Lu Meng

I spent three years as the perfect, silent wife to billionaire Ezequiel Sanford, enduring a marriage colder than the marble floors of our Manhattan mansion. The day I finally saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test was the same day my world burned down. I found Ezequiel at the hospital, but he wasn't there for me. He was cradling his ex-girlfriend, Alexa, with a gentleness he had never shown me, while my own father was being rushed into the ICU after a suicide attempt triggered by our family's bankruptcy. Instead of comfort, Ezequiel handed me divorce papers. He had checked a box that read "No Issue of Marriage," effectively erasing any claim I had to his legacy. He blackmailed me, promising to save my father’s company only if I signed away every cent of alimony and walked away with nothing. When Alexa called him claiming an emergency, Ezequiel shoved me aside so violently I hit the sharp corner of his glass desk. As I collapsed to the floor, clutching my abdomen in sudden, searing pain, he didn't even look back. "Stop acting," he sneered, his voice dripping with disgust. "It’s pathetic. I will never love you, Claudia, no matter how many times you fall down." He walked out to be with her, leaving me bleeding on his office carpet with the secret he had spent years trying to avoid. He thought I was a gold-digger faking a crisis, never realizing I was actually carrying the Sanford heir he claimed didn't exist. Now, I’m hiding in a private clinic while my husband’s security team scours the city for me. My childhood friend just handed me a one-way ticket to Paris and a chance to restart the medical career I sacrificed for a lie. The money just hit my father's account. I’m signing the papers and disappearing. By the time Ezequiel realizes what he’s lost, I’ll be a world away, and he’ll never even know my child’s name.

For three years, I documented my husband Ashton's neglect in a secret ledger I called "The Song of a Hundred Reasons." Each forgotten anniversary and dismissive glance was a point deducted from a hundred. When the points hit zero, I would walk away. The final reason came not as a quiet slight, but as a deafening crash. When a massive chandelier fell towards us in a restaurant, Ashton didn't hesitate. He shoved his "best friend" Bailey to safety, shielding her with his body while I was left to be crushed. I woke up in the hospital with broken ribs and a severe concussion. He never visited. Instead, he spent a fortune on a private med-jet to fly Bailey to a luxury retreat for her "panic attack." Her well-being was paramount; mine was an afterthought. That was the final reason. I signed the divorce papers from my hospital bed and never looked back. Two years later, holding a Grammy for my hit album "Song of a Hundred Reasons," he showed up, begging for a second chance.

For eight months, my Alpha husband Derek smiled as he rubbed my swollen belly, discussing nursery names. I thought he was excited. Then I found the hidden medical file: Vasectomy. One year ago. Irreversible. He believed my pregnancy was a betrayal. But instead of confronting me, he planned a public execution of my dignity. At the pack gala, he and his mistress drugged me with Wolfsbane. Paralyzed and helpless, I was forced to listen as they took bets from the crowd on who the "real" father was. When the pain started and I felt the life slipping from my womb, I screamed for him through our Mind-Link. "Let the bastard die," he replied coldly, severing the bond. I miscarried on the ballroom floor while they laughed. They thought I was broken. They were wrong. I sent him a box containing the remains, accompanied by a forged DNA test proving the child was his. I watched from the shadows as his sanity shattered under the weight of "killing his own heir." Now, he sits in a maximum-security asylum, howling in grief for a son that never truly belonged to him. I sip my champagne in First Class, leaving the wreckage behind. The sterilization had worked perfectly. The baby wasn't his. But as long as he suffers, the truth doesn't matter.

