said he was going to the bar to find her.

This time, I won't stop him.

Three years ago, a private plane crash took my father, my mother, my brother Carter, and Grayson, the man I'd loved for seven years and was about to marry.

To hold onto everything they left behind, I cried until my eyes were raw, destroyed my stomach, and fought my way through boardrooms and Wall Street vultures.

On countless nights, I held their photographs and cried until I passed out.

What I never understood was why Willow, the foster sister we'd taken in, vanished without a trace after the crash.

Until today, three years later, when I drive back to the family estate with a diagnosis in my bag telling me I have three months to live.

I push open the heavy door and hear laughter. I see my family—the family that's supposed to be dead—gathered around Willow and her three-year-old son, singing happy birthday.

Turns out no one in this world ever loved me at all.

Why do they all get to live while I'm the only one who have to die?

Everyone thinks that after ten years engaged to Alpha Grayson, I'll end up as Frostpeak's Luna. Then one night at a gala, in front of the whole pack, he hands me over to the lowest rogue he can find.

Someone speaks up for me.

"Alpha Grayson, if you're done with her, just let her go. Why humiliate her like this? She dragged you through three days and nights in a blizzard ten years ago. She froze her body half to death saving you. She can't even shift anymore."

"That rogue can barely feed himself. She'll go with him and suffer for it."

Grayson just pulls the crying Omega closer, disgust all over his face.

"She saved me because she wanted the Luna title, that's all. I'm sick of her acting like I owe her something."

"Watch. Give it a few days and she'll come crawling back, begging me on her knees to change my mind."

I don't cry. I don't beg. I unclasp the engagement necklace, drop it at his feet, and walk out with the rogue.

Three days later, Grayson will show up at the Fringe with a hundred guards to drag me back, screaming that I'm heartless.

My husband's foster sister, Delilah, gets poisoned and ends up paralyzed. My husband, Grayson, the Don of this whole crime family, doesn't even bother checking the security cameras. He just throws me, two months pregnant, into the cistern where they punish traitors.

"Tessa, hand over the antidote, or die."

I kneel in the freezing swamp water and beg him. I didn't poison her.

He answers with a kick to the stomach.

For three straight days, I suffer down there. Leeches tear into my skin. My baby turns into a pool of black blood and dissolves into the filthy water. By the end, my vocal cords tear to shreds, my body goes cold, and I stop breathing.

His men get on their knees and beg him to spare me. He just sneers.

"That woman's always been good at playing the victim. No food, no medicine. Let her keep soaking."

Three days later, he finally walks into the cistern, and it's only to give me an ultimatum.

"Crawl out and apologize to Delilah on your knees. Otherwise I'll strip you of your title and sell you off to a trafficking ring. You'll wish you were dead."

No one answers him.

He has no idea. I already am.

My best friend Tiffany was obsessed with those novels where a mafia don spoils his woman rotten.

She was convinced she was the type of girl who could make a ruthless boss go soft, so she went after Vincent, the heir of a crime family, and got him.

His bodyguards, his dirty money, even the way he told her not to ask questions and just sit tight. She read all of it as devotion. And of course she had to drag me into it too, always with the same excuse: it was for my own good.

Last time around, her mess got me killed. Vincent's enemies mistook me for one of his people, and I died in a shootout that had nothing to do with me.

The second the blade opened my throat, all I could think about was her holding up a bloody knife, grinning, showing it off to me like a trophy.

"Margot, look. He gave me this. It means we're official now."

I remember feeling disgusted. I never thought that same knife would end up slitting my throat.

Blood pooled across the street while she hid in Vincent's arms, screaming, hands over her eyes. Later I heard her crying to someone, saying it wasn't her fault, that I just had bad luck.

I died inside her little romance fantasy. A nobody side character, wiped off the page without a second thought.

Then I opened my eyes, and I was back. Back to the afternoon it all started.

The day I closed another major deal, my fiancé, the CEO, smiles and tells me the credit and the bonus are going to the new intern.

I watch him lean in close to her, laughing, and something in me just stops caring enough to fight for it.

I sign the transfer request and ship myself off to the most useless department in the company.

What I don't expect is that a few days later, the same man who never looked twice at anyone beneath him is going to be on his knees begging me to come back.

In the dark underworld, Matthias Sterling is a feared mob boss and the only family I had left after my parents died. I used to be the girl he cherished, until I turned eighteen and confessed my feelings to him.

