Historias cortas de Familial Bond y novelas con Homewrecker ambientadas en Face Slapping

I've been married to my Mafia Boss husband for 15 years. When we first got married, he couldn't even afford a ring, but I didn't care; I loved him. I hid my identity. I secretly used my family's influence to help him build his empire from scratch, and I even bore him two children. His adopted sister always mocked me, calling me an old-fashioned housewife and saying I wasn't good enough for him. To avoid embarrassing him, I always endured it. Until our 15th anniversary, because both me and his adopted sister wore red dresses, he told me to stay in the kitchen: "Sofia's right. That red doesn't suit you. Don't come out until the banquet actually ends. Stay in the kitchen. I don't need the Dons from New York seeing you and getting the wrong impression." I was completely heartbroken and didn't argue anymore. I dialed a number I hadn't made in 15 years: "Principessa?" "It's me," I said, my voice steady. "Tell those old fossils on the Council... Isabella Corleone is coming home."

My older sister, Jovina Valenti, catches the eye of the cold and ruthless mafia Don, Carlo Laguardia. However, she fears the danger that arises out of his identity and wants to go abroad to pursue a passionate romance. On the day Carlo sends his men to retrieve her, she drugs my drink and sends me to Carlo. After that, she leaves the country and disappears completely. I, Nerissa Valenti, am forced to become Carlo's wife. He treats me as nothing more than a pet. Despite being married, I ignore Carlo's existence and treat him as if he were invisible. He, on the other hand, continues to make me his pet. When he's pleased with me, he shows me affection. But when I upset him, what awaits me is either cold neglect or harsh reproach. After eight years of this, one day, Carlo suddenly orders that I be locked inside the freezing ice house. I tremble from the cold. When I see Jovina at his side, I realize belatedly that she has, for some reason, decided to return to the country. The first thing she does upon her return is seek Carlo out and lie to him that I drugged myself back then to take her place. Consequently, she was heartbroken and decided to go overseas. Jovina stresses that because of my interference, they spent eight long years being apart from each other. From that moment on, there isn't a trace of emotion left in Carlo's eyes when he looks at me. Under the excuse of visiting me, Jovina comes to the ice house and tampers with the settings. She puts the cold air on full blast at the lowest temperature. "Don't blame me for this, Nerissa. As long as you're alive, my lie will be exposed sooner or later," she says ruthlessly. I don't even last half a day before freezing to death miserably. When I open my eyes again, I return to the day Jovina first catches Carlo's attention. This time, I take the initiative to say, "Jovina, go abroad and look for your true love. I'll marry Carlo in your place." This time, the one Carlo loves will be me.

Before I realized it, I’d become the invisible wife standing beside my mafia Don husband, Adrian Kane. A stay-at-home mom buried in chores while my husband paraded around with his secretary, Viola, ten years younger than me. “She’s smart,” Adrian said once. “She knows how to help me.” Tonight marked our tenth anniversary. I saw an elegant designer dress and a necklace presenting in the living room. For a second, I was happy. Looks like Adrian finally decided to take me to this year’s annual mafia gathering and introduce me as his Donna. Turns out the dress and the jewelry was for Viola. Later that night, I caught Adrian sneaking in with Viola—both drunk, hands all over each other like I didn’t exist. I just made one phone call. “I will join the Doctors Without Borders program. Send me away.” Before I married Adrian, I had a future in medicine. But I gave it all up for him. Now? It was time to choose myself and leave behind everything that was never really mine.

