Westley Curlin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Allison Montgomery was waiting at the airport when an audio alert from her parked Range Rover flashed on her phone. Assuming it was a break-in, she checked the live dashcam feed, only to see her fiancé, Finn, and her younger sister, Cheyanne, passionately making out in the backseat. "Tell me I'm better than her," Cheyanne whispered. "Tell me I'm better than Allison." "You are," Finn gasped. "God, you are." When Allison confronted her family with the video, she expected justice. Instead, her uncle and mother fiercely defended the cheaters. They blamed Allison's "cold and frigid" nature for pushing Finn away, victim-blaming her in front of the entire household staff. To protect their corporate alliance, her uncle ruthlessly announced that the engagement would be transferred to Cheyanne, and threatened to strip Allison of her inheritance. Stripped of her fiancé, her family, and her dignity, Allison realized her pristine twenty-year life was a complete lie. The people who were supposed to love her were actively protecting her abusers, leaving her utterly isolated and burning with a cold, protective rage. Refusing to be their victim, Allison targeted Finn's ruthless, billionaire uncle, Adam Kensington, proposing a fake marriage to secure the capital needed to crush her family. But when the notoriously untouchable Wall Street phantom not only accepted her proposal, but demanded she immediately move into his penthouse to raise his secret daughter, Allison realized she had just sold her soul to the devil.

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?"

For seven years, I played the perfect, hidden wife to billionaire August Chambers while working quietly as an ER nurse. Three days before our marriage contract expired, he stormed into my emergency room carrying a bleeding woman. It was Allena, his cousin's fiancée. She had suffered a ruptured corpus luteum from their violent, aggressive sex. Instead of hiding his affair, August ordered me to clear the floor and threw a massive check at my face to buy my silence. Later, his friends trapped me in a VIP club. When a waiter tripped, August violently shoved me aside just to protect Allena from a spilled cup of coffee. I crashed into a glass table, a sharp edge slicing deep into my arm. "Apologize to her, and I'll have my driver take you to the hospital." As my blood soaked into the white rug, he stood over me, demanding I get on my knees for his mistress. He didn't know I had faked a miscarriage five years ago to secretly raise our daughter far away from his cruelty. He also didn't know the money he flaunted was pocket change compared to my hidden AI tech empire. I calmly tied a tourniquet around my bleeding arm with my teeth and wiped my blood directly over his heart onto his custom suit. "I'm done with you." The submissive nurse was dead, and it was time to let him burn in the ruins of his own lies.

Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire. I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper. I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he'd dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family's land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock. I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim. "If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned. So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell-the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months. Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I've suspended Hugh's executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I'm just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout. But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back.

For three years, Allison poured herself into marriage, caring for Henry and their home while he gave her nothing but silence. When his first love returned, he handed her divorce papers and cast her aside. Heartbroken, Allison walked away and reclaimed the brilliant life she had buried-becoming a famed jewelry designer, restoration master, and mysterious healer. Only then did everyone learn Henry's unwanted wife was a hidden genius. Late one night, he called, begging for another chance. Before she could answer, a male voice spoke. "Allison, who's that?" Allison answered aloofly, "Just a scammer."

After six years together, Joslyn was abandoned before her wedding when her boyfriend chose his first love over her. Then came an unexpected proposal-from Connor, her ex-boyfriend's adoptive father. "Marry me. You'll get everything you want-and you can get back at him." The deal came with its perks: a lavish monthly allowance, abundant resources at her fingertips, a husband who was practically never home, and the sheer pleasure of rubbing her new status in her ex-boyfriend's face. But the distant husband she expected turned possessive instead. While her ex begged publicly for another chance, Connor pulled her into his arms. "Say that again, and you'll be out of the family forever." Only later did Joslyn discover the truth-Connor had spent six years planning to make her his. Believing it was only a beneficial deal, Joslyn agreed. Constant traveling? A complete lie. And the promise that they'd each live their own lives? Another carefully spun deception. On their wedding night, he had her pinned beneath him, his kisses stealing her breath. And night after night, he kept coming home-utterly fixated on her.

Imagine this. Your husband carries another woman out of a burning building. He doesn't recognize you. You're just the doctor. You're nobody. Same night, you find out you're not nobody. You're a secret billionaire heiress. Your real family has been searching for you for twenty-five years. You sign the divorce papers. He thinks you'll come back. One week later, you show up to the biggest gala of the year. White dress. Diamond earrings. On the arm of a man richer, hotter, and ten times more powerful than your ex. Your ex-husband's face when he sees you? Priceless. His mistress's face when she gets escorted out by security? Even better. And the new man? He's been waiting for you his entire life. He doesn't play games. He doesn't have a mistress. He just looks at you like you're the only woman in the room. This is not a love story about a girl waiting for a boy to choose her. This is a love story about a girl who chose herself. And then got everything she ever deserved.

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!"

Isabel returned to her penthouse after a grueling seventeen-hour flight, only to be greeted by the cloying scent of another woman's perfume. Her husband of three years, Darius, sat waiting with divorce papers. He wanted to marry his mistress, Dove, and offered Isabel a measly one million dollars, treating her like a greedy charity case from the Rust Belt who should just take the payout and vanish. But Isabel didn't want his pity. She demanded the four percent equity stake in his family's company that she rightfully owned—a stake worth 1.5 billion dollars. When she revealed this, the wealthy family turned vicious. They refused to acknowledge that she had secretly saved their empire from bankruptcy years ago. Instead, Darius and Dove orchestrated a brutal public execution. They ambushed her at a top law firm, spreading malicious lies that her investment money was stolen from a Ponzi scheme. They even hired a fake victim to scream at her in the lobby, successfully terrifying Isabel's lawyer into dropping her case on the spot. She had quietly rescued their entire legacy, yet they were willing to frame her as a criminal and destroy her life just to keep her rightful billions. As Darius and his mistress gloated over her absolute ruin, the most ruthless and feared lawyer in New York suddenly stepped in front of Isabel, his voice cutting through the dead silence. "Your case, I'll take it."