Ming Yue

The last thing I remembered was Chloe's voice, sharp and gleeful, slicing through the haze of my headache: "They never loved you, Ava. Not Liam, not Noah. It was always me." Her words were a hammer blow, each one a nail in the coffin of my life, a searing supernova of agony that exploded behind my eyes before everything faded to black. I gasped, sitting bolt upright in my childhood bed, my unlined hands proof of a terrifying truth: I was back, the calendar on my desk screaming September 5th, senior year, before the nightmare truly began. The reel of my first life rewound in fast-forward: Stanford, the calculated betrayals by Liam and Noah, Chloe's venomous strings, the engineered vasectomies, my promising career systematically destroyed, and the aneurysm that ended it all. This was impossible, a future I'd already lived, a death I'd already died, yet the worn duvet felt real, the scent of my mother's pancakes too vibrant—a second chance, if I dared to seize it, to change everything. My fingers flew across the keyboard, deleting Stanford from my early college applications and replacing it with MIT—my true dream, the one they had ruthlessly crushed. Just then, the doorbell rang, and through the frosted glass, I saw them: Liam Walker, Noah Chen, and Chloe Jenkins, the architects of my past ruin, their bright smiles and feigned innocence an instant surge of cold dread.

My husband, the ruthless Underboss of the Ewing crime family, was terrified of one thing: his dead fiancée’s memory. Or rather, her living sister, Ivana, who used that memory to turn my life into a living hell. To "apologize" for humiliating me at a gala, Corbett brought me a peace offering: a green macaron. "Pistachio," he promised. "Your favorite." I took one bite, and my throat instantly seized. It felt like barbed wire tightening around my windpipe. It wasn't pistachio. It was almond paste. Corbett knew I was deadly allergic. He used to carry my EpiPen on our first dates. As I collapsed to the floor, wheezing and clawing at my neck, a scream ripped from the guest wing. "Corbett! Help! They're posting mean comments about me again!" Ivana. Corbett looked down at me, his dying wife, and then looked toward the hallway where Ivana was crying over Instagram. He hesitated for only a second. Then he pulled his leg away from my grasping hand. "I'll be right back," he said, turning his back on me. "Just... use your pen." He ran to comfort a healthy woman while I crawled across the carpet, vision tunneling, forcing the needle into my own thigh to restart my heart. As I lay there shaking, listening to him soothe her, the last thread of love snapped. I didn't call an ambulance. I pulled a burner phone from behind the vanity mirror and texted the one man Corbett feared more than death—his rival, Don Kain Solomon. "I accept. Get me out."

I was just sixteen when Hurricane Haven swept away everything, leaving me an orphan clinging to wreckage. Then, with kind hands, Ethan Harrison pulled me from the churning water, and his family became my beacon, my home. For four years, they rebuilt my world, filling it with a love I hadn’t known since my own mother died, a future with Ethan by my side. He gave me a compass necklace, promising, “So you always find your way. Our way.” But that same night, our future shattered. The Harrison house, once filled with light, became a tomb for thirteen souls, brutally murdered. And they said Sarah Miller did it. Me. The girl they saved, the daughter they adopted. The accusation was a physical blow, stealing my breath, my voice, my hope. The town that had embraced me now bayed for my blood, branding me a monster. Trapped in a cold cell, I endured a year of relentless interrogations and public scorn, my silence misinterpreted as guilt. How could the man I loved, the one who saved me, believe I could commit such an atrocity? How could they all be so wrong, so blind to the truth of what I sacrificed? What was there to say, when the world had already decided my fate? Now, strapped to a cold chair, electrodes tracing my thoughts, they’re forcing me into a dangerous experiment: "Traumatic Memory Unveiling." They want answers. But the truth hidden within my shattered memories is far more terrifying, a story of loyalty, betrayal, and a sinister conspiracy I kept silent to protect them—a silence that might just kill me.

My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Caspian Vance, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through. That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Lyra—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister. But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Ashworth Fellows talking in the library. They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Caspian. Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Lyra. I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen. This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Caspian over. "No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Silas Blackwood."

