Too Late, Mr. Johnston: She Is Gone
Kara was diagnosed with cancer, and her unborn child could not be kept. Kara planned to end the pregnancy, get a divorce, and face her impending death with equanimity, allowing Davin and his new love, Alyse, to be together. But Davin had no intention of letting her go so easily. He and the increasingly frail Kara were inseparable day and night, just to leave a child for the infertile Alyse. Kara lay dying in her hospital bed, crying and laughing, pleading, "I'll give you my life, please let me go." Later, the cold and aloof man knelt before Kara's tombstone, holding gardenias day and night, his eyes red as he murmured, "Baby, stop it, come back."
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Chapter 5
Kara was still on her knees on the wet pavement, her hands deep in the thorny bushes, when the patio door opened again.
She expected Davin. Instead, she saw red-soled heels.
Alyse stood under a large umbrella, perfectly dry, perfectly groomed. She was holding the silver locket in her hand. She must have seen where it landed from the upstairs window.
"Looking for this?" Alyse asked.
Kara scrambled to her feet. She wiped the rain from her eyes. "Give it to me."
Alyse dangled the necklace. "Tsk, tsk. Look at you. The heiress of the Higgins fortune, digging in the mud like a rat."
She walked over to the ornamental koi pond that lined the garden path. She held the necklace over the water.
"Oops."
She let go. The silver locket splashed into the murky water and sank.
Kara lunged for the pond. Alyse stepped in her path, grabbing Kara's wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
Alyse leaned in close. She pulled the collar of her blouse down slightly to reveal a purple mark on her neck.
"See this?" Alyse whispered. "Davin gave it to me last night. While you were crying in the hospital."
It was a lie. Kara knew it was a lie-Davin had been at the office-but the image still made her stomach turn.
"You're disgusting," Kara said."Scavenging is your hobby, I don't care."
Alyse laughed. "And you are stupid. Do you know why that stage light fell on you six months ago? The one that broke your ribs?"
Kara went still.
"I paid the technician to loosen the bolt," Alyse hissed. "And all I had to do was cry a little, and Davin believed you rigged it yourself for attention."
Rage, hot and blinding, exploded in Kara's chest. She raised her hand to slap Alyse.
Alyse caught her wrist easily. "You're too weak, Kara. Look at you. You're dying, aren't you?"
Alyse shoved her. Hard.
Kara stumbled back. Her hip slammed into the sharp stone corner of the planter. Pain shot through her body, radiating from her surgery site. She collapsed onto the wet stones, gasping for air.
"Davin!" Alyse screamed.
Davin appeared at the door instantly.
Alyse threw herself onto the ground, sobbing. "She pushed me! She tried to drown me in the pond!"
Davin ran to Alyse. He helped her up, checking her for injuries. He turned his furious gaze on Kara, who was curled in a fetal position, clutching her side.
"You are sick," Davin shouted. "You need to be locked up."
Kara couldn't speak. The pain was too intense. She pointed a shaking finger at the pond.
Davin didn't look. He scooped Alyse up in his arms.
"Charles!" he yelled. "Get the car. We're taking Alyse to the clinic."
He looked at the head of security. "Put my wife in the basement. She can think about what she did in the dark. No food until I get back."
They dragged Kara away. She watched Davin carry Alyse into the house, shielding her from the rain, while Kara was left to bleed.
The heavy door of the basement slammed shut. The lock clicked. Total darkness.
Kara lay on the cold concrete floor. She reached into her pocket. She had managed to palm the tiny backup phone she kept hidden in her shoe.
She pressed and held the side button, activating a voice command protocol she'd designed herself.
"Chloe," she whispered into the dark. "Initiate Plan B. We're auctioning the dress."
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8.7
On her eighteenth birthday, Elinor thought she was finally an adult. But a single text message reminded her she was just property.
Boyd Walker, the ruthless billionaire who dictated her every breath, threw a contract onto her bed. He had bought her adoptive father's medical debt—one billion dollars. And she was the sole collateral.
The punishment for even a hint of rebellion was catastrophic.
When her disabled friend tried to check on her, Boyd had his good leg shattered in front of a live security feed just to teach her a lesson.
When she fought off an entitled frat boy at school and came back with a bleeding arm, Boyd didn't comfort her.
Driven by a twisted, suffocating jealousy, he held her under a freezing bath, then tied a red thread with a silver bell around her ankle.
"You are a pet that needs to learn its boundaries."
Every time she moved, the high-pitched ring was a humiliating reminder of her gilded cage. The billion-dollar debt was a chain she could never break, and the monster holding the leash would destroy anyone who dared to help her.
Stripped of her money, her friends, and her dignity, Elinor lay completely still in the dark room for three days, refusing all food and water.
If Boyd wouldn't give her freedom, she would take the only thing she had left to control—her own death.
7.8
After eight years in a cold marriage, I watched my husband, Damian, run past me during a raging fire. He ignored my screams, his only focus on saving another woman.
That night, he coldly admitted he never loved me. Our entire marriage was just a business deal he was forced into.
But his betrayal didn't end there. His mistress, Aida, framed my innocent younger brother for a crime he didn't commit. Damian believed her lies without question.
