7202 Book(s) Related to the fire he started

My husband's first love was in trouble.
When the news came, I was lying on the operating table.
Dr. Miller put down his scalpel and said to Dr. Johnson, "I'll leave my wife's surgery to you."

"If I don’t go now, I might regret it for the rest of my life."

With that, he turned and walked away.
Watching my husband's retreating figure, I couldn't hold back—tears fell.
The next second, the cold blade of a scalpel touched my skin.

Dr. Johnson spoke calmly, "Why the tears? With me here, you'll be fine."

I gave him three years of silent devotion behind a mask I never wanted to wear. I made a wager for our bond—he paid me off like a mistress.
"Chloe's back," Zane said coldly. "It's over."
I laughed, poured wine on his face, and walked away from the only love I'd ever known.
"What now?" my best friend asked.
I smiled. "The real me returns."
But fate wasn't finished yet.
That same night, Caesar Conrad—the Alpha every wolf feared—opened his car door and whispered, "Get in."
Our gazes collided. The bond awakened. No games. No pretending. Just raw, unstoppable power.
"Don't regret this," he warned, lips brushing mine.
But I didn't.
Because the mate I'd been chasing never saw me.
And the one who did?
He's ready to burn the world for me.

1

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.

The second the avalanche came down, I called my mate. Karl. Captain of the Pack Guard's First Squad.

He dug me out, carried me onto the helicopter, and told the pilot to take off before the second rescue team even got there.

He didn't know Delilah was buried in the same slide. The girl he'd never gotten over.

By the time they reached her, she'd been under the snow for three hours in twenty below.

Karl stood in the morgue all night.

He came back the next day and just gave me a small smile. "It wasn't your fault. You were carrying our pup. Of course you came first."

For a month after that, he was gentler than he'd ever been. He cleared his schedule to take me to every checkup. Cooked for me himself. Put the crib together, the dresser too. Every single thing in the nursery lined up exactly right.

I thought that avalanche had finally buried Delilah. That it had given him back to me.

Until the day I went into labor.

He sent every doctor and nurse out of the delivery room. There was a silver scalpel in his hand.

The moment he cut me open, I saw the red in his eyes.

Our pup was still crying, small and weak, and he never even looked. He threw us both into the incinerator.

"If it weren't for you, Delilah would still be alive. Your life for hers."

Then I opened my eyes, and I was back at the moment the avalanche hit.

1

Golden Nixon has always been the fat, quiet girl with a loving heart no one deserved.
In a prestigious university where beauty talks louder than brains, she's mocked, ignored, and bullied. Even by the one boy she has a crush on.

Allan Renshaw is the school's most wanted play boy. Tattooed, dreadlocked, dangerously charming, and admired. He's everything Golden isn't.

Yet shame is a cruel master. He hides her. He mocks her to fit in. And when Golden overhears him body shaming her in front of his friends, her already fragile heart shatters.

Will Allan fight for her? Or has Golden finally learned that loving someone harder won't make them love you back?

My fiancé has tried to kill me seventeen times.

Everyone says I'm cursed by the Moon Goddess. Five years, seventeen mating ceremonies—all ending in blood.

An eagle's talons through my spine. Poisoned wine that stopped my heart. Ritual flames that charred my skin. Each time, I survived. Each time, Kael Silverblade held my hand and swore it was fate's cruelty, not his.

I believed him.

Until the seventeenth time.

Blood moon. Three assassins. Nine bone blades cutting precise lines across my body—missing every vital organ, maximizing the pain. I writhed on the sacred stones, screaming until my voice broke.

Three days later, still wrapped in bandages, I heard him talking to his lieutenant outside the healing den.

"Lord Silverblade, she almost died this time. Maybe we should—"

"No." Kael's voice was ice. "Her brother saved my life. My grandfather swore a blood debt—a mating bond to repay it. But goddammit, I love Vira. I've always loved Vira. Not her."

Silence.

