Hypocrisy Regret-Kurzgeschichten & -Kurzromane

In our pack, every wolf has one chance in their lifetime to use an enhancement elixir to strengthen their wolf abilities, but this elixir is only effective when brewed by oneself. In my previous life, although I was a normal Omega, I worked day and night brewing my wolf enhancement elixir to become the Gamma of our pack. But on the day of the selection, after I shifted into my wolf form, I completely lost control. My wolf immediately prostrated itself at the feet of Victoria, the current Beta's granddaughter. Amid the cheers of the entire pack, Victoria became the new Gamma. Meanwhile, I was beaten and ridiculed. Everyone claimed I had stolen Victoria's enhancement elixir, which was why I couldn't control my wolf. They cut off both my hands and threw me into a silver mine. I died in excruciating pain in that silver pit, my very bones corroded by the silver. Until my dying breath, I couldn't understand—how could the elixir I brewed myself make my wolf submit to Victoria? When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to one week before the Gamma selection of the pack. This time, I gave up my right to compete and entered the forest alone to train for battle. Beta Richard stood at the empty doorway of my house, questioning me through our mind-link about why I was leaving the pack at such a crucial time. Meanwhile, I was removing my protective amulet, shifting into my wolf form alone to fight in the territory of the Rogue wolves.

When I discover that Shawn Felton has kept a mistress for the past three years and even intends to throw her a wedding, I decide to leave him. I'm going home to marry the man my family has picked for me. On the first day, I give the ring Shawn got me to his mistress. On the second day, I throw away everything and anything that has to do with me. On the third day, I put on a wedding dress and marry Shawn's nemesis. From now on, Shawn and I will have nothing to do with each other. Shawn is unfazed originally. He thinks I'm just throwing a tantrum. He only panics when he sees the news of me marrying someone else.

At the contract-signing meeting, a major client casually asks our new technician if she can handle her alcohol. She immediately pours a glass of red wine over his head and says coolly, "This sort of socializing is a bad habit. I'm putting an end to it." Leon Langley, a top client who brings the company 300 million dollars in annual revenue, flies into a rage and tears up the contract on the spot. As the project lead, I bend over backward to apologize and drink with Mr. Langley until I'm hospitalized with gastric bleeding—just to salvage the deal. When I report the incident to my boss, he scolds me instead. "As the person in charge, you nearly ruined the project. Forget the three-million-dollar commission we planned to give you. Consider this a warning." After that, I put Hannah Storrie's name on the department's downsizing review list. She sneers. "I'm a top talent the boss poached at great expense. I'm not some cheap hostess who survives by smiling and drinking like you. "Firing me would be throwing the company down the drain. When that happens, you'll be begging me to come back." I ignore her. However, when the review period ends, the name on the layoff list turns out to be mine. My boss seizes the opportunity to announce that Hannah will replace me as the new sales director. "Clients are extremely important to us. You don't seriously think you're capable of landing them, do you? "Hannah's is more qualified, more tech-savvy, and prettier than you. She's clearly the better choice." I simply smile, turn around, and dial a number.

Brandon Hawthorne said if I wanted to marry him, I had to prove I was tough enough to be a Hawthorne. He took my bank cards, ditched me in a city I'd never been to, and made me figure out how to get home alone. When my fever hit 104°F, he still refused to let the family doctor through the door. Instead, I had to smile through dinner with a house full of Hawthorne relatives while I could barely stay on my feet. And every time I finally asked Brandon for help, he looked at me like I'd failed him. "You can't even handle something this simple. How are you supposed to be my wife?" But when his childhood friend, Patty Rowan, got blisters from her shoes, he picked her up and carried her away in front of everyone. She got a headache in the middle of the night, and he left me alone in the hospital to take the family doctor to her. I asked him why. He frowned. "Patty's fragile. And she's not the one trying to become a Hawthorne." Then came our engagement party. I accidentally ate peanuts. My throat started closing. I couldn't breathe. Brandon grabbed my EpiPen and locked me in the lounge. "This is your final test. If you want to marry me, tough it out." Then Patty called. She had a paper cut. Brandon immediately left with the doctor. "Hold out for ten minutes." I lost track of time. Right before everything went dark, I saw Brandon come back with Patty tucked close beside him. She had a Band-Aid on her finger. Through the haze, I heard the disappointment in his voice. "Patty was bleeding, and she didn't even cry. Are you seriously pretending to be dead?" Then came the final blow. "You failed the test. You're not ready to become a Hawthorne."

