The Substitute Wife's Revenge

The drive to my best friend Mark' s father' s 60th birthday party felt good, the kind of easy trip you take to see family. My wife, Sarah, was supposed to be in London for a work conference, nursing a sprained ankle. But when I stepped inside, my eyes scanned the crowd, and there she was, kneeling in the center of the living room. She was participating in a formal tea ceremony, dressed in a beautiful silk dress I' d never seen. "What a good, respectful daughter-in-law!" Mark' s aunt boomed, praising her. "Mark, you found a real treasure." My heart hammered against my ribs as I saw her, my wife, here, being celebrated as his wife. The whiskey bottle in my hand suddenly felt heavy and cold. Sarah' s eyes locked with mine across the room, her polite smile vanishing, replaced by pure panic. She rushed towards me, pulling me into a quiet hallway. "Liam, what are you doing here?" she hissed, her voice frantic. "Last I heard, you were in London with a sprained ankle," I retorted, my voice dangerously low. She claimed Mark' s father had terminal cancer, and she was just "helping" fulfill his dying wish to see Mark settled. "You' ll lend me your wife, right? We' re best friends, you wouldn' t mind, would you?" Mark asked, joining us, his tone infuriatingly casual. The sheer audacity, the betrayal, stole my breath. My wife, my best friend. "A few days?" I asked, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "Is that all? I guess his dying wish doesn' t include seeing his grandkids, then. Or do you think he' ll live long enough for you two to pop one out?" The smile vanished from Mark' s face, and Sarah' s eyes widened in horror. The casual charade was over. The real party was just beginning.

The shovel struck the dirt above me. A dull, wet thud. It was my grave, and I was floating above it, watching. My ex-girlfriend, Ava, was there, livestreaming to thousands. "We're doing this for Liam," she announced, her voice tight with artificial conviction. Beside her, my former best friend, Liam Davis, grunted, driving the shovel deeper. He was performing, for Ava, for the camera, for the lies he' d spun for five years about me haunting him. Then, he unearthed my pine coffin. The crowbar pried it open, revealing the horrific claw marks-my claw marks-inside the lid. But also, my diary. Ava, pale and trembling, pulled it from the mud. She began to read my words, words that told of my love for her, of Liam's escalating cruelty, not mine. Yet, she still clung to his narrative, selectively reading to justify her actions. He' d almost poisoned me. He tried to murder me. The truth, stark and undeniable, spilled from the pages. Then, my mother arrived. She didn't just expose Liam's lies about an old fight; she revealed a truth that shattered Ava' s world: I was going to donate my kidney to save her life. The man she' d desecrated, the monster she' d paraded online, was her silent savior. Struck by a blinding guilt, Ava unearthed the diary's final, blood-stained entry. My last words. "Ava. Liam did this. I love yo-" Unfinished. The truth was absolute: Liam had not only framed me, he had buried me alive. A raw scream tore from Ava' s throat. The tears that followed were years too late, but they ignited a terrifying purpose. She would make him pay.

For five years, I chased my husband Liam' s love, a tech mogul I deeply adored. Then, after three incredible nights where I finally felt like his wife, I stumbled upon a chat on his computer. It was with my sister, Chloe, and it revealed a horrifying truth: those intimate moments were a cruel setup. Liam recorded them, sent them to Chloe, and messaged, "This way she' ll finally leave me alone. Don' t worry, Chloe, I' d rather die than touch her. You' re the only one I love." My world shattered. An audio file played Chloe' s sweet voice, "Oh, Liam, I' m so touched! You found so many people to mess with her just to protect my reputation?" So many people? Liam' s reply sickened me: "She' s so loose, it' s a blessing anyone would touch her. Besides, I have all the compromising photos and videos, so she can' t blame anyone even if she knows." The man who held me for three days wasn' t Liam. He sent strangers. I fled, my body screaming contamination, only to have Chloe, wearing Liam' s shirt, block my entry back home. "Liam was just adding my face to the system, and I think I accidentally deleted yours. My bad," she smirked. Liam emerged, his voice flat, "Chloe needs this room. It' s closer to me." He ordered me to a distant guest room, then handed me a pill. "Take this. I' m not ready for kids yet." It hit me: he worried I' d get pregnant with a stranger's child-a child he' d arranged. Later, listening to their laughter from the master bedroom, rage simmered. Then Chloe, wearing Liam' s sacred bracelet, whispered close, "Every month, he spends a week with me at a secluded resort. That' s our special time… He even says he feels sick when he sees you at home." Before I could react, she scratched my arm, drawing blood. "Ava, you bitch, stop pretending! I hate your pitiful act! I want to take everything from you!" She shoved me, a vase shattered, leaving a gaping wound on my arm. Liam rushed down, sweeping Chloe into his arms. "Chloe, does it hurt? I' ll take you to the hospital." He saw her nails' marks but blamed me. "Ava, you' re still so manipulative! You' ve always framed Chloe!" he roared. "Go to the basement tonight. Don' t come out until you' ve copied a hundred books!" He stepped over my prostrate body, crushing my arm. Bleeding, broken, I crawled to the ER. "No anesthesia," I told the doctor. "I want to remember this. I want to remember the pain." I needed every stitch to burn away my foolish love. I signed the divorce papers. Back in the mansion, trapped in the basement, I heard fireworks. Liam was celebrating Chloe' s "recovery." Five days later, Chloe feigned reconciliation, offering me tea. Liam forced my mouth open and poured the scalding liquid down my throat. My flesh screamed. I woke in a hospital, my throat ruined, my face Liam' s only concern. "Don' t worry," he told me, "Your face won' t scar." My face. Not my voice. Not the agony. I croaked, "Let me go." He hung up, leaving me to call my lawyer: Deliver the papers. Relief washed over Liam when I handed him two documents. He quickly signed, thinking I wanted property, not realizing the divorce agreement lay beneath. My phone rang moments after he left for Chloe. A headline screamed, "Socialite Scandal: Architect Ava Miller' s Wild Lifestyle Exposed, Intimate Photos Leaked." My private photos. My voice raw, I called 911. The IP address traced to Chloe. Liam' s call came, "Ava, are you crazy? Chloe was just messing around, it didn' t even hurt you. Do you have to be so petty?" He still thought I didn' t know the truth. He warned, "I' ve already had the case dropped. No one in this city will take your case now." My mother called, screaming, "You' ve disgraced our entire family! If you don' t apologize to her immediately, you are no longer our daughter!" "I won' t be your daughter anymore," I replied, then hung up. At the airport, Liam messaged: "I' ll give you a child." I sent him the signed divorce agreement. "Liam, I won' t bother you anymore. I' ll make way for you two." I boarded the plane, leaving him, my family, and my shattered past behind.

