Building a Second Life

Building a Second Life

Gavin

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The cold seeped into my bones, each beat of the heart monitor a countdown to my end. My name is Ethan Miller, and I was dying, wasted by an illness the doctors couldn't explain. The System, an emotionless voice in my head, confirmed my mission failure: I had refused to play the villain, refused to hurt my adoptive aunt, Eleanor Vance, the woman I loved with everything I had. My reward for being the "good guy" was this hospital bed, my body shutting down because I wouldn't sabotage Eleanor' s perfect romance with the sculptor Liam Stone. The door opened, and Eleanor entered, radiant in a tailored dress, her arm linked with Liam' s. Her voice, smooth and practiced, feigned concern, but her eyes held impatience and distaste. She played the grieving aunt, while Liam, naive and kind, looked at me with pity. I rasped out that I was fine, but Eleanor, with a cruel smile, claimed the doctor said it wasn't looking good. She then held up a wooden bird, a phoenix I had carved for her years ago, a symbol of hope. On a live news broadcast, she declared it a symbol of "misguided love," then nonchalantly tossed it into a staged fireplace, burning my creation, my heart, to ashes. As the monitor flatlined and the System bond terminated, her triumphant smile was the last thing I saw. The rage was a physical thing, burning hotter than any fever. But then, a new, ancient voice offered me a second chance, a Rebirth Protocol. This time, I would embrace my designated role as the villain, and survive.

Introduction

The cold seeped into my bones, each beat of the heart monitor a countdown to my end.

My name is Ethan Miller, and I was dying, wasted by an illness the doctors couldn't explain.

The System, an emotionless voice in my head, confirmed my mission failure: I had refused to play the villain, refused to hurt my adoptive aunt, Eleanor Vance, the woman I loved with everything I had.

My reward for being the "good guy" was this hospital bed, my body shutting down because I wouldn't sabotage Eleanor' s perfect romance with the sculptor Liam Stone.

The door opened, and Eleanor entered, radiant in a tailored dress, her arm linked with Liam' s.

Her voice, smooth and practiced, feigned concern, but her eyes held impatience and distaste.

She played the grieving aunt, while Liam, naive and kind, looked at me with pity.

I rasped out that I was fine, but Eleanor, with a cruel smile, claimed the doctor said it wasn't looking good.

She then held up a wooden bird, a phoenix I had carved for her years ago, a symbol of hope.

On a live news broadcast, she declared it a symbol of "misguided love," then nonchalantly tossed it into a staged fireplace, burning my creation, my heart, to ashes.

As the monitor flatlined and the System bond terminated, her triumphant smile was the last thing I saw.

The rage was a physical thing, burning hotter than any fever.

But then, a new, ancient voice offered me a second chance, a Rebirth Protocol.

This time, I would embrace my designated role as the villain, and survive.

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Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Mafia

4.5

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.

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