News Flash Ex-husband, I'm Alive!
"I know you're pregnant, Valentina. That's why you have to die tonight. Two lives for the price of one, efficiency was always my strong suit."
On her third wedding anniversary, Valentina was gifted a shallow grave.
Her husband, Kennedy, the man she adored, was never a billionaire. He was a fraud who drugged her, watched her drown in a poisoned bath, and ordered her burial so he could marry his mistress.
He didn't know the gardener would hesitate. He didn't know she would crawl out of the mud, pregnant, broken, and alive. And he never imagined that ghosts would come back with teeth.
Dragged from the storm by Ian Kingston, the Titan of industry, Valentina is saved by a man so powerful that Kennedy is nothing more than a disposable bookkeeper in his empire.
To the world, Ian is a monster.
To Valentina, he is survival.
But Ian doesn't see a victim.
He sees Misha, his vanished wife, the mother of his two children, the woman who disappeared without a trace.
"You have 365 days to prove you aren't her, little bird. Until then, you will sleep in my bed, wear my name, and obey every rule I set."
Trapped in a deadly case of mistaken identity, Valentina signs the contract.
She becomes Misha Kingston, cold, ruthless, untouchable. Wrapped in emerald silk and Ian's dark protection, she walks back into the world that tried to bury her.
The next time Kennedy sees his dead wife, she isn't in a coffin.
She's in the arms of his boss. Wearing a queen's crown. Looking down at him from a throne of gold.
But as Ian's control turns into obsession, Valentina faces an impossible truth.
She is hiding a child conceived by her enemy... While being claimed by a king who refuses to let her go.
He buried a wife.
He's about to kneel before a Goddess.
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Chapter 5
The car ride was a blur of violence and luxury. Valentina, still reeling from the cold grip of the man who called her Misha, tried to fling herself toward the door, her nails clawing at the leather.
"Let me out! Help!" she shrieked, her voice cracking.
But the men inside weren't men; they were stone walls in tailored suits. One bouncer, a giant with a face like a scarred mountain, caught her wrists in one hand.
He didn't hurt her, but his strength was absolute, pinning her against the seat as the car tore through the city at a breakneck speed.
"Quiet," the man in the front, Ian, commanded without looking back.
The car surged through massive iron gates, up a winding drive lined with ancient oaks, and skidded to a halt before a palace of glass and marble. This wasn't just a house; it was a fortress of wealth.
Valentina was hauled out, her feet barely touching the ground. Her throat felt like she had swallowed hot coals, dry, raw, and bleeding from the screaming and the choking.
The fight drained out of her, replaced by a cold, numbing terror. Is this Kennedy’s second act? she wondered. Did he hire this man to finish the job in a more expensive grave?
She was hurled into the living room, collapsing onto a white Persian rug that she immediately stained with alley mud and the copper scent of her own blood. She sat there shaking, a ruined bird in a gilded cage.
The children, Ivy and Ivan, rushed toward her, their little faces twisted with worry. "Mommy, are you cold? Why are you so dirty?"
As their small hands reached for her, Katherine recoiled, her eyes wide with panic. "Don't! Get away from me!"
The children flinched as if she’d slapped them.
Ian waved a hand, dismissing the bodyguards. They bowed in perfect unison, a chilling display of his power, and vanished. He looked down at the sobbing children, his expression softening for a fraction of a second.
"Ivy, Ivan... go to your rooms. Nanny is waiting," he said, his voice a low coo. "Mommy is... she’s not in her right mind tonight. She’s had a long journey."
"I am not their mother! I don't know them from anywhere, Mister." Valentina screamed, her voice a ghostly rasp.
The children’s faces fell, looking at her with heartbreaking sadness before they turned and walked up the grand staircase, their small shoulders slumped.
Now, the room was silent, save for the crackle of a fire that gave no warmth to Valentina’s shivering bones. She looked at the man she had come to know as Mr Ian. He was peeling off his leather gloves, his eyes tracking her every tremor.