Dad is famous for being a total simp over Mom in the elite society. Naturally, he views Callie Archer, the stepdaughter whom Mom has brought with her, as his own. But Callie is afflicted with a severe case of walking phobia. Her feet couldn't touch the ground at all. Only when she's stepping on my back can she roam around in the house freely. So, whenever Callie looks in a certain direction, Mom will press my head down and force me to crawl toward Callie to serve as her doormat. The doctor issues a warning to my family that my spine is severely contorted. So when Callie wants to admire the flowers in the yard while wearing a pair of spiked shoes again, I can't endure the pain anymore, so I shiver slightly out of instinct. Callie ends up losing her balance and falling to the ground. She bawls like a baby afterward. Mom rushes over immediately before kicking me in the gut, her high heel lodging into my flesh. "It's extremely rare for Callie to be willing to leave the house! Why must you ruin her mood? Can't you just be more understanding and play your role as a doormat for the sake of your sister's illness?" Meanwhile, Dad scoops Callie into his arms, his heart bleeding for her plight. He coaxes her gently, telling her that he'll buy her new dresses later. I can only curl up on the ground while hacking up blood. But Dad just thinks I'm playing the pity card. He commands his men to throw me into the basement. Apparently, I can only be released once I've learned to stay stationary when I'm supporting Callie. As I clutch my broken ribs, I feel my tears flowing down my face as well as the blood from my injuries. I'm sorry, Dad. Next time, I will definitely not move a muscle, just like a corpse.

My mother-in-law has gotten kidnapped, and yet my husband, Josiah Broadway, decides to celebrate the success of his childhood sweetheart, Vivian Spencer's performance with her. The kidnapper has requested a ten-million-dollar ransom. If he doesn't receive the money in his bank account in an hour, he'll kill the hostage immediately. But my calls to Josiah's phone never go through. When there's only one minute left on the timer, Josiah calls me back calmly. "Since that hag is already that old, she might as well die. I'm not wasting my money on her." Just like that, my mother-in-law is thrown into the sea by the furious kidnapper. The search-and-rescue team has to resort to using long hooks in order to fish her corpse out of the sea. As soon as the body is delivered to the crematorium, Josiah sends me a voice message excitedly. "Have your mom's corpse sent to the studio! Vivian's performance needs a corpse anyway! Using a real corpse will make the whole performance seem more realistic!" I'm pissed off, to say the least. So, that bastard thinks that my mom is the one who died, huh? After that, I have my mother-in-law's corpse, which is completely disfigured from all the fishing and hooking, sent to the studio without any hesitation.

My daughter Mia's congenital heart condition had worsened. She desperately needed the one-of-a-kind miniature artificial heart I'd spent five years developing. The night before surgery, my wife Victoria stole it from the cold storage unit. I rushed to the hospital like a madman, only to find her at the bedside of her first love Dominic Forsythe's son, prepping him for surgery. "Mia can hold on for another six months. Dominic's son can't wait." "What kind of father are you, being this selfish?" Victoria stood there, righteous indignation written all over her face. I looked at my daughter lying in her hospital bed, barely clinging to life, and dialed the overseas number I'd refused a dozen times before. "Professor Ellsworth, this is Nathan Hartley." "I'll accept your offer. But I need you to arrange a medical transport—immediately—to bring my daughter to your facility. Her heart needs emergency intervention." I spent five years developing a life-saving heart for my daughter. Victoria stole it overnight and gave it to Dominic Forsythe’s son. “Mia can hold on for another six months. Dominic's son can't wait.” She had no idea I held all the core patents for that heart. That same night, I took my daughter aboard a medical jet and fled the country. The next time we met, you would be on your knees begging me.

I've gotten into an accident three days before my SAT exam. As a result, my right leg is completely busted. As Selena Surrey stands before my hospital bed, she suddenly reveals the truth. "I'm the one who arranged the accident." She points at my broken leg, which is still sealed in a cast. A cruel smile blossoms on her face. "It's your fault for displeasing Aaron. You only broke one leg anyway. It's way better than watching Aaron continue to waste away in depression." I widen my eyes in disbelief. As I struggle against Selena, I leave fresh scratches on her arms. But Selena just pushes me away coldly, only to pat me on the head gently as she did in the past. "I think I understand how your parents feel now. No wonder they insisted on sending you to the orphanage back then. It's true that you aren't as likeable as Aaron." Aaron Lindt is my biological older brother. 15 years ago, I had gotten hurt just to save him from getting hit by a car. But he cried to our parents, claiming that I was the one who had pushed him. Our parents were quick to send me to an orphanage, completely disregarding my injuries. Just as I thought it was over for me, Selena showed up and promised me that she'd be the person I could rely on for the rest of my life. But now, she decides to ruin me with her own hands for the sake of the same person she has promised to protect me from.

