The Edge
10 Published Stories
The Edge's Books and Stories
Regret Cheaper Than Dust
Modern Everyone in Seavelt knew that Dr. Ethan Caldwell, the city's top gynecologist, never got close to women.
No matter how many youthful figures stood before him, he never so much as glanced their way.
I always thought I was different, even after ten years together, when he wouldn't let me touch him.
If my fingertips accidentally brushed his sleeve, he'd snap, "Don't touch me."
After another failed attempt to climb into his bed, he sent ten men to sleep with me.
Afterward, when I cried and lashed out at him, he said flatly, "I can't let you live like a nun forever."
The eleventh time he arranged for someone to pin me to the bed, I lost it and swallowed two hundred sleeping pills.
When I woke up, Ethan, for the first time ever, allowed me to touch him.
I thought I could slowly win him over. But the next day, at his private villa, I caught him holding another woman in his arms.
He kissed the top of her head, his eyes burning with a passion I'd never seen.
When I confronted him, Ethan looked at me coldly. "Clara's not like you. She doesn't have those filthy thoughts or try to seduce men."
I bit my lip until I tasted blood. "Fine, Ethan. Let's break up." The Mute Bride's Secret Billionaire Contract
Billionaires I woke up with a throbbing pressure behind my eyes and the taste of metallic champagne in my throat. Instead of my cramped apartment, I was draped in expensive silk under a ceiling the color of a storm cloud.
A pear-shaped black diamond sat heavy on my finger, and a document on the nightstand confirmed my worst fear. I was married to Arnulfo Bond, the shipping magnate whose previous eight fiancées had all vanished or died in "accidents."
My sister, Verity, had drugged me at the Met Gala and sold me to cover our father’s fifty-million-dollar debt.
"You do this, or I pull the plug on Aunt Meredith," she warned me over a burner phone.
Arnulfo didn’t look at me with lust; he looked at me like an auditor checking a spreadsheet for defects. He sealed the estate with titanium shutters, turning the mansion into a high-tech fortress. When a doctor saw the whip scars and cigarette burns on my back—reminders of the childhood abuse Verity never faced—Arnulfo realized I wasn't the pampered socialite he’d bought.
I was a line item, a transaction, a mute girl trapped between a husband who treated me like property and a family that wanted me dead. I didn't understand how my own sister could be so heartless, or why Arnulfo was suddenly looking at my broken skin with a terrifying, possessive interest.
But they all made a fatal mistake. They thought I was just a helpless victim. They didn't know I was "The Ghost," a forensic accountant for the SEC who lived on the dark web.
As Arnulfo walked away, I opened a hidden terminal on my phone. I wasn't running anymore; I was infiltrating. I was going to find every cent of his blood money and use it to buy my freedom. The Master Of Deception's Richest Game
Modern I spent three years playing the perfect "placeholder" boyfriend for a billionaire’s rebellious daughter. I was the safety net, the companion, and the professional distraction paid to keep her out of trouble until she reached her "real" future.
But the moment she turned twenty-one, her father slid a fifty-thousand-dollar check across a polished mahogany desk and told me I was a defective appliance being disposed of. He demanded I sign a non-disclosure agreement and disappear forever, treating my years of service like a common trash pickup.
I walked out of the estate with a face full of tragic longing, making sure the security cameras caught my wet eyes. But the second the iron gates slammed shut, I wiped my face and opened "Proxy," a high-end app for the 1% who need hired bodies for their dirty emotional work. I didn't have the luxury of a broken heart; I had a foster home to roof and dialysis bills to pay.
My next gig was a "hazard pay" nightmare with Antoinette Lowe, a cold-blooded professor who used me as a vessel for her grief. One hour I was wearing a five-thousand-dollar tuxedo while she hurled porcelain vases at my head, screaming about the man who left her at the altar. The next, she had me in a French maid outfit, scrubbing her kitchen floors on my hands and knees while she mocked my dignity.
I became her ghost, her servant, and her scripted lover, whispering "you are breathtaking" for a five-hundred-dollar bonus while a silent timer vibrated on my wrist. I lived my life in fragments: a silent audience for a violent cellist by night, and a commanding voice on a headset for a girl who couldn't sleep. I was everyone’s everything, yet I was becoming a man with no face of my own.