With a sudden burst of desperate energy, Valentina lunged at him, her fingers curved like claws. She didn't know if she wanted to kill him or just make him feel the pain she felt.
Ian didn't even flinch. He caught her mid-air, his hand locking around her waist and pulling her flush against his hard, warm chest.
He let out a dark, low chuckle that sent a shiver of pure electricity down her spine.
"You've always been a feisty one, Misha," he murmured, his breath smelling of expensive bourbon.
"I’ll call the police! I’ll tell them you kidnapped me!" she cried, even though she knew the police probably worked for a man this rich. "I am not Misha! My name is…"
"Enough!" Ian’s voice dropped, vibrating through her chest. "You may have dyed your hair, you may have changed your clothes, but it’s still you. I’d know your scent in a room full of a thousand women."
"What are you..." Valentina started, her breath hitching.
Ian reached for a silver-framed photograph on the mantel and shoved it inches from her face.
Valentina froze. The woman in the photo was her. The same high cheekbones, the same defiant tilt of the chin, the same haunting amber eyes.
But the woman in the photo had vibrant red hair and a look of cold, predatory elegance that Valentina had never possessed.
"It... it may look like me," Valentina whispered, her eyes filling with hot, bitter tears. "But that's not me. Please... I’ve been through so much tonight. I was buried... I was choked..."
Ian’s eyes narrowed, studying her face as if searching for a crack in a mask. He didn't look convinced. He looked hungry.
"Roll up your sleeves," he commanded quietly.
"What? No!"
He didn't wait for permission. He grabbed her arm, his fingers brushing against her skin with a heat that made her gasp.
He shoved the tattered silk of her sleeve up to her elbow.
There, near her inner wrist, was a tiny, faded sunflower tattoo.
Valentina’s heart stopped. It was the tattoo her mother had forced on her as an identification mark, as was claimed. It was so tiny, so insignificant. No one knew about it except her or perhaps Kennedy, if he even cared to notice while they had sex.
"I may have believed your acting, Misha," Ian growled, his face inches from hers, his eyes burning with a possessive fire. "But with this? There is no fucking way you’re telling me you aren't my wife."
"Please, mister," she begged, her voice breaking into a sob. "I am not Misha. I don't know how I got this tattoo of her, I got it myself... I don't know who she is... just let me go. I have a baby to think about..."
"And why would I believe you?" Ian asked sarcastically, letting her go so abruptly she stumbled. "After you ran away and left your children for months?"
"Why would I run away from this?" Valentina cried, gesturing to the sprawling, golden opulence of the room. "I was living in a nightmare! I don't want your money! I just want to live!"
Ian didn't answer. He walked to the liquor stand, his movements fluid and predatory. He poured a glass of amber liquid and downed it, the muscles in his throat working.
Then, he began to unbutton his charcoal vest and remove his coat.
Valentina’s breath caught. As the fabric fell away, she saw the silhouette of a body honed by discipline, broad shoulders, a hint of golden, tanned skin peeking through his white shirt, and a raw, masculine power that made the room feel too small.
He turned back to her, his gaze heavy and dark.
"Three hundred and sixty-five days," he said, his voice echoing with a note of terrifying finality.
Valentina blinked, her heart racing. "For... for what?"
"A year," Ian said, stepping toward her until she was backed against the cold marble of the fireplace. He leaned in, one hand resting on the wall beside her head, trapping her in his heat.
"Within three hundred and sixty-five days, you prove to me that you are not Misha Kingston, the wife I am supposed to hate and the mother of my children. If you can prove you’re a stranger, I’ll let you go with enough money to disappear forever."
He leaned closer, his lips brushing against her ear, his voice dropping to a gravelly, intimate whisper that made her knees weak despite her terror.
"But if you can't... if by the end of this year you are still Misha in my eyes... then you stay. In my house, in my life, and most importantly... in my fucking bed!"