As Dad lies on his death bed, he rasps to me that his only wish is to watch me get married. I keep crying to the point that my sobs come out silent. My entire family turns to look at Whitney Pearson, who stands behind me. She lets out a small sigh before wiping my tears away for me gently. Then, she leads me out of the ward. But as soon as the door is closed behind us, Whitney's expression turns icy. "Joseph, we've been dating for seven years. You of all people should know very well that I hate getting coerced into doing something the most. "Love is all about going with the flow. We shouldn't let others determine how our relationship should progress." Then, she caresses my cheek reassuringly. "Let's not rush our marriage. We'll talk more about this once things settle down after my company goes public. What do you think? "Anyway, I still have a meeting to get to tonight. You should deal with your family as you see fit. I'll bring a gift for you when I come home later." Before I can say anything, Whitney spins on her heel and leaves with her secretary, Kaiden Xavier. The moment both of them disappear into the elevator, I witness Kaiden bending over slightly to brush Whitney's hair from her face for her. She makes no move to stop him at all. After drying my tears, I return to the ward and take Dad's hand with a smile. "Don't worry, Dad. I'll get married in three days. In fact, I'm still waiting for you to do my tie for me before the start of the ceremony."

My older sister, Noelle Brown, has an unhealthy obsession with me. When I was ten years old, Noelle almost got kidnapped by the kidnappers. I got into the kidnappers' van in her stead. Later on, I was returned to my family after they paid a ransom. But my face had already been slashed by the kidnappers, and my legs had been broken by them, too. Since then, Noelle has worked extremely hard to improve herself. That's how she successfully brings the company Dad has left behind to a new level of success. I become Noelle's most cherished person as well as the vulnerable spot that no one else is allowed to touch. Someone made fun of my ugly looks in the past. Noelle had stuffed his head into a sack filled with rats, where he literally got his face chewed off him alive. There was also someone who ran his mouth about me being a cripple behind my back. Noelle responded by crushing his legs with a road roller, resulting in his legs being reduced to paste. Noelle is the demoness who's feared by the entire city. But to think that such a fearsome woman dotes on me endlessly. She even dumps a huge amount of money into sending me overseas, where I undergo numerous plastic and orthopedic surgeries while finishing my college studies. Before returning to the country, I receive an engagement invitation from Noelle. She tells me that soon, I'll have a brother-in-law who will spoil me like she does. She even sends me a photo of her fiance, Faris Smith. But as soon as I arrive at the villa, Faris barges in with a group of brutes. He's mistaken me for Noelle's side piece, whom she keeps in another country, so he begins torturing me endlessly. By the time Noelle reaches the scene, Faris points at me while shouting at her. "Don't tell me I can't even compare to that pretty boy!" Noelle's eyes go bloodshot at the sight. "What makes you think you're even worthy of being compared to him?"

In my previous life, the fake daughter Linda Veil wanted the billionaire family all to herself. She manipulated my adopted brother Jason with her two-faced act, sabotaging me at every turn. All I ever wanted was family. Instead, they came to despise me, and shipped me off to the African savannah to fend for myself. Before the plane even landed, Mom and Dad threw me out from low altitude, hatred written all over their faces. "Stay out there and learn your lesson. Let's see if you ever dare hurt your sister again!" "We'll come get you once you've straightened up." Both my legs shattered on impact. I lay in the grass, sobbing that I was sorry, begging them to believe me. But the sun cracked my skin open and wild animals stripped me to the bone. They never came back for me. Right before I died, I finally learned the truth. Sending me to the savannah had been Linda's idea all along. She'd spent three hundred million commissioning a lifelike robot to replace my dead body. Mom and Dad watched the cameras every day, seeing a lively, healthy "robot me" going about life. They had no idea I was already gone. And Linda? She married my adopted brother, poisoned my parents slowly, and inherited every last penny of the Veil fortune, handing it all to her human-trafficking birth parents. Then I opened my eyes again. I'd been reborn, back to the day the billionaire family first took me home. This time around, I'd worked ten jobs at once to survive and developed a serious mental illness. Whoever messed with me got the full crazy treatment.

