Eleven Miscarriages, One Final Cut
After her eleventh miscarriage, Clara Fulton became pregnant again. To protect the pregnancy, she lay in a hospital bed day after day, enduring injection after injection, waiting for the special drug meant to save her child.
Then she discovered the truth. Her husband of eight years, Ethan Grayson, had already given that one dose of the special drug to his newly pregnant mistress.
Clara wiped the tears from her face and made a ruthless decision, ending the pregnancy she had fought so desperately to keep.
She no longer wanted a man who wavered between women. But anyone who betrayed sincerity would have to pay a price.
She took out a phone she had never once used and dialed the only number saved on it.
"You wanted me to acknowledge you as my father, didn't you? Come pick me up in a week. I'll take your seat."
She had no idea that after she left, Ethan would kneel before every god he could think of, praying for nothing but her return.
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Chapter 8
"Clara… may I call you that?"
Victor Fulton looked at Clara with great caution, stopping several steps away. He studied her expression carefully, afraid of upsetting her.
Ever since the last time he recognized her bloodied and wounded while she was risking her life to save Ethan, guilt had consumed him, leaving him desperate to make amends.
He had never married or had children. Clara was his only daughter, and if she was willing, she would be his sole heir.
She would one day rule the entire underworld of Harborcliff.
But all Clara had ever wanted was to stay by Ethan's side, and because of her mother, she had refused to acknowledge Victor as her father.
Victor did not know why she had suddenly chosen to return and inherit his position. All he felt was joy.
Clara looked up at him and caught the tenderness in his eyes, her vision blurring as her eyes reddened.
She threw herself into his arms and broke down, sobbing uncontrollably.
Though she had once harbored many resentments toward him, he was now her only family left in this world.
Victor froze, then gently patted Clara's back.
Instead of feeling happy at her closeness, his face filled with heartache and anger.
"Did Ethan hurt you? Tell me, and I'll bring people with me right now to make him pay."
From the moment Clara had risked her life to save Ethan, Victor had been deeply dissatisfied with him.
What kind of man let his pregnant woman save him? Utterly useless.
Over the years in Asterfall, if it hadn't been for Victor's secret help and his old friends backing Ethan, Ethan would never have consolidated power so quickly.
Nor would he have become the underworld boss he was today.
Everything Victor had done was meant to spare Clara from suffering. Yet she had still been hurt.
The thought alone made him want to gun Ethan down on the spot.
"It's all in the past. I have nothing to do with Ethan anymore. I don't care what happens to him."
Victor snorted softly and did not press further when he saw she didn't want to talk about it.
Instead, he glanced at the four men nearby, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"These four are my adopted sons. If you're willing, you can choose one of them as your husband. He'll help you take over the organization as soon as possible."
From the moment he reunited with Clara, Victor had already seen them as replacements for Ethan.
In both looks and ability, all four far surpassed Ethan. Only men like them were worthy of Clara.
Victor paused, then waved a hand casually. "If you like, you can take them all."
Clara's cheeks flushed instantly as she shook her head in a panic.
"No, thank you. I'm not ready to start another relationship yet."
Over the years, Victor had often had the four of them send her gifts. Each time, she treated them coldly and threw the gifts away.
Still, over time, they grew familiar with one another.
The four men looked at Clara with eyes full of concern.
Back when she had stormed into their stronghold without hesitation, they had already admired her as a fearless heroine.
No one had expected that years later, Clara would end up in such a battered state.
There was a lifeless emptiness in her eyes, as if she might collapse at any moment.
Victor looked just as distressed and spoke quickly, "I've arranged the best hospital for a full checkup. You need to focus on resting and recovering."
Clara nodded in thanks, looking slightly embarrassed.
Over the following period, Clara recovered well under the care of the five men.
She filled out noticeably, and smiles returned to her face.
She even joked around with them from time to time.
Seeing more and more smiles on her face left Victor so emotional he couldn't speak.
A man who could stir storms across Harborcliff now had red-rimmed eyes, no different from an ordinary father.
Guilt quietly crept into Clara's heart.
Her mother had said before dying that she no longer blamed him, that leaving them back then had only been an accident.
Yet something had always been stuck in her chest, refusing to let her acknowledge him.
If she had returned to her father sooner, she might not have suffered so much.
