Plot Twists Golden Finger Short Stories & Novels

On the first day the real heir, Kyle Snider, reunites with the Snider family, he slashes his arm on purpose and frames me for doing it with red-rimmed eyes. My adoptive dad, Jeremy Snider, doesn't hesitate to slap me without even getting to the bottom of the incident. When I turn my head, I can see the fortune score above everyone's heads. The score above Jeremy reads, "Fortune score: 8%. In three days, his investment will implode, leaving him saddled with a ten-million-dollar debt." Then, I turn to look at Kyle, whose eyes are still reddened. He lowers his head afterward. "Surely Nathan didn't do this on purpose. Please don't cast him out. I'm fine suffering from a little grievance…" Meanwhile, Jeremy, who used to view me as the apple of his eye, has nothing but disdain toward me. "You've stolen 20 years of Kyle's life, and yet you have the guts to slash him with a blade? Just how vile are you, Nathan?" As for Lilian Snider, my older sister who used to dote on me the most, throws my suitcase out of the front door. She roars at me, "Get lost right now! Ingrates like you don't deserve to stay here!" I don't say anything. Instead, I just look at the row of words floating above Lilian's head quietly. "Fortune score: 5%. In two hours, she will get caught in a multi-vehicle collision, leading to her legs getting amputated." I caress my cheek, which has gone numb from Jeremy's slap. Then, I slowly rip up the protective charms I've just gotten for them into pieces. After that, I pick up my suitcase. "Fine. I'm leaving." As soon as the front door is closed, I see the number above Kyle's head flickering once. "Fortune score: 85%. In the middle of absorbing the Sniders' fortune luck."

My best friend is bound to a trade system—she can force a swap with me three times. At 13, she takes my heart. At 18, she takes my SAT scores. And now, for the final swap, she wants my entire identity. I hide under the covers, unable to hold back a laugh. My villa is rented, and my family background is totally fake. Go ahead, bestie. Swap away! This time, I really hope you don't hold back.

Several comments suddenly float across my vision on the day the college entrance exam results are released. "I can't believe that he's still in the mood to laugh. Your girlfriend is using the exchange system to swap your college entrance exam results with Hugo's!" "I feel so sorry for Daniel. He's the genius of the school, and yet he's only going to score 400 points for the college entrance exams." "That's not all! Taylor's system has the ability to absorb Daniel's luck. She's going to use his entire family as stepping stones to pave her own future." "She's so ruthless. I can't believe that she's going to 'annihilate' her boyfriend's family just because his better background makes her feel inferior." A chill runs down my spine as I stare at the strange comments scrolling past my eyes. I'm the "Daniel" the commenters are referring to, the unlucky sap whose college entrance exam results were swapped with the poor student Hugo Powell's. I have no idea that my good-natured girlfriend, Taylor Wakeham, hates me so much. However, what the commenters don't know is that I've already secured a special invitation from Woodrow University's Department of Science long ago. I only take the college entrance exams purely because I want to experience what it's like. Not wanting to take up space on the rankings, I write all my answers on a spare piece of paper instead of the actual answer sheet.

I could see the countdown above a person’s head when they had already decided to leave their partner. The day my father’s countdown hit zero, he slapped a lawyer’s letter on the breakfast table and walked out on my mother and me. The day my best friend’s countdown hit zero, she finally threw her parasite of a boyfriend out of her apartment and changed the locks before sunset. That was why I’d always been terrified of seeing a countdown above my fiancé, Lucian Bellandi. Luckily, for seven years by his side, the space above his head had stayed clean. Lucian was the youngest Don the Bellandi family had ever seen. He owned the docks, the casinos, and half the South Side’s dirty money, yet he saved every soft part of himself for me. Until last month, when he picked me up after a family auction. I looked up and saw blood-red numbers stabbing into my eyes. [702 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes.] Less than two years. My heart tightened like a cold hand had closed around it. I started searching for an answer like a woman losing her mind. Had I done something wrong? Then, during a blizzard by the lake, we ran into Mia Crane at the back entrance of the Bellandi Hotel. Lucian had just brought her into his charity foundation as a new assistant. Snow clung to her hair and lashes. She was shivering from head to toe, but her smile was bright and painfully innocent. Lucian pulled a black silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to her. His face was calm. There was nothing openly improper in the gesture. But in that exact second, the countdown above his head jumped. [327 days, 4 hours, 47 minutes.] More than three hundred days, gone. And I knew I had found the reason.