I had always known my family hated me. Or maybe more accurately—they hated me for taking their real daughter’s place for so long. When they finally found Lily, their real daughter and sister, Matteo, the brother I grew up with, told me to disappear. Father, Don Kane, never looked at me twice again, no matter how hard I tried. Mother treated me like I was invisible. But they never let me leave. They made me stay and suffer. One day, Lily did something horrible, and they threw all the blame onto me. I was locked away in an asylum. When I was finally released two years later, the Kane came looking for me again, smiling as they called me their real daughter after all. A little too late for that, don’t they think?

After my son was abducted, my husband took me to an adoption center to bring home a baby boy born the same year as the child we'd lost. I poured every ounce of love I had into raising him. He had a sensitive stomach, so I pushed through my chronic back pain to cook him special meals every single day. When he spiked a fever in the middle of the night, I carried him twenty miles through the rain to the nearest hospital. When he couldn't focus in school, I was constantly at his classroom door, flattering his teachers and bringing them gifts, just to get them to pay a little extra attention to him. Fifteen years of grinding sacrifice, and it all came down to one moment at his college acceptance party. "I couldn't have gotten into Harvard without my mother's love and hard work," he said into the microphone. He raised his glass, eyes drifting toward where I was sitting. The cameras flashed as I started to rise from my seat, matching his silent lip movements. And then I heard a name I didn't expect. "She is Rachel Lynch." I froze. That was my best friend's name.

I’m the long-lost true daughter of the Alpha and Luna of the Silver Moon Pack, but five years ago, my own parents had me thrown in prison. All because their adopted daughter, Grace, lied and said she saw me meeting secretly with a wolf from a rival pack. They ignored my pleas and branded me a traitor. Five years later, at a pack gathering, I ran into my parents and Grace again. They were dressed to the nines, dripping in jewels, while I was in casual clothes, without even a necklace. A flicker of pity crossed my parents' eyes. "Amelia, come back to us. We can find a stable job for you in the pack. It would be better than the hard life you're living now." Grace chimed in with fake kindness, "Yes, sister. Our estate needs a gardener." I refused. My mother frowned. "Are you still holding a grudge? What we did was for the good of the pack. We weren't favoring Grace..." I laughed. "You're reading too much into it. It's nothing." They don't know that after I left them, I didn't just survive. I built my own pack. That I've become the most mysterious and legendary female Alpha in North America.

The day I turned eighteen, my father picked my birthday dinner to drop his bombshell: he'd fallen for someone else, and he wanted a divorce. Mom was about to flip the table. Then a stream of comments scrolled across my vision. [Don't make a scene! He's just a cheater. We don't even want him.] [Your mom's gorgeous. Play the sweet, doting type, win him over, and she'll walk away with most of his fortune. We're talking billions!] [Take the billions and enjoy the rest of your life. Beats rotting at home as some bitter ex-wife, doesn't it?] Following the comments, I clapped a hand over Mom's mouth and whispered: "Mom, stop! Dad's worth billions, we have to watch what we say!"

Everyone in college has gone home for winter break. A guy from the next class shares a photo in our group chat, bragging about his Christmas gift—ten thousand and one 100-dollar bills. The entire group chat goes wild. I jump on the bandwagon, sending a couple of envious memes before tapping on the photo to zoom in. Ten thousand and one consecutive bills. But my eyes lock onto the family portrait peeking out from the edge of the frame. The woman in the photo… is Mom? I dial her number immediately. "Hey Mom, what Christmas gift are you going to get me this year?" On the other end of the line, her laughter falters. Then she replies casually, "Same as always—200 dollars. It's just a formality anyway. Why do you ask?" I force a smile and tell her it's nothing. I hang up and immediately hail a cab to that guy's house.

