Plot Twists Short Stories & Independence Regret Novels

After four miscarriages, I was finally pregnant again. To surprise my mate, Wyatt, I hid behind the curtains in his office. I never expected to see him tangled in a passionate embrace with my younger sister, Stella. They were kissing frantically, and Wyatt showed a fiery passion for her that he had never once shown me. What shattered my heart completely were Wyatt’s next words: "Since you're pregnant now, Harper is useless to me. I'll figure out a way to sever the mate bond with her." "She’s so incredibly clueless. She never even suspected that I caused those four miscarriages just to cure your infertility..." Hiding behind the curtain, I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle my devastated sobs. My fated mate murdered my babies with his own hands, all for my sister. In that moment, a fire of pure vengeance ignited in my heart. I called Wyatt’s mortal enemy, Dominic, Alpha of the Sterling Pack: "Want to make Wyatt's life a living hell? Let's make a deal."

My wedding to Dante Moretti, the Don of the Chicago Mafia, was only days away. When I got home from my final dress fitting, I found he had made the house over into something painfully romantic. Flowers, candles, stacks of gift boxes... Excited as I was, I could not help wondering why. Today was not a special day. He pulled me into his arms and fed me a mouthful of wine from his own lips, his eyes smiling. "I knew you'd forget the anniversary of the day we got together." My stomach dropped. The anniversary was not today. While he was in the shower, his phone went off. A calendar alert popped up on the screen. "Today is your relationship anniversary." I frowned, opened the calendar, and scrolled back through a few pages. Every date he had marked, I realized, traced back to Camille Ricci, his first love. Her period, her birthday, her lucky days... Twelve months, hundreds of entries, packed so tight there was barely any space left between them. I gripped the phone, and the cold went all the way through me. Dante came out with a towel around his waist, saw me still standing there, and teased me with a grin. "Why are you just standing there? Want me to carry you to bed?" I did not call him on it. I said I needed to go over the wedding schedule, and I left. That night I returned the dress, canceled the wedding, and accepted the offer from the university in New York.

I came home from a business trip. My daughter Anna threw herself into my arms and held up a hand-strung necklace she had clearly worked hard on. "Mommy, this is the birthday present I made for Mommy Lena. She's going to love it, right?" My heart dropped. Lena was my husband Preston's secretary. My daughter remembered her birthday. She had forgotten that today was mine. It wasn't the first time. She was always attached to Lena, hanging off her arm and asking, "Mommy Lena, when are you and Daddy taking me back to the amusement park?" Even when she ran a fever, the name she called out over and over was Mommy Lena. I corrected her, disappointed. "Anna, I'm your mommy, not Lena." But Anna pushed me away and shouted, "You're the bad mommy! I don't want you! I want Mommy Lena to be my mommy forever!" In that moment I could almost hear my own heart cracking. A second later, Preston shoved the door open. He scooped up the wailing Anna and turned on me. "Winnie, what kind of mother are you? Your child is crying like this and you can't even be bothered! "Anna's right. As a mother you're not half of what Lena is. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I married you!" I watched their backs disappear down the hall and felt something go out in me. So this was what it had bought me. Six years ago I gave up my name and my claim as heir to the Family, all for love, and what I got in return was the contempt of my husband and my daughter. If that was how it was, then it was time for me to go home to the Family.

My mother, Margaret Harper, carries the blood of a Word Witch. Once every lunar cycle, she can speak one blessing that fate itself is forced to obey. But all my life, the only thing she ever gave me was half a sentence. When I was eighteen, I received early admission to the Northern Royal Healers' Academy. My mother looked at the letter and said, "If you go north..." Her instincts had never been wrong, so I thought she'd seen danger waiting for me there. I turned the academy down with my own hands. Months later, she used her recommendation and a binding blessing to send my younger sister, Chloe, to the best healing school near our pack, even though Chloe had nowhere near my talent. After that, I stopped asking about my future. I started at the bottom of Black Pine Pack's medical system and fought my way up until the Northern Royal Pack appointed me Chief Healer. One month before I was due to leave, my mother saw the appointment letter and still offered me nothing but another unfinished warning. "Climbing too high might..." That same night, I heard her give Chloe the only blessing she could use that month. "You'll pass the senior healer examination. Your wolf will remain calm, and every examiner will recognize your ability." So that's the truth. My mother wasn't unable to finish a sentence. She simply never thought I was worth one. If every blessing she had belonged to Chloe, then Margaret didn't need to know that in one month, I would leave her house and Black Pine Pack for good.

