My Son's Death, His Cruel Betrayal
For seven years, I gave up my life as a genius engineer to be the perfect wife for my husband, Jonathan, a U.S. Senator. But when our five-year-old son drowned, he didn't comfort me. He comforted his adopted sister, Hailey, and blamed me for our son's death.
At the wake, he stood by as his family beat me, calling me a murderer. He watched them shove my head into a freezing pond, forcing me to feel the same terror our son felt in his last moments.
His protection was always for Hailey, never for me.
Then I learned the horrifying truth. Jonathan was there when our son fell in the water. He saw him struggling, but he chose to comfort a panicking Hailey first.
He let our son die.
So I filed for divorce in secret and vanished into a classified research project. But when he tracked me down, begging for a second chance in front of his new colleagues, I played a recording for everyone to hear. It was Hailey's voice, gleefully admitting that Jonathan had chosen her over his own dying child.
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Chapter 3
Krystal POV:
I closed my eyes, feigning sleep. Maybe he would leave. Maybe he would just disappear, like I wanted to. His presence felt like a suffocating blanket, heavy and unwelcome.
He sighed, a frustrated, tired sound. "Krystal," he said, his voice softer now, a hint of weariness. "Don't pretend. I know you're awake."
He reached out, his hand shaking my shoulder gently. "What were you dreaming about?" he asked, his voice almost tender. "You were calling out a name. Leo."
The sound of our son's name, spoken by him, felt like a punch to my gut. It was a physical pain, sharp and immediate. I opened my eyes slowly, letting a single tear trace a path down my temple.
He saw it. His face immediately crumpled, his carefully constructed composure cracking. He pulled me into a fierce embrace, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe.
"Oh, Krystal," he murmured, his voice thick with what sounded like genuine grief. "Our Leo. I miss him too. So much."
He held me for a long moment, then pulled back, his eyes red-rimmed. "We can have another child, Krystal," he said, his voice full of a desperate hope. "We can, please. Don't give up on us."
My heart, already a stone, turned to ice. Another child? He actually thought another child could replace Leo? Could erase the searing pain, the gaping hole in my soul? He didn' t understand. He never understood. He couldn't even see the horror of his own words. I felt nothing but a chilling emptiness. No tears came, even though my heart felt like it was being ripped apart.
"Why are you here, Jonathan?" I asked, my voice flat, devoid of emotion. I pulled away from his embrace, the contact feeling wrong, alien.
He hesitated, a strange look flickering across his face. He avoided my gaze. "Hailey… she's feeling unwell," he mumbled, fidgeting with the cuff of his shirt. "Her stomach is upset. She asked if you could… make her some of your special soup."
My body went rigid. My elbow throbbed, a fresh wave of pain coursing through me. I was lying in a hospital bed, recovering from a brutal assault instigated by his own mother, and he was asking me to make soup for Hailey? The woman whose negligence led to our son's death? The woman he always prioritized over me?
He saw my frozen expression, saw my bandaged arm. His eyes widened slightly, a flicker of belated realization. "No, no, of course not, Krystal," he quickly corrected, his voice a little too loud. "I didn't mean… I mean, could you just write down the recipe for me? I can make it."
A bitter, humorless laugh escaped my lips. I remembered all the times I' d stayed up late, carefully simmering that soup for him, for his high-stress job, knowing he suffered from stomach issues. I' d done it even when I was exhausted, even when I had my own stomach problems he never once noticed. He never offered to make it for me. Never.
"Sure," I said, my voice hollow. "Get me a pen and paper."
He quickly scrambled to find them, his relief palpable. As I scribbled down the ingredients, his eyes lingered on my hand, now steady and precise. He used to say my hands were made for delicate work, for healing. But he hadn't complimented them in years.
He took the paper from me, his fingers brushing mine. They lingered, as if expecting the warmth that was no longer there. His face was etched with a strange, aching sorrow. He remembered how I used to promise him forever, how my love for him was an unshakeable fortress. Now, that fortress was crumbling, and he was realizing it. He still clung to the deluded belief that I would never truly leave him, that a divorce was impossible.
"Jonathan," a hurried voice called from the doorway. "Hailey is asking for you again. She's really quite distressed."
He cursed under his breath, his eyes fixed on me. "I'll be right back, Krystal," he repeated, the same empty promise he' d given last night.
He turned and strode out, his footsteps heavy. I heard him quickly ascend the stairs to Hailey' s room.
I closed my eyes again, and drifted into a numb, hollow sleep.
I woke to a sudden, violent shove. I cried out, pain flaring in my elbow, as I tumbled from the bed, landing hard on the cold floor.
"You bitch!" Jonathan's voice was a guttural roar, filled with a terrifying rage I had never heard directed at me. It was cold, cutting, like a blade. "What did you put in that soup, Krystal? What poison did you give her?"
He stood over me, his hands shaking, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated hatred. He grabbed the front of my hospital gown, yanking me up until my feet barely touched the floor.
"Did you try to kill her?" he snarled, his eyes wide and wild. "Did you? Just like you killed our son?"
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8.5
"You don't get to hurt me and then make me responsible for how guilty you feel about it."
"Friends don't stand next to you, learn everything about you, and then use it to get close to the one person they know matters."
