Poisoned Love, A Friendship's Deadly End

Poisoned Love, A Friendship's Deadly End

Tamarah Lupton

3.5
Comment(s)
3.9K
View
10
Chapters

To keep my boyfriend Alex in law school, I begged my father to pay his tuition. But the day I moved to the city to be with him, I found him cheating with my best friend, Ivy. The betrayal didn't end there. My father, a respected union leader, was framed for misusing funds-the very money he'd borrowed for Alex-and died in disgrace. My mother had a mental breakdown from the grief. As I cared for my mother, I neglected my own health, only to be diagnosed with terminal cancer. Returning to my hometown to die, I ran into Alex and Ivy again. Ivy, now pregnant with Alex's child, sneered at me. "Your father begged me to leave Alex alone," she said, a cruel smile on her face. "So I reported him. He died because of you, Clarisa. You're the one who killed him."

Poisoned Love, A Friendship's Deadly End Chapter 1

To keep my boyfriend Alex in law school, I begged my father to pay his tuition. But the day I moved to the city to be with him, I found him cheating with my best friend, Ivy.

The betrayal didn't end there. My father, a respected union leader, was framed for misusing funds-the very money he'd borrowed for Alex-and died in disgrace. My mother had a mental breakdown from the grief.

As I cared for my mother, I neglected my own health, only to be diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Returning to my hometown to die, I ran into Alex and Ivy again. Ivy, now pregnant with Alex's child, sneered at me.

"Your father begged me to leave Alex alone," she said, a cruel smile on her face. "So I reported him. He died because of you, Clarisa. You're the one who killed him."

Chapter 1

The bitter wind bit at my bare skin, a fitting welcome back to the town I swore I' d never see again, especially not like this-dying.

Autumn always felt like a brief, cruel tease in the Rust Belt. A few weeks of fiery reds and golds, then the brutal gray descended, clutching at everything.

It wasn't just the wind, it was the damp chill seeping into my bones, a cold that mirrored the one spreading inside me. Every breath felt like inhaling shards of ice.

My steps were slow, heavy, each one a struggle against the invisible current pulling me back to a past I' d tried to outrun. The chipped paint on the porch rail, the crooked shutter on the second-floor window-they were all exactly as I remembered. This house, my childhood home, stood defiant against time, a silent monument to what once was.

It remained un-sold, not through any effort of mine, but because Alex had somehow managed to keep it. A strange, twisted tether he refused to sever.

My hand instinctively reached to the loose brick by the front door, the spot where Dad always hid the spare key. A habit from a lifetime ago.

My fingers met cold, empty mortar. The key wasn't there.

A sharp, unexpected jolt went through me, like a sudden drop in an elevator. It was a stupid, small thing, but it sent a tremor through the carefully constructed wall around my heart.

Then, a presence behind me. I didn't need to turn. The familiar scent, a mix of expensive cologne and something uniquely him, was already suffocating me.

His arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me close. Too close. My back pressed against his chest, every inch of my body screaming in protest.

I stiffened, a silent command for him to let go. When he didn't, I twisted, forcing myself to face him. His eyes, the same piercing blue I' d once drowned in, were inches from mine.

"Clarisa," he breathed, his voice a low rumble. "You look... pale. Are you okay?"

The concern in his tone felt like a foreign language, a cruel mockery of what we once were. I yanked my hand free from his grasp, stepping back, putting as much distance as I could between us without running.

He just stood there, watching me, his gaze intense, unwavering. It was the same look he used to give me when he was trying to figure out my next move, a lawyer's calculating stare.

He reached into his jacket pocket, slowly extracting something small and metallic.

It was my father's union pin, the one he wore every day, a symbol of his pride and his life's work. The worn brass eagle, the tiny, faded enamel banner.

"You always forgot this," he said, his voice softer now, almost nostalgic. He tried to press it into my palm.

I shook my head, my lips pressed into a thin line. "No." My voice was a raw whisper.

His hand faltered. "You used to wear it, remember? For good luck, before exams, big meetings..."

His gaze dropped to the pin in his hand, lingering on the eagle. A flicker of something unreadable crossed his face, quickly masked. He slid the pin back into his pocket.

"Did you forget your keys too?" he asked, trying to sound casual, but the edges of his voice were rough.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"I can take you to the store," he offered, already turning towards his car, the familiar, confident swagger in his stride. He always took charge, always had a plan.

