Elizabeth

I spent months overcoming my fear of heights, just so I could go skydiving with my boyfriend on our anniversary. But on the plane, Cole strapped my safety harness onto his "best friend" Giselle, telling me to wait for the next trip because she had just gone through a breakup, was feeling down, and needed this thrill to bounce back. She didn't care about my efforts at all, trying to brush me off with just a few words. Cole desperately defended her, accusing me of being petty and making a mountain out of a molehill. "She's fragile, Cathy! You're just jealous of a bond between us that you could never understand!" He actually expected me to accept being an outsider in my own relationship, while my family kept pressuring me to drop my so-called pride. For eight years, I poured everything into our relationship, only to finally realize I was nothing but a placeholder, expected to exit the stage whenever Giselle needed him. His constant emotional manipulation and blatant favoritism left me utterly exhausted. So, I packed my bags, paid him back every single cent he ever spent on me, and left without looking back. It was time for me to take over the multi-million dollar corporate project he was about to ruin. He really needed to see how I would step to the peak of my career!

My father called a formal family meeting to discuss my upcoming wedding to Brett Merritt, the town's golden boy. But instead of planning the ceremony, they announced our engagement was canceled. My father and the Merritts had agreed to let Brett marry my half-sister, Brynlee, all to steal my late mother's legendary motorcycle garage. Brett leaned in and whispered a secret proposal. "You can be my Sweetbutt. I'll treat you just like before." He wanted me as a disposable side piece. When I publicly rejected him, he broke into my bedroom that night to assault me and force me to sign over my inheritance. I fought back and snapped his arm with a heavy-duty wrench. Desperate to appease the Merritts and save his failing business, my own father ordered his hired thugs to kill me quietly and leave no trace. I stood facing my executioners, my heart turning to ice. I couldn't understand how my own flesh and blood could trade my life for a business deal and his new wife's triumphant smile. But just as the goons reached for me, a Nevada State Police cruiser screeched to a halt outside. The troopers didn't come to arrest me; they came with a protective mandate and an emergency summons from the Governor—my childhood friend. Looking at my father's terrified face, I knew my counterattack had just begun.

Serena woke up tied to a rusted iron chair in an abandoned warehouse, her mind completely wiped clean except for her name. A foul-smelling thug walked in with a bloodstained baseball bat, ready to torture her and the kidnapped five-year-old boy strapped to the chair next to hers. But before his blow could land, a terrifying muscle memory hijacked her body. She effortlessly dislocated her own wrist to escape the military-grade knots, broke his nose, and crushed his windpipe with textbook tactical precision. When the boy's father, the ruthless Wall Street tyrant Silas Sterling, stormed in with his mercenaries, he threw a background check in her face. He accused her of being the mastermind—an eighteen-year-old trailer park delinquent with a history of petty vandalism. He sneered at her cheap clothes and smeared makeup, certain she was just greedy street trash. But a cheap delinquent wouldn't know Pentagon-level psychological de-escalation protocols to calm his traumatized son. And a street rat certainly wouldn't possess the alien medical technology and surgical skills to bring his grandmother back from a flatline brain death. Every instinct in Serena's body screamed that this identity was a hastily forged trap, but she had no memory of her past. She tossed the fake file back onto his mahogany desk and signed his hundred-million-dollar contract. "Enroll me in the prep school from this fake file. I am going to find out who I actually am."

I was the poor girl from Appalachia the wealthy Copeland family adopted out of "charity," bringing me to a life of New York luxury I could never have imagined. But it was all a lie. I wasn't their daughter. I was a living, breathing blood bank for their precious child, Bridgette, whose life had been secretly saved by my bone marrow. Once I was no longer useful, they decided to throw me away. On the night of Bridgette's lavish engagement party, she and her fiancé framed me. They drugged my water, lured me to a hotel suite, and tore my designer gown to stage a scene. Her fiancé stood over me, his face twisted in disgust. "Did you really think spreading your legs would make me forget where you came from? You're just a trashy hillbilly." Outside on Fifth Avenue, my adoptive parents screamed at me in front of the press, calling me a disgrace. My sister wept, accusing me of trying to destroy her perfect life out of jealousy. They expected me to crumble, to become the pathetic scandal they could discard like garbage. They thought they were dealing with a scared, helpless girl from the mountains. But they made a fatal mistake. The soul of that poor girl was already gone. And I, the top-tier operative known as Glacier, had just woken up in her body.

