Dionisio Wambold

The ninety-ninth time Jax Little broke my heart was the last time. We were the golden couple of Northgate High, our future perfectly mapped out for UCLA. But in our senior year, he fell for a new girl, Catalina, and our love story became a sick, exhausting dance of his betrayals and my empty threats to leave. At a graduation party, Catalina "accidentally" pulled me into the pool with her. Jax dove in without a second's hesitation. He swam right past me as I struggled, wrapped his arms around Catalina, and pulled her to safety. As he helped her out to the cheers of his friends, he glanced back at me, my body shivering and my mascara running in black rivers. "Your life isn't my problem anymore," he said, his voice as cold as the water I was drowning in. That night, something inside me finally shattered. I went home, opened my laptop, and clicked the button that confirmed my admission. Not to UCLA with him, but to NYU, an entire country away.

For two years, I drained my own blood and emptied my private vaults to brew anti-silver potions, waiting for my mate Caleb to return victorious from the rogue wars. But the day he finally came back, he brought a fragile, sweet-smelling Omega named Lily and publicly rejected me in front of the entire pack. "I, Caleb, reject you, Serena, as my mate." He claimed Lily had risked everything to gather healing herbs to save his life at the border, and he owed her his absolute protection. He looked at my hands, which were covered in tiny, faded scars from forging his winter armor, with nothing but cold, bleak distance. He even allowed this lowly Omega to steal my dead mother's sacred Luna veil for their upcoming mating ceremony, treating my bloodline's legacy like dirt. He truly believed I was just a jealous, bitter woman, completely unaware that every potion and every piece of armor that kept him alive was secretly woven with my blood and my personal crest. Instead of begging or shedding a single tear, I calmly accepted his rejection and picked up the golden-sealed royal decree from the table. "I will accept the royal summons. I will go to the Royal City." I left him to rot with his fake savior, ready to meet the Lycan King and awaken the terrifying power of the hidden White Wolf.

I was just trying to plug my mafia Capo boyfriend's backup phone into the charger. The screen lit up, and I accidentally swiped into his encrypted chats. There, I saw a glaring red dot next to every single voice message I had sent him over the past five years. Thousands of seconds of my deepest fears, my unwavering love, and my midnight pleas for help had been completely ignored. Yet, pinned at the very top was a chat with his female subordinate, Sophie. He had listened to every sixty-second complaint she made about her bitter coffee, replying with meticulous, tender care. Two weeks ago, I almost died from a ruptured appendix on our bathroom floor. I sent him desperate voice notes begging for a doctor, but he only typed a cold "Understood" and never came home. But tonight, on our seventh anniversary, when Sophie cried over a burst water pipe in her apartment, he slammed on the brakes. "Get out and call an Uber." He abandoned me in the pouring rain and sped off to save her. The first two years had been different. He used to listen. But somewhere along the way, he stopped. For five of the seven years we were together, I had deceived myself, thinking his quick replies meant he was just too busy running the underground city to listen. I couldn't understand how my life-and-death emergencies meant absolutely nothing to him, while her trivial office drama could move the most ruthless man in the city. Realizing his love had died long ago, my heartbreak suddenly vanished, replaced by a chilling sense of relief. I took off my diamond ring, packed a single black suitcase, and blocked him on every network. "William, we are done." I sent my final three-second message, and walked out the door to start a new life.

I was the cherished heir of a powerful mafia family, fiercely protected by my brother, the Don, and my fiancé, the family's lethal Enforcer. But on my eighteenth birthday, they publicly framed me for the federal crimes committed by Chloe, a destitute orphan I had sponsored. They stripped me of my title and threw me into the syndicate's subterranean prison. For three months, I endured brutal electrocution and torture. When I was finally released, crippled and starving, I walked into my bedroom only to find my fiancé entangled with Chloe on my sheets. To secure their pity, Chloe faked a suicide attempt. My brother and fiancé dragged me to the clinic, pinning me down to forcefully drain my blood into Chloe as my penance. Even when the doctor exposed my arms, covered in horrific burn scars from the prison, my brother coldly ordered him to continue the transfusion. My heart, already failing from the repeated electrocutions, finally gave out. As my spirit drifted above my lifeless body, I watched the doctor reveal that the blood drain had killed me. I watched them uncover Chloe's bribery of the guards and my final, despairing voice memos. The two most ruthless men in the city fell to their knees, howling in agonizing remorse, begging my corpse for forgiveness. But looking at their tears, I felt absolutely nothing. I smiled, turned my back on their worthless apologies, and stepped into the blinding white light, leaving them to drown in a hell of their own making.

