492 Book(s) Related to agatha christie best selling novel

"Arthur, I want a divorce."

My husband was busy draping his suit jacket over Chloe's shoulders, his precious childhood sweetheart. He didn't even turn around, just let out a cold laugh.

"Oh, Evelyn. Playing the sick father card again? That trick's getting old." His voice was dismissive. "I moved your dad out of that private room to teach you a lesson. Maybe now you'll learn some manners around Chloe."

He was so certain I'd come crawling back like I had for three years, begging him to pay for Dad's treatment. So sure I'd be sobbing apologies by tomorrow morning.

What Arthur didn't know was that three hours ago, they'd wheeled my father's body into the cold hospital morgue.

And the divorce papers in my purse were already signed. I didn't need his money anymore.

Five years ago, my ex-boyfriend Jason said coldly when he abandoned me: "Charlotte, you're not worthy of my dreams."

Five years later, when I saw him again, he had become Floreton's tech mogul while I remained a simple sculptor. His new fiancée—a wealthy heiress—sneered at my modest attire: "Someone like you can actually afford to book a top-tier wedding venue?"

She stole my venue, crushed my fingers, and forced me to kneel and apologize: "Say you don't belong here!"

Jason stood by watching coldly, just as indifferent as he was on that rainy night five years ago.

I desperately thought this was my fate, until that familiar, furious voice echoed throughout the entire venue:

"What bastard touched my woman!"

My Bradley had arrived.

This time, I would be the one laughing last.

My husband stole credit for my work, gave it to his girlfriend, and waited for me to say thank you.

He assumed I'd never leave, so he missed me selling our apartment, cutting off his money, and meeting with divorce lawyers.

When he graciously offered me a second chance, I just smiled: "Thanks, but we're already divorced."

They left me to freeze to death in our basement freezer.

The night before prom, my foster sister Leila came crying that I'd burned her Ivy League recommendation letter. My birth parents didn't even listen to one word of explanation—they threw me into that frozen hell in forty-five below.

I beat on that door until my fingers were shredded, screamed until my throat tore apart, but all I could hear from upstairs was their laughter celebrating Leila. Even Justin—the boy I'd loved since we were kids—texted calling me a fucking psycho.

As I drew my last breath, I heard Leila's soft voice outside the door: "Rest in peace, sister."

Now I'm a ghost, watching them lose their minds when the truth comes out.

They left me to die in a burning lab while saving my faker sister. Big mistake.

I hadn't slept in six months, perfecting the neural serum that would save Mom's life. One vial. One chance. Then my adopted sister Mia grabbed it and smashed it on the floor, sobbing about how cruel I was to a "disabled" person.

Mom and Dad ate it up. My fiancé Ryan nodded along—probably because he was banging Mia every chance he got. When fire trapped me in the lab, they carried out "paralyzed" Mia and left me hammering on reinforced glass, choking on smoke.

Want to know the best part? That manipulative snake hopped out of her wheelchair and sprinted to safety the second she thought no one was looking.

Second chance at life? Hell yes.

I'm watching Mia lift that test tube again, ready to destroy everything. But instead of lunging forward like last time, I lean back in my chair.

"Smash away," I say with a shrug. "I'm not the one who'll suffer."

Let's see how this plays out when I'm not the naive fool.

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

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

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

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

She has no idea what kind of monster she created.

Ninety-nine times.

I was sent to the punishment chamber ninety-nine times by my mafia don fiancé.

Each time, he watched through bulletproof glass with cold, detached eyes—watching me being deprived of sleep, injected with drugs, tortured until I was barely clinging to life.

"Elara, you're paying for what you did to the Mancuso family."

For the sake of sweet, innocent Yvette—his precious savior—he personally destroyed everything I had.

After the ninety-ninth time, the doctor handed me a critical condition notice. I stopped begging, signed the confession, and vanished completely with my broken body.

The result? When the truth finally came to light, the ruthless don went completely insane.

My parents and twin sister faked their own deaths so she could steal my college acceptance.

I believed it. Sobbed until I couldn't breathe when the cops showed me photos of the burnt yacht. Thought my words—"I hope you all die"—had somehow made it happen.

Two weeks later, I found my sister's backup Instagram: "Finally ditched the boring sister! Bahamas is paradise 🏖"

Something inside me snapped.

Wanna play dead? Stay dead.

I took their death certificates. Canceled their social security numbers. Drained every joint account—every last cent. Sold the house to John, the kind of guy even cops don't mess with.

