A Wife's Tragic End, His Awakening
The man who destroyed my life stood over my broken body, but he didn't recognize me. My husband, Carter, was just the lawyer handling the "Jane Doe" found at his client's construction site, worried only about legal complications.
As a ghost, I watched him dismiss every part of me. The silver locket I' d clutched in my hand?
"Just another piece of evidence," he said flatly.
The faded tattoo on my wrist? "An irrelevant detail." He called me a selfish liar when my severe heart condition kept me from donating bone marrow to his manipulative fiancée, Cecelia. He threw me out of his car and left me on a street corner, where her thugs found me.
He was consumed with finding justice for a stranger, blind to the fact that he was the one who had sentenced his own wife to death.
I thought he'd never know. But then, the police showed him security footage from a community center. He saw my face, alive and smiling. And in that instant, the man who refused to see me in life was forced to see me in death.
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Chapter 5
Ava Bell POV:
Carter' s phone rang again, a jarring buzz in the quiet, sterile office. He glanced at the caller ID, his brow furrowing slightly, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. It was Davian Ortega, his law partner and friend.
"Davian," Carter answered, his voice clipped.
"Carter, have you heard from Ava?" Davian's voice, usually calm and measured, was laced with genuine concern. "She missed her appointment at the clinic. And she's not answering her phone. I'm worried."
Carter exhaled slowly, a sound of profound annoyance. "Ava? What appointment are you talking about? And why are you 'worried'? She's probably just off on one of her self-pitying tangents."
"The cardiac clinic, Carter," Davian said, his voice sharper now. "The one for her heart condition. She was supposed to have a follow-up. You knew about this, right? She told you she had a severe heart condition."
He told you, Carter. I told you. Over and over.
"Heart condition?" Carter scoffed, a harsh, disbelieving sound. "Please, Davian. She probably made it all up to avoid donating to Cecelia. You know how manipulative Ava can be. Always trying to get attention."
"That's not fair, Carter," Davian countered, his voice firm. "Ava isn't like that. And even if you think she is, she's been unreachable for days. Something feels wrong. You've changed, man. You really have."
"Don't you dare question me, Davian," Carter growled, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "My fiancée is fighting for her life, and Ava is just being her usual, dramatic self. If you're going to side with her, then maybe you should reconsider whose side you're on." He paused, his voice softening with feigned sincerity. "Cecelia needs me, Davian. I love her."
He loves her. He always loved her. And I was just the girl who loved him. The words echoed in the hollow space where my heart had been.
Carter hung up abruptly, slamming his phone onto the desk. He ran a hand through his hair, his face flushed with anger.
"Unbelievable," he muttered, pacing the office. "The nerve. Davian, of all people."
A junior associate, a nervous young man named Mark, looked up from his computer. "Everything alright, Mr. Rios?"
Carter stopped, forcing a semblance of calm. "Just Ava, creating drama as usual. Davian thinks she's missing. Probably just looking for attention." He waved a dismissive hand. "She'll turn up eventually, looking for sympathy."
Mark nodded, though a faint frown creased his brow.
"You know, Carter," Miller, the detective, said, leaning against the doorframe. He had just walked in, having heard the tail end of the conversation. "You need to be careful. People sometimes forget what's real when they're too close to a situation."
Miller' s words were meant as a warning, a subtle nudge, but Carter just bristled.
I remembered Carter's wedding day. He had looked so happy, so radiant, standing beside Cecelia. I had watched from the back, a silent observer, my heart both soaring and shattering for him. I wanted his happiness, even if it wasn't with me.
Then, the first social event after their wedding. A gala, glittering with the city's elite. Carter insisted I come. "You're family, Ava. You need to be seen."
I felt like a fish out of water, my simple dress lost amidst the designer gowns. My hands trembled as I held a champagne flute. I was nervous, intimidated by the opulence.
Cecelia, draped in silk and diamonds, glided over to me, a predatory smile on her lips. "Look at you, Ava," she purred, her voice carrying just enough for those nearby to hear. "Still clinging to Carter's coattails, are we? Trying to make an impression? You look utterly out of place."
My face burned. I wanted to disappear.
"Cecelia, don't," Carter said, his voice low, but he didn't intervene. He just watched, his expression unreadable.
"She's right," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "I don't belong here."
"Then leave!" Cecelia hissed, her eyes glinting with malice. "Go back to your little studio and hide. You're embarrassing Carter."
I turned and fled, tears blurring my vision. Carter didn't stop me. He watched me go, and then turned back to Cecelia, his hand resting on her back reassuringly.
That was the night I knew. Truly knew. My place with Carter was gone. It had never really existed.
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7.2
On my husband Heath's birthday, I sent him a gift: the preserved embryo of the child I had just aborted.
It was my revenge. He had framed my father, driving him to prison and my mother to her grave, all for his mistress, Ember.
