The Price Of Her Mercy
BLURB
Mira, a poor farm girl, felt she was cursed because of the events that happened in her life after her land, the only property left to her by her late father, was forcefully taken 4 years ago.
She’s left with nothing to cater for her sick little sister, and is forced to tend to the horses of the same man who took her land and that made her hate him, with everything in her.
Jackson, who ran from the flames of an internet scandal against his company in search of answers and solitude, was instead carried away by Mira’s beauty, charm and confidence, and he decided to change her world while being the ruler of it.
What happens when a spark is ignited between them? Mira, who loathed her landlord because he was a constant reminder of her lost property, due to unfairness, and Jackson, who only loved power and control.
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Chapter: Sparks in the StacksNORAI’ve always thought college would be a place of dull lectures, endless assignments, and the occasional cafeteria disaster, in fact it has been for a while now, until sitting in Professor Cross’s class turned everything upside down. I should be taking notes, focusing on algorithms and coding syntax, but all I can do is watch him. His pen moves fast across the board, black ink forming symbols I barely understand, and yet, the way his brow furrows when he explains a concept makes my stomach twist. I try to shake it off, it’s stupid. He’s my lecturer, not some dream man I can chase. But the world seems to conspire against me every time our eyes meet. It starts small. From glances in the library while I’m pretending to research for an assignment, and lingering look when he passes by during group projects, to the tiniest smirk that seems reserved just for me. Every time it happens, I feel like my chest is going to split in two. I know it’s unprofessional, gosh it’s kinda forbidden
Last Updated: 2026-01-03
Chapter: A donation to the donorMIRAPale light filters through the curtains, touching the edge of the world like a blessing. Jackson sleeps beside me, one arm stretched where I had been. His brow is creased, even in rest. He carries the war into his dreams too.But something in me is different. Quieter, and settled. Seeing everyone happy gives me hope. I sit on the edge of the bed, feeling the weight of my decision lock into place like a final puzzle piece.This doesn’t end with guns. It ends with mercy, it ends with truth, It ends with me. I won’t let this story devour another generation. I won’t let Nora grow up haunted by ghosts she never created.I won’t let Aurora’s name be spoken only in whispers and scandal. The past doesn’t get to dictate the future anymore. Downstairs, the house is still. No more alarms going off on its own, or doors creaking open. For once, there’s silence. The good kind.I make coffee, letting the steam warm my face, let reality touch me slowly, then my phone vibrates on the counter. one
Last Updated: 2026-01-03
Chapter: Home truthsJERRYI land back in Sunrise Bay with salt still clinging to my skin and my head still full of New York lights. The airport smells like recycled air and burnt coffee, and for a second I miss the way my girlfriend laughed into my chest last night, naked, warm, telling me I snore like an asshole but kissing me anyway. Real life hits fast and hard, like it always does here.I drive straight from the airport to the mansion. My suitcase rattles in the trunk like it’s impatient to be unpacked, like it knows I don’t belong anywhere for too long. The gates open as I punch in the code into the metal code box just close to the edge.The security made it so that it automatically does when you put in the code. That way, not many people can trespass anymore. I drive in slowly and it hits me with the same quietness, same wealth, and the same familiar ghosts hiding behind glass walls and trimmed hedges.Mira opens the door herself.She looks softer than before. Not weak. Never that. Just quieter.
Last Updated: 2026-01-03
Chapter: Life outside the BayJERRYNew York hits me the second I step out of the cab. First with the noise of busy people going about their business, then the smell of cold breeze, dust, and luxury, then cold air cutting through my jacket. Horns scream, and people move like they have somewhere to be even if most of them don’t. The city doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve survived. It just keeps going. I respect that.Mabel, my love waits near the entrance of her building, phone in hand, coat half buttoned like she ran down without thinking. When she sees me, her whole face shifts into the warmest smile I’ve seen in a while. Without hesitation, she walks straight into me and wraps her arms around my neck.“Hello to my favorite investigator,” I mutter, kisses pouring on her neck.“You look tired,” she says into my collar.“Yeah? You should see the other guy,” I answer, a small laugh escapes her, soft and real.Her apartment is warm. Really clean as usual, but lived in. There's a half folded blanket on the couc
Last Updated: 2026-01-03
Chapter: The real dangerMIRAThe room is still holding its breath from Jackson’s accusation. Aurora doesn’t move. She doesn’t flinch the way someone innocent might or sharpen the way someone guilty would, either. She simply sits there, her hands folded over each other on the table, her gaze steady on me. And that calm is somehow worse than either panic or rage.“Yes,” she says quietly. “I’ve been visiting him.”Jackson is on his feet immediately, chair scraping violently across the floor. “You expect us to just accept that?” His voice is low, furious, carved sharp by betrayal and instinct. “That you’ve been sitting across from the man who tried to destroy us, who stalked our child, who invaded our home… All for some information.”“I expect nothing from you,” she cuts in, eyes barely flicking in his direction. “But I will not pretend I haven’t done what needed to be done.”I raise a hand slightly, a silent signal for him to stop. He doesn't like it, but he does. His body is tense beside me, a coiled spring.
