Cerita Pendek & Novel Familial Bond Cheating

I needed money, so I sold myself to that cold, handsome man for seven nights. He left behind a black card and an ice-cold eggshell, then vanished. Three months later, a doctor found six coiled serpentine shadows inside my womb. I discarded every trace of my identity and fled to a snowbound cabin, hoping to stay alive. But the day I gave birth alone in a blizzard, what crawled out weren't monsters. They were six babies with golden slit pupils who called me "Mama." My children were not priceless treasures. To the powerful guys, they were research subjects. To the other species, they were "filthy half-breeds." When cold needles pressed against all six of my children's chests, I heard the blast door torn from its frame. The man who had vanished three years ago stood in the smoke. Six golden threads glowed from his palm, each connected to a child, and black blood still seeped from the wounds he'd torn open breaking through the blockade. "Get your hands off my family."

Every time my wife, Jocelyn Seacross, visits her childhood sweetheart, Levi Anderson, who is terminally ill, she hints to me that maybe we should get a divorce. She says it's because Levi's dying wish is to have a proper place in her life. Today, she hints at it again. I don't kick up a fuss and simply say, "Okay." Because this conversation has already happened 99 times. This is the hundredth time this conversation has come up, and I finally find a reason to convince myself to let her go—our child is dead. Now, all that remains between Jocelyn and me are two certified copies of the marriage certificate.

Despite being a healthy werewolf, I had terrible night blindness. The moment the sun went down, I couldn't see a thing. On the night of my sister's birthday, my parents booked the best restaurant in town to celebrate. After dinner, she suddenly said she wanted to walk home. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see the road, so I tried to turn her down. My future mate, Theodore, cut me off. He told me it was Willow's birthday and I should let her have her way. Then he promised he'd hold my hand the whole way and told me not to be scared. I finally agreed. I never noticed the knowing look Theodore and my sister exchanged. Before long, we turned into a dark alley. I could no longer see where I was going, so I clung to Theodore's sleeve, too afraid to let go. A few steps later, there was suddenly nothing beneath my foot. I lost my balance and fell straight into a creek beside the road. The next second, four phone flashlights swung onto me and the laughter broke out all at once. That was when I realized Theodore had slipped out of his jacket without me noticing. I had been holding on to an empty jacket the whole time. My parents laughed and pointed at me while Willow took pictures of me at my worst. My future mate stood beside her, holding her carefully so she wouldn't lose her balance. It was obvious now. They had used the mind-link to plan the whole prank without me knowing. At that moment, I no longer wanted to call this place home. There was no warmth here for me anyway.

At my engagement party, my fiancé and my parents had prepared a table filled with mystery boxes. My younger sister, Elena Hayes, wrapped her arms around my fiancé, Adrian Whitmore, and sweetly pleaded, “There are so many mystery boxes. Madison can’t possibly open them all. Can I pick three too?” Adrian affectionately ruffled Elena’s hair. “You never change. You’ve known your sister and me for so long, yet you still act like a child.” Our parents, Charles and Victoria Hayes, smiled indulgently. “Our Elena has always been lucky. Maybe she’ll win something amazing.” Elena eagerly grabbed three mystery boxes before anyone else could stop her. She opened the first one. “A ten-day honeymoon trip to Valehaven.” The second one. “All the cash gifts from Madison’s wedding.” And the third. “The Whitmore family’s heirloom emerald bracelet.” When I opened my own mystery boxes, every single card contained the same message: “Better luck next time.” Elena draped an arm around my shoulders with a smug smile. “Looks like you’re still as unlucky as ever, Madison. “A bet’s a bet! I’m going to Valehaven with your fiancé instead. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on him for you. I won’t let some pretty girl from overseas steal him away.” I stood frozen, convinced they were playing some cruel joke on me. Then Adrian spoke. “Madison, a bet’s a bet. “Take off the bracelet Grandma gave you and give it to Elena.”

At two in the morning, my sister, Paige Boyce, paid men to smash up my barbecue stand. I fought to make them stop, ignoring the embers that scorched blisters into my skin as they landed. It was the first time in my life I'd ever raised my voice at her. "After Mom and Dad died in that plane crash, this stand paid for four years of your college education and helped you become a flight attendant for Golden Crest Airlines," I said. "Are you really going to destroy the only thing keeping us alive?" Something flickered in her eyes, a flash of reluctance, but she steeled herself and scoffed. "I've told you a hundred times to get rid of this dump of a stand, and you never listen. Do you want my boyfriend's parents to see what an embarrassing family I have and decide I'm not good enough for their son?" I looked around at the wreckage. The vegetables and cuts of meat I'd hand-picked at the market that afternoon, spent hours threading onto skewers myself, were buried under ash and grime. My eyes stung, tears threatening to spill. I didn't have the heart to argue with her. Hands shaking, I started picking up whatever skewers were still salvageable, one by one. That was when a black card appeared in front of my face. "The day after tomorrow, I'm bringing Paige to meet my parents," the voice said. "This should be enough to buy yourself a real shop, so you don't embarrass her in front of everyone." I recognized that voice instantly and looked up slowly. The hand holding the black card belonged to Charlie Anton, the boyfriend I'd been secretly dating for five years.

