Too Late For Regret: The Ghost Wife
I survived five years of hell as a captive in a Middle Eastern warzone and finally made it back home to my husband.
But when I stood at the gates of our estate, I found him married to another woman, holding a five-year-old daughter.
The timeline meant he had betrayed me long before I ever deployed. Worse, he had declared me legally dead and secretly drained my family's massive trust fund. When I demanded answers about my parents, he coldly told me they had burned to death in a highly convenient fire. He then had me strapped to a hospital bed, letting his new wife humiliate me as a delusional mistress. To maintain his perfect Wall Street image, he offered to buy me a hidden apartment to live as his secret whore.
I was legally a corpse, stripped of my identity, my family, and my dignity. But what tortured me most wasn't his betrayal—it was how perfectly timed my disappearance had been. How did the terrorists know my exact classified route?
In the freezing rain, the mercenary who had held me captive suddenly appeared and delivered a chilling truth.
"You were betrayed by your own people. Someone at your hospital sold your GPS coordinates."
Staring at my dead colleague's bloodstained notebook, the horrifying realization hit me. It was my beloved mentor. They thought I was just a dead doctor. Now, I am going to tear their entire empire to the ground.
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Chapter 3
The sharp crack of the branch hung in the cold air.
Candy's head snapped toward the shadows of the fountain. Her lazy posture vanished, replaced by the rigid stance of a predator protecting its territory. She shoved Poppy behind her legs.
"Who's there?" Candy demanded, her voice shrill. "If that's security slacking off again, I'm docking your pay!"
Deanna knew she was caught. The metallic taste of blood in her mouth mixed with the bitter realization of the timeline. She took a deep breath of the freezing air, placed her bleeding hand on the edge of the fountain, and dragged herself out of the darkness.
She stepped into the halo of the patio lights.
Candy squinted. As Deanna's pale, scarred face and hollowed eyes came into focus, Candy's pupils dilated in absolute horror.
The crystal wine glass slipped from Candy's fingers. It shattered against the marble steps, sending a spray of dark red wine across her silk slippers like fresh blood.
Candy stumbled back, her voice twisting into a terrified shriek. "Deanna?!"
Deanna didn't look at Candy. Her bloodshot eyes were locked onto the little girl hiding behind the silk robe.
Deanna dragged her injured leg forward, closing the distance. "How old is she?" Deanna asked. Her voice was a guttural scrape, barely human.
Candy recovered quickly. The initial shock morphed into defensive arrogance. She remembered she was standing on her own patio, in her own estate. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin.
Candy casually reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. The patio lights caught the massive pink diamond on her ring finger, making it explode with blinding sparkles.
Deanna's stomach violently contracted. She recognized the intricate setting of that ring. She had drawn the sketch for it herself, five years ago, for her own wedding.
Candy saw where Deanna was looking. A cruel, triumphant smile stretched across her lips. "Poppy just turned five last month," Candy said loudly, making sure every syllable hit its mark.
Five.
The number slammed into Deanna's skull like a sledgehammer.
Missing for five years. A ten-month pregnancy. That meant Joseph had been sleeping with Candy at least six months before Deanna ever boarded the plane for her medical mission in the Middle East.
Deanna's mind flashed to her lavish farewell dinner. Joseph kissing her forehead, whispering that she was his only love. It was all a lie. Every touch, every word.
Her lungs stopped working. Deanna clutched the fabric of her jacket over her chest, gasping for air. Her vision blurred at the edges.
Poppy started to cry, terrified by the ragged, bleeding woman gasping on the lawn. "Mommy, I'm scared! Tell Daddy to make the bad lady go away!"
Candy scooped the girl up into her arms. "You're nothing but a ghost, Deanna," Candy spat, her voice dripping with venom. "You're a psycho trying to ruin a happy family."
Candy pulled a sleek smartphone from her robe pocket. "I'm calling security. You're going to rot in a cell for trespassing."
The threat snapped the last thread of Deanna's sanity.
With a sudden burst of adrenaline, Deanna lunged up the marble steps. She grabbed Candy's wrist with her bloody hand, yanked the phone away, and smashed it onto the stone floor. The screen shattered into a spiderweb of glass.