Betrayed by my own uncle for a stack of hundred-dollar bills, I was drugged at the Miami airport and trafficked to a heavily armed mercenary compound in the Darien Gap. Stripped of my dignity, I was scrubbed with industrial bleach and graded as an "A-class asset." I was supposed to be a gift for Axel Sterling, the ruthless warlord who owned the estate, but he took one look at our trembling line and coldly declared he had no interest in women. To vent her frustration, the estate manager, Bea, decided to make my life a living hell. She locked me in a pitch-black solitary cell, starving me for days. She dragged me out only to force me to watch runaway girls get torn apart by massive mastiffs and swamp crocodiles. She wanted me completely broken and begging, a mindless toy ready to submit the moment the warlord returned. Sitting in the freezing mud, covered in blood, I was pushed to the absolute brink of madness. I couldn't understand why I was being kept alive while the others were sold off to the cartels. Was it really just because I had recognized a fake 1792 colonial map in his foyer? When Axel finally returned, Bea shoved me onto the burning asphalt, throwing an oil-stained rag at my face. "Wipe them clean! Or I'll throw you back in the pit!" She hoped my clumsy panic would trigger his extreme OCD and get me killed. But I didn't cry, and I didn't beg. Recalling my university antiquities restoration classes, I treated his mud-caked combat boot like a priceless 16th-century manuscript, perfectly lifting the dirt without a single scratch. The warlord stared at my filthy, battered body, his dead eyes finally sparking with a dark, calculating interest. "Stand up. Come inside."

I was pregnant with the future heir of the Blackwood Pack, but my fated mate, Alpha Gavin, was nowhere to be found when sharp, tearing agony ripped through my swollen belly. Instead of rushing to my side, he was in a luxury penthouse with his mistress, Piper. When I desperately called his human number for help, it was Piper who answered the phone. "I'm Piper. His future Luna." Minutes later, I received a leaked audio file of Gavin promising to formally reject me the moment our pup was born. Before the heartbreak could even set in, my armored SUV was violently rammed off the road by a massive truck. It wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit paid for by Piper's pack. I woke up in the clinic with an empty womb. My pup was dead. Gavin didn't even show up. He just mind-linked the butler to say he was "too busy" to deal with my loss. He let his mistress murder our child and treated me like disposable trash, assuming my grief would make me a weak, compliant victim. He thought he could just bury my trauma and move on with his perfect new life. He was wrong. I faked my own death in a fiery crash, leaving him with nothing but my signed rejection papers and the bloody receipt proving his mistress hired the killers. Now, armed with a new identity and untraceable wealth, I am stepping out of the shadows. I am going to bankrupt their packs from the inside out and make my former Alpha watch his empire burn.

I woke up in a sterile hospital room with a throbbing head and a memory as blank as the white walls. Before I could even ask who I was, my fiancé, Beckham, stormed in with my sister, Isamar, and ended our engagement with a look of pure disgust. "Stop the act, Chanel," he sneered, accusing me of crashing my car just to hound him for money. "The accident won't save you this time. You're a pathetic gold digger, and you just lost your meal ticket." The nightmare only deepened from there. My own mother disowned me over the phone, freezing my bank accounts and calling me a disgrace for "faking a suicide" just to get Beckham's attention. When I returned to the family estate to reclaim my legal documents, my mother slapped me across the face, and my brother, Liam, tried to beat me, treating me like a common thief in my own home. Left with nothing but a black business card and a debt I couldn't pay, I fled into a rainy night on a stolen ATV. My adrenaline was crashing, and my hands shook on the handlebars as I rounded a sharp, wet curve. I lost control, skidding across the asphalt and smashing head-first into a luxury Maybach. The man who stepped out of the car was none other than Duke Montgomery-the most feared, powerful man in the city, a "disfigured recluse" the tabloids whispered about in hushed tones. I didn't understand why my own blood treated me like trash or why my sister was smirking while I bled in the mud. I was a stranger to my own past, discarded by everyone I was supposed to love, and now I owed a fifty-thousand-dollar repair bill to a man who looked like he could crush me with a single word. But as I looked into Duke's cold, aristocratic eyes, something inside me snapped. I didn't beg for mercy. I stood my ground and offered a high-stakes negotiation. "I will work it off," I told him, stepping into his car and choosing to walk straight into the lion's den to take back the life they stole from me.

