Cerita Pendek Plot Twists & Novel Independence Revenge

I'm infamous for being the stupidest student in the entire school. Even though I've been doing additional revisions till late night every day, I keep getting the lowest rank consistently in exams. On the other hand, my younger sister, Mia Lawson, doesn't study at all. Yet, she always comes up as the top of her grade every time. Our parents soon call her as the Math Prodigy. Because of that, I'm forced to live in the attic, which leaks all the time during rainy days. My table lamp gets smashed into pieces as well since I shouldn't be wasting power if I can't cram any knowledge into my brain. My parents also force me to drop out of school and start working at a young age. They claim that losers should stick to their paths and do what they do best. But at the same time, they don't hesitate to drop a grand sum of money just to enroll Mia into a class based on the Arithmetiad. There's a time when I contract a high fever that makes me all woozy and my consciousness all blurry. Because of my illness, I randomly draw an incorrect construction line on a draft paper. The next day, the line actually appears on Mia's exam paper, pixel by pixel. That's when realization dawns on me immediately. Before the day the National Arithmetiad is set to be streamed live in front of the entire nation, I opt to not solve any difficult questions. Instead, I lock my room door and keep telling myself in front of the mirror that the greatest mathematical equation in this world is 1+1=3.

I came across a cage-fight livestream on the dark web. A girl was being forced to fight a vicious dog. Her clothes were torn, and her arms and legs were covered in blood. I couldn't bear to watch. I ordered the stream shut down. She looked about my daughter's age. Ten years earlier, when my daughter was born, I'd stepped back from everything to raise her. I handed the Lorenzi family's four most important operations to my four adopted sons. I'd raised every one of them myself. They were ruthless, capable, and each could hold his own. But with my daughter, all that toughness disappeared. If she so much as frowned, they'd spend ages coaxing a smile out of her. A second before the stream cut out, the girl suddenly looked up. The moment I saw her face, rage flooded through me. That blood-smeared face belonged to my daughter! Marco DeLuca, my second-in-command, came in with a report, his head bowed. "Boss, we traced the source of the stream. Your daughter clashed with a girl your adopted sons brought around. They said they'll let her out when she admits she was wrong." That dog cage was what we used to punish traitors. And my adopted sons had locked my own daughter inside it. They'd forgotten the promises they made back then and what it was like to fight beggars for scraps. I would make them remember.

Grandpa died, and we immediately went for each other's throats over the inheritance. Then a blizzard hit, trapping us all in the family estate. An app appeared on our phones: [THE LAST ZOMBIE: FINAL RECKONING]. We had to pick a hiding spot. The last one standing—the last human standing—would inherit everything. I chose the dark, silent recording studio in the basement. Away from them all. When it was time to pick special powers, my family chose powerful weapons or pocket dimensions full of supplies. I chose Bio-Stasis. It slowed my cells to a crawl, and my body along with them. My stepbrother's fiancée, Chloe, called me an idiot. "Hiding from your family and picking a useless power? You're on a suicide mission." They threw a zombie-slaying party upstairs, already celebrating an inheritance they hadn't even won. Until, one by one, they turned. And started tearing each other apart. What they didn't know... was that I'd rigged the game from the start. The only way to win was to stay completely silent.

Three months after the mysterious disappearance of my Alpha mate during his patrol, I found him in a bar near the border. He was cuddling his childhood friend, a she-wolf, laughing smugly. "I wanted to get rid of Bethany for ages! Thanks for giving me the idea to enjoy the freedom I've been looking forward to for a long time." The she-wolf nestled delicately against his chest, feeding him wine with her mouth. She asked him when he was planning to return—his answer was nonchalant. "I'll enjoy myself for another week and go back once Bethany's gone mad. That'll teach her not to be such a micromanager!" His close friends all praised them. "Great move! After this, the Luna will obey your every word." "The witch's disguise potion is so useful. No one recognized you all this time!" No one noticed me hiding in the shadows, watching how carefree he was. I called the pack's elder; using my position as the Luna, I announced that the Alpha was dead and that it was time to prepare for the election of the next Alpha.