My mother dragged me out of my biological father's brutality, and I thought we had finally escaped. Then she married the Don of the Falcone family. The woman who once fought to protect me completely changed. To secure my stepfather's approval and coddle his beloved Sofia, she stood by and let them turn me into a servant in the house I was supposed to call home. Every time I pushed back, they pushed harder. Every time I begged to be seen, I was met with contempt. My biological father's fists left scars on my body. This family's marks went deeper—into my bones. So I stopped. If they never wanted me there, I would stop breaking myself for their hollow approval. I would take my own life back. In seven days, I would leave. Harvard acceptance in hand—Boston waiting.

My Alpha mate, Leon Worth, brought a breathtaking mermaid into our estate. He named her Nerissa and tended to her every need with painstaking care. That day, the moment Leon stepped out, Nerissa walked right up to me—and placed my Luna Crown on her own head, right in front of my face. "Leon and I have known each other for six months now. He promised me with his own mouth—he'd take care of me for life." She traced a finger along the crown's rim, her smile poised. "I've made up my mind—I'm willing to drink the potion for him. I'll give up my tail. Delores, step aside and hand over the Luna position. It'll save everyone the humiliation in the end." I didn't argue with her. I just waited for Leon to come back and explain. But when he finally returned, he didn't even bother to take that crown off Nerissa's head. He left me standing there like I didn't exist, while he knelt beside her, gently cleaning her scales, his voice low and tender—like he was handling something fragile, something precious: "Just three more days. I'll get you a better heated pool." The way he looked at her—I'd seen that look for seven years. Now, it belonged to someone else. I turned and walked away. I didn't look back. My flight had barely broken through the clouds when my phone lit up. A message from Leon flashed across the screen: "Delores, don't go. I did all of this—to save you!"

The entire New York mafia world knows that Don Alessandro of the Rossi family takes a brutal punishment from the Council every year just to marry me. Because the Rossi family has a strict rule: all marriages must be approved by the Council. Yet, for three years in a row, Alessandro submitted our marriage application, and every time, it was rejected! The first year, he was locked in solitary confinement for three days and nights. The second year, his back was whipped raw. The third year, he even knelt in a torrential downpour to beg for their mercy. I always thought it was my fault, that I just wasn’t good enough to meet the Council's standards. It wasn't until the fourth year that I found out all those rejection letters from the Council were forged by Alessandro himself. And the reason was Mia—his secretary who had been secretly obsessed with him for years. "Mia has been by my side for eight years. She took a bullet for me. She held me and cried, saying the day I get married would be the darkest day of her life." "I love Jane, but I just can't bear to hurt Mia." "It just means marrying Jane a little later. She loves me so much, she won't mind." But he was wrong. Even though my heart was breaking, I didn't want this kind of love anymore. I called my father: "Dad, I'm ready to come back to Italy and marry the Don of the Caruso family."

Three years after my husband, Lucien Vance, put me on a household spending card linked to his account, he hired Camilla Bennett to manage his money. From then on, every dollar I spent needed her approval. "Nine dollars for a cab? The bus costs one dollar." Denied. "An air conditioner for your mom? She's gone without one for decades. What's changed?" Denied. Lucien watched me fume and said, "Camilla knows what she's doing. She's helping us save money. You know I can't stand gold diggers." Then Lucien's mother, Nora Vance, landed in the ICU with severe pneumonia. She needed a ventilator, antibiotics, and continuous hemofiltration. The bill came to $30,000. Camilla denied it again. My hands shook as I called Lucien 43 times before he finally answered. "Send the money now! Nora has pneumonia. She's going to die without treatment!" He sounded annoyed. "Camilla said it isn't serious. A little cough syrup will clear it up. You're making this up for money? What would your mother say?" Then I heard Camilla's voice in the background. "Lucien, this necklace only cost $25,000. I couldn't pass it up. Let's call it my birthday present!" I opened my mouth, but he hung up before I could speak. As I watched Nora suffer, it hit me. Lucien had gotten one thing very wrong. It wasn't my mother in that hospital bed. It was his.

