Love, Lies, and a Fatal Countdown

Love, Lies, and a Fatal Countdown

Gavin

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I was born with a curse. That' s what my family called my ability to see the exact moment someone would die, a ticking red countdown above their heads. It started with Grandpa at the dinner table. "00:23:14" blinked above his head, then Dad, a year later, gone in a car crash. My mom was next, delivering my baby sister, Lily. "00:01:00" flashed as I hammered on the delivery room door, screaming for help. They died. All of them. And my family, my three older brothers, Liam, Ethan, and Noah, didn't see a grieving sister. They saw a monster. "You killed her," Liam spat, shoving me against the hospital wall after Mom' s death. "Just like you killed Dad and Grandpa." Ethan and Noah watched, their faces twisted with disgust as I crumpled to the floor. I wanted to explain, to scream that I tried to warn them, but the words were stuck. They left me there, abandoned at the hospital, taking their "miracle" sister, Lily, home. My childhood ended that day, replaced by a ghost-like existence in my own home. I lived in the attic, fed scraps, ignored by everyone while Lily was showered with love and affection. I just watched, an invisible scapegoat for their grief. But today, my eighteenth birthday, everything changed. I finally saw it-the blank space above my head, always empty, now glowed a stark, vibrant red. "24:00:00." My own countdown. A whole day. How generous. I bought a beautiful, white urn with a hand-painted lily. A small, bitter joke. I made them a farewell dinner, a feast of all their favorite foods, hoping they'd come, just once. But the house remained silent, empty. No one came. I called Liam, a desperate confession: "I\'m going to die. My countdown... it\'s almost at zero." He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "You\'re still trying that trick? You think saying you\'re going to die is going to make us forgive you?" He hung up, leaving me in the crushing silence, alone with my cold feast and my relentless ticking clock.

Introduction

I was born with a curse.

That' s what my family called my ability to see the exact moment someone would die, a ticking red countdown above their heads.

It started with Grandpa at the dinner table. "00:23:14" blinked above his head, then Dad, a year later, gone in a car crash.

My mom was next, delivering my baby sister, Lily. "00:01:00" flashed as I hammered on the delivery room door, screaming for help.

They died. All of them. And my family, my three older brothers, Liam, Ethan, and Noah, didn't see a grieving sister.

They saw a monster.

"You killed her," Liam spat, shoving me against the hospital wall after Mom' s death. "Just like you killed Dad and Grandpa."

Ethan and Noah watched, their faces twisted with disgust as I crumpled to the floor.

I wanted to explain, to scream that I tried to warn them, but the words were stuck.

They left me there, abandoned at the hospital, taking their "miracle" sister, Lily, home.

My childhood ended that day, replaced by a ghost-like existence in my own home.

I lived in the attic, fed scraps, ignored by everyone while Lily was showered with love and affection.

I just watched, an invisible scapegoat for their grief.

But today, my eighteenth birthday, everything changed.

I finally saw it-the blank space above my head, always empty, now glowed a stark, vibrant red.

"24:00:00." My own countdown.

A whole day. How generous.

I bought a beautiful, white urn with a hand-painted lily. A small, bitter joke.

I made them a farewell dinner, a feast of all their favorite foods, hoping they'd come, just once.

But the house remained silent, empty.

No one came.

I called Liam, a desperate confession: "I\'m going to die. My countdown... it\'s almost at zero."

He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "You\'re still trying that trick? You think saying you\'re going to die is going to make us forgive you?"

He hung up, leaving me in the crushing silence, alone with my cold feast and my relentless ticking clock.

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Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

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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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