Westley Curlin

At my own lavish engagement party, I thought I was stepping into a beautiful future with the man I loved. Instead, I found my fiancé pinning my stepsister against a wall in a storage room, kissing her hungrily. They didn't even look guilty. My stepsister laughed, revealing that my entire engagement was a sham. I was just a pathetic placeholder because she had refused an arranged marriage. When I tried to escape this nightmare, my stepfather's bodyguards dragged me back. He threw a PR marriage contract at my feet and gave me a horrifying ultimatum. "Sign it, or the matching kidney donor for your mother will go to someone else." He was blackmailing me with my dying mother's life to force me to take my stepsister's place. I was being sold off to marry a notorious, violent hockey player named Dylan Kowalski. I was completely trapped, suffocating under the cruelty of the family that treated me like livestock. With no other choice, I signed away my freedom and my soul just to keep my mother alive. As I prepared to face a year of hell with a brutal stranger, my mind kept drifting back to a dangerous, bleeding man I had briefly hidden with the night I ran away. I didn't know yet that the devil I was forced to marry and the stranger who had fiercely kissed me in the dark were the exact same person.

I was rushed to the emergency room with a bleeding head after a horrific car crash. But while the doctor was stitching my forehead, I heard the nurses whispering. "The CEO of the Finley Group is upstairs right now, playing nurse to that pregnant actress." My heart stopped. I ripped out my IV and dragged my battered body to the VIP suite, only to watch my billionaire husband tenderly wipe away his mistress's tears. I filed for divorce that night and left his penthouse with nothing but a basic suitcase. Carter was furious. He tracked me down, completely ignoring my injuries, and mocked me relentlessly. "You're nothing but a breeding tool. You won't survive a week without my money." When I later collapsed from severe stomach cramps, he abandoned me on the floor because his mistress faked a panic attack over the phone. He even nearly ran me over in the freezing rain as he sped back to her side. I had loved him in secret for ten agonizing years, pouring my bleeding heart into a novel about my unrequited love. I couldn't understand how a man could be so incredibly cold-blooded to his own wife. But Carter didn't know I was the anonymous author of that global bestselling book. So when he tried to use his massive wealth to buy the film rights and give his mistress the lead role, I walked straight into his boardroom, slammed my contractual veto on the table, and finally fought back.

Elara Vex had everything-a flawless ice core, the title of prodigy, and a place at the pinnacle of the High Tower. But in one brutal night, it was all ripped away. Her mentor tore the core from her chest. Her fiancé drove a sword through her back. Her own sister smiled as she bled out on the cold marble floor. When Elara wakes, she's years in the past, mere hours before her core is scheduled to be stolen. This time, she won't be anyone's sacrificial lamb. She shatters her own core with forbidden blood magic and forges something far more terrifying in its place-a bottomless, ravenous Chaos Core that devours magic itself. Now, branded a worthless cripple and cast into the deadly Abyss, Elara is pulled from the darkness by the outcasts of Elysium Academy-a school for heretics, psychopaths, and everything the Tower despises. Under the tutelage of a reclusive principal who knew her murdered mother, Elara will master her forbidden power and uncover the Tower's darkest secrets. When the Five Academies Ranking Tournament arrives, Seraphina Vex stands in the arena, draped in white saintess robes, ready to claim ultimate glory. She doesn't know that a ghost from her past has clawed her way back from hell. She doesn't know that Elara is coming-and this time, the prodigal sister isn't asking for mercy. She's bringing chaos.