My baby brother was barely a month old when my father's mistress threw him off the upstairs balcony to his death. Then she turned around and said my mother had done it. And my father, the Don, took the mistress at her word and had my mother killed. That woman framed me too, and I was cast out of the house. For the next fifteen years, I clawed my way up through begging and reckless grit, until I became the Donna of the Vanetti family. Then one day, my adopted son Daniel Vanetti brought his new girlfriend to meet me. "Mother, this is Via, the Principessa of the Vitale family. I want to marry her." I looked at Via. Her face was the spitting image of my father's mistress. What a small world. The daughter of the woman who killed my mother had walked right up to my door. So I refused without a second's hesitation. "I don't approve."

The night before the Northbridge Graduate Admissions Exam, my aunt Brenda brought her daughter to our home for dinner. The girl turned the house upside down, and I tolerated one disaster after another. During dinner, I left my phone on the table while I went to the bathroom. When I returned, Aunt Brenda smiled and handed it back to me. "Put this away before you lose it." I thought nothing of it. The next morning at the airport, an agent told me my flight had been changed to the following day. My mind went blank. In my deleted messages, I found the rebooking verification code from the night before. I returned home in shock and found Aunt Brenda waiting with her daughter. "Since you were already traveling to Bellhaven, I moved your flight so you could take Kayla to her father tomorrow. "I'll reimburse the airfare. No need to thank me." I shook with anger. "Aunt Brenda, if I leave tomorrow, I'll miss the exam." She dismissed me with a wave. "What exam could matter more than family? It's only an admissions test. Take it next time. "I already offered to cover the ticket. That's almost a thousand dollars. Why are you so ungrateful?" As I looked at her entitled expression, my anger suddenly became calm. "All right, Aunt Brenda," I said with a cold smile. "You're the one who asked me to take her."

During our family's trip over the holiday season, my cousin, Ginnie Lane, suggested "swapping accommodations" with an online friend. The second I objected, her eyes welled with tears, and she started sobbing. "Zach, you just look down on me because I'm an orphan! That's why you don't want to go to my friend's place!" My parents softened and gave in. In the end, we went to the Northern Grasslands and stayed in a drafty tent where wind blew in from every side. A massive blizzard hit that night, and our whole family froze to death in despair. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day we discussed where to spend the holiday season.

My best friend, Mia Sullivan, called me in tears. She told me that a creep had been stalking her and that she was too scared to stay in her apartment alone. In my past life, I felt sorry for her, so I agreed to let her stay at my house. Two weeks later, Mia uploaded a video online in which she accused my dad of having assaulted her. She cried her eyes out. The video instantly sparked outrage online. My dad’s reputation was ruined. He fell into depression and eventually jumped to his death. Even then, Mia kept demanding compensation from my family. She took everything we had until we went bankrupt. I had nothing left to live for, but she only looked at me with a mocking smile. “Charlotte, thank you for giving me the chance to gain both fame and fortune.” I returned to the past on the day Mia called me in tears. “Charlotte, please help me. There’s a man who keeps following me. My apartment isn’t safe anymore. I’m scared…” I forced down the joy that surged through me. “Sure. Come stay at my house.”

I have a severe alcohol allergy. One drop can kill me. As the real son the family had only just found, I came home certain I would finally have my father's love. What I found was that he only had eyes for Tristan Ashmore, the stand-in, the son who wasn't. To prove to the board that I wasn't some spineless nobody raised out in the country, my father ordered me to a dinner that would decide the future of the company. At the table, I tried to get by on a cup of tea. Tristan and my stepmother took it out of my hands and set down a full glass of high-proof liquor. "Dad's giving you a chance here! "Show a little backbone. Don't let him down." Tristan smiled like he'd never done a thing wrong in his life. From the head of the table, my father watched me coldly and raised his own glass. "If I'm still your father, you'll drink that and win us this contract." I closed my eyes and swallowed it. My airway closed. It felt like drowning on dry land. As I went down I saw the disgust in my father's face, and then my soul came loose from my body. And even then I was sorry. I'm sorry, Dad. I embarrassed you again. I watched him shout that I was faking. I watched them leave my body in the private room. When the last of it was gone, a voice came out of the emptiness. "Heaven has taken pity on your suffering, and a reader from another world has been sent to turn your story around. "If he can carry you to the final chapter alive, he'll bring you back."