After eight years in a cold marriage, I watched my husband, Damian, run past me during a raging fire. He ignored my screams, his only focus on saving another woman. That night, he coldly admitted he never loved me. Our entire marriage was just a business deal he was forced into. But his betrayal didn't end there. His mistress, Aida, framed my innocent younger brother for a crime he didn't commit. Damian believed her lies without question. He stood by as she had my brother murdered in his hospital bed. He even forced me to crawl over broken glass to apologize for "upsetting" her. The final blow came when he threatened me with my mother' s heirloom box, not knowing it held my brother' s ashes. He had taken everything from me-my love, my family, my dignity. He thought he had broken me. But he only forged me into a weapon. Now, I'm back. And as the new majority shareholder of his company, I'm here to make him pay for every last sin.

My fiancé, the ruthless Mafia Underboss, tore my dead mother's necklace from my throat and fastened it around another woman's neck. "Diana needs it," Arthur said, his eyes cold. "My blood remembers loving her. It calms her anxiety." He was referring to the bone marrow transplant that saved his life. Diana was connected to the donor, and Arthur believed his new blood made him belong to her. I became a ghost in my own home, forced to watch him crown a usurper. When Diana faked a fall at a gala, accusing me of pushing her, Arthur didn't hesitate. He decided to "discipline" me publicly to teach me respect. He raised the whip. "Arthur, please, I'm pregnant!" I screamed, shielding my stomach. "Don't lie to me," he spat, and the lash came down. I lost our baby on that cold marble floor in a pool of blood. He didn't believe me. He stepped over my body to take Diana to dinner. He didn't stop there. He let my grandmother die in the ER to tend to Diana's bruised nose. He even dug up my grandmother's grave because Diana wanted the view for a garden. I finally fled, vanishing into the night. It wasn't until months later, when he found the autopsy report of our unborn child and the toxicology results proving Diana had been drugging him, that the fog lifted. He tracked me down to a small town, where I was finally healing with a good man. The feared Underboss fell to his knees in the pouring rain, holding the whip he had used on me, shaking violently. "Beat me, Ella," he begged, tears mixing with the mud. "Hurt me. Make us even." I looked at the monster I used to love and dropped his ring into the dirt. "You can't bring back the dead, Arthur," I whispered. "And you are dead to me."

My husband's secret life walked into my office on my first day as Chief Resident: a four-year-old boy with his father's eyes and a rare hereditary allergy that I knew all too well. Emilio, the man I married, the brilliant rival who swore he couldn't live without me, had another family. At his company's anniversary gala, his son publicly called me a bad woman trying to steal his daddy. When I took a step toward the child, Emilio shoved me to the ground to protect him. I hit my head, and as the life of our unborn child bled out of me, he walked away without a second glance. He never visited me in the hospital. He left me to deal with the loss of our baby alone. That's when I knew the man I loved was truly gone, and our five years of marriage had been a lie. His mistress tried to finish the job, pushing me off a cliff into the sea. But I survived. And as the world mourned the death of Elana Thomas, I boarded a plane to Zurich, ready to begin my new life.