After my 99th confession, my childhood best friend, Michael Leight, finally says yes. I am overjoyed, believing that my years of unrequited love have finally paid off. But when I walk past the pantry, I overhear him speaking tenderly to our family chef, Tahlia Duvey. "Once I take everything from the Kingstons, I'll kick that idiot Ariel to the curb and throw us a grand wedding. Everything here will be yours." My heart feels like a sword has been plunged into it. That night, I storm into Grandpa's study and point at a photo of the Gordon family's heir—Charles, known for always keeping his distance from women. "Grandpa! I want to marry him!" I announce.

I was willing to ruin my own name if it meant never meeting Julian Reed. In my previous life, at the Queen Mother's flower banquet, I took one look at him, newly crowned first among the realm's scholars, and wanted him. Then I learned he was already betrothed, and I had no choice but to let it go. Three months later, the woman he was to marry, Celeste Hale, died suddenly of an illness. After a decree from the throne granted us in marriage, Julian used my family's power to rise swiftly through the court. For three years we were happy together. Then, on the day I gave birth, he killed our newborn child. Still bleeding from the birth, I was forced down in front of Celeste's grave. "You owe Celeste a debt." "What do you have to pay it with?" Only then did I learn that Celeste's death had never been an accident. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the day of the flower banquet.

After my driver's girlfriend refused to let me in the car, she went out of her mind with regret. I am the principessa of the Stascia family. To investigate the truth behind my father's death, I disguised myself as a big-spending international student, chauffeured to and from school in a luxury car every day. Ever since Damian became my private driver, he'd been taking liberties with my car without permission. I turned a blind eye. Until one rainy night when I was being hunted. I called him to pick me up, but his girlfriend threw me out of the car. "This is my boyfriend's car. Who do you think you are? Get out!" Covered in blood and slumped on the side of the road, I smiled as I dialed a number. "Tell the Family. I know the truth." Later, Damian and his little girlfriend knelt before me, begging for mercy. "If you hadn't kicked me out of the car that night, you wouldn't have exposed yourself this quickly. Any regrets?"

Eight years into the Cappello family, and only today did I discover there's a meeting room beneath the estate. Half an hour ago, my husband Julian put on his coat and said he was heading to the New Jersey docks to handle a smuggling shipment. Five minutes after he left, the estate's internal line rang. It was Julian's driver, asking if he should have the car washed. It had gotten dirty from yesterday's rain. Julian never rides in anyone else's car for long trips. If he'd gone to New Jersey, his driver should be behind the wheel right now. I went down to the second-level basement garage. His car was still there. The emergency stairwell beside it was inexplicably open. I followed it down and found a meeting room. Through the half-open door, I saw my mother-in-law Elena pouring whiskey for Mia, the girl I'd taken in from the slums out of pity the year I married into the Cappello family. "Mia, you're taking over the Brooklyn docks starting next week." "Julian will help you clean up all the dirty accounts." The Brooklyn docks. I'd taken two bullets for this family to secure that territory. And now my mother-in-law was handing it to Mia like it was nothing. And Julian, the Cappello heir, my husband, was standing right behind Mia, both hands resting on her bare shoulders. Around the long table sat my father-in-law Victor, Elena, Mia, the family's legal director, and two heads of the operations team. With Julian, that made seven. Every core member of the Cappello family was in that room. Everyone except me.

That year, during the Sicilian arms trafficking conflict, my lover of three years, Silvio, deliberately betrayed my transport routes at a critical moment in a deal with the rival "DiMarco" family, causing me to lose all my territory. He immediately defected to the DiMarco family's leader Marina, becoming her lover. As he left, he didn't even bother to disguise his betrayal, coldly tossing out, "What we had was just business, nothing personal." While I was burdened with my family's blood debts and pushed to the edge of a cliff, Lorenzo, who had secretly harbored feelings for me since childhood, found me and offered his family's entire fortune. "Isabella, don't be afraid. In my eyes, you'll always be Sicily's most formidable Queen of the Arms Trade," he said. He took the Colt pistