Leanora Tanouye

On the night of our fifth anniversary, my husband left me standing on the shoulder of the Montauk Highway in a blinding thunderstorm. His red taillights didn't even hesitate as they faded into the rain. He abandoned me there because his ex-girlfriend, Isabelle, called to say she heard a scary noise in her basement. I stood in my soaked silk dress, shivering not from the cold, but from the realization that this was the ninth time. He had missed my gallbladder surgery to support her at a polo match. He had missed my grandmother’s funeral to fix her flat tire. But the truth was far crueler than simple neglect. Weeks later, after I survived a terrifying elevator accident that left me with a permanent limp, I overheard them talking at a gala. "The bet was for nine goodbyes, Marcus," Isabelle laughed, clutching his arm. "I bet you that I could make you leave her nine times before she finally snapped. And look at that. I won." My marriage wasn't a tragedy; it was a game. A wager between lovers who used my pain as a scoreboard. I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene. I went back to our penthouse, packed my sketchbooks, and vanished into the night without a word. Five years later, Marcus found me in a small coastal town in Maine. I was no longer the waiting wife. I was a celebrated sculptor, and I was holding the hand of a man who treated me like a treasure, not a toy. Marcus stormed into my studio, demanding I come home. My new husband stepped between us, calm and unyielding. "You're trespassing," he said. "I'm talking to my wife!" Marcus yelled. I finally turned around, looking at the man who had destroyed me, and smiled. "Ex-wife," I corrected softly. "And you're late. About five years too late."

My husband, Austen, was the handsome, stable anchor in my life as a fashion influencer. His one flaw? He was hilariously bad with a camera. Or so I thought, until a viral photo exposed him as Chiaroscuro, a legendary photographer who vanished years ago for his muse, Isolde. On our anniversary, while I was secretly pregnant, he abandoned me to save her comeback show. He called not to check on me, but to demand I ship him my $15,000 camera-a gift from him-for her use. "It's wasted on your little influencer shoots anyway," he said, his voice flat. His words hit me as I sat alone in a clinic, having just lost our baby. He hung up. The dial tone buzzed in the silent room. I wasn't just a placeholder; I was a tool. I looked down at my phone, where the number for my lawyer was already saved, and pressed call.

I woke up from surgery with a jagged scar on my side and a missing kidney. My fiancé, Dante Moretti, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, hadn't saved me from an illness. He had harvested me like spare parts to save his mistress, Sofia. "She pays the tithe," he had told the surgeon coldly while I was paralyzed by anesthesia. For ten years, I was his loyal shadow. I managed his legitimate empire, took bullets for him, and even aborted our child three years ago because Sofia threw a tantrum about bloodlines. I thought my absolute loyalty would eventually earn his love. But when the Cartel held us both over the edge of a bridge days later, Dante didn't choose me. He tackled Sofia to safety and watched as I fell backward into the freezing black river. He thought I drowned. Or worse, he assumed I was a dog that would eventually swim back to its master, no matter how hard he kicked it. He was wrong. I dragged myself out of that water, but the woman who loved him died in the depths. Seven days later, I didn't return to the Moretti penthouse. I walked straight into the headquarters of his mortal enemy, Enzo Falcone. "Do you still want to marry me?" I asked the man who wanted Dante’s head on a spike. Enzo didn't hesitate. "I will burn the city down before I let him touch you again." Now, Dante is crawling at my gates, paralyzed and ruined, holding a medical box containing my stolen kidney. But he forgot one thing: I don't want it back.

The antiseptic smell of my deathbed couldn't mask the stench of betrayal. My wife, Emily, played the grieving spouse, her tears a performance, her whispers to her lover, Daniel, charting my demise. "He's not going to make it through the night. I'll be free soon, my love." That name, Daniel Sterling, a family friend I admired, shattered my world faster than my failing heart. My final sight was Emily's beautiful, lying face, cold and irritated by my inconvenient death. Then, blinding light. I gasped, sucking in real air, not in a hospital, but my old bedroom, decades younger, strong, unblemished hands. It was real. I was back. Memories of my first life flooded me: the loveless marriage, the quiet sacrifices, the children who weren't mine. Then, the pivotal memory from this timeline, the one that started it all: a party, too much to drink, Emily crying, pregnant, my naive proposal driven by a sense of duty, a lie. She was already carrying Daniel's child, using me as a shield to protect his budding career. The bedroom door creaked open. "Ethan? Are you awake?" It was Emily, radiant and innocent, carrying breakfast, her hand reaching for my forehead with the same feigned care from my deathbed. I flinched from her touch. "Emily," I said, my voice cold, "We need to talk about the wedding." Her smile faltered as I flatly stated, "I don't think we should get married." Her crocodile tears flowed, "I love you, Ethan!" she whimpered. "Don't," I warned, her words now poison. She played her trump card, placing her hand on her stomach. "I'm... I'm pregnant, Ethan. It's your baby." I almost laughed, knowing the truth this time. "Emily has always been like a sister to me," I announced, loud enough for our families downstairs to hear. "I'll always care for her." Her face, pure unadulterated panic, confirmed it. The game had just begun, and this time, I was making the rules.

