I. HAWKINS

For five years, I was the invisible glue holding Damien Crawford together. I was the one who pulled him from a burning car until the skin melted off my back, and I was the one who donated bone marrow when he was on death's door. I even gave up a full-ride scholarship to MIT just to be his nurse. Yet, he believed his mistress, Hadley, was his savior. To him, I was just the maid's daughter who changed his bedpans—a piece of furniture he could abuse while he planned his wedding to another woman. But his cruelty didn't stop at verbal abuse. When my father suffered a massive heart attack, Damien refused to let me use the car, choosing to comfort Hadley over a fake panic attack instead. His mother even slashed the tires to ensure I couldn't leave. While my father died cold and alone, Damien stabbed a needle into my hand just to teach me a lesson about "respect," oblivious to the fact that the scars on my skin were the receipt for his life. He didn't know he was torturing the only person who had ever truly loved him. But the girl who begged for crumbs of affection died along with her father that day. I picked up my phone and dialed the number saved simply as a dot. "He's dead," I whispered to the man on the other end—Anderson Morrison, the city's most feared Don and my sworn protector. "I'm coming," he replied, his voice lethal. "And I'm bringing the army." It was time to show Damien that he hadn't just mistreated a maid; he had declared war on a Queen.

A week before my wedding to my childhood sweetheart, Derek, I was kidnapped. I was a wealthy heiress, and the ransom was set at $80 million. But Derek refused to pay. Instead, he and his assistant, Krystal, used the money to launch their business empire. While they cut ribbons at galas, I was brutally tortured for fifteen days. When I finally escaped, I stumbled upon their charity event, naked and broken. He pushed me away, furious that I had ruined his public image. He then used a secret DNA test to turn my family against me, had me committed to a psychiatric hospital, and left me there to rot for three years. He built his success on my ashes, leaving me with nothing but scars and a broken mind. Now, after years of healing, I've found peace with my adopted daughter, Lily. But he's back, begging for forgiveness. He doesn't know the torture left me infertile, and he has no idea what I'm willing to do to protect the only family I have left.

For five years, I was my boss's secret wife, the mother of his son, and the backbone of his company. But on our son Leo's fifth birthday, he chose to spend the evening with his new protégé, Chelsi. That night, he missed Leo's party. Then he asked me and our son to move out of our home so Chelsi could stay there after her apartment flooded. "It's just a temporary arrangement," he said, as if asking me to move a plant. "She's a colleague, and she's in a difficult situation. What do you expect me to do?" The next day, he tried to make up for it with a birthday gift for Leo-a toy snake. He didn't remember that our son is deathly allergic to the peanut shells it was filled with. Leo looked at his father, his heart breaking. "You don't know my allergy, Daddy?" That was the moment I knew it was over. I had already filed for divorce, but this was the final confirmation. I took our son and walked away from our house, our life, and the man who never truly saw us. As we drove to the airport, I blocked his number. This wasn't just a separation; it was an erasure.

At my own engagement party, my fiancé, Franco, abandoned me. He left me standing alone in a room full of guests to rush to the side of another woman, Katina, the one he truly loved. He called me a gold-digger, a parasite clinging to his family's name, and accused me of faking an illness just to get his attention. But he never knew the truth. He never knew about the secret I carried-a terminal leukemia diagnosis I received just two days before he humiliated me. He never knew that the night he called a drunken mistake, the night he spat on with disgust, had left me pregnant with his child. And he certainly never knew that while he was tending to Katina's fake anxiety attack, I was in a sterile hospital room, alone, terminating our baby to have a fighting chance at a life he made sure was a living hell. I thought my death would be the end of our story, a final, quiet release from his cruelty. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back at our engagement party, the scent of gardenias filling the air, just moments before he would walk out and shatter my life for the first time.