My daughter, Amelia Rossum, comes home with her palm pierced all the way through by a pencil. I drop my mop in a panic, hastily change out of my loungewear, and rush her to the ER. At the hospital entrance, my husband, Benedict Rossum, jumps out of his car and immediately lashes out at me. "How could you let this happen to her?" Our neighbor, Lorelei Bates, trails behind him, holding her daughter's hand. She addresses him gently, "Benedict, don't be so hard on Clarissa. Everyone makes mistakes." He scoffs. "Other mothers can keep their kids safe perfectly fine. What's her excuse? I bet she did this on purpose to guilt me into coming home early!" Amelia recoils and hides behind me. Seeing her reaction, Benedict crouches down and immediately softens his voice. "Don't be scared, Amelia. I'm right here. You can tell me what happened. I'll make it right." "Really?" She steals anxious glances at me. I shake my head, silently telling her not to say anything. With Lorelei standing right there, we don't stand a chance. She always finds a way to twist the truth against us. Benedict shoves me aside and picks Amelia up. "Clarissa, are you trying to scare her into keeping quiet? What kind of mother are you? What, did you stab her hand on purpose, too?" "No, it wasn't Mommy!" Amelia bursts into sobs. Benedict gently pats her back, his eyes reddening with distress. "It must hurt a lot, doesn't it, Amelia? Tell me what happened to your hand." She's sobbing so hard that she can barely catch her breath. After a long while, she finally points at Lorelei's daughter and says in between sobs, "Penelope and her friends stabbed me."

A typhoon warning had been issued. I drove out to pick up my mother, who lived by the coast. My car broke down halfway there. I called my boyfriend fifty-eight times, and every single one was declined. The rain kept getting heavier. No rescue services were available, and the water was rising. My hands were shaking so badly that all I could do was get Mom to a nearby bus shelter. That was when I scrolled past a Facebook post from my boyfriend's assistant, Megan. "Derek is such a sweetheart. Spent two hours searching, and the little stray finally has a home." In the photo, Derek was at Megan's place, giving a stray cat a bath. I looked at my mother, soaked to the bone, and a wave of hurt washed over me. By the time evening fell, my boyfriend finally called back, but the wind was so strong that the signal kept cutting in and out. I was about to ask him to come get us when his voice crackled through the receiver, broken up by static. "Don't let your mom... the seafood... mess up the car." Before I could say a word, he hung up. The rescue team arrived. As we climbed in, Mom was still shivering, fretting over the seafood that had spoiled during the delay. I picked up the bag and tossed it into the trash. If it's spoiled, there's no point keeping it. Same goes for people.

Before our mating ceremony, my mate, Pavel Blackwell, took me and my older sister, Vivienne, out for seafood. The server recognized them and came over smiling. "The usual for you two?" Pavel nodded. He slid into the seat beside Vivienne without a second thought. The crab came out of the steamer, and he cracked the shell open piece by piece and passed the meat to her. I had been put at a spare chair shoved into the aisle, without so much as a dish of sauce in front of me. Halfway through the meal, the server appeared with a couples' silverware set. "Pavel, Vivienne, this is your hundredth visit to us. That means you get your custom set." A line was engraved on the back of each piece. "Pavel and Vivienne. Never apart." The earliest date on the record was three years ago today. It took me a moment to place the date. That was the day a severe allergic reaction sent me into surgery and I nearly didn't make it out. So for the three hours my life hung in the balance, Pavel had not been waiting outside that door at all. Vivienne ran a finger over the engraving and gave a mischievous smile. "Pavel, once you and my little sister are mated, she won't stop you from going out with me, will she?" Pavel ruffled her hair and turned to look at me. "Of course not. She's always been reasonable. "Besides, you and I have known each other for ten years. Ashlyn and I have only known we were fated mates for four. If it bothers her, she can learn to live with it." On the way back, I got into the back seat on my own. The front seat had always belonged to Vivienne. Then the car's voice assistant chimed in. "Welcome aboard, Vivienne! Pavel will get you home safely!" I watched the scenery stream past the window, and suddenly I was tired of all of it. So I took out my phone and sent my father a message. "I agree to the pack's arranged mating." Ten years of closeness had turned the two of them into a habit. Then let me be the one to quit mine. Four years of it.