I watched the man I was contractually bound to marry dive into the freezing water. But he wasn't swimming toward me. Only seconds prior, his mistress had shoved me into the ornamental pool. I struggled to surface, my heavy silk dress dragging me down like a lead weight. Jax, the ruthless Underboss of Chicago, swam right past me. He reached for the woman who had pushed me, scooping her up as she faked a leg cramp. He carried her out, stepping over my hand as I clawed at the slippery edge. Every Capo and soldier in the underworld watched the heir choose a jersey chaser over his fiancée. "You are making a scene, Eliana," Jax said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Go home." He didn't offer a hand. He ordered me away like a disobedient dog. Later that night, when I tried to return his ring, his mistress laughed and shoved me down a flight of stairs. I lay at the bottom, broken and bleeding. Jax didn't check if I was alive. He comforted her instead. To him, I was just furniture. A guarantee. He thought he had broken me. He thought I had nowhere to go because our families were allied. He was wrong. I left the five-carat diamond on the table. I left my car keys on the dashboard at O'Hare Airport. I didn't just run away. I boarded a one-way flight to New York to join his mortal enemy, the Tran Syndicate. Jax Little thought he owned the board. He didn't realize the Queen had just defected.

At our company's launch party, while I was pregnant with our child, my husband's COO, Dorian, slid her hand into his. She leaned in and purred that she was already "taking care of" his unique needs, a public declaration of their affair. My husband, Bryon, just laughed nervously, his classic tell when he was caught. The next morning, after I'd made the gut-wrenching decision to terminate our pregnancy, I saw them again. I stumbled and fell to the pavement. Bryon rushed to my side, but when Dorian faked a dizzy spell, he abandoned me on the ground without a second thought to cradle her in his arms. Lying there, forgotten on the dirty sidewalk, I finally understood. He didn't just cheat; he had no care for me or the child I had just lost. All my love and sacrifice meant nothing. As he walked away with her, I pulled out my phone. "Dad," I said, my voice ice-cold, "Pull every penny from AuraTech. And get me the best lawyers. I need divorce papers and a termination of pregnancy consent form. Tonight."

The charity gala was suffocating, a gilded cage where I, Jocelyn Duncan, watched my husband, Andrew, openly parade his mistress Maria, making my irrelevance a public spectacle. Our five-year-old twin sons, Caleb and Jayden, in an innocent accident, spilled chocolate mousse on Maria, provoking Andrew to condemn them to a brutal desert "behavioral correction camp." I begged, humiliated myself, but he was unmoved; my babies were ripped from my arms, their screams echoing as Andrew watched with chilling indifference. Hours later, driving through the arid landscape to rescue them with my sister-in-law Molly, my phone buzzed with an Instagram notification: Andrew' s sonogram announcement with Maria, "A new chapter begins." At that exact moment, police officers emerged from the camp gates and delivered a horrifying truth: my sons, Caleb and Jayden, had died from dehydration and heatstroke. My world shattered, but Andrew, when I called, laughed and accused me of melodramatic lies, dismissing their deaths as a tactic for attention. How could he deny them, our own children, who had just died from his callous cruelty, while he celebrated a new life that would never know theirs? I had nothing left but an unbearable, burning agony, and a single, unyielding resolve: I would leave the shattered remains of my life with him, taking my sons' memory and only my unbreakable will to survive.

A phone call from my oldest friend, Wendy, ripped through the quiet of my garage. Her panicked voice claimed ruthless bikers had taken her, demanding I fix their custom bikes for her freedom. Without a second thought, I sped into the Mojave desert to rescue her. But when I arrived, Wendy betrayed me, knocking me out and delivering me to a biker gang. I came to, discovering the bikes-thirteen identical, menacing machines-were ones I had custom-built years ago for their enigmatic leader, Deacon. Imprisoned in a foul container, I risked everything, engraving my unique mechanic's mark on a spark plug for Mama Fuller to relay to Deacon, hoping he'd remember me. Yet, Wendy, my supposed sister, shrieked out my secret to Ryan, the gang' s sadistic interim leader. He retaliated by shooting Mama Fuller and throwing a gun on the floor, demanding Wendy and I fight to the death. As I lunged for the weapon, bracing for the worst, I couldn't comprehend how my life had plunged into such a brutal nightmare. Now, trapped in a world of violence and betrayal, I must confront the past I thought I'd buried and fight for a future I never imagined.