My husband, Victor, always told me I was pathetic. For four years, I endured his cruelty, his public humiliations, watching him systematically dismantle my life piece by piece, all to punish me for my father' s supposed sins against his family. He forced me to marry him, then destroyed my company, Nexus, the last shred of my identity. The final blow came when he made me sign the dissolution papers, then kicked my company' s award across the floor, calling it junk-a toy. My heart shattered as Celeste, his glamorous business rival and lover, sauntered in, mocking my pain, "Don't be so dramatic, Ava. It was just a startup. They fail all the time." Victor's cold gaze, fixed on Celeste, twisted the knife deeper. He had promised my mother' s experimental treatments and my father' s freedom from prison were dependent on my compliance. I was nothing but a broken wife, a decorative accessory at galas, my efforts sabotaged by smeared articles. Every escape attempt ended in recapture, a new punishment. I was trapped in a suffocating web of his influence, with nothing left to fight for. But then, Celeste, with a cruel smirk, snatched my last remaining prototype-the culmination of my team's dreams for helping others-and threw it against the wall, shattering it. And just when I thought the pain couldn't get worse, Victor walked in, saw the wreckage, and stomped on the last glittering dust of my creation himself. "What the hell did you do?" he roared at me, not even glancing at the broken tech. He dragged me up by my hair, his face a terrifying mask. "It' s over," I managed, my voice eerily calm, tears streaming down my face. "I want a divorce, Victor. Let me go." "It's over when I say it's over," he snarled. "You don't get to decide anything." My body went limp. I was done fighting. Then, a strange calm washed over me. If I couldn't escape in this life, I would find freedom in another. There was only one way to truly be "done." I would go to the roof.

For five years, I lived for Marcus, my boss-a phantom in the shadows, cleaning up his messes, raising his son, Leo, and silently loving him. I secretly nursed a fragile hope, even as he brushed off my unspoken feelings with a dismissive, "You're too young, Ava. Don't get tied down with an old man like me." Yet, in the next breath, he' d ask me to pick up Leo from school. Then came the corporate espionage, a mission that went sideways fast, and Marcus was captured. The rival CEO, a ruthless man named Victor Thorne, contacted me, demanding my deadliest secret-a vulnerability I' d found in his company's system. I gave it up without a second thought; Marcus' s life was worth any cost. He came back shaken but unharmed, and I felt hollowed out, used. The next day, I heard him talking to our PR manager, Celeste. "She always tried to get me to commit. Never met such a desperate woman!" Celeste purred, "You have to admit, she's useful." "Useful?" Marcus scoffed. "If she wasn't so good at digging up dirt, I would have fired her years ago! Her puppy-dog eyes are exhausting." My world shattered. Every sacrifice, every late night, every ounce of love I' d poured into him, into his son-it was all a joke, a convenience. I was just…useful. My heart didn' t just break; it disintegrated. I realized I' d mistaken a job for a home, a boss for a savior. Later that week, everything fell apart even more. A routine operation turned into an ambush, and gunfire erupted. A bullet tore through my shoulder. Another grazed my side. Pain exploded through me. The last thing I heard before darkness consumed me was Marcus' s frantic cry over the comms system: "Ava! No! Please, God, please, bring her back to me..." Too little, too late.