I spent five years in a rehabilitation center for a crime I didn't commit. When I was finally released, my husband, Courtland, was the one waiting for me. He was the one who put me there. He brought me back to our mansion not as his wife, but as a prisoner. I was to serve as a living penance for the death of his true love-my stepsister, Kinsley. I scrubbed floors on my hands and knees while his mother and the staff watched with contempt. I was a ghost in my own home, a constant, breathing sacrifice to his grief. Then one day, the woman I had supposedly killed walked into the living room. Kinsley was alive. She shrank back in fake terror, and Courtland rushed to her side, shielding her from me. "You're frightening her," he snarled. That night, Kinsley brought me a cup of tea, her eyes glittering with triumphant hatred. It was the same poison that had made me barren in my first life. I knew their perfect, diabolical plan. They would break me completely, then get rid of me. But they didn't know that this time, I remembered everything. In my first life, their cruel games led to the death of my innocent little brother, Aspen. I took the cup from her hands and drank every last drop. I would endure their torture. I would play their game. And when they least expected it, I would escape and save the only person who ever mattered.

The picture arrived on my phone, a screenshot of a hotel booking for a presidential suite under my husband, Liam Thorne' s, name. My world didn' t shatter; it just went quiet. That night, Liam came home to a shattered house and a shattered wife. He didn' t ask what was wrong. Instead, when I desperately tried to connect, he grabbed my wrists and asked with tired disgust, "What's wrong with you? You're acting insane." His phone lit up with a call from "Chloe" -his assistant, his mistress. He pushed me away, stumbled over broken glass, and answered, soothing her with, "No, I'm home. Just... a small issue." He defended her from me, calling me hysterical. I blurted, "Let's get a divorce." To my horror, he instantly agreed, producing already-signed papers from his jacket. Tears streaming, I begged him to stay, grabbing his pants, but he looked down with impassive disgust. "It's too late for this," he said, dropping the divorce papers at my feet, dated three weeks prior. He chose her pride over our seven years, offering a settlement for my silence. You're nothing without me, Elara. You'll be crawling back within a month, begging me to take care of you. His words echoed as he walked out, leaving me amidst the ruins of our life. But a cold fury began to simmer. He wanted this easy? Not a chance.

My film career was soaring, my dreams finally within reach. Then, the word "Plagiarist!" echoed through the festival hall, a death knell for everything I' d built. Industry contacts vanished, my name became a hashtag for fraud, and my working-class parents, who' d sacrificed everything, disowned me. Just as I contemplated tearing up my life, producer Ethan Scott appeared, a charismatic savior who saw through the lies, stood by me, and whisked me away to a secluded Austin home. He built me a private editing suite, framed my old scripts, and became my biggest fan, my only audience, convincing me the outside world was too dangerous. For five years, I was safe, loved, and completely isolated-until tonight. Scrolling Instagram, I saw a Sundance hit, "Dust Devil Heart," hailed as a masterpiece by Sabrina Lawrence. Its story was identical to the script I' d just finished, the one I' d read aloud to Ethan. And there, in the background of Sabrina's celebratory photo, was my husband, his arm possessively around her, a look of adoration I hadn't seen in years etched on his face. My "savior" was at Sundance, not in L.A., and everything I believed about my perfect, safe life shattered into a million pieces. I had married the man who orchestrated my downfall and stole my art, turning my life into his "content farm." But he underestimated me. He broke my spirit once, but this time, he just ignited a fire.

I used to play my saxophone for joy, but for three years, it was a soundtrack to my gilded cage. My brother, Leo, was gravely ill, and I lived in Ethan Vanderbilt' s high-rise, his secret, his "charity case." He paid for Leo's life, and in return, I endured his cold disdain, his casual cruelty. But then, I heard him call me "old news," "desperate," "nothing special" to his friends, mocking the woman who sacrificed everything. His new lover, Chloe, became the focus of his manufactured kindness, and I was just a "practice" run, a "charity case" to be displayed, then dismissed. The final blow: he deliberately canceled Leo's life-sustaining payment, handing the weapon to Chloe, who gleefully blocked me. Leo died that night, and the world I' d built for him turned into ash around me. They gave me flowers I was allergic to, tweeted about new diamond bracelets, and celebrated birthday parties while my brother slipped away. How could the man I gave my life to so carelessly destroy the only thing I lived for? My chains snapped. I walked out of his gilded cage forever, taking only my saxophone and Leo' s ashes, ready to reclaim the rhythm of my own life.

