Why Does The Protagonist In The Folly Make That Choice?

Luca's expression turned serious. "What's going on, Isabella? You can tell me anything." Isabella took a deep breath before blurting out the truth. "I'm pregnant, Luca." The room fell silent. Luca's eyes widened in shock. Isabella continued, her voice shaking. "And the father... is Vincent Moreno." Luca's face turned grim. "The mafia king?" Isabella nodded, feeling a wave of fear wash over her. She knew what this meant. She knew that she couldn't keep her pregnancy a secret from Vincent. He would stop at nothing to claim his child. Luca's voice brought her back to reality. "You know what this means, don't you? You can't keep this a secret from him. He'll find out, and when he does... " Isabella's eyes flashed with determination. "I'll do whatever it takes to protect my child, Luca. I'll go to the ends of the earth to keep them safe from him." Luca's expression turned somber. "How long can you keep running, Isabella? You can't hide forever." Isabella's jaw set in determination. "As long as I'm alive, Luca. I'll never let him near my child." *** "WHERE IS MY CHILD, ISABELLA?" He thundered, his eyes blazing with fury. Isabella's cup fell from her hands, shattering on the floor. She felt like she was frozen in time, unable to move or speak. The man took a step closer, his eyes fixed on hers. "You've been hiding my child from me for seven years. It's time I took what's mine."

“Are you sure you want to go through with the abortion procedure, Mrs. Windsor?” The doctor’s voice was soft, almost cautious. Elysia Windsor lowered her gaze, fingers trembling against her stomach as tears burned behind her eyes. “Yes, doctor,” she whispered shakily. “Alright… but we’ll need your husband’s consent and signature first.” Her husband. For five years, Declan Windsor had never truly been hers. Cold. Distant. Untouchable. While Elysia loved him hopelessly, Declan only had eyes for the woman he truly wanted. Still, Elysia endured the loneliness of their marriage, convincing herself that loving him from afar was enough. Until one drunken night changed everything. Now pregnant with Declan’s twins, Elysia begins to hope for something more… only for Declan to bring his first love, Victoria Ashford, into their home pregnant with his child. Humiliated, betrayed, and repeatedly framed by the same woman who tormented her in high school, Elysia reaches her breaking point when she nearly loses her babies—and Declan still chooses Victoria over her. So she leaves. Quietly. Completely. But the moment Elysia disappears, Declan realizes the devastating truth too late The wife he neglected was the only woman who ever truly loved him. Now she’s gone, carrying his children and the pieces of his heart with her. And when Declan finally finds her again years later, Elysia is no longer the broken woman he left behind. The problem? This time, she may choose someone else.

I knew my husband, Josh Perkins, had faked his death and taken on his younger twin brother's identity—but I never said a word. Instead, I went straight to the commander of the military district and filed an official report of my husband's death, requesting his name be permanently removed from the service rolls. In my last life, my brother-in-law died in an accident. Josh gave up his rank as regimental commander, abandoned his own name, and stepped into his brother's shoes—all to spare his fragile sister-in-law from becoming a widow. Back then, I recognized him immediately. I confronted him and demanded to know why he was pretending to be a dead man. But Josh just looked through me, cold as a winter morning. "Riley, I know you're grieving Josh. But I'm not him. Don't mistake me for my brother." He shielded that delicate sister-in-law of his behind him, then shoved me into the icy river and warned me not to harbor delusions. Later, our five-year-old daughter cried, asking why her daddy didn't want her anymore. For that, she was dragged to the cowshed for "reflection"—left there, starving, for three days and nights. My mother-in-law called me a curse, a jinx who'd killed her son, and threw my daughter and me out with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Josh made sure everyone knew I'd "gone mad"—that I was lusting after my brother-in-law before my husband was even cold in the ground. The whole town turned their backs on us. That last winter, I wandered the streets with my girl, dazed and numb, until the cold finally took us both. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the very day Josh buried his old life and stole his brother's.

London was supposed to be freedom. A clean start far from the bruises, the shouting, and the father who made my childhood a nightmare. For two quiet years, I built a small, safe life with books, cold nights, and nobody to fear. But safety ends the moment danger knocks on my door. One unforgivable mistake. And suddenly I'm not just found by the devil in a suit-I'm sold. Straight into the hands of Antonio Rosa, the ruthless Don of New York. Antonio Ruling New York with iron fist, blood, and zero mercy has always been therapeutic. People don't hand me their daughters on a whim-they hand me their fear. But when a useless man tries to buy his life with a trembling girl, I take the deal... if only to teach him a final lesson. Daisy Harrison is supposed to be my warning to him. The man who couldn't care less about her. My leverage. My future wife in name only. Something pretty to destroy while the world watches and does nothing. But the moment she lifts her chin at me, all fire and defiance, I know I've made the most dangerous mistake of my life. Because I don't fall. I don't feel. I don't love. Yet here I am... losing control over the one woman I was never meant to keep.

In the seventh year of my marriage to Simon Heath, I finally walk away from him after his 32nd mistress shows up at my door. I join a classified government program and disappear from his world. Now he's falling apart and calling me non-stop. "Lily, I was wrong. Please come back." In the past, a single word of apology from him would have been enough to make me stay. But not this time. This time, he's bound to be disappointed.

The dagger goes in before she understands her consort is the one holding it. ——— My consort is the one holding the blade. I fall into the Forbidden Zone with his voice in my ear — *You were never going to be the queen this kingdom needed, Rose is everything you are not* — and every stroke downward the Hollow drinks my color, my voice, my breath. As I sink through the dark I understand, in a rising tide of memory I can no longer outrun, what I refused to see: my cousin Rose has been his lover for three years. My uncle Rick has been my father's killer for seven months. I hit the Hollow's floor among the skeletons of seven women who came before me. I should die there. A black pearl pulses in the dark and asks me one question. I say yes. What rises from the Forbidden Zone is not the princess they pushed. My scales burn blood-red shot through with molten gold and piercing teal, edged in obsidian. My voice shatters coral when I choose. I can drain a merfolk's power until their scales grey to driftwood, and I can shift any being between human and merfolk form. But the pearl hungers. Black veins creep across my chest with every life I take. And the throne I want back? It was never the prize. It was the trap. ——— Will Irene become the villainess her kingdom fears? Or will she remember the girl they buried long enough to choose what kind of queen to be? And the older sister who has been waiting two hundred years to use her — what happens when Irene decides the family she was born into is not the one worth dying for?