From that day on, the tenderness in his eyes turned to disgust. He brought home Rose Hartley and threw me away like trash.

In my past life, someone drugged him with a powerful aphrodisiac. I gave myself to him as the cure, only for him to call me a shameless whore. But when I got pregnant, he married me anyway.

On our wedding day, Rose ran to rival territory heartbroken and ended up dead. When he heard the news, he said nothing. Just finished the ceremony.

When I went into labor, he locked me in the house and said coldly, "If it weren't for you, I would've married her. She wouldn't have run to enemy territory and died."

He blamed everything on me. In the end, I died in childbirth. He wouldn't even let anyone call a doctor.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the night that changed everything.

I just get back from three months of hell on the northern border, dust still on my jacket, when Grandpa's calls start blowing up my phone.

"Seraphina! You need to swing by Black Ridge City and meet your fiancé!"

The old betrothal, arranged before I was even born. The guy is Derek, son of the Black Ridge Pack's Alpha.

I couldn't care less about the engagement, but I owe the elders that much respect.

So I send my unit back to base and head into the city alone, figuring I'll grab a gift and get this over with.

I find a necklace I like at Tears of the Stars, the fanciest jewelry store in town. The sales clerk looks at me like I'm trash. "That necklace runs eight million dollars. You break it, you'll be washing dishes for the rest of your life and still not pay it off."

I'm reaching for my black card when a wall of perfume hits me.

A woman dripping in jewelry storms in with a pack of bodyguards, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "What kind of gutter wolf is this? Keep talking and I'll have someone skin you and turn you into a rug. That necklace is mine. I'm Derek's girl."

I actually laugh, I'm that pissed off. Call up my dear fiancé right there on the spot.

"Derek. Your girl just told me she's going to skin me and make me into a rug."

As the only daughter of a mafia family, I learned early that trust doesn't come cheap. When my father got sick, he gave me an ultimatum: if I want to take over the family, I have to get married first.

Everyone assumed I'd pick my childhood friend, Vincent Moretti—son of my father's right-hand man. Hell, even I thought so. Until my last life, when he left me to burn.

Father died in an ambush. I was trapped in a metal cage at an abandoned dock warehouse while flames swallowed everything. I begged Vincent for help. He stood thirty feet away, the cage key right by his feet.

"Cat, as long as your father's alive, he'll never give me the family. This isn't personal. It's business."

Sophia was wrapped around him—my so-called best friend. She smiled at me and said she'd take good care of everything.

Before I lost consciousness, I saw a figure in black charging into the flames—Elijah, the bodyguard I'd called "trash" and "a dog."

Then I opened my eyes and woke up a month before my birthday party. This time, I'm giving that position to someone who actually deserves it.

But why is Vincent on his knees at my engagement party, crying and begging me to marry him?

I've been able to see clocks above people's heads since the day I was born. As long as the hands keep moving, the bond between us is still alive.

Once the hands spin backward and stop at zero, that bond is finished.

When I was seven, the clock over my best friend's head just stopped one day. She drowned in the reservoir the next morning.

When I was fifteen, my grandfather's clock started ticking backward, slower and slower, until it stopped completely. He died peacefully in his sleep that same night.

When I was eighteen, my father, a drunk who lied about everything, slammed the door on his way out. I watched his clock vanish completely and knew right then he was never coming back.

Ever since, clocks scare me. I'm always afraid of watching someone I love get taken away from me.

So I keep my head down, holding on tight to the quiet, stable life I've fought so hard for.

Then tonight, I watch the clock above Marcus Hargrove's head start spinning backward.

What scares me even more is Willow's clock doing the same thing.

While I'm still trying to figure out why, the storm hits that night. He walks out on his daughter while she's burning up with fever and having convulsions, and runs straight to another woman.

His clock jumps back another notch.

My boyfriend looks at me like I'm trash. Too fat. Too plain. My clothes are ugly. He never misses a chance to tear me down.

I thought he was just mean. Then his "good friend" Sophie spilled coffee all over our ten-thousand-dollar control board.

That board was three months of work. Three months of all-nighters, twice I passed out from low blood sugar. It was our entry for the National Robotics Competition. The deadline's tomorrow. Now it's gone.

I confronted Sophie, and he stormed in, pulled her into his arms, and pointed his finger in my face. "It's just a stupid competition. Did you really need to come at Sophie like that?"