As the iron gates of the mental institute swing open, my wife, Serena Seacrest, walks in with her childhood sweetheart, Adrian Cross, beside her. She looks at me with utter disgust. I am strapped tightly to the bed, unable to move. She sneers, "Damian, you've been subjected to electroshock treatments for an entire month. Is your mania any better? You pushed Adrian down the stairs and nearly broke his leg, so I sent you here to teach you how to be a normal person." Serena tosses a worn-out pink comfort bunny onto the floor and speaks as though she is granting me a favor. "Get down on your knees and apologize to Adrian. If you do, I'll be kind enough to let you see Lila next month." I stare blankly at the dusty bunny, but I am unable to make a sound. Serena frowns and curses, "What a complete nutjob." Then, she turns around and closes the door. What she doesn't know is that a month ago, on the day she forcibly dragged me onto the mental institute's transport van, our daughter, Delilah Vale, ran after me and was run over by a truck at an intersection, her body mangled beyond recognition. Delilah is dead now, and she will never hold her bunny again. And everything between Serena and me had ended that same night.

Grad school was about to start, and my fated mate, Elias Thorne, offered to buy my plane ticket. But on the day we were supposed to leave, he handed me a bus ticket with a smile. "We wanted to see what a weak little werewolf like you would look like after a full day on a bus, so we only bought you a bus ticket." He took my sister's hand and boarded a business-class flight while I hauled my suitcase off to begin a twenty-four-hour coach ride by myself. After a full day of travel, I reached the school at the very last moment of registration day. When I handed the staff member my enrollment paperwork under the name Liliana Moretti, he said the documents contained errors and did not match the information in the system. The delay cost me my last chance to register. Just as I was standing there in tears with no idea what to do, Elias appeared, pointed at me, and burst out laughing. "Got you. Your parents swapped your paperwork ages ago." My sister, Giulietta Moretti, stepped out from around the corner too, holding up her phone. "You look ridiculous right now, Liliana. I got it all on video. Mom and Dad think it's funny too." Elias patted my shoulder. "Don't be mad. It was only a prank." Looking at their smiles and the dark, hollow camera lens pointed at me, I suddenly could not shed another tear. I was done playing along with what they called a prank.

Five years ago, I married Cassian, the vampire I had grown up with. We had known each other since we were children, and both clans were glad of the match. I believed we would stay beside each other the way we had promised when we were small. Then Cassian fell in love with a human maid. By that time, I was already carrying his child. He turned on his own clan for her anyway and ran off with her to the human world. Everyone was laughing at me. I stayed behind in the vampire territories alone, pregnant, calling Cassian more times than I could count and sending people out to find him. He never came back. In the end, he refused even to hear any news of me. He only had someone deliver a message. "Stop chasing after me." My health got worse and worse in those years. I lost the baby too. It took me a long time to finally let go of that marriage for good. Then, five years later, Cassian came back. He had brought her with him. When he saw my son standing beside me, he actually frowned and asked, "How could you raise my child like this? He's four and he looks two." I stepped in front of my son, my voice flat. "Look closely, Cassian. He isn't yours." His face darkened. "You're still trying to lie to me?" I smiled. "He's the son I have with my current husband."

It's the third year since my wife, Joyce Sinclair, cheated on me. I spread her intimate photos with her male assistant, Bryan Long, on the internet. Then, I doused myself in gasoline and threatened to drag everyone down to hell with me. Bryan's so scared that he flees the city that very night. I think I've won. However, to settle my lawsuit and cover the damages, my older sister, Rachel Lovett, sells her house and takes out high-interest loans. In the end, the burden becomes too much for her, and she jumps from a high-rise building. Her voice is hoarse in the recording she leaves me. "That's enough, Ray. We've lost everything. Mom and Dad have aged overnight, and I can't take it anymore..." Mom clutches Rachel's belongings and cries until she passes out. Dad's emaciated hands clamp around my neck as he demands at the top of his lungs, "How many more lives do you have to destroy before you're satisfied?" Tears silently trail down my cheeks, and I finally come to my senses. I no longer neurotically look into every single man around Joyce, and I stop badgering her with questions about the scent of men's cologne on her. Even when I walk in on her staring at a photo of her and Bryan and reminiscing about the past, I take the initiative to bring him back. It all comes to a head when Bryan wishes to become Joyce's lawfully wedded husband on his birthday. Without the slightest hesitation, I print out the divorce agreement, sign and seal it, and deliver it to him. To my surprise, Joyce rips the agreement to shreds. She grips my chin and demands hysterically, "Raymond Lovett, what happened to the stubborn man who'd rather die than divorce me? Where is he now?"