He almost never texts me first, and in person he barely says a word. In three years together, he's never remembered a single anniversary, and he's never once suggested we celebrate a holiday. But the second I message him first, he lights up, all "baby" this and "baby" that, fussing over me, coaxing me to sleep. Sometimes I'd get this strange feeling that there were two different Noahs. His explanation was that he was just bad with words face-to-face, and that texting or voice notes felt like less pressure. I kept telling myself that being together meant meeting each other halfway. He was quiet and reserved, so I'd be the one to reach out. He forgot anniversaries, so I booked the restaurant and reminded him to keep the night free. He had no time to schedule our engagement shoot, so I handled the whole thing with the studio myself. He was too busy with work to help us move, so I packed everything alone, booked the movers, and got it all done. When I was so worn out I was about to break, I'd send him a voice note, and he'd say, "I'm so sorry, baby. The lab was insane today. I couldn't be there for you, and it kills me to watch you run yourself into the ground." Hearing how guilty he sounded, all my hurt just melted away. And that's how I carried three years of this relationship on my own, running on the flawless tenderness he only ever gave me online. Until today, when I found a program on his laptop called Boyfriend Assistant. It analyzed every message I sent and generated the perfect reply, the perfect response, every single time. Cold snap? It sent: Bundle up, baby. Time of the month? It pinged an API and auto-ordered hot chocolate to my door. All those late nights he spent "working," the gentle voice notes that lulled me to sleep, every one of them was synthesized in Noah's voice. For three years, the person who'd been there for me, day and night, was never Noah at all. For three years, I'd been performing a one-woman show.

I was the ultimate Cinderella: a girl who married into a wealthy family. A drone proposal captivated the whole city. After the wedding, I was showered with designer goods, and my in-laws gave me a million dollars a month in spending money. My best friend, Sasha Lane, married the poorest man. She counted every penny, while her husband came home drenched in sweat from the construction site each day. Her eyes often filled with tears as she said, "Shayla, I wish I could have a life like yours." I smiled and said nothing. Then she made a wish to the genie in a magic lamp, and we really did swap souls. She cried as she apologized to me. "I'm sorry. I can't bear living with a man like him in that tiny, run-down apartment. I can't bear going to the market every day to pick through vegetables no one else wants." At the end, she was smiling. "But you're different, Shayla. You're just an orphan. You don't deserve a life like this." With that, she climbed into the luxury car without looking back. I stood where I was and laughed until I cried. She didn't know I spent every day on my knees with a dog bowl in front of me. She didn't know my husband slept around, or that I'd contracted HIV. And she had no idea I couldn't spend a cent from that million-dollar bank card. I wiped away my tears and walked toward the 215-square-foot rental she was so desperate to escape. I opened the door. A plate of spaghetti sat on the table, still steaming.

We were in the middle of exchanging rings when Carlo Corvo suddenly let go of my hand. His eyes were locked on the velvet box behind me. Inside sat the founding Don's signet ring, the one everyone said had been lost for ages. "Selena, look at this crest." He called out to his consigliere, Selena Rossi, of all people. I knew this scene by heart. Three years ago, on his birthday, I carried a cake into his room. He and Selena were finalizing an arms-smuggling route, and he told me to get out without even looking up. Last year, I took a bullet for him and nearly died. He was at an auction bidding on antiques. Every voice message he sent was in code, and not one of them asked if I was okay. Every time I came near, he said the same thing. "This is family business. You wouldn't understand." Now they stood together at the altar. He studied the crest while she wrote down the serial number, perfectly in sync. He had made me a promise once. "Elsie, I'll give you the biggest wedding anyone has ever seen. No bride will ever be more honored than you." But now, under the stained glass, he frowned and gave an order. "We're postponing the ceremony. A lead like this doesn't come along often. Elsie, step aside." Just like that, he had turned our wedding into an investigation into family business. But this time, I didn't walk away like a good girl. Right there, I ripped the train off my wedding dress and dragged it through the roses scattered across the floor, just as I had dragged myself through ten bloody years at his side. The moment I turned around, a cold, ancient laugh rang out inside my head. [A signet ring? That's the same iron tag I used for guard dogs and condemned prisoners. How stupid can they get!] The voice belonged to Vittorio Corvo, the legendary Don betrayed by one of his own 100 years ago. His soul had been living inside me, and now he was fully awake. [Poor thing, lend me your body. I'll show them what cleaning house really looks like.]