For six years, I endured my husband David's family shaming me for my barren womb. I went through countless painful fertility treatments, clinging to his promises that we would one day have a child. Then I saw the picture on his secret social media: David, his arm around my "wellness coach," Briana, her belly round with their "little miracle." The confrontation was a nightmare. Briana shoved me, and I was left bleeding on the floor as David rushed her to the hospital. Later, my own family told me to accept the affair for the sake of my brother's medical bills, which David's family paid. David even slapped me for daring to call Briana a liar. But the true horror came in a message from Briana. She gloated that David had been sabotaging my treatments all along. He had made me believe I was broken, just so he could replace me. My hope turned to ice. I found them celebrating in a hotel suite. As David reached for me, I met his terrified gaze and threw myself down the grand staircase. My life was over, and I was taking them down with me.

My husband, a rising political star, begged me to reconcile. I thought our love story was real. It was a lie, a public spectacle designed for his political gain and my systematic destruction. On our anniversary, I found a group chat on his tablet. He and his mistress were laughing about how predictable I was, calling me a "naive fool" for believing his promises. The cruelty escalated from there. He poisoned my food, publicly humiliated me at a charity auction that left me bankrupt, and even had me whipped in his family's basement as a twisted form of punishment. The final blow came when I overheard him plotting my murder. He planned a "tragic hiking accident" at a remote cliff during a storm, a perfect crime to make me disappear forever. But I turned his murder plot into my own escape. I faked my death and started over as a baker in a quiet town. A year later, he found me, haunted by regret, but his final act of redemption-and the true cost of my freedom-was something I never saw coming.

For ten years, I, Chloe Davis, devoted myself to Ethan Stone, the elusive tech mogul. I poured my life into supporting his ambitions, waiting for the day his guarded heart would finally open. I truly believed that night, at the meticulously planned party, was our moment. Then, Ethan walked in, not alone, but with Serena Vance, his fiancée. The word hit me like a physical blow, tearing through every hope I' d ever held. He then demanded I give him the engagement ring I' d designed, so he could propose to her. He watched, cold and indifferent, as Serena and her friends stripped me naked in the courtyard, humiliating me in front of everyone. I was left exposed, shamed, and utterly heartbroken, as Ethan stood by and did nothing. How could the man I' d given everything to become such a monster? Why did I waste a decade of my life on him? As despair threatened to consume me, a familiar face from my past appeared, a beacon in the darkness. Alex Chen, the quiet boy from my childhood, had come for me. I chose him, breaking free from Ethan' s cruelty and leaving everything behind. But just as I started to heal, I uncovered a shocking truth: Alex' s love was a cage, meticulously built on manipulation and deceit. He had orchestrated my humiliation, using Serena to destroy Ethan, all to claim me. Realizing I was a pawn in an obsessive game, I walked away from them both, determined to reclaim my life. I packed a small bag and vanished, seeking refuge in a remote mountain town, ready to forge a new path where my fate was finally, truly my own.

I was reborn on the day of the Scott Hospitality Innovator's Gauntlet, the air thick with burnt sugar and the scent of my past misery. I won that competition, but instead of the grand prize, I gained a forced marriage to Ryan Scott, grandson of the powerful food empire patriarch. My wedding day turned into a public spectacle when Ryan's socialite "true love" faked a suicide attempt, painting me as the villain who stole her life. Years of icy marriage culminated in a nightmare: Ryan smothered our infant son, believing he was saving his precious Molly from my "theft," then murdered me. My last thought was of my dying father, knowing he'd be next. Now, I'm back, standing at the final challenge of that very competition, but this time, I' m not just winning; I'm orchestrating my freedom.

Six years ago, I fled my hometown and the toxic shadow of my ex, Stella, rebuilding a new life far away with my loving wife, Maria, and our sweet daughter. Returning for my high school reunion felt like a minor obligation, a chapter I thought was long closed. But Stella, ever the master of drama, blindsided me by announcing her engagement to the very man she left me for, using the moment to publicly humiliate me. I retaliated with a calm, pointed gift that shattered her grand announcement, but her obsession only escalated. She ambushed my wife and me, hurled hateful insults at Maria, then shockingly, physically assaulted our innocent five-year-old daughter. A cold rage consumed me as the woman who once broke my heart turned her venom on my family, framing me for assault when I protected my child. Then the anonymous online attacks began, a vicious smear campaign against Maria and me that threatened to destroy everything I had built. Was this simply her desperate revenge, or was there something more sinister behind her relentless malice? I would not let her win; I set a trap, a public reckoning to expose Stella's lies once and for all and reclaim my family's peace.

