My Husband Thinks I Burned Down the Warehouse

"Three things, Aria," he'd said, his voice rough like gravel scraping against metal. "Break any of them, and I won't just kill you... I'll make you wish I had." "First. You don't tell a soul." "Second. You stay close." "Third. You don't run." Aria has always been the outsider in her own home-a family of elite werewolf hunters where she never fit in. After a fateful full moon leaves her with a mysterious bite that refuses to kill her, she is thrust into a world she was raised to destroy. Her new boss, the formidable and dangerously attractive CEO Knox Grey, is the only one who knows her secret. He is an Alpha, a leader of wolves, and the very creature she should fear most. As a powerful attraction ignites between them and her own supernatural abilities begin to awaken, Aria uncovers a terrifying truth about her own lineage that blurs the lines between hunter and prey. Now, caught between the family she can't trust and the Alpha who claims she is his destined mate, Aria must navigate a dangerous web of secrets, power, and forbidden desire. Will her heart lead her to salvation, or will a shadowed legacy consume them both?

Before the college entrance exam, Shi Sui was forced to move in with her father's friend's family, where she met their son, Yan Tingli. At that time, the young man stood on the stairs in a black turtleneck sweater, his entire presence cold and desolate, looking at her as if she were nothing. He seemed not to recognize her, but Shi Sui knew Yan Tingli. He was refined and handsome, the school's famous honor student, liked by countless girls. She never imagined that behind closed doors, even a good student would shed his outer skin and devour people without spitting out bones. "I want to kiss you." "I don't want to." "Be good, open the door now." Yan Tingli was sick. So during college, Shi Sui quietly applied for an overseas exchange, fleeing far away. She was afraid. Several years later, Shi Sui returned to the country. At a dinner gathering between their parents, she saw Yan Tingli again. He was unsurprisingly excellent-CEO of a listed company, at the height of his success, treating her like a stranger, as if the past had long become like passing clouds. When asked about their relationship by former classmates, Yan Tingli only said indifferently: "Not very familiar." Who knew that not long after, it was just being given a ride by a male colleague. That very night, a whole night of absurdity. When she couldn't bear it and cried out, she heard his low murmur by her ear, his voice trembling with pleasure: "Sui Sui, you've made me search so hard all these years." "Finally caught you." Timid, gentle sister × Refined scoundrel As the synopsis shows, the male lead has a very strong possessive desire, is quite crazy, and good at disguising himself, but is a love-brain. The author's preferences exploded, and they just wanted to write some scoundrel content. Please be gentle. Highlight: Those with high moral requirements for the male lead should not enter.

I was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history. But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me. He swam past me. He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water. When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl. "You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home." Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her. I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife." He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps. He was wrong. While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room. I was packing his ring into a cardboard box. I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead. By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.

The graphite tip of my pencil snapped against the paper, a sharp *crack* that echoed in the vaulted silence of the penthouse. I didn't curse. I just stared at the notation I’d made—a complex sequence of pirouettes that would soon torture the principal dancers of *Dance Rivals*. To the world, these scribbles belonged to "S," the phantom choreographer reshaping modern ballet. To me, they were just another Tuesday morning. "Mama, look! Like a swan!" Willa spun across the polished oak floor of my private studio, her arms undulating with a grace that wasn't taught, but inherited. Seven years old, and she already possessed the arch and extension I hadn't developed until I was ten. "Beautiful, my love," I said, my voice soft. I sealed the choreography inside a plain manila envelope.

The gravel of the driveway crunched beneath the tires of my rented Ford Fiesta, a jarring, mechanical cough amidst the purring engines of Bentleys and Aston Martins. I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned the color of old bone. This was the Hunter family estate in the Hamptons—a world of manicured hedges and old money that Kian had always sworn we would conquer together. I stepped out, smoothing the wrinkles of my dress. It was off-the-rack, decent, but the salt-tinged breeze immediately made me feel small. I wasn't here for the gala. I was here for Kian. I had news that couldn't wait for a text message, news that I thought would finally cement the future we’d starved ourselves to build. Then I saw him. He stood near the champagne fountain, bathed in the golden hour light that rich people seemed to own.