Aria thought she knew two things for certain: she was going to graduate with her best friend, Iris, by her side, and she was in love with her boyfriend, Liam.
One kiss changed everything. But as the secrets of their "before" come to light, Aria realizes the betrayal didn't start at a party or in a moment of weakness. It started weeks ago, in the conversations she wasn't part of and the moments she wasn't invited to.
Now, Aria has to decide if she can find herself again in the wreckage of the people she trusted most-or if some bridges are meant to be burned
8.4
"You don't belong in my world," he growled, his hand tightening around my waist.
"Then why do you keep pulling me deeper into it?" I whispered.
Ten years ago, I lost everything, my parents, my innocence, my trust in fate.
I only remember his shaking hands... and the birthmark on his arm.
Now, the most feared man in the city wants me.
A billionaire who commands blood and silence.
A mafia king who kneels only in the dark, only for me.
But what happens when I discover that the man I love...
...is the same man who destroyed my life?
8.4
My love. My ruin.
Ashton Hampton saved me from my mother's scandal. I gave him my whole heart.
Then he told me he was marrying another woman for business. My role? His hidden mistress.
At our engagement party, his new fiancée accused me of ruining her brooch. Ashton didn't question it. He demanded I apologize.
The crowd attacked. He watched.
I climbed onto a helicopter and disappeared.
Eighteen years later, I saw him on a park bench—broken, hollow, begging for one more word.
I gave him two: “No comment.”
7.4
Standing on the edge of a limestone quarry in the pouring rain, I thought we were just having another family argument.
Then my mother, Ardell, screamed that I’d let the life insurance lapse, and my brother, Hakeem, stepped out of the shadows with a cold, calculating look in his eyes.
I told them I knew the truth—that Hakeem had cut the brake lines on my father’s car—but they didn't flinch. Instead, Hakeem shoved me hard, sending me tumbling into the abyss.
I hit a jagged ledge thirty feet down, the sound of my spine snapping like a dry branch echoing through the rain. As I lay paralyzed and broken, my mother watched from above, asking if I was dead yet, before Hakeem whistled for the starving wild dogs that lived in the quarry floor.
"Nature will clean up the mess,"
Hakeem said, walking away while the first set of teeth sank into my throat.
The agony was a tidal wave, but the rage was hotter, a nuclear hatred for the family that stole my future and the daughter I’d never see grow up. I died in that dirt, consumed by fire and teeth, wondering how a mother could choose a car payment over her own child's life.
But then, I gasped for air, sitting bolt upright in my old trailer bedroom. I looked at the calendar: May 12, 2014.
I was seventeen again, but I wasn't the same girl. Inside this malnourished body was the mind of a world-class trauma surgeon and the elite hacker known as 'Phantom.'
This time, I wasn't going to the quarry; I was going for their throats.
8.2
April Scott only wanted to help her family until she crossed paths with Dr. Adrian Smith, the ruthless billionaire and her childhood crush, who is aware of her dark past and turns her life upside down in twenty-four hours. Her sister is hospitalized, her home is suddenly sold. April becomes the target of a deadly plot she doesn't understand.
Every time she tries to escape, Adrian is there... saving her, controlling her, or destroying her, she can't tell which. She could only sense he wanted something from her and she also finds herself drawn to him. But when a confrontation ends with Adrian presumed dead, April becomes a fugitive overnight. And the only person willing to protect her is a stranger with secrets of his own.
8.4
She was the daughter they lost. Now she's the daughter they're willing to sell.
Emma spent eighteen years as a forgotten girl in a forgotten village, until the day her wealthy biological family came to claim her. But her homecoming is no fairytale. Her place has already been taken by Fiona, the perfect adopted sister who sees Emma as nothing but a threat. And her parents? They didn't bring her back out of love. They brought her back to sign a contract.
Alex Hawthorne is the billionaire heir to the most powerful empire in the city, a genius reduced to a wheelchair after a mysterious accident. The world sees him as broken. His family sees him as a bargaining chip. When the Hawthornes demand a bride from the Williams family, Emma is offered up as the sacrifice.
The contract is simple: one year of marriage, and she walks away with enough money to disappear forever.
But no one knows who they're really dealing with.
They see a quiet country girl who doesn't belong. They don't know she's the secret protégé of a world-famous jewelry designer. They don't know she's the anonymous street racer who conquered every mountain road before she ever saw a city street. They don't know she entered an elite academy with the lowest score and rose to the top in a single semester because Emma never forgets anything.
And Alex? He knows none of this.
To him, she's just the contract bride. The quiet stand-in who agreed to a business transaction. He makes her a deal: play the part, and he'll sign the divorce papers when the year is up.
Until their wedding night, when he leans close with a teasing smirk and says, "If you want to give me a child in ten months, you will have to be on top."
She looks him straight in the eye, her lips curving into the faintest smile.
"Fine. But keep still, or I might accidentally tell everyone your legs work just fine."
He says nothing.
Three months later, the billionaire who once pitied his quiet bride cannot go a single day without her. Because every time he thinks he has figured her out, she surprises him all over again.
But in a world of gilded cages and hidden daggers, their marriage is built on a contract and the biggest clause hasn't been revealed yet.
He thinks he bought a pawn.
She's about to show him she's the queen.
And when the contract ends, one of them will break.