"Keep the accidents coming," he said. "As long as she won't let go, we keep going. She'll break eventually. She has to."

I pressed against the wall, tears streaming down my face.

Seventeen times. Not curses. Not fate.

Him.

The male I'd loved since I was sixteen.

But here's what Kael doesn't know—this time, he finally wins.

I won't survive the next full moon.

I was murdered. My body was dumped on the riverbank.
The detective leading the case is Brennan Carter — my husband. He has sworn to find the killer of this "unidentified female." He doesn't know the victim is me.
I've been missing for seven days. My colleagues and supervisors keep calling Brennan to ask where I am. Dismissing it as a tantrum, he's spent the week doing one thing: celebrating his mistress Tessa's birthday.
It wasn't until my phone turned up at the crime scene that it finally hit him — the wife he'd wished would disappear might actually be gone.

I’m Molly Johnson. At my own engagement party, I witnessed my fiancé’s betrayal with my stepsister right before my eyes. Devastated, I turned around and married Edward Howard—a wealthy heir rumored to be terminally ill, with not much time left to live.
Everyone laughed, saying I was in a hurry to become a widow. But little did they know, I leaned close to his ear, my breath warm and teasing: “Since you don’t have much time left, why not play a little game with me?”
I flirted with him, tempted him, watched as his indifference slowly melted into a blush at the tips of his ears.
Until one day, he cornered me against the wall, his eyes burning with longing. “Molly… tease me again. Please.”

At our engagement party, my fiancé's first love confessed her feelings for him in front of everyone.
Without a second thought, he shoved me aside and ran after her, leaving me to be hit by a car.
While I was in the hospital, he brought her into our home and forced me to eat food I was allergic to.
Most absurd of all, he personally sent me to the operating table so I could give her my kidney.
She tortured my cat to death, and all he said was, "It was just a cat."
The day I decided to leave the country, he thought I had died in a plane crash. Then he got into a car accident and lost his memory, remembering only the version of us at eighteen—when we were in love.
Too bad some scars never fade.

I died on that operating table.

Arthur cut my five-year-old son Leo open and took his kidneys to save his bastard kid. Leo died. I died. They threw us out like garbage in the snow.

But I came back.

Back to that same rainy night. This time when Arthur tried stealing Leo's life-saving medicine for that bitch Lily, I slapped her face to pieces.

Outside the OR, Arthur shoved donation papers at me. I laughed and dialed a number I'd buried five years ago.

"Viktor? Your sister needs a favor. Bring your guns."

Explosions echoed through the hospital as my brother walked through the smoke.

"Nobody touches my nephew." His gun pressed against Arthur's forehead.

Arthur was scared shitless: "Jesus Christ... you're a Rockwell?!"

Too bad he figured it out too late.

Everyone used to say Ryan Scott loved me more than his own life.
I used to believe that too.
Then I found out I was pregnant with Ryan’s child—
and that’s when my adopted sister told me she was pregnant with his child as well.
So I chose revenge.
I emptied his accounts, staged the perfect accident, and planned my own “death.”
On the day I “died,” Ryan completely broke down, clutching my urn like it was the only thing keeping him alive.
While he sobbed his heart out in front of my photo, I was already holding another man’s hand—the man who never let go of me when I was at my lowest—
and walking toward the brand‑new life that truly belonged to me.

Thirteen years. That's how long I loved Reid Holloway.
When he said he was being bullied, I believed him. When he kissed me on that rooftop, I thought he felt the same. When he asked me to transfer schools with him, I said yes without hesitation.
Then I heard him bragging to his friends: "She'd save her first time for me. Hell, she'd still be thinking of me on her wedding night."
The bullying was staged. The kiss meant nothing. He just wanted me gone—so his new girl could feel more comfortable.
He thought I'd beg. He thought I'd cry. He thought I'd never actually leave.
I left the country.
And ran straight into his stepbrother.