I had been a "decoration piece" for Kenton Parker for three years, a contract wife bought to pay off my father's gambling debts. I lived in a cold penthouse, making his coffee and answering his phones, while he treated me with the clinical indifference of a stranger. On our third anniversary, I waited alone at the city's most exclusive restaurant, only to see a news alert flash on my phone. Kenton wasn't coming. He was caught on camera at a hospital, looking at his "friend," ballerina Blanca Donovan, with a raw, frantic worry he had never once shown me, not even when I fell down a flight of stairs. I finally snapped and filed for divorce, citing his "irreversible erectile dysfunction" just to destroy his massive ego. I thought I was free, but Kenton retaliated with a cruelty that left me breathless. He froze every bank account I owned and had his secretary smash the last photo I had of my mother. He reminded me of the five-million-dollar penalty in my contract-money I didn't have. "You don't get to leave until I say so," he roared, dragging me into his office. He used my father's life as a leash, forcing me to play the part of a doting wife at his family's Hamptons estate to please his sick mother. He wanted to starve me out until I crawled back to his side. I couldn't understand how a man could be so heartless. He didn't want my heart, yet he refused to let me go, treating my life like a line item in a corporate merger. He wanted to keep me as his prisoner while he spent his nights with another woman. But Kenton made one fatal mistake. He thought I was just a broke, submissive secretary with nowhere to turn. He didn't know that I was "Vee," a world-renowned art restorer with a secret legacy and a six-figure commission waiting for me. As we shared a bed in the Hamptons and he pulled me against his chest, whispering that I was "his," I didn't feel comfort. I felt the cold, hard spark of a woman who was finally ready to burn his contract to the ground.

My life had quickly unraveled. For seven years, Emily, my fiancée, had been my world. But then Mark Miller arrived, claiming he'd saved her from a hotel fire. He and his young son, Billy, quickly moved into Emily's life, and ours, consuming every space until I became an intruder in my own home. Emily, once so brilliant and driven, transformed. Anything I suggested was met with "Mark says," or "Billy wants." My career was sidelined as I supported her, only to find myself watching her plan picnics with another man's son for "the investor meeting can wait, Billy is more important." The final straw came when Billy, in my study, broke my grandmother's music box, my most precious possession. Mark casually dismissed it as "just an old box." When I got angry, Billy screamed I pushed him, and Emily, without a second thought, decided to side with them. "Mark and Billy are staying here tonight. Billy can have your bed. You can sleep in the guest room." She was literally kicking me out of my own life, one room at a time. I was suspended from my job based on Emily's false accusations and locked out of my apartment by changed locks. This betrayal meant I couldn't reach my dying grandmother, missing her final moments. I was left with nothing but the cold, hard realization that Emily didn't care. With Emily sharing a picture online, calling me "negativity," and cozying up with Mark in our favorite restaurant, I knew I had to act. It was time for a real change, a new beginning. I called Sarah Jenkins. "I'm ready," I told her. "Let's do it. Tomorrow, if you can."

The world tilted, then fell away, the polished marble floor rushing up to meet me. One moment, I was adjusting lights for my new art exhibit, the next, a sickening crack left me in darkness, my legs gone. Awakening in a hospital, the rhythmic beeping of machines and a strange, mechanical ticking from my chest were my only companions. My fiancé, Mark, was just outside the door, his voice low and urgent. "Is it done, Mr. Henderson? Is everything taken care of?" he asked the gallery owner. "The ladder was tampered with, just as you instructed," Henderson replied, his voice gravelly. "It was a tragic accident. No one will suspect a thing." Then I heard the doctor: "The legs were unsalvageable. The damage to her heart was severe. We had to implant the synthetic unit. She'll live, but she'll never walk again." "Perfect. Absolutely perfect," Mark laughed, his voice stripped of all warmth. My private collection, my legacy, was the "real prize" he needed for his gallery, and their deal included securing a scholarship for Emily, his protégé. This was all for Emily. Panic clawed at my throat. My art, my life' s passion, was stolen, and the man I was going to marry, the father of the child growing inside me, had orchestrated it all. For money. For his gallery. For another woman' s career. The pain from my body raged, but it was nothing compared to the cold, dead void that opened inside me. I was a machine, my heart ticking like a clock counting down a life I no longer wanted. My instincts led me to my stomach, now flat and soft. The tiny life, a secret meant for Mark, was a lie. When a nurse mentioned prenatal care, I choked out, "Cancel it. I want to schedule an abortion." My tears were the last I would shed for the life he had stolen. Mark' s performance for the outside world was flawless, but I saw the ugly, rotten canvas beneath his beautiful lies. He hadn' t loved me; he' d loved my assets. Days blurred into pain and physical therapy. Mark brought Emily to visit, her feigned sympathy twisting knives in my gut. He even boasted that she was cataloging my stolen collection. He was replacing me, in every possible way, and flaunting it. When he proposed a "documentary" to exploit my broken body, I knew I was trapped. He' d built this cage deliberately. He' d stolen everything, leaving me with nothing. But a different appointment awaited. They found a body by the river, a white shoe, and a note, leading Mark to believe I had taken my own life. Emily' s hysterical accusations that I was faking it turned his fury on her. He spun a tale of tragic loss, cementing his image as the grieving fiancé. Mark grieved not for me, but for his ruined scheme. He cast me as a villain-a cheater, pregnant with another man' s child-to absolve himself. But as David Chen, my kind friend, stood at my grave, his heart heavy, I sat alive in his living room in Norway. "He cried," David said, his voice thick. "He also told me you were pregnant with another man's child." The plan was desperate, conceived from the ashes of that day. David, the only one I trusted, had helped me fake my death, swap my body with a Jane Doe, and build a new life as Anna Jensen. My escape was flawless. David loved me, not for what I had, but for who I was-scars, synthetic heart, and all. He saw the woman, not the wheelchair. He understood. And in that moment, a fragile seed of hope began to sprout. Two years passed. I became a renowned art restorer, and with David, co-founded Chen-Miller Restorations. Then came the opportunity of a lifetime: a project in New York, my old home. I was tired of hiding. I was strong. I was loved. I was whole. At the Harrison Foundation' s gala, I saw him again. Mark. Thinner, haggard, staring at me as if I were a ghost. "Sarah?" he whispered, hoarse. "You're dead." "Reports of my death were, as you can see, greatly exaggerated." He begged for another chance, blaming his failures on my supposed death, clinging to pity. "I know you still love me. You have to." I laughed, cold and dismissive. "Love you? Mark, I don't even know you." He grabbed my arm, his old anger surfacing. "You owe me an explanation! Prove you're her!" "She doesn't have to prove anything to you," David' s calm, steady voice cut through the tension as he stepped protectively to my side. I held up my hand, my diamond catching the light. "This is David Chen, my partner and my fiancé." Mark stared, defeated. I looked him straight in the eye: "The Sarah Miller you knew, the one you tried to destroy, is dead. You killed her. Let her rest in peace. You and I, Mark, are done." I walked away, leaning on David, leaving Mark a relic of a past I had finally, completely overcome. Emily was arrested for fraud, Mark' s gallery liquidated, and he faded into obscurity. David and I married, surrounded by loving family. My story was a testament to resilience, healing, and a love that empowered, called me whole. I found my true masterpiece: a life built on truth, love, and unshakable self-worth. I was home.

The sharp sting across my cheek snapped my head back, my hair flying. It came from Chloe, the young intern, whose hand was still raised, her eyes wide with a calculated fear that twisted into a perfect lie. "Ava, I'm so sorry," she whispered, staging a stumble that sent her crashing dramatically to the floor as Leo, my fiancé, burst into my office, his face a mask of thunderous rage. He didn't even glance at me, rushing straight to Chloe' s side, cradling her as she sobbed a manufactured tale of my jealousy. His mother's smug voice suddenly echoed from his phone, "Leo, I told you she was unstable. Not fit to be part of our family." And then, his command, "Apologize to Chloe." Followed by a terrifying countdown, leveraging my younger brother Finn's fragile mental state against me. I swallowed the humiliation and forced the words out, "I'm sorry, Chloe." My hand, resting on my stomach, trembled as a cold dread washed over me-the faint flutter of life I' d felt last week now a lead weight. This couldn't be happening. My perfect life, shattering around me, and I knew, with horrifying certainty, this was only the beginning.