My eight-year marriage ended over a photo of my husband, Drake, with his young associate, Kandace. He called her his #WorkWife. That same night, he accidentally scalded my arm with boiling soup. Instead of taking me to the hospital, he left me stranded on the side of the road to comfort Kandace over a headache. His cruelty brought back a buried memory: the night his negligence caused me to miscarry our child, a loss he twisted to blame entirely on me. The final blow came when I saw it-a matching tattoo on Kandace' s wrist, the same one Drake had over his heart. This wasn't just an affair; I was being replaced. He begged, cried, and even carved the tattoo from his own chest in a bloody display of desperation. He swore he loved me and couldn't live without me. So when the hospital called to say he was in a critical car accident, fighting for his life, I listened calmly. "I'm sorry," I said, my voice perfectly clear. "You have the wrong number."

I found Isiah Flynn bleeding in an alley and turned him into a Wall Street king. I taught him everything, gave him an empire, and made him my secret husband. He was my masterpiece. Then his new influencer girlfriend played me a recording. I heard the voice I had crafted call me his "warden," his "crutch," the "old woman who thinks she owns me." But that was just the beginning. He took the power I gave him and used it to demolish the pediatric cancer wing we built in memory of our stillborn daughter, Hope. He was building a luxury spa on the rubble as a gift for his new lover. He even stood there and told me to my face, "Maybe if you hadn't been so obsessed with work, Hope would still be here." The man I built from nothing was trying to erase our entire history, including our dead child. He thought he could just tear me down and build his new life on my ashes. So when they sent me an invitation to their wedding, I accepted. It' s important, after all, to give a man a day of perfect happiness before you destroy him completely.

This was my third wedding. Or, it was supposed to be. The white dress felt like a costume for a tragic play I was forced to perform in again and again. My fiancé, Damian Avila, stood beside me, but his hand was gripping the arm of Eileen Brandt, his "fragile" friend. Suddenly, Damian was leading Eileen away from the altar, away from our guests, away from me. But this time was different. He came back, pulled me into his car, and drove me to a remote clearing. There, he tied me to a tree, and Eileen, no longer pale, slapped me. Then, Damian, the man who promised to protect me, hit me, again and again, for upsetting Eileen. He left me tied to the tree, bleeding and alone, in the pouring rain. This wasn't the first time. A year ago, Eileen attacked me at our wedding, and Damian cradled her while I bled. Six months later, she "accidentally" burned my best friend and me, and Damian broke my friend's wrist and then my painting hand to appease Eileen. My career was over. I was left in the woods, shivering, losing consciousness. No. I can't die here. I bit my lip, fighting to stay awake. My parents. Our family business. It was the only thing that kept me holding on. I woke up in a hospital, my mother by my side. My throat was raw, but I had to make a call. I dialed an international number, one I had memorized long ago. "It's Alana Myers," I rasped. "I agree to the marriage. All of my family's assets transferred to your accounts for protection. And you get us out of the country."

The blinding flashbulbs popped as Leo Sterling' s hand dug into my back. To the world, we were a power couple-the tech mogul and his beautiful, indispensable assistant. It was a lie everyone in Silicon Valley knew and repeated. "Smile, Ava," he murmured, his voice a low command meant only for me. I was Ava Reed, a talented artist, but here, I was just Leo' s property, a commodity. Then came the new task: publicly humiliate a board member by spilling a drink on him. This was a new level of degradation. "I pay you enough to handle these simple things, don't I?" he sneered, naming an obscene sum. I did it, tears burning as he smiled, then left me to face the fury of a powerful man. This agonizing charade, every bit of my suffering, was currency. Back in my gilded cage, a digital counter glowed on my phone: "Disillusionment Value: 23%." "Target: Leo Sterling. Objective: Accumulate 100% disillusionment to trigger return protocol." Each humiliation, every piece of my soul he tried to crush, was fuel. It was my way back home, a grim bargain to save Ethan, the man I loved, sleeping in a hospital bed in another world. This wasn't just a job; it was a mission of survival.

