Pigeon English

She felt like a caged bird. A bird that was meant to fly the high, blue skies, but was trapped like a prized possession for her master to impress others with. Ava is the daughter of a very powerful man in the underworld. Her blood, her family name makes her a tool for others to gain more power. Greedy men want her for her name, not for who she is. Being locked up all her life in her father's house makes her naïve and ignorant of the outside world. Meaning the greedy men have an easy game to play.

My sister and I married into the Phoenix Clan at the same time and, coincidentally, gave birth at the same time. After my sister birthed a purebred golden phoenix, the eldest prince she married was immediately crowned the next leader of the Phoenix Clan. Meanwhile, I gave birth to a mixed-bred pheasant and was condemned to death along with my husband, who was the second prince. It was only after my death that I found out the pheasant was my sister’s child! It was a ploy concocted by her and the eldest prince. The goal was to hide the bastard bloodline of the eldest prince and steal the throne of the Phoenix Clan. When I opened my eyes again, I realized I had been reborn. I didn't give birth, and my sister was visiting me with a haul of supplements…

From my earliest memories, my entire family is cold and distant toward me. When my parents look at my younger sister, Claire Lloyd, their eyes fill with warmth and joy. Yet, when they turn to me, only disgust remains. Claire's life is filled with applause and excessive love, while mine is filled with disdain and suffering. When the explosion erupts at the street corner, I save the stranger beside me. Later, I learn he is Byron Whitmore, a mafia family's Don. He begins pursuing me after I rescue him. Later, I quit my job and move to a new place, but he finds me and proposes in 100 different ways. "Why me?" I ask countless times. "Because it's you," he always answers. The wedding causes a sensation throughout the city. I truly seem to have transformed from an ugly duckling into a swan. That is, until I'm five months pregnant, when Claire needs a transfusion of rare Rh-negative blood after a car accident. The blood bank has a shortage. Because of that, my parents knock me unconscious and send me to the hospital. In my daze, the blood extraction machine hums continuously. As two thousand milliliters of blood leave my body, I see Byron. Tears well up in my eyes. I begin thinking he's here to save me. Instead, I hear him say, "We can't take any more. Sharon and the baby will die." "But Claire has lost too much blood. She'll die, too..." My mother pleads. "No one wants Claire safe more than I do." Byron's voice is thick with pain. "She's my first love. I've never forgotten her. I only married Sharon because her face looks so much like Claire's. "But I can't trade her life for Claire's. Trust me—I'll find another way." So, that's his reason for marrying me. The blood extraction machine continues running, but my heart has already stopped beating. The affection I see in his eyes has never been for me. He's always looking through me at someone else. Everyone in the world loves Claire, and Byron is not the exception that I foolishly believe him to be. That grand wedding is nothing but an ugly duckling's self-deceiving fantasy.

My wife, Anne Brighton, gives me a gray parrot. Every single day, it looks me in the eye and screeches, "Go to hell!" I send it to a parrot rehabilitation center, where they place it in a mirrored cage and play "I'm a good bird" on loop, three thousand times a day. Here's the thing—I've been reborn. In my past life, that parrot came into our home knowing only two phrases—"So ugly" and "Go to hell". At first, I believed it was merely mimicking what it had heard. But then my body began to fail. Sleep was the first to go. Every night, the same nightmare returned, and the same voice echoed through it, repeating those words over and over. "Go to hell." My appetite disappeared, and I wasted away until I was nothing but bones. In the end, my organs gave out. I didn't find out the truth until I was dying. The parrot I thought it was wasn't one at all. It was Ian Sawyer—my best friend, who had been dead for years, trapped inside that bird the whole time.

My husband, Gabriel Buckner, and I had been married for three years. I'd gotten pregnant twice, but I'd lost both babies. It was all because of my in-laws' parrot that could talk. The first time I got pregnant and went to their house, the parrot stared at my belly and kept repeating, "Get rid of the baby! Get rid of the baby!" The second time, the same thing happened. It looked right at my stomach and said the same words. I thought it was just nonsense, but to my shock, my in-laws actually took the parrot seriously and forced me to end the pregnancy. I even showed them the prenatal checkup report from my doctor to prove that the baby was perfectly healthy and begged them not to do it. But they dragged me to the hospital anyway and made me have an abortion on the spot. When I got pregnant a third time, I wanted to be extra cautious. I went straight for an amniocentesis. The report confirmed the baby was healthy and even showed a 99.9% DNA match with Gabriel's. I thought everything would be fine this time. But as soon as the parrot saw me again, it repeated the same words—"Get rid of the baby." And just like before, the Buckners immediately tried to drag me to the hospital. I couldn't understand it. The baby was perfectly healthy, and the DNA report proved it was Gabriel's child. So why would they rather believe a parrot and insist that I get rid of the baby?

"You don't know how much control you have over me” He said to me. My father was a Korean rich business tycoon who relocated to America because of my mother. After the death of my mother, his undying love for her transferred to me. Thus, he made me the successor of all his wealth. With my signature, anyone can get access to his wealth. To prepare me for this great fortune, my father decided to hire me a tutor so I would be fluent in Korea. He thought I would be cheated by his Korean associate because I was not eloquent in the Korean language and culture. If only my father knew that this tutor only came to destroy me.