The Witch They Made Me

I unlocked my mate's tablet to check the time, but a notification caught my eye: Project Luna. Curiosity turned to horror as I opened the file. It wasn't a diary. It was a spreadsheet. Task #104: Public display of affection. Status: Complete. Task #215: Gift pearls. Status: Complete. I wasn't Jaxon's soulmate. I was a quarterly projection inherited from his dead brother to secure the pack's assets. The reality of his indifference nearly killed me at our engagement gala. When the massive chandelier snapped above us, Jaxon didn't shield me. He used my body as a launchpad to dive toward his mistress, Janice. I was crushed under lead crystal and silver wire, my flesh burning from the poison. While I lay bleeding on the marble floor, Jaxon carried a scratch-free Janice to safety, screaming at the guards to ignore me. But the physical scar on my arm was nothing compared to what I found next. I hacked into Janice’s private account. There was a marriage certificate from Vegas, dated six months ago. On the exact night I miscarried our child alone on the bathroom floor, begging him to answer his phone, he was marrying her. He let our pup die while he pledged his life to another. When he tried to buy my forgiveness with a necklace, only to let Janice snatch it from his hand, I finally snapped. I threw his money in his face, rejected the bond, and vanished to Norway. Jaxon thought I would die without him. He didn't know that the Alpha Supreme of Europe had been waiting a lifetime to find me.

After surviving five years of hell in a deep-sea simulation, I finally escaped, battered and broken. I fought my way back for one reason: my fiancé, Derek. But when I found him, he sealed me in a cave and left me to die. "Just three more days, Eva," he pleaded, his hand holding my pregnant former assistant's. "Our wedding is on Saturday." My own parents, who had adopted her as their new daughter, believed her lies that I was a monster. They watched as Derek broke my ankle and hand, and my father shattered my ribs. They left me for dead, trapped and alone, after I had spent five years clinging to their memory. But I didn't die. I was rescued by a mysterious benefactor who gave me a new life and erased my pain. A year later, when a guilt-ridden Derek tracked me down, begging for a second chance, I smiled. It was my turn to play a game.

Eight years into Lynda Bennett's pursuit of Charles Watson, Charles got drunk and slept with Lynda. Only when she became pregnant did he reluctantly agree to marry her. Lynda thought she had finally touched his heart, but on their wedding day, her mother was tragically hit and killed by Charles' niece, Eleanor Watson. The next day, Charles threatened her with her father's life to make her drop the charges. It was then that she realized that the person Charles truly loved was always Eleanor. Eleanor beat Lynda so badly that she ended up in the hospital, and Charles forced Lynda to sign a reconciliation agreement; Eleanor pulled Lynda's father's oxygen tube, and Charles forced Lynda to apologize to Eleanor. If she didn't comply, Charles would threaten with the divorce. He believed that Lynda wouldn't leave him because she was pregnant. But he was wrong. Lynda not only left but took their daughter and married his arch-enemy. Charles was beside himself with regret, the once cool and dignified man now humbly kneeling, "Lynda, please forgive me, I'm willing to die to atone." Lynda turned away with their daughter, without a backward glance. As she walked away, she uttered, "Then go ahead and die."

On my birthday, my mother told me it was time to choose a fiancé from New York's most eligible bachelors. She urged me to pick Alexander Booth, the man I loved with a foolish passion in my previous life. But I remembered how that love story ended. On the eve of our wedding, Alexander faked his death in a private jet crash. I spent years as his grieving fiancée, only to find him alive and well on a beach, laughing with the poor student I had personally sponsored. They even had a child. When I confronted him, our friends-the men who had pretended to comfort me-held me down. They helped Alexander throw me into the ocean and watched from the pier as I drowned. As the water closed over my head, only one person showed any real emotion. My childhood rival, Darrian Golden, screamed my name as they held him back, his face twisted in grief. He was the only one who cried at my funeral. Opening my eyes again, I was back in our penthouse, just a week before the big decision. This time, when my mother asked me to choose Alexander, I gave her a different name. I chose the man who mourned me. I chose Darrian Golden.

For seven years, my life was a cold, silent prison. My husband, David Chen, the tech world' s golden boy, saw me only as his sister Emily' s murderer. What happened to Emily that day at the lake was an accident, a tragedy. But to David and my adoptive mother, Olivia, it was my fault, a debt I had to pay every single day. My punishment? The hard, cold floor of a barren guest room was my bed. His cruel words, "A murderer doesn't deserve comfort. This is where you belong," echoed in my ears every night. Every month, I would present him with divorce papers, a desperate plea for freedom. And every month, he would tear them, burn them, a grim ritual reminding me there was no escape. Why did they hate me so much? What had I truly done to deserve this unending torment, this life lived as a ghost in a gilded cage? But the constant humiliation, the silent contempt, the pain-it all fueled a secret fire within me. I meticulously saved every penny, selling sketches online, denying myself even basic necessities to afford a one-way train ticket. Tonight, the charade ends. I' m walking away from this living hell, from a man who promised me a life but delivered only a sentence. I' m reclaiming my name, my future, and the woman I was always meant to be.

A sharp, stabbing pain woke me. 3:17 AM. Alone. I reached for my husband, Mark, but he wasn' t there. My desperate call for help was answered by Lily, his goddaughter, her voice laced with annoyance. "Mark is busy. Eleanor isn' t feeling well, so he's here with me." I tried to explain about the emergency, the searing pain in my abdomen. She dismissed it as drama and hung up. Abandoned, I crawled to the phone and dialed 911, whispering, "I think I'm dying." At the hospital, the doctor' s grim face confirmed my worst fear: a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. I was bleeding internally and needed emergency surgery. Alone, I signed the consent form, my hand trembling, tears blurring Sarah Miller into a solitary figure. When I reached Mark hours later, fresh out of surgery and groggy from anesthesia, his words were cold, clipped. "What is it now, Sarah?" Before I could explain, Lily's frantic voice in the background cut me off. "Mark, come quick! Mom\'s monitor is beeping again!" He hung up, choosing her over me, over our lost baby, over my near-death experience. The love I thought was unbreakable shattered into a million pieces. The next morning, lying in the hospital bed, a cold, hard clarity settled over me. I had to make him understand. I sent him my medical reports, hoping the undeniable proof would cut through his blindness. His reply, however, sealed my fate: "Sarah, this has gone too far. Using a fake medical report to guilt-trip me is a new low." He called me manipulative, a liar. He chose her over me, again. The fight drained out of me. I typed one word: "Okay." It was over. I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that I was done.