TOP
My husband Ethan and I had built a life together. Ten years of marriage, my career and inheritance poured into his rising tech venture, Innovatech, all from our beautiful Hamptons home. On our tenth anniversary, a young woman named Chloe Washington arrived, her words like a knife: "I'm pregnant. It's Ethan's. You need to divorce him." She had photos. Ethan confirmed it, unapologetically stating he needed an "heir" due to my infertility. He publicly paraded Chloe, even setting her up in an Innovatech office next to his. When I confronted him, Chloe feigned a fall, and Ethan, in a fit of rage, threatened to call security on me, the woman who built his empire. My decade of sacrifice-my youth, my money, my identity-all dismissed as he gaslit me, calling me "hysterical." How could he betray me so utterly, then demand I remain "reasonable" while he erased me from our life? As Ethan extended his hand for the phone, a chilling calm replaced my heartbreak. The broken wife was gone. I dialed the only number that mattered, initiating a battle he never saw coming.
My husband Ethan and I had built a life together.
Ten years of marriage, my career and inheritance poured into his rising tech venture, Innovatech, all from our beautiful Hamptons home.
On our tenth anniversary, a young woman named Chloe Washington arrived, her words like a knife: "I'm pregnant.
It's Ethan's. You need to divorce him." She had photos.
Ethan confirmed it, unapologetically stating he needed an "heir" due to my infertility.
He publicly paraded Chloe, even setting her up in an Innovatech office next to his.
When I confronted him, Chloe feigned a fall, and Ethan, in a fit of rage, threatened to call security on me, the woman who built his empire.
My decade of sacrifice-my youth, my money, my identity-all dismissed as he gaslit me, calling me "hysterical."
How could he betray me so utterly, then demand I remain "reasonable" while he erased me from our life?
As Ethan extended his hand for the phone, a chilling calm replaced my heartbreak.
The broken wife was gone.
I dialed the only number that mattered, initiating a battle he never saw coming.
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Werewolf
For three years, I was the silent bank account behind the Nexus Pack. My husband, Caleb, was the Alpha, but the empire was built entirely on my inheritance. Then the mind-link went dead. Caleb walked into our penthouse smelling of cheap vanilla and betrayal, followed closely by his secretary, Kimberly. She didn't just walk in; she swiped a red keycard—my Luna clearance. "She understands the Pack's needs," Caleb sneered, shielding his mistress while I stood there, trembling. They called me "wolfless" and "broken" because I hadn't Shifted yet. But the betrayal didn't stop at cheating. Caleb planned to lock me in the Sanctuary—a prison for the insane—so he could declare me incompetent and seize my fortune. Kimberly even shattered my mother’s sacred Moonstone necklace, laughing as she called my legacy tacky. I looked at the man I had elevated from poverty to power. He wasn't protecting me; he was planning a coup on my own life. He thought I was a weak, human-like liability he could discard once the checks cleared. He thought my wolf was dead. He was wrong. I didn't just sign the divorce papers; I froze every asset he had. "An army marches on its stomach, Caleb," I whispered as his credit lines failed. At his "victory" Gala, I didn't just expose his treason; I destroyed his world. And when he finally crawled back to beg for mercy, he didn't see a broken girl. He saw the glowing silver eyes of the White Wolf.
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Mafia
"The child is mine." My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, announced to the world, his hand resting protectively on his mistress's stomach. He was lying to save her life, but in doing so, he signed the death warrant for the baby growing inside me. Just hours before, I had finally gotten the positive test we had prayed for over five years. But Dante chose to claim a traitor's bastard as his heir. When I tried to confront him, he dismissed me cold-heartedly. "It's a strategic lie, Elena. You aren't pregnant, so it doesn't matter." He didn't know. Later, when an accident left his mistress critical, he dragged me to the hospital. He forced me to donate my blood to save her, ignoring my ghostly pallor. He didn't know I was already bleeding out. He didn't know I had just come from the clinic, where I had removed the "complication" he made me feel ashamed of. He thought he was being noble. He didn't realize he was killing his own son to save another man's lie. On the night of the gala celebrating his "heir," I left a white box on his desk and vanished. Inside was a medical report: *Termination of Pregnancy. 8 Weeks. Father: Dante Moretti.* By the time he read it, I was already gone.
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Modern
My husband Declan' s recklessness on a ski slope left me with chronic pain and unable to have children. He played the part of my devoted caretaker, but his perfect facade shattered when a stray cat, abandoned by our new neighbor, purred against his leg with a chilling familiarity. That whisper of betrayal led me to her apartment, where I found his pregnant mistress, Bridgett. She smirked, calling me Declan's "perpetually ill wife" and flaunted the baby I could never give him. When I demanded a divorce, both our families turned on me, calling me hysterical and greedy. Declan dropped to his knees, begging for forgiveness, but his "love" felt like a cage built on my pain and his lies. The truth, however, was far more monstrous. Bridgett later appeared on my doorstep, terrified, revealing Declan had forced her to lose their baby-a twisted "proof of love" meant to win me back. As he pounded on my door, confessing his crime and screaming that I was his, I realized I hadn't just married a cheater. I had married a monster.