My mother rips my long-hidden Orion star chart to pieces and hurls the scraps straight into my face like garbage.
For seventeen years, I’ve been the praised straight-A good girl, my shirt collars always buttoned all the way up. I’ve lived solely for one goal: an acceptance letter from Yale, my ticket out of this suffocating cage.
But the second she locks my bedroom door from the outside, it hits me cold: blind obedience only traps you tighter.
Just as despair crashes over me, a silver lighter clatters against my windowsill. Zane—the biker delinquent everyone at school steers clear of—pries open my window and holds out his hand to me.
To hell with the Ivy League. Tonight, Aria’s jumping out of this window that’s kept me prisoner.

“Still hate me, Quinn?”

“More than yesterday, less than tomorrow”

Purple Quinn spent years rebuilding her life after the accident.

The last person she expected to see again was Harry Bords—the reckless boy who turned her pain into a joke.
Now he’s Roonie’s most famous biker and playboy
And also her housemate

Living under one roof with him becomes a job, constantly annoying each other, proving who hates who more and also trying not to fall in love.

Hating each other was easy
But ignoring the way he looked at her? Impossible.

I spent ten years following Ashton around like it was my job. He said jump, I jumped. He said he was hungry, I went and made him a sandwich. His homework, his fights, his messes — I handled all of it. I thought that's what being close to someone meant.
Then at the fall pep rally, in front of two thousand people, he strapped me to a platform, blasted me with paint, and let his girlfriend laugh at me through a megaphone.
I was the punchline. I threw up on camera. The video went viral before I even hit the ground.
So I did the one thing nobody expected — I vanished. New school, new city, new number. Every trace of him, gone.
I thought that was the end of it.
But Ashton doesn't let go of what he thinks is his. And what he's willing to do to drag me back? I wasn't even close to ready for that.

“Go find one of those perfect little she-wolves lined up to mate you. Play your Alpha card on them. I’m sure they’ll beg to be marked..maybe they’ll even let you f—”

“Seliene!” he snapped, his voice a roar as he grabbed my wrist.

“Stop touching me!” I shoved at his chest, voice rising despite the sting in my throat. “Stop acting like you care when all you've ever done is hate me!”

Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “There are plenty of men who would take me to bed without second-guessing it. Maybe I should let them. Maybe I should—”

His hand tangled in my hair so fast I gasped, and the next thing I knew, my back was against the wall.

Ronan’s eyes were glowing now—not just anger, but something else. Something deeper. His wolf was there, right under the surface, growling low and dangerous.

“Oh?” I taunted, my body betraying me with a subtle tremble of arousal. “What is this? You don’t want me, but no one else should touch me either?”

His growl deepened, vibrating between us, and then his mouth crashed down on mine.

I moaned before I could stop myself, and that only seemed to provoke him further. He pressed harder, his body pinning mine, every inch of him demanding, claiming.

He groaned into my mouth, his thigh sliding between mine and pressing upward. I gasped, my head hitting the wall as pleasure sparked through me.

“Don’t want to touch you?” he growled against my lips. “I want you with every damn breath.”


Seliene, a fierce half-breed hiding heartbreak behind a defiant tongue, and Ronan, the brooding Alpha who once rejected her, ignite in a moment of raw passion and buried longing. Bound by a mate bond they both try to resist, their chemistry is undeniable, dangerous, explosive, and edged with the pain of a love neither dares to admit.

First day back after the long weekend. I get a few artisan gift baskets shipped in from my family's farm: maple syrup, raw honey, smoked beef jerky, handmade jams. Top-shelf stuff, every single one. Shipping alone runs me a few hundred dollars.

After the morning meeting, I hand them out one by one. The team crowds around me, all smiles, falling over themselves saying things like "You're literally the best, Ms. Bennett" and "Oh my god, you're such an amazing boss."

They're barely out the door when I notice the conference room projector is still mirroring someone's phone. Up on the screen: a private group chat. Fifteen members.

Everyone on the team is in it.

Everyone except me.

A new message pops up: [Farm junk? Really? Preston Vance's team got $200 gift cards AND black truffle. Sloane's such a cheap ass lol]

Replies flood in. Someone photoshops a picture of me. Someone else hopes I drop dead at my desk.

To them, I'm just another boss squeezing her people dry.

Last quarter, I handed every single one of them a three-thousand-dollar cash bonus out of my own pocket. Plus a brand-new phone. Each.

Fine. If they think I'm not giving enough, I'll give them exactly what they're asking for.

Though later, when they come crawling back one by one, I find myself wondering what exactly they think begging is going to get them.

This book has a dark tone, as it's a reverse harem novel featuring themes of betrayal, surprises, and rape scenes. If you are uncomfortable with these elements, I recommend not reading this book.

A young woman who is unaware of her own power unknowingly attracts the affection of five mobsters. It's not intentional on her part, as she doesn't realize the feelings are mutual, given her own attraction to them.

These five men are completely possessive and infatuated with her. She can't deny her feelings for them, even though she is just an ordinary maid.

However, to them, she is more than just a maid.

She is their woman, their princess.

I was Mara.I had suffered from a strange sickness my whole life. Every quiet night, an uncontrollable hunger surged through me — a ravenous urge to eat human flesh. I’d visited countless hospitals, yet every doctor said there was nothing physically wrong with me. They only handed me psychiatric pills, dismissing my agony as mere delusion.
Then by chance, I met Lucy, a mysterious witch. She stared straight into my eyes and said, “What an interesting body, what an interesting sickness.” She pressed a bottle of dark green potion into my hand. I hesitated, then took it and left.
When night fell again and my sickness flared up violently, raw pork no longer held back my maddening hunger. Without a second thought, I drank the potion.
For a week after that, I felt fine. But I soon saw Lucy again at her cottage. She told me the potion would never cure my sickness completely unless I fulfilled five brutal rules: eat the heart of a wicked man, the kidney of a sinner, the liver of someone I loved, the spleen of a criminal, and the stomach of an innocent soul.
I held back my hunger for an entire month…Until I finally gave in.The first heart I devoured belonged to my boyfriend.

Damian vs Grace: aloof, handsome heir vs brave, soft‑looking girl who makes the first move.
They fall; a bad misunderstanding sends her overseas. He chases, crashes, forgets... Five years later, at a crowded crosswalk, their eyes lock—
"My heartbeat recognized you before I did."

“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery! The author did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side that is so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone) ONCE STALKED is book #9 in the bestselling Riley Paige mystery series, which begins with the #1 bestseller ONCE GONE (Book #1)—a free download with over 900 five star reviews! When two soldiers are found dead on a huge military base in California, apparently killed by gunshot, military investigators are stumped. Who is killing its soldiers, inside the secure confines of its own base?And why?The FBI is called in, and Riley Paige is summoned to take the lead. As Riley finds herself immersed in the military culture, she is amazed to realize that serial killers can strike even here, in the midst of the most secure location on earth.She finds herself in a frantic cat and mouse chase, racing to decode the killer’s psychology. Yet she soon discovers she is up against a highly-trained killer, one that may, even for her, be too deadly an opponent.A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, ONCE STALKED is book #9 in a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #10 in the Riley Paige series will be available soon.

Accepting her fate as a slave, Danica Grimsley, the low born Omega never thought that she had to share her love not with her mate Konrad Winston only but with his enemy as well, Cassius Winston, the king of Lycans. When secrets threatened to spoil her life, Danica needed to choose between revenge and fate. Worst of all, both Alphas wanted not just her body but her soul.

