One Lock between Life and Death

In One Lock between Life and Death, Mitch’s world shatters when his mother-in-law falls critically ill. His rescue efforts are thwarted by Jake, a security guard sponsored by Mitch’s own wife, Jenna. Jake clamps the responding ambulance, claiming he is simply following protocol. While Jenna coldly defends the guard and accuses her mother of faking the crisis, the situation turns dire. When the doctor announces the patient’s heart has stopped, the petty enforcement of rules becomes a race against time.

Chapters

Chapter 2

Nothing like this had ever happened before. But the moment Jake showed up, cars started getting clamped.

At the end of the day, this was all just a setup targeting me. I just didn't know what I'd done to offend him.

Was I supposed to pay him to unclamp my car every single time from now on? I refused to encourage this lawless behavior of his.

"Jake Gould, this is a matter of life and death," I said, my face hardening. "Unlock them right now! My wife sponsored you and even helped you find a part-time job so you could earn some money. She didn't do any of that just so you could make things difficult for me."

Jake looked at me with disdain. "What does Jen sponsoring me have to do with you? You're the one who's unwilling to pay the fees. How is it my fault?"

I was just about to respond when a familiar voice came from behind.

"What's going on?"

It was my wife, Jenna Hudgens. I immediately turned around, wanting to explain the situation to her, but Jake moved faster.

He rushed up to her, looking aggrieved, and complained, "Jen, does being sponsored by you mean I'm somehow inferior to others? I may be a security guard, but I still have my dignity. Mitch keeps humiliating me just because he's a homeowner here. Have I done something wrong?"

Hearing Jake downplay the situation, I hurriedly explained, "Jen, Mom suddenly collapsed. We need to rush her to the hospital right now. Jake clamped the ambulance, and he's charging 200 dollars per lock to remove them. Isn't that just ridiculous?

"Hurry and tell him to unlock them. Mom's already in bad shape. We can't afford any more delays."

I thought Jenna would be on my side. After all, the person lying in the ambulance was her own mother, and it was a life-or-death situation.

What I didn't expect, however, was that when she opened her mouth, it was to scold me.

"Mitch McLaren, what is wrong with you? This is Jake's first day as a security guard, so he's surely following orders from his superiors. Can you stop making things difficult for him?

"And besides, your mom looks to be in very good health. Why would she even need an ambulance? If you ask me, she's just bored."

For a second, I almost couldn't catch my breath. No wonder Jenna didn't seem worried at all. She thought the person who'd collapsed was my mother.

With someone backing him up, Jake immediately put on an aggrieved expression again. "Jen, tell Mitch that I'm just following the rules and regulations. If he wants the locks removed, he'll need to pay. Please don't make things difficult for someone who's just trying to do their job, okay?"

Jenna frowned and ordered me, "Did you hear that? If you want to take your mom to the hospital, then hurry up and pay him to have the locks removed. Stop causing trouble for no reason!"

Continue to next part

After being reborn, the protagonist faces Rebecca Schwartz, the impoverished student they once sponsored out of blind infatuation. When Rebecca demands her companion Freddie join them or she won't leave the orphanage, the cycle of manipulation finally breaks. Remembering how this pair caused their previous demise, the protagonist rejects the demands with icy resolve. Instead of humbling themselves to keep the peace, they leave the duo behind to rot, vowing to never again be a victim of such despicable betrayal.

Action Modern Romance Young Adult

8.4

Flash Marriage To My Ruthless Professor

8.4

I signed a prenuptial agreement with a cold-blooded Wall Street predator just to unlock my trust fund and fight my greedy stepmother. We were nothing more than legal roommates bound by a strict three-year contract. But to survive the corporate war at my family's company, I skipped my mandatory university finance class and paid a guy to answer the roll call for me. The stand-in was immediately caught and kicked out by the notoriously ruthless new professor. That night at dinner, I complained to my contract husband about the professor. "He's an unreasonable, arrogant dictator who gets off on torturing his students," I complained bitterly. My husband just calmly cut my steak and listened as I bragged about how I was going to fake-cry and manipulate the professor the next morning. I even rushed to the faculty office the next day and performed a desperate, tearful apology to an elderly man I assumed was the tyrant. I thought I had perfectly balanced my corporate war and my academic life. I thought I had fooled everyone. But when I confidently sat in the front row of the massive lecture hall, the heavy wooden doors pushed open. The terrifying new professor walked onto the podium and aggressively wrote his name on the chalkboard: Elliot Dillard. It was my contract husband. He looked down at me with cold, merciless authority, knowing every single lie I had told, and slowly called my name.