A silent laugh bubbled in my throat. Take me to the store? Like old times, when we were just kids, full of foolish dreams. That Alex was long dead. This man was a stranger, wrapped in the ghost of a lover.

We are nothing but strangers now.

Continue Reading

Other books by Tamarah Lupton

More
No Longer Broken: Loved By Him

No Longer Broken: Loved By Him

Romance

5.0

The last thing I remembered was the freezing water filling my lungs. My adoptive parents, the Millers, had sold me, a tool for their precious biological son. They took money from Olivia Hayes's family, the very girl who made my high school years a living hell, and used it to force me out of school, arranging a marriage to a man twice my age. Then, a sterile, mechanical voice echoed in the void, "Host soul detected. High levels of grievance and resentment. Revenge System activating." My eyes snapped open. I wasn't at the bottom of a lake. I was back in my classroom, the day it all started, the day Olivia Hayes framed me for cheating. The system's voice revealed a shocking truth: "You are Ava Hayes, the true heiress of the Hayes family. The woman you know as Olivia Hayes is actually Olivia Miller, the biological daughter of your adoptive parents. A deliberate swap was made at the hospital eighteen years ago." My tormentor was their real daughter, and I belonged to the wealthy family she pretended to be a part of. The sheer irony was suffocating. Olivia, my "sister" in this twisted reality, continued to mock me, ordering me to do her "brother" Liam's homework. Liam, the lazy, entitled leech, expected me to be his personal servant. In my past life, this refusal led to my destruction. But this time, I saw the resemblance between Olivia and "Mom" Miller, the woman who sold me. A cold smile touched my lips. "You're right. Family is so important. You know it's funny. Liam looks so much like his dad, but you… you look exactly like his mom. Almost like you're her real daughter." Planting the seed of doubt, I knew they would soon learn how to play my game. The old Ava was gone. This time, I was setting the board.

The Blood Bag's Billion-Dollar Revenge

The Blood Bag's Billion-Dollar Revenge

Modern

5.0

I was in the kitchen of the Vance mansion, slicing black truffles worth more than my car while my mother-in-law, Victoria, mocked my "backwoods" origins. My back throbbed from standing for six hours, and my head spun from the chronic anemia I’d developed since marrying into this family. Suddenly, my phone vibrated with a call from my husband, Julian. He didn't ask if I was okay or if I’d eaten; he simply ordered me to get to the hospital because his "fragile" friend Caroline needed another emergency blood transfusion. "Her hemoglobin is low, Seraphina. Get to St. Luke's now." I looked down at my left arm, which was a roadmap of bruises and needle marks hidden beneath my sweater. When I tried to tell him that the medical guidelines forbade donating again so soon, Julian’s voice turned dangerous. "I don't care about guidelines. She’s in crisis, and your anemia is manageable. Are you really going to be this selfish after the life we gave you?" Seconds later, a photo arrived from an unknown number. It showed Julian sitting on Caroline’s hospital bed, tenderly feeding her apples. The text underneath was a visceral slap in the face: "He wouldn't even eat dinner with you, but he's feeding me. Thanks for the refill, blood bag." At that moment, something inside me finally snapped. I realized that to the Vances, I wasn't a wife or even a human being—I was a biological spare part, a servant they kept around only to be drained dry for a woman who was faking her illness. I untied my apron, dropped it into the trash, and walked past a screaming Victoria toward the front door. I picked up the phone and dialed the one number I had been forbidden to contact since my wedding day. "Mr. Henderson, it's Seraphina Sterling. Prepare the divorce papers. And if they contest it... burn their entire empire to the ground."