On the day of my mother's funeral, I sat outside the chapel, crying so hard I could barely stand. Three days earlier, my father had told me she'd died in a car accident. He said her body was so badly damaged that I shouldn't see it. I wouldn't be able to handle it. I believed him. I put on a black dress and sat beside her casket all night. Ten minutes before the cremation, my phone buzzed. A notification popped up for a hotel livestream. I opened it and froze. My mother was on the screen in an evening gown, smiling as my younger sister, Nina Whitmore, handed her a glass of champagne. My father sat beside her, his eyes red. "From now on, Nina doesn't have to live in Evelyn's shadow or suffer in silence." My brother smiled and dropped a set of keys into Nina's hand. "The condo is yours now. Adrian is inside waiting for you." My whole body went stiff. Adrian Cole had been my fiancé for eight years. He was supposed to be here with me, mourning my mother. The camera shifted, and there he was, standing in the condo doorway and brushing a hand over Nina's hair. I'd sold the little cottage my grandmother, Rose Bennett, had left me just to afford the down payment on that condo. Only last night, Adrian had held me and said, "Once your mom's funeral is over, we'll move in." Now he was holding my sister and telling her something else. "Don't cry. This is our home now." Then I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around. My mother stood in the chapel doorway, still wearing the same evening gown from the livestream. The smile on her face hadn't even fully faded. "Evelyn, I had no other choice. Your sister has loved Adrian since she was little. Adrian already gave you eight years. Can't you let Nina have him now?" I looked at the black-and-white portrait surrounded by flowers. The woman in that photo had such a warm, gentle smile. But the woman standing in front of me had just buried me alive.

When the pack set out on its southward migration, Rebecca Hale, one of our newly appointed young leaders, proposed changing the route at the last minute. She wanted to break away from the main column, take the shortcut past Blackwind Gorge, rest in wild-wolf territory along the way, and live on berries gathered by the roadside. Each wolf would need only half a bag of rations, and we would reach the southern grounds ten days ahead of the main column. Freedom and speed were the whole point. My family had guarded the border of Blackwind Gorge for generations. I knew exactly how deadly that route was. Every year, young wolves who strayed from the pack died in that gorge. Some were flayed by rogues; others became prey for venomous snakes. Newly adult she-wolves were the easiest targets of all. In my past life, I fought with everything I had to stop them. I went from pack to pack, warning each Alpha until they withdrew. In the end everyone gave up the shortcut. Rebecca alone refused to listen. She vanished on her second day in the gorge. A week later, her body was found among the loose rocks. Because I had stopped the others in time, I earned the right to become the pack's priestess. But on the day of my investiture, my mate, Stefan Cross, tore out my throat. "If you hadn't stopped everyone from going with her, Rebecca would never have died alone! "You'll pay for her death with your life!" The packmates I had risked everything to save stood there cheering my death. Then they hurled my body onto the altar. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Rebecca proposed the detour through Blackwind Gorge.

When the company began choosing a vendor for staff lunches, I immediately ruled out my family's restaurant. A coworker stared at me. "Nora, that is a $150,000 contract. Your family runs a restaurant, and you're turning down money being handed to you? Are you out of your mind?" I smiled and didn't answer. In my last life, I took that contract. Then the new intern, Fiona Bell, accused me of secretly pocketing a commission. She even produced a quote from a three-star hotel for comparison. "Look, theirs is three dollars a portion. How do you justify charging eight?" Even my boyfriend of six years, Gavin Shaw, whom I had been seeing in secret, joined her in confronting me with the invoices. In the end the whole company froze me out. After I was diagnosed with severe depression, I died in a car accident one groggy-eyed morning. Three months after my death, several people were poisoned or killed after that hotel cleaned its dishes with pesticide. This time, I slid the order back to Fiona. My voice was calm. "You're the intern in facilities. You know the approval process better than I do. I'll stay out of it."