One month later, they came home tanned and loaded with designer bags, expecting to find me broken on the streets.

What greeted them instead were cold gun barrels pointed at their heads.

Twenty-two-year-old Scarlett "Scar" Justice thought she could hide forever behind fake names and stolen lives. But when killers track her to Chicago's deadliest neighborhood, she runs straight into the arms of the one man who could destroy her completely. Vincent "Viper" Capone is thirty-eight, ruthless, and heir to the most feared crime family in the city. He rules with bullets and blood, and his enemies don't live to see morning. When he saves Scar from assassins, he doesn't know she's the daughter of FBI Director Marcus Justice—the man sworn to bring down everything Viper has built. All Viper knows is that this mysterious girl with fire in her eyes makes him feel things he thought died long ago. As gang wars explode across Chicago and bodies pile up in the streets, their forbidden attraction becomes impossible to ignore. But in a world where love is weakness and trust means death, their secret romance could start a war that burns the entire city to ash. When the truth comes out, Viper must choose between his family's empire and the woman who stole his heart. And Scar must decide if love is worth betraying everything she's ever known—or if some secrets are too deadly to survive.

I fell in love with my stepbrother.

He chose someone else.

So I did what any smart wolf would do—I disappeared into the most brutal academy in the North, where weakness means death and emotions are a luxury I couldn't afford.

Four years later, he's on his knees outside my door, begging me to come back.

"Sia, please. I made a mistake. I need you—"

But before I can answer, a hand fists in my hair from behind. The new Alpha pins me against the wall, his cock already hard against my ass.

"You're not going anywhere," Kaelan growls, his fingers sliding between my thighs. "This pussy belongs to me now."

Cain's still begging outside.

And I'm coming apart under Kaelan's hands, realizing too late—

I never escaped anything. I just traded one obsession for another.

After rebirth, I switched wedding engagements with my sister Maya.

In my past life, she was forced to marry the West's most ruthless Alpha—Zane Blackwood. Three years. He never touched her. His "sister" Sienna stole the Luna's position, power, dignity. Maya became a joke. No mark, no status. She froze to death on a snowy night, not even left with a complete body.

And me? Married to someone I didn't love, drifting through life in a daze. When I woke up, Maya was dead.

Then I died trying to avenge her.

After rebirth, I kicked down the door and snatched the engagement: "This time, I'm going."

Rode my bike sixteen hours straight. Got ambushed on the road—cracked skulls with a wrench. Covered in engine oil and blood, I crashed into the Black Moon engagement party.

Sienna screamed: "Psycho!"

Damn right.

I grabbed that stone-faced Alpha, ignoring his death glare, and bit into his neck in front of everyone.

"Listen up," I licked the blood from my lips, "I'm your Luna now. And if that bitch messes with me—"

I leaned close to his ear:

"You're dead first."

"Listen here, woman. Give me an heir, and I'll give you more gold than you can spend in ten lifetimes. Fail me, and I'll snap your neck myself."

The Lycan King had me pinned against the wall, blood-red eyes dead serious. I was trying very hard not to notice that his chest was about to burst through his shirt.

Here's the thing: I'm not supposed to be here. My half-blind, gambling-addicted father checked "Fertile" instead of "Fortunate" on the royal conscription form. An honest mistake — if you ignore the part where it shipped his virgin daughter straight to the most dangerous man on the continent.

I tried to explain. He didn't listen. He made me drink something black and foul called a "fertility elixir."

But what nobody in this godforsaken palace knows is that while I can't breed, I am stupidly, ridiculously, almost cosmically lucky.

Assassin slipped poison into my soup? The venom snake fell into the boiling pot first. They tried to burn me at the stake? Lightning struck the High Priest into a charcoal briquette before anyone could light a match.

And when I accidentally kicked a loose coin in the courtyard and uncovered the largest magic crystal vein in the empire — well.

Let's just say the king who once threatened to kill me is now on his knees, clutching my skirt like his life depends on it.

"Forget the heir, Elara. I just want you."

Funny how that works.

Three years ago, I married Rex Cavano—New York's most dangerous mafia don—for this face. Not for love. Because I looked like his stepsister Isabella, the woman his family tore from him and sent to Rome.

I thought time would make him forget her. Until three months ago, when she came home a widow, and I finally understood: a substitute is always just a substitute. When the original returns, the fake gets thrown away.

So I made a decision.

I tricked him into signing divorce papers and accepted a job in a war zone in Colombia.