My wife had called me in the middle of the night with a hint of drunkenness in her voice. She admitted to having too much to drink and asked me to come get her. I hurried to the private club she mentioned, only to find myself having to change into a bathrobe as soon as I got there. Surrounded by a group of wealthy women in their fifties, they playfully flirted and teased me relentlessly. Suddenly, a few of them pounced, pushing me to the ground and demanding I crawl like a dog. Despite the humiliation, my main concern was still my wife's wellbeing. Hours passed before she finally showed up, disheveled, supported by her male assistant, looking at me with a cold smirk. It was then that the truth hit me. This whole situation was a scheme she had orchestrated to please him. My anger rising, I called and spoke through gritted teeth, "Three days. I want every single business under the Spencers wiped out."

I spent countless sleepless nights developing a breakthrough drug for a devastating illness, and I expected at least some recognition from my CEO girlfriend. Instead, she accused me of wasting the company research budget and promoted a newly hired young assistant to oversee the company finances. It was the middle of a brutal heatwave with temperatures that soared past ninety-eight degrees. The assistant locked the lab air-conditioning controls away so no one else could use them, while he shut himself inside his private office with the AC set to sixty degrees. He wrapped himself in a blanket and played video games. I complained to my girlfriend, and she brushed it off as part of building company culture. She claimed she gave him authority for my own good because she believed it would prepare me for a future management position. According to her, I was too narrow-minded to understand her intentions. She then shut off the lab main power supply and locked the control panel as if she wanted to teach me a lesson. The fans stopped working, and the heat grew worse. Several coworkers collapsed from heat exhaustion and were taken to the hospital. The assistant posted photos of himself and my girlfriend at an indoor ski resort. They wore winter jackets and ate ice cream together. The caption read, “Some people are sweeter than ice cream.” I finally understood everything. Her idea of company culture had never been anything more than an excuse to favor him. Everyone expected me to confront her or demand an explanation. I packed up my things instead. She mistook my silence for obedience. She believed her air-conditioning punishment had worked, and she promised that once she returned from closing her business deal, she might consider letting me enjoy the AC again. She did not know that when she shut down the lab power, the research equipment stopped running. The drug we had just finished developing became unstable, and the experimental data was destroyed. By the time the delivery deadline arrived, there would be no formula left to hand over. She would face a catastrophic breach-of-contract lawsuit and enormous financial penalties. Without access to the medication in time, she would also suffer permanent long-term complications from the illness we had tried to treat.

I've been in a secret relationship with Luca Alfonso for seven years. I watched his transformation from a fresh graduate to the Don of a famiglia. I know he hates stupid people and bothersome things. So, in the dark of night, I silently clear out traitors within the family and take life-threatening injuries on his behalf. Yet, I never once ask him to disclose the nature of our relationship. I know that doing so will only cause him trouble and paint a target on my back. But later, when his Underboss, Lorenzo Forti, jokingly calls Margherita Vitale his Donna, he simply smiles without refuting it. When I question him about it, his expression darkens. He says, "Her father sacrificed his life for the family. She's suffered enough already. Must you be so suspicious of us?" So, I tell myself that Luca is just such a person. He loathes stupid people and bothersome things, so he's always unwilling to elaborate. It works until the day that Margherita tosses our encrypted list of core family members into the fireplace. With that move, she's burned the list of undercover operatives we've deployed over the past three years to ashes. She falls to her knees in terror. My heart skips a beat. A mistake this serious will, at worst, end with a severed finger and expulsion from the family. I speak up in her defense, "Don Alfonso, I have a backup of the documents." Luca gently helps Margherita to her feet and says, "Don't be afraid. It is what it is." Everyone present exchanges glances, marvelling at his marked difference in attitude today. But in the very next moment, Luca looks at me and asks, "Who gave you permission to make a backup of a top-secret document? Do you know that you've overstepped your authority?" He casts me a glance, then continues, "Go receive your punishment, and don't do anything foolish next time." I watch his retreating figure with growing despair. "Yes, Don Alfonso." It turns out that Luca doesn't actually hate stupid people. He just hates my stupidity.