Turns out he's not just mean. He genuinely can't stand me.

Marlowe Crane is my best friend, and she's also a succubus.

She was born with this power that makes men lose their minds, but she always told me she only wanted to use her "gift" to protect me.

So every time I dated someone, she'd volunteer to "test" him.

Without fail, every single man fell at her feet.

She'd send me photos of them in bed together. "See, Rosie? They're all trash. Lucky I caught them for you."

After breaking up more times than I can count, I had a breakdown and moved from Boston to Los Angeles.

That's where I met Holden Kingsley. I thought the nightmare was finally over.

On my wedding day, Marlowe showed up in my dressing room with a glass of drugged water.

In my past life, I drank it and passed out. She stripped off my wedding dress, put it on herself, and climbed into Holden's bed.

Someone threw cold water on my face to wake me up. When I walked in with the bridesmaids, I caught them tangled up together.

I lost it. Screamed and cried and called the police right there.

And what happened?

Holden didn't feel guilty at all. He acted like I was the bad guy, like I'd ruined Marlowe's life.

Under Marlowe's succubus influence, he believed she was innocent, that I forced her into it.

After that, my marriage became a living hell.

Now I'm back, standing in front of the mirror, staring at that drugged glass of water in my hand.

This time, they're the ones going to hell.

At a late-night party, when the bottle spins to my boyfriend Tyler, he picks dare.

"Kiss anyone here except your girlfriend," the host announces with a smirk.

Tyler barely hesitates. He walks straight to my best friend Sienna and kisses her for a full seven seconds in front of everyone.

When he comes back, he leans close to my ear. "Don't sweat it, we'll have fun when we get home."

When it's my turn, I choose truth. "Tell us a secret nobody knows."

I look around at all these drunk college kids, then say calmly, "I killed someone."

I'm a figure skating prodigy from one of the wealthiest families in the country. I'm also an idiot.

I believed that if I was kind enough, people would be kind in return. So I sponsored Haley Dunning, a scholarship skater on our team, and treated her like my own little sister.

The day before the NCAA qualifier, she came up to me with a sports drink, said she wanted to help keep my energy up.

I drank it. Went down on the ice with a broken leg. Drug test came back positive for banned stimulants.

Overnight, I went from the queen of the rink to the face of a scandal no one could stop talking about.

Expelled from school. Torn apart on social media. Calloway Corporation's stock in freefall.

Haley stood in front of the cameras, tears in her eyes: "Piper just wanted to win so badly. I never thought she'd go this far..."

I fell into a depression. Couldn't sleep without medication.

Then one day, she showed up at my hospital room with my boyfriend, bearing "comfort": a cup of water and a few pills: "Piper, take your meds, okay? This is all my fault for being so stupid..."

Three minutes later, I'm coughing up blood, convulsing on the floor.

Right before I died, I caught the look on her face. That sweet, innocent face. A slow, vicious smile spreading across it.

She knocked over the pill bottle and started screaming: "I grabbed the wrong ones! I mixed up her antidepressants with some old person's heart meds! I'm so stupid!"

My boyfriend pulled her into his arms. Didn't even glance at me dying on the floor: "She meant well. Piper just had bad luck."

I was poisoned to death in that hospital room.

Then I opened my eyes, and it was the day before the qualifier.

I was the Sinclair family's lost daughter, missing for fifteen years. The day they found me, I thought I'd finally found the home I'd always dreamed of.

I didn't know they only brought me back to keep their other daughter alive. The one with the rare blood disease.

For three years, they drained my blood over and over. Took my bone marrow once.

My birth parents told me, "Eloise is fragile. You're the older sister. Take care of her."

My fiancé said, "You have such a good heart. You wouldn't want to see her suffer, would you?"

Today, I just gave six hundred milliliters of blood. I'm lying here weak in this hospital bed, and I hear them talking outside my door.

"Eloise is getting worse. We should take Aria's kidney now. Give it to her. We can't wait any longer."

That's when I finally understood. I was never their found daughter.

I was inventory. A blood bag. Spare parts waiting to be harvested.

If that's what their love is, I don't want it.

Two weeks before my due date, my husband Ethan is racing out the door into a stormy night.

All because his childhood friend Scarlett's apartment lost power, and she says her claustrophobia is kicking in.

I'm clutching my belly, telling him my water broke, begging him to look at the blood on the floor.

