Husband's Lies, Mistress's Son

My world crumbled when I saw my husband, Arthur, across the street with his mistress, Karin, and a son who was his spitting image. For years, he' d told me he wasn' t ready for a family. It was all a lie. But the true horror began at my own awards ceremony. Karin' s son, coached to hate me, rushed the stage and attacked me. The assault caused me to miscarry the baby Arthur swore he never wanted. As I lay bleeding on the stage, my husband didn't help. He shoved me aside, his eyes blazing with fury. "You monster!" he roared, scooping up his son and leaving me shattered in front of everyone. Later, Karin cornered me, her voice a triumphant whisper. "I made sure you'd lose the baby." Then, she pushed me off a cliff into the churning ocean below. But I didn't die. A fisherman pulled me from the water, broken but alive. As the world mourned the "accidental drowning" of Elenora Dawson, I made a call to the Vienna Conservatory. "I accept."

Chapters

Chapter 7

I followed the breadcrumbs. The child's drawing, the dates on the back of the family photos, the casual mentions Arthur had let slip. It led me to a high-end country club on the other side of the state. A private, members-only event. Leo's fifth birthday party.

I stood outside the ornate gates, peering through the wrought iron. Banners fluttered, bright balloons bobbed in the breeze. The sounds of children's laughter and a magician's booming voice drifted towards me. There he was. Arthur, smiling, holding Leo's hand, Karin by his side, resplendent in a designer sundress. The perfect, happy, his family. My heart, long since turned to stone, didn't even flinch.

Then I saw it. A game set up on the sprawling lawn. A large, grotesque caricature of my face was painted on a target board. Children, Leo among them, were gleefully throwing beanbags at it, trying to knock over the "Elenora" target. Leo hit it squarely, his face alight with vicious triumph. "Ugly lady falls down!" he shrieked, as the cardboard me toppled over.

A cold, hard knot of rage tightened in my gut. They were teaching him to hate me. Actively, joyfully, cruelly.

Karin, catching my eye through the fence, smirked. Her eyes, usually so calculating, now held an open, triumphant challenge. She turned to Arthur, pulling him close, her lips brushing his. A slow, possessive kiss, meant for me to witness. A public display of her victory.

Later, Leo proudly displayed a new drawing. It was a more detailed version of the family portrait, this time with him, Arthur, and Karin holding hands, standing on what appeared to be a grave. My grave.

I had to end this.

I found Karin by the buffet table, alone for a moment. "Karin," I said, my voice low, cutting through the festive din.

She turned, her eyes narrowing. "You have a death wish, Elenora? I thought I made myself clear."

"I have something for you," I said, extending a hand. In it, a thick envelope. "Arthur's signed his half. You just need to sign yours." It was the completed divorce agreement, now bearing Arthur' s signature, obtained discreetly through Clara, who had her ways.

Her eyes scanned the document, a flicker of surprise, then greedy satisfaction crossing her face. "Finally making the smart choice, are we? Giving up on that pathetic illusion of a life you had with Arthur?" She laughed, a triumphant, sneering sound. "You know, he barely put up a fight. Just signed it and asked if you were 'okay.' What a fool. Just like you."

"Just sign it, Karin," I said, my voice trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the raw desire to be free of her.

She scribbled her signature with a flourish, her eyes still fixed on mine, full of malice. "Consider yourself erased, Elenora. You never existed." She tossed the signed papers back at me, a dismissive gesture. "Now, get lost. Before Leo sets his sights on you again."

I clutched the papers, the signed divorce agreement, not as a symbol of loss, but of liberation. The knot in my chest, the constant pressure, began to loosen. A profound sense of relief, cold and clear, washed over me. I was free. Free from Arthur's lies, free from Karin's venom, free from the ghost of a child that would never be.

A new life awaited. A real one. One entirely my own.

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In my past life, the Cerberus strain leaked, turning the world into a blood-soaked hell of rotting flesh and mutated monsters. I thought my boyfriend Declan and my best friend Hailee would have my back as we fled the quarantine zone. Instead, when the surging crowd of the infected cornered us, they didn't hesitate. They shoved me backward into the horde just to buy themselves three seconds to run. As I fell into the mud, I saw them fleeing without a single backward glance. "She's dead weight anyway!" Hailee screamed. "Just keep running, she'll distract them!" Declan yelled back. I was torn apart, feeling the agonizing tear of rotting teeth sinking into my neck and the hot spray of my own blood. Before the apocalypse, my greedy uncle had locked away my ten-million-dollar trust fund, leaving me with nothing but a fake boyfriend who only wanted me for my money. Until my last breath, I couldn't understand how the people I loved most could trade my life for a head start. Why did I blindly trust them? Why didn't I see through their perfectly choreographed lies? Opening my eyes again, the stench of decaying flesh vanished, replaced by the sterile smell of my college dorm room. Hailee and Declan were standing over my bed, faking tears of concern over my meningitis fever. I was back exactly seven days before the world ended, and my spatial vault ability had come back with me. This time, I'm extorting my uncle for every cent, hoarding the city's supplies, and leaving them all to rot.