Candy screamed, clutching her daughter and backing up against the heavy oak door. "You're insane! You spent too much time with terrorists!"
Deanna stepped into Candy's personal space. She grabbed the collar of Candy's expensive silk robe, twisting the fabric in her fists. Deanna's eyes were wild, rimmed with red.
"How did you do it?" Deanna hissed, spittle flying from her lips. "How did you and Joseph fake my death while I was rotting in a cage?"
Candy trembled, but her eyes remained vicious. "You're just a stupid doctor," Candy mocked, her breath hitting Deanna's face. "You know nothing about Wall Street. You know nothing about what men actually need."
Candy leaned in closer, dropping her voice to a lethal whisper. "Joseph never wanted to marry you. He only wanted your parents' medical trust fund."
The words sliced through Deanna's chest, severing her heart from its strings. Her hands went numb. She released Candy's robe, stumbling backward down the steps as if she had been physically shoved.
Before Deanna could hit the ground, two blinding beams of high-beam headlights swept across the courtyard, cutting through the darkness.
The screech of tires echoed off the stone walls. A sleek black Maybach slammed to a halt on the cobblestone driveway. The driver's side door was kicked open.
Joseph Cole jumped out. He was wearing a custom-tailored suit, but his tie was loose, and his chest was heaving. He had clearly rushed back after getting a panic call from the gate security.
Joseph's eyes darted from his terrified wife and child on the porch to the bleeding, ragged woman standing on the grass.
All the color drained from Joseph's face. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.
Deanna slowly turned her head. She looked at the man she had loved since college. The man who had sold her out for a trust fund.
A chilling, broken laugh scraped its way out of Deanna's throat. Hot tears finally spilled over her eyelashes, cutting clean tracks through the dirt on her cheeks.
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9.3
I woke up in a freezing, desolate wasteland, my body weak and covered in sores. A mechanical voice in my head informed me that I was a defective rabbit-mutant, and if I didn't conceive within twenty-four hours, I would die permanently.
The terror was suffocating, but the system left me no choice. To survive the brutal cold and the decay of my own heartbeat, I had to force a pregnancy with a stranger.
I stumbled through the snow, my fingers turning blue, until I found a massive, wounded Arctic Fox-mutant in a dark cave. He was a Tier-9 predator, dying and radiating the exact heat I needed to stay alive. I threw away my dignity, crawling into his fur to merge our energies, desperate to trigger the life-reset protocol before my time ran out.
I felt like a monster, forcing myself onto a man who didn't even know I existed, just to keep my own heart beating. How could I ever face him if he woke up? Why did I have to be the one to pay the price for this twisted, mechanical ultimatum?
The fusion was a success, but when I woke up the next morning, the apex predator had me pinned under his massive claws, his fangs inches from my throat. I didn't beg for mercy. I stared into his feral, ice-blue eyes and made a deal that would change everything: I would be his anchor, and he would be my protector. But then I dropped the final, terrifying truth: I was pregnant, and he was the only one who could save us.
8.6
I woke up choking on rotting air in an alien jungle, surrounded by giant bioluminescent ferns and a three-eyed, armor-plated beast charging straight at me.
Before the monster could tear me apart, I was saved by a squad of men with metallic wings and laser rifles, but my nightmare was just beginning.
When they brought me back to their high-tech military base, every soldier we passed stopped dead, staring at me with a feverish, starving hunger that made my skin crawl.
In the medical wing, a manic doctor bypassed all protocol, pulling out a wicked silver needle to forcibly extract my blood, looking at me not as a patient, but as a winning lottery ticket.
Even their highest-ranking commander, a giant, scarred Admiral, immediately tried to claim me, demanding I be moved into his personal bedroom for "protection."
I didn't understand why I was being treated like a caged miracle, nor why a simple, accidental touch of my hand could bring my winged protector to his knees and silence his feral instincts.
"In the Aethel Empire, there are no females," my protector whispered, his icy blue eyes filled with raw desperation. "You are the only one."
The portal that brought me here was fading, trapping me in a universe of eighty billion shapeshifting Alpha males. Looking at the terrifying devotion in his eyes, I realized my life as an ordinary human was over, and to survive this, I had to tame the beasts.