"You pulling this again? Last week wasn't enough? Scarlett's actually in danger."

He shakes off my hand. The door slams shut.

I'm standing in a pool of blood, watching his taillights disappear into the rain.

My baby won't have a father anymore.

"The contract marriage has expired. You're no longer useful to me," Lucas's cold voice pierced my heart. After three years of devotion, I was nothing but a disposable tool.

Then, he brought her home. Amelia, his cherished true love—and the daughter of the mafia family that slaughtered my parents. She sneered at me, flaunting my mother's stolen sapphire necklace, while Lucas ruthlessly kicked me out, calling me a mere "housekeeper."

My heart shattered entirely, but the tears finally stopped. I signed the divorce papers and walked out into the night.

He thought I was a penniless nobody who would crumble without his wealth. He didn't know my real name was Isabella Sorelli.

When I appeared at a top-tier banquet, flanked by my three wildly protective, billionaire brothers, Lucas's eyes widened in sheer shock. I am the heiress to the city's greatest empire now. You threw me away for a snake, Lucas? Watch me crush her. And when you finally realize what you lost, begging on your knees won't be enough.

My name used to be whispered in fear by dictators. Now, it’s mocked by cheerleaders.

I am—or I was—Phantom. I killed for a living, and I was the best. But my retirement plan was cut short by a sudden darkness I never saw coming.

Fate, it seems, has a twisted sense of humor. I’ve been reincarnated into the body of Raven Martinez, a high school girl with a life so tragic it makes my old job look like a vacation.

Now I have to deal with pop quizzes, teenage hormones, and a hierarchy of bullies who think they run the world.

They pushed the old Raven to her death. But they’re about to learn a very painful lesson: You don't corner a viper unless you're ready to get bitten.

High school is hell. Lucky for me, I'm the devil.

The plan was simple: Break the nephew by seducing the uncle.
Wesley Vance didn't just break my heart; he tried to sell my dignity. So, I went after the only man he feared. The man who owned the city, the empire, and Wesley’s future.
Lance Lawson. He’s cold. He’s untouchable. He’s my ex-boyfriend’s uncle. I thought I was the one setting the trap. I wore his shirts, haunted his penthouse, and chipped away at his legendary control until the ice finally cracked.
But I made one fatal mistake. I thought Lance was a man I could use and discard. I didn't realize that once you wake a predator, he never goes back to sleep.
Now, Wesley is gone, the Vance family is in ruins, and I’m trapped in a gilded cage of my own making. Because Lance doesn't want my loyalty. He wants my soul.
I wanted revenge. I got an obsession.

The Hollow doesn't give you back the way it found you.

Three years inside those walls, and Elowen survived what shouldn't be survived. She came home expecting warmth, relief, maybe even gratitude for the sacrifice she'd made.

Instead, they looked at her with pity — like something hollowed out and broken beyond repair.

Her strength, gone. Her fortune, gone. Her family whispered omega behind closed doors, certain the Hollow had ruined her.**

They should have looked closer.

She thought she'd only been surviving. She didn't realize she'd become the kind of doctor who could do what no healer had ever done before.

But the worst part? She's learning that her skills can save bodies — but not the cursed prince rotting from the inside. Not the kingdom balanced on the edge of collapse.

For that, she'll need what the Hollow left inside her.

Something far more dangerous than medicine.

Is a stay-at-home wife just a maid in her marriage?

I say: Absolutely not.

I worked late just to buy my daughter a birthday cake.
But when I got home, I accidentally heard her on the phone with another woman.

She was ashamed of me, called me a maid, and begged that woman to act as her family member at the parent-teacher conference.

Later I found out my husband had been with that woman all along.
Hidden inside my daughter’s watch was a small group chat with just the three of them.

My own daughter said she hated me and planned to drive me away.
And my husband let it all happen.

My heart was completely broken.
On my birthday, I signed the divorce papers and left home quietly.

After leaving, I discovered a much bigger world and achieved my dreams.

But their lives fell completely apart.

My father died owing the Callahan family a blood debt. His payment? Me and my sister—married off to their sons.

I woke up reborn on the night they buried him.

Standing in that funeral chamber, watching the lawyer crack open the sealed will, I discovered I could suddenly hear thoughts. My sister Vivienne's voice ripped through my head: Not marrying that butcher. No way in hell.