The Arizona desert stretched endlessly before us, a shimmering ribbon of highway cutting through red rock and scrub. My best friend Emily and I were three days into our cross-country road trip, the initial excitement long gone, replaced by heat and boredom. Then Emily pointed. "Are you seeing this?" Far off the road, a figure stood, impossibly tall, waving. I dismissed it, thinking of a stranded hiker, already slowing the car. But Emily grabbed my arm, her face drained of color, eyes wide with a terror I' d never seen. "Don't get out of the car," she choked out. "Look at its legs." They were too long, bent at a sickening, backward angle. Then it moved, not walking, but scrambling with inhuman, insect-like speed, closing the distance in seconds. "Run!" Emily screamed. "That's not human!" My foot found the gas pedal, tires spitting gravel as we fishtailed onto the highway. It scraped against the trunk, a sickening thud, then impossibly, kept pace, a spindly shadow in the rearview mirror. We were safe, for a moment, after escaping the desert monster, only to have our tires slashed outside a shady garage. The mechanic and his goons tried to corner us, but a deputy' s timely arrival saved us. We thought it was over. We were wrong. News reports followed us home, showing our "Desert Wendigo" was appearing nationwide. The world wasn't safe. And we knew its dark secret.

The biting cold of the concrete floor was the first thing I registered, followed by the dull throb of pain marking every inch of my beaten body. I' d just refused to sign off on their crooked building plans, and for that defiance, the syndicate thugs left me for dead, my career shattered and my body broken. As consciousness flickered, the memory of Chloe's voice – my fiancée' s voice – on the kidnapper's line pierced through me: "A million? You must be joking… Do what you have to do." Her casual dismissal was a deeper wound than any physical blow. Why would the woman I loved abandon me so easily, while a stranger, Isabella, appeared, offering a path to healing and a new life? I returned to my apartment, only to find Mark, my protégé, there with Chloe, their intimate laughter echoing as I eavesdropped, hearing Chloe mock my desperate pleas and reveal her cold, calculated betrayal.

My SATs were today, the day that felt like it decided my entire future. But then my phone buzzed with an unknown number, displaying a chilling message: "DON'T TAKE THE EXAM!" It was Michael, my older brother, who'd vanished three years ago on the morning of his own SATs. Another warning followed: "THEY AREN'T WHO YOU THINK." Suddenly, my parents' overly cheerful demeanor felt sinister, their familiar faces hiding subtle, unsettling changes. My dad wore his wedding ring on the wrong hand, and my mom' s distinct scar was now on the opposite brow. Every word they spoke, every gesture, screamed that something was terribly wrong. When I finally tried to escape, a long-time family friend, Ethan, ambushed me with a devastating truth: Michael was dead. He claimed it was suicide, and that I was suffering from a severe PTSD-induced dissociative episode, hallucinating everything. My heart pounded as I watched a video of Michael' s funeral, my phone now empty of all his warnings. Was I crazy? Was this elaborate nightmare all in my head, a cruel trick of my own mind? But then, a specific, unspoken childhood promise between Michael and me-a secret about a monster and a particular trip-failed to match. That's when I knew: This "recovery" was another layer of control, a sophisticated simulation orchestrated by the very person pretending to help. I wouldn't let him win.

I watched my wife, Jessica, lavish attention on her brother Mark and his son, Leo, while our own daughter, Chloe, faded into the background, a ghost in her own home. But the breaking point wasn't a loud argument; it was the terrifying, quiet wheeze of our six-year-old needing an ER visit for a severe asthma attack – while Jessica, her mother, was conveniently "unavailable" for some emergency involving her beloved family. I rushed Chloe to the hospital, only to be met by Jessica, not with concern, but with excuses prioritizing Mark. Later, orchestrated by Mark, Chloe was coerced into a forced bone marrow donation for Leo, tearing my fragile daughter apart. I was held back, helpless, as they took what they wanted from her. How could a mother, a 'councilwoman' hailed as a loyal citizen, betray her own child so completely? Every promise of hers was empty, every word a lie, as her pathological loyalty to that parasite destroyed our daughter. Then Mark, the insidious puppet master, played his final card: he begged Jessica to have his baby. In that moment, watching her hesitate, a chilling clarity washed over me. "Actually, Jessica," I told her, "it makes a certain kind of sense. I' m willing to sell you." This wasn't just a divorce; it was an emancipation. I signed the papers, took Chloe's hand, and walked away, leaving behind a life, a wife, and a family that was never truly ours for a real dawn.