I'm leaving. Taking our child with me—a secret he'll never know—disappearing from his world forever.

My husband Eric couldn't speak after a car accident three years ago. Three years of silence. Not one word.

To pay for his rehab, I worked four jobs at once—worked until I was coughing up blood, until I collapsed. Winter nights, Leo and I huddled under one threadbare blanket. When my son spiked a fever and I had no money for medicine, I stayed up all night pressing wet rags to his burning forehead.

Eric? His only communication was cold texts, ordering me around. When Leo reached for a hug, he'd push him away like our son didn't exist.

I endured it all. Because deep down, I believed the accident was my fault.

Until that night.

I was hauling equipment at Selena's concert—Selena, the pop star everyone knew—when a mystery guest in a mask stepped on stage. They sang together, voices blending like they'd done this a thousand times.

That voice. That lightning-shaped scar on his elbow.

My "mute" husband of three years.

I followed him backstage. Through the door, I heard Selena's laugh: "Congrats, Eric. Your mute act is almost over—you won the bet."

Three years of sacrifice.

All of it just a game. A bet with his first love.

Chloe Ashford destroyed me once.

She pretended to be my best friend, eagerly setting me up with her stepbrother Vincent—when really, I was just a cover for their twisted relationship.

She fattened me up, used me, and when she got bored, tossed me aside. A broken nose during gym class, nearly drowning by the pool, framed and cyberbullied until the whole internet turned against me. I dropped out. Had a complete mental breakdown. And then I jumped.

But when I opened my eyes again, that line was playing on repeat—"Let me introduce you to my stepbrother."

Somehow, I was back. That same party night.

I'm Riley. Orphan. Motorcycle mechanic. And the biggest fool in Texas.

For ten years, I thought oil tycoon Colt loved me. His adopted daughter by day, his woman by night. I actually believed his whispered promises in the dark.

Then I watched him announce his engagement to someone else.

"Your father saved my life. You're my responsibility," he said when I confronted him. Like I was some charity case. Like everything between us meant nothing.

I was never his girlfriend. I was his guilt.

But here's the thing—I never asked to be anyone's debt.

So I'm packing my tools, starting my bike, and getting the hell out of here.

I gave my Alpha fiancé to my stepsister.

My mother's face lit up. "You're giving Damon to Maya? Don't come crying later, Kira. That man is the most powerful Alpha alive."

I won't. Never again.

Last life, I married him. Suffocated for three years.

He wanted a perfect Luna. I showed up to the full moon gala in a mini skirt. The elite ladies circled in—*"Shameless. Like a bitch in heat."* Damon walked over, draped his jacket over my shoulders.

I thought he was protecting me.

"Must you embarrass me like this?" His voice cut like ice. "Every damn time."

That's when I knew: he loved the perfect Luna. Not me.

Then came the conservative gowns, endless etiquette training, and every time I fought back—*"Pack law, Kira. Obey."*

Until the flames took me, I swore: If I ever got another chance, I would never marry that man.

I woke the night before our engagement and pushed the contract away. "Let Maya be his perfect Luna. I just want my freedom."

But I didn't expect—

When Damon discovered the switch, the cold Alpha completely lost it.

I used to think I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Married to my first love, Matteo Rossi—mafia boss—with an adorable son.

Until that afternoon. Luca was running a fever, whining for cake from that shop across town—a four-hour round trip.

I hesitated.

Matteo immediately chimed in: "Go ahead, babe. Don't worry, I got him."

I grabbed the car keys and turned. Before leaving, I glanced back—he was kneeling beside Luca's bed, his large hand gently stroking our son's burning forehead.

What a perfect fucking picture.

Until I heard that GODDAMN surveillance recording.

"Honey, please open the door! Please!"

Kate Sterling pounded desperately on the basement door, with only 15 minutes left before the interview that could change her life. Yet here she was, locked inside by the very man she loved most.

It all started with a single prophecy from their new neighbor, Anna Cross: "If Kate goes to that interview, your marriage is over."

Anna's predictions had never been wrong. Last month, she predicted old Johnson would have a heart attack. Three days later, an ambulance pulled into his driveway. She predicted Mrs. Miller would discover her husband's affair. Now the Millers were filing for divorce.

Every prediction came true like clockwork nightmares.

Now Anna had set her sights on them.

When the truth finally surfaces, will it be escape... or death?

I always thought Arthur's surgical hands were a gift from God.