The day before the SAT, strange comments suddenly appear before my eyes. "In a while, your childhood friend, Savannah Dunham, will come to you complaining about a stomachache. She will ask you to accompany her to the restroom. "She'll give birth there, then accuse you of being the baby's father. Since you'll be at the scene and she'll personally identify you as the father of the baby, the police will arrest you on the spot. By the time the truth comes out, you'll have already missed the SAT." The very next moment, Savannah clutches her stomach and grabs my arm. "Benny, my stomach hurts. Can you come to the restroom with me?" Every word she says and every move she makes matches the comments exactly. Then, another comment appears. "Her boyfriend is Michael Crowley, the one who always comes second. If you miss the SAT, Michael will become the top scorer this year." I shake off Savannah's hand immediately. "I'm sorry. Ms. Kirkland asked to see me. She said there's a problem with my exam admission pass. You'll have to go by yourself."

It's the night before my wedding, and my best friend, Eric Cooper, invites me out to a club to celebrate my last night as a "bachelor". After putting on my jacket, I grab my keys, only to see a bunch of words appear out of nowhere and hover right before my eyes. "Don't go! As soon as you enter that suite in the club, Eric's going to report you for soliciting a prostitute! Holly, your wife, is also going to produce a falsified injury report and upload a video exposing you for domestic violence and for cheating on her even after you two have registered your marriage! "Eric will use that as his excuse to beat you up for your shamelessness. But once they take you to the ER, Holly will sign the consent form to forgo treatment. Even though you could've been saved, she chooses not to let the doctors resuscitate you! "In the end, she will inherit all of your assets and use her identity as your wife to drop all charges against Eric. The two of them will use your money to organize a grand wedding ceremony for themselves!" I stare at the words, my hands going cold. Then Eric calls me. "Where are you, Logan? Remember, it's the Crown Suite at The Aurelian. I've prepared a huge surprise for you."

I only learned how to speak when I was eight years old. Everyone in the Wentworth family calls me an idiot. Even my mom secretly wipes her tears away, thinking that she's given birth to an autistic son. My dad looks at me with disappointment in his eyes. But he never sends me to a special-needs school due to his need to preserve the family's reputation. One day, Winston Pembroke from Broadwell Street comes over to purchase my family's company, Wentworth Group. He puts on a high and mighty attitude and berates everyone in the meeting room to the point that they can only hang their heads in shame. Despite the room being filled with the company's elites, no one dares to respond to Winston. As I stand in a corner, I feel my eyelids drooping while listening to Winston's tirade. Ugh. How annoying. So, I take a step forward and utter my first ever sentence in Winston's mother tongue.

My husband, Leon Hobbs, calls me to tell me that his grandma, Phoebe Reid, has forgotten to bring her blood pressure medication, so he wants me to deliver it to her. "Hurry up, Elsie! Grandma's blood pressure is spiking again! You're the one who's closest to her right now!" With the medication in hand, I've just reached the corridor when comments pop up on my phone out of nowhere. "Don't go! The old lady will die in the living room ten minutes after you enter the apartment!" "The blood pressure medication has been swapped out for poison, and your prints are on the bottle! Everyone will think that you're the one who poisoned the old lady!" "Your husband and your mother-in-law have left the apartment purposefully so that you'll be the only one facing the old lady's corpse! Then, they'll use the assets that you and the old lady have left behind just to buy a new home for your husband's pregnant mistress!" I remain rooted to the spot as I stare at the bottle of medication. Leon had passed it to me last night, claiming that it was a bottle of newly prescribed medication. He wanted me to keep it for Phoebe for the time being. My fingerprints are all over the bottle at this time. Three seconds later, I turn on my heel and head toward the nearest pharmacy. Then, I place the bottle of pills on the counter. "Please help me check whether or not this bottle of medication fits the label."

At eleven o'clock at night, my buddy Clint Phillips called and asked me to go catch his girlfriend cheating on him. But as I walked into the hotel lobby ahead of him, a few lines of text suddenly drifted across my vision. [Don't go! There's no other man in Room 1608.] [Lainey Wilson has been dead for over six hours.] [Clint Phillips called you here to take the fall for him.] Only then did it finally hit me. My buddy was out of town on a business trip. So how did he know his girlfriend was cheating on him at this particular hotel? While I stood there frozen, he sent me the room's door code, 1107. Clint: [Ray, hurry up! Catch those two lowlifes in the act!] I stopped in my tracks, turned around, and sat down on a sofa in the lobby, choosing a spot directly facing the security camera. Then I hit record on the call. "Hello? Where are you?"