My husband brought his mistress into the care center and forced me to wash her feet. He had forgotten everything about our marriage after an accident five years ago, treating me like a defective servant while doting on Jada. But I endured it, hoping his memory would return. Until Jada’s twin boys sprayed me with "water guns" filled with concentrated Wolfsbane acid. As my skin sizzled and melted, Jada screamed that I was using witchcraft to curse her children. Jake didn't check my wounds. He didn't ask for the truth. He looked at me with cold, dead eyes and ordered the guards to bring the Silver Muzzle. "This will teach you silence," he whispered. He clamped the torture device onto my face. The silver spikes instantly fused to my burned skin, sealing my mouth shut in agony. He then hung me from the ceiling, letting me swing there as a warning to the pack, while I bled out. I looked down at him, my heart finally breaking. How could the man who was once my soulmate torture me for a woman who smelled of rot and lies? I closed my eyes and triggered the rejection bond. *I reject you, Jake Foster.* The moment the bond snapped, the front doors exploded inward. A massive force of pure power crushed every wolf in the room to the floor. The Supreme Alpha had arrived. And he wasn't happy that someone had touched his Fated Mate.

"Are you sure you packed the antique vase?" I asked my husband, David, my voice echoing in our half-empty living room, packed for our big move overseas. We were starting a new life, a new chapter. But then, an email popped up on his laptop screen from a woman named Lisa Chang, a one-word subject line: "Congratulations." My heart hammered as I clicked it open. "Heard she signed everything. You' re finally free. Can' t wait to start our life together. The baby and I are so proud of you." The baby. The words hit me like a punch. Lisa was pregnant. I was numb as I found my way to the bedroom, the silver locket David gave me on our first anniversary, now felt like a lie. That evening, at a farewell dinner with David' s family, Lisa was there, seated right next to him. Eleanor, David's mother, raised her glass, triumph in her eyes: "A toast. To David, for all his success. And to new beginnings." She looked pointedly at Lisa. I heard David and Lisa talking in a private alcove. "Is she suspicious?" Lisa asked. "No," David replied. "She has no idea. She signed the papers without a second thought. By the time the divorce is finalized, she' ll be on the other side of the world." "And the house?" "The lawyer said it' s all clean. The assets are protected. We' re set, Lisa. Just like we planned." Then, the final blow: "I felt the baby kick today." My carefully constructed life had shattered. I had been played, every step of the way, just a pawn in their cruel game. I was nothing but a temporary placeholder, designed to be disposed of so they could begin their new life. I wouldn' t let them win. I would fight back, not for revenge, but for myself.

Tonight was our tenth anniversary, wrapping up ten years of a meticulously kept contractual marriage. For a decade, I, Ethan Lester, had been the silent architect behind my wife Sabrina Chadwick' s booming real estate empire. I managed her entire life, a dutiful husband and housekeeper, all to repay her for saving my father' s life. But then, she walked in, not alone, but with a smug-faced young man. "So this is the famous kept man," Caleb sneered, his words echoing through our Manhattan penthouse lobby. Sabrina, my wife, my partner of ten years, pulled him towards the elevator, her expression chillingly indifferent, utterly ignoring me. She didn' t care that her protégé was publicly humiliating me. She didn' t care what I felt when I overheard them that night, or the next morning when she ordered me to make them breakfast. I had been nothing but a loyal servant, and now, even that seemed to be beneath her consideration. I was left on a gurney in a crowded hospital hallway with a broken ankle after a car crash SHE forced me into, while she pampered Caleb over a scratch. That was the moment I realized the ultimate insult: I was just a possession, easily discarded. When the doctor asked for my family contacts, I looked him dead in the eye and said, "I have no family. Take her name off." I had been a fool to ever think love could bloom from a bargain, or that I could ever truly matter to her. Now, instead of cleaning her mess, I' m building my own empire. She desperately wants me back, but she has no idea what' s coming.