When my sister Emily was crushed in a car crash, he spent ten grueling hours in the OR. He emerged exhausted, eyes red, and pulled me tight. "I'm sorry, Anna. I tried everything," he whispered. "But her heart... it can still save someone else."

I believed him. God help me, I even thanked him.

A year later, I cracked his locked safe and found a black flash drive.

The security footage showed my husband hovering over Emily's ICU bed. He didn't call for help. He didn't try to save her. He just watched her oxygen drop, then calmly reached out and yanked her breathing tube.

One room over, his first love was waiting for a heart transplant.

Just like that, my world vanished. My husband wasn't a savior in a white coat. He was an executioner.

"Unless you bring 100 gold coins and the Alpha's blood, the half-breed dies in the cellar."

Those words broke what little was left of my soul. Three years ago, I was the proud Luna of the Blackwood Pack—until my fated mate, Alpha Valen, branded me a traitor, burned our sacred mark from my neck, and locked me in the Ice Crypt.

Now, I am nothing but a despised outcast. But I don't care about my pride anymore. My four-year-old daughter, Nyra, is freezing to death in a damp cage, succumbing to a fatal disease. To save her, I need the ultimate cure: Valen's Alpha blood.

The tragic irony? He refuses to claim her. Tricked by the woman who framed me, Valen believes my tiny, innocent pup is the filthy product of betrayal. He would rather watch me crawl on my hands and knees over corrosive silver powder than offer a single drop of his blood.

With my daughter's breaths fading, the woman who framed me offers a dark, irreversible trade.

I will pay the price. I will give away the last piece of myself to save my pup.

But when Valen finally discovers whose bloodline he left to die... it will be entirely too late.

I was married to Daniel for eight years. I thought we were happy.

Then I found a receipt in his car — a private OB-GYN clinic, Upper East Side. The name on it was Lydia's. My best friend's.

I drove straight to my brother Joel's apartment. Joel, the boy I raised. The only family I had left. I needed someone to tell me I was wrong.

I heard them laughing before I knocked.

I looked through the gap in the door and saw all three of them — Daniel, Lydia, and Joel — standing in the living room with champagne glasses, toasting the baby that wasn't mine.

My husband. My best friend. My little brother.

Every person I had ever trusted. All in the same room. All in on the same secret.

And not one of them had thought to tell me.

Three years ago, the night before my wedding, I was kidnapped and nearly killed.

When I woke up, Julian was crying over me. "The kidnappers hurt you so badly, Elsie. The doctors—they had to remove your uterus to save you. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

My world shattered.

I cried for a week straight. Cried until I had no voice left, until my eyes couldn't open from the swelling. I'd lost everything—my chance at motherhood, my chance at being whole.

But Julian squeezed my hand. "I love you, Elsie. You're all I need."

He married me anyway. Against his family's wishes, he married this broken woman.

For three years, he was perfect. Gentle. Loving. I thought I was the luckiest woman alive.

Until today.

Today, I learned the truth—

There was no kidnapping. No random attack.

It was all planned. Orchestrated by Julian himself.

For one reason only—to give my uterus to Chloe, my sister who was born unable to have children.

"We can only take one more person! Any heavier and we ALL go down!"

In the middle of a raging forest fire, my fiancé Carter Hayes was piloting a fuel-leaking helicopter, forced to choose between me and my cousin Lily Sterling.

He chose me.

Lily was left behind in the inferno. She burned.

I thought surviving made me lucky — until my parents slapped me across the face at my wedding. "Why wasn't it YOU who died?"

Turns out, I was never the one they wanted to save.

Carter married me, then spent five years making me wish I'd died in that fire instead. He and my parents worked together, systematically stripping away my dignity, my career, and every reason I had to keep living.

Three years into my depression, I jumped from the top floor of the Hayes estate.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself back before the fire — before the helicopter took off, before Carter made his choice.

This time, I spoke first. "Take Lily."

If they all wanted me dead, then I'd give them exactly what they wanted.

The night I almost drank myself to death at a client dinner, my husband Alexander bought his first love a luxury yacht.

Maya posted it on Instagram that same night: "Best birthday gift EVER! You know who you are 💕🛥️~"

In the photo, she was in a bikini, champagne in hand, glowing with joy.

Then came the credit card alert—our joint account had been maxed out.

Before I could even confront him, Alexander called.

"Are you serious right now? Why'd you lock the card? Maya's been struggling with her depression—she needs to go sailing to clear her head! Why can't you show some compassion?"

I wanted to tell him that last night, I'd nearly killed myself closing a deal for his company.

