Thorne's Penance, Elara's Triumph

For eighteen years, the Sterling mansion was my world, given to me by Mr. Sterling, who treated me like his own. Olivia, his daughter, was the secret burning at its core-my childhood sweetheart, my hidden passion. On my 21st birthday, she made me believe she felt the same, pulling me into a clandestine affair that consumed me. I craved a real future with her, so I knelt, ring in hand, asking her to be my wife. Her warmth vanished instantly, replaced by a cutting dismissal that shattered my heart and my hopes. "Liam, don't be ridiculous," she sneered, leaving me on the floor. Days later, a horrifying discovery confirmed my worst fears: Olivia wasn't my lover, but a calculated betrayer. She' d been feeding my architectural designs and analyses to Ethan Cole, my rival, to guarantee his win in the Sterling Architectural Grant competition. Her message echoed in my mind, "Liam is talented, but he's naive. This will guarantee your win. He'll never suspect a thing." How could the woman I loved betray me so completely, using my deepest vulnerability against me? Was our intimacy just a performance, every touch a lie designed to exploit my talent? The thought was a poisoned blade twisting in my gut. Consumed by a pain that transcended heartbreak, I made a choice: I would vanish, severing every tie to my past and the Sterling family. But before I could truly escape, Olivia delivered one final, devastating blow, publicly branding me an obsessive stalker. In that moment of utter destruction, a cold resolve settled in: I wouldn't just leave; I would erase myself from their lives and rebuild in a place where I was truly free.

The promotion letter for the head of the German division lay heavy in my hand. It was the job I' d always wanted, the future I' d painstakingly built, but I' d turned it down a year ago. "Don' t go, Ethan," Olivia had pleaded, her eyes filled with tears. "I need you here." So, I stayed, sacrificing my career, taking a lesser role to support her dreams, to be her stable foundation. Tonight was my 25th birthday, a simple steak dinner I' d cooked. The second plate sat empty. Olivia had texted hours ago: "Something came up with my study group. Will be a little late." I scrolled through social media, a habit born of waiting. Then I saw it: Alex Stone, Olivia' s younger colleague, his arm wrapped tightly around her at a loud, crowded bar. They were beaming, heads together, Olivia holding a colorful cocktail, not a textbook. The caption read: "Celebrating with the best." The air left my lungs. It wasn't just the picture; it was the casual intimacy, the audacious lie. A celebration. On my birthday. A sharp, cold feeling spread through my chest, a feeling I had ignored for too long. I remembered every sacrifice: selling my classic car for her tuition, sleepless nights proofreading her papers while she was out with "friends from class," driving hours in a snowstorm to fix her flat tire, only to be chastised for being late. I had given and given, believing that was love, building my world around her. But she was building a separate one without me. The pain was immense, but beneath it, something hard and resolute stirred. I had been patient. I had been loyal. I had been a fool. The unlit candle on the cake, a symbol of a celebration that never happened, haunted me. I didn't light it. I simply leaned forward and blew, extinguishing a flame that was never truly there. The silent puff of air in my mind was a roar. The decision was made, not in anger, but in the desolate quiet of profound disappointment. I was done. I picked up the promotion letter again. This time, it wasn't a sacrifice; it was an escape. I opened my laptop, pulled up my email, and wrote a short, direct message. A new chapter was about to begin, alone.