"Miss Fulton, Kieran has gone way too far. He won't even let us come see you. You need to talk some sense into him."
The three men stood before Clara, looking aggrieved as they glared at the athletic man beside them.
Kieran Fulton shrugged innocently and spoke in a way that was guaranteed to infuriate anyone. "That's because you're useless. You all lost to me in a fight. We agreed back then that only the winner gets to stand by Miss Fulton's side and be her fiancé."
"Who agreed to that? You made it up yourself and then beat us into the ground."
"You fight like a mad dog. We're not interested in brawling with you. If you've got guts, let's use our brains."
"Exactly. How could Miss Fulton's fiancé be nothing but a brute?"
The four of them started arguing again, and Clara felt a headache coming on, pressing her fingers to her temples.
Kieran was the first to notice her discomfort. He shoved the three of them out with lightning speed and shut the door, ignoring their angry shouting.
He then sat by Clara's hospital bed and poured her a cup of warm water.
"Victor's been busy lately. Let me take care of you."
He helped Clara sit up with care and handed her a laptop with a game already loaded.
Clara sighed helplessly.
Kieran was the most shameless of the four, impossible to chase away.
She had no choice but to let him stay.
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8.0
Elena never planned on marrying a stranger, especially not someone engaged to her sister. But when her sister disappears days before the wedding, Elena is forced into an arrangement she never agreed to, with a man she knew nothing about.
Nathaniel Sinclair, billionaire heir with his dreamy looks and charming attitude is just as unenthusiastic about the situation as she is. Their marriage begins with distance, awkward silences and the quiet understanding that neither of them asked for this.
But as days turn into weeks and forced proximity becomes a regular thing, Elena starts to wonder: what happens when two people trapped in an arrangement begin to fall for each other?
It was never meant to be love. But love has a way of rewriting the rules.
7.1
I woke up gasping for air, expecting the cold concrete of a prison cell, but my fingers sank into the plush leather of a luxury Lincoln. I was twenty-four again, wearing the silver silk dress from the night my life was systematically destroyed.
Beside me sat my cousin Catrina, the woman whose carefully crafted lies had orchestrated my ruin and sent me to a penitentiary for five years.
In my first life, this was the night the dominoes fell. Catrina stole my jewelry to paint me as mentally unstable, and by morning, I was stripped of my medical license and labeled a criminal. My mother’s family, the Montgomerys, stood by and watched as my father’s company was devoured by wolves, treating my existence like a "liability" that needed to be managed. I still felt the phantom tremors in my hands from prison fights and the stinging betrayal of being discarded by the people I called family.
I had lived through five years of absolute hell, a former surgeon rotting in a cell while the people who framed me toasted to their success at galas I was no longer invited to.
"Don't be selfish, Dawn," Catrina whispered, reaching for the necklace that would later be used as evidence against me. "Let the jewelry shine on someone who actually matters."
She thought I was still the fragile victim she could manipulate, but she didn't realize I had returned from the grave with the cold, clinical calculation of a fixer.
Instead of walking into her trap at the gala, I forced the car onto a dark service road and dragged a dying billionaire, Jennings Stafford, from the wreckage of a burning SUV.
He was the only man powerful enough to destroy my enemies, and as I stitched his wounds with stolen supplies, I didn't ask for a thank you.
I looked him dead in the eye and proposed a contract that would set the world on fire.
"I want a strategic marriage. You get a harmless wife with a legacy name to calm your board, and I get immunity from everyone who ever touched me."
The bill for my five years in prison had finally come due, and I was here to collect.
7.8
Helen was finally brought back to the luxurious Gallagher estate as their long-lost blood relative.
But her new family didn't welcome her; they looked at her with undisguised disgust.
The matriarch mocked her stench of poverty, while her step-sister Candice treated her like a feral animal. The patriarch, Fredy—who had built his empire by betraying Helen's mother—tried to break her spirit. He blackmailed Helen into attending a high-society gala by threatening to cut off her grandmother's medical funds.
At the gala, Candice squeezed into a diamond-encrusted gown, desperate to seduce the guest of honor, Damian Montgomery. Damian was the most powerful man in New York, and he was currently tearing the city apart looking for a mysterious woman named Jane.