For ten years, I, Jocelyn Chavez, the First Lady, was a prisoner in a gilded cage, enduring my President husband' s public humiliations with his mistress. But then, I heard his chilling confession: he framed my family for treason, destroyed my father, imprisoned my brother, and now planned my "accidental" death to make his mistress the next First Lady. My world shattered as he orchestrated my public downfall, forcing me to confess to poisoning his mistress's son and leveraging my daughter' s life to make me admit I was "unstable" before the press. Every humiliation, every lie, every wound-each cut deeper than the last, culminating in him telling me my mother was dead and then plotting to terminate our unborn child. But he didn't know the old Jocelyn was gone; I was fighting back, and the explosion that rocked D.C., supposedly claiming my life and my daughter's, was my masterpiece, not his.

The smell of smoke and burning flesh still felt real on my skin. I woke up gasping, my hands flying to my throat, expecting to feel the char and ruin from the fire I died in. But I was back in my own bed, weeks before the Lone Star Smoke-Off, the competition that ended my life. My father, Andrew Johns, the patriarch of the famous Johns barbecue dynasty, stood by my side, feigning pride while secretly grooming my half-sister, Gabrielle, to steal my legacy. They' d sabotaged me before, but this time, it was more than just a competition. I discovered my mother' s hidden diary, revealing the horrifying truth: my father poisoned her to seize the family empire and erase her, and me. Returning to the competition, they stripped me of everything-my smoker, my reputation, even my mother' s last memento, the "Whiskey River" grill. I was left with nothing but the burning humiliation and the phantom pains of a betrayal that led to my death. How could the man who raised me be a murderer? And how could I, disarmed and discredited, fight back against a conspiracy that spans generations and seems to defy logic? This time, I was playing for keeps. I vowed that vengeance would be served, slow and hot, even if I had to become the fire itself.

For seven years, I poured my entire life into Caleb, believing his success was ours, even buying his mother an expensive Thanksgiving gift in hopes of finally being accepted. But the moment I walked in, my world shattered: Caleb' s high school sweetheart, Maria, was there with a five-year-old boy who called Caleb "Daddy!" The entire dinner became a public humiliation. Caleb treated me like a stranger, his mother doted on the boy as her "perfect little grandson," and then Maria cried, making the child slap me. When Caleb and his mother demanded I apologize, he didn't even flinch when I walked out, instead grabbing my arm and hitting me for "being dramatic." That' s when I saw the expensive drafting set I bought for his "nephew" through my money-it was for Maria's son. I walked out, leaving him, our shattered fantasy, and every belief I had held about us behind, ready to reclaim my life.

My father' s funeral was two days ago. Today, I married his killer. Five years later, I thought I had a quiet, comfortable life with Ethan, my steady, perfect husband who' d saved me from ruin. He was my rock, my savior, the only good thing left. Then, at a high-profile industry party, I slipped behind a potted plant and heard voices: Ethan and my ex-fiancé, Dylan. Dylan sneered, revealing their masterpiece of a scheme – Ethan had orchestrated my father' s bankruptcy and subsequent death just to get me to marry him, a sick consolation prize, all while pining over another woman, Scarlett. My world shattered. The man who held me as I grieved my father was the one who destroyed him. The lies didn' t stop there. I discovered his toxic obsession with Scarlett, a decade-long shrine of photos, and a horrifying plan in his notes: he paid someone to destroy my father' s last gifts to me. The final blow? A will leaving everything to Scarlett, not me, his wife. How could I have been so blind? My entire five-year marriage was a calculated lie, a twisted cover-up, not for love, but for guilt and a sick obsession. He didn't just ruin my family; he stole my choices, piece by piece. The next morning, Scarlett came to my house, a cruel victory lap as she planned a photoshoot within the home she expected to inherit. Ethan, my "loving" husband, rushed to her side when she faked a fall and screamed at me, then refused to believe me. After I collapsed, I woke up in a hospital bed to the news I' d had a miscarriage. Then Scarlett appeared again, casually admitting Ethan had been giving me "harmless" pills for years to prevent me from getting pregnant with his child. She then shoved me down the stairs. That' s when the fog cleared. I walked out of that hospital, leaving a single note: I want a divorce. No looking back.

