Luoye Fenfei

I was Grayson Deleon' s secret weapon and his lover. I took a bullet for him, saved him from a cartel, and in return, he promised me a secret marriage, a life where it would always be us. But on the night of my secret Juilliard graduation, I watched from the wings as he got down on one knee for my best friend, Camilla. He called her "pure," a word he used to contrast with my "taint" from the cartel rescue. A leaked video later proved this wasn't just a betrayal; it was a conspiracy. I heard them laughing about their "perfectly executed plan" to get rid of me, the "distraction." The man whose life I had saved had orchestrated my public humiliation, discarding me because of the very scars I earned for him. My world was ashes, but from them, something cold and hard formed. I made a single call to a heritage network I'd been using to find my lost family. It was time to disappear and never be his secret again.

I gave my boyfriend, Blake, eight years of my life. I was his loyal paralegal and devoted partner, sacrificing a promotion and even a child for the future he promised us. Then I overheard the truth from outside his office. He called me "damaged goods," laughing with the woman he gave my job to. His cruelty escalated. He publicly humiliated me, then banished me to the firm's basement archives. When intruders attacked me there, I called him, bleeding and begging for help. "You're being dramatic," he said, and hung up. He left me to die. The trauma caused me to miscarry the baby I never knew I was carrying. Lying in a hospital bed, I saw his social media post: a smiling selfie with her, captioned #Blessed. That was the moment I decided to disappear. He thought he had broken me. He was wrong. He had just set me free.

Three years of marriage, three years of silent fury with Blake Harrison. Then, a nightmare: kidnapped, tortured, and brutally murdered by thugs. But instead of the afterlife, I woke up to my own funeral party, where my loving husband was celebrating his freedom with my sister, Amelia, accusing me of faking my own death. My family, the Millers, the very people who had once claimed to love me, stood by, silent witnesses to my humiliation, only to later join Blake in discrediting me, sending me to a mental institution. It broke me, but in that shattering, a new strength forged; I embraced my "death," watching my essence vanish in a golden glow, ready to finally be free. Three years later, I returned, a princess with no memory, only to be dragged back into his twisted obsession, discovering he had preserved my supposed corpse and turned my suffering into a perverse play. He confessed his sick love, his manipulations, even admitting he' d let me be tortured to "test" my affection. I tried to fight, to turn his own dagger against him, but he only reveled in the pain, until General Alex Vance, a man connected to my forgotten past, burst in and rescued me. Now, between Blake's renewed tyranny and Alex's baffling devotion, I'm finding pieces of a life I never knew, a history of longing and betrayal that demands to be explored and avenged.

The smell of gasoline and burning flesh clung to my last breath, a horrific perfume of my own end. My wife, Olivia, and her grandmother, the woman I' d sacrificed everything to save, celebrated my agonizing death. "You staged the kidnapping, you killed my lover and my son, how dare you still be alive!" Olivia shrieked, as flames licked at the cage they' d locked me in. Her grandmother, my supposed savior, added, "You couldn' t give me a child, so you targeted my grandson, I' ll teach you a lesson you\'ll never forget!" I died watching them smile, consumed by fire, bewildered by their monstrous accusations. I had given my family' s entire fortune to rescue her grandmother, even taken multiple stab wounds in the process. The media had hailed me as a hero, "the ultimate proof of our love," but it meant nothing to them. Olivia' s lover, Ethan Hayes, jealous of the attention, had tragically drowned with their son, Lucas, and they blamed me. They smiled as I burned alive, a fool who gave everything and received only contempt. Then, a frantic, insistent ringing pierced the fiery memory. My eyes snapped open. I wasn't in a burning cage; I was in my bed, the one I shared with Olivia. The calendar on my phone screamed a terrifying truth: it was the fifth anniversary of my marriage, the very day her grandmother was kidnapped. I was back, forced to relive the nightmare. But this time, I wouldn't be the fuel for their fire. I silenced the phone, the urgent ringing of the kidnappers cut short. This time, their fate was their own.

I drew a thick red circle around the date, marking my escape from eight years of crushing dedication to an architectural firm-and to David Chen, the untouchable senior partner I' d foolishly adored since day one. But my whispered plans for freedom were abruptly shattered when David, in a bizarre twist of fate, started showing a new intern, Emily White, the unguarded warmth I'd always yearned for, culminating in the gut-wrenching discovery that he was buying her an engagement ring. Reeling from this brutal blow, I gave my notice only to be immediately thrust into a crisis at a flooding construction site-one where David, the project lead, was inexplicably unreachable and then, upon his sudden arrival, inexplicably threw me under the bus, suspending me for my "recklessness." I couldn't fathom his sudden, public betrayal, leaving me utterly bewildered and heartbroken; why, after my desperate attempt to save his project, would he punish me so severely, especially when he'd hugged me moments before, a gesture that defied his usual coldness? With no other choice, and my career destroyed, I found myself accepting a forced transfer to a new city, unwittingly walking into the dangerous heart of a DEA task force, where the only thing more shocking than my unexpected new life was discovering David Chen standing there, my new boss, ready to lead the charge.