The call came on a Tuesday, the day before my wedding. My fiancé, David, was dead, killed in a gang shootout. My world shattered; I was five months pregnant, and the grief choked me so completely I tried to take my own life six times. Why was this pain so absolute, so suffocating, when his mother' s eyes were dry and his twin brother, Mark, couldn' t even be bothered to come home for the funeral? Then, late one night, I heard hushed voices from the study-David' s mother and a voice that was undeniably David' s. "You can't keep this up, David," she said. My blood ran cold. "She's strong, Mom. She'll get over it," David' s voice replied, callous and cruel. He wasn' t dead. He had faked his death to be with Olivia, his brother' s wife, claiming she was too "fragile" to handle the truth of losing Mark. Every tear, every desperate attempt to die, had been for a lie. The grief burned away, replaced by an icy fury. My pain wouldn' t vanish; it would transform into fuel. I picked up my phone, scrolled to a name I never thought I' d call-Ethan Thorne, David' s biggest rival. "Mr. Thorne, this is Sarah Miller," I said, my voice shockingly steady. "Your offer… for a hundred-million-dollar dowry to marry me. Does it still stand?"

I was Ava, the unsung architect behind InnovateNext, the tech empire my husband Ethan now helmed. For eight years, I' d been his devoted wife, sacrificing my groundbreaking career and protecting his fragile ego by taking the blame for our infertility. Our Connecticut home was a picture of domestic bliss, a testament to our seemingly perfect life. Then came the ping. A casual link from a friend, unfurling a private Instagram story, shattered everything. There was Ethan, supposedly headlining a conference in San Francisco, but geotagged in SoHo, New York. He stood beaming in a luxury baby boutique, arm around Chloe, a young intern, her belly unmistakably round. The look on his face – pure, unadulterated joy – was a stranger to me. My frantic call to him went to voicemail, followed by his immediate lie: "In a keynote session. Can't talk." Within hours, I faced Chloe in a lavish SoHo loft, perfectly tailored to the desires Ethan had always denied me. She smugly revealed their three-year affair, flaunting how Ethan mirrored "my Pinterest boards" for her, not me. Her final, cruel blow: "He feels sorry for you... A man needs a woman who can give him a family. He needs a woman who is soft, not one who is... capable." The profound betrayal was a punch to the gut, erasing a decade of loyalty and self-sacrifice. My heart didn't break; it turned to ash. All my years shielding his insecurities had been for a man who saw me as merely "capable," not a woman worthy of love or a family. But from that ash, something sharp and cold ignited. Revenge. I wasn't just leaving him. I was going to dismantle every empire he built on my back. The war had just begun.

Ethan Miller, an architect adrift in the shadow of his formidable wife, Isabella Vance, found his fragile existence shattering around him. His public humiliation began when Isabella outbid him for his deceased father's cherished vintage watch, only to immediately gift it to her sleek young lover, Julian Thorne. This cruel public spectacle was merely a prelude to Isabella's escalating emotional warfare. She held his ailing sister, Sarah, hostage with the threat of cutting off her life-saving experimental treatment, using her as leverage to solidify Ethan's subservience and tolerate Julian's constant presence. Julian, an utter villain, brazenly destroyed Ethan's father's watch and framed Ethan for a violent attack, all while Isabella blindly defended her lover, even sanctioning Ethan's physical assault. The ultimate devastation came when Julian, with Isabella's unwitting complicity, orchestrated Sarah's tragic death during experimental surgery. In a final act of horrifying rage and injustice, Isabella, unaware of Ethan's long-held secret protecting her own infertility, summarily aborted their last, desperate chance at a child. Left with nothing but the unbearable grief for his sister, the incomprehensible loss of his unborn child, and the sting of profound betrayal, Ethan wrestled with the unfathomable depths of his wife's cruelty and blindness. How could the woman he'd once loved, who had once saved him, become such a monstrous architect of his destruction? But out of the ashes of his shattered life, a new resolve burned: Ethan meticulously gathered damning evidence against Julian, orchestrating his own 'death' to escape Isabella's suffocating control. He shed his old identity, transforming into Marcus Thorne, finding a new purpose and unexpected love, while Isabella, confronted by his evidence, embarked on her own path of chaotic revenge and desperate atonement.

Here's the translation of your text into English: "In order to avenge the Zleanding family that was wiped out, I became a tool for Prince Cody. He sent me to the regent's residence, and I helped him seize the throne. With the help of love witchcraft, I became the only woman to climb into Regent Tobias's bed since the death of his wife. Tobias couldn't live without me, and he followed my every word and action. As I spent day after day with him, I discovered that the back garden of the Marsh Residence was imprisoning many Zleanding women. In an attempt to bring his deceased wife back to life, he poisoned them to extract resurrection witchcraft. I wanted to take them away, but on the day I obtained the antidote, my identity was revealed to the public. Tobias hated me, yet he loved me because of the witchcraft. Caught between love and hate, I ended his life and left Egoding with those girls who had been imprisoned for half their lives, to rebuild our home."