My life felt like a flawless painting: a thriving art gallery in SoHo, a visa to expand to Paris, and a husband, Ethan, whose grand gestures-even donating a kidney-painted him as the epitome of devotion. But the hushed "whispers even in paradise" I overheard at the French consulate soon materialized into a sickening reality as unfamiliar perfume, a fuchsia lipstick stain, and a pair of lacy thongs pointed to a betrayal within my own home. Ethan' s mistress, Chloe Vance-the unsuspecting Mark's sister and a houseguest who flaunted her presence-was brazen, openly taunting me and daringly sending me explicit videos of their affair, even boasting about being pregnant with his child. The man who once swore eternal love and sacrificed his health for me had meticulously constructed a grotesque pantomime, his every tender touch a suffocating lie designed to gaslight me into insanity. But the agony of betrayal solidified into a chilling resolve: I would not quietly vanish; instead, on our anniversary, I publicly forced Ethan to sign his divorce and transfer his fortune, setting the stage for his dramatic downfall and my own audacious freedom.

My stepmother, Eleanor, was about to ruin my life again, just like before. A cream-colored envelope, sealed with the Vanderbilt crest, landed on our mahogany table like a death sentence. This was it: the nightmare I' d already lived once, revisited. Eleanor' s eyes gleamed as she declared the Vanderbilts wanted an 'alliance' – a marriage for one of us Miller girls. I knew exactly what that meant: I was to be sold off to a powerful dynasty, just like in my previous life. My father, Colonel Miller, was a hero overseas, out of reach, leaving no one to stop Eleanor. They paraded my stepsister, Brie, first. But when she inevitably feigned illness, Eleanor' s gaze landed on me. My stepfamily, always eager to exploit my father's name, expected me to be their dutiful pawn, just as I' d been broken and discarded before. They thought I was the same naive girl, easily manipulated and ready to sacrifice. They were clueless about the searing memories, the clear roadmap of their treachery, I carried. But this time, things would be different. This wasn' t surrender; it was the first move in my own calculated game. I wouldn' t just endure their schemes. I would fight. My foreknowledge was my ultimate weapon, and the game had just begun.

Help! Prince Trevor has died suddenly, and the Queen insists that I be buried with him. Even if I had ten lives to live, it would still be a trap. I can't escape this terrifying cycle of death. Ahhh, I don't want to die again!

Cast out by an "elite" family and mocked by high society, Elena shocked everyone by marrying the most powerful man in town. They assumed it was a temporary arrangement-after all, he had said, "The agreement is for two years. After that, we're done." Yet after the wedding, he refused to let her go. "Elena, you can't leave me." As he doted on her, rumors shattered one by one. A renowned painter, top hacker, and tech mastermind-her true identities stunned the world. When a luxury empire announced their lost heiress, all eyes turned to her. "Why did she look exactly like Elena?"

Bethany's daughter needed blood after a car accident, but her husband gave the city's entire supply to his secretary for mild anemia. Bethany begged a mysterious man for help and promised to marry him if he saved her child. Although blood and specialists arrived, her daughter died. So did her heart. Keeping her word, Bethany married the man. At their wedding, her remorseful ex fell to his knees and begged her to return. "Bring my daughter back first," she demanded. The powerful tycoon kicked him aside, and pulled his pregnant wife into his protective embrace. "Leave my wife alone, unless you want your company ruined."

I flew cross-country for my birthday, hoping for just one night of warmth with my husband and five-year-old daughter. But when I opened the door, I found my famous hockey star husband and my daughter acting like the perfect family with Dayna, a glamorous sports commentator. My daughter shrank away from my open arms. "Mama's boring. She never plays with me. Don't go, Auntie Dayna!" My husband didn't even look up from his phone to wish me a happy birthday. He coldly canceled our dinner plans, claiming he had an urgent, last-minute strategy meeting for his team. Hours later, a TMZ article popped up on my phone, featuring a brutal photo of the three of them sharing a steak at an upscale Manhattan restaurant. The headline praised Blake's "family dinner with rumored flame Dayna Nixon" and openly wondered where the current Mrs. Carlisle was. My daughter lied for this, and my husband publicly humiliated me, treating my five years of silent sacrifice like a pathetic, disposable joke. I didn't cry, and I didn't throw a desperate fit. Instead, I calmly walked into his study, signed the pre-nuptial divorce agreement he had prepared years ago, and booked a one-way ticket back to Boston. From now on, I am no longer Mrs. Carlisle. I am Corinne Sargent, and I am taking my life back.