My body was a battlefield of pain, every nerve screaming as I grasped for control. A chilling, mechanical voice echoed in my mind, a death sentence: "Mission failed. Countdown initiated: 30 days." I was Olivia, or rather, the soul inhabiting her body, given a second chance by a mysterious System to mend fractured relationships with Daniel and Ethan. I' d poured my heart into earning their affection, and for a time, I succeeded. We laughed, we shared meals, we were a family once more. My life extended, filled with a joy I' d never known. But then Clara arrived. Introduced as a long-lost cousin, she systematically dismantled everything. Charming, fragile, and a master manipulator, she twisted their love, turning their protective instincts to her, casting me as the jealous villain. My carefully earned affection points plummeted, and with them, my health. The pain began, a constant, gnawing reminder of their betrayal. Every attempt to remind them of our bond was met with accusation, and every tear from Clara sealed my fate. How could they be so blind? So utterly consumed by her act that they couldn' t see the real me, dying before their eyes? Was the past we shared, the love we'd built, truly so easily erased? As the countdown relentlessly ticked, a grim acceptance settled upon me. I was losing everything, abandoned by the very people I was fighting to live for. The fight was gone. But then, a cruel knock at the door – Daniel' s voice, impatient and cold. It was time for my final act.

My funeral was just weeks ago, but as a ghost, I, Elara, the Governor's wife, was forced to watch the wake from the corner of my own grand ballroom. My husband, Governor Marcus Thorne, a man whose entire career was built on my family's name and money, wasn't grieving; he was seething, convinced I had faked my death. He believed I was hiding somewhere in our sprawling estate, playing a cruel game to deny his trusted chief of staff, Izzy, a life-saving bone marrow transplant. But Izzy, a woman I had once taken under my wing, was lying. Her supposed illness was a meticulously orchestrated ruse designed to deceive Marcus, fueling his obsession to find me. As an invisible spirit, I agonizingly witnessed Marcus' s escalating madness: he systematically destroyed my family' s legacy, fired loyal staff, and brutally tormented my ten-year-old brother, Leo, all to force me out of a hiding place that didn't exist. His depravity culminated in the desecration of my grave, only for my true, decomposing body to be dismissed by his paid medical examiner as a "random corpse." How could my brilliant, ambitious husband be so utterly blind, a puppet in a macabre performance designed to destroy everything I held dear? What sinister motive drove Izzy to such extreme lengths, and why was I, even in death, still the target of this malicious charade? It wasn't until Leo, with a final, heartbreaking act of defiance, revealed the unique surgical pin embedded in my desecrated remains that Marcus's world shattered, finally exposing the horrifying truth of his own monstrous actions and setting the stage for Izzy' s chilling, triumphant reveal of her decades-long revenge and the complete collapse of his empire.

For centuries, I, Elara, the ancient Guardian of Redwood Creek, tied my very soul to the immense Patriarch redwood, silently protecting the Harrison family through a pact they barely understood. James Harrison, the family heir, once seemed to respect my beloved tree and me, showing a youthful kindness that warmed my ancient heart. But when his fiancée, Brenda Van Doren, saw nothing but lumber and obstacles in the ancient redwoods, James, once reverent, coldly ordered my life tree cut down. Each scream of the chainsaw ripped through my essence, forcing me to watch as my centuries of life and power drained away with the felled Patriarch. James, with Brenda by his side, mocked my agonizing pain, then further humiliated me, treating me as a mere servant and even trying to extract my very life force for Brenda' s fleeting vanity. The centuries of silent devotion and sacrifice I'd poured into his family felt utterly wasted, reduced to a performance for their twisted entertainment. How could the boy I had subtly guided, whose prosperity I had secretly ensured, turn to such heartless cruelty, dismissing my existence as mere superstition? The betrayal didn't just break my pact; it shattered my being, leaving me on the brink of utter dissolution, wondering if any of his supposed care was ever real. However, just as my fragile form began to dissipate, an ancient call from the true heart of the forest beckoned, igniting a powerful transformation within me as I ascended into a true Forest Guardian. Now reborn, I will reclaim what was stolen and bring a reckoning to those who dared to desecrate the sacred.