Last Updated: 2026-01-02
Chapter: Family MattersMIRAI reach for the file. Inside are documents, contracts, old correspondence, unfamiliar signatures stamped with organizations I don’t recognize, and yet I feel their shadow instantly. Shell companies layered on top of bigger shell companies,financial manipulation, incentive payments, legal edges sharpened to wound from first slice.My father’s name appears in some places not as the instigator, but as a piece on a board and so does Jackson's father’s name. Both of them tied to a quiet, faceless consortium operating beneath the surface of government, banking, and private acquisition. In other words, they were a part of the third party organization.“They didn’t just pit our families against each other,” Aurora says. “They orchestrated the war, they fueled the hatred, every loss, every betrayal, every rumor… was a carefully planned strategy, not coincidence.”I turn the pages slowly, letters that were never sent, emails altered and re-sent through anonymous servers, bank transfers ro
Last Updated: 2026-01-02
Dear Ex, See you never
Millicent Andrews never expected her life to collapse right before her twenty-first birthday.
One moment she’s a wife, a best friend, a girl with a future… and the next, she’s staring at her husband Brian Vel in bed and tangled in her best friend’s arms, the betrayal slices her open in ways she can’t begin to stitch shut.
The divorce is brutal and the humiliation is even worse. With nowhere else to go, Milli returns to her mom’s house with her sick son. She reopens her small, struggling photo studio, just in time to learn the entire building has already been bought by Damon Hale, a forty-seven-year-old billionaire with a reputation colder than the steel hotels he builds.
Damon wants the land, but Milli refuses to give up the last piece of her life that hasn’t been stolen from her. Their fight become heated, and combustible, until he makes her an offer she should never accept: marry him for one year to soothe his mother, live under his roof, follow his every rule…and in return, he’ll save the studio, every shop on the block and her sick son gets the best treatment possible, but she does.
They hate each other and they’re nothing alike. The contract is supposed to keep their worlds separated, but forced proximity has sharp fangs. Meanwhile, Brian returns, desperate and regretful, determined to pull Millicent back into his life.
While she tries to outrun her past, she discovers a painful truth about her own bloodline that changes everything she thought she knew, all while discovering Damon's darkest secret. What happens to their paper tie, when he discovers she knows the truth who he really is?