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Horror
My best friend, Noah, had my hands broken. He did it so I could never paint again. Then he told my wife, Olivia, that I had lost my mind and needed to be sent away for "rehabilitation." They sent me to what was essentially a prison, where I was starved, beaten, and eventually died alone on a cold floor. Now, I'm a ghost, haunting Noah's lavish party, a celebration of his stolen success. He' s exhibiting paintings that are eerily like my lost collection, while everyone praises him as an art mogul. Olivia, my wife, is there too, looking beautiful but with a shadow in her eyes. Noah's assistant, the one who helped break my hands, even lies to her face, saying I'm still "adjusting" at the center. The arrogance is breathtaking. Olivia stands in the house my stolen art paid for, listening to the lies of the man who killed me. He even fakes an injury to garner her sympathy. It was shocking when a call came through, revealing I' d been secretly flying every six weeks for a year to donate blood for Olivia's rare condition, saving her life. Then the news broke: the "rehabilitation" center I was sent to was a network of abusive prisons where patients died. No one heard my silent screams. My wife even refused to believe the truth, preferring to cling to Noah' s comforting lies, even as she tried to salvage my shredded art from the attic. But then my real parents, billionaires who had been searching for me for decades, showed up. And Noah, my murderer, embraced them, pretending to be their long-lost son. He wanted to steal my inheritance, too. "Mom? Dad?" he said, holding out the locket my birth mother gave me. My wife's refusal of Noah's marriage proposal was a small flicker of hope, soon extinguished by his manipulative feigned heart attack. But then the funeral home called, asking Olivia to pick up my remains. My ashes scattered on the floor after Noah fumbled the urn, and my mother-in-law suddenly revealed I' d donated my kidney to Olivia. That was the moment. She called 911, reporting a murder. My murder.
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Romance
The last thing I remembered was the cold. It was the kind of cold that seeped into your bones, mocking the thin dress you wore. I was dying in a dark, abandoned warehouse, our son Leo trembling beside me. Then, his voice. Over the kidnapper' s phone, Harrison Hayes, the man I' d loved for years, flatly declared: "Wrong number. I don' t know them." He didn' t know me. He didn' t know Leo. Five years of a miserable marriage dissolved into one brutal truth: he resented me, seeing my existence as the ruin of his life. My death, simply a convenient erasure. And then, nothing. A profound, silent void. Until, a voice, warm and familiar, broke through the darkness: "Ava? Happy birthday." My eyes snapped open. I wasn't in a warehouse. I was at my 21st birthday dinner, staring at a younger Harrison, before the resentment carved lines around his mouth. This was the night it all began, the night I confessed my desperate love. But this time, the memory of his callous "Wrong number" burned. The phantom ache of my son' s absence was a hollow void in my chest. I would not make the same mistake. I would not confess. I would let him go. I would let him have his perfect life with his perfect Charlotte. When Charlotte Evans, his first love, walked in, I didn't fight. I left. I walked out into the cool night, hailing a cab, for the naive girl I had been, for the son who would now never exist. The pain was immense. But underneath it, a fragile seed of freedom took root. I wouldn' t be a victim. I would save myself. My first call was to my parents' lawyer. I was activating a forgotten betrothal agreement. I was going to Daniel Thorne.
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Romance
For five years, I lived in a gray, quiet world, shattered by a tragic accident that claimed my fiancée, Amelia, and my three promising apprentices. I became Ethan Miller, the brilliant architect who' d lost his touch, a hollowed-out recluse living with ghosts. Then, a familiar laugh broke the silence from a room I hadn' t entered in years-Jake' s old room. It was Amelia' s voice. And with it, Olivia' s, Sophia' s, and Jake' s. "It was a necessary sacrifice," Amelia purred, her voice chillingly confident. "We needed him to be completely broken. The firm is just sitting there, waiting for me to take over." My blood ran cold as I heard their twisted plan: fake deaths, my engineered grief, all to seize my company. They had let my mentor, Mr. Davies, waste away; they had let me suffer for five years, all for a long con. The love I felt, the grief that defined me-it was all a vicious lie. They thought I was broken, a pathetic fool they could manipulate. They were wrong. A furious, cold rage ignited within me, burning away the sorrow. They wanted my legacy, built on my ruin. They would never get it. My steps were steady for the first time in forever. They had a plan. Now, so did I.
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I had been a wife for exactly six hours when I woke up to the sound of my husband’s heavy breathing. In the dim moonlight of our bridal suite, I watched Hardin, the man I had adored for years, intertwined with my sister Carissa on the chaise lounge. The betrayal didn't come with an apology. Hardin stood up, unashamed, and sneered at me. "You're awake? Get out, you frumpy mute." Carissa huddled under a throw, her fake tears already welling up as she played the victim. They didn't just want me gone; they wanted me erased to protect their reputations. When I refused to move, my world collapsed. My father didn't offer a shoulder to cry on; he threatened to have me committed to a mental asylum to save his business merger. "You're a disgrace," he bellowed, while the guards stood ready to drag me away. They had spent my life treating me like a stuttering, submissive pawn, and now they were done with me. I felt a blinding pain in my skull, a fracture that should have broken me. But instead of tears, something dormant and lethal flickered to life. The terrified girl who walked down the aisle earlier that day simply ceased to exist. In her place, a clinical system—the Valkyrie Protocol—booted up. My racing heart plummeted to a steady sixty beats per minute. I didn't scream. I stood up, my spine straightening for the first time in twenty years, and looked at Hardin with the detachment of a surgeon looking at a tumor. "Correction," I said, my voice stripped of its stutter. "You're in my light." By dawn, I had drained my father's accounts, vanished into a storm, and found a bleeding Crown Prince in a hidden safehouse. They thought they had broken a mute girl. They didn't realize they had just activated their own destruction.