I flew back to New York on my twenty-fifth birthday, carrying vintage gold cufflinks I spent weeks finding for my billionaire husband, Declan. But when I walked into our townhouse, I found him throwing a massive victory party with Sloane, a glamorous socialite, standing by his side as the proud hostess. "Don't cause a scene. Go upstairs." Declan coldly dismissed me in front of his guests. Even Poppy, the rookie player whose shattered ankle I had painstakingly rebuilt, rolled her eyes and ignored me to suck up to Sloane. Hiding in the shadows, I heard the maids gossiping that everyone thought Sloane was the future Mrs. Hartford. To make matters worse, I discovered Sloane had stolen my anonymous, groundbreaking medical algorithm and was planning to present it as her own. First my husband, then the girl I mentored like family, and now the scientific foundation I had built with my own hands. Declan even texted me to cancel our birthday breakfast without a single apology, treating me like an annoying afterthought. My tears vanished, replaced by a freezing clarity. I signed the divorce papers, leaving them on his desk with zero demands for his money. Then I packed my bags, booked a one-way ticket to Boston, and prepared to destroy them on the global stage.

When the mall ceiling collapsed, I was pinned under a massive concrete slab, my leg crushed. My husband of three years didn't even glance at me. He ran right past my bloody, outstretched hand to carry his mistress to safety. I barely survived. But when I woke up in the hospital, covered in bruises, he wasn't there to comfort me. Instead, his chief of surgery walked in with a consent form my husband had already signed on my behalf. His mistress had faked acute kidney failure, and my husband ordered them to harvest my kidney to save her. "You owe her this." He snarled at me, fully believing her lie that I had pushed her into the rubble. I had almost died under the concrete calling his name, yet he wanted to strip me for parts just to appease her. Looking at his disgusted face and her smug smile, the three years of quiet, desperate love I had for this man completely turned to ash. I didn't cry or beg. I grabbed her and ripped open her hospital gown, exposing her flawless, unmarred stomach to the entire ward. Then, I dropped my three-carat wedding ring at his feet. "I want a divorce." This time, I was going to build an empire of my own, and I would make him regret ever throwing me away.

Reunited with her family, Cheryl married the man she had secretly loved for seven years and gave up her career to become the perfect wife. She believed she had everything until her husband, parents, and brother staged a lavish wedding for her dying sister and dismissed her heartbreak as selfish. Cheryl left divorce papers behind and quietly walked away. Only then did the world discover that the ordinary ex-wife they had scorned was actually a legendary investor, master perfumer, celebrated violinist, and bestselling author. Her family humbly pleaded for her forgiveness. The once-cold man clung to her sleeve and pleaded, "Cheryl, please... let's get remarried." But she refused to look back forever. "Back off. Men only hold me back."

On our third engagement anniversary, I bought my fiancé the watch he had wanted for months. But my phone's location tracker led me to a secluded overlook, where I caught him rocking his car with another woman. The woman in the passenger seat was my stepsister, Sienna. When I exposed their affair, my adoptive parents didn't comfort me. Instead, they called to scream at me for ruining the family's reputation. They even rewrote history, claiming Sienna was the one who saved my fiancé from drowning six years ago, and I had stolen her credit. Carter shamelessly agreed with their lies. "She's been quietly supporting me all this time... I misunderstood." I was disowned, thrown out into the freezing rain, and my adoptive father threatened to use his corporate empire to crush my small bakery. I finally understood that to them, I was just a temporary placeholder, a stepping stone for Sienna to take everything I cherished whenever she pleased. I refused to let them destroy me. To protect my bakery and tear down their hypocritical lives, I walked into the penthouse of New York's most ruthless billionaire to propose a fake PR relationship. But he slid a two-year marriage contract across the table instead. Before I could fully process marrying a man I barely knew, a little blonde girl ran into the room and tugged at my dress. "Are you my new mommy?"

For four years, I played the part of the perfect, pathetic wife to my billionaire husband, Damian Nunez. Bleeding from a gunshot wound I took to secure a multi-billion-dollar deal for his company, I dragged myself to our penthouse, ready to finally end the charade.

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!"

"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."