My life was perfect. I was Sarah, a loving mom, taking my sweet six-year-old Lily to Kids' Kraft Korner, all smiles and glitter castles. In an instant, my world shattered. A bloodcurdling scream. I raced back inside to find Lily' s lifeless body, her head gone, crafting shears beside her. My heart died. The real nightmare began. My best friend, Jessica, shrieked, pointing at me. Detective Harding arrested me. My own husband, David, abandoned me, highlighting my past postpartum depression. The media branded me a monster; "Suburban Mother Snaps, Murders Daughter" screamed headlines, bolstered by manipulated footage and a janitor's twisted testimony. Under relentless accusations, I plunged into a torturous haze. Dr. Peterson, a psychologist David suggested, hypnotized me. Horrifying images flooded my mind: me, holding the shears, filled with rage, striking Lily. I confessed, truly believing the implanted memory, convinced I was a child killer. The "recalled" physical evidence-Lily' s head, found exactly where I "remembered" it-seemed to seal my monstrous fate. I was lost in self-loathing. Still, even through the despair, a tiny flicker of inner doubt persisted. Could I really have done this? Then, as I was dragged to court, I saw Jessica in the crowd. She wasn't yelling. She was smiling. A small, smug, triumphant smile. It wasn't my madness. That hateful smile ignited something raw. "You did this, Jessica! You set me up!" I screamed, tearing at my restraints. "She's having an affair with my husband! David is the father of her son!" My desperate accusation, fueled by rage, finally started to unravel the terrifying conspiracy, pulling me from the abyss of my false memory.

The email from the estate manager shattered the calm of my curated life. It announced unauthorized use and damage to my Hamptons beach house, the one my family built generations ago. Then I saw the photos: my custom garden, a year in the making, utterly destroyed. And worse, a priceless Brancusi sculpture, a gift from my father, in pieces by the pool. An Instagram link confirmed my nightmare: my husband Ethan's secretary, Chloe Miller, gloating with a nine-photo spread of a pool party at my house, thanking "her boss" for the "generous gift." His response was chillingly casual: "Ava, don't be so possessive. It's just a house. We have others. She needed a break." His disregard for my property, my family legacy, was a direct insult. I exacted immediate, calculated revenge, selling the house from under Chloe and seizing Ethan's prized classic cars. But the humiliation escalated when Chloe brazenly wore my custom Oscar de la Renta gown to a high-society gala, Ethan beaming by her side. My retaliations, though swift and public, only seemed to fuel his delusion, culminating in Chloe's theatrical, fake suicide attempt. He blamed me, fired loyal staff, and promoted her to a senior position. Then came the ultimate betrayal: in a hospital corridor, as I secretly clutched a sonogram image, he slapped me. Hard. "You toxic, heartless shrew!" he snarled, accusing me of driving Chloe to "suicide." He didn't see the tiny picture slip from my numb fingers. The world tilted, and my last shred of hope for our marriage, for a family, shattered. I picked up the sonogram, tearing it into tiny pieces. He would pay. He would pay for everything.