I was Ethan Miller, an aspiring architect, deeply in love with Olivia Beaumont, the formidable CEO of a New York luxury empire. Our bond seemed unbreakable, her passion fierce, almost consuming. I was her world, or so I believed. But that possessive love, tangled with her power, brought three devastating betrayals. It began with a jarring public humiliation involving a charismatic musician she' d "discovered." My quiet professional dream was mocked. Then my trust was shattered further when she confessed a desperate, illicit pregnancy, blaming family pressure for the child being his, not mine. My heart broke again, but I still clung to the hope of the woman who once chased me. The final, soul-crushing blow: she publicly gifted my late mentor' s priceless manifesto, a symbol of my core identity, directly to the man who' d stolen my place. How could the woman who claimed to live for me so relentlessly dismantle my life, leaving me a ghost of my former self? Every painful revelation left me questioning if her love was a blessing or a curse. Broken beyond repair, I shed my old life. I became Adam Carter, fleeing to a quiet Oregon town to rebuild. But Olivia Beaumont, unwilling to relinquish her hold, tracked me down. Her desperate, final attempt to reclaim me involved a shocking revelation and a treacherous act, forcing a confrontation that would decisively close our destructive chapter and reveal the true depths of betrayal.

Kevin' s sharp, accusing voice sliced through the heavy haze. He stood in my old room, its faded floral wallpaper mocking me, holding up a therapeutic massager. "What' s this, Ashley? Something dirty?" My heart hammered, a wild bird trapped. I blinked. It was real. I was back. This exact moment, this very massager, had been the fuse of my first life' s destruction. My younger brother, Kevin, had whined for it, then vilely twisted its purpose, spreading insidious rumors about my promiscuity at college. My mother, Brenda, instead of defending me, had blindly believed his lies. She' d screamed, called me a disgrace, and summarily forced me to drop out, shattering every one of my dreams. Then, she tried to marry me off to Earl, a monstrous, predatory man who delighted in breaking me, beating me, and finally, ending my life. I remembered their callous faces afterward, a chilling indifference as they collected money over my corpse. The suffocating stench of that past clung to the air, a physical manifestation of their betrayal. The sheer, burning injustice of it all had consumed me in my dying moments. How could my own family be so utterly cruel? But now, standing here again at the precipice of my past, a cold fire ignited deep within my chest. This time, I wouldn' t be the victim. This time, I would be the master manipulator. And their dance of destruction was about to begin.

For a decade, I built a life with Jax, riding shotgun through the grit and glory of the Road Vipers. I was his "old lady," stained with grease and unwavering loyalty, believing I was his unshakeable queen in that wild world. Then, he looked across our cluttered loft, smoking a cigarette, and dropped the bomb: "We're done. I'm going legit with Lily. She's clean, simple. Not like you." He handed me a wad of cash, a pathetic severance package for ten years, while his new, "undamaged" girlfriend stood by. My heart hammered, but I stayed quiet, even as I threw the silver dog tags—symbols of his fierce possessiveness, engraved with 'Mine'—into a construction dumpster, watching his stunned, pale face. The bitterness was scorching, but the confusion was a cold, aching void. Was I truly just a disposable relic of his past, easily replaced by some sweet kid? And then, just as I felt utterly discarded, my childhood connection, Julian—impeccably tailored and utterly unexpected—pulled up in a sleek Audi, offering sanctuary from the pouring rain. What I didn't know then was that Lily wasn't just a random waitress. She was a carefully placed pawn in Julian's long game to break Jax's hold over me. He'd orchestrated my "clean break" to finally claim me himself. Now, I'm faced with a deeper betrayal and a startling truth: can I navigate a future where my 'rescue' was a calculated manipulation, and will I expose the shocking truth that shattered Jax's shiny new empire, or choose my own path entirely?

