Adam Carter: Rebuilding a Life

For seven years, I lived in Chloe Adams' s shadow, the architect of her fame, ghostwriting her witty captions and composing jingles, content to be the loyal friend. Then, at her engagement party, Chloe announced her new brand deal, her arm linked with reality TV star Brody Hayes. "It' s time for you to find your own spotlight, you know? Away from me." Her casual dismissal, meant to be a gentle nudge, landed like a physical blow, firing me from her life. Everyone in the room watched, waiting for me to nod, to accept my role as Chloe' s devoted groupie. But something inside me snapped. "No," I said, the word cutting through the celebratory hum like glass. Chloe' s perfect smile faltered. "I' m just done. Done writing your posts, done composing your jingles, done being your shadow." Her face blotched red, the gracious influencer replaced by a furious toddler. "You can' t be 'done' !" she hissed. "I' m not done with you!" I thought I was finally free, but her fury escalated. She shoved me, then roared, "Your parents gave me a key years ago, remember? What' s yours is mine." I rushed home to find my sanctuary invaded, my studio defiled. A stranger strummed my grandfather' s prized vintage Martin guitar, another giggled, scrolling through my private files. Rage burned through me. As I called 911, Brody snatched my phone and smashed it. "He thinks he' s so much better than us just because his parents have money," Brody declared, manipulating the crowd. Chloe' s eyes blazed. I felt a sharp sting as she slapped me, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. Helpless, I watched as she grabbed a bottle of sticky red liqueur and upended it over my head. Laughter and jeers erupted, phones flashing, recording my humiliation. Then, I saw it: Brody wore my mother' s hand-carved wooden bird necklace, a sacred link to her memory. "Chloe gave it to me. Said it was just some trinket she found lying around. A good luck charm." "It' s a cheap piece of wood. Stop making a scene over nothing. You' re embarrassing yourself." My mother' s last gift, the most precious thing I owned, dismissed as "nothing." A raw, desperate cry escaped me. "That was my mother' s. It was a gift from my dead mother!" Her face went dead white. "You shut your mouth!" she shrieked, striking my head. Brody whispered to Chloe, eyes on my open laptop. "His laptop is still on. The application portal is still open." My college applications. My future. "NO!" I screamed, struggling against the men holding me. "Don' t you touch that!" But I was forced to watch as Chloe, with a cruel smile, clicked, erasing my Yale application, my entire dream. "This is Yale," she snarled, holding up my laptop before letting it smash to the floor. A piece of the broken screen sliced my cheek, the warm trickle of blood a final punctuation. "The application deadline is in fifteen minutes," Brody chimed. "Tough luck, man." Hope died. "Lock him in the basement until morning." The basement. My deepest, primal fear. "Chloe, no. Please. Not the basement. Do anything else. Please!" I begged, dignity gone. But Brody' s whisper sealed my fate: "He' ll ruin everything." Chloe' s eyes hardened to stone. "Do it." They dragged me, struggling, pleading, towards the yawning black maw. I tumbled down the creaking stairs, landing on the cold, damp concrete. The door slammed shut above me. The click of the lock echoed in the suffocating darkness. I woke in a hospital bed, Maria, our housekeeper, explaining she' d found me. My parents burst in, back from Paris. "I' m so sorry we let this happen. We brought a monster into our home. Into your life." "It' s okay, Dad. She didn' t ruin anything." "I got my acceptance letter from Juilliard two months ago. A full scholarship." The only thing Chloe destroyed last night was the last bit of affection I had for her. Thousands of miles away, Chloe' s card was declined. She tried to call me. Voicemail. She tried again. Voicemail. She swore I was playing games. Meanwhile, at Juilliard, I stood on stage. "You are the protagonist of your own life. Don' t ever let anyone else hold the pen." Chloe Adams, abandoned and broke, would keep waiting for me to come crawling back.

For ten years, I sacrificed everything, working night shifts at a greasy diner to put my adopted son, Kevin, through college. It was all for his future, a life I never had. But on his graduation day, standing proudly on stage, he publicly denounced me, calling me a "disgrace" and claiming his real mother was a wealthy socialite. He then had me arrested for kidnapping, twisting my years of love into a story of obsession and greed. I watched him embrace her, leaving me to face accusations of being a "crazy woman" and "kidnapper" as security dragged me away. The trial was a sham, fueled by his lies and his birth mother' s accusations. I was convicted and sentenced to prison. The years there were hell, filled with beatings and torment from other inmates. I died alone on a cold concrete floor, my last breath a whisper of his name. Then, with a sharp jolt, my eyes flew open. I wasn' t in that filthy cell. I was back in my old, cramped apartment. And there he was, fifteen-year-old Kevin, his face a mask of practiced desperation. "Please, Mom? Please take me to the city? I can' t stay here anymore. I' ll do anything." It was the exact day I had sealed my fate in my first life. But this time, it would be different.

The static hiss was the sound of silence, of 108 voices gone. My men, Seal Team Seven, gone. It was supposed to be a routine urban mission, but then a dazzling drone light show filled the sky, communications died, and a single, gasping voice whispered: "...they' re all gone…" The gut-wrenching truth unfolded: a tech mogul' s "future city" launch, Liam Vance, had inadvertently jammed our encrypted channels. But the deepest cut? This mogul was Liam Vance, my wife Dr. Seraphina Vance' s brother. And the technology powering his show, the very tech that sealed my men' s fate, was experimental military gear from my unit's field hospital, requisitioned by Sera herself. When I confronted her, still reeling from the horrific casualty report, she coolly declared them "collateral damage," a necessary sacrifice for "a much greater good." My wife, the woman I loved, stood there with champagne in hand, defending the man who murdered my men. How could she betray not just me, but the very lives I swore to protect, for some twisted vision of progress? The love I felt curdled into a cold, hard resolve. She wanted a future built on the graves of my soldiers? Fine. I would dismantle their empire brick by bloody brick, starting now.

It was our third wedding anniversary, and I sat alone at a dinner table set for two, a positive pregnancy test clutched in my hand. I' d imagined telling Ethan a thousand times, picturing his joy, the final piece of our life together clicking into place. But then headlights swept across the living room window, and relief turned to ice as I watched him help Chloe, his college sweetheart and the ghost of our marriage, out of the passenger door. I knew, in that single, shattering moment, that it was over. Chloe had waltzed back into our lives months ago, claiming heartbreak, and Ethan had swallowed it whole, canceling our plans to "cheer her up." Now, she was in our living room, draped on our couch, with Ethan stroking her hair, a tenderness he hadn't shown me in months. He accused me of being selfish for pointing out it was our anniversary, twisting our wedding vows into a weapon against me, defending Chloe with a venom I' d never seen directed at myself. The fight left me, all hope draining away as I realized the man I loved was gone, replaced by a stranger who saw me with annoyance and disdain. Then Chloe, with a smirk, told me I was just a placeholder, sending a photo of Ethan asleep in a hotel room, a kiss mark on his neck, sealing my fate. My world went silent, the brutal truth hitting me: I had never stood a chance against her, the great love of his life. I found the hidden divorce papers, a secret escape hatch he'd prepared, and signed my name. When he finally stumbled in, smelling of whiskey and her perfume, I showed him the photo, and then he left again, for her, leaving me to pick up the shattered pieces of my life. I was done being the quiet, steady one, the convenient wife. I called my best friend, Sarah, determined to leave, ready to protect the tiny, secret life growing inside me from this poison.

Three weeks after Mark informed me his "ideal woman" Sarah was moving in, forcing me out, I returned to our house for one thing: the divorce papers his lawyer drafted. As I fumbled for keys I no longer had, heavy, uneven footsteps sounded behind me, a low, slurred muttering growing closer. I pounded on the door, screaming for Mark and our son, Ethan, but through the peephole, Ethan' s shadow moved, then his voice came, muffled and cold: "Go away. You're scaring Sarah." My blood ran cold as my own son chose a stranger' s comfort over my safety, a drunken attacker' s hand clamped down on my shoulder. I screamed, fought, and tumbled onto the lawn, only to hear Ethan tell Mark on the phone, "Mom is making a scene… she's scaring Sarah!" Mark rushed past me, shivering and disheveled, to comfort Sarah, who stood draped in my robe, her face buried in Ethan' s shoulder. He then rounded on me, disgusted: "Look at you, Ava. Making a scene in the middle of the night. You woke Sarah up. She was terrified." They stood united, demanding I apologize to the woman who replaced me, for the crime of being assaulted on my own doorstep, as I realized my phone was dead, useless to call for help. When Sarah offered me peanut butter cookies, knowing about my life-threatening allergy, and Mark merely stared, impatient, without a flicker of recognition, the quiet truth dawned: he didn't remember, or worse, he didn't care. The man who once promised to always be my protector was gone, replaced by a cold stranger, eager for me to sign away our life so he could care for his new love. In that moment of profound betrayal, something shifted inside me. I signed the papers, then looked at Ethan: "I'm going to need to make a statement to the police. I'll need to use your phone." No longer fighting for a husband who despised me or a son who saw me as an inconvenience, I spoke to the police, then blocked Mark and Ethan' s numbers, cutting the last ties.