I was a devoted mother, my world revolving around my precious baby girl, Lily. All I wanted was to keep her safe, to give her the best life possible, despite living under my in-laws' roof. But my mother-in-law, Karen, was a monster of penny-pinching cruelty. Her idiotic refusal to pay for proper medical care for Lily's jaundice, choosing a blazing hot lamp instead, was just the beginning. Then came her ultimate act of malice: swapping Lily's vital probiotic with her lethal pesticide, Bora-Kill. My baby, my sweet Lily, died a horrific, agonizing death. My husband, Mike, blamed me, calling it an accident, while his father, Frank, backed them both up. Consumed by a rage so pure it burned, I ended it all, taking them with me in a fiery gas explosion. The last thing I remembered was the sweet, cloying scent of gas, and a chilling satisfaction. Then I opened my eyes, not to death, but to the familiar, dingy floral wallpaper of Karen' s living room. Disbelief warred with a crushing wave of horror: I was alive, somehow, back in the very moment the nightmare began. And I heard it again – the piercing cry of my baby. This time, there would be no mistake. No more weeping for a broken life. I had the foresight, the memory of every single treacherous move they would make. My grief now fueled an unstoppable resolve: I would protect my Lily, and I would make every single one of them pay.

My picturesque New England life shattered the moment the school nurse called. Lily, my bright, artistic daughter, AB-positive? Impossible. I'm O-negative. The doctor's genetics lesson was a punch to the gut: Lily couldn't be mine. Then, the real earthquake hit. Overhearing Grant, my devoted husband, revealed a sinister conspiracy. Bea Baker, his old flame, was back, and Lily was her daughter through a twisted surrogacy plot. Grant was secretly bankrolling her silence. The betrayal deepened. He'd been drugging me, keeping me from conceiving. My 'perfect' life was a lie, meticulously crafted by a man I barely knew. He'd even developed Bea's family farm into a soulless mall, crushing her family in the process. Fury and disgust warred within me. Bea knew too much about my 'miscarriage.' She hinted at Northwood Pharma, experimental testing and my stolen baby used for science. Grant's face, smiling, taunting, haunted me. He was meeting Bea tomorrow. The affair was current, not just old history. He wants her to live with us! This charade ends now. My quest for truth had just begun. How deep does this rabbit hole go? And what happened to my own baby? Retribution is coming.

I was the President's Old Lady - and the only reason his MC was still breathing. For three years, I ran every legal business the Serpents of Redemption owned. While Craig chased road glory across state lines, I turned a failing auto shop and a tattoo parlor into the money that kept the brothers fed, the bikes fueled, and the clubhouse lights on. Then he rode home from a two-month run with a sweetbutt on the back of his Harley - and her son. Ginger, he said, had saved his life on the road. So he put her in the main residence, in the room directly across from our bed. He handed her my ledgers and called it repayment. When her son dumped a cup of scalding coffee over my hand, Craig never checked my burns. He scooped up the boy and blamed me. His grandmother - the club's Matriarch - stood before every patched brother and accused me of hurting "family." That night, Craig told me Ginger held a place in his heart I could never reach. A debt of blood he'd honor above me. Three years. My family's fortune. My scarred hand. All of it - worthless next to his roadside savior. So I did the one thing a President never expects his Old Lady to do. I gave back his patch. Now they can keep their empty ledgers. They can play happy family in a clubhouse I built. And when this motorcycle club burns - I'll be the one holding the match.

After six years away, I returned to my hometown with a single suitcase and a picture of my fiancé tangled up with my stepsister. I thought it was just a simple, disgusting betrayal, but when I planted a bug in their private suite to get a confession, I heard a truth that froze my blood. My fiancé, Leo, laughed about how my own father had already signed over my mother's legacy—The Nightingale Ranch—as collateral to his powerful family. "Once this is all done, Claire will have nothing. And the woman you marry will be me," my stepsister Jenna cheered. Leo cooed back, calling me a stray dog he'd kick to the curb once he was bored, a worthless woman who couldn't even hold onto her family's land. My family had sold me out, and the man I loved was planning to leave me with absolutely nothing. I didn't cry. The pain burned away into a cold, hard hate. How could my own father conspire with them to destroy the only thing I had left of my mother? I crashed their prestigious charity auction and played their filthy recording over the speakers for the entire town to hear. But when Leo charged at me in a murderous rage, a wall of leather and muscle stepped in front of me. Kade "Chaos" Peterson, the terrifying President of the rival motorcycle club, crushed Leo's wrist and announced to the stunned room, "She's with me now."