I realized then that these people didn't want a human; they wanted a mirror that didn't bleed. Antoinette started believing the lies I sold her, convinced she was my muse instead of my paycheck. She didn't see the calculation in my eyes or the way I analyzed her every weakness just to stay in character.
"I am whatever you need me to be, Ms. Lowe," I told her, my voice a perfect mask of devotion.
The obsession is growing, the roles are bleeding together, and the danger is peaking. But as long as the deposit clears, I’ll keep playing the game until there’s nothing left of me to sell. A Mother's Strength, A Wife's Fall
Romance The first thing I noticed was the ultrasound picture on my kitchen island, a grainy image signaling a future I never saw coming.
My husband, David, looked pale, and beside him, his intern, Lily, barely legal and with a hand protectively over her flat stomach, smiled triumphantly.
"I' m pregnant," Lily announced, "It' s David' s." The words shattered 15 years of my life.
David, the man I' d sacrificed everything for, couldn' t meet my eyes. He mumbled about it "just happening."
Then my fifteen-year-old adopted son, Alex, walked past me and handed Lily a glass of water, telling her, "You should sit down."
He looked at me, his young face hard. "Mom, just listen. Dad made a mistake. Lily is scared. We need to be adults about this."
The shock was a physical blow. Not just my husband, but my son, my Alex, was against me.
Lily, seeing her advantage, spoke with false sincerity. "Sarah, I don' t want to break up your family. We can make this work. I can live here. You can help me with the baby."
The audacity left me breathless. She wanted me to raise my husband' s illegitimate child in my home.
My perfectly curated world dissolved into chaos. David, Lily, and Alex stood there, a new family, and I was the inconvenient, old piece.
A profound cold dread spread through me. This wasn' t a crack; it was a demolition.
Seven years ago, I had taken the fall for David' s career-ending mistake, losing my architectural license and, due to the stress, an ectopic pregnancy that left me unable to have children naturally. David had promised, "You are all the family I will ever need."
Now, he fawned over Lily. My sacrifices, my body, my love-none of it was enough.
Alex admitted he' d been covering for David and Lily for months, helping them meet.
"Maybe if you were a better wife, none of this would have happened," Alex declared, his eyes full of contempt. "Maybe if you paid more attention to Dad instead of your work, he wouldn't have needed someone else."
That was the final blow. I looked at their united faces. My heart didn' t just break, it turned to dust.
"Get out of my house," I said, my voice dead. "All of you. I want nothing to do with you, or with it."
David was speechless. I calmly opened the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out a manila envelope.
"I want a divorce," I stated, placing the papers on the coffee table. The words were final.
Alex scoffed, "You have nothing without him. Where would you even go?"
David tried to placate me, then offered me the house, asking me not to fight for the rest of the assets-for the baby' s sake. Then came the ultimate insult.
"I think it would be best if you found somewhere else to stay," he said. "Lily' s pregnancy… all this stress isn' t good for her. Or the baby."
He was kicking me out of my own home, the sanctuary I had built, to make room for his mistress.
A bone-deep sadness settled over me. It wasn' t my home anymore; it was a house full of strangers.
"Fine," I whispered. "I' ll be gone by the end of the week." My choice was made. Revenge Wears a Wedding Ring
Modern The sterile scent of antiseptic always brought me back.
It was the smell of my last death – broken and bleeding in a dark alley.
But this time, I wasn\'t dying; I was walking into Senator Maxwell' s garden party, my husband, Professor Ethan Thorne, adjusting his tie beside me.
To the world, he was a rising academic star.
To me, he was my future murderer.
Just hours ago, in a lifetime I' d miraculously escaped, his accomplices left me for dead after his brilliant scheme to have his lover, Holly Summers, "save" the Senator' s granddaughter backfired, permanently disfiguring little Lily Maxwell.
His last words echoed in my mind, "Make sure she doesn' t talk."
I\'d loved him, trusted him with my life, and he' d thrown it all away for power and wealth.
Now, he asked, his smile perfectly crafted but his eyes calculating, "Liv, are you ready? Holly is already in the garden."
He saw his naive wife, the talented musician.
He couldn\'t see the ghost in my eyes, the cold resolve that now fueled me.
He had no idea he was looking at the woman who would orchestrate his ruin.
I had been given a second chance.
Not for love, not for happiness, but for justice.