Our life in suburban Ohio looked perfect on the outside, a picture-perfect marriage that lasted five years. But inside, I was suffocating, especially after losing our first baby. When I finally got pregnant again, I believed hope was blooming. Then I found my husband had bought baby supplies. They weren't for us. They were for his pregnant mistress, Bree. He claimed she could give him the "heir" I couldn't. He coldly stated it was "practical," about "legacy," accusing me of being a "faulty machine." When I confronted them, his thuggish security shove, leading to another devastating miscarriage. He shockingly called it "faking it." Then, to punish me for wanting a divorce, he methodically shredded my grandmother's cherished quilt. It was the only solace I had left. My spirit was hollowed out. I was left with nothing but the brutal memory of his words and actions. How could someone claim to love you, then orchestrate such a calculated demise of your every hope and dream? Then, a phone call from a fertility clinic, a call he received, made him believe I was still carrying his precious heir. He came back, oozing fake repentance, painting a perfect future. But the cold D&C report I held in my hand was the real legacy I had for him. It was a testament to the life he' d destroyed. This signaled the true turning point of our story.

My life belonged to Julian Vance. He saved me at sixteen, a lost girl from the system, giving me a Manhattan apartment, Juilliard lessons, and paying for my dying sister Mia's severe cystic fibrosis care. Mia was my world; Julian kept her alive, so I believed I loved him. Then Julian met Chloe Raine, an indie folk singer. He became obsessed, claiming it was a "game" to expose her "integrity." "You're my queen. Always," he' d insist, but his eyes glowed with dangerous fascination, and a cold knot formed in my stomach. He started neglecting me for Chloe. One bitter Hamptons night, he dragged me onto our balcony in a rage. When I refused to confess, he pulled out his phone, showing Mia's sterile room, her ventilator alarm blaring. He calmly threatened her life, unless I confessed what I' d said. My heart froze. Mia, my only family, was a mere tool to him, her life leverage. The man who swore to protect me was a monster. I was his possession, my emotions irrelevant, my existence dictated by his whims and new obsessions. I gave him the lie, but the humiliation was absolute. My unplanned pregnancy ended in miscarriage, which he blamed on my "disobedience." But the ultimate breaking point was Mia. He allowed his security to remove my dying sister's life support as I screamed. Mia died. My baby was gone. My love for Julian died with them. He was my destroyer. I had to escape.

The splintered wood of the floorboards pressed into my cheek. Another girlfriend gone, another brutal beating from my father. Each woman I brought home to Redwood Creek, to seek the “blessing” at our family’s Pioneer’s Home, emerged twisted with rage, screaming that I was filth. My step-brothers found happy marriages after their girls went inside; I was almost thirty and still a pariah. My father, Jedidiah Thorne, the town’s esteemed mayor, finally showed me why. He strapped me into a chair in a hidden room beneath the Pioneer’s Home, then played a horrifying video. On screen, a figure with my very face, my movements, was brutally torturing animals, then attacking my terrified girlfriends. He confirmed it was me, every single time. My world shattered. I was a monster, a broken thing deserving only death. I sought release in the old quarry, a plunge like my mother’s alleged accident. I survived, but the narrative was set: Ethan Thorne, unstable, suicidal. My father reinforced it, holding me captive, ever-monitored. I faked insanity to finally be institutionalized. Numbed by medication, I accepted my cage, a safely contained monster. Until one grey day in the drab yard, I saw her. Sarah. My first love. The girl I was told I’d killed years ago. She was undeniably alive. And her eyes held a fierce, angry truth that ripped through the fog, promising to expose a horror far greater than I could ever imagine.

He walked into her life like a devil out of hell. She lost everything—her first love, her husband, the man she loved with her heart... all thanks to him! But Vincent didn't care. He was prepared to pay any price to get Lydia. He was a kind doctor, whose gentleness melted everyone’s heart. His deep, intoxicating eyes could hypnotize people with just one look. However, this perfect appearance belied the dangerous beast that lurked underneath. Will Lydia be able to escape the clutches of this wolf in sheep's clothing?