But he'd already hung up.

Later that evening, Maya posted again—an extravagant jewelry set. The caption: "When someone truly GETS you 💎✨"

In the photo, she wore a diamond ring I never got, not even on my wedding day.

But by then, I was done caring.

Because I'd made my decision—to disappear completely.

Twenty-one times.

I've signed the mate bond with Kael Nightshade, Lord of the Black Panther Clan, twenty-one times.

And dissolved it twenty-one times.

Not because we didn't love each other.

But because every few months, she comes back.

Seraphine. His first love. The angel who shattered her wings saving him, leaving her mind fractured and fragile.

"Seeing the mate mark sends her into psychotic breaks," he'd say, burning the bond from my skin. "I owe her my life."

So I'd erase the mark. Burn the contract. Pretend we were never bound.

The first time, I cried and begged. He backhanded me: "Cut the bullshit. We'll rebond once she's back in the sanatorium."

The thirteenth time, I followed them to a tavern and watched him tenderly kiss the scarred stumps where her wings used to be. When I confronted them, he knocked me down and locked me in enchanted restraints for seven days straight.

Sign. Burn. Erase. An endless cycle I couldn't escape.

Until the twenty-first time.

Fire engulfed the manor. Seraphine and I were trapped in different wings. Kael could only save one of us.

"Kael!" I collapsed at the window, smoke choking my lungs. "I'm pregnant—please—"

He shifted into his panther form and bolted toward her room.

The guards dragged me out thirty minutes later. Third-degree burns across my back, lungs filled with ash, blood pooling beneath me.

No heartbeat.

Kael stood in the safe zone, holding an unscathed Seraphine in his arms. From the moment the flames erupted until they pulled me from the rubble, he never looked back.

Not once.

The twenty-first dissolution was my choice.

There won't be a twenty-second.

A year ago, Sophia was recalled from overseas medical school. Her father announced she must marry Ethan Sullivan, head of the Sullivan crime family, to save their bankruptcy.

Ethan Sullivan—uncrowned king of New York's underworld, cold-blooded killer. Complete opposite of her life-saving profession.

She fought desperately—humiliated him at their engagement, sabotaged business meetings, even escaped at midnight. Ethan never got angry, just quietly cleaned up, growing more gentle and devoted.

Until rival families shot at them. He shielded her with his body, blood soaking his white shirt, still comforting her: "It's okay. I'm here."

Sophia fell completely.

"I'll marry you," she told him in his hospital bed, "but tell me—do you really love me?"

Ethan nodded without hesitation: "I love you. You're the first and only one."

After marriage, Sophia enjoyed sweet life as a mafia wife. Until she learned Ethan's "sister" Isabella had leukemia. When her bone marrow matched, she donated without hesitation, thinking this proved their love.

Until tonight's party. A drunk lieutenant asked: "Boss, what's your biggest regret in life?"

Ethan was silent for a long moment: "Giving up the woman I loved."

"Margaret has face blindness—she won't even recognize the groom. Tomorrow's ceremony? Just stick any random guy up there with her. Isabelle, I'll marry YOU in the rose garden. Our real wedding."

I stood outside my bedroom door the night before my wedding, listening to my fiancé Theodore plot with my adopted sister, my own parents nodding along.

They thought I was broken. A defective bride too blind to know she was being played.

They wanted a stand-in groom? Fine. I'd give them one.

So I gave them their fake wedding. With one little change.

The "random stand-in" they're expecting? He's Theodore's worst enemy. He's Sebastian Kingsley.

Oh, and according to the marriage certificate we signed three hours ago—he's also my husband.

I was reborn on the day we had to choose our mates.

I could clearly hear my sister Sera's thoughts: "This time I won't choose wrong. Let Lyra suffer with that cold Alpha."

Then she couldn't wait to choose my past life's husband—the gentle Beta Damon.

While I had to marry the cold Alpha Kane.

Her inner celebration was deafening: "Perfect! Now my sister can suffer with that heartless guy while I finally get to live the pampered Luna life!"

I couldn't help but want to laugh. If only she knew the true face of my "gentle husband" from my past life.

Seven years ago, Ronan Blackwood—Alpha of the Beastman Clan—endured 999 lashes and defied the Council's exile to bond with me, a human.

He swore before the gods I'd be his only mate, forever.

But when his childhood sweetheart Camilla was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he dissolved our soul-bond at the Underground Court.

Then he handed me a glowing vial—the Seven-Day Oblivion.

