Gavin
3286 Published Stories
Gavin's Books and Stories
When Love Turns to Ash
Short stories My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend.
From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down."
That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny.
But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded.
I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said."
Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off."
My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers.
I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal.
Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing.
As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury.
In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho."
How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me?
Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault?
Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred?
I would not be his victim.
Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done.
I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties.
This was not an escape; this was my rebirth.
Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises. The Billionaire Who Lost His Sun
Short stories I was arranging lilies for my engagement party when the hospital called. A dog bite, they said.
My fiancé, Salvatore Moretti, was supposed to be in Chicago on business. But he answered my frantic call from a ski slope in Aspen, with the sound of my best friend, Sofia, laughing in the background.
He told me not to worry, that my mother’s injury was just a scratch. But when I got to the hospital, I learned it was Sofia’s unvaccinated Doberman that had attacked my diabetic mother. I texted Sal that her kidneys were failing, that they might have to amputate.
His only reply: “Sofia is hysterical. She feels terrible. Calm her down for me, okay?”
Hours later, Sofia posted a photo of Sal kissing her on a ski lift. The next call I got was from the doctor, telling me my mother’s heart had stopped.
She died alone, while the man who swore to protect me was on a romantic vacation with the woman whose dog killed her. The rage inside me wasn't hot; it turned into a block of ice.
I didn't drive back to the penthouse he gave me. I went to my mother’s empty house and made a call I hadn't made in fifteen years. To my estranged father, a man whose name was a ghost story in Salvatore’s world: Don Matteo Costello.
“I’m coming home,” I told him.
My vendetta wouldn’t be one of blood. It would be one of erasure. I would dismantle my life here and disappear so completely, it would be as if I had never existed. When Love Rebuilds From Frozen Hearts
Short stories On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news.
He was shielding another woman—his ruthless business partner—from a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city.
The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: “Something came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.”
For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets.
My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me.
So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts.
He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line I’d marked.
He didn’t know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree.
He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies. From Abandoned Wife To Powerful Heiress
Short stories My marriage ended at a charity gala I organized. One moment, I was the pregnant, happy wife of tech mogul Gabe Sullivan; the next, a reporter' s phone screen announced to the world that he and his childhood sweetheart, Harper, were expecting a child.
Across the room, I saw them together, his hand resting on her stomach. This wasn't just an affair; it was a public declaration that erased me and our unborn baby.
To protect his company's billion-dollar IPO, Gabe, his mother, and even my own adoptive parents conspired against me. They moved Harper into our home, into my bed, treating her like royalty while I became a prisoner.
They painted me as unstable, a threat to the family's image. They accused me of cheating and claimed my child wasn't his.
The final command was unthinkable: terminate my pregnancy. They locked me in a room and scheduled the procedure, promising to drag me there if I refused.
But they made a mistake. They gave me back my phone to keep me quiet. Feigning surrender, I made one last, desperate call to a number I had kept hidden for years-a number belonging to my biological father, Antony Dean, the head of a family so powerful, they could make my husband's world burn. Rejected By My Alpha, Claimed By My Crown
Short stories My mate, Alpha Damien, was holding a sacred naming ceremony for his heir.
The only problem? He was celebrating a pup he had with Lyra, a rogue he brought into our pack. And I, his true mate, four months pregnant with his actual heir, was the only one not invited.
When I confronted her, she clawed her own arm, drew blood, and screamed that I had attacked her.
Damien saw her performance and didn't even look at me. He snarled, using his Alpha's Command to force me to leave, the power of our bond twisted into a weapon against me.
Later, she attacked me for real, making me fall. As blood bloomed on my dress, threatening our child's life, she tossed her own pup onto a rug and screamed that I had tried to kill him.
Damien burst in, saw me bleeding on the floor, and didn't hesitate. He scooped Lyra's screaming pup into his arms and sprinted away to find a healer, leaving me and his true heir to die.
But as I lay there, my mother's voice echoed in my mind through our own link. My family's escort was waiting for me just beyond the territory border.
He was about to find out that the Omega he threw away was actually the princess of the most powerful pack in the world. Reborn Bride, No Longer Your Victim
Romance On the eve of my wedding, a photo of my fiancé with an intern sent me fleeing to Paris.
But when the plane landed, five years had passed.
My parents were dead, killed in a car crash while searching for me. My fiancé, Clayton, was now married to that same intern. She was pregnant and living in our home.
He treated me like a deranged stranger, and when she faked a fall down the stairs, he blamed me. He locked me in a dark panic room-my greatest fear-to punish me.
There, in the suffocating darkness, I lost our baby.
He thought I was just acting for attention.