In the final stages of a terminal illness, my family abandoned me and threw me into a horror game. [Another one here to die. I bet she won't last the first night.] [Just listen to that cough. I'm scared she'll die right inside my phone.] On the first night, the head nurse made her rounds, prepared to execute any player whose heartbeat was abnormal. My heartbeat remained steady only because my body was too weak to fluctuate—and I even helped her sew up the tear in her uniform. "Miss, your clothes are torn. You'll get cold. If I mend it for you, you won't be cold anymore." On the second night, the surgeon swung his scalpel, determined to cut away anything imperfect. I handed him a wrist guard I'd made myself, watching his trembling hands. "Doctor, your talent shouldn't be buried by pain." … On the final day, the ultimate Boss gave me a choice: leave with a healthy body, or stay and perish with these strange beings. Back in the real world, the parents who had abandoned me were suddenly in tears, begging me to come home and split the money. I smiled and said to the creatures inside the instance, "I choose to trade my life… for a home for all of you." The next second, a burst of golden light erupted from the system. [Congratulations, player. You have triggered the one and only hidden ending—Divine Redemption.]

The whole world got sucked into a survival horror game. While everyone else was grinding mobs and trying not to get wiped, the system bugged out and tagged me as an NPC. My role? Takeout girl. I cruised around on my busted scooter, dropping food at boss lairs. If my rating dipped under 9.0, I'd keel over instantly. I figured I was just some unlucky idiot skating on death's edge. Then a pack of dumb players tried to jack my ride. That's when the scariest bosses in the game roared at once: "Who the hell thinks they can touch my crew?!"

Even though it's the New Year holidays, I'm still cooped up in the company while churning out the paperwork needed for the company's listing process. That's when my keyboard suddenly types a paragraph on its own. "Stop working already! Your boss is about to fire you, and yet you're still slaving away for his sake!" I'm stunned by the information I see. The keyboard goes on typing, "He said you only have a bachelor's degree. If not for the fact that you're a walking lucky charm, you wouldn't have gotten into this company in the first place! "Now that the company is in the process of getting listed, it's costing far too much just to keep you around! Even though you're being paid a high salary every month, you can't even provide the company with any value! "He intends to dismiss you the moment the company gets listed! Since it's the new year, new blood should be joining the company!" I've been holding my coffee mug the whole time. At that moment, I can feel my hands starting to tremble. For five years, the projects that I've manned never got into any problems. The final round of funding always came through. Even when we were choosing a new office, we came across the situation of an owner who was all-too happy to get rid of the building. I can say with great confidence that I'm 90% of the main reason how this company expanded from a tiny office to the entire building. To think that I'm the first person to be discarded right after my boss reaches his goal… I can feel my stomach twisting uneasily. Even my throat goes tight from the anxiety. Just as I'm about to leave, a few angry voices ring out in the office. "I'm an office chair! I'll break during the board meeting tomorrow and make sure that your boss falls right on his ass!" "I'm a printer! I'll make sure to print all the documents he wants with nothing but gibberish on them!" "I'm a coffee machine! Tomorrow, I'll whip him a special brew that ensures he will never get to leave the toilet bowl for the rest of the day!"

My roommate, Andrew Hayes, has become obsessed with this viral tiramisu place off campus. Every night without fail, he brings a box of it back. He tries to sell us on it more than once. Supposedly the texture is silky and rich, and it melts in the mouth. I just can't be bothered to care. Everything changes on the day before the grad school recommendation list is posted. My pen is moving across the page of a paper when something at the edge of my vision suddenly catches my eye. A few lines of text have appeared. [Tonight, your roommate, Andrew, will ask you to help him buy tiramisu from that viral dessert shop. After he eats it, he'll rush out of the dorm. The next day, the police will take you away on charges of aggravated assault. [Online exposés will say you attacked your roommate out of jealousy, and the Internet will explode with outrage. Relentless cyberbullying will consume your life. Even your parents will get dragged down with you and lose their steady jobs. Ultimately, you'll be driven into a mental breakdown and die from depression.] I figure I've started hallucinating after finally cracking under the pressure, so I toss the workbook aside. That night, Andrew pushes open the dorm room door. His tone is easy and familiar as he asks, "Luke, grab me a tiramisu on your way back, okay?" My brain blanks for a second. This scene matches the prediction word for word. Andrew's smile is bright and sunny as he walks closer, but I only feel a chill down my spine because of one of the prediction's sentences. [After you're taken in for questioning, you'll miss your interview. The guaranteed grad school spot will fall right into Andrew's lap.] Is Andrew really going to ruin my entire life over a single guaranteed grad school slot? My grip tightens around my pen. I say, "Sorry, Andrew. It's not really convenient for me."