The icy water stole my breath, a final, burning cold consuming me as I sank into the dark lake. The last thing I saw was my Harvard acceptance letter, a cruel joke on the grass. Yesterday, that letter was everything, the key to saving my brother, Liam. But that was before Noah Vance, the school bully, destroyed my life. It began with his chilling "mind-reading" trick. He cornered me before the exams, his smirk unwavering as he revealed things only I knew, like Liam' s urgent need for a bone marrow transplant and our family' s crushing medical debt. He proposed a bet: if he got into an Ivy League, I' d be his personal assistant for three months. If not, he' d pay for Liam' s surgery. Desperate, I agreed. I aced my exams, and the call from Harvard brought a wave of relief. Then I saw the public scoreboard: my perfect score, and right below it, Noah Vance, with the exact same perfect score. It was impossible. He and his friends dragged me into the shadows. "Looks like I won," he sneered, his face inches from mine. There was no money for Liam; only the bet. They held me down. They broke me. Not just my spirit, but my body. The next days were a blur of pain and shame. I couldn' t tell anyone. Then the hospital called: Liam had a complication, an infection. Without funds, they couldn' t operate. He died two days later, and with him, a piece of me. I walked to the lake, the Harvard letter in hand, feeling nothing but a profound emptiness. How did Noah Vance, a slacker, get a perfect score? The water closed over my head. Then, I opened my eyes. I was in my bed, the sunlight streaming in. My best friend' s text buzzed on my phone: "You ready for the last day of hell before exams?" I was back. Back to the day before the bet, before everything. A cold smile spread across my face. This time, Noah Vance would not succeed.

Our marriage was a battlefield, and the whole city had front-row seats. For five years, Chloe Davis and Mark Stone were New York City' s most famous train wreck, a story of pure animosity that sold magazines and fueled gossip columns. They said we hated each other. They were right. I had married Mark on my twenty-second birthday, a calculated decision, fueled by a decade-long desire for revenge. He was my older brother Liam' s biggest rival, a man who represented everything my family stood against. But he had Ethan' s eyes. That was enough for me back then. On our wedding night, instead of consummating our marriage, I set the penthouse on fire. That set the tone for the next five years. I paraded college students to charity auctions, smashed priceless vases, and weaponized his own humiliating betrayal against him in front of his board. Each calculated move, each public spectacle, was designed for one purpose: to push Mark Stone to his breaking point, to make him the one to initiate our divorce and set me free. And it worked. He finally served me the papers, citing his new love, Bella, as the reason. But then, the carefully constructed walls between us crumbled into something raw and ugly. In the heat of our final, desperate clash, he gasped out a name. "Bella." A sharp, searing pain shot through me, and my first instinct was to hurt him back. I bit down hard on his shoulder, tasting blood. He recoiled, his eyes wide with shock, then narrowed with fury. He left, leaving me crumpled on the floor, the pain in my abdomen intensifying. My vision blurred. "Mark," I choked out, "Something's wrong." He walked out, closing the door behind him, leaving me alone on the cold floor, convinced it was just another trick. In the sterile white of the hospital room, the truth was delivered with clinical detachment: severe internal bruising and a hairline fracture on my lower rib. These were not self-inflicted wounds; they were the physical toll of five years of "intimacy." But the real blow came, not from him, but from Bella. She orchestrated a fall in the stairwell, falsely accusing me of pushing her. Mark, blinded by her cunning, believed every word, unleashing a torrent of my past sins against me, shattering any remaining dignity. "You're just like you always do," he spat, his grip like a vise on my hair. "You set fire to our apartment. You trashed a charity event. You think I'd believe a single word that comes out of your mouth?" His face, once so familiar, was now a stranger's-blinded by a pretty face and a well-told lie. He saw Ethan's face in her, the same way I once saw it in him. The realization was so absurd it was almost funny. I had built my own cage. And now, I was trapped, exiled to a desolate seaside villa, no phone, no internet, no contact with the outside world. A punishment. A banishment. But Mark had no idea that his prison was actually my path to liberation. He thought he was breaking me. He had no idea I was just getting started.

