Property Values

After ten years studying interior design overseas, I came back to my hometown to do work that mattered to the people who raised me. I offered the full package, from site survey to soft furnishings. The materials were chosen by hand. The price was fair to the bone. The town had just gone through a redevelopment. Everyone was getting new units. With the new family policy, every family wanted a third bedroom too. My business was good. Customers from the next county were driving in. Then a girl just back from a city college kicked open my studio with her phone on a livestream and her neighbors at her shoulder. "This is the dishonest one. Look at her. She has been ripping the village off." "In the city, an eighty-square-meter unit can be done for twenty thousand dollars. She is charging eighty." "That's a sixty-thousand-dollar margin. Sixty thousand. Right out of our pockets." The village fell in line behind her. They demanded the difference back. When I refused, they smashed my studio. They beat me into a coma. The pile-on online killed me. When I opened my eyes again, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I would refund every single one of them. And then I would tear out every single thing I had installed. Let's see what twenty thousand dollars actually buys you.

Jeyla had always felt like a prisoner since her mother had died. Her step father abused her, and she had to work extra hours at a bar, just to put some food on the table. Then came along her childhood friend Simon, who is now a multi billionaire. What happens when she ends up being indirectly sold into a contract marriage with him? Is he just what she needs, the saviour, or will he too treat her like she is just a worthless object?

When I'm paying the heating bill, I find out that my wife, Violet Jensen, has two accounts under her name. The first account belongs to our home. The second account goes to a unit in a high-end private residential area. The remark on the account shows two words that say "love nest". Love nest. I don't know who on earth Violet is sharing that nest with, but I know where that address is. After all, that's the apartment I bought at full price before my marriage.

“Fifty Thousand dollars, going once.” The words echo through the room, cold and final, as Bianca realizes her fate is no longer her own. Desperation has led her to a place where lives are reduced to bids, and freedom has a price tag. Just before the gavel can fall, a single voice cuts through the silence, calm, powerful, and undeniable. “Twenty Million.” The room freezes. The highest bid belongs to Stefano De Luca, a man whose wealth is limitless, whose influence is feared, and whose intentions are never questioned. Sold to a man who treats power like a weapon and emotions like weakness, Bianca is forced into a contract that binds her to a world of luxury, control, and dangerous secrets. What begins as a transaction soon becomes a battle of wills, where lines blur between possession and protection, fear and desire. In a world where everything has a price, Bianca must decide whether she is merely something that was bought or the one thing Stefano De Luca never intended to lose. But what if he never intended to set her free at all?

When Asher Terrell's family crumbled into bankruptcy, I stood steadfast by his side. We lived in a dank basement, where I toiled through three jobs to help clear their crushing debts. He bounced back and proposed, promising me a true home. Three years into our marriage, I discovered the deed to our house bore the name of his first love. "This is what I owe her," he confessed. Swallowing my pain, I nodded and pushed forward a photo from back when we were crammed in that basement, with a whole table piled high with debt notices. "You've paid your debt to her with our house," I said. "But what about the debt you owe me?"

The apartment that I bought four years ago isn't renovated or lived in at all. Yet, I suddenly receive messages on unpaid water and electricity bills. Puzzled by the sudden barrage of messages, I return to that particular apartment to check things out. That's when I realize that a stranger has been living in my apartment this whole time!