Julian Reid

On the eve of my wedding, a viral TikTok revealed my fiancé had married another woman a week ago. When I confronted him, Jacob called it a "pity marriage." He dismissed our seven years together, offered me cash to shut up, and when I refused, he slapped me across the face. "You're the other woman now," he snarled, threatening to ruin me if I spoke out. The worst part? I was pregnant with his child. To break free from this monster, I made a heartbreaking choice and secretly terminated the pregnancy. When you have nothing left to lose, you become unstoppable. Tonight, at the live-streamed Tech Innovators Gala where he plans to accept our award with his new wife, I'm taking the stage. I'm not just taking back my company-I'm burning his entire world to the ground.

My husband, Grayson Daugherty, threw me out of his car in the pouring rain to rush to another woman's side. That was the night I learned our marriage was a lie, a carefully constructed cage to protect his real love. But the deception ran deeper than I could have imagined. When I tried to leave, my own family betrayed me, beating me until I bled just to keep their precious business alliance intact. My life's work, my photography, was stolen by his mistress, Kennedy, and he locked me in a dark basement, using my deepest childhood trauma as a weapon to force my silence. I was just a pawn, a shield, a sacrifice on the altar of their epic love. Stripped of my family, my art, and my heart, I finally understood. If they wanted a storm, I would become a hurricane. I burned our penthouse to the ground and walked away, ready to destroy the man who broke me. But I never expected him to follow me to the ends of the earth, ready to die just to prove his love was real.

I received a divorce text message. The sender was my husband, whom I had never met despite being married for a year through an arrangement. He said he had been in love with a girl for ten years and wanted to divorce me to pursue her. I agreed and casually asked for twenty million dollars as a settlement. Later, I met a man who blushed because of a single glance from me. He seemed to fall for me at first sight and asked for my contact information. I told him I had a husband and was in the process of getting divorced. He clenched his teeth in anger, swearing to make my jerk husband pay. When I appeared before him in divorce court, his face turned pale instantly.

The plan was simple: surprise my husband, Mark, in our new city after two months apart. Our daughter Lily was buzzing with excitement on the plane, her little legs kicking the seat in front. I imagined his face, the shock turning into a wide grin. But when I opened the door to his temporary apartment with the spare key he' d sent, my world shattered. His "temporary" place looked lived-in, cozy, with two coffee mugs in the sink and a woman' s sweater draped over a chair. Next to a framed photo of Mark and Lily was another-of Mark grinning with a younger woman I didn' t recognize, their arms around each other at a beach sunset. The scent of a perfume that wasn' t mine filled the air. Mark emerged from the bedroom, a towel around his waist, his hair wet. His bright smile was for Lily, before it froze when he saw me. Panic flashed in his eyes, quickly replaced by an overly cheerful "Ava! Lily! What… what are you guys doing here? This is amazing!" He scooped Lily into his arms, avoiding my gaze. He was a good actor, but I wasn't his audience. I had just seen the whole script. I stood frozen, the handle of my luggage digging into my palm. He was a liar. He had called me last night, telling me how much he missed us, how he was working late to build our future. But his texts to "Chloe" revealed a whole other life. Pictures of them cooking in his kitchen, of them on hikes he told me he was too busy to take. He' d spent Lily' s birthday weekend with her at a luxury spa resort, while I thought he was working. He hadn't moved for his job. He moved for her. Then Chloe appeared at the door, letting herself in with a silent beep. Her fingerprint was programmed into his lock. "Hi, Chloe!" Lily chirped, waving. My daughter knew her. Mark' s face turned pasty. "Why?" Chloe asked, shrugging him off, her eyes locked on mine. "I think we should all have dinner together. Get to know each other." The audacity of this woman, inviting me and my child to dinner in my husband' s apartment. It was a power play, a declaration of war. I didn't understand. The man I married was kind, devoted, and honest. The man whose phone I held was a monster, living a double life. How could he do this to us? To Lily? My own mother and his parents sided with him, gaslighting me, telling me I was overreacting, threatening to take Lily. They underestimated me. They thought I was broken. They were wrong.