"Sia, I need seven days to give Camilla a proper bonding ceremony before she dies. This potion will make you forget me temporarily. No pain, no memories. After the ceremony, you'll take the antidote and love me again. Then we'll re-bond."

He promised this separation was temporary. That I'd still be his only true mate.

What he didn't know: the potion was forbidden. There was no antidote.

I stared into those amber eyes that once bled for me—and swallowed it anyway.

In seven days, I'll forget him completely.

To marry me, my fiancé Sebastian Knight said he wanted his childhood friend Isabella to be our surrogate.

I agreed. Because I couldn't have children, and the Knight family desperately needed an heir.

After Isabella "successfully" got pregnant, Sebastian became a completely different person. He started making her nutritious meals, accompanying her to prenatal appointments, even memorizing every food she disliked.

Yet he couldn't even remember my birthday.

Two weeks before our wedding, I received an anonymous email.

The video on the screen made me understand everything in an instant—Sebastian and Isabella were in bed together.

So this was his "surrogacy plan."

I, his fiancée, was just the last fool to find out.

I canceled all the wedding arrangements, tore up the wedding dress, and threw away the ring.

On our original wedding day, Isabella gave birth to his son in the delivery room, while I was already sitting in first class on a flight abroad.

Sebastian, this time I'M the one leaving YOU.

Due to an arranged marriage between our families, I married Damien Blackwood, heir to a business empire.

During five years of marriage, I tried hard to play the perfect wife, bore him a daughter Lily, thinking I had finally won his love.

Until his first love Serena returned from abroad, I watched him rekindle his passion for another woman, watched them rekindle their old flame.

A car accident changed everything.

I was taken to court, sentenced to three years in prison, becoming a "murderer" despised by everyone.

And he personally sent me to prison.

The werewolf world has one brutal rule: whoever can first produce a powerful Alpha heir gets to claim the throne and become the new Alpha King.

My sister Bella and I are daughters of the Red Moon Pack Alpha, born with the rare ability to bear Alpha-level offspring. This made countless Packs fight tooth and nail to claim us.

In my past life, I was fooled by Rex's handsome appearance—the Steel Fang heir. I married him and successfully bore him an Alpha bloodline pup, helping him ascend to the throne.

But fate played a deadly joke on me. Bella, consumed by jealousy after her own marriage failed, pushed me off a cliff during my postpartum weakness and took everything that was mine.

Now I've opened my eyes again, back at the mate selection ceremony. What shocked me was that Bella had also been reborn, and she'd already seduced Rex before I could.

But that's fine. My naive sister has no idea what kind of devil she's chosen.

The day I went into labor, my husband threw me into Dragon's Pyre.

Draven was the Dragon King. I was carrying his child. Should've been the happiest day of our lives. Instead, it became hell.

Why? His dead brother Kael's widow, Seraphina, was about to pop too. And Ashwing law was crystal clear: first male heir takes the throne.

Our due dates? One day apart.

So he picked her over me. Because apparently, I OWED them.

Dragon's Pyre—where they roast criminals alive with dragonflame. Hot enough to turn flesh to ash in seconds. But that wasn't enough for them. They shoved some potion down my throat that would keep my body from going into labor, even though my baby was clawing to get OUT.

I was curled up on that scorching stone slab, feeling my child die inside me.

All because I'd been stupid enough to fall in love with him.

At my boyfriend Liam's startup funding celebration, his best friend Mia showed up with a homemade cake.

I'm severely allergic to peanuts. The second I caught that smell, I said no.

Mia's face fell. Liam shot me a dark look and told me to eat it.

So I did.

The reaction hit within minutes—throat swelling shut, hives breaking out everywhere, couldn't breathe.

I reached for my EpiPen.

Mia got there first.

She grabbed it and started tossing it between her fingers like some party trick, showing off to everyone.

"Yo, check this out!"

The room went wild.

I grabbed Liam's arm, gasping for help. He jerked away, irritated.

"Stop being so dramatic. Mia had a sip of my drink and now you're gonna fake an allergy attack for attention?"

No one believed me.

No one helped.

My vision blurred. I found my phone between the cushions and sent one last text to my brother before everything went black.

"I saved you. Now you're mine."

Five years ago, Matteo De Luca took a bullet for me. Ever since, I willingly stayed hidden as the secret lover of New York's most ruthless Mafia heir.

He claimed the shadows were the only way to protect me from rival families. I believed him—right up until his former flame, Serena, returned to the city.