Chloe had just given birth to twins, lying exhausted in a cramped, bustling hospital ward. When she called her husband, Julian, he was busy partying with his actress mistress. He coldly hung up on her, having already drafted a brutal divorce agreement that would leave her with a pittance. Strangers in the next bed loudly mocked her pitiful state, gossiping about how Julian was dumping her. For years, Chloe had erased her own identity to fit into his elite world, only to be thrown away like garbage. She was completely alone, clutching her helpless babies, bracing herself to sign the cruel papers just to survive. She couldn't understand why her absolute devotion was met with such chilling indifference. Why did she have to suffer this ultimate humiliation while he celebrated with the woman who ruined her life? But then, a senior doctor noticed a unique mole on her wrist and ran a secret DNA test. The results were staggering: Chloe was the long-lost daughter of the billionaire Beaumont family. With her fiercely protective parents and three powerful brothers suddenly forming an impenetrable fortress around her, Chloe picked up her phone and texted her arrogant husband. "City Hall tomorrow at 10 AM. If you don't show up, my lawyer will handle everything. And trust me, you won't like their terms."

Five years ago, I stood in the freezing rain at my mother's funeral, waiting for my husband. Blake Knight, the billionaire NHL superstar, was two hours late. When he finally showed up, he brought his rumored girlfriend, the woman he had just rented a hotel rooftop for to celebrate her birthday. Watching him defend her fake tears, my heart completely died. I took off my diamond wedding ring, placed it on my mother's headstone, and walked away from my marriage forever. I fled to London, changed my name to Ava, and secretly raised the triplets he never knew existed. I thought I was finally safe from him. But today, my kids vandalized a silver Aston Martin in our apartment's parking garage, and the owner caught my youngest daughter. My phone rang. The voice on the other end was Blake's. He had moved into my building, and he was holding my little girl in his penthouse, demanding her mother come get her immediately. Panic suffocated me. If I walked through that door, my five years of hiding would be instantly destroyed. He would recognize me, realize I didn't get rid of our child like everyone thought, and he would use all his power to take my babies away. I couldn't let him ruin my life again. "I'm just her nanny," I lied through my teeth. I frantically begged my best friend to go upstairs and rescue my daughter in my place. He bought the disguise, but now, the King of the Ice is dangerously obsessed with investigating my new identity.

I woke up married to a stranger. Not just any stranger. Garrick Sinclair-the cold, ruthless captain of the Chicago Mustangs, the man every woman in Chicago dreamed of and every sensible woman stayed away from. I didn't remember marrying him. I didn't even remember sleeping with him. Yet there was a diamond ring on my finger, a marriage certificate beside the bed, and Garrick looking at me like I was nothing more than another gold digger trying to get her hands on his money. He offered me cash to disappear. I wanted nothing from him except the truth. But then his adoptive father died, leaving behind a shocking condition for Garrick's inheritance: He had to be married. Suddenly, the marriage neither of us remembered became the only thing protecting his family's billion-dollar empire. Then my mother was murdered. I came home to find her dead among the roses she loved, only to wake up in a police station as the prime suspect. My home was a crime scene. My mother was gone. And I had nowhere left to turn. Except the husband who had once wanted me gone. Garrick got me out of jail and pulled me into his world. But the closer we became, the stranger everything felt. Whenever he touched me, he remembered things he had forgotten. A locked room. A terrified little boy. A girl in a pink dress. And a promise made in the dark. I thought my marriage to Garrick was the worst mistake of my life. Now I'm starting to wonder if it was the one thing that was never a mistake at all. Because I may not be a stranger to Garrick Sinclair. I may be the missing piece of his darkest memory. And someone has already killed once to make sure we never remember the truth.