Action Modern Romance

7.5

His Betrayal Forged Her Empire

7.5

I run my family's political dynasty with an iron fist. From my father’s Senate votes to my own calculated engagement, every move is mine to control. Then, in a single evening, my ambitious stepmother made her play. She used our housekeeper as a spy and orchestrated a scandal involving my fiancé and stepsister, designed to shatter my reputation and power. They thought they could break me. Within twelve hours, the spy was dead on the marble floor of my foyer. My fiancé’s family was blackmailed into silence. My stepsister was exiled to a Swiss boarding school, and I stripped my own father of his authority for his weakness. As for my stepmother, Bronte, I had her declared mentally unstable and forcibly taken to a remote facility in Montana, completely cut off from the world. Everyone saw a cold-hearted coup, but they didn't know the secret I held. I had proof that Bronte had systematically orchestrated my brother’s death years ago, all to position her own son to inherit everything. This wasn't about power; it was vengeance. But winning the war at home has put me on a much deadlier board. Now, I'm preparing for a dinner with Eldridge Marsh—the most dangerous man in Washington—who wants to decide if I'm a player he can use, or a threat he needs to destroy.

Action Billionaire Modern

8.3

HIS LUNA, HIS PRISONER.

8.3

Bound by fate, Torn by desire, Forbidden by choice. Rhyna, a healer omega, never asked for war, or to be taken prisoner. But when the feared Alpha, Conan, drags her into the heart of enemy territory, her world flips upside down. He claims she is his Luna, destined by a bond she refuses to accept. She is determined to fight, to resist, to survive... but Conan's dominance, power, and the pull of their inexplicable bond test everything she thought she knew about love, loyalty, and herself. In a world where packs clash and hearts are weapons, can a healer survive the Alpha's desires, and resist the pull of a mate she never wanted?

Action Romance Werewolf

9.5

His Secret Savior: The Alpha's Rejected Mate

9.5

For eight years, she endured the burn of Wolfsbane, masking her scent for an Alpha who never looked her way. He called her his quiet Omega—his obedient shadow—until a loud-mouthed fraud arrived, claiming the voice of the girl who once saved him. He gave Serena the Moonstone and gave his true mate a black card with one cold command: Disappear. She gave her a cliff and a frozen river. As water filled her lungs, the cruelest truth surfaced: she was that girl. The thirteen-year-old who dragged his bleeding body into a cave. His fated mate. But the river didn't kill her—it cleansed her. Now her wolf is white, ancient, and unforgiving. When Silas kneels in the rain, begging for a second chance, she will smile and give him the only answer he deserves.

Action Fantasy Mystery Romance Werewolf

9.4

Not Her: The Shadow Bride's Great Escape

9.4

I was the invisible daughter of a low-level mobster until Ethan Cole, the city’s most terrifying Don, plucked me from the streets. He claimed it was love at first sight. He married me, draped me in vintage diamonds, and treated me like a fragile porcelain doll. I thought I was living a fairytale until I found the secret room in his library. It was filled with photos of a dead woman named Olivia. A woman who had my hair, my eyes, and my face. I wasn't his soulmate. I was a replacement part for a broken machine. When I became pregnant, Ethan didn't hug me. He placed a possessive hand on my stomach and whispered, "The heir." He didn't see me. He only saw an incubator for a ghost's legacy. My father tried to warn me and died for it. I realized that once I gave Ethan this child, I would be trapped in his gilded cage forever, a broodmare for a man in love with a corpse. So, I did the unthinkable. I walked into a clinic and paid cash to remove the one thing he valued more than his empire. I went home, collapsed on the marble floor in a pool of blood, and looked up at the monster who thought he owned me. "I lost it," I screamed, tearing at his lapels. "I lost our baby!" I watched his heart break, knowing I had just declared war.

Action Horror Romance

One Lock between Life and Death

Chapter 2

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