After three years of renting, the landlord kept raising the rent, so I decided not to renew the lease. I hired cleaners to thoroughly clean the entire place, inside and out. There was not a single scratch on the furniture or appliances. I figured the landlord would not return the deposit easily, but I never imagined she would come out swinging with such outrageous demands. “This dining table cost me 25,000 dollars! You got it dirty, and we can’t clean it. You owe me 25,000! “How did this living room lamp get so dusty? Don’t you know how to clean as a girl? We’ll have to deduct 1,500 from your deposit! “There are hooks on the wall. You damaged my walls! 2,000 for that! “This mattress... Hmph. You live-streamers probably brought home who knows how many men. This one’s ruined anyway. There goes 15,000! “Why are there strands of hair in the bathroom? How am I supposed to rent this out to the next tenant? Five hundred for cleaning fees!” She tapped away at her calculator, then thrust it in my face. “You’ve lived here for three years. I’ll give you a friend’s discount. I won’t charge extra for the other damages. Pay me 50,000 dollars, and we’ll call it even! “Otherwise, I’ll expose you online and make you lose followers!” I glanced at the live stream that had 50,000 viewers at the time. When I looked up again, my face was only a mask of smiles. “Ms. Lane, let me think about it. I’ll give you an answer in two days.”

I spend ten years helping my fiancé fight and claw his way to the top. Finally, he becomes the head of the local mafia. But once he has everything, he falls for another woman. Suddenly, he wants nothing to do with the promise he made to marry me. Just as he boasts about throwing her the wedding of the century, one of his men can't hold back his confusion. "Olivia stood by you through everything. Weren't you crazy about her? And now you're marrying someone else?" Joshua Harding snuffs out his cigarette, slowly turning the silver couple's ring he shares with Abigail Mauser between his fingers. "Olivia?" He scoffs. "She's got blood on her hands. How could she ever compare to my sweet, innocent Abigail?" The subordinate hesitates. "But Olivia's sharp. If she finds out and turns against you, then what?" Joshua frowns before smirking coldly. "Belcove is completely under my control. It's not like I'll lose it without her around." Little does he know I'm standing outside and listening to every word. I drop the medicine I brought him into the trash and pull out my phone. I text his biggest rival, Michael Sheridan. "Want Joshua's turf and his life? I'm handing them to you!"

After a falling out with my long-distance boyfriend, I decide to secretly fly home to patch things up with him. Unexpectedly, I catch him fooling around at home with his secretary. "Do you need to be so mad? I only got someone to act as your stand-in. Ultimately, you're still the one I love." I listen to his preposterous lies and hide my stomach cancer diagnosis behind my back. I say, "It's not a bad idea to gather more of these fakes. You won't be too upset when I'm dead." But after I die, he loses his mind when he looks at his secretary's face.

After I landed a five-million-dollar contract and saved the company from financial collapse, my CEO wife wrapped me in an excited embrace and said she wanted to have a baby with me. She took out her phone and showed me a virtual baby on an app she had just signed up for. "Look, honey," she said. "Isn't it adorable? You can even change how it looks. Do you like it? Once things settle down at the company, we can have a real one." That night, I came across a post by her male secretary on social media. It was a photo of a positive pregnancy test, with my wife's figure visible in the background. I did not comment. I just liked the post. When my wife noticed, she panicked and called me immediately. "Honey, it's not what you think. Please listen to me! I wanted to surprise you. The baby is yours! "Can you clear things up on social media for everyone? I promise I'll give you a child of your own soon." She insisted the baby was mine, yet she seemed to have forgotten that we had not shared a bed in six months. "End the pregnancy," I said. "We're finished."

After his eighteenth failed attempt to divorce me, Jesse Pellam suddenly stopped bringing it up. Before that, every single attempt had ended in complete humiliation and chaos. I had harmed myself, threatened to jump from a building, and plastered the company lobby with intimate photos of him and his female assistant, Gianna Seyfert. At a press conference, I had even publicly stripped Gianna, leaving her with PTSD. Jesse had every reason to despise me; however, he never mentioned divorcing me again. He came home on time every day and gave me full access to his phone. He checked in with me every hour to update me on his whereabouts. Even during his business trips, we stayed connected through video calls around the clock. But I still could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. Every day, I pressed him for an answer, asking why he no longer wanted a divorce. “Haven’t I done enough?” he asked. Yes, he was better than ever, almost too good to be true. It was not until he caught me following him again that he finally admitted the truth. With exhaustion evident in his eyes, he said, “I received a phone call from my future self, ten years from now. He told me that if I divorced you, I would regret it.”

After I was kidnapped by my Family’s enemies, I was left with severe PTSD. I couldn’t stand the noise of intense sound. On our wedding day, my husband, the Mafia Don Andre, swore before God that he would create a world of silence for me. For five years, he never wore any device that made a sound. He even ordered that no gunshots were to be heard anywhere in Sicily, losing several major deals because of it. Until my best friend Alice returned to Sicily and openly played rock music inside the estate. The terror of being kidnapped came rushing back. I crawled onto the floor, begging and apologizing over and over. Tears mixed with the blood running down my face as I kept hitting my head against the ground. Half an hour later, the music stopped. Alice held up her phone, laughing so hard she could barely stand. “Oh my God. She actually thought she was being kidnapped again.” Andre recorded my humiliation with a phone in his hand while laughing and comforting me. “Alice said this is exposure therapy. After a few more times, you won’t be afraid anymore.” My brother stared at me through the screen and scolded me from the other side. “Monica, look at yourself. How can you possibly be worthy of being a Donna?” My entire body was drenched in sweat. My hair was covered in blood, and I couldn’t even stand. I stared at the note in Andre’s hand, and realized. Last month, he was the one who replaced my noise-canceling headphones with headphones that played nothing but loud noises. Last week, he was the one who took me to that noisy bar. The silence he once built for me was now being destroyed by his own hands. Slowly, I pushed myself up from the floor. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I simply looked at him.I no longer wanted to remain in his world.

The night before my wedding, I was in a terrible car accident. I fell into a coma, and my body was broken and bruised. While I lay unconscious, my fiancé called off the engagement and married his childhood sweetheart instead. My mother went to demand justice on my behalf—but never made it back. She died in a sudden, brutal accident along the way. In that moment of chaos, it was my childhood friend who stepped in. He knelt on one knee outside the hospital with a wedding gift of a hundred thousand dollars and quietly handled my mother's funeral. I was wheeled into surgery. I lived, but was left with a permanent disability. And still, he promised to stay by my side, for life. I was deeply moved. We got married. But five years later, I overheard him talking to his secretary. "Mr. Davidson, you arranged for someone to hit your wife with a car, just so Lucy could marry the one she loved. Aren't you afraid she'll find out?" "For Lucy, there's nothing I wouldn't do. I've already given Ruby the rest of my life. Isn't that enough?" I covered my mouth, holding back a sob. Only then did I realize—the marriage I believed in had been a lie all along. So be it. I'll disappear and let him be with the woman he truly loves.

At our seventh wedding anniversary party, Caleb Thorne shares a drink with his childhood sweetheart. My face darkens, and he publicly snaps at me in front of everyone. "It's just playful fun between friends—why are you so uptight? If I really had something going on with Emma, do you think you'd ever have become my wife?" He storms off in anger. That same night, his childhood sweetheart updates her social media banner to a photo of her holding hands with Caleb. In the past, I would've rushed to her house without a second thought, dragged Caleb out, and demanded to know if he ever truly loved me. But this time, I don't care anymore.

I had been dating Andy Lawson for five years. He had gone bankrupt, and during the worst of it, we had to sleep in parks and scavenge leftovers for food. After a hundred days of that life, I was just going to the blackmarket to sell some blood for money when someone sent me a video. [Surprise.] It was a livestream site, set up for rich kids to prank the common folk—and a video of me was pinned to the top. My finger trembling, I tapped on it and saw myself hidden in a corner of a park, munching on leftovers to nourish my frail body. On the split video, Andy was reclining against the armchair of a five-star hotel and savoring his gourmet menu. "Oh, this is amazing! All Andy has to do is say that he's sick, and she's selling her blood for him!" "On the sixteenth prank, she fell into the ocean… And on the fifteenth, she was sent flying in a car crash! Why is she so hard to kill?" "Well, Andy already made it clear that if she survives until the end, he will marry her and swear off women!" "One month to go! Will she die from the pranks, or marry into the Lawson family with pomp and circumstance?" "I'm betting fifty mil that she dies tragically! Hahaha!"