Elliana, the unfavored "ugly duckling" of her family, was humiliated by her stepsister, Paige, who everyone admired. Paige, engaged to the CEO Cole, was the perfect woman-until Cole married Elliana on the day of the wedding. Shocked, everyone wondered why he chose the "ugly" woman. As they waited for her to be cast aside, Elliana stunned everyone by revealing her true identity: a miracle healer, financial mogul, appraisal prodigy, and AI genius. When her mistreatment became known, Cole revealed Elliana's stunning, makeup-free photo, sending shockwaves through the media. "My wife doesn't need anyone's approval."

"Stella once savored Marc's devotion, yet his covert cruelty cut deep. She torched their wedding portrait at his feet while he sent flirty messages to his mistress. With her chest tight and eyes blazing, Stella delivered a sharp slap. Then she deleted her identity, signed onto a classified research mission, vanished without a trace, and left him a hidden bombshell. On launch day she vanished; that same dawn Marc's empire crumbled. All he unearthed was her death certificate, and he shattered. When they met again, a gala spotlighted Stella beside a tycoon. Marc begged. With a smirk, she said, ""Out of your league, darling."

For three quiet, patient years, Christina kept house, only to be coldly discarded by the man she once trusted. Instead, he paraded a new lover, making her the punchline of every town joke. Liberated, she honed her long-ignored gifts, astonishing the town with triumph after gleaming triumph. Upon discovering she'd been a treasure all along, her ex-husband's regret drove him to pursue her. "Honey, let's get back together!" With a cold smirk, Christina spat, "Fuck off." A silken-suited mogul slipped an arm around her waist. "She's married to me now. Guards, get him the hell out of here!"

After five years of playing the perfect daughter, Rylie was exposed as a stand-in. Her fiancé bolted, friends scattered, and her adoptive brothers shoved her out, telling her to grovel back to her real family. Done with humiliation, she swore to claw back what was hers. Shock followed: her birth family ruled the town's wealth. Overnight, she became their precious girl. The boardroom brother canceled meetings, the genius brother ditched his lab, the musician brother postponed a tour. As those who spurned her begged forgiveness, Admiral Brad Morgan calmly declared, "She's already taken."

Sunlit hours found their affection glimmering, while moonlit nights ignited reckless desire. But when Brandon learned his beloved might last only half a year, he coolly handed Millie divorce papers, murmuring, "This is all for appearances; we'll get married again once she's calmed down." Millie, spine straight and cheeks dry, felt her pulse go hollow. The sham split grew permanent; she quietly ended their unborn child and stepped into a new beginning. Brandon unraveled, his car tearing down the street, unwilling to let go of the woman he'd discarded, pleading for her to look back just once.

Linsey was stood up by her groom to run off with another woman. Furious, she grabbed a random stranger and declared, "Let's get married!" She had acted on impulse, realizing too late that her new husband was the notorious rascal, Collin. The public laughed at her, and even her runaway ex offered to reconcile. But Linsey scoffed at him. "My husband and I are very much in love!" Everyone thought she was delusional. Then Collin was revealed to be the richest man in the world. In front of everyone, he got down on one knee and held up a stunning diamond ring. "I look forward to our forever, honey."

In their previous lives, Gracie married Theo. Outwardly, they were the perfect academic couple, but privately, she became nothing more than a stepping stone for his ambition, and met a tragic end. Her younger sister Ellie wed Brayden, only to be abandoned for his true love, left alone and disgraced. This time, both sisters were reborn. Ellie rushed to marry Theo, chasing the success Gracie once had-unaware she was repeating the same heartbreak. Gracie instead entered a contract marriage with Brayden. But when danger struck, he defended her fiercely. Could fate finally rewrite their tragic endings?

The whispers said that out of bitter jealousy, Hadley shoved Eric's beloved down the stairs, robbing the unborn child of life. To avenge, Eric forced Hadley abroad and completely cut her off. Years later, she reemerged, and they felt like strangers. When they met again, she was the nightclub's star, with men ready to pay fortunes just to glimpse her elusive performance. Unable to contain himself, Eric blocked her path, asking, "Is this truly how you earn a living now? Why not come back to me?" Hadley's lips curved faintly. "If you’re eager to see me, you’d better join the queue, darling."

Maia grew up a pampered heiress-until the real daughter returned and framed her, sending Maia to prison with help from her fiancé and family. Four years later, free and married to Chris, a notorious outcast, everyone assumed Maia was finished. They soon discovered she was secretly a famed jeweler, elite hacker, celebrity chef, and top game designer. As her former family begged for help, Chris smiled calmly. "Honey, let's go home." Only then did Maia realize her "useless" husband was a legendary tycoon who'd adored her from the start.

Blinded in a crash, Cary was rejected by every socialite—except Evelina, who married him without hesitation. Three years later, he regained his sight and ended their marriage. "We’ve already lost so many years. I won’t let her waste another one on me." Evelina signed the divorce papers without a word. Everyone mocked her fall—until they discovered that the miracle doctor, jewelry mogul, stock genius, top hacker, and the President's true daughter… were all her. When Cary came crawling back, a ruthless tycoon had him kicked out. "She's my wife now. Get lost."