Ethan Hayes, a dedicated academic, was on the cusp of an exciting future. Seven years intertwined with Chloe Vance, his brilliant fiancée, had built a life they meticulously planned, including a prestigious joint fellowship. But their perfect world shattered when Liam Miller, a charming undergraduate research assistant, became a fixture in their lives. One late night, Ethan found Chloe in Liam's arms, a scene of shocking intimacy that made him an intruder in his own home. Chloe, inexplicably swayed, defended Liam, inviting him into their apartment and dismissing Ethan's discomfort as jealousy. Liam, a master manipulator, escalated the betrayal—faking injuries, weaving elaborate lies, and ultimately, convincing Chloe to file a police report accusing Ethan of assault. Ethan watched in disbelief as Chloe’s unwavering loyalty to Liam overshadowed their seven years together, her eyes filled with cold condemnation, utterly convinced of his supposed cruelty. Was he losing his mind, or was the woman he loved truly this blind, this easily manipulated? Desperate to escape the suffocating web of lies and betrayal, Ethan made a drastic decision: cut all ties. With the help of his former mentor, he decided to leave everything behind—his fellowship, his fiancée, and the painful memories of Archwood—for a fresh start across the country.

I was stuck. Ten years. Ten years married to Ethan, and now he looked at me like inconvenient furniture. My sister, Jessica, stood there, a smirk on her face, demanding my grandmother’s antique necklace for her “career-making audition.” Ethan, my husband, the man I loved, told me she needed it. His voice was flat, devoid of any warmth. He was sleeping with her, with Jessica, my own sister. And he didn't even bother to hide it anymore. When I finally whispered "No," his eyes narrowed. "Don't be difficult, Sarah. It's just a necklace," he sneered. He dismissed my pain, ridiculed my anger. I tried to divorce him, but he just laughed, "You're mine, Sarah. Don't forget that." I was trapped, defeated, retreated to the dusty attic, my sanctuary of forgotten things. How could the man I married, the boy who wrote clumsy love poems, become this monster? This cold, controlling stranger who openly cheated with my sister and wouldn't let me go. Was there any escape from this personal hell? Any way to reclaim the life he had stolen? Then, my old college phone, a relic I hadn't touched in years, flickered to life. A desperate, wild thought struck me as I saw his old number. What if? I dialed. A young, hesitant voice answered, "Hello?" It was him. Ethan. Nineteen. My Ethan.

I poured everything I had into it—staked my entire life's plan—all for one thing: building a perfect future with my fiancé. But everything I'd given my whole heart to, everything I'd raced toward with everything I had, couldn't withstand the betrayal he'd hidden in the shadows. He stole my pendant and my wedding gown and gave them to the female student he'd secretly been infatuated with. I threw myself forward, desperate to take back what was rightfully and entirely mine. But for that woman, he swept an entire row of clothing racks crashing down. The hard metal frame slammed into my arm, shattering it completely. My career as a gold-medal architect—something I'd guarded and built for years—was destroyed in that single moment. My chance to stand at the summit of my industry was gone forever. Bone-deep, searing pain tore through my body. I clutched my ruined arm, every last shred of restraint crumbling, and I wept in utter despair. But he just stood there, holding that female student's hand, and pronounced my verdict from on high: "Your hand is finished. You'll never be an architect again. From now on, Ariel will take your place." And then I understood. Through all those long years of sharing a life together, I had never been his one and only. I was nothing but a substitute—one that could be replaced at any time. So on the day of the wedding that was supposed to be ours, I walked into the ceremony hall step by step, arm-in-arm with the childhood friend who'd grown up beside me.