Rebecca had never imagined in her wildest dreams that such trouble would befall her. Her boyfriend, whom she was going out with for more than a year, now told her he wished to break up with her to marry another woman. She was devastated and left in a daze, her mind a blank. On the day she had resigned to drowning herself in alcohol, she bumped into Albert. She had set him up but now found herself trapped with this shrewd and scheming man. To pay for the prize, she agreed to be his lover for ten days. But then, his addiction to her gripped him tighter day by day.

Unlike her twin brother, Jackson, Jessa struggled with her weight and very few friends. Jackson was an athlete and the epitome of popularity, while Jessa felt invisible. Noah was the quintessential "It" guy at school-charismatic, well-liked, and undeniably handsome. To make matters worse, he was Jackson's best friend and Jessa's biggest bully. During their senior year, Jessa decides it was time for her to gain some self-confidence, find her true beauty and not be the invisible twin. As Jessa transformed, she begins to catch the eye of everyone around her, especially Noah. Noah, initially blinded by his perception of Jessa as merely Jackson's sister, started to see her in a new light. How did she become the captivating woman invading his thoughts? When did she become the object of his fantasies? Join Jessa on her journey from being the class joke to a confident, desirable young woman, surprising even Noah as she reveals the incredible person she has always been inside.

The ninety-ninth time Jax Little broke my heart was the last time. We were the golden couple of Northgate High, our future perfectly mapped out for UCLA. But in our senior year, he fell for a new girl, Catalina, and our love story became a sick, exhausting dance of his betrayals and my empty threats to leave. At a graduation party, Catalina "accidentally" pulled me into the pool with her. Jax dove in without a second's hesitation. He swam right past me as I struggled, wrapped his arms around Catalina, and pulled her to safety. As he helped her out to the cheers of his friends, he glanced back at me, my body shivering and my mascara running in black rivers. "Your life isn't my problem anymore," he said, his voice as cold as the water I was drowning in. That night, something inside me finally shattered. I went home, opened my laptop, and clicked the button that confirmed my admission. Not to UCLA with him, but to NYU, an entire country away.

Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley. Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him. That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!" He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law." Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

Lila Richmond has a secret that could destroy her,she's harboring feelings for her stepbrother Ryan Callaway. When her worst nightmare comes true and her old bully Cassandra becomes Ryan's girlfriend, Lila thinks things can't get worse. But she was wrong.Hockey bad boy Derek Stone knows her secret, and he's offering a dangerous deal - fake date him to throw everyone off her trail. But as their pretend romance heats up, Lila discovers that Derek's cold reputation hides something she never expected. Will their fake relationship survive when real feelings get in the way? And what happens when the truth comes out?

I was the scholarship girl with a 4.0 GPA, dating the untouchable Branson Ayers. My dream of winning the Rhodes Scholarship was just one interview away. Then, a deepfake video with my face on it destroyed my life overnight. The scholarship was gone, and suddenly, I was the girl from the video. I ran to Branson for help, only to overhear the horrifying truth from behind a hedge. He' d orchestrated the whole thing to give the scholarship to his childhood sweetheart, Kennedy. But the cruelest cut was the second secret. For two years, the passionate man who came to me in the dark wasn't my boyfriend at all. It was his identical twin brother, Hanson. I was just a pawn in their sick game-a body for Hanson to use while Branson kept himself "pure" for the woman they both loved. When I called my parents, they didn't ask if I was okay. They disowned me for shaming the family and booked me a one-way ticket to London. Betrayed, used, and discarded by everyone I trusted, I took the flight. But as the city lights disappeared below, I made a vow. One day, I would return. And they would regret ever thinking they could destroy me.

Skylar thought she had it all until Liam, her boyfriend, betrayed her. She was broken and furious until she met Ryder,the gruff captain of the hockey team and feared alpha of a ruthless biker gang. She planned to use him for revenge. But Ryder's dangerous gaze made her question everything. When her family gave her a risky mission tied to Ryder's pack, secrets long hidden were revealed pulling her deeper into a world she barely understood. Now she's caught between two worlds and one question haunts her: Was she using him... or was he claiming her?