She lunged forward and grabbed Adrian—the refined bastard son who looked like a lawyer instead of a mobster. The same "perfect gentleman" I married in my past life.

Which left me with Dominic Callahan. The scarred heir. The Executioner.

Last time around, Vivienne married Dominic and got beaten down for years. I married Adrian and lived like a queen.

I almost laughed out loud.

Because she has no idea—this time, she's the one who grabbed the monster.

I used to be the Blackwells' best killer. For him, I walked away from that life and became his wife. I even gave him a daughter.

I thought it was redemption. Turns out, it was the start of something worse.

Three years ago, during that shootout at the docks, his first love showed up with his bastard son. When the rival family put guns to both kids' heads, he didn't hesitate. He chose to save her son.

My daughter burned in the explosion.

That was the day the man I loved for ten years died. What's left is just my sworn enemy.

At the Met Gala, I heard my husband tell his friends in French that I'm "boring." That his 22-year-old girlfriend is "so much more exciting in bed."

He laughed when they asked if I knew. "Elle ne comprend même pas 'bonjour'." (She doesn't even understand 'bonjour'.)

What Marcus doesn't know: I spent two years at the Sorbonne.

Je comprends tout, Marcus. I understand everything.

The diamond necklace he gave me after my miscarriage suddenly feels too tight. I smile at him across the champagne and candlelight.

He has no idea what's coming.

My sister’s TikTok Shop was on the verge of being shut down. As a top livestream creator with three million followers, I stepped in and turned a warehouse full of dead inventory into bestsellers.

That night, my sister shipped the wrong items for three hundred orders. I apologized on camera, then paid ten thousand dollars out of my own pocket to issue refunds and send replacements.

After the livestream, I went to the warehouse to pick up samples for tomorrow. The second I grabbed two insulated tumblers, my sister snatched them out of my hands.

“I knew it! You’ve been stealing from me again!”

I told her they were samples and that every item had been logged.

She refused to listen and smacked the shelf with her palm.

“My inventory has been off for months because you’ve been stealing from me! Pay me twenty thousand dollars, or I’m calling the cops!”

For three months, I hadn’t charged a flat fee or taken a dime in commission. I had even covered the customer service costs myself.

And now she was calling me a thief.

Our parents rushed in when they heard the shouting. Mom wrapped an arm around my sister and glared at me.

“You’re her older sister. You’re supposed to help her. But stealing says everything about what kind of person you are.”

Dad looked at me with disappointment. “Do you have any idea how hard your sister has worked to build this business? How could you take advantage of her?”

I looked at the three of them, each one convinced they were in the right, and laughed.

Fine. If they thought anyone could sell this stuff, they could go live and sell it themselves.

I was an orphan, and a rare heart condition ate away at me for twenty years. The night I died in that cold hospital room, a reaper in a black robe came for me.

He told me if I crossed into a world of werewolves, into the Moonheart Pack, and made Estelle's family genuinely love me — Estelle being the real daughter who'd died a horrible death there — and if I rewrote the ending where they all went mad and tore each other apart, I'd get my health back for good. A second life.

For twenty years in that body, I loved every single one of them with everything I had.

My husband Rhett was the youngest Alpha the pack had ever had. I mentioned once that I wanted Alaskan wild berries, and he drove a thousand miles overnight to get them. My mother Sylvia, the pack's head healer, made me tonics herself every single day. My father Everett and my brother Callum spoiled me so much the whole pack envied me for it.

I thought I'd actually rewritten my fate. I thought I was the happiest person alive.

Until that night.

I'm carrying a berry pie I baked myself toward the council hall when I hear my mother's voice, flat and cold.

"Estelle's heart is finally in perfect condition. Now's the best time to take it."

"Her heart buys Lila's life. She should be grateful for it." Rhett says it like it's nothing. "Once we take the heart, I'll dissolve the mate bond myself."

So this is it. All that kindness was just to grow a healthy heart for their adopted girl.

Three years. I've spent three years trying to love them, to thaw them out, to change things.

Then let it end here.

One hundred years married to Everett, and I've learned one thing: whenever he wants to push me into a corner, he throws the mate bond dissolution agreement in my face. Whenever my parents want me to cave, they hold the family name over my head.

They've always wanted the same thing — for me to hand over everything I have to my twin sister Rosalie, who's been sick her whole life.

I've fought it. I've grieved over it.

But when the doctor slid the diagnosis across the desk — Blood Depletion Syndrome, late stage, less than two weeks left — something in me just went quiet.