Action Horror Modern Sci-Fi

9.3

Bound By His Obsession, Trapped Forever

9.3

My mate, Theron, was a powerful Alpha, and I, a scentless Omega, was his greatest prize. But beneath his adoring facade was a terrifying, possessive monster, revealed when he dragged me home and forced me into our bed after I was late to his challenge match. His golden eyes burned with chilling control, and he whispered a threat that turned my blood to ice. I'd been stuck on a forest road, my truck dead, racing to reach his challenge match. His mate bond panic had already frayed my nerves, but nothing prepared me for his rage. He'd publicly broken his opponent's shoulder, then stalked directly to me, ignoring the crowd. He marked my lateness with chilling precision, before dragging me away to our rooms for "punishment." Later, as he tried to force a ceremonial marking pendant on me, he promised, "If you will not accept my mark willingly, then I will wait for your Heat. I will fuck you until your body begs for it, and my wolf will hold you down while I bite." My gaze fell on his open journal, filled with frantic, scrawled words: "SHE IS MINE. PUNISH. CLAIM. MARK HER. BREED HER. MAKE HER UNDERSTAND SHE IS MINE. MINE. MINE." The man I loved, my only protection, was a captor in disguise, his devotion a gilded cage. Every gentle touch, every soft word, now felt like a brand of ownership, a tightening leash. The terrifying truth of his pathological obsession finally hit me. A fragile plan formed in the space between heartbeats: I would de-escalate, redefine, and survive, no matter the cost, before his possessive madness consumed me entirely.

Horror Romance Werewolf

9.5

Tethered Spirit: Bound To My Murderer Husband

9.5

My son was dying in my arms, and the man who should have been saving him was likely choosing an engagement ring for another woman. I rushed Jeremy to the Emergency Room, his small body heavy and limp against my chest. But the person blocking the sliding doors wasn’t a doctor. It was Yvonne, my fiancé Benedict's new lover. She looked at my desperate, rain-soaked face and sneered. "Don't ruin my night with your drama," she hissed. "Benedict is busy." She and her brother shoved me back onto the wet floor. My son died on the cold tiles of the entrance. My heart gave out moments later, unable to bear the grief. When Benedict finally walked past our bodies, he didn't even look at our faces. He crumpled up the note I had written begging for help and tossed it into the trash. "Unbelievable," he muttered. "She uses the kid as an excuse to interrupt my shift again." He stepped over his own dead son to go to a party. But I didn't disappear. I became a ghost, invisible and tethered to him by an unbreakable chain. I watched him laugh with the woman who killed us. I watched him live his perfect life while I floated in the void. Until he found the autopsy report. Until he saw the date of birth. Until he found the broken locket in the evidence bag engraved with *Benedict & Ava*. Now, he spends every night crying into the dark, begging for a forgiveness he will never get. He thinks he is simply haunted. He has no idea he is paying a blood debt that will never end.

Horror Modern Romance

7.7

The Cursed Story

7.7

During a college retreat, we hosted a storytelling competition. They just kept egging me on, completely oblivious to the terrifying disaster it would invite. I said, "The story I'm about to tell is a curse." "Everyone who has ever heard this story has died." "Are you sure you want to hear it?"

Fantasy Horror Young Adult

7.0

The Disposable Bride's Deadly Secret Identity

7.0

My debt-ridden uncle sold me to the Romero mafia family to save his own skin. I was forced to marry Emiliano Romero, a man known to the underworld as "The Ghost"—a rumored monster who supposedly tore his last two caretakers apart. My aunt and cousin delighted in my misery. My cousin came at me with a razor, leaving a nasty bruise on my face, while my aunt bleached my hair to make me look like a cheap, disposable doll. When the Romeros arrived, they didn't even pretend to want a daughter-in-law. "The Family needs a nobody whose death won't start a police report." They just wanted a clueless victim to sign a pre-nup and die quietly. They shoved me down a sterile hallway and locked me inside a fortified, padded cell with a man wrapped in heavy chains. They all thought they were sacrificing a helpless, terrified lamb to a madman. They laughed at my tears, completely convinced I was just gutter trash waiting to be slaughtered. But they had no idea I was a highly trained undercover operative. Listening to their arrogant whispers, the pieces finally clicked. Emiliano wasn't a deranged killer—he was a prisoner being drugged and framed by his own blood. I drained my uncle's bank account to buy a neurotoxin antidote, dropped my pathetic, trembling disguise, and stepped calmly into the monster's cage. I wasn't here to be their victim. I was here to save him.

Horror Mafia Mystery

7.4

The Genius Doctor's Perfect Fake Death

7.4

To escape my psychopathic, controlling lover, I faked my death in a Syrian war zone. Thirty-seven reconstructive surgeries later, the terrified girl he kept locked in a basement was gone. I returned to New York as an untouchable neurosurgeon, Dr. Alivia Clay. I only came back to save his grandfather—the one man who helped me escape. I thought my flawless new face was the perfect armor. But the moment Collis Duncan saw me, he cornered me against the hospital wall. He didn't recognize my face, but he recognized my panic. He trapped me in his arms, inhaling the faint scent of vanilla and orange blossom on my skin. "You smell exactly like a ghost I used to know," he whispered. Worse, a traumatized, mute little boy with Collis's exact gray eyes stumbled into me in the hallway. The boy clutched my white coat and handed me a flashcard with a crude drawing of a woman. "Mama." My blood turned to ice. Five years ago, I was told my newborn baby burned to ashes in that medical tent. How could this boy be alive? Why did Collis have my son while I mourned a pile of dust? Now, Collis is ordering a microscopic background check, desperate to tear my fake life to the ground and cage me again. But I'm not running anymore. Once I finish this surgery, I'm taking my son back.

Action Horror Modern

Husband's Lies, Mistress's Son

Chapter 7

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