My wedding night was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. Instead, my fiancée, Chloe Vance, brought a dead man to our bed – Liam, her adored junior developer. "Kneel," she commanded, her voice chillingly devoid of the warmth I had once foolishly sought. I knelt on a bed of broken circuits and shattered motherboards, agonizingly sharp against my skin. She forced me to apologize ten thousand times to a corpse, accusing me of stealing Liam's success and driving him to his death. But it was all a lie; I had simply won the AI competition, a prize that was meant to be hers and Liam's. She injected me with a toxic performance-enhancer, amplifying every sensation into agony. Then, she unleashed a torrent of anonymous hackers, forcing me to watch as they systematically cyber-assaulted and dismantled my entire digital life. She recorded it all, crafting a narrative of me as a cheating scumbag, a monster who had destroyed an innocent man. The world believed her, and the public shame, coupled with vicious online attacks, tragically killed my parents. Chloe moved swiftly, seizing my family's tech empire, the company my father had built from nothing. I died in that room, a broken man, humiliated to death. But then, I woke up. I was back at the beginning, a year before the competition's end, the AI prototype humming softly on my desk. This time, I wouldn't be a sacrifice for their twisted love. I would not win; I would let Liam have the victory, and Chloe. All I wanted was to live.

Rosalynn's marriage to Brian wasn't what she envisioned it to be. Her husband, Brian, barely came home. He avoided her like a plague. Worse still, he was always in the news for dating numerous celebrities. Rosalynn persevered until she couldn't take it anymore. She upped and left after filing for a divorce. Everything changed days later. Brian took interest in a designer that worked for his company anonymously. From her profile, he could tell that she was brilliant and dazzling. He pulled the stops to find out her true identity. Little did he know that he was going to receive the greatest shocker of his life. Brian bit his finger with regret when he recalled his past actions and the woman he foolishly let go.

Life was a bed of roses for Debra, the daughter of Alpha. That was until she had a one-night stand with Caleb. She was sure he was her mate as determined by Moon Goddess. But this hateful man refused to accept her. Weeks passed before Debra discovered that she was pregnant. Her pregnancy brought shame to her and everyone she loved. Not only was she driven out, but her father was also hunted down by usurpers. Fortunately, she survived with the help of the mysterious Thorn Edge Pack. Five years passed and Debra didn't hear anything from Caleb. One day, their paths crossed again. They were both on the same mission—carrying out secret investigations in the dangerous Roz Town for the safety and posterity of their respective packs. Caleb was still cold toward her. But as time went on, he fell head over heels in love with her. He tried to make up for abandoning her, but Debra wasn't having any of it. She was hell-bent on hiding her daughter from him and also making a clean break. What did the future hold for the two as they journeyed in Roz Town? What kind of secrets would they find? Would Caleb win Debra's heart and get to know his lovely daughter? Find out!

Rejected by her mate, who had been her long-time crush, Jasmine felt utterly humiliated. Seeking solace, she headed to a party to drown her sorrows. But things took a turn for the worse when her friends issued a cruel dare: kiss a stranger or beg her mate for forgiveness. With no other choice, Jasmine approached a stranger and kissed him, thinking that would be the end of it. However, the stranger unexpectedly wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered in her ear, "You're mine!" He growled, his words sending shivers down her spine. And then, he offered her a solution that would change everything...

Madisyn was stunned to discover that she was not her parents' biological child. Due to the real daughter's scheming, she was kicked out and became a laughingstock. Thought to be born to peasants, Madisyn was shocked to find that her real father was the richest man in the city, and her brothers were renowned figures in their respective fields. They showered her with love, only to learn that Madisyn had a thriving business of her own. "Stop pestering me!" said her ex-boyfriend. "My heart only belongs to Jenna." "How dare you think that my woman has feelings for you?" claimed a mysterious bigwig.

Elliana, the unfavored "ugly duckling" of her family, was humiliated by her stepsister, Paige, who everyone admired. Paige, engaged to the CEO Cole, was the perfect woman-until Cole married Elliana on the day of the wedding. Shocked, everyone wondered why he chose the "ugly" woman. As they waited for her to be cast aside, Elliana stunned everyone by revealing her true identity: a miracle healer, financial mogul, appraisal prodigy, and AI genius. When her mistreatment became known, Cole revealed Elliana's stunning, makeup-free photo, sending shockwaves through the media. "My wife doesn't need anyone's approval."

Lyric had spent her life being hated. Bullied for her scarred face and hated by everyone-including her own mate-she was always told she was ugly. Her mate only kept her around to gain territory, and the moment he got what he wanted, he rejected her, leaving her broken and alone. Then, she met him. The first man to call her beautiful. The first man to show her what it felt like to be loved. It was only one night, but it changed everything. For Lyric, he was a saint, a savior. For him, she was the only woman that had ever made him cum in bed-a problem he had been battling for years. Lyric thought her life would finally be different, but like everyone else in her life, he lied. And when she found out who he really was, she realized he wasn't just dangerous-he was the kind of man you don't escape from. Lyric wanted to run. She wanted freedom. But she desired to navigate her way and take back her respect, to rise above the ashes. Eventually, she was forced into a dark world she didn't wish to get involved with.