LOVE BEYOND THE PAIN
It was supposed to be her sister's wedding. But in an instant, Aurelia was forced to take her place becoming the bride to a man she barely even knew.
To pay off her family's debt and protect her parents' dignity, Aurelia spoke her vows to Gian, a cold man who never wanted her there in the first place.
Without love, without the blessing of her own heart, Aurelia married Gian Alvaro, the man who was meant to be her sister's husband. The frigid reception, the disappointed looks from Gian's family, and a silent wedding night marked the beginning of a life she never wished for.
Their marriage began with obligation. But as Gian's gaze slowly softened and the walls around him began to crumble, Aurelia found herself facing an unsettling truth. Love doesn't always come easy... and the secrets behind this marriage are far from fully revealed.
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Chapter 7
"You have to fix me. Bring my confidence back."
Aurelia froze where she stood, while Gian closed the distance between them in just a few quick steps. The sudden proximity made her spin around instinctively.
"I-I'm not that kind of woman," she stammered, inching away as her hands flew up to guard her chest.
"I know," Gian shot back immediately. "You're my wife, Aurelia."
He said it right beside her left ear, making her flinch and shiver at the same time. His voice was too close-low, steady-and it slid under her skin like a blade. His breath brushed her neck, stirring a strange, unnameable sensation inside her.
Aurelia faced him again. She wanted to get angry, to push him away and reject all of this. But her tongue refused to move. Her body locked up under emotions she couldn't sort out. Gian didn't even touch her, yet the weight of his stare made it hard to breathe.
The next morning, Aurelia's scream tore through the quiet room the moment she opened her eyes and found a tall, broad-shouldered man lying beside her. She jolted backward so fast she nearly fell off the bed, her heart racing wildly. The messy strands of her long black hair stuck to her cheek, her face still pale from shock.
"Wh–what is this?!" she cried.
Gian blinked awake, startled but far from bothered. He simply sat up at the edge of the bed, brushing a hand through his tousled hair. His lean build was outlined under a thin T-shirt and loose lounge pants, making his presence impossible to ignore.
"Relax," he said flatly. "I didn't do anything."
"Wh–Why were you sleeping here?!"
"Because I'm your husband. And we share a room. Besides, I already paid for your tuition. Don't forget that."
Aurelia opened her mouth to argue, but no words came out. She bit her lower lip hard. Silence. Resignation. Anger simmered underneath her skin, tangled with guilt. She knew this mess started because she begged him in the first place.
She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. But before she could get up, Gian's voice stopped her cold.
"The doctor said there's nothing wrong with my health. So... I just need practice."
Aurelia frowned, confused. "Practice? Practice what?"
Gian turned to her. His sharp eyes locked onto hers-commanding, unblinking, almost stripping her bare. A faint smirk tugged at the mouth that rarely ever smiled.
"Do I really have to spell it out?"
Aurelia froze. Heat rushed to her face instantly. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. She backed away from the side of the bed, instinctively seeking distance.
"Gian... I don't understand. If this is some kind of joke, then please... stop."
"You said you'd do anything," Gian replied as he stood. His height dwarfed her completely. The difference between them wasn't just visible-it was palpable. She felt swallowed whole by his shadow.
Aurelia lowered her gaze. Part of her wanted to run away. But another part... knew she couldn't. Not this time.
Gian walked toward the door. Before his hand reached the knob, he said-without looking back:
"You'll still go to college. I've taken care of it. But your promise... isn't paid off yet."
Aurelia stared at his back, her chest tightening. She wanted to yell, to scream that she wasn't a puppet. But Gian was already gone-leaving questions swirling in her head like a storm she couldn't escape.
The day crawled painfully slow. Every step felt heavy, every corner of the house seemed to watch her. She cleaned the living room, folded clothes, even forced herself back into the kitchen to practice cooking. But everything tasted like dust. The spark she usually had was gone. An old childhood wound stirred-being compared to her sister all over again.
She remembered how her mother used to say, "Devina's smarter than you. Devina's more mature. Learn from your sister."
And now, even in this house, Devina's shadow lingered. She felt like a replacement. Someone chosen out of necessity, not desire. Maybe Gian, in his silence, felt the same-that she wasn't the wife he was supposed to have.
As dusk settled, Aurelia sat alone in the living room, watching the soft orange glow slip through the curtains. A strange ache spread across her chest-loneliness, confusion, hurt.
"Am I doing everything wrong?" she whispered, voice trembling. "If I agree to Gian's request... does that make me no different from selling myself?"
Night fell. And still, she didn't return to the room. She kept herself busy with enrollment paperwork, pretending she had a reason to stay out here. Hoping Gian-who might be waiting-would eventually get tired and fall asleep.
By the time the clock struck midnight, she finally shut her laptop and gathered her things. She tiptoed toward the bedroom.
A soft breath escaped her lips when she saw Gian already asleep. She slipped into the bathroom to wash up, then returned wearing a simple cream-colored pajama set. Her hair fell freely down her back, her warm brown skin glowing under the dim bedside lamp.
Sitting at the edge of the bed, she turned toward Gian. His face was calm, his breathing steady. But then his lips moved-barely-and the faint murmur that escaped them made her blood go cold.
"De...vina..."
Aurelia froze.
Her body turned to stone.
And for a moment, the world simply... stopped.
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9.6
My eyes struggled open, but a heavy weight held them shut. I was paralyzed, trapped in a cold hospital room, the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor a cruel reminder of my mother's death. I, Elena Vitiello, who controlled everything, was now helpless, reduced to a slab of meat.
Then I heard his footsteps. Dante. My husband, my anchor. But his voice was chillingly devoid of warmth as he ordered, "Do not increase the dosage. I will not risk damaging the organ's viability." The organ. My mind went blank, ice filling my veins.