He stood by as she had my brother murdered in his hospital bed. He even forced me to crawl over broken glass to apologize for "upsetting" her.
The final blow came when he threatened me with my mother' s heirloom box, not knowing it held my brother' s ashes. He had taken everything from me-my love, my family, my dignity.
He thought he had broken me. But he only forged me into a weapon.
Now, I'm back. And as the new majority shareholder of his company, I'm here to make him pay for every last sin.
7.3
Eloise was the untouchable Brandt family heiress, just one audition away from landing a lead movie role and escaping her golden cage.
But overnight, her family's empire completely collapsed.
With her father dying of heart failure, her mother forced her to beg the only man who could save them: Christian Clarke.
Christian was the ruthless billionaire who had publicly humiliated Eloise in college, ripping up her love letter in front of a laughing crowd.
Now, he tossed a fifty-million-dollar acquisition contract on the table.
"What exactly is the Brandt heiress putting up for sale today?"
To secure her father's medical care, Eloise was forced to sign a suffocating marriage contract, selling herself as a corporate tax shield.
He moved her into his freezing penthouse and treated her like a purchased asset. He mocked her attempts to cook him dinner, yet pinned her against the wall with punishing, possessive kisses whenever she tried to pull away.
Eloise's pride was entirely shattered.
She didn't understand why he was doing this. If he hated her so much and only wanted revenge, why did his touch carry such an agonizing, desperate heat?
Determined to survive, she went to her final audition and miraculously won the lead role, crying tears of joy because she had finally earned something on her own.
She had no idea that the cold-blooded monster sleeping beside her had just secretly threatened to destroy all of Hollywood to give it to her.
8.5
I woke up in the tangled black silk sheets of the Mafia Don's bed, my skin still burning from his ruthless touch in the dark.
The heavy door burst open, and his pristine wife, Bianca, looked at my bruised collarbones with visceral hatred.
Instead of having me killed for soiling her husband's bed, she offered a devil's bargain.
"You will take my place in his bed. You will be a shadow in the dark."
In my past life, I foolishly accepted, thinking her money would pay for my dying mother's hospital bills. I didn't realize the untouchable Mafia Queen was barren and just needed a disposable incubator. After I endured the Don's violent possession and birthed the Moretti heir, they cut off my mother's medicine. Then, they dragged me to a remote warehouse and suffocated me with a wet mattress to bury their dirty secret forever.
Until my last agonizing breath, I didn't understand why my absolute submission and suffering were rewarded with such a brutal, meaningless death.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the morning after the Don first claimed me.
I knelt on the Persian rug, weeping tears of fake gratitude as Bianca handed me the cash. But the moment my escort looked away, I didn't take her fertility herbs. I bought a bitter root from an alley witch to keep my womb empty. This time, I won't give the Don a child. I'll become his darkest obsession, and use his lethal power to burn this entire family to the ground.
9.3
"W-wait! Someone's comi- ah!" Dylan's gasps were muffled with a kiss that made his legs go weak.
"Want me to stop?" The whisper made him shudder.
"...no, b-but there's-"
"Then be a good boy and focus on me. Spread your legs."
Dylan as an innocent college student knew what he wanted in a guy and coincidentally, the Waltson's, their new neighbor, had a son Theo who was a perfect fit. But sadly straight and also not single. Aiming to drink out his sorrows at the school party and move on was an act he did not see ending with him sleeping with someone, but having no idea who it was the next morning.
Soon, his hunt for the truth gets narrowed down to the Waltson's, and he gets faced with the late realization that Theo wasn't the only son of the Waltson's. With his elder brother, Lucas, and a mute twin, Kyle, his options of his drunk one night widens from one to three.
Lucas and Theo had been present at the party, and Dylan saw his only chance of knowing the truth was getting closer to them. But to do that, he needed the help of Kyle who was anything but nice to him. His constant glares, his mischievous smiles, and his hand signs that get interpreted into nothing but lies. Almost like he was trying his best to keep him away from his brothers. And just when he thought that, he takes up the initiative to search up a sign Kyle had shown to him.
^^You and him are never going to work out. I'll make sure of that.^^
In the game of finding out what Kyle meant by that, he stumbles across something even bigger. The Waltson's secret
7.5
After my boyfriend of four years publicly humiliated me at a charity gala, calling me a "charity case," I drowned my sorrows at a dive bar and had a one-night stand with a stranger.
I woke up the next morning in a luxury hotel suite to find out the stranger was Christian Porter, the most ruthless billionaire on Wall Street.
Worse, paparazzi had photographed us leaving the bar. He coldly informed me that the photos would create a scandal that could tank his company's upcoming IPO, costing him hundreds of millions. As if my world wasn't collapsing fast enough, I got a call that my younger brother had been arrested for assaulting my ex in my defense.
Christian didn't want my apology; he wanted a solution. He slammed a prenuptial agreement on the table in front of me.
He gave me an ultimatum: sign a two-year marriage contract to turn the scandal into a corporate fairy tale, or he would ruin me. Trapped, I agreed. But when my furious brother confronted him at the police station, Christian looked him dead in the eye and said something that left me breathless.
"I didn't marry her to solve a problem," he said, his voice echoing in the small room. "I married her because I've been in love with her for ten years."