But a return ticket brought me back. I've woken up on my wedding day. My parents are alive. This time, I'm not running. Ten Years a Ward
Modern For ten years, I secretly loved my guardian, Ethan Hayes. After my family fell apart, he took me in and raised me. He was my entire world.
On my eighteenth birthday, I gathered all my courage to confess my love to him.
But his reaction was a fury I had never seen before. He swept my birthday cake to the floor and roared, "Are you insane? I am your GUARDIAN!"
He then mercilessly tore the painting I had spent a year on-my confession-to shreds.
Just days later, he brought home his fiancée, Chloe.
The man who had promised to wait for me to grow up, who called me his brightest star, had vanished. My decade of desperate, burning love had only managed to burn myself.
The person who was supposed to protect me had become the one who hurt me the most.
I looked down at the NYU acceptance letter in my hand. I had to leave. I had to pull him out of my heart, no matter how much it hurt.
I picked up the phone and dialed my father's number.
"Dad," I said, my voice hoarse, "I've decided. I want to come be with you in New York." Too Late, My Mafia Heir Ex
Short stories My fiancé of seven years, the heir to a mafia dynasty, claimed amnesia three weeks before our wedding, forgetting only me. Then I overheard him laughing on a video call, calling it the perfect "hall pass" to sleep with an influencer before he was tied down.
He flaunted his affair, abandoned me with a broken arm after a staged car crash to save her from a scratch, and planned to leave me homeless. He called me his "property," a doll he could play with and put back on the shelf when he was done.
He thought I’d be waiting for his "miraculous recovery." Instead, I disappeared, leaving behind his ring and a simple note: "I remember everything. Me too." Five Years' Love, Shattered by a Call
Romance My wedding to Ethan, the man I’d loved for five years, was weeks away.
Everything was set for our future, a beautifully planned life together.
Then the call came: Ethan’s high school sweetheart, Chloe, was found with severe amnesia, still believing she was his girlfriend.
Ethan postponed our wedding, asked me to pretend to be his brother Liam’s girlfriend, insisting it was "for Chloe’s sake."
I endured quiet agony watching him relive their past, his every loving gesture now for her.
Chloe’s Instagram became a public shrine to their "rekindled" love, #TrueLove emblazoned everywhere.
I even found a groundbreaking clinic for Chloe, hoping for an end, but Ethan brushed it off.
Then, I overheard him: I was just a "placeholder," a "good sport" who would wait, because I had "nowhere else to go."
Five years of my life, my love, my loyalty, reduced to a disposable convenience.
The cold, calculated betrayal punched the air from my lungs.
He thought I was trapped, that he could use me at will, then return to me, expecting gratitude.
Numb, I stumbled.
And then, I met Liam, Ethan’s quiet brother.
"I need to get married, Liam. To someone. Soon." The words escaped me.
Liam, who had watched silently, responded: "What if I said I'd marry you, Ava? For real."
A dangerous, desperate plan ignited within me, fueled by pain and a fierce desire for reckoning.
"Alright, Liam," I declared, a new resolve hardening my voice.
"But I have conditions: Ethan must be your Best Man, and he must give me away at the altar."
The charade was about to begin, but now, it was on my terms.
And Ethan had no idea the bride was truly me. The Price Of A Mafia Queen
Short stories My marriage to Marco Ricci was a contract signed in blood, a promise to unite the two most powerful families on the East Coast. He was my future, the king chosen to rule beside me. Everyone said our union was destiny.
But he came home smelling of cheap perfume and another woman's lies. It was the scent of Angelia, the fragile orphan his family had taken in, the girl he swore he protected like a sister.
I followed him to a private club. From the shadows, I watched him pull her into his arms and give her a hungry, desperate kiss—a kiss he had never given me. In that instant, my entire future shattered.
I finally understood the whispers from his men that I was just a political prize, while Angelia was their true queen. He wanted my empire, but his heart belonged to her.
I would not be a consolation prize. I would not be second to anyone.
I walked straight into my father's study, my voice as cold as ice. "I'm calling off the wedding."
When he protested, I delivered the final blow. "I will uphold our family's need for an alliance. I will marry Don Dante Valentino."
My father's whiskey glass shattered on the floor. Dante Valentino was our greatest rival. A Wife's Bitter Reckoning
Short stories My husband, Bennett, and I were New York's golden couple. But our perfect marriage was a lie, childless because of a rare genetic condition he claimed would kill any woman who carried his baby. When his dying father demanded an heir, Bennett proposed a solution: a surrogate.
The woman he chose, Aria, was a younger, more vibrant version of me. Suddenly, Bennett was always busy, supporting her through "difficult IVF cycles." He missed my birthday. He forgot our anniversary.
I tried to believe him, until I overheard him at a party. He confessed to his friends that his love for me was a "deep connection," but with Aria, it was "fire" and "exhilarating."