When they crossed paths again after years apart, everyone thought it was fate—of course they'd get back together.
But Charisse Walton only offered a wry smile.
"Not happening. I dumped him, remember? He's probably just here to settle the score."
What she didn't know... was how many times Elliot Grant had silently protected her from the shadows.
Meanwhile, Elliot scoffed, hands buried in his pockets.
"Please. She never even liked me."
What he didn't realize... was that years ago, Charisse had risked everything—even her life—for him.
Two hearts.
Two stories full of silence, sacrifice, and everything left unsaid.
And now, after all this time, the truth is about to break through.

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."

On the day of our mate bond, Alpha Samuel decided we were going to be a childfree couple himself.
He held my hand and said affectionately, “No kids. I only want you.”
However, he came home with a pup in his arms later.
He claimed a friend had died, leaving the child alone, and asked us to take him in “just for a while.”
I didn’t make a scene. I didn’t demand answers. I didn’t even ask twice.
I kept cooking and cleaning, swallowed the unease and told myself to trust him.
Until that night, when I asked him where my dog had gone.
He didn’t answer. He set a bowl of dog meat soup in front of me instead.
He said my spirit dog could hurt the pup. But the spirit dog could sense bloodline, its growl wasn’t for that pup. It was for the lie he’d been hiding for three years.
At that moment, I finally understood: the pup he called “alone in the world” carried the exact same blood as him.
So our agreement was a lie and the so called childfree was an excuse.
And he’d already arranged what my ending was like when the day I agreed to bond with him.

In my previous life, an endless polar night and frost-laden corpse tide swept through the entire city.
My wife and I took in her mother and younger brother out of familial obligation,
But when monsters attacked, they locked us outside the shelter and we were torn apart alive.
Opening my eyes again, there are only seven days until doomsday arrives.
My wife and I have reached a consensus—to hell with blood being thicker than water!
This time, we will build an icy tomb for them with our own hands at the highest point of this city.

"Tsk. The only thing you're good at is being barbaric and sadistic. That's probably the reason why you haven't found a mate at 24!"
My opponent taunted me after he failed in his 25th challenge.
I was one of the strongest female wolves in the Flower Moon Pack and served as a Gamma. I thought I would be a virgin for the rest of my life, but until that Howling Night...
When I woke up, I was sandwiched between two other naked men.
There were three other men on the floor.
I panicked, there was an intense pain between my legs, I nearly screamed out loud.
Did I give my virginity to five unknown men?!

The multi-million-dollar deal I worked my ass off to win back was handed over by my boss to a clueless new hire who could barely even read the material codes. And that same rookie had the nerve to mock me in public, saying I was nothing but his errand girl.
My boss went even further, tore up every rule in the book, and shoved a termination agreement right at me.
I didn't argue. I didn't make a scene. I took the severance and walked away.
Because I knew one thing better than anyone: without me, they wouldn't even make it through the manufacturers' front doors.
Sure enough, just days after I left, the entire supply chain fell apart, and the company's cash flow completely collapsed.
And when they started scrambling in desperation, running all over New York begging investment executives to save them, they walked straight onto my mother's turf.

My daughter has passed away, and my ex-husband abandoned us.

In my darkest hour, my first love, Lysander, reappeared; he covered the medical expenses, married me, and provided me with a home.

For five years, I believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Until that fateful day, four months into my pregnancy, when I overheard his conversation with a friend—

“To save Celeste, I thought... who knew it would lead to the death of Seraphina’s daughter?”

“As for Seraphina, she is a good wife, but alas... I do not love her.”

It turned out that my daughter’s death was no accident.

It was revealed that these five years of marriage were merely his quest for atonement.

The one he had always truly loved was Celeste—my ex-husband’s current wife.

As I lay on the operating table, I made a decision—

Since he had taken my daughter’s kidney, I would seize everything from him.

Including what he believed he would never lose: me.

My teammates viewed me as a mobile food supply and planned to butcher me before they ran out of rations.
They thought that as long as I died, they would win this "survival game."
However, they would never know that what I brought back from the depths of the ruins wasn't fear, but the highest-level administrative privileges of the entire logistics system. While they killed each other for a bag of expired biscuits, I had already locked the exit to this hell. Sorry, but in this settling of accounts, you aren't even qualified to be treated as bargaining chips.