The terminal diagnosis felt like an ending, a quiet period to a long, exhausting sentence. I, Ava, the world' s only true prodigy in data analytics, was dying. My mind-a machine that could map the future with flawless precision-couldn't find a single path that didn't end in a hospital bed. The irony was suffocating. My body was failing because my mind had been running at an impossible overload for centuries. Not just this lifetime, but seven of them, a secret etched physically on my chest. Then the doorbell rang. It was Liam, my ex-fiancé, radiating success as always. But he wasn't alone. Clinging to his arm, my stepsister, Chloe, was unmistakably pregnant. "We came to tell you in person," Liam said, his voice devoid of warmth. "Chloe and I are getting married. Next month." Chloe added with fake sweetness, "We wanted you to be the first to know, sis." He then dropped the bombshell: "I' m buying out your shares. It' s time we made a clean break." He was cutting me out, erasing me from the company I had built. I watched him. He saw my frail form, noted my fading life, and coldly assessed it as his final liberation. He believed my death would untether him, unleashing his supposed genius to unimaginable heights. Little did he know, he was a parasitic fool convinced he was the host. For six hundred years, I had been the silent engine behind his every success, bleeding myself dry in the process. Each lifetime, my illness and early death fueled his ascent, bound by a master-servant contract. He thought my dying was his victory. He was wrong. My death was not a sentence. It was a deadline. And for the first time in centuries, I felt not despair, but a cold, sharp surge of energy. He thought he was closing the book on me. He had just given me permission to write the final, devastating chapter. This time, I was ready to reclaim what was mine.

The rain lashed against my office windows, a sudden storm mirroring the chaos that erupted when Dr. Chen' s call came, breathlessly telling me, "It's David." My husband, David, was in an accident, and when I arrived at the hospital, the world shattered-he was holding another woman's hand, looking at me with cold, polite confusion. "Can I help you?" he asked, as she, his executive assistant, Chloe, tightened her grip on his hand, a triumphant flicker in her eyes. He then scoffed when I told him I was his wife of ten years, declaring, "Chloe is my girlfriend," dismissing me as "crazy" when I listed our shared memories, our dog, our wedding. He even compared being married to me to being "a piece of sensible, well-designed, but ultimately unexciting furniture," a crushing blow that twisted every cherished moment of our life into a lie. Then, the final, undeniable proof came: a video of David and Chloe, intimate in our bed, sent by Chloe herself, a trophy of her victory, after he refused to help my ailing mother. The last ounce of love I had for David died, replaced by a cold, sharp resolve. I called Mark, David's estranged best friend and an investigative journalist, who had looked at me with aching worry in the wake of David's betrayal. I was Sarah Miller, celebrated architect, and David Thompson had just made the biggest mistake of his manipulative life. I was done being the victim. It was time to play his game.

My world was perfect. Top of my class, early acceptance to Yale, just days away from the SATs. Then, my stepsister Tiffany handed me a protein shake. I trusted her, drank it, and then – darkness. I woke up in a cheap motel, framed for cheating, test booklets scattered, my phone incriminating. Campus security, news cameras flashing. "Cheater!" the headlines screamed. Yale rescinded my admission, my furious father disowned me, and my popular boyfriend Chad, feigning support, was part of it all. Pregnant, isolated, my dreams shattered, I withered, looking ten years older than I was. Five years later, I overheard Chad boasting, chillingly: "Tiffany and I planned it perfectly. She needed Sarah gone – Valedictorian, Yale, the Miller inheritance. And Sarah? Served her purpose. Time to upgrade to Tiffany." The betrayal, so cold and absolute, utterly shattered me. I ran blindly into the street, and then – screeching tires. Nothing. A gasp. I sat bolt upright in my own bed, sunlight streaming through my window. My heart hammered, the nightmare vivid. I looked at my phone. Three days before the SATs. It was happening again. No. It was my second chance. This time, they wouldn't know what hit them.