You'll also like

Reborn Heiress: The Wolf's Vengeance Deal

Reborn Heiress: The Wolf's Vengeance Deal

Sibeal Sallese
5.0

I lay paralyzed on stiff white sheets, a prisoner in my own skin, listening to the rain lash against the window like nails on a coffin. My father, Elmore Franco, didn't even look at my face as he checked his clipboard. He just listened to the steady, monotonous beep of the heart monitor-the only thing proving I was still alive. Without a hint of remorse, he pulled a pen from his pocket and signed the Do Not Resuscitate order. My stepmother, Ophelia, stepped out from behind him, wearing my favorite pearl necklace and smelling of cloying perfume. She leaned close to my ear to whisper the truth that turned my blood to ice. "It was the tea, darling. Just like your mother. A slow, tasteless poison." She chuckled as she revealed that my fiancé, Bryce, had a two-year-old son with my sister, Daniela. My inheritance had been funding their secret life for years, and now that the money was secure, I was an inconvenience they were finally scrubbing away. As my father yanked the power cord from the wall, the beeping died, and the darkness swallowed me whole. I was being murdered by my own flesh and blood, used as a bank account until I was no longer needed. I died in that sterile room, drowning in the realization that every person I ever loved was a monster who had been waiting for me to take my last breath. Then, I gasped. I woke up in a luxury hotel suite surrounded by silk sheets, five years in the past-the very morning of my wedding. Next to me lay Basile Delgado, the "Wolf of Wall Street" and my family's most dangerous enemy. In my first life, I ran from this room in a panic and lost everything. This time, I looked at the man who would eventually destroy my father's empire and decided to join him. "I'm not leaving, Basile. Marry me. Right now. Today."

My Reborn Husband Didn't Choose Me? I Flash Married a Firefighter!

My Reborn Husband Didn't Choose Me? I Flash Married a Firefighter!

Sibeal Sallese
5.0

For seven years, I drank the bitter tonic my fiancé, Alpha Adrian, gave me, believing it would cure my "wolfless" defect. I was wrong. It was poison. He wasn't trying to heal me; he was keeping me weak so he could replace me with my foster sister, Ariel. When the fire consumed the Alpha's Wing, I was trapped under a burning beam, my legs crushed. Adrian kicked down the door. I reached out to him, screaming for help. But he didn't look at me. He looked at Ariel, who was lying on the floor in a silk nightgown. He scooped her up, cradling her like she was the only thing that mattered. I begged him not to leave me. Instead of helping, he used his Alpha Command on me, his voice booming with supernatural weight. "Stay put! I'll be back for you!" It was a lie. He used his power to freeze me in the inferno and left me to burn alive. I survived, only to watch him publicly reject me for her the next day, with my own father's blessing. They called me a "genetic dead end." They thought I would crawl away and die in shame. I didn't. I limped up the mountain to the Neutral Lands to find the one man everyone fears-the exiled Alpha, Garth Morgan. "I have the Gamma Bloodline Scroll," I told the massive figure emerging from the shadows. "I don't want your gratitude," Garth growled, his eyes like storm clouds. "I'm not here for gratitude," I replied, staring him down. "I'm here to make a deal with the devil."

Marrying My Runaway Groom's Powerful Father

Marrying My Runaway Groom's Powerful Father

Temple Madison
4.6

I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires. Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world. My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets. I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her. The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money. I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table. "Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."

One Night With My Billionaire Boss

One Night With My Billionaire Boss

Nathaniel Stone
4.5

I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn. Beside me lay Ezra Gardner—my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers. He didn’t offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement. "Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins." He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend’s apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I’d spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes. I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe. "Showtime, Mrs. Gardner." Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend’s face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
Poisoned Love, A Friendship's Deadly End Poisoned Love, A Friendship's Deadly End Tamarah Lupton Modern
“To keep my boyfriend Alex in law school, I begged my father to pay his tuition. But the day I moved to the city to be with him, I found him cheating with my best friend, Ivy. The betrayal didn't end there. My father, a respected union leader, was framed for misusing funds-the very money he'd borrowed for Alex-and died in disgrace. My mother had a mental breakdown from the grief. As I cared for my mother, I neglected my own health, only to be diagnosed with terminal cancer. Returning to my hometown to die, I ran into Alex and Ivy again. Ivy, now pregnant with Alex's child, sneered at me. "Your father begged me to leave Alex alone," she said, a cruel smile on her face. "So I reported him. He died because of you, Clarisa. You're the one who killed him."”
1

Chapter 1

12/12/2025

2

Chapter 2

12/12/2025

3

Chapter 3

12/12/2025

4

Chapter 4

12/12/2025

5

Chapter 5

12/12/2025

6

Chapter 6

12/12/2025

7

Chapter 7

12/12/2025

8

Chapter 8

12/12/2025

9

Chapter 9

12/12/2025

10

Chapter 10

12/12/2025