After a car accident robbed Galvin of his memory, lies twisted him into hating Ellie—the woman he once sacrificed everything to protect.
Tormented and humiliated by him daily, Ellie’s love for Galvin faded completely. He made her sleep like a dog, stripped her before men, and forced her to kneel for his stepsister who stole him from her.
Only when Ellie gave up on love and jumped into the sea did Galvin’s memory return. In the splendid capital, all witnessed a madman desperately searching for his lost wife…

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the duct tape binding my wrists, and the second was that I had been kidnapped by a billionaire mafia boss who grabbed the wrong girl.

I would like to say my first reaction was brave, but it was mostly just panic. I was shoved into a massive stone mansion—the kind with gold columns and chandeliers the size of cars. If I was going to be kidnapped, I honestly expected something a little less... expensive.

I was dragged into a room full of terrifying men in suits. That’s when he walked in. Adrian DeLuca. Tall, broad-shouldered, with intense green eyes and a calmly dangerous physique that made everyone else in the room freeze. He was the CEO of Kidnapping, and annoyingly attractive. He stared at me, his sharp jawline tight, and said calmly, "This isn’t the Viper’s daughter. Who is this?"

I exhaled. "Well, you kidnapped me by mistake. Can I go home now? I have tuition to pay."

But Adrian didn't laugh. He stepped closer, his presence suffocatingly powerful. He had run a background check. "Your mother's maiden name is Volkov," he whispered, his eyes dark with a lethal promise. "The woman we intended to kidnap is the Viper’s daughter... and so are you."

My brain stalled. My absentee father was a ruthless crime lord?

"You are useful to me now," Adrian commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument. "You will remain in this house. You will go where I tell you, and you will do what I tell you."

I glared at him. "You don't own me!"

He leaned in, his breath brushing my ear. "I do now."

I thought I was the happiest woman in the world... until I clicked on that video.

The moment the screen lit up, my entire world came crashing down.

The woman on the bed was Calista - that girl who grew up with us since we were kids. And that hand caressing her skin was wearing the wedding ring I had personally put on Matteo's finger.

"I've missed you so much..."
"You drive me crazy, baby..."

Those sweet words I knew so well completely destroyed me.

Everyone said we were the perfect couple, but who knew this marriage was built on nothing but lies?

Since he's so good at acting, I guess it's time I gave him a show of my own. I'm going to make sure everyone sees what this "perfect husband" really is...

I was dying, and my husband was busy planning a lavish welcome-home party for his true love—my stepsister.
For years, I was the despised "country girl" who ruined their perfect romance. So, I decided to finally give him what he wanted: divorce papers, and my quiet disappearance. Let them be happy.
What Cillian didn't know was that my terminal illness was the fatal price of a brutal lie—an organ stolen from my body years ago to save her life.
By the time the bloody truth unraveled and he tore the world apart looking for me, I was already gone.
But the final countdown of my life—and the death of our bitter marriage—all began on the day I received my death sentence...

Three years ago, I nearly died giving birth to my son.

My husband Elias wasn't by my side—he was outside, ready to rip my baby from my arms and hand him to his dead brother's widow.

"We owe her this."

As I screamed and bled, Elias made his decree: "Aria stays away from the boy. She comes near him, she gets the silver whip."

They gave my son to Vivienne. I wasn't even allowed to see his face.

For three years, I tried everything to reach him.

Scaled walls—got twenty-three scars across my back. Snuck in as a maid—starved for seven days. Crashed his third birthday—thrown in ice water until I couldn't feel my legs.

Every time, worse punishment. Elias started looking at me like I'd lost my mind.

Then yesterday, fire ripped through the house. Flames swallowed the nursery.

Everyone screamed, including Vivienne—but she didn't move.

Only I ran in.

I pulled Asher out, barely breathing.