Ten years ago, I died in a shootout. My men recovered my body. I left behind only one daughter. My husband, Colton Rinaldi, found our daughter selling cigars at the docks. Under the blazing sun, she was drenched in sweat. The wooden crates had rubbed her shoulders raw and bloody. Colton's face fell. He pulled her aside. Then he demanded, beside himself with rage, "Why are you doing hard labor here? Where is your mother? How could she dump you in a place like this? "She's so damn selfish!" Mia Rinaldi had never seen him before. She stared at him, bewildered. "Who are you? Do you want a cigar? They're cheap." Colton lifted the crate off her shoulders. The veins on the backs of his hands bulged. "Even if she's angry with me, she has no right to torment you like this. Come with me. As far as you're concerned, you don't have a mother anymore." With that, he grabbed her hand and tried to lead her away. Panicked, Mia bit his arm and glared up at him. "Don't talk about my mom like that! Who are you? Get away from me! "Let go of me!" Blood streamed down Colton's arm. Colton went livid. "What has Monica Bellini been teaching you? She's angry with me, so she taught you to be this rude? "I'm your father!" My spirit hovered beside Mia. I tried to wipe away her frightened tears. My hand passed straight through her. A bitter smile tugged at my lips. How could Colton not know? I wasn't sulking. I was dead.

After finding out I'm pregnant again, I decide to check the trust fund I set up for my deceased daughter, Ivy Stewart. To my shock, I learn that someone has been withdrawing money from the account for the last five years. The first withdrawal happened the day Ivy passed away. Every year since, five million dollars has been withdrawn from the trust fund on Ivy's death anniversary, all transferred to the same account. Over dinner, I bring it up to my husband, William Stewart. He nonchalantly explains, "Ivy's death hit me hard, so I decided to do some charity work in her memory. I've been providing financial support to a little boy with leukemia all these years. He's a pitiful child, just like Ivy." Nevertheless, I still feel uncomfortable about the whole situation. "Why didn't you discuss things with me first?" Before William gets to say anything, my mother-in-law, Martha Cook, snaps at me, "Doing charity is a good thing! Why would William need to discuss it with you first? It's not like we can't spare the money. He's doing it in Ivy's memory, so don't be so petty!" I stop asking questions, but I secretly approach the fund manager, Shane Mitchell, and tell him I want to visit the boy. However, the fund manager looks at me, shocked. "Isn't the recipient your child? The money was transferred from the trust fund account with the explicit designation that it was for the child's education!"

A body was pulled from the sea, waterlogged and swollen. The woman was two months pregnant. Her face was unrecognizable, but I recognized the ring I had given her immediately. The dead woman was my daughter, Cecily Moretti. I had once been the most powerful Mafia Donna on the West Coast, with enemies everywhere. To protect Cecily, I staged a shipwreck ten years ago. I jumped into the sea clutching a doll and faked my own death. I left her in the care of the Griffiths family, whose son I had chosen to be her husband. I gave them money, power, and every advantage so my daughter could live a peaceful, happy life. But my investigation uncovered the truth. Five years after I disappeared, Cecily's intended husband, Selwyn Griffiths, fell in love with Iliana Valmont, the daughter of a noble family. "Donna, Selwyn broke his promise to marry Ms. Cecily. He also believed Iliana's lies and had Ms. Cecily tied to a reef as punishment. The abrasions on her wrists and ankles suggest she struggled to free herself as the tide came in. Then... then a wave swept her out to sea." As my lieutenant gave his report, my fingernails dug into my palms. I had lifted the Griffiths family to the top, yet my beloved daughter had been treated worse than a slave! Fighting back my grief, I slowly wrapped my hand around Cecily's scarred fingers. "Rest now, Cecily. I swear I'll avenge you."

I was in the living room, handling some work, and casually asked the smart assistant to play some music. "Alexa, play some jazz." "Sure. By the way, just a reminder—four days from now, at ten in the morning, you're scheduled to accompany Sienna to her prenatal checkup." My hand froze midair. My name is Victoria. And I'm not pregnant. Jonathan was walking out of the bathroom, towel-drying his hair. He saw the look on my face and pulled me into his arms. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" I casually darkened my phone screen and smiled. "Nothing. Just a little tired." Jonathan kissed my forehead, his eyes tender and full of love. "Go get some sleep. Don't miss your birthday party tomorrow—you're the star of the night. I can't wait to spend it with you." I leaned into his chest, my lips curling into a cold little smile. My dear husband, you'd better not have done anything to betray me. Otherwise, you're about to find out exactly what it costs to betray the daughter of a mafia family.