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9.5
My boyfriend, Jefferson, convinced me to give up my Yale scholarship for him. He was my secret, my escape from the shame of my mother's past, and I threw away my future for our love.
Then, at a gala, he publicly announced his engagement to Aubrey Carroll-the girl who made my high school years a living hell.
He trapped me in his mansion, forcing me to become her personal servant. She tortured me daily, culminating in her brutally killing our dog, Charlie, with a garden trowel.
When her friends arrived, they joined in, stripping me half-naked and live-streaming my panic attack for the world to see.
The man who once promised to protect me watched as they destroyed me.
But as I lay bleeding out on the floor, it wasn't an ambulance that arrived. It was the private security of Alexzander Stevens-my estranged, billionaire grandfather.
He revealed I was his sole heiress, and now, we were going to make them pay for every last tear.
9.6
On Valentine's Day, love is in the air-but so is danger.
At 30,000 feet, trainee captain Jane Harley proves she's more than just a rising pilot when she navigates a terrifying turbulence that leaves passengers shaken and lives hanging by a thread. Calm under pressurej and fiercely capable, Jane becomes the unexpected hero of Flight 423.
But while she's saving lives in the sky, fate is already setting something far more complicated in motion.
Among the passengers is the powerful and ambitious mother of Jayden-Aurelia Air's largest shareholder-whose midair health crisis is only the beginning of a chain of events. Grateful and intrigued, she sets her sights on Jane... not just as a hero, but as a future daughter-in-law.
Jayden, a grounded pilot with a sharp mind and guarded heart, has no interest in his mother's schemes-until one unexpected name changes everything.
In a world of wealth, expectations, and high-altitude emotions, two lives are about to collide.
Love, ambition, and fate take flight in Falling at 30,000 Feet.
7.6
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.
9.3
On the first anniversary of our reconciliation, I thought my tech mogul husband and I had finally turned a corner. Then I discovered our entire marriage was a spectator sport. It was a cruel, year-long revenge game orchestrated by him and his lover, and I was the punchline.
For their amusement, I was poisoned with food contaminated with dog feces, publicly humiliated with a twenty-million-dollar auction scam, and beaten until my ribs broke by his family's private security. I endured it all, playing the part of the clueless, loving wife while they laughed about it in a group chat called "The Jillian Andrews Comedy Hour."
But their grand finale was a step too far. I overheard him calmly planning to leave me to die in a remote cabin during a blizzard, a "tragic accident" that would finally set him free to be with his mistress.
He thought he was writing the final chapter of my life.
He didn't know I was about to use his murder plot as my own perfect escape. I faked my death, vanished into thin air, and left him to explain to the world how his beloved wife disappeared off the face of the earth.
9.0
The biopsy report slid across the cold metal desk, stamped with a brutal death sentence: advanced gastric cancer. Aretha had exactly ninety days left to live.
It was her twenty-sixth birthday, but her phone only rang with a furious call from her husband, Anders.
"Do you have any idea how much of a joke you made this family look like today? Post a public apology to Kelli right now."
He had completely forgotten her birthday, only caring that she skipped her adopted sister's yacht party.
When Aretha dragged her failing body back to the family estate, her biological mother slapped her across the face just for looking pale and embarrassing them in front of guests.
Seeing Aretha wasn't submitting to the usual abuse, Kelli deliberately threw herself down the stairs, playing the innocent, depressed victim.
Anders rushed in and shoved Aretha brutally against the wall to protect Kelli, while her biological father delivered his ultimate threat.
"I am freezing your trust fund. Get on your knees and apologize to Kelli right now, or you won't see another dime."
A massive, suffocating sense of absurdity washed over Aretha. She had spent six years lowering her head and begging for their approval, only to be treated like a disposable placeholder. Why should she spend her final days enduring this agonizing torture for people who didn't even care if she breathed?
Aretha wiped the blood from her chin and laughed. She publicly severed all ties with her family, whipped the signed divorce papers directly at Anders's face, and walked out into the freezing storm—ready to fight for her own life.
8.0
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.