When he woke up, he shoved me away and clung to Vivienne, sobbing: "Mommy! She's here again! Make her GO! You said she'd leave if I was good!"

Three years of lies had erased me completely.

I dropped to my knees, voice breaking: "Call me 'Mom' just once. Then I'll disappear forever."

My boyfriend faked being broke to test me. Three years of it.
When I turned down his last test, I watched him settle his new girlfriend's family debt in one afternoon. Cash he swore he never had.
Told me he'd been rich the whole time. Said he needed to know if I loved him or his money.
Said I failed.
I didn't argue. I just walked out.
Funny thing is, I wasn't broke either. I was the last pureblood heir to the strongest pack on the continent, and I'd been hiding that the whole time too.
Four years later, we ran into each other again. And this time I wasn't hiding anything.

A torrential downpour of strong acid flooded the city, and mutated sea monsters slaughtered buildings. When Chloe, along with burly men from the rugby team, wielding fire axes, frantically smashed down the door, attempting to burn me alive and steal my bottled water, I had already welded the security door firmly into the load-bearing wall.
Faced with the pried-open door, I didn't waste any words and directly used a 20,000-volt electric spear to pierce the strong man's thigh! Then, I coldly pushed the blood-soaked floor outside.
The pungent smell of blood instantly attracted the skeletal behemoths from the water, turning the corridor into a horrific slaughterhouse. I listened coldly to their desperate screams in front of the monitor.
In this desolate wasteland, you think you can survive by stepping on me? Then feed the monsters with your flesh and blood !

They were the city’s perfect couple until the cameras caught their perfect breakup.

After three years of a loveless marriage to a billionaire CEO, George Robert, Lea finally files for divorce. The media named her “the woman who tamed the Ice King.”
They have no idea she’s the one who melted first and got burned.

The ink on their divorce papers is barely dry when fate brings them together again. A scandal. A contract. A second chance neither of them asked for.

Their love had died long before the divorce, or so she believed. But when a scandal threatens both their companies, she finds herself back in his world, bound by a new contract, a fake remarriage to save their reputations.
This time, she has secrets, one that could destroy him, and another that could save them both.

He says it's just business.
She says it's just revenge.
But the truth? Neither of them stopped longing for the other.

Sometimes, the real love story doesn’t begin with “I DO.”
It begins the moment you say "GOODBYE".

I spent seven years being Preston Maddox's personal errand girl.

Did his homework, took his father's belt for him, cut off every friend I had because he said he didn't like me talking to other guys.

I told myself that if I was good enough, patient enough, he'd eventually see me.

Then came the school's centennial gala. In front of everyone, he locked me, a girl with severe aquaphobia, inside a water tank filled to the brim with ice-cold water, so Vanessa Sinclair could have a pretty backdrop for her ballet number.

The audience roared. He watched Vanessa take her bow with this soft, adoring smile on his face. The only time he glanced at me was when he noticed I'd made a mess, and all he did was wrinkle his nose.

The water rose over my head, and something in me finally understood.

To Preston Maddox, I wasn't even worth as much as a dog.

If a dog was drowning, its owner would at least care.

Me? I just disgusted him.

Her father and stepmother died, leaving her in the brutal hands of her stepbrother. Her stepbrother is heartless.
He treats her as a maid, is it a torture?
She, however, discovers that she has been sold. Sold to a Ruthless Mafia, just to serve as a settlement for her stepbrother's debt. Now she fears her life. Would her life take a turn for the worse or for the best?

Chloe wasted ten years loving arrogant Zane. To win a Porsche bet, he publicly humiliated her, taking her devotion for granted. Finally awake, she cut him off and rebuilt herself as a brilliant top-university elite.
After losing her, Zane drowned in regret, begging desperately for her forgiveness. But it was too late. Chloe met the wealthy, gentle genius Liam, who healed all her wounds. Zane gambled with her heart—and lost her forever.

