My Death Was Just The Start
My wedding was tomorrow. I was a crisis counselor who had finally found peace with my loving fiancé, Dexter, and my best friend, Barbara.
A late-night call about a forced marriage led me to a hotel penthouse, where I found them naked in bed together.
It was all a cruel, three-year "savior game." They were bored heirs, and I was their project. They destroyed my career, caused me to lose our baby, and put my mother in the hospital.
They forced me to be a bridesmaid at their wedding-the one that should have been mine.
In front of hundreds of guests, they exposed my traumatic past and then tried to marry me off to a drunken stranger as a joke.
As I stood there, broken, a text from Barbara arrived.
"Your mother saw the livestream. She had a heart attack. She's not going to make it."
With nothing left, I ran to the 20th-floor window and jumped. They thought they had erased me. But my death was just the beginning.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 7
Dexter Newman POV
The platinum band. It glinted under the stage lights. Not the ring. The ring I picked. Where was it?
I remembered choosing her ring. Not this cold, glittering diamond band. It was a simple, handcrafted silver ring, with a tiny, etched constellation. Ella had pointed it out in a small artisan shop, her eyes shining. "It looks like my birth constellation," she'd whispered, almost to herself. I bought it, a secret, personal gift, one she never saw. I had meant to give it to her, on our wedding night.
The realization hit me again, sharp and painful. I had loved Ella. The simple ring, the constellation. It was for her. This diamond, this cold, heavy weight, it meant nothing. It was just a symbol of my family' s expectations, of a life I hated. It was a symbol of my cowardice.
"Is there a problem, Dexter?" Barbara asked, her voice laced with impatience.
I held the platinum band, my hand trembling slightly. No. There was no problem with the ring. The problem was with me. With everything. "No," I said, my voice hoarse. "No problem." I wanted to throw it. To scream. To run.
"Then put it on," Barbara commanded, her gaze unwavering.
I hesitated. A split second. Then I slipped the ring onto her finger. It felt heavy, wrong. A metal chain binding me.
The officiant beamed. "You may now kiss the bride!"
Barbara smiled, leaning in. I leaned in too, my mind a whirlwind of regret and despair. I saw Ella's face, her tear-streaked cheeks, her desperate plea. I heard her scream.
My lips hovered inches from Barbara's. I couldn't do it. I pulled back.
Barbara frowned. "Dexter?"
My hand reached for her finger. I pulled the platinum ring off. It clattered to the floor, a defiant sound.
"I'm sorry, Barbara," I said, my voice loud, clear, echoing through the stunned ballroom. "I can't do this."
Barbara's eyes widened, her face contorting in shock and then rage. "What are you talking about? Dexter! What do you mean you can't do this?"
I looked at her, then at the silent, gaping crowd. "I love someone else." The words were out. The truth. A truth I had suppressed for too long. "I love Ella."
I recalled the quiet mornings with Ella, the way she hummed while making coffee, her hand warm in mine. Her strength, her kindness. The way she made me feel real, not just an heir. The dress she wanted. A simple, elegant ivory gown, nothing like Barbara' s extravagant, jeweled monstrosity. I remembered telling Barbara that Ella's dress was "too plain," a lie to hide my genuine admiration for Ella's taste. The vows I just stammered through, my mind was on Ella, on what I had done to her. Even Barbara's profile, in a fleeting moment, had reminded me of Ella's gentle curve of her neck.
"Dexter!" Barbara shrieked, her voice cracking. "Are you out of your mind? Are you abandoning me?"
I looked at her, a wave of guilt washing over me. "I'm truly sorry, Barbara. I am." I turned and walked away from the stage, from the ruined wedding, from the lies.
"Dexter! Don't you dare! Our families! Newman Tech! Swanson Industries! Think about the merger! The billions at stake!" she pleaded, her voice desperate.
I stopped at the edge of the stage, but I didn't turn back. "I'm tired of the games, Barbara. I'm tired of the gilded cage. I'm tired of pretending." I walked down the steps, past the shocked guests.
Barbara watched me go, her face crumbling. Her last hope of controlling me, of securing her position, vanished. Her desperate pleas turned to venom.
"You think she's still alive, Dexter?" Barbara's voice, cold and sharp, cut through the quiet. "Our little Ella? She jumped from this building. Twenty stories. She's dead, Dexter. Dead because of you. Because of us."
Keep Reading
The story is getting intense! Switch to App to
Unlock All Chapters
You may also like
9.7
Luna Elena Frost was never chosen, only assigned.
Bound to Alpha Alaric Ashbourne through a cold contractual marriage, she endures three years as a Luna in name only. He never comes home, never defends her, and never looks at her, while his heart belongs to another woman.
At his grandmother's funeral, Alaric publicly dissolves their marriage, humiliating Elena before the entire pack. In that moment, she finally understands the truth. She was never wanted.
But the Moon has not abandoned her.
A forgotten night resurfaces. Her long-silent wolf begins to awaken. And secrets buried within her bloodline start to surface, drawing danger from every direction.
Cast out by the pack that once used her, Elena must flee, survive, and uncover her true power.
Only then does the Alpha realize his mistake.
By the time he turns back in regret, the Luna he rejected may already be gone forever.
8.3
I was the long-lost Donovan heiress, finally brought home after a childhood in foster care. My parents adored me, my husband cherished me, and the woman who tried to ruin my life, Kiera Reese, was locked away in a mental facility. I was safe. I was loved.