Suddenly, his protective instincts shifted. He left me alone with an IV in my arm just to rush to her side for a mild stomachache.

But the real wake-up call came when I accidentally opened the locked attic he never let me enter. It wasn't full of syndicate weapons or secrets. It was covered wall-to-wall with intimate photographs of him and Serena.

Staring at the shrine he kept for her, my five years of devotion felt like a pathetic joke.

I didn't scream or cry. I just pulled out my phone and dialed Sicily.

"Papa," I said steadily, staring at the empty room. "Tell the Ferraro family I've changed my mind. Set the wedding date."

On my first day at St. Clair University, my roommate Lysandra laughed at me in French.

Wrapped in designer logos, she called me a nobody who did not even recognize luxury perfume.

She thought I could not understand her.

She was wrong. French was my first language.

I was also Iris Russell, the hidden heir to the Russell Group.

But I kept that to myself.

Then Lysandra set me up at a Michelin-starred restaurant. With the manager's help, she placed a fake $450,000 bill in front of me and demanded humiliating photos to erase the debt.

They expected me to break.

Instead, I opened my phone and started a livestream.

By the time Lysandra learned who I was, the whole internet had seen her trap.

Due to his grandmother's dying wish, Leonard, the hospital's most eligible cardiac surgeon, was forced to marry the nurse who secretly loved him—me. Through six years of hidden marriage, we pretended to be mere colleagues at the hospital while he remained utterly cold toward me and our daughter Vera. When his first love returned, I watched him reignite his passion for another woman and my heart died completely. I signed the divorce papers and vanished from his world with Vera. This time, he lost us forever.

My entire family betrayed me.

My husband Keith threatened divorce to force me into donating bone marrow to save my sister Berenice's life.

My parents slapped me across the face, screaming I owed her everything.

Thirty days in an underground lab, Keith wined and dined Berenice while I got steel needles driven through my spine daily.

When I begged Keith for help through the agony, he texted back: "Stop playing victim. Disgusting."

I died alone on day thirty. Keith arrived with divorce papers, ready for one final insult, but received a decomposing corpse crawling with maggots.

But when the truth came out, why did my loving family completely lose their minds?

They found my husband locked inside his mistress.

Not metaphorically. Literally locked—a medical phenomenon called vaginal spasm, triggered when their sports car crashed mid-affair on a mountain road. The doctors said separating them required a high-risk spinal injection. Without it, he'd lose everything below the waist. Possibly his life.

They needed my signature. The wife's consent.

I looked at the consent form. Then at my phone—47 missed calls from three nights ago, when our four-year-old son stopped breathing.

Adrian never picked up. He was too busy.

Now he was begging me to sign.

I wiped away my tears, picked up the pen.

Now it was his turn to die.

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.

I was dead, and the whole world was celebrating for my sister.

For twenty-two years, I had been the hardest-working but most invisible daughter in the Sterling family, forever living in the shadow of my gymnastics prodigy sister.

Running a high fever, I begged my family to take me to the hospital, only to hear: "Don't you DARE ruin Bella's award ceremony!"

When I was tricked into the abandoned equipment room and used my last breath to call my boyfriend while lying in a pool of blood, all I heard was: "Grace, quit the drama! Bella's accepting her award on stage!"

On stage, thunderous applause erupted as Bella lifted the "Young Gymnast of the Year" trophy.

And I drew my final breath.

When they returned home triumphant, thinking I had run away in a tantrum, they had no idea I was already dead right under their noses.

My husband, Alessandro Vidi, is the most powerful mob boss in Chicago.

He once swore to me that he would protect our son Leo and me with his life.

Until that soccer game. His enemies attacked the field. To shield Leo, I took a bullet through my abdomen. But Leo still got hit three times and fell in a pool of blood.

Alessandro arrived, took down the attackers on the spot, and rushed us to his private hospital.

In the hospital room, the searing pain jolted me awake briefly. I wanted to call out to him, but instead I heard his conversation with his men.

"Boss, I thought we were only taking one kidney. Why did Leo have to—"

"Elena's wound isn't fatal. Just the abdomen." Alessandro's voice was ice-cold. "I've been raising Leo for seven years just for this. Now that Luca has his kidney, keeping him around would only be a problem for Luca."

"After all... Luca is my real son."

That moment, I understood—the shooting at the soccer field was never an enemy's revenge. It was murder he orchestrated himself. He traded my son's life for his mistress's child's life.

But he will never know—

Luca isn't even his flesh and blood.