At the Eternal Night Realm admission ceremony, Carly suddenly grabs my hand.

My heart pounds. I think he is going to announce our relationship to the entire continent.

Instead, he says, "Eve, thanks for everything these past five years. But Lym didn't make the cut. She's hurting right now, and I need to go back and be there for her."

He crushes the realm token right in front of thousands of people.

For five years, I hid my pureblood lord identity. I drained my magic until I literally coughed up blood, quietly paving every step of his way.

I thought we loved each other. I thought after this ceremony we would rise to the top together.

But his casual thanks for everything crushes five years of my devotion into dust.

What is even more laughable is that the moment the online backlash hits Lym, he calls me on the comms.

"Eve! You need to put out a statement to clear this up right now! As my friend, you owe me this!"

Friend?

My hand holding the crystal shakes.

I tried twenty times to finalize my betrothal with Caius for our overseas fellowship, but accidents kept hurting me. I thought it was fate’s test—until I heard him admit he planned it all. He wanted another girl, using my pain to make me quit, all to keep his reputation clean. Now awake, I ended this lie for good.

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.

After my eighth trip to the psychiatric ward, I finally became the perfect, obedient wife my husband always wanted—even when I caught his childhood friend giving him a handjob in our living room.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Eric snapped, his eyes dark with irritation. "If those hands are useless, might as well chop them off." Without a word, I grabbed a kitchen knife and raised it toward my wrist. He kicked it away, screaming at me to stop being dramatic. So, I turned and charged headfirst toward the floor-to-ceiling window.

When I woke up, I heard him laughing with her. "She's fine. Just another attention stunt." He didn't know that the "treatment" he authorized had broken my mind into a million jagged pieces. He didn't know about the shock collars, the waterboarding, the dark cells. He thought I was finally "cured" of my jealousy.

It wasn't until a rafting trip, when his friend pushed me into the rapids and my prosthetic eye popped out and rolled across the deck, that his world shattered. As he stared at the empty black socket where my left eye used to be, he finally realized what those facilities had done to me. He dropped to his knees, screaming my name, but the woman who loved him was already dead.

Will his tears be enough to bring back the wife he destroyed, or is this just the beginning of his hell?

I'm dead.

Died that rainy night, desperate because I couldn't scrape together five thousand dollars to save my dog.

Liam laughed at me over the phone—my childhood friend told me to quit the sob story. His new girlfriend Sarah said I should get on my knees and beg if I wanted her to toss me some scraps. They had no idea every dollar I owed those loan sharks was to cover up Liam's hit-and-run.

My dog died. So I jumped into Black Lake.

It wasn't until they pulled my body from the water that Liam found the surveillance footage in that tin box and realized what a massive mistake he'd made. Then he snapped, dragging Sarah and everyone else who killed me down into the depths, one by one.

Too bad it was already too late.

Three months after my miscarriage, at the celebration dinner he hosts for my "recovery," he tells his partners in French, "She's just a trophy wife. Doesn't understand basic business."

"What about that new assistant? The twenty-two-year-old?"

"So much smarter," he laughs. "And in bed? Way more exciting."

They think I don't understand. To everyone here, I'm just the stay-at-home wife who gave up her VP position at an investment bank to play house.

They don't know I minored in French. I spent a full year studying abroad at the Sorbonne.

As I lay in the operating room, bleeding out from the miscarriage, he was already seeing her.

Je comprends tout. I understand everything.

Over the champagne and candlelight, I smile at him.

He has no idea this is the last time he'll ever see it.

On our wedding night, my husband wanted to play a game.
Trade secrets. The kind that could destroy you if they ever got out.
He went first.
"I hurt a girl once. At a ski lodge. She shouldn't have been in that room. But she was."
He said it like a parking ticket. Then he took a sip of whiskey and moved on.
My turn.
"I killed someone," I said. "Do you believe me?"
He laughed. He thought I was joking.
He really shouldn't have kissed me after that.