On my birthday, I decided to surprise my husband, Ivan, at his office. But he wasn't there.
I found him at a private art gallery across town. He was with Kiera.
She wasn't in a facility. She was radiant, laughing as she stood beside my husband and their five-year-old son. I watched through the glass as Ivan kissed her, a familiar, loving gesture he’d used with me just that morning.
I crept closer and overheard them. My birthday wish to go to the amusement park had been denied because he’d already promised the entire park to their son—whose birthday was the same day as mine.
"She’s so grateful to have a family, she’d believe anything we tell her," Ivan said, his voice laced with a cruelty that stole my breath. "It's almost sad."
My entire reality—my loving parents who funded this secret life, my devoted husband—was a five-year lie. I was just the fool they kept on stage.
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Ivan, sent while he stood with his real family.
"Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you."
The casual lie was the final blow. They thought I was a pathetic, grateful orphan they could control.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were.
7.8
Alexis signed the divorce papers, leaving her with no assets, no alimony, and just the clothes on her back.
To forget her abusive husband Carlos, she got drunk and bought a high-end gigolo for the night with her last 800 dollars.
But the man she slept with wasn't an escort. He was Jarrett Hughes, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And while she was gone, her ex-husband was busy destroying her entire life.
Carlos framed her with fake photos of her cheating to justify the penniless divorce.
Then came the real nightmare.
Carlos and her own aunt secretly drained her family's corporate accounts, driving her father to jump off a building.
At the hospital, her grieving mother blamed her for the tragedy, violently attacking her in the ER.
To top it off, her cousin Josie—who was secretly sleeping with Carlos—held her father's ashes hostage.
"Crawl on your knees and pick it up, or the ashes go in the river," Josie sneered, throwing cash into the freezing slush.
Stripped of her marriage, her father, and her dignity, Alexis sat bleeding in the snow.
She couldn't understand why the people she loved most had coordinated such a brutal slaughter against her.
But Carlos and Josie made one fatal mistake.
They didn't know the "gigolo" Alexis had accidentally bought was the most powerful man in New York.
Alexis looked at the towering billionaire standing behind her, a vengeful fire burning in her eyes.
"I need you to get my father's ashes back," she said, pulling him into a kiss right in front of her ex-husband. "I don't care what it takes."
7.6
Kaylee's family was drowning in debt, and her stepmother locked her inside a freezing bedroom.
To save their bankrupt company, they decided to sell her off to a sixty-five-year-old man with a disgusting reputation.
They cut off her allowance and confiscated the only precious keepsake her dead mother had ever left her.
"Put on the engagement dress, or I will smash your mother's crystal box into a million pieces."
Terrified of the old man, Kaylee risked her life by jumping out of the second-story window into a violent storm.
She hit the muddy ground hard, twisting her ankle and tearing her skin on rusted iron gates as she escaped into the pitch-black night.
Dragging her bleeding bare feet across the cold sand, her lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass.
She didn't understand why she had to be the sacrifice for their endless greed, or how they could be so cruel as to hold her dead mother's memory hostage.
She had absolutely nowhere to go, and the old man's cars were already pulling into the estate to claim her.
Cornered by the blinding headlights of a motorcade on the beach, she threw herself at the feet of Ernest Blackwell, the most ruthless billionaire in New York.
"Marry me! You need a wife, and I need a husband right now!"
To buy her freedom and crush the family that sold her, she chose to sign a twenty-million-dollar fake marriage contract with the devil himself.
9.7
Eliana Rivera is the firstborn daughter of business tycoon Cassian Rivera. When her father's company falls into debt, he marries her off to the arrogant and ruthless billionaire, Alexander Grayson, as part of a business contract and under the threat of blackmail.
Alexander, the billionaire CEO, never planned to marry, but the pressure of blackmail forces him into a union with a woman he barely knows. Although Eliana doesn't see Alexander as her ideal partner, she agrees to the marriage out of a sense of duty.
Once engaged, however, he barely acknowledges her presence and harbours disdain for her because of her father's actions and their relationship. But as they navigate their newfound relationship, the unexpected desire for each other's touch ignites-a twist neither of them planned, leading them toward an unforeseen love.
9.7
"Sign it. You're no woman if you can't give me an heir."
Niamh gave Marcus two years of her life, her unwavering loyalty, and her silent love. In return, the billionaire CEO served her divorce papers and a one-way ticket to the gutter.
Cast out into a rainy night with nothing but the clothes on her back and twelve dollars, Niamh’s story should have ended there.
Instead, she stumbled on a stranger in the rain.
In an attempt to save him, he kisses her senseless. He is the last Lycan King standing, and a man of terrifying power, yet he is haunted by a seven-century curse.
When the king has a taste of Niamh in the pouring rain, he knew he had to keep her for himself, even though she was human and it was against the laws of their kind not to mingle with humans.
The King needs her essence and Niamh realizes she could use her body to get what she wanted; revenge on Marcus and his mother for humiliating her and making her waste her time.
Now, the woman Marcus discarded is rising as a global conglomerate queen and a Divine Enchantress as assigned by the Moon Goddess.
While her ex-husband’s empire crumbles into bankruptcy and his body rots with a shameful curse, Niamh is learning that being "claimed" by the King is much more than the contract she'd initially made with him.
He wanted to use her as his cure. She wanted to use him for her revenge.
But in the Lumina Realm, the Goddess has other plans.