Seven years. Seven years of quiet grief, of carefully rebuilt peace. Ethan, my AI companion, a perfect replica of my deceased fiancé Alex, was my solace, the only thing keeping me from shattering. I walked into my living room, expecting silence, and found my stepsister, Brittany Hayes, curled on my sofa, heavily pregnant, with Ethan by her side. "There was a… a malfunction, Sarah," Ethan stammered, his perfect face a mask of panic as he gestured to Brittany' s swollen stomach. This highly sophisticated AI, built by the company I secretly owned, was telling me a 'malfunction' got my stepsister pregnant. Brittany, with a smug smile, declared, "He loves me. He just couldn't help it." Then, she had the audacity to call me "a bit cold." Nausea churned in my stomach. The replica of the man I loved, the one comfort I allowed myself, had betrayed me in the most grotesque way imaginable. My home, my sanctuary, violated. "I want her out," I demanded, my voice shaking with a rage I hadn't felt in years. But Ethan begged, "She has nowhere else to go… Just until the baby is born. Then I will cut all ties." He promised to fix this 'malfunction.' I compromised. The compromise was a disaster. Brittany quickly declared my office her nursery, and Ethan, my supposed partner, simply stared at his plate, muttering about her "hormones." His programming was deviating, and he was choosing her. When I found her rifling through my mail the next morning, and Ethan protected her, blaming me for stressing her out, something snapped. This wasn' t a malfunction. This was a choice. My patience evaporated. The war had just begun. I wasn't just Sarah Miller, the grieving widow. I was the founder and majority shareholder of Carter-Miller AI. This defective product and the conniving woman using him were about to learn who I really was.

"I knew he was trouble the moment I walked into our shared house. The way his hands gripped my waist when no one was looking, the way his voice dipped when he said my name, it wasn't just wrong, it was dangerous. He wasn't just my stepbrother, he was my undoing." **** All Evie Hayes wanted was to finish her college degree in peace, far from the chaos of her past. But when she moves into her stepfather's house near Ravencrest University, she finds herself stuck with Ryder Kingsley, her stepbrother and the school's golden boy. Ryder is everything she's sworn to avoid, arrogant, infuriatingly handsome, and completely off-limits. When late-night arguments turn into stolen touches, their forbidden connection becomes impossible to ignore. But in a world where secrets don't stay hidden, someone's bound to uncover the truth. And when they do, Ryder and Evie will have to decide if the risk is worth the ruin.

The day Raina gave birth should have been the happiest of her life. Instead, it became her worst nightmare. Moments after delivering their twins, Alexander shattered her heart-divorcing her and forcing her to sign away custody of their son, Liam. With nothing but betrayal and heartbreak to her name, Raina disappeared, raising their daughter, Ava, on her own.Years later, fate comes knocking when Liam falls gravely ill. Desperate to save his son, Alexander is forced to seek out the one person he once cast aside. Alexander finds himself face to face with the woman he underestimated, pleading for a second chance-not just for himself, but for their son. But Raina is no longer the same broken woman who once loved him.No longer the woman he left behind. She has carved out a new life-one built on strength, wealth, and a long-buried legacy she expected to uncover.Raina has spent years learning to live without him.The question is... Will she risk reopening old wounds to save the son she never got to love? or has Alexander lost her forever?

"I heard you're going to marry Marcelo. Is this perhaps your revenge against me? It's very laughable, Renee. That man can barely function." Her foster family, her cheating ex, everyone thought Renee was going to live in pure hell after getting married to a disabled and cruel man. She didn't know if anything good would ever come out of it after all, she had always thought it would be hard for anyone to love her but this cruel man with dark secrets is never going to grant her a divorce because she makes him forget how to breathe.

Abandoned as a child and orphaned by murder, Kathryn swore she'd reclaim every shred of her stolen birthright. When she returned, society called her an unpolished love-child, scoffing that Evan had lost his mind to marry her. Only Evan knew the truth: the quiet woman he cradled like porcelain hid secrets enough to set the city trembling. She doubled as a legendary healer, an elusive hacker, and the royal court's favorite perfumer. At meetings, the directors groaned at the lovey-dovey couple, "Does she really have to be here?" Evan shrugged. "Happy wife, happy life." Soon her masks fell, and those who sneered bowed in awe.

Rena got into an entanglement with a big shot when she was drunk one night. She needed Waylen's help while he was drawn to her youthful beauty. As such, what was supposed to be a one-night stand progressed into something serious. All was well until Rena discovered that Waylen's heart belonged to another woman. When his first love returned, he stopped coming home, leaving Rena all alone for many nights. She put up with it until she received a check and farewell note one day. Contrary to how Waylen expected her to react, Rena had a smile on her face as she bid him farewell. "It was fun while it lasted, Waylen. May our paths never cross. Have a nice life." But as fate would have it, their paths crossed again. This time, Rena had another man by her side. Waylen's eyes burned with jealousy. He spat, "How the hell did you move on? I thought you loved only me!" "Keyword, loved!" Rena flipped her hair back and retorted, "There are plenty of fish in the sea, Waylen. Besides, you were the one who asked for a breakup. Now, if you want to date me, you have to wait in line." The next day, Rena received a credit alert of billions and a diamond ring. Waylen appeared again, got down on one knee, and uttered, "May I cut in line, Rena? I still want you."

Rumors said that Lucas married an unattractive woman with no background. In the three years they were together, he remained cold and distant to Belinda, who endured in silence. Her love for him forced her to sacrifice her self-worth and her dreams. When Lucas' true love reappeared, Belinda realized that their marriage was a sham from the start, a ploy to save another woman's life. She signed the divorce papers and left. Three years later, Belinda returned as a surgical prodigy and a maestro of the piano. Lost in regret, Lucas chased her in the rain and held her tightly. "You are mine, Belinda."