For years, I endured my husband Kellan's disdain, while he bent over backwards to please my scheming younger sister. When a sudden aneurysm required emergency life-saving surgery, I called him from the ER in absolute despair. He was busy celebrating my sister's new job. After listening to the lies she whispered about me in the background, he actually cursed at me. "If you're going to put on this act, don't bother coming home." He hung up the phone. I signed the surgery consent form alone, facing life and death all by myself. On the operating table, I hemorrhaged heavily. Not only did I lose my health, but I also lost the unborn little life I hadn't even had the chance to tell him about. Lying in the recovery room, I finally understood. His vows were nothing but empty lies, and I was always the expendable one in that relationship. And so, I signed the divorce papers and vanished from his life completely. Yet, he started looking for me like a madman, even taking revenge on everyone who had ever hurt me!

Just a few weeks before my wedding to Hudson, his ex-girlfriend moved in next door to us. She constantly made a huge deal out of the fact that her father had sacrificed his life to save Hudson, and even destroyed my wedding dress, yet Hudson just stood by and comforted her. Just as I secretly found out I was pregnant, he publicly announced that he was going to hold a "fake wedding" with her, claiming it was for her psychological therapy. This news quickly went viral online, sparking the fury of netizens who even ganged up to attack me, causing me to fall to the ground and bleed heavily. I lost our child, and the doctor told me that my hopes of ever becoming a mother again were almost completely destroyed. As I lay in the hospital bed, my heart completely dead inside, Hudson appeared in the ward. "Please understand why I have to hold this fake wedding for her." He begged me to support his fake wedding, and my heart was thoroughly shattered. After he left, I immediately packed my bags, contacted the wedding venue, and changed the groom's name to the man who had always stood by me through thick and thin. When he found out about this, he actually went crazy trying to win me back at all costs!

For five years, I gave everything I had, using my blood to build Gabriel's underworld empire. I expanded his territory, conquered half of the turfs, and allowed him to sit on that throne. But just as I secured a billion-dollar casino contract, he ruthlessly tore the silver badge from my chest. He handed my entire career over to his new love, Serena. "Hand everything over to my fiancée, or you won't leave this room alive." Serena was a helpless outsider who had never even touched a gun, yet she wanted everything that was mine. Gabriel humiliated me in front of twelve family capos and announced that they would be married next month. He even threatened that if I didn't hand over the family's encrypted master drive to her before dawn, he would blacklist me and send men to take my life. Did he really think I would just obediently step aside and watch them take away everything I had built with my own hands? So, I calmly handed Serena a master drive loaded with a logic bomb—one that would drain their accounts and expose them to the FBI. Then, I walked out into the pouring rain, accepted an invitation from his most lethal rival, and prepared to watch his empire burn to ashes.

I sacrificed my career and endured agonizing IVF treatments, all just to give my husband's wealthy family an heir. But when I checked the smart ring app his company had launched, I discovered my personal profile was labeled as a "Temporary User"—all data automatically wiped every 90 days. And positioned right above me, the name of his junior employee, Katerina, was glaringly listed as the "Primary User," complete with a detailed log tracking her 24-week pregnancy. When I confronted him, Calvin didn't apologize. Instead, he brought his pregnant mistress home. He actually demanded that I act as her caretaker, while his mother sneered, calling me a disposable ornament and ordering me to leave the marriage with nothing. My husband had merely used my painful fertility struggles to beta-test his algorithms, while secretly using our marital assets to fund his new family. In this marriage, I was nothing but a temporary data point. They thought I would silently accept being treated as a disposable "guest." But I handed over the evidence of his severe data privacy violations to a shrewd, ruthless lawyer, and then decisively exposed the truth to the world.

For eight years, I lived in a freezing, unheated apartment, washing the bloodstains out of my mob enforcer boyfriend's suits every day. He strictly gave me two thousand dollars a month, saying we had to live frugally and save up enough money to escape this dark world. But when I was washing his clothes, I found a receipt for a custom engagement ring worth sixty-eight thousand dollars. That ring wasn't for me, but for his secret lover, Mia. I cracked the password on his encrypted laptop and uncovered his three-year-long double life. He wasn't a bottom-tier thug struggling to survive in a dangerous game at all. He embezzled forty-eight thousand dollars from his mob boss's accounts every month to buy Mia diamonds, cars, and a luxury apartment in Manhattan. And meanwhile, I was drinking watery porridge just to save a little on the electricity bill. When I confronted him, he didn't show a single ounce of guilt, accusing me instead: "You're too heavy. Being around you suffocates me." He thought I was a pathetic parasite who couldn't survive without his protection. But what he didn't know was that I had already quietly earned over a million dollars through legitimate antique painting restoration work. I packed my bags. It was time to let the mob know who was really stealing their money.