The game had just been reset, but this time, I was writing the rules. A Wife's Cold Smile of Revenge
Billionaires My life was a monument, built brick by brick on my mother' s legacy, dedicated to a name that meant integrity, quality, and family.
Then, in a sterile hospital room, it all ended.
The man I married, Mark, took everything: my company, my home, my inheritance, and the future of my unborn child.
I had saved him from ruin, pulling him from the wreckage of his own failed ventures, using my funds and company resources to clear his name.
In return, he promised me the world, and like a fool, I believed him.
I invested my expertise, my connections, my family' s capital into him, helping him climb the corporate ladder, all while he climbed on my back.
At my most vulnerable, six months pregnant, he stole my designs and sold them to our biggest rival.
When I confronted him, he stood with Emily, the woman from that rival firm, sneering, "Even if Emily is ruthless, she loves me and would never betray me!"
He twisted the knife, "You\'re just a pawn, Sarah. Bound by our family\'s contract. A tool. If it weren\'t for avenging what your family did to Emily\'s years ago, I wouldn\'t have even bothered with you!"
He unraveled everything, funding Emily\'s projects with my firm\'s assets, selling off my child' s future.
The hatred consumed me, a fire that burned away every last ounce of love.
Then, the world went dark.
I woke up, not in that hospital, but in my own bed, two years earlier.
My stomach was flat, no baby, no pain.
The digital clock showed the exact day Mark first brought Emily home.
I heard his voice downstairs, her laugh.
He knew.
He had come back too.
A cold smile spread across my face.
"Grandfather," I said, my voice clear and steady as I joined them. "Since Mark likes this woman so much, let\'s welcome her into the family."
He had expected tears, not this.
My hatred, reborn, was a razor\'s edge.
He had just welcomed a viper into his home, a corporate raider I knew would drain him dry in less than ten days. The Price of Trust
Romance Ava Reed was at the pinnacle of her career, overseeing the groundbreaking Nexus Tower, a testament to her vision and her late father' s legacy.
Then, the blueprint for her dream project, her future-and her trust-shattered into a million pieces.
Her live-in assistant, Liam Stone, the man who shared her home and her dreams, the man she loved, had betrayed her. He leaked her confidential designs to the cutthroat Sterling Group, their biggest rival.
The city, once her canvas, now twisted into a landscape of public humiliation. Sterling Group retaliated, suing Ava for intellectual property theft, painting her as the villain, and her board members-once her staunchest supporters-began to question her leadership, her judgment, and her very sanity.
How could the man she trusted with everything orchestrate such a devastating attack? Was it all a lie? Every shared laugh, every quiet moment? The betrayal was a physical ache, a wound that ripped not just through her company, but through her soul.
Just when all hope seemed lost, a cryptic call from Liam offered a tantalizing, dangerous possibility: a deeper conspiracy, a mole within her own company, and a chance for her to fight back. Too Late For Their Love: The North Star Shines Bright
Billionaires My biological parents were tech billionaires, yet for me, Sarah Miller, every penny was a battleground. They preached "character" and "tough love," while lavishing everything on Ashley, their "perfect" adopted daughter, who got whatever she wanted.
On SAT day, a torrential storm hit. I desperately needed $50 for an Uber to reach the crucial exam on time. My father, flaunting his self-made fortune, snatched my emergency cash – saved from months of skipping lunch – and sneered, "Spoiled brat! Build character."
I arrived soaking wet and an hour late, my SATs a blur of cold and despair. Then, on a classmate' s phone, I saw it: A live social media feed of my parents hosting a multi-million dollar bash for Ashley. The reason? She'd won a minor school debate.
My mother' s caption gloated, "So proud of our Ashley! #ProudParents #HarrisonLegacy." Millions for Ashley' s 'tests' were fine, but $50 for my future was an exorbitant luxury. Every hope, every scraped-together crumb of affection I'd ever craved, evaporated. Why did they despise their own daughter so much? What had I, their flesh and blood, ever done to earn such icy disdain?
In that moment, something inside me snapped. The desperate girl who clung to their approval died. My local college applications lay torn. My illusions, finally, shattered. And I knew: I was done. Her Crown, Her Vengeance
Billionaires My entire life revolved around Ashworth Creatives, the agency I poured my soul into building, and my fiancé, Ethan.
Tonight was meant to be my crowning achievement, sealing a colossal client deal and my future within the powerful Ashworth family who' d adopted me.
Then, I saw Ethan' s phone.