The Westmere pack had one rule about the Alpha's seat: only the Alpha's biological children could inherit it. I was my parents' only child. For as long as I could remember, I'd known I would become the first female Alpha in our pack's history. The trouble was that I hated being tied down. My father spoiled me, so he took in my cousin Evan Hale to take care of pack business for me. Evan had to pass an annual review on New Year's Day to keep his job as my assistant. But in 13 years, I never once took those reviews seriously. I passed Evan every single time. Over time, every wolf in the pack came to see me as the Alpha heir in name only. They believed Evan was the one my father really wanted to take over. Then Evan decided to marry Winona Crane, the daughter of Victor Crane, the Emberwind Alpha. Victor had heard all about Evan's achievements, and he agreed to the marriage without a second thought. To celebrate, I went out and conquered three new territories as a gift for Evan. I also gave Winona a villa to welcome her to Westmere. But on their first day as mates, she sold the villa. On the second day, she revoked my fingerprint access to every restricted area in the pack. Then she sent me a bill. "Lorelei Hale, I had no idea you'd spent 85 million dollars of Evan's money over the years." "You're a grown woman now, You can't keep dragging Evan down, can you?" "I want you to swear on the Moon Goddess that you'll pay back every cent within a month." I pointed at myself, wondering if I'd heard her right. "Me? Pay you back? Is this what Evan wants too?" Winona frowned. "What, are you trying to weasel out of paying?" I actually laughed. Sure, Evan had handled pack business for me for 13 years. But Westmere had never belonged to him. The only reason he'd kept his job as my assistant was that I'd waved him through his review year after year. And as it happened, the new year was only three days away. There was still time to revise Evan's review.

My husband, Harry Forger, who couldn’t have kids, got a college girl pregnant. He was thrilled and planned to keep it a secret until the baby was born, but I caught him red-handed at the hospital. I completely lost it and demanded to know how he could betray me after all I had done to land 10-billion-dollar deals for him. He just handed me divorce papers and said coldly, “You can’t give me a child, but Claire is already pregnant and needs someone to take care of her. I’m going to marry her and give her a real family. “Sign the papers. If we end things peacefully, you can still have a spot in the company.” I refused, and that’s when his revenge started. He had me thrown in prison and froze all my assets. In the end, he even tied my parents, who both had heart problems, to a drop tower ride. “Sign the divorce papers, and I’ll let them go. If you don’t sign, then watch them die up there.”

Right after I put the invoice of an eighty-thousand-dollar gold necklace into my bag, my Instagram went wild. A woman calling herself “Future In-law” showed a picture of a ring with a diamond the size of a pigeon egg. It was worth two million dollars. [It’s our first meeting, but my future in-law insisted on giving me this. I couldn’t say no.] The next second, the shop attendant handed me a receipt saying that I owed them two million dollars. “The lady from earlier charged you for her daughter’s two-million-dollar diamond ring. She said that you’re her future in-law, so you have to be nice to her too.” I scowled. “Do you have security footage? I’d like to find her.” The shop attendant shrugged and appeared dismissive. “Sorry, but the security camera broke down today. It’s written clearly on the receipt. You can’t refuse to pay.” Exasperated, I laughed, grabbed the unsigned receipt, and called the police. “Hello, officers. I just got scammed out of two million dollars at a jewelry shop.”

After Mom stabbed Aunt Serena and was sent to prison, Aunt Serena became our new mother. The same Serena who used to “wrestle” with Dad in bed every afternoon at three o’clock. Everyone praised her for being kind and virtuous. They said she treated her husband’s children from his first marriage as if they were her own. She was practically the perfect stepmother. I believed them too. So when she told me there was a way to get to heaven and see Mom again, I believed her. I even carried along the baby brother she had just given birth to. And together, we followed her lie all the way to heaven.