My quiet life in the sprawling Hawthorne estate was a secret dedication, for I was their Guardian Angel, my well-being intertwined with their immense fortune. A scholarship student, I focused on my books, a delicate porcelain dove on my desk, a silent reminder of my crucial, hidden role. This peaceful existence shattered when Brooke Ashley, my cousin Ethan's jealous fiancée, burst in, leveling wild accusations of grants "stolen" and spells "whispered." Her rage culminated as she deliberately smashed my heirloom porcelain dove, its sharp fragments gashing my forehead. The attack spiraled into a nightmare: Brooke and her friends disfigured my face with a letter opener, ripped my clothes, and even tried to brand me with a hot lighter, while the family butler betrayed me, diminishing my sacred status to save himself. When Ethan's father, Marcus Sr., arrived, instead of salvation, he saw only scandal, and pressed a thick pillow over my face, attempting to suffocate me. As I struggled for breath, the realization hit me: the very family whose prosperity I safeguarded was willing to commit murder to bury their cruel secret, sacrificing their own destiny just to silence me. How could they, knowing the ancient pact, extinguish the source of their own success with such monstrous indifference? In my final moments of darkness, the door burst open, and my childhood friend, Liam Hawthorne, my true protector, pulled me back from the brink of oblivion, promising a new beginning and a devastating reckoning for those who dared to defy fate.

For eight long years, I was trapped in Richard Blackwood’s mansion, an agreement to care for his son, Ethan, after my sister Eleanor’s death, but I called it a cage. Just as my contract neared its end, Ethan accused me publicly at a glittering gala, screaming that I was trying to replace his mother. Richard, ever the dismissive patriarch, instantly took his son’s side, leaving me humiliated and isolated. His cold indifference deepened when Ethan destroyed my sentimental belongings, culminating in the heart-wrenching death of my beloved dog, Buddy, at Ethan’s hands, which Richard shrugged off as an accident. He even tried to offer me the freedom from birth control as a ‘favor’ for my service, then brought in a younger Eleanor look-alike, Tiffany, to openly replace me. How could they consistently strip away my dignity and dismiss my grief, only to then try and buy my loyalty back? The pain was a constant throb, yet my resolve hardened with each calculated insult and dismissal. My breaking point came when Ethan, echoing Tiffany’s cruel words, shot me with a slingshot as I left, delivering a final, petty wound. That moment snapped the last lingering thread of attachment; I dropped a silver charm at his feet, definitively severing our tie. I picked up my bag, ignored Richard’s threats, and walked out the door, knowing my true freedom, and a new life, awaited in Montana.

A tale of love and romance unfolds when Rita is forced to sleep with Charles at the orders of her husband. After a sweet taste of that nectar in the dark, Charles decides to save her from that ruthless husband and solve all her troubles in an effort to keep her around himself all the time. Finally, her broken heart is healed at Charles's hand.

"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!"

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."

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.

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.

After two years of marriage, Kristian dropped a bombshell. "She's back. Let's get divorced. Name your price." Freya didn't argue. She just smiled and made her demands. "I want your most expensive supercar." "Okay." "The villa on the outskirts." "Sure." "And half of the billions we made together." Kristian froze. "Come again?" He thought she was ordinary-but Freya was the genius behind their fortune. And now that she'd gone, he'd do anything to win her back.

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?

Two years of marriage left Brinley questioning everything, her supposed happiness revealed as nothing but sham. Abandoning her past for Colin, she discovered only betrayal and a counterfeit wedding. Accepting his heart would stay frozen, she called her estranged father, agreeing to the match he proposed. Laughter followed her, with whispers of Colin's power to toss her aside. Yet, she reinvented herself-legendary racer, casino mastermind, and acclaimed designer. When Colin tried to reclaim her, another man pulled Brinley close. "She's already carrying my child. You can't move on?"