The last thing I remembered was Chloe's voice, sharp and gleeful, slicing through the haze of my headache: "They never loved you, Ava. Not Liam, not Noah. It was always me." Her words were a hammer blow, each one a nail in the coffin of my life, a searing supernova of agony that exploded behind my eyes before everything faded to black. I gasped, sitting bolt upright in my childhood bed, my unlined hands proof of a terrifying truth: I was back, the calendar on my desk screaming September 5th, senior year, before the nightmare truly began. The reel of my first life rewound in fast-forward: Stanford, the calculated betrayals by Liam and Noah, Chloe's venomous strings, the engineered vasectomies, my promising career systematically destroyed, and the aneurysm that ended it all. This was impossible, a future I'd already lived, a death I'd already died, yet the worn duvet felt real, the scent of my mother's pancakes too vibrant—a second chance, if I dared to seize it, to change everything. My fingers flew across the keyboard, deleting Stanford from my early college applications and replacing it with MIT—my true dream, the one they had ruthlessly crushed. Just then, the doorbell rang, and through the frosted glass, I saw them: Liam Walker, Noah Chen, and Chloe Jenkins, the architects of my past ruin, their bright smiles and feigned innocence an instant surge of cold dread.

After eight years in captivity, I was finally rescued. I thought it was the beginning of a new life with my mother. But she didn't even look at me. She ran into the arms of a handsome stranger, her real husband, and I was treated like a dirty secret from her past. They called me a contamination, a reminder of their trauma. My new stepsister set their Doberman on me, and as the dog's teeth sank into my arm, I looked up and saw my mother watching from the window. She met my eyes for a second, then slowly closed the curtains. In that moment, the last bit of hope I had died. The shallow bond of family was completely gone, and I finally gave up. But they made one mistake. The family patriarch, suspicious after a car accident, ordered a secret DNA test. The results came back on the day of my stepsister's birthday party, revealing a truth that would burn their perfect world to the ground.

"You are in love with me, aren't you?" He whispered seductively into her ear. **** Elizabeth Bennett thought her life couldn't get any worse. Losing her twin in a hurricane had shattered her world, forcing her to move states and leave behind everything-friends, family, and a sense of identity. At eighteen, she believed she had endured enough. But then she arrived at Hollands High... and caught the attention of the very person she was meant to avoid. Patrick Diego was many things-charming, untouchable, dangerous. But to Elizabeth, he was something else entirely. Her bully. The one who seemed determined to make her life miserable, never missing a chance to remind her that she didn't belong. But what happens when she stumbles upon his soft side? Will her feelings change the narrative between them, or will falling for him only lead to more heartbreak?

Every day of my life, I, Hailey, was keenly aware I was nothing but an unwanted burden to my parents, Frank and Brenda, their every word and action reserved instead for my coddled younger brother, Kevin. Thanksgiving approached, and their solution to saving money for Kevin's new gaming console was horrific: I was to travel hundreds of miles, locked inside an old, smelly footlocker, checked as luggage on a Greyhound bus. Buried in suffocating darkness, I scratched at the lid with weakening fingers as the air dwindled, until my desperate struggle became nothing more than a final gasp before floating into oblivion. Upon arrival, my parents, eager to enjoy the holiday, left my tomb in a corner, only to casually open it a day later to find my lifeless, blue body, eliciting Frank's curse and Brenda's chilling remark about the "bad luck" I brought before they paid a local man, with the money saved from my bus fare and food, to bury me swiftly and quietly in an unmarked grave, forgotten for Kevin's new treats. To them, my life was merely an obstacle, and my agonizing death was nothing more than an inconvenience, solidifying their profound and terrifying indifference towards me. But then, with a choked gasp, I bolted upright in my bed, the morning sun streaming through my window, and realized I had been given an impossible second chance: it was the same fateful Thanksgiving morning, the old footlocker by the door, and this time, I wouldn't just obey.