He was planning a secret wedding with her in Lake Como, at the same villa he'd promised me for our anniversary.
He was giving her a wedding, a family, a life—all the things he denied me, using a lie about a deadly genetic condition as his excuse. The betrayal was so complete it felt like a physical shock.
When he came home that night, lying about a business trip, I smiled and played the part of the loving wife.
He didn't know I'd heard everything.
He didn't know that while he was planning his new life, I was already planning my escape.
And he certainly didn't know I had just made a call to a service that specialized in one thing: making people disappear. The Fiancé Who Left Her To Die
Short stories The first sign I was going to die wasn't the blizzard. It wasn't the bone-deep cold. It was the look in my fiancé's eyes when he told me he had given my life's work-our only guarantee of survival-to another woman.
"Kelsi was freezing," he said, as if I were being unreasonable. "You're the expert, you can handle it."
He then took my satellite phone, shoved me into a hastily dug snow pit, and left me to die.
His new girlfriend, Kelsi, appeared, wrapped snugly in my shimmering smart blanket. She smiled as she used my own ice axe to slash my suit, my last layer of protection against the storm.
"Stop being so dramatic," he told me, his voice full of contempt as I lay there freezing to death.
They thought they had taken everything. They thought they had won.
But they didn't know about the secret emergency beacon I had stitched into my sleeve. And with my last ounce of strength, I activated it. His Betrayal Created A Ruthless Queen
Short stories My marriage ended the way the world found out about it: on a police report that landed on my desk. I was a prosecutor who had moved back to San Francisco to save my political marriage to tech billionaire Hilton Austin.
When I confronted him at the hotel, I found my husband on one knee, not proposing, but tenderly tying his influencer mistress' s shoe.
That night, he abandoned me on a dark highway to rush to her side, causing me to miscarry the child I was secretly carrying. At the hospital, he publicly accused me of faking the pregnancy, slapped me, and then cut my arm with a piece of broken glass.
"Now you have a reason to be in the hospital," he said coldly.
The love I' d held for him since I was sixteen didn't just fade; it was murdered. He thought he had broken me, but he only created a monster.
I used my family's power to have him thrown in jail. When he begged for a second chance, I brought in my childhood friend, Adrien, and delivered the final, killing blow.
"The baby wasn't yours," I said, my voice like ice. "It was his." Jilted Pet Becomes The Mafia Queen
Short stories When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god.
Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires.
He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family.
In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet.
Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it.
That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed.
I finally understood the promise he’d made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property.
After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash.
So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good.
A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father—his greatest enemy. The Price of Unrequited Love
Short stories Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley.
Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him.
That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!"
He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law."
Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart. 
/0/81266/coverorgin.jpg?v=0db1c7c8f8a19b04bdc562ca1e003e13&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94873/coverorgin.jpg?v=4ee80d911a851dfb90e212acdfc8af73&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94876/coverorgin.jpg?v=9dd15a1002316ad769fda54b1bb8898f&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/93904/coverorgin.jpg?v=912253abbf3ed9e53768007339eb0705&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/92828/coverorgin.jpg?v=fcd11dfd4345ea38069f3c1f273fec02&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/92001/coverorgin.jpg?v=f4967ec64b7201693bd0990b07125220&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/95794/coverorgin.jpg?v=8a952bf6711490578aa36d2fbbf60cb0&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/89295/coverorgin.jpg?v=f22582a4dd9eec7eecff56829622d2c6&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94136/coverorgin.jpg?v=aebf964c9faf1dc65f912ec7461c3ee9&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94138/coverorgin.jpg?v=5ffc4e8e360db86ce79026010e779025&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/79651/coverorgin.jpg?v=dfb3c066c2ce7b94aaf333b9fc0a03c0&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94298/coverorgin.jpg?v=d51bcbfb8e028d9b17ef82095ae5dced&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94878/coverorgin.jpg?v=86da8d2aefbb0d347e480b658e1ab083&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/95792/coverorgin.jpg?v=c96147618713fd53d3b50ae6f8dd9ac1&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/88510/coverorgin.jpg?v=7dd35ae32e267d9bda47a200bc473e45&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/95790/coverorgin.jpg?v=4cf463af2cb6c2057c7363c0b9403663&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/95791/coverorgin.jpg?v=906e3bdbba629b4409b3290a8f767ee1&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94137/coverorgin.jpg?v=cc40c24a0f1d89b5a4b1e363530e2296&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/87315/coverorgin.jpg?v=1c760290d9f514a53e27ef5624154c3d&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/94304/coverorgin.jpg?v=159dd60dcaadbcb9f23d9534ae7c16d2&imageMogr2/format/webp)