My husband, Ethan, once swore before the world that I was his equal, his partner, the backbone of Gold Enterprises. We built an empire together, a testament to our shared dreams and unconditional trust. But then came the whispers, a hotel receipt, the lingering scent of another woman-Chloe. That initial betrayal, though painful, was just the prelude to a far more chilling horror I could never have imagined. I was three months pregnant when Ethan begged me to fix a crisis at a remote R&D facility, claiming only my operational genius could save our company. That trip cost me everything: our baby, and my leg, lost in what I believed was a tragic accident. Confined to my bed, still reeling from my losses, I overheard Ethan tell his chief of staff that the 'crisis' was orchestrated, that our child was merely 'an obstacle,' and that my 'accident' was a deliberate attempt on my life. He even planned to systematically ruin my family' s businesses, severing my last remaining ties. The man who once vowed undying love had systematically plotted to destroy me, the shattering truth of his monstrous deception burning away all my grief and sorrow. Every adoring glance, every tender word he' d ever given vanished, replaced by the crushing weight of his calculated betrayal, culminating in public humiliations and a brutal slap after Chloe, his mistress, brazenly framed me. How could the depth of one man' s depravity reach so far, impacting every facet of my existence, all for a conniving woman and her deceitful schemes? Yet, as I lay there, broken and isolated in my gilded cage, a cold, sharp fire ignited deep within me. He thought he had crippled me and stripped me bare, but he only forged me into an unyielding weapon. He had sealed his own fate, and the meticulously assembled Lexington Dossier would be his ultimate undoing.

Lena and her best friend fell out of love at the same time. They went to a bar and drowned themselves in alcohol to get over their love pain. But when it was time for them to pay the bill, Lena and her friend realized that they had run out of cash. Having no option left, they casually pulled a man to pay the bills. Later, to pay off the debt, Lena gave herself out to the man for the night. But even though in a drowsy state, the man beside her felt eerily familiar. It took Lena some time to identify him. Cliff?! Yes, it was him! The man she had known since her childhood. As the realization dawned upon Lena, she got so petrifies that she immediately rolled down from the bed and ran away. Two months later, she went to the hospital and found out that she was pregnant. “Should I keep this baby or not?" At a time when Lena’s world was almost falling apart due to this dilemma, a familiar voice sounded from her back…

"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."

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."

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!"

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.

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."

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."

It was our fifth anniversary, and I sat alone in a Michelin-starred restaurant, staring at a diamond ring that felt more like an anchor than a promise. I kept telling myself Caleb was just busy, rationalizing the sharp, spasmodic pain in my stomach as mere nerves rather than my body's final warning. But when I went to his penthouse to surprise him, I found the double doors ajar. Through the gap, I watched my fiancé devouring Beatrice Blackwood on the sofa-the woman who had the family backing and confidence I supposedly lacked. He wasn't working; he was celebrating our anniversary by replacing me. The fallout was a calculated humiliation. The tabloids branded me a "pathetic orphan," and my Uncle Richard didn't care about the betrayal. He slammed his hand on his desk, claiming I was having another "psychotic episode" and accusing me of paranoia. He threatened to pull the plug on my mother's life support unless I went to the Hamptons to beg Caleb for forgiveness. My family even tried to force me onto heavy antipsychotics to keep me quiet for the sake of a corporate merger. I was being sold to a man who hated me by the very people who were supposed to protect me. I didn't understand why they wanted me broken, or why a mysterious stranger in an elevator had suddenly paid my mother's astronomical medical bills in full. Everything changed at a dinner where my uncle tried to trade me to a predator for a real estate deal. I didn't cry; I shattered a wine bottle and held the jagged glass to the man's throat. That's when Julian Blackwood, the most feared man on Wall Street, walked in and seized the house, the debt, and me. "I take my contracts seriously, Vanessa," he whispered, pulling me into his armored car as my family was thrown onto the street. I had escaped my uncle's cage, but as I looked into Julian's storm-gray eyes, I realized I had just traded a common bully for a beautiful, deadly king.

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.

For three years, Cathryn and her husband Liam lived in a sexless marriage. She believed Liam buried himself in work for their future. But on the day her mother died, she learned the truth: he had been cheating with her stepsister since their wedding night. She dropped every hope and filed for divorce. Sneers followed-she'd crawl back, they said. Instead, they saw Liam on his knees in the rain. When a reporter asked about a reunion, she shrugged. "He has no self-respect, just clings to people who don't love him." A powerful tycoon wrapped an arm around her. "Anyone coveting my wife answers to me."

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?