For eight years, Damian Caruso kept me as his secret wife. I handled his family's lawsuits, protected his empire, and raised the son he refused to acknowledge in public. Ethan wasn't even allowed to call him Dad when anyone else was around. I told myself Damian had his reasons. Until our son's seventh birthday. Damian promised he would come home. Ethan waited beside an untouched birthday cake until nearly midnight. Damian never showed. Because Sofia Bellini—the childhood friend everyone already treated as Damian's real woman—had the same birthday. And Damian had chosen hers. That night, I stopped waiting. I signed the divorce papers. The next morning, Damian was in such a hurry to rescue Sofia that he signed the documents I placed in front of him without even reading them. He didn't realize he had just given me permission to take Ethan out of New York. Then he moved Sofia into our home—and asked his wife and son to leave so she wouldn't discover we existed. Ethan looked at the father he had spent seven years trying to love and called him "Mr. Caruso." Damian finally looked shaken. But it was already too late. On the day we left, he told me he had to fly abroad to handle a divorce case for a client. I said nothing. Because that divorce case was mine. He was flying across the ocean to finalize the end of our marriage—and he still thought I was just taking our son out of town for a few days.

The Gambino family's highest decree: every Don must be married before taking office. So the moment I came back from studying abroad, my father sent me to intern at the family company run by my fiancé, Ethan Clark—to prepare me for taking over family operations, pave the way for me to become the next Don of the Gambinos, and, you know, build some chemistry between us while we were at it. The first day I walked in, I saw a woman holding court, surrounded by everyone, with everyone deferring to her, calling her "Mrs. Clark" with practiced reverence. She tore up a two-hundred-million-dollar contract, and they all applauded. She spotted the ring on my finger, and they all reached out to take it off for her. I didn't flinch. Didn't panic. "Do you know who can wear this ring?" She scoffed. "An intern. What's the big deal? Take it off." I smiled. This ring is the heirloom of the Gambino heir. Anyone who touches it without permission doesn't live to tell the story. I pulled out my phone and dialed Ethan right in front of her. "Your 'Mrs. Clark' is trying to take my family ring. Care to explain?"

My husband Christian Messina's assistant has been blowing through my money like it's water. At the underground auction, she laughed in my face and called me a useless trophy wife. So I cut her access. She got humiliated at checkout, and the club's security locked her up for a full day and night. When Christian found out, he froze my card on my birthday. Told me I'd better figure out how to pay, or I'd be stripping down and crawling out on all fours in front of every mob higher-up in New York. What he doesn't know? I'm the heiress to the biggest mafia empire in the country. The Moretti name? That's mine. And everything he has right now—every turf, every dollar, every scrap of power? I put it all in his hands. Quietly. Behind his back.

When Lilith Sterling showed up, I realized the years I'd spent being coddled by my three childhood friends had been nothing but a lie. My Alpha King father, though, still had no idea. He honestly believed I'd end up choosing one of the three. That's why, at the Pack gathering, he announced in front of everyone: "Aurora, whoever you want to bond with—your father will make it happen." Every pair of eyes turned to the three boys who'd once loved and protected me—Kael Blackwood, Orion Whitethorn, and Zephyr Stormrider. We were perfectly matched in status, had grown up together, shared years of deep affection. But when my father threw out that hint, the three of them acted like they hadn't heard a thing. Kael was draping his coat over Lilith's shoulders. Orion was massaging her feet. Zephyr was busy fighting through the crowd to snatch a gift for her. The silence was suffocating. My father's face went rigid with humiliation. I quickly spoke up: "Father, my future mate hasn't made it back yet. Once he returns, I'll bring him straight to you." The three of them scoffed at that, smirking like they'd just heard the best joke of the night. They thought I was lying. Everyone there assumed I'd have to pick one of the three. But the one I'd already chosen had nothing to do with any of them.

My foster sister, Sylvia Blackwood, was so terrified of being bonded to the cold, merciless Alpha King that she rigged the lot the moment it was my turn to draw. I pulled out the Alpha King. The whole hall erupted. I looked toward my fated mate, Raymond Hale—but he wasn't looking at me. His eyes were locked on Sylvia, and only her. My brother, Carl Blackwood, didn't call out the switch either. He just let them whisper and laugh. I stood there frozen, eyes burning red. Everyone treated it like a joke. They never thought I'd actually go through with bonding with a wolf that dangerous. But staring at the same faces who once swore they'd love me forever—I finally knew. I was done. I was leaving.