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Chapter: the shield loweredMillicent's POVThe shift is subtle at first. So subtle that I almost miss it. It begins with a touch that lingers a moment longer, a look that doesn't dart away when someone enters the room. Small things, barely noticeable, but revolutionary in their own quiet way.These are the changes that don't make headlines, the transformations that happen in the space between breaths but they're the ones that matter most.Mike joins us for breakfast in the main dining room.This might not sound significant, but it is. For years, he's eaten in his wing, or early before the staff arrived, or quickly while standing in the kitchen. Never at the table, never visible, never present in a way that might invite questions. He became an expert at timing his meals to avoid overlap, at disappearing before anyone could wonder who he was.Now he sits beside Damon with a coffee cup in hand, discussing the garden plans with Elena like it's the most natural thing in the world. The morning light catches his face
Last Updated: 2026-01-16
Chapter: the decision madeDamon's POVI spend three days in near-isolation.Not complete solitude, I eat meals, I check on Josh, I sleep beside Millicent and Mike at night, but I'm not really present. My body goes through the motions while my mind churns endlessly, processing decades of fear against the possibility of freedom.The mansion feels different during these days. It’s larger, and somehow emptier. As if the walls themselves are waiting to see what I'll decide.On the first day, I sit in my study and read my mother's letter for the hundredth time."You deserve to live in the light, my darling boy. You deserve to be seen."The words blur and sharpen, blur and sharpen. I try to imagine what she meant when she wrote them. Did she picture this? Her son, forty-seven years old, still hiding from a world that might reject him? Still building walls instead of bridges?She knew, she always knew, and she loved me anyway So why can't I extend myself the same grace?I trace the curves of her handwriting with my fi
Last Updated: 2026-01-16
Chapter: the choiceDamon's POVThe study feels very different tonight. I know that this is where I signed the contract with Millicent, where I reduced love to clauses and conditions because I was too afraid to let it be anything else. This is where I've made a thousand business decisions, calculated risks, weighed costs against benefits with cold precision. The leather chairs, the mahogany desk, the rows of law books I've never actually read, all of it designed to project an image of control.Tonight, the calculation isn't working. Tonight, control feels like a cage.We've gathered to discuss options: me, Millicent, Mike, and Elena, the housekeeper who's kept my secrets for twenty years, whose judgment I trust more than my own lawyers'. Papers are spread across my desk: printouts of the tabloid article, security reports, legal assessments of potential defamation claims.I stare at the headline again: "MYSTERY MAN IN HALE MANSION." Mystery man. As if Mike is a puzzle to be solved rather than a person w
Last Updated: 2026-01-16
Chapter: the trap sprungMillicent's POVThe article drops on a Thursday morning. I'm at the studio, reviewing proofs from a client session, when my phone starts buzzing with notifications. At first I ignore it, I've learned to tune out the background noise of public attention, but the buzzing doesn't stop. If anything, it intensifies and my phone vibrates across the desk like something alive and panicked.When I finally check, my blood runs cold."MYSTERY MAN IN HALE MANSION: WHO IS THE YOUNG HOUSE GUEST BILLIONAIRE DAMON HALE HAS BEEN HIDING?"The article is from the same tabloid that ran the contract marriage exposé. Victor Crane's outlet, operating with his money and his agenda. I scan it with shaking hands, trying to assess the damage."Sources confirm that a young man of approximately 21 years old, has been living in the Hale mansion for an extended period. Staff members, speaking on condition of anonymity, describe him as 'a permanent fixture' who occupies his own wing of the property. His relationshi
Last Updated: 2026-01-16
Chapter: the new balanceMillicent's POVWe make a calendar. I know It sounds unromantic, clinical, even, but that's exactly what we need. After the crisis, after the 2 AM conversation, the tears and the lovemaking that felt like healing, we sit down with our phones and build a schedule.We're in the kitchen, coffee cups scattered across the table, the morning light streaming through windows that look out on Mike's garden. It feels strangely formal, like a business meeting, but also necessary. Love without structure is just chaos with good intentions.Friday nights: Mike and me. Damon handles Josh's bedtime, gives us the evening alone. We cook together, or watch movies Mike loves that Damon finds boring, or just talk for hours about nothing and everything. It's time that's ours, not mediated through our shared connection to Damon.Tuesday evenings: Damon and Mike. I take Josh to the park, or visit the studio, or have dinner with Elena from the bakery. They have the mansion to themselves, reclaiming the intima
Last Updated: 2026-01-15
Chapter: the firm reassuranceMike's POVWe wake Damon at 2 AM. He comes to consciousness slowly, confusion clouding his face as he sees both of us sitting on the edge of the bed, fully awake, clearly not there for sleep. The lamp is on, casting harsh shadows across his features, and he looks older than I've ever seen him, worn down by grief in ways that make my chest ache even through my own pain."What's wrong?" His voice is rough, worried. "Is it Josh? Is someone hurt?""No one's hurt," Millicent says. "But we need to talk. Really talk. And it can't wait until morning."“Okay.” Damon sits up, rubbing his eyes. The grief of the past weeks is etched into his face, deeper lines, shadows under his eyes, a heaviness in his movements that wasn't there before and for a moment, I feel guilty for adding to his burden, for demanding attention when he's already drowning.Then I remember that I matter too and my pain counts too. If I keep swallowing it to make things easier for everyone else, I'll choke on it eventually.
Last Updated: 2026-01-15
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