When he stormed into our apartment, his face twisted with rage, he slammed me against the counter. "You monster! How could you destroy our child?"
"You forfeited that right the moment you chose Ember over us," I spat back.
But my defiance only led to more horror. He had me committed to a mental asylum where Ember, the architect of my family's ruin, tortured me with electroshock therapy, trying to break my mind.
I feigned submission, then fought back, throwing both of us out of a third-story window. I survived; she was left in critical condition.
Lying in my hospital bed, Heath came to me not with remorse, but with a chilling demand. "Ember needs a tendon graft. You're a match. The surgery is tomorrow."
He thought he had me trapped, that he could force me to sacrifice a piece of myself for the woman who destroyed me.
But as he left to comfort his mistress, I made a call. The next morning, as he begged me not to go through with the "surgery," I walked away, leaving him in the ruins of the life he had shattered. He didn't know this wasn't a surgery. It was my escape, and the beginning of his end.
9.2
The body of my sister, Annabelle, was found brutally stuffed inside an ottoman in our living room.
The house was locked from the inside, and the police didn't have a single lead.
Before she died, Annabelle left a note: "Beware of the Other Mom."
7.1
I was living as a ghost in a run-down trailer park, trying to outrun a past that would kill me if it ever caught up. Then the storm hit, and a dying monster collapsed through my door, bringing the smell of copper and the promise of a very different kind of death.
I tried to defend myself with a cheap butcher knife, but Darius didn't just disarm me—he acquired me. Before the rain even stopped, I was drugged and whisked away on a private jet, waking up in a luxury penthouse that was nothing more than a high-tech cage overlooking the city skyline.
He didn't just want my silence; he wanted total control. When I begged to check on my sick grandmother, he threw a manila envelope on the table filled with surveillance photos of her at her nursing home.
"I own the board of that facility," he said, his voice cold as ice. "One call from me, and she dies alone on the street."
He vetted my life in that trailer park down to my medical records and childhood diaries, convinced he had every lever of power needed to keep me obedient. He forced me into silk dresses and expected me to be his domestic pet, a quiet girl waiting for him to return from his world of shadows and blood.
I played the part, letting him pull me into his lap and bury his face in my neck, pretending to be the broken girl he thought he’d bought. I watched his security cameras, calculated his blind spots, and waited for the moment his exhaustion outweighed his instinct.
Darius thinks he knows me because he saw where I lived, but he’s never been more wrong. His investigators found the pauper, but they completely missed the princess with an Ivy League degree and a family name that carries more weight than his illegal empire.
He thinks he’s the one holding the leash, but he has no idea who he’s actually brought into his home. The game has just begun, and this time, the "asset" is going to be the one who burns the house down.
9.6
My family and fiancé begged me to donate my last remaining kidney to my twin sister, Kyleigh. They didn't know I was already dying.
My fiancé, Axel, gave me an ultimatum.
"Donate the kidney, or I'll break our engagement and marry Kyleigh. It's her dying wish."
I agreed, only for them to frame me for plagiarism with my own thesis, forcing me to confess on camera. They never knew I was the one who secretly saved our father with my other kidney five years ago-a sacrifice Kyleigh had stolen all the credit for.
As they wheeled me into the operating room, they celebrated with Kyleigh, promising her a future built on my death. I was already a ghost to them.
But I died on the table. The surgeon, seeing the old surgical scar and the poison riddling my body, walked out to face them.
"This wasn't a donation," she announced, her voice cold as steel. "This was murder."
9.5
Bridget left the office early on her anniversary, her pocket heavy with a custom velvet ring box meant for her fiancé.
But when she pushed open the bedroom door, she found him tangled in their bed with her best friend, Chloe.
"Bridget! Wait, it's not what it looks like!" Jacob stammered, his eyes wide with panic.
"Evidence," Bridget stated coldly, snapping a photo of their naked bodies before fleeing into the freezing New York night.
Desperate to numb the betrayal, she got blackout drunk at an underground lounge and threw herself at a dark, terrifyingly handsome stranger.
She woke up in a penthouse suite alone, finding only a limitless black credit card left on the nightstand.
Humiliated and feeling like a cheap escort, she ran away, swearing to forget the nightmare.
But the nightmare had just begun. When she rushed into the office, she discovered the stranger was Jevon Rocha—the ruthless billionaire CEO of her company.
He didn't fire her. Instead, he trapped her in a twisted, obsessive power game, forcing her into his private life and demanding she report to his penthouse.
Bridget couldn't understand why a ruthless billionaire was so dangerously fixated on a low-level employee.
Until she stumbled upon his secret social media account and saw a crayon drawing of a little kid, captioned with a single word: "Finally."
A wave of absolute horror washed over her. He wasn't just playing games; he was hiding a secret child and a messy, high-stakes family drama.
She refused to be the naive collateral damage in a billionaire's twisted life.
Trembling, Bridget hit "Block" on his profile, determined to escape his dangerous web.
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.