Three months into our marriage, I was cooking dinner when I noticed that every plate, bowl, and cup in the house was smaller than standard dinnerware. That slight difference mattered. Every time I lifted a bowl or wrapped my hand around a cup, I had to adjust my grip to the tighter curve. I held up two bowls of different sizes and asked Damian Moretti why. He said they had simply been custom-made for the Family. That night, a torrential downpour left me stranded at the station after I finished handling Family business. Across the street, inside a restaurant, Damian held a bite of steak to the lips of the young woman opposite him, then gently wiped the sauce from the corner of her mouth. The young woman was the Family's new secretary. One look at the custom dinnerware in front of her, and I understood everything. So that smaller size had been designed for her. I checked my phone. "It's pouring. My old wrist injury is acting up, and I can't hold an umbrella. Can you come get me?" I had sent that message three hours ago. Nothing had come back. He never let me ride in his private armored car or appear at his side at society dinners. In public, he always kept his distance. "As Don, I have to keep my public and private lives separate. The Donna can't draw too much attention, or my men will talk." He held to those boundaries of his so faithfully. It turned out the boundaries only applied to some people. Through the rain, I saw a small plaque on the front passenger seat: CECE ONLY. And suddenly, I no longer wanted to stay in this marriage.

My parents are music professors, and their university is always hosting these music salons and exchange events. But they never took me. After I graduated from college, I was desperate to see what it was like, so I begged my mother for a visitor's pass. She was busy helping my sister Ella fill out an application for one of those concerts, and she cut me off cold: "Everyone attending is a top-tier musician. You can't even read sheet music—walking in there, you'd just stick out like a sore thumb." A few days later, I stood in the freezing wind, listening to the applause rolling out from the auditorium. My sister stood at center stage, performing alongside a bunch of renowned musicians. That night, my mom posted a proud photo of Ella's performance on social media. Graceful. Composed. Radiant. The comments were all flattery—until one relative asked: [Why didn't you bring your Seraphina along to soak up some of the spotlight?] My mom replied: [She has zero musical talent. Too much of a philistine. Not her scene.] I stared at my phone, glancing at the six-figure offer from Wall Street, and let out a helpless laugh. My mom always favored the kid she thought was brilliant—never had a clue that I was shining somewhere else entirely. Three days left until I move out of Ohio for good. I'm taking everything she called "philistine" about me and walking out of her precious little music kingdom forever.

It took Matteo De Luca ten years to rise from soldier to Don. I fought through all ten beside him. The year we hit rock bottom, I cast aside every shred of pride and knelt before my father, the man who had betrayed my family, just to borrow twenty rounds. Matteo looked at me, his eyes full of pain. I asked only one thing. "The day you become Don, will you let me stand beside you?" He promised me he would. After he finally took his place as Don, I reminded him of that promise. He kept cleaning his gun without looking up. "Things are tense right now. We'll talk about it later." So I never asked again. Then I stumbled across a video on a dark-web forum: Matteo being crowned Don at Manhattan's Round Table Hall. He'd said he was going to Chicago to handle trouble. Instead, he was standing under the lights with my half sister, Isabella Volkov, at his side. Isabella slid the Don's ring, the symbol of his power, onto his finger. Matteo pulled her into an ecstatic embrace. "Thank you for being here at the start of my reign. I'm so happy." Isabella rose on her toes and kissed the side of his neck. "So am I." I shut off the video, wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes, and returned to cleaning my guns as if it were any other night. When I finished, I texted Matteo, "I want twenty rounds." He did not ask why. He had a whole case delivered. I counted out twenty and texted back two words, "Too many." I had those twenty rounds returned to my father, settling a ten-year-old debt. Ten years ago, I traded my pride and dignity for twenty rounds. Ten years later, Matteo used twenty rounds to break his promise to me. There was no place for me at his coronation banquet. And he had no place left in my Brooklyn underworld.

I've always been terrible with directions. No matter where I go, I end up lost. Seraphina didn't buy the whole "born this way" excuse. So she roped in my foster brother Gabriel and my childhood friend Lucas, and they decided to put me through "training." For the border patrol exercise, they drove off with the tactical SUV ahead of time, took my phone, and left me stranded alone at the subway entrance—right in the middle of gang territory. They said it was to sharpen my sense of direction. I opened my bag and found a note from Seraphina: "We've walked this escape route with you twice. I know Carone's blood will find its way to the safe house, Leah!" "We'll be waiting at the mansion." I stared at those words, and suddenly this whole childish "training" felt hollow. Truth is, not memorizing the tunnels wasn't even a big deal. What hurt was being left behind—over and over again. So I went home and applied for Zurich. Ten days later, I was gone. And only when I was already across the ocean did they realize what they'd lost.