What's the point of fighting when you're already dead?

One snide comment from my worst enemy, and I dropped eighty million gold coins on a custom golem built to look exactly like him.

My requirements were simple: same face, same body, and a personality that's submissive, obedient, and takes whatever I dish out without fighting back.

I've had that insufferable face fetching me coffee, rubbing my feet, massaging my shoulders, even wearing a maid outfit.

Watching him bow and scrape for me finally lets out most of the resentment I've been carrying.

Then tonight, the workshop sends a message out of nowhere:

[Due to a shortage of high-purity mithril, your custom golem needs another month to complete. Thank you for your patience.]

I look over at the man kneeling by the couch, rubbing my legs.

So who exactly have I been treating like a dog for the past two months?

I live twenty-four honest years, and fate hands me a terminal stomach cancer diagnosis as a reward. Less than a month left on the clock.

Right when I'm ready to flip off this godawful fate, the floor under me goes black, and I drop straight into an SSS-rank horror game.

The Midnight Bloodred Theater. Dried-out eyeballs for chandeliers, crusted blood for decoration.

The boss is some deranged silver-haired god with blood-red eyes, and he blows people into a bloody mist the second something doesn't go his way.

Everyone else is crying, begging for their lives.

Not me. I'm dying either way.

I walk right up onto that stage, plant my hand on his abs, and grin up at him.

"Hey, gorgeous. Before you kill me, how about a kiss?"

The best deal I ever made in my life was selling my blood to a vampire.

I was a broke, permanently starving werewolf who needed ten times the food a normal person did just to feel full.

Evan was a vampire heir with a blood allergy, the kind where the smell alone made him sick and dizzy. Somehow his life was worse than mine.

Except my blood didn't trigger it. He never reacted to me.

So he pulled out his card. "I'll keep you fed. You let me feed off you."

This wasn't a vampire. This was a walking meal ticket.

For the next three years, he was the perfect meal buddy. Five meals a day, and he never once complained. Once I finished and let out a satisfied burp, it was his turn, just a small sip, nothing more.

Then, the year we graduated, he got a call from his family. He had to fly back to Europe that same night.

Before he left, I figured I'd thank him for three years of generosity. I pulled my collar aside.

"Go ahead, take more this time. Consider it a going-away present."

He hesitated, then leaned in.

But this time, once his teeth were in, he couldn't stop.

By the time he pulled back, horrified at himself, I already had a hand pressed to my neck, and everything went dark.

Ethan and I grew up together. We were supposed to exchange rings at the altar, make our vows. But on our wedding day, he left me standing there to go save his so-called suicidal ex. Almost killed my parents from the shame.

Four years later, I'm back in Portland with my husband. The city isn't that big, and of course fate decides to throw him in my path again.

He has the nerve to ask me to be his mistress.

I hold up my left hand, the ring catching the light. "Are you blind?"

Seven years ago I gave up my inheritance and went door to door with Nolan—a broke director shooting street documentaries—my belly out to here, begging investors to take a chance on him.

Everyone said I'd thrown my life away on him.

Seven years later he's a name everyone knows. And Emily, the first love who walked out when he had nothing, is back in Chicago with her daughter.

That afternoon I came home early and heard him pull five-year-old Ivy into his arms: "You can't ever tell Mom that Daddy and Emily are having a fake wedding."

"But Daddy, Mom will be so sad..."

"Say one word and Daddy won't love you anymore. Got it?"

Her little shoulders shook as she nodded, and nodded.

Out in the hallway, I couldn't even be bothered to cry.

I dialed the number I'd kept blocked for seven years. "Dad—can the family plane still come get me and Ivy?"

Nolan, what you lost wasn't a housewife you could push around. You threw away the only person who ever made you her whole world.

For the Adventure Club’s fall break camping trip, I was in charge of organizing all the food for three days and two nights.

Pine Hollow was deep in the mountains, three hours from the nearest town, with no place nearby to buy supplies.

I contacted Prime Harvest, a supplier my family owned. The menu included wagyu beef, antibiotic-free chicken breast, and organic salad, all at cost. I quoted everyone fifty dollars per person.

I quietly covered the rest myself.

The moment I posted the plan in the group chat, the complaints started pouring in.

“Fifty bucks? Do you think we’re suckers?”

A freshman who had just joined the club posted a flyer.