The last light had just turned off when Hank Liston queued up for his fifth ranked match. He turned on the volume, making sure the game music rocked the entire room. "Jungler!!! What are you doing, sleeping?! We need to jump this guy, you loser!" On the lower bed under me, Ben Singer, who had been holding back for a long while, rasped, "Can't you put your headphones on? I have an interview tomorrow." Hank simply snorted. "Interview? You can sleep the whole day, and you still won't make it in with that rubbish resume of yours. Don't try to blame your failures on me." Ben flushed beet red but didn't argue. Zac Kimmich, our other roommate, had his pillow covering his ears while he gripped the bed post so hard that it was creaking. Hank, however, kept ranting, "We're all in the same room! It's called mutual understanding—get it? I was there with you guys in class, but I can't spend time playing at night? Also, I'm not complaining even though I'm not sleeping, but you guys are sleeping and complaining?!" Suddenly, he turned to me as well. "And you, Carl. Don't try to play dead. You got a lot of money from that scholarship, didn't you? If you're that good, why don't you donate your sleep hours too?" [Roommate disturbance detected. Casting Polymorph. Progress: 1%] Well, since Hank couldn't behave like a proper human being, why not turn him into something else?

My silence could grant life. My words could condemn someone to death. My adoptive father loved to drink. Whenever he got drunk, he would whip me with his belt. He broke seven of my ribs, and I stared him down. “You broke my bones. I’ll make you wither.” The next instant, the old compressor suddenly roared to life and drained every drop of blood from his body. My adoptive mother loved showing off. She stole a thick gold bracelet, then framed me for it. After she slapped me until my mouth bled, I said coldly, “You slapped me. I’ll make you lose your hands.” In the blink of an eye, all ten of her fingers twisted at impossible angles, every single one broken! From then on, I knew I was a monster, so I kept my mouth shut and pretended to be mute until half a year ago, when my biological parents brought me back to the city. To make it up to me, the whole family went on a trip over the summer holiday. But my younger adoptive brother, Evan Lowe, suddenly rushed up to me with a glass of water in hand, clutching his throat as he began to vomit violently. His face was deathly pale, and even his voice trembled. “Edwin, I know you hate me, but why did you put bleach in my water… “It could burn through someone’s intestines and kill them!” Mom came running out at the sound, then swung around and slapped me hard across the face. “You ungrateful little brat! You actually tried to kill Evan!” Dad rushed over too, his face dark as he kicked me to the ground. “So this is what you learned growing up in the middle of nowhere—nothing but bitterness and jealousy! Get over here, get on your knees, and apologize!” I collapsed onto the floor and watched Evan hide behind Mom, a smug smile curling at the corner of his lips. Fine. I clenched my teeth tightly. Since they wanted me to kneel and speak so badly, I would grant their wish! My gaze darkened as I fixed my eyes on Evan’s and slowly opened my mouth…

After my husband got his cheat ability, the very first thing he did was kick me out. His family threw me out by the scruff, and used my precious, life-saving money to hoard as much ice and cold drink as he could. He threw every single article of thick clothes and blankets, swearing to build the strongest ice oasis in the heatwave, but only I knew that there would be a brief period of extreme heat before the long ice age. All the ice they hoarded would only make them die faster. Later, I sat in my private villa, enjoying delicious food while I watched that scumbag's family beat each other bloody over dry bread.

When I was seventeen, someone stabbed me in the womb, leaving me unable to have children for the rest of my life. My husband promised he would love me forever. Still, after just five years of marriage, he cheated on me with the very person responsible for my injury. They even had a child together, and he wanted me to divorce him so she could replace me.