I spent months overcoming my fear of heights, just so I could go skydiving with my boyfriend on our anniversary. But on the plane, Cole strapped my safety harness onto his "best friend" Giselle, telling me to wait for the next trip because she had just gone through a breakup, was feeling down, and needed this thrill to bounce back. She didn't care about my efforts at all, trying to brush me off with just a few words. Cole desperately defended her, accusing me of being petty and making a mountain out of a molehill. "She's fragile, Cathy! You're just jealous of a bond between us that you could never understand!" He actually expected me to accept being an outsider in my own relationship, while my family kept pressuring me to drop my so-called pride. For eight years, I poured everything into our relationship, only to finally realize I was nothing but a placeholder, expected to exit the stage whenever Giselle needed him. His constant emotional manipulation and blatant favoritism left me utterly exhausted. So, I packed my bags, paid him back every single cent he ever spent on me, and left without looking back. It was time for me to take over the multi-million dollar corporate project he was about to ruin. He really needed to see how I would step to the peak of my career!

asked my husband a silly TikTok challenge question: if it weren't me, who would he have married? He didn't hesitate. He said one name — Chloe, my once-closest best friend, the same woman who stole my first love years ago. This wasn't a joke. I soon found out he'd lied about a business trip. While I was in surgery, he was secretly vacationing with her, leaving me alone in the hospital. When I confronted them, my husband — to protect her — shoved me hard onto the cold floor. The violent impact made me lose our two-month-old baby. Just as my world was completely falling apart, Chloe leaned in with a victorious smirk and whispered her darkest secret: she had deliberately deleted my dying mother's final voicemail, making me miss my last chance to say goodbye. My husband knew exactly what kind of vicious person she was, and he still chose to protect her in front of his bleeding wife. Looking at the man now kneeling before me, crying and begging for mercy, I calmly pulled out the divorce papers. "Sign it. Then leave."

I was the chief consigliere of the Romano family, and I was secretly carrying the heir for my husband, Julian. But at a celebratory dinner, I saw my adopted sister actually seducing him. It turned out they had been sleeping together behind my back for a long time. When I confronted him, he gave the most ridiculous excuse. "I was drunk, the lights were too dim, I really thought it was you." Not only did he fail to make up for his mistakes, but he also stripped me of my power and gave my exclusive office to her. Because of the mess she made, a grieving widow attacked me with a hunting knife. When the cold blade pierced my abdomen, I dialed Julian's emergency number, but it went unanswered, like a stone dropping into the ocean. He was busy fooling around with my sister, with no time to answer the phone. When I woke up, I learned in the clinic that I had lost my child forever. While he wept outside my ward door, begging for my forgiveness, even willing to give me millions to make me stay, I calmly asked the doctor for a pen. I signed a permanent exile contract. I would build my own empire in this wasteland.

Imagine if you will: At the highly secretive, largely independent, inter-dimensional and (inevitably) clandestine organization called the Time Saving Agency, there is a saying that goes: ‘You can’t break an omelet without first making eggs’. While this may appear to be a rather flippant little idiom, there is – as is usually the case, far more to it than meets the eye. For starters, that’s a rather simple principle of Time Travel right there – and according to the pioneers of time travel, it’s one of the foundation stones of the Theory behind it. It’s something of a paradox – a mind-boggling annotation in the ever-puzzling and ever growing Anals of History. (Some readers may still be thinking that should be ‘Annals’ – however, the author of this work cannot be blamed for what you may think.)