“My relative owns a food-processing plant. She can provide enough hot dogs and burgers for everyone for just fifteen dollars per person!”

The club president immediately started a poll.

Forty-one to two.

The freshman’s package won by a landslide, and I was accused of trying to make money off everyone.

I didn’t argue. I handed the food arrangements over to her and packed three days’ worth of food for myself.

The day we headed into the mountains, they sat around the campfire devouring meat skewers with grease on their faces, mocking me for putting on rich-girl airs.

Then, in the middle of the night, a scream tore through the valley.

I died in the tenth year of our marriage. Not from illness, but from thirty-six hundred days of silent cruelty and penance.

Ten years ago, during that avalanche, he grabbed my hand at the last second. The girl he loved got buried under all that snow.

After that, even breathing felt like a crime.

He drank himself into oblivion, stayed out all night, and on the anniversary of her death, he'd wrap his hands around my throat and ask, "Why wasn't it you?"

I loved him for fifteen years, from childhood sweethearts to bitter strangers. I gave everything for even a hint of warmth from him. What I got instead was him shoving me down the stairs for her little sister.

When I open my eyes again, wind cuts through me and snow fills the air. I'm ten years in the past, back to that afternoon in the Alps.

This time, I'll give you what you want.

The club is planning a team retreat, and sophomore Ashley suddenly raises her hand at the meeting.

"Doesn't Clara's family own a hotel? Cresthaven, right?"

"Since it's your family's place, we could each just chip in fifty bucks for the venue, like you're supporting your own business or something."

Cresthaven is the hotel my grandfather gave me on my eighteenth birthday.

Because it never advertises, outsiders assume it's just some bed and breakfast out in the countryside. In reality, the basic suites run eighty-eight hundred dollars a night, private dining rooms have a hundred-thousand-dollar minimum, and the ingredients get flown in fresh from around the world every single day.

She wants to hand me fifty dollars and get a free two-day retreat for fifty people.

I turn her down on the spot. Next week is already fully booked.

But that night at ten, Ashley posts in the group chat anyway:

[Good news! Thanks to Clara's generous support, the whole club is heading to Cresthaven next week for a two-day retreat, completely free!]

The replies underneath are wall-to-wall flattery.

She wants to use my hotel to buy herself goodwill and build her own reputation.

But that's up to me, not her.

I burn through eighty years of my life raising three dogs that turn around and tear into me.

My vampire husband, Damian, used to be an outcast covered in festering sores, cursed to fear the sun. I cut my wrist and gave up thirty years of my life so he could become the most powerful man among the bloodlines, in control of half the world's wealth. Cold and ruthless to everyone else, he only ever bares his fangs for me.

Knox, the werewolf boy I grew up with, was born with a genetic flaw that kept him from ever shifting. I gave up another twenty years so he could have the strongest bloodline of all. Wild and reckless, he used to swear he'd carry me on his back for the rest of his life.

Julian, my human brother, got burned beyond recognition saving me from a fire. I spent my last thirty years giving him back a face people would pay a fortune for. He used to send crates of his paintings to my room, the kind of work people would kill to own.

Then a woman named Daphne shows up, and all three of them lose their minds over her.

And somehow I become the jealous, vicious wife everyone wants gone.

She cries that I pushed her, so they drive blades of blood straight through my bones.

She says I'm cruel to the staff, so they break my legs in front of a crowd.

And when I'm dying, they drain my blood to keep her alive.

If you're all going to treat the life I gave you like trash, then I'm taking it back. The strength, the face, the life. All of it.

[God, I take it back. I want everything I gave them returned to me.]

The night the team wins again, the roar inside the arena could raise the roof.

On the ice, the captain has his arm around the new cheer captain, spinning her under the lights. His skates cut clean lines across the ice. Teammates whistle and shout, someone yells "ask her out!", someone else films on their phone. Everyone waits for me to show up and make a scene. Cry, stumble onto the ice, drop to my knees and beg him to come back. Pathetic, like every time before.

But no one knows I'm in the back of the locker room right now, pressed against a cold metal locker.

The quiet backup player has his hand on the back of my neck, his voice barely steady. "You sure about this?"

I push up on my toes and kiss him first.

The mafia boss chose me as his decoy—a body double for the woman he loves.

Eight years. Three bullets, one car crash, one explosion. The doctor said ten more minutes and I would've died on that operating table when they took my kidney. I gave him a son. He let me play "the boss's wife" in public.