I went to my stepsister's birthday party, foolishly hoping for a family truce. Instead, she drugged my drink and had me shoved into a dark hotel suite, where a stranger took my innocence. When I sneaked back home the next morning, battered and humiliated, I overheard my stepsister and stepmother laughing in the hallway. They had orchestrated the whole trap to destroy my reputation so I would be forced to marry a thrice-divorced, abusive butcher. "And don't forget the little extras we've been putting in her food," my stepmother gloated. "She'll never lose the weight. That fat Miss Piggy is meant to be your backdrop." The revelation chilled me to the bone. My years of punishing diets, the brutal exercise, the deep self-hatred—none of it was my fault. It was poison, fed to me daily by the family I trusted. I packed a single bag, took the commemorative coin I had stolen from the stranger's nightstand as a reminder of my lowest point, and vanished into the city. One year later, having lost ninety pounds and transformed into a completely different woman, I agreed to attend the blind date with the butcher they arranged. But because of a flipped brass table number, I sat down in front of the wrong man. It was Julian Sinclair, the billionaire stranger from that dark room, and he looked at me and proposed a contract marriage.

As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole. I begged him for help, my vision blurring. But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background. "Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again." He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm. I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube. Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry. Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled. "You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up." He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research. I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym. They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive. They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity. I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding. I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it. Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house. The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born.

Two years ago, a tragic accident shattered two families. Emma was behind the wheel the day fate upended Damien's world. She lost her parents; he lost his wife. And little Luca, Damien's son, lost something irreplaceable: his voice. Since that fateful day, Damien had built a fortress of cold indifference, vowing to never forgive the people he held responsible. What he didn't anticipate was that fate would place one of them directly under his roof. Driven by desperation to save her sister, who was gravely ill, Emma was forced to accept an exploitative employment contract. As Luca's nanny, she must live in the mansion of the man who had every reason to despise her. What began as a contract signed under duress quickly morphed into a dangerous web. Damien desired Emma with an intensity that defied reason, unaware that she was the cause of the past tragedy. And when the truth came to light, Damien must make a choice: cling to the hatred that fueled him... or accept that love might rise from the ruins of devastation.

I was in the hospital, enduring the agonizing pain of labor, while my husband, a famous hockey captain, refused to show up. When I called him for the twelfth time, begging for him, he lost his patience. "Giving birth is a woman's job, don't bother me with this stuff." Then, I heard my stepsister's sweet voice offering him a drink, and he immediately softened before hanging up on me. I gave birth to twins all by myself. The nurses treated me with cold indifference, and the family in the next bed loudly mocked me as a pathetic "Puck Bunny" who was just an adopted orphan about to be dumped. They were right. A month ago, my husband had thrown divorce papers at me, demanding I make way because my stepsister was pregnant with his child. I thought my life was a joke. I was just a discarded prop he married to satisfy his grandfather, a fake daughter my adoptive parents only used to elevate my stepsister. I was completely alone, ready to sign the papers just to protect my two babies. But then, the head of the hospital rushed in, transferred me to the top-floor VIP suite, and handed me a DNA test. It turned out I wasn't an unwanted orphan, but the long-lost daughter of the ultra-wealthy Sinclair family who had been searching for me for twenty years. Looking at my billionaire parents and three powerful brothers who just flew in on their private jets to protect me, I picked up my phone to call my arrogant husband. This time, I was going to make him leave with nothing.

Ivanna had everything: a stable marriage, a promising career, and the love of the man she had fought for, even against his own family. But when she finally managed to conceive, fate tore her happiness away in the most heart-wrenching way imaginable. Her husband had wanted a child... just not with her. She made the hardest decision of her life: signing a divorce agreement that left her with nothing. She left without looking back, her heart shattered, carrying a silent promise never to return. Until now. Four years have passed, and she's back in Boston, the city where her dreams were once shattered-with a new life, newfound strength... and a secret that will change everything. She is no longer the same woman who left in silence. And her ex-husband isn't prepared to uncover what she's been hiding. What will happen when the ex-wife returns with the one secret that might ruin him... or redeem him?