A text from my manipulative adoptive sister, Chloe: "Heard you' re taking Ava to the gala tonight. Don' t forget our little after-party, just us. ;)"
Beneath it, a damning video: Ethan and Chloe, laughing, intertwined in my private guesthouse.
Chloe was draped in my deceased mother' s diamond necklace, a "gift" from Ethan, according to his text.
My blood ran cold.
They weren't just having an affair; they were plotting to use my marriage to secure my assets, then throw me aside, giving my agency to her.
The Ashworths had groomed me, controlled me, and now, they planned to discard me like trash.
I was a means to their end, and Ethan, their willing, despicable pawn.
The gala-my moment of triumph-threatened to become my public humiliation.
But a cold, unyielding rage ignited inside me, far stronger than any despair.
I wouldn't be their victim; I would dismantle them all, piece by agonizing piece.
My fingers flew across my own phone, dialing a number I' d heard whispered about, for "companions."
"I need an escort," I stated, my voice flat, holding back a torrent of fury.
"Tonight. For the industry gala. For a performance. You need to act like my devoted boyfriend."
My revenge would be calculated, public, and absolute. You might like
Rejected by the Son, I Chose the Don
Rabbit On my wedding day, my father sold me to the Chicago Outfit to pay his debts. I was supposed to marry Alex Moreno, the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. But he couldn't even be bothered to show up.
As I stood alone at the altar, humiliated, my best friend delivered the final blow. Alex hadn't just stood me up; he had run off to California with his mistress.
The whispers in the cathedral turned me into a joke. I was damaged goods, the rejected bride. His family knew the whole time and let me take the public fall, offering me his cousins as pathetic replacements-a brute who hated me or a coward who couldn't protect me.
The humiliation burned away my fear, leaving only cold rage. My life was already over, so I decided to set the whole game on fire myself. The marriage pact only said a Carlson had to marry a Moreno; it never said which one.
With nothing left to lose, I looked past the pathetic boys they offered.
I chose the one man they never expected.
I chose his father, the Don himself.
My Husband's Brother Owns My Secret
Rabbit My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine.
Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family.
To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset.
They both thought I was a broken doll they could control.
I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice.
She sang it, and now her career is over.
Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground. The Enforcer's Jilted Princess
Bone Possolo Tomorrow was my wedding day to Jason Brennan, the heir to a powerful Mafia family.
My family, the Falcones, had even taken in an orphaned girl, Elena, treating her like my own sister.
But in my nightmare of a past life, I choked on my own blood, poisoned by the arsenic Elena slipped into my food every day.
As I lay agonizingly close to death, Jason stood over me with a cold laugh, holding Elena in his arms.
"We just needed the Falcone wealth, Bella. And the docks."
Then came the gunfire. I was forced to watch them slaughter my father and my brother, tearing my family out by the roots.
After my death, Elena even spread vicious rumors that I was a barren spinster, twisting their foul betrayal into a tragic tale of noble sacrifice to completely destroy my legacy.
The metallic tang of my own blood was so real I could still taste the ash.
I didn't understand why the girl my family sheltered for eight years would repay our charity with such venom.
And I understood even less how the man who swore to love me could orchestrate my brutal murder without a shred of hesitation.
Bolting upright in bed, drenched in cold sweat, I realized I had returned to the night before my wedding.
This time, I wouldn't just cancel the engagement. I would hand their treason directly to the Mafia's most terrifying Enforcer, and watch them burn. Betrayed, I Married the Feared Cripple
Hu Minxue Three days after my fiancé publicly dumped me for my stepsister, the Supreme Don issued a command that silenced the entire estate.
I wasn't being cast aside. I was being sold to Damien Russo.
The "Broken Don." A crippled, scarred monster rumored to have murdered his last two wives.
My adoptive mother, Elena, didn't cry for me. She smirked.
To her, I was finally being disposed of.
She was so confident I was walking to my death that she decided to loot my corpse before I even left.
She forged documents to steal my entire inheritance—my biological mother’s trust fund—to pay for my stepsister’s lavish wedding to my ex.
"She won't need money where she's going," my stepsister laughed, wearing a dress bought with my stolen funds.
They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter.
They thought I was too weak, too stupid, and too afraid of the monster to fight back.
But they made a fatal mistake.
With my aunt’s help, I didn't just find the proof of their embezzlement; I found a weapon.