My life was a picture-perfect dream. At 21, married to the successful real estate titan Marcus Thorne, I lived in a Manhattan penthouse fit for royalty. He adored me, called me his "Muse," showering me with exquisite art and personal gestures. I was pregnant, and our future, with its "little masterpiece" on the way, felt utterly secure. Then I found a hidden compartment in Marcus’s antique desk, revealing a chilling secret. Inside, a leather-bound scrapbook held dozens of photos of a woman strikingly similar to me—Isabelle Vance. A faded concert ticket, inscribed "For Izzy, my only dream, my eternal muse," confirmed my worst fear. My entire relationship, every tender word, every grand gesture, was a meticulously crafted lie, a painful echo of his past love. Humiliation and devastation washed over me, a physical blow to my gut. I, his beloved "Muse," was merely a stand-in. Our unborn child, conceived in this grand deception, twisted my insides. Brad, Marcus’s best friend, accidentally revealed the truth: "Izzy’s back! Thorne’s already ditching the pregnant kid-bride!" Isabelle herself then flooded my phone with gloating photos and videos of her and Marcus, reliving their old haunts. Every cherished gift, every thoughtful act, was revealed to be a cruel mimicry of his love for her. I was trapped in a gilded cage built on a lie. How could I possibly live with this soul-crushing betrayal? Who was I, truly, if my entire existence within this marriage had been a substitute? The raw despair was unbearable, eclipsing everything. My resolve hardened, brutal and swift. I walked out of my illusionary life, leaving New York and Marcus Thorne, and began the painful process of reclaiming my own future.

His feelings for her oscillated between love and hatred. He wanted her, but he couldn’t get erase the feelings of resentment for her family. After all, Celia was the daughter of the man who had destroyed Hans’s family. And so began their story fueled by his thirst for vengeance. It was not until the day he saw her lying in the pool of blood did he finally realize that he couldn't live without her. Now she had given him a naughty son and it was his turn to pay back the debt of love. Find out how their story unfolds in Naughty Boy: Pay For Love, Daddy.

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

I'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body. My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in. I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then- I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses. Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down- He's still hard. Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance. "You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless. "I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake. "Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat. And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm. "Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine. *** Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge. She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez. He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her. What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated. Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty? And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?

I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god. Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires. He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family. In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet. Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it. That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed. I finally understood the promise he’d made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property. After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash. So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good. A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father—his greatest enemy.

I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

Elora Griffiths was on her way to drop her daughter off at school when her husband's enemies opened fire in the street. The bodyguard her husband had personally assigned to protect them abandoned the car the instant the shots rang out. Mother and daughter were hit multiple times, teetering on the brink of death. Elora frantically called her husband, Rodger Griffiths, but he didn't answer. Her brother, Hugh Dale, arrived just in time and saved them both. "How could this happen? Didn't Rodger assign someone to protect you?" Hugh asked. Elora sobbed uncontrollably, "The bodyguard ran away!" On the way to the hospital, Elora kept trying Rodger's number, desperate. One call after another... Finally, on the ninety-ninth attempt, the line connected. On the other end was the female bodyguard, trembling, her voice barely holding back tears. "Rodger, it's really not my fault! There were so many assassins. I would've died if I tried to stop them! I was so scared..." Elora held her breath, waiting for her husband's wrath to thunder down. But Rodger just sighed. "Forget it. The important thing is you're safe," he said. Meanwhile, Elora's daughter took her last breath in her arms. The pain was suffocating. She held her daughter close as her body went cold and stiff, teeth gritted in fury, "Hugh, I'm divorcing him! I'll cut off every single arms shipment to the Griffiths family from the largest arms company in Crownport!"

I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia. The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast. That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water. He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard. But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead. I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival. On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone. "I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city."

I stood alone at the center of my art gallery opening, clutching a glass of warm champagne, while the guests whispered behind their hands. My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, wasn't there. A breaking news alert on my phone explained why. It was a high-definition photo of Dante shielding his mistress, Isabella, from the rain. He was touching her with a protective possessiveness he had never once shown me. Then came his text: "Isabella needed me. Go home." That was the moment the cage door unlocked. I didn't go home to cry. I went to his office the next morning with a stack of papers disguised as "gallery insurance forms." While Isabella sat on his desk, mocking me for being a boring housewife, Dante was too annoyed to read the fine print. He just wanted me gone so he could get back to her. He signed the divorce decree. He signed the asset dissolution. Most importantly, without looking, he signed the irrevocable relinquishment of parental rights. I walked out with my freedom, but fate had a cruel sense of humor. That night, I stared at a positive pregnancy test. I was carrying the Sovrano heir he had always demanded. And he had just legally signed away his right to ever know his child. I fled to the Swiss Alps, vanishing into the snow to raise my baby away from his world of blood and bullets. I thought I was safe, until six months later. Dante hadn't just sent men to look for me. He had burned his own shipping empire to the ground, destroying his status as King, just to prove he would trade it all for the wife he threw away.