Chapter 1 For the ninety-ninth time, the critical condition notice for her husband landed in Shirley’s hands. She couldn’t stop herself—her palm cracked across Heather’s cheek. “Christopher and I are not divorced yet. Know your place.” Heather froze, then screamed, hysterical. “How dare you hit me! Christopher said I could do whatever I wanted!” “He said he’d love me enough to die for me, so let him die! Let’s see any of you try to save him!” Snatching up a fruit knife, she stabbed wildly toward Shirley. Not a soul moved to intervene. Because compared to the so-called “Mrs. Christopher,” Heather was the one Christopher truly cherished. The man paranoid enough to sleep with a blade under his pillow had allowed Heather to use him as a test subject—for candle burns, drowning games, plastic bag suffocation. The man who detested the color pink had let her cover his face in lipstick kisses and Hello Kitty stickers. So even as she slashed Shirley until she bled, no one dared lay a finger on her. “Heather!” Christopher’s voice cut through the chaos as a nurse wheeled him out. His face was pale. “Your face… what happened?” Tears pooled in Heather’s eyes. “I just wanted to see you die for me, but Shirley wouldn’t let me. She tried to kill me…” Christopher’s sharp gaze snapped to Shirley. “You laid a hand on her? Heather is like this because of you! You promised to take care of her for life!” Shirley bit her lip until she tasted copper. On her twentieth birthday, her foster father, Gabriel, had brought home Heather—his biological daughter, missing for fifteen years. Shirley had taken her abroad. In the moment it took to glance at a text, Heather vanished. They found her half a month later, but from then on, Heather grew stranger. She threw kittens off balconies. She locked classmates in bathrooms. Doctors diagnosed a severe empathy deficit, triggered by trauma. She couldn’t grasp the consequences of her actions. Consumed by guilt, Shirley brought her to the Christopher family, hoping their resources could help. And though Heather had rarely targeted others in recent years, she never spared Shirley. With Christopher’s indulgence… Shirley was just so tired. Her eyes reddened; the hand pressed to her wound trembled. “Since you’re fine, we’ll finalize the divorce tomorrow.” She turned to go, but Christopher’s voice halted her. “You hurt her and think you can walk away? What about your promise?” He signaled a bodyguard to restrain Shirley, then spoke gently to Heather. “Don’t be scared. I’ve got you.” Though Shirley’s injuries were far worse, Christopher acted as if he didn’t see them, drawing Heather close instead. “Anyone who bullies you will pay tenfold.” Shirley broke, her scream raw. “Christopher, *I* am your wife! You promised me once—you’d always be my shield, that you’d never let anyone hurt me!” He’d once crossed half the country to buy her a cup of bubble tea. During an earthquake, he’d shielded her with his body, breaking three ribs. Back then… she was everything to him… At her words, Christopher’s eyes glazed over for a fleeting second before turning to ice. “Those promises died the day you killed our child and my mother.” Now, all he felt was hate. Shirley’s sobs cut off, her face deathly pale. Restrained and helpless, she could only endure as slap after brutal slap rained down. *Smack! Smack! Smack!* … The assault only stopped when Heather’s arm grew tired. Shirley’s face was swollen, bruised. The moment the bodyguard released her, she crumpled. Heather blinked, feigning innocence. “Is it wrong for a little sister to hit her big sister?” Christopher took her reddened palm, his touch both doting and pained. “Your world doesn’t have right and wrong. Do as you please. I’ll handle the consequences.” “Even if I play with you until you die?” “Of course. How would you like to play tonight?” The sound of a messy, passionate kiss filled the corridor. Everyone else stared at their shoes. Shirley’s tightly controlled, ragged sobs finally cut through their heated breaths. Heather pulled up her fallen shoulder strap, whining sweetly, “Why is big sister crying so loudly?” The man’s voice was a contemptuous sneer. “She cries because she still has hope. She wants my comfort. True despair is silent. Like when I lost my mother and child—I couldn’t even shed a tear.” Arm around Heather, Christopher walked away. As he passed Shirley, his low voice seemed to rise from hell itself. “This is your deserved retribution. Divorce? Don’t even dream of it.” The words were a final dagger, plunging into her already shattered heart. Everyone in Rivermouth knew the truth. Those ninety-nine divorce threats were a pathetic joke, proof of how desperately Shirley loved him. The fact it never happened in ninety-nine attempts was Christopher’s punishment for her betrayal. She remained slumped on the cold floor for a long time. Finally, with trembling fingers, she dialed her biological father.