Ten years. That's how long I, Ava Miller, meticulously built my dream life. I left behind my past as the "notorious mean girl" Ashley King. Now, I had Chloe, the kindest best friend, and Ethan Reed, my devoted husband. We were expecting our first child, a symbol of our perfect future. Then, I found Ethan's journal. Dusty and hidden, it revealed a truth colder than ice. My husband, Ethan, wasn't just 'reborn' – he remembered a past life. A past where I, Ashley, was his enemy. He married me not for love, but to "monitor the threat." To keep an eye on me, the monster he believed lurked within. Ten years of tender kisses, shared laughter, and deep conversations were a calculated performance. He loved Chloe, always Chloe. Every "gentle" touch, every "concerned" glance, was a lie. My world shattered when, at the summer fair, he shoved my pregnant body aside to shield Chloe. He accused me, "Did you do this?" Then, a car swerved, and without a second thought, he threw himself at Chloe, his body slamming into mine. I woke up in a sterile hospital room. Our baby was gone. My heart was torn between searing grief and burning rage. How could he have been so blind, so obsessed with a phantom? So cruel. I looked at the man who destroyed everything. "I want a divorce, Ethan." This fake life ends now. I will reclaim my story.

For a year, chef Amelia Hayes lived a secret life, hidden from the world as the wife of Charleston old money heir, Ethan Vance. Her dreams were on hold, her identity masked, all for the "right time" Ethan promised would come. But their clandestine world shattered when Ethan' s manipulative stepmother, Cassie Thorne, discovered their marriage. Cassie issued a cruel ultimatum: Amelia had twelve months to make Ethan publicly claim her, or she would sign divorce papers and disappear forever. What followed was a relentless campaign of psychological and physical torment. Ethan, shockingly, enabled Cassie, prioritizing her every whim over Amelia' s well-being. Amelia was publicly humiliated, framed, fired from work she loved, and brutally beaten. The ultimate betrayal came when Ethan, shielding Cassie from a perceived threat, accidentally shattered Amelia's wrist, yet remained utterly blind to her pain, his concern solely for Cassie. Lying there, broken and abandoned, Amelia grappled with the stinging injustice. How could the man she loved so deeply, the one she sacrificed everything for, be so callous, so utterly blind to her suffering? How could she escape this nightmare of betrayal and despair? In that moment of profound agony, her hope, her love, died. A new resolve ignited: she would not just survive, she would break free. This was no longer a fight for Ethan, but a fierce battle for her own self-liberation. She chose to reclaim her life, no matter the cost.

My wife, Sarah, and I had a perfect life plan: no kids, just us, travel, and careers. To seal the deal, I underwent a vasectomy. I came home that day, a bag of frozen peas on my groin, feeling a strange mix of relief and finality, ready to celebrate. But Sarah didn't want to celebrate. She sat beside me, her grip tight, and said, "There's something I need to tell you. I've changed my mind about kids. I want one now. With Ethan." The name of her college flame hit me like a punch. My blood ran cold. She looked at her perfectly manicured nails, explaining calmly, "Since you can't have children now, it actually works out perfectly." She expected me to help raise this child, to be part of their "modern family." The audacity, the sheer, calculated cruelty of it, stole my breath. She had waited, let me go through with an irreversible procedure, then dropped this monstrous bomb. How could someone be so utterly devoid of empathy for the wreckage she’d caused? My mother, Maria, had always said Sarah was a sweet girl, but this was a bottomless abyss of betrayal. I stared at the woman I loved, the woman who had just slit my future open from navel to throat. "I want a divorce, Sarah," I said, the words heavy and final. My love, once a blazing fire, was now a smoldering ruin. In its place, something hard and unforgiving was beginning to grow. This wasn't just a breakup; this was an act of war, and I was going to make sure she paid for every calculated lie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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