I’m not running from the monster. I’m going to marry him.
And when I hand him the evidence that the Herrera family stole from his bride, he won't be my executioner.
He will be my vengeance. Too Late, Mr. Capo: Your Wife Is Gone
Mo Yufei "Happy Anniversary," my husband said, sliding the separation agreement across the mahogany desk.
It was the eighteenth time in five years I had signed these papers.
Matteo De Luca, the most ruthless Capo in New York, checked his Rolex with cold impatience.
"Sign it, Sera. Bianca is on the ledge again. She needs to see we're over, or she jumps."
Bianca. The ward. The broken bird. The woman whose fragile psyche dictated every moment of my marriage.
I signed my name, and he left me alone on our anniversary to save her. Again.
But saving her wasn't enough.
When Bianca pushed me down a flight of marble stairs in a fit of jealous rage, shattering my spine and leaving me paralyzed, I thought Matteo would finally choose me.
I was wrong.
I woke up in the hospital to find him holding her hand, not mine.
"The security footage has been wiped," he told me, his voice void of emotion. "We cannot have a scandal. You fell, Sera. That is the story."
He erased the truth. He erased my pain.
He protected the woman who crippled me over his own wife.
Two months later, he wheeled me into a gala, playing the doting husband while I sat in the chair that was my prison.
He didn't know I had a burner phone hidden in my velvet dress.
He didn't know that tonight, the obedient wife was going to die on the pavement, and a ghost would rise in her place.
I looked at him one last time and dropped the phone in his lap.
"I hope she's worth it." Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles
Dorine Koestler I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved.
He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again.
"Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports.
For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian.
In return, he treated me like furniture.
He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste.
I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home.
So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco.
I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage.
But I underestimated Dante.
When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat.
He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away. Reborn Heiress: Claimed By The Dark Don
Hen Bu I spent three years hating Damien Castillo, the ruthless mafia Don who kidnapped me from my engagement party and ruined my reputation.
But in the end, it was my perfect fiancé, Julian, and my sweet half-sister, Sophia, who slipped the deadly poison into my wine.
As the venom burned through my veins in that freezing cellar, I watched Julian smile. He and Sophia had orchestrated my brutal death. She had been sleeping in his bed all along, intentionally miscarrying his bastard child just to frame me as 'impure' and strip me of my family's protection. My own father used me as a political pawn, letting them throw me away like garbage.
And Damien? The monster I had fought and despised for years marched straight into a suicide ambush for me. He was riddled with bullets, turning his body into a human shield just to buy me a few more seconds of life.
"Touch her and you die."
I died in that blood-soaked basement, clutching his lifeless body, suffocating on my own blind trust. Why did I ever believe the golden boy who betrayed me? Why did I fight the only man who truly loved me?
Opening my eyes again, the stench of copper and mold was gone, replaced by the scent of Cuban cigars and black silk.
I was back in 1928, on the exact night Damien stormed my engagement party and locked me in his penthouse.
This time, when the ruthless Don approached me, I didn't scream or run back to my killers. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. She Died Once: Now The Mafia Kneels
Benjamen Ernst I was the Mafia Princess of the Wolfe family, engaged to Daniel Marino to unite our powerful syndicates.
But during a hit at a speakeasy, we were both gunned down.
As my chest was torn apart by a Tommy gun, I looked at my fiancé, expecting him to reach for me.
Instead, there was no despair in his eyes, only a twisted, selfish terror.
We both died on that floor, but the devil sent us back to the day of my hospital discharge.
Instead of finalizing our wedding, Daniel stormed into my father’s study.
"I won't marry Isabella. I want Celine."
He demanded to break our engagement, claiming he wouldn't be collateral damage in a Wolfe family war, and declared his true love for my sweet, orphaned adopted sister.
He thought shedding me would save his life, completely unaware that the assassination was orchestrated by his precious Celine.
In my past life, I didn't know she was a rat who sold our patrol routes to rivals and plotted my murder just to take my place.
If I hadn't died once, I would have believed her manufactured tears and comforted her.
But this time, I remembered everything.
I buried the vengeful woman I had become and let my face pale as I pushed open the heavy oak doors.
"Daniel? You... you want Celine?" I whispered, forcing a heartbroken tear to fall.
This time, I would play the fragile victim, just so I could orchestrate their absolute ruin.