Overhearing this, a sick, greedy smile spread across Candice's face. She planned to impersonate Jane to claim Damian's wealth and completely crush Helen under her heel.
"Hide in the corner tonight. Don't you dare try to speak to anyone important!"
They all thought Helen was just a helpless, uncultured country girl they could easily manipulate and step on to secure their stolen legacy.
What they didn't know was that Helen was the real Jane. She was the lethal shadow who had saved Damian in the woods, shattered his grip, and robbed his highly guarded vault just the night before.
Helen calmly adjusted her simple black dress and stepped into the ballroom, ready to tear their stolen world apart.
7.2
Nina had been by Julian's side for ten years, ostensibly as his personal doctor, but in reality, she was his lover.
Whenever he was injured in conflicts, she treated him; during his moments of loneliness, she was there to comfort him.
Nina believed that if she devoted enough, she would eventually win his heart.
That was until his idealized love returned to the country, rendering Nina worthless in his eyes, and he discarded her like yesterday's news.
Even his assistant couldn't bear to see it and advised Julian to appreciate her, but he scoffed at the suggestion. "Nina was never part of my life plan. I kept her around because she bore a slight resemblance to Aria."
In that instant, Nina's infatuation seemed like a joke.
When he wrapped his arm around his idealized love's waist, smiling as he asked her to help plan their wedding, Nina didn't cry or cause a scene; she just smiled through her tears and obediently agreed.
Then she turned around and dialed a number. "There are seven days left in the ten-year commitment. I am applying for termination, and from now on, I will have nothing to do with Julian."
9.8
Adeline's stepmother had secretly drugged her for years, turning a child genius into a drooling, mentally disabled laughingstock just so her stepsister could steal her life.
But when her greedy father sold her off to Griffin Herring—a violent, untouchable billionaire psychopath—to save his company, things took a deadly turn.
Before the wedding, Griffin attacked her in a dark alley, nearly snapping her neck before stealing her grandfather's silver necklace.
That necklace held a micro-drive with her family's deepest secrets, and without it, she had nothing.
Back at the estate, her situation only worsened. Her stepsister Damaris paraded around in the Herring family's diamond engagement gifts, trying to force-feed Adeline wet dog food on an Instagram live stream.
When Adeline's calculated "clumsiness" ruined the video, her furious father locked her in a damp, rusted basement.
"Give her to the psycho," her stepmother hissed through the door. "Let him lock her away forever."
Listening from the shadows, Adeline's fists clenched until her palms bled.
Her supposed mental fog wasn't a tragedy—it was a calculated assassination of her mind. They had destroyed her childhood and were now throwing her to a monster just to keep the billions.
The dull, empty look in Adeline's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a razor-sharp, chilling clarity.
She pulled a thin surgical needle from her messy bun and picked the heavy iron padlock in ten seconds. It was time to break into the billionaire's penthouse, take back her necklace, and tear them all apart.
8.1
Allison was hiding in a dusty small-town garage, working as a mechanic to suppress the lethal, experimental serum freezing her veins.
But a call from her estranged, wealthy father shattered her peace.
He threatened to permanently freeze her dead mother's trust fund if she didn't return to the family estate immediately.
That trust fund held the only key to the truth behind her past and her survival.
When she stepped into the sprawling mansion in her faded hoodie, her family treated her like a stray dog.
Her stepmother mocked her cheap clothes, and her half-brother called her a piece of trash.
Her father tossed a vocational school enrollment form at her, telling her to learn to sew so they could marry her off to anyone desperate enough.
Her perfect, porcelain-doll stepsister Gwyneth even deliberately smashed a glass of boiling milk against her own leg.
"Why did you push me?!" Gwyneth screamed, crying tears of fake terror to frame Allison.
"You vicious bitch! You're just as sick as your mother!" her father roared, raising his hand to strike her.
They looked at her with absolute disgust, thinking she was just a stupid, uncultured hick they could easily manipulate and destroy.
They had no idea that the girl standing before them was a lethal operative who already possessed all their offshore tax ledgers and darkest secrets.
Allison easily caught her father's wrist mid-air, her grip like a steel vice.
"I'm not going to a trade school," she whispered coldly, ripping the form into pieces. "I am going to Crestwood Academy."
It was time to take back everything that belonged to her, with interest.