My family' s crimes finally caught up to us. To save them, I had no choice but to "sell" myself to Sarah Jenkins, my ex. She was the daughter of my family' s biggest victim, and she made me her personal assistant, a pawn in a game of twisted revenge. For three years, her luxurious penthouse became my cage. I endured unimaginable physical and psychological torture, from electric shocks and beatings to being forced to sleep on the floor and eat scraps. When her new husband, Mark Peterson, joined in, things worsened. He carved the word "CRIMINAL" into my arm, turning me into a branded animal. Consumed by despair, I plotted to crash a private jet with them onboard, but Sarah's desperate cry to protect Mark, the man who aided in my torment, made me hesitate. Their twisted dependency baffled me; why would she protect him after all he' d done? Then, Mark found the ashes of my parents, which I had secretly saved, and began to mix them with mud, planning to use them as shark bait. My last shred of dignity shattered. I pleaded with Sarah, reminding her of her promise to leave their remains untouched, but she coldly dismissed it. As she watched, I scooped the filthy ash into my mouth, choosing to become their grave. I was broken, bleeding, and ready to die. But my desperate act triggered a response in her I hadn't seen. She pushed Mark away, protecting me in her own brutal way, just before I pulled her into the ocean with me. In the cold depths, surrounded by sharks, I found myself fighting to save the woman who had systematically destroyed me. It still bewilders me why a love so broken, so entwined with hatred, could force such a sacrifice. My death was inevitable, but it brought me a strange peace. Little did I know, Sarah had meticulously planned every cruel act, using me to destroy Mark. Yet, in her twisted revenge, she blurred the lines between love and hate so completely that my sacrifice somehow became her ultimate redemption. My story has ended, but hers has just truly begun.

It was my son Ethan' s fifth birthday, a day meant for celebration. His small hand clutched mine, his eyes wide with the innocent wish to visit the city aquarium. But then, my husband David, a man as imposing as the military jacket he wore, declared his plans had changed, dismissing our son' s hopes with chilling indifference. "The aquarium is for common people." he sneered, his true priority a mistress, Lisa Johnson, and their sordid affair. When I begged for just a few hours, David' s face hardened into a mask of cruel indifference. Ethan, sensing the tension, began to cry softly. "Crying? Over something so trivial?" he scoffed, before scooping Ethan into his arms. My son' s cries turned to shrieks as David strode towards our private lake. "I' m teaching him a lesson," he calmly stated. Before I could react, he tossed our five-year-old son into the dark, cold water. The splash was horribly loud, and Ethan' s small body disappeared, then reappeared, flailing, gasping for air. David stood motionless, watching him drown, "If he' s my son, he' ll survive." I screamed, fighting to reach Ethan, but David' s steel grip held me back, forcing me to watch as my son' s struggles grew weaker, his head bobbing, his small hands slapping the water with less and less force. His eyes, wide with terror, locked on me, a desperate, silent plea. Then his head went under. It didn' t come back up. "He failed," David stated, as I collapsed onto the ground, my life shattered. I returned home to find Ethan' s room being dismantled, his world erased, replaced by a nursery for Lisa' s unborn child. They stood there, smiling, planning their future on the ashes of my son' s life. "Ethan doesn' t need a room anymore, Sarah," David said, his voice laced with that same chilling indifference. "He' s dead!" I shrieked, "You killed him!" His response was a dismissive sigh, and Lisa, cunningly feigning distress for her baby, manipulated David into striking me. His slap echoed in the empty room, stinging my cheek, and in that horrifying moment, I saw the monster he truly was. This wasn' t just indifference; it was pure evil. With his father' s help, I held a small memorial for Ethan, a vigil that David and Lisa callously ignored, even sharing a triumphant kiss in front of our son' s symbolic casket. My heart turned to ice. Then David, in a fit of rage, smashed Ethan' s last photograph and burned his beloved teddy bear, extinguishing the last tangible pieces of my son, and with them, any lingering attachment I had to him. Later, I discovered David was sterile, meaning Lisa' s baby wasn' t his. This wasn' t just betrayal; it was a calculated scheme. Clutching the charred remains of Ethan' s teddy bear' s eye, a searing physical anchor to my unimaginable loss, I walked out of that house and that life with a quiet, resolute dignity. I was done.