My son Leo died in the snow. Three rogue wolves tore him apart that winter night.

My Alpha mate Carl didn't hunt them down. Instead, he brought home Elena—his childhood sweetheart—and her five-year-old bastard.

"Leo died because you failed as Luna," he said, pushing the boy toward me. "You'll raise him as our heir."

I looked into those cold eyes, and something inside me died.

At the cliff, I severed our bond in front of the entire pack. Then I jumped.

That unbreakable Alpha? He shattered completely.

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.

My fiancé abandoned me at a suburban gas station. Sophia Rose—his precious first love—had a concert he couldn't miss.

Thugs found me there. Dragged me into an abandoned warehouse. Raped me. Injected me with poison.

When I begged him for help, he sneered: "You think I'd marry a used-up whore? Stay the hell away from me."

He had his arm around a glowing Sophia. They were married within weeks.

Alexander Kane saved me that night.

A mafia boss. He brought me back from death. Counseled me. Hired the top doctors in the country for experimental treatments.

Even when my body wouldn't fully heal, he vowed to keep me safe for life.

Being his wife for five years? Pure magic.

Then tonight happened.

I overheard him on a call in his study.

"So the gas station attack—that was your setup."

"Exactly. Sophia needed her fairy tale ending with her idol."

"Boss, if Evelyn ever learns you married her just to save Sophia..."

"She won't learn anything. Sophia's blood disease is killing her. Needs constant transfusions. I exhausted every Kane connection. Only Evelyn matches. Perfect blood type. Zero rejection rate."

"I'll repay this with everything I have. But Evelyn stays in the dark until Sophia recovers."

My rescue was just his scheme.

Then I'll make him pay.

I found the thirteenth piece of evidence of Reid's affair today.

Black lace panties, shoved deep between his car seats.

The first time, it was designer lipstick in his glove box. "Oh, that's mine," my friend Mia shrugged. "Must've fallen out when Reid gave me a ride."

The sixth time, a hotel key card in his console. "I borrowed his car for a business trip," my brother Owen explained calmly. "Stop being so paranoid, Nadia."

Thirteen times. Thirteen perfect excuses.

When I confront Reid with the panties, he just makes a phone call.

On speaker, Mia and Owen claim the underwear is theirs—some late-night hookup in my fiancé's back seat. "You're being ridiculous, Nadia," they snap in unison. "You're getting married. Start acting like it. Trust him."

I watch Reid's face, that innocent mask he wears so well.

Then I smile.

Because I bought those panties myself. I planted them there.

And now I finally know who's been his accomplice all along.

I was dying in an emergency room when my husband chose his ex-girlfriend over me.

"Stop being dramatic, Olivia," Matthew said over the sound of champagne and laughter. "Rebecca's gallery opening is tonight."

Dramatic? I was hemorrhaging from a miscarriage, signing my own surgical consent because my husband of seven years couldn't be bothered to save my life.

While I flatlined twice on the operating table, Instagram showed him tenderly wrapping his coat around Rebecca under fireworks.

Seven years of marriage. Seven years of being his backup plan while she remained his priority.

I survived that night, but something inside me died forever.

I signed the divorce papers with the same pen I'd used for my surgical consent—alone.

"Olivia, get back here and apologize to Mia RIGHT NOW, or we're through!" My fiancé Arthur screamed into his phone in the ER hallway, his face twisted in disgust.

My parents fussed over their adopted daughter Mia's red eyes. All this drama over a scratch on her finger.

My phone lay shattered in blood at the abandoned chemical plant downtown, screen flickering weakly.

I was already dead. The kidnappers had snapped my limbs and set me on fire.

I hovered above them, watching them lose their minds over Mia's fake tears while cursing my name and wishing I'd disappear forever.

Three days later, when cops knocked on Sterling Manor's door with a charred engagement ring, they finally got what they wanted.

I screamed as I burned to death while Julian ran past me to save Emma.

His first love. The girl he'd never let go of.

Eight years I spent being the understanding fiancée. The one who smiled through her endless crises. The one who died alone because he chose her panic over my screams.

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing at the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Julian was leaning in, voice low—we needed to pause the ceremony. Emma was having a panic attack at the airport.

Last time, I'd said yes.

Not this time.

I looked at the man I'd died for and smiled.

Then I threw my bouquet at his face.

I turned and walked straight to the man who made Wall Street sweat. Julian's worst enemy.

Victor Kane.

"Go save her," I said. "I need a new groom."