Until he cleared every obstacle for her and decided to marry her.

Her wedding photos replaced mine in the master bedroom. He has her initials tattooed on his arm. When I questioned him, he had his men slap me at a charity gala, forced me to admit "I'm just a stand-in." When I touched her, he took away my custody, declared she was "the true lady of this house."

The punishments got worse. When he threatened to cancel my mother's insurance, I finally learned to shut up.

He pulls me close, whispers in my ear: "She gave up everything for me. Not like you—you were born to take bullets for me."

"Deal with it. She's not replacing you. This is her house now."

Even my son took her side.

"Stop being dramatic! Natalie actually loves us! You're nothing!"

But their pure, innocent Natalie? She unplugged my mother's ventilator while I was locked in the basement. Let his enemies slip poison into my drink during the last job.

When Grayson found me, all he said was: "She's pregnant and emotional. Go rearrange the flowers at the wedding venue."

I wipe the black blood from my lips. Look at him quietly.

"I'm dying."

I'm two months pregnant with Tristan's baby when Brielle, the woman he'd do anything for, shoves me down the stairs.

She calls it an accident. I lose the baby.

I beg my husband to do something about it. Instead, he shields her and turns it around on me.

"Brielle saved my life in that fire. The whole Merrick family owes her. So drop it."

That debt. Always that debt.

Three years. No matter how many times Brielle humiliates me, degrades me, Tristan only ever has one answer: "I owe her my life."

But the truth about that fire? I'm the only one in the world who knows it.

I tried to tell him once. He laughed in my face. "Adeline, you're so desperate for attention you'd make up something like that?"

So I shut my mouth. Buried the truth. Buried whatever was left of my heart along with it.

The man I trusted with my life just handed my child to the woman who killed them, and called it loyalty.

I'm done.

I pull up the number I blocked three years ago and hit call.

"Dad. I'll take over the company. I'll go through with the engagement to Everett. But I have one condition. I want Tristan and Brielle ruined beyond recovery. Nothing and no one left."

I’m Elowen, a Fae heiress. I snuck into the human world for a little fun and somehow ended up working as the personal bodyguard of Manhattan billionaire Grayson Whitmore.

To keep my real face from attracting trouble, I had one of my people cast a glamour on me, giving me a face full of freckles and a homely appearance.

Grayson criticized everything I did, yet every time I tried to quit, he refused to let me go.

His best friend, Preston Hale, was different. After I saved his life, he held my hand and made me a promise.

“Ellie, I don’t care what you look like. I want to give you a home.”

I was curious what it would be like to marry a human, so I said yes.

But at our engagement party, Brielle Vaughn, Preston’s first love who had spent years in Europe, burst through the doors with tears in her eyes.

Preston immediately yanked his hand away from mine.

“I’m sorry. She’s the one I love.”

Then he handed me a five-million-dollar check, put his arm around her, and left without looking back.

The guests laughed at me for ever thinking I belonged in Preston’s world.

All I could think was how ridiculous the whole thing was.

I turned and opened the door to the private lounge. The man who had watched the entire spectacle was sitting in the shadows.

I grabbed his tie and smiled.

“Grayson, don’t you need a wife to keep your family off your back? Why don’t you marry me?”

On our wedding day, my fiancé left me and an entire room of guests waiting for two full hours so he could go to the airport and pick up the woman he’d never gotten over.

When he finally showed up, he was standing protectively at her side. Then he told me to “be reasonable and stop making a scene.”

In that moment, the love I’d held on to for twelve years simply disappeared.

I threw down my bouquet and called off the wedding right then and there.

Furious, he demanded, “You’re doing this because I was late?”

“Yes. Because you were late.”

At twenty-nine, Dominic Brooks owns this city's underworld.

This year, I'm pregnant again. Finally.

But on our daughter's death anniversary, he doesn't show. Five hours. Nothing.

I find him at our casino with some girl draped all over him. The same girl I pulled out of a trafficking ring two years ago.

She's laughing loud enough for everyone to hear. "His wife won't stop crying about that dead kid. God, he's so over it."

He kisses her. Right in front of me.

Three days later, he tears up our daughter's grave. His mistress wants a swimming pool.

The shovel comes down. My unborn baby goes with it.

Years ago, Dominic taught me the rules of our world. How we handle traitors.

Time for a reminder.