She spent ten years chasing after the right brother, only to fall for the wrong one in one weekend. ~~~ Sloane Mercer has been hopelessly in love with her best friend, Finn Hartley, since college. For ten long years, she's stood by him, stitching him back together every time Delilah Crestfield-his toxic on-and-off girlfriend-shattered his heart. But when Delilah gets engaged to another man, Sloane thinks this might finally be her chance to have Finn for herself. She couldn't be more wrong. Heartbroken and desperate, Finn decides to crash Delilah's wedding and fight for her one last time. And he wants Sloane by his side. Reluctantly, Sloane follows him to Asheville, hoping that being close to Finn will somehow make him see her the way she's always seen him. Everything changes when she meets Knox Hartley, Finn's older brother-a man who couldn't be more different from Finn. He's dangerously magnetic. Knox sees right through Sloane and makes it his mission to pull her into his world. What starts as a game-a twisted bet between them-soon turns into something deeper. Sloane is trapped between two brothers: one who's always broken her heart and another who seems hell-bent on claiming it... no matter the cost. CONTENT WARNING: This story is strongly 18+. It delves into dark romance themes such as obsession and lust with morally complex characters. While this is a love story, reader discretion is advised.  

On the day of their wedding anniversary, Joshua's mistress drugged Alicia, and she ended up in a stranger's bed. In one night, Alicia lost her innocence, while Joshua's mistress carried his child in her womb. Heartbroken and humiliated, Alicia demanded a divorce, but Joshua saw it as yet another tantrum. When they finally parted ways, she went on to become a renowned artist, sought out and admired by everyone. Consumed by regret, Joshua darkened her doorstep in hopes of reconciliation, only to find her in the arms of a powerful tycoon. "Say hello to your sister-in-law."

Rejected by her mate, who had been her long-time crush, Jasmine felt utterly humiliated. Seeking solace, she headed to a party to drown her sorrows. But things took a turn for the worse when her friends issued a cruel dare: kiss a stranger or beg her mate for forgiveness. With no other choice, Jasmine approached a stranger and kissed him, thinking that would be the end of it. However, the stranger unexpectedly wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered in her ear, "You're mine!" He growled, his words sending shivers down her spine. And then, he offered her a solution that would change everything...

"Tell me, my sweet Mila, do you want me to stop?" "No!" I gasp. "Good, because no matter what, no matter who walks in, I won't," He promised. Killian Knight was many things, dangerous, a certified killer, devastatingly handsome, my father's business partner and married. He was not just off limits, he was forbidden, he was a sin and I was tempted enough to risk the hell fire. He was everything that could ruin me and my body, my mind and my soul; everything was ready for it. Mila Anderson's life takes an unexpected turn when she succumbs to the magnetic allure of her father's enigmatic and dangerous mafia associate. What she doesn't know is that Killian Knight has the power to unravel everything she's carefully built. One secret revealed could bring it all crashing down. For Killian, one night with Mila changes everything. She's everything he desires, yet she comes with her own web of secrets-and he's determined to uncover every single one.

Rosalynn's marriage to Brian wasn't what she envisioned it to be. Her husband, Brian, barely came home. He avoided her like a plague. Worse still, he was always in the news for dating numerous celebrities. Rosalynn persevered until she couldn't take it anymore. She upped and left after filing for a divorce. Everything changed days later. Brian took interest in a designer that worked for his company anonymously. From her profile, he could tell that she was brilliant and dazzling. He pulled the stops to find out her true identity. Little did he know that he was going to receive the greatest shocker of his life. Brian bit his finger with regret when he recalled his past actions and the woman he foolishly let go.

To the public, she was the CEO's executive secretary. Behind closed doors, she was the wife he never officially acknowledged. Jenessa was elated when she learned that she was pregnant. But that joy was replaced with dread as her husband, Ryan, showered his affections on his first love. With a heavy heart, she chose to set him free and leave. When they met again, Ryan's attention was caught by Jenessa's protruding belly. "Whose child are you carrying?!" he demanded. But she only scoffed. "It's none of your business, my dear ex-husband!"