Trapped and unable to move, I realized Dante saw me only as a "political placeholder," never loving me. He was having my kidney removed, carved from my body like livestock, to save his mistress, Sofia-the woman whose messes I'd cleaned for ten years. His hand, usually my comfort, smeared away my tear with sheer disgust.
The scalpel tore into my flesh, a blinding, white-hot agony. Every tug and pull hollowed me out, stripping away my potential, my love, my future. How could the man I bled for reduce me to a mere object, a spare part for his true love? The sheer insult of it fueled a volcanic rage.
As my kidney was lifted out, the final illusion of our marriage shattered completely. My fear dissolved, replaced by a chilling, absolute calm. The darkness that embraced me was not defeat, but the coiling silence of a viper preparing to strike. This kidney was not a sacrifice. It was the down payment for Dante Moretti's life.
9.1
Alysia lay on the freezing operating table, moments away from donating her kidney to her brother's fiancée.
But as the anesthesia set in, a violent shock tore through her brain, awakening agonizing memories of a thousand brutal deaths across a thousand past lifetimes.
She suddenly realized her family's true plan. Her brother and his fiancée weren't just taking her organ; they were secretly plotting to declare her mentally unfit post-surgery to steal her entire trust fund.
When Alysia abruptly stopped the procedure and exposed the fiancée's kidney failure as the result of severe drug abuse, her family's reaction was chilling.
Her father didn't care about the truth or the law. He ordered his bodyguards to lock Alysia up until she agreed to the surgery, while her brother threatened to freeze her assets and seize her late mother's penthouse.
"You have no heart, Alysia. You don't deserve the Kent name," her aunt spat in disgust.
For lifetimes, she had kept her head down, taking the blame and sacrificing everything for a family that viewed her as nothing more than a disposable blood bag and a financial pawn.
The resignation that had clouded her eyes for so long vanished, replaced by the absolute, zero-degree cold of a glacier.
Ripping the IV from her hand and leaving her family in stunned silence, Alysia walked straight out of the hospital.
She had exactly forty-six hours to find a husband to secure her inheritance, and she knew exactly which ruthless billionaire CEO to target to help her burn the Kent family to the ground.
9.2
On New Year's Eve, when the city is noisy with excitement and hope, Aria Moretti merely wants to hide.
Instead, she finds a dying guy in an alley-bleeding, dangerous, and inexplicably quiet.
Dante Russo is not a stranger fate intended her to save. He is a man made by violence, linked by blood oaths and secrets that may kill her. Helping him means crossing a line she can never uncross. Letting him go means surviving... but losing something she never knew she wanted.
As love burns in the shadows and danger follows them through locked doors and whispered threats, Aria must decide how much of herself she is willing to risk for a man who lives in darkness.
Because loving Dante doesn't only mean heartbreak.
It signifies blood. It signifies battle. And it implies that after midnight passes, there is no turning back.
8.9
"Hands on the bed Tessa" Killian growled behind his voice rough and unsteady.
My eyes widened as he pulls my legs apart and comes in between them and wraps the belt tightly against my neck choking out my breath from me
But you're my stepbrother I choked against his hold.
He smiles as he tighten his grip on the belt"Little slutty girls like you deserved to fucked.
9.0
I died on the cold delivery table, bleeding out while the heart monitor flatlined.
Through the blinding surgical lights, I heard my husband Damon's cold, final order to the doctors.
"The child is the priority."
He didn't care about my life. To him, I was just a vessel to produce an heir, a tool to fulfill his prenuptial clause and secure his billionaire empire.
While I took my last agonizing breath, he was already planning his future with his fragile, theatrical mistress, Jasmin.
In my past life, when he first brought her into our home claiming she was a helpless victim, I shattered.
I screamed, threw vases, and played the hysterical wife perfectly.
My desperate pleas for his affection only gave him the exact weapons he needed to ruin my reputation, isolate me, and ultimately force me onto that fatal delivery bed.
Until my very last moment, the suffocating pain in my chest wasn't just physical.
I couldn't understand how the man I loved could treat my death like a simple business transaction.
Why was my absolute devotion rewarded with a carefully calculated execution?
But then, my eyes snapped open.
I was sitting on the edge of my king-sized bed, exactly three years before my death.
From downstairs, I heard Damon's voice echoing in the foyer, bringing Jasmin into our home for the very first time.
This time, the scream building in my chest turned to ice.
I didn't cry or throw a fit.
Instead, I calmly swallowed a secret birth control pill, smiled at his mistress, and dialed the most ruthless divorce lawyer in Manhattan.
9.3
My husband of three years dragged me into the freezing autumn ocean because my stepsister claimed I bullied her.
When she faked a sprained ankle in the shallow water, he immediately abandoned me in the roaring waves to save her, not knowing I was eight weeks pregnant.
The icy undertow swept me away, causing a brutal miscarriage. Later in the hospital, my traumatized body started hemorrhaging, and I desperately needed a rare blood transfusion.
My stepsister, who shared my blood type, held my life hostage. She forced my husband to sign our divorce papers before she would donate a single drop.
By the time the blood reached me, my uterus was irreparably damaged. I permanently lost the right to ever be a mother.
"The Anderson family can't have an infertile matriarch."
My own parents said this as they falsified my medical records to protect her. And my husband, blinded by his misplaced loyalty, simply walked away, leaving me with a meager settlement.
I lost my baby, my fertility, and my marriage all in one week. How could the people I trusted most be so completely heartless?
But looking at the divorce papers, I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed my name and unsealed my Yale architecture degree.
"I'm in. Send me the files for the Manhattan project."
The weak, pathetic Mrs. Anderson died on that operating table. Crista Cherry is back, and it's time for them to pay.