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I was at my own engagement party at the Sterling estate when the world started tilting. Victoria Sterling, my future mother-in-law, smiled coldly as she watched me struggle with a cup of tea that had been drugged to ruin me. Before I could find my fiancé, Ryan, a waiter dragged me into the forbidden West Wing and locked me in a room with Julian Sterling, the family’s "fallen titan" who had been confined to a wheelchair for years. The door burst open to a frenzy of camera flashes and theatrical screams. Victoria framed me as a seductress caught in the act, and Ryan didn't even try to listen to my pleas, calling me "cheap leftovers" before walking away with his pregnant mistress. When I turned to my own family for help, my father signed a document severing our relationship for a five-million-dollar payout from Julian. They traded me like a commodity without a second thought. I didn't understand why my own parents were so eager to sell me, or how Ryan could look at me with such disgust after promising me forever. I was a sacrifice, a pawn used to protect the family's offshore accounts, and I couldn't fathom how every person I loved had a price tag for my destruction. With nowhere left to go, I married Julian in a bleak ceremony at City Hall. He slid a heavy diamond onto my finger and whispered, "We have a war to start." That night, inside his secret penthouse, I watched the paralyzed man stand up from his wheelchair and activate a screen filled with the Sterling family's darkest secrets. The execution had officially begun.
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Vivian clutched her Hermès bag, her doctor's words echoing: "Extremely high-risk pregnancy." She hoped the baby would save her cold marriage, but Julian wasn't in London as his schedule claimed. Instead, a paparazzi photo revealed his early return-with a blonde woman, not his wife, at the private airport exit. The next morning, Julian served divorce papers, callously ending their "duty" marriage for his ex, Serena. A horrifying contract clause gave him the right to terminate her pregnancy or seize their child. Humiliated, demoted, and forced to fake an ulcer, Vivian watched him parade his affair, openly discarding her while celebrating Serena. This was a calculated erasure, not heartbreak. He cared only for his image, confirming he would "handle" the baby himself. A primal rage ignited her. "Just us," she whispered to her stomach, vowing to sign the divorce on her terms, keep her secret safe, and walk away from Sterling Corp for good, ready to protect her child alone.
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The whispers said that out of bitter jealousy, Hadley shoved Eric's beloved down the stairs, robbing the unborn child of life. To avenge, Eric forced Hadley abroad and completely cut her off. Years later, she reemerged, and they felt like strangers. When they met again, she was the nightclub's star, with men ready to pay fortunes just to glimpse her elusive performance. Unable to contain himself, Eric blocked her path, asking, "Is this truly how you earn a living now? Why not come back to me?" Hadley's lips curved faintly. "If you’re eager to see me, you’d better join the queue, darling."
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Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé. Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now-billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn't mind. I'd crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one? Wrong. One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That's when it hit me-he didn't love me. He didn't even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn't even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup. So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster-my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise. Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol. Enter him. Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I'd met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised. But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life. And, as it turned out, the best decision I'd ever made. Because my one-night stand isn't just some random guy. He's richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with. And now, he's not letting me go.
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Trigger/Content Warning: This story contains mature themes and explicit content intended for adult audiences(18+). Reader discretion is advised. It includes elements such as BDSM dynamics, explicit sexual content, toxic family relationships, occasional violence and strong language. This is not a fluffy romance. It is intense, raw and messy, and explores the darker side of desire. ***** "Take off your dress, Meadow." "Why?" "Because your ex is watching," he said, leaning back into his seat. "And I want him to see what he lost." ••••*••••*••••* Meadow Russell was supposed to get married to the love of her life in Vegas. Instead, she walked in on her twin sister riding her fiance. One drink at the bar turned to ten. One drunken mistake turned into reality. And one stranger's offer turned into a contract that she signed with shaking hands and a diamond ring. Alaric Ashford is the devil in a tailored Tom Ford suit. Billionaire CEO, brutal, possessive. A man born into an empire of blood and steel. He also suffers from a neurological condition-he can't feel. Not objects, not pain, not even human touch. Until Meadow touches him, and he feels everything. And now he owns her. On paper and in his bed. She wants him to ruin her. Take what no one else could have. He wants control, obedience... revenge. But what starts as a transaction slowly turns into something Meadow never saw coming. Obsession, secrets that were never meant to surface, and a pain from the past that threatens to break everything. Alaric doesn't share what's his. Not his company. Not his wife. And definitely not his vengeance.


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