9.4
Michael Carter is an undercover FBI agent on a mission to take down ruthless mafia king Fernando Ramírez-the man he believes killed his sister. But getting close to Fernando means playing a dangerous game, one where seduction and power blur the lines between enemy and lover.
When Michael uncovers a shocking truth, his thirst for revenge turns into a fight for something far more dangerous-his own heart. Now, torn between duty and desire, he must decide: destroy the man he swore to take down or surrender to the one thing he never saw coming.
Love has never been more lethal.
8.8
My husband thought I was just a docile wife, easily controlled. He didn't know I'd spent five years meticulously dismantling his life. Tonight, his world would finally crumble into dust.
For five years, I endured Jackson's entitled demands and his family's greed, silently funding their lavish life in our Beverly Hills mansion.
My illusion shattered finding his mistress Amber's lingerie in his suitcase. My attorney just severed all financial ties, making Jackson's arrogant demands hollow.
I tossed my diamond ring into the trash, summoning an industrial compactor. Jackson, his mother, and mistress watched in horror as their designer luggage, bought with my money, was crushed, turning their lavish trip into garbage.
A cold, dead smile marked my cathartic release from five years of betrayal. How could they be so blind to the woman they dismissed?
Stepping into an armored Maybach, I left them in chaos. My iPad confirmed Jackson's credit cards freezing. This wasn't just divorce; it was a calculated demolition, making their pampered lives very real.
9.5
Bridget left the office early on her anniversary, her pocket heavy with a custom velvet ring box meant for her fiancé.
But when she pushed open the bedroom door, she found him tangled in their bed with her best friend, Chloe.
"Bridget! Wait, it's not what it looks like!" Jacob stammered, his eyes wide with panic.
"Evidence," Bridget stated coldly, snapping a photo of their naked bodies before fleeing into the freezing New York night.
Desperate to numb the betrayal, she got blackout drunk at an underground lounge and threw herself at a dark, terrifyingly handsome stranger.
She woke up in a penthouse suite alone, finding only a limitless black credit card left on the nightstand.
Humiliated and feeling like a cheap escort, she ran away, swearing to forget the nightmare.
But the nightmare had just begun. When she rushed into the office, she discovered the stranger was Jevon Rocha—the ruthless billionaire CEO of her company.
He didn't fire her. Instead, he trapped her in a twisted, obsessive power game, forcing her into his private life and demanding she report to his penthouse.
Bridget couldn't understand why a ruthless billionaire was so dangerously fixated on a low-level employee.
Until she stumbled upon his secret social media account and saw a crayon drawing of a little kid, captioned with a single word: "Finally."
A wave of absolute horror washed over her. He wasn't just playing games; he was hiding a secret child and a messy, high-stakes family drama.
She refused to be the naive collateral damage in a billionaire's twisted life.
Trembling, Bridget hit "Block" on his profile, determined to escape his dangerous web.
7.5
Julianna was drowning in a corporate warzone, fighting a massive department deficit while fending off her mother’s relentless matchmaking.
Then, a ghost from her past returned to shatter her reality.
Eight years ago, Aidan Caldwell walked out of her life without a word. Now, he was back in New York as a ruthless billionaire, and a pitch-black Maybach started stalking her in the dim underground garage.
She had no idea the driver hiding behind the obsidian-tinted glass was Aidan.
She didn't know he had just choked a confession out of an executive, discovering that her "betrayal" eight years ago was a complete lie.
"Stay away from her. The rules are mine now."
Aidan had warned his rivals, his sanity tearing at the seams as he watched from the shadows while a creepy coworker put an arm around her shoulder.
He shattered glasses and crushed her favorite white flowers in his penthouse, driven by a lethal, obsessive jealousy seeing other men touch what belonged to him.
Julianna was completely in the dark, feeling only a heavy, predatory stare pinning her to the cold concrete.
When a sudden, heartbreaking scent of cedarwood rolled out of the cracked car window, her brain short-circuited.
Why was this terrifying stranger stalking her in the shadows?
Desperate to save her career, Julianna recklessly agreed to fake an engagement with a wealthy heir this weekend.
But she had no idea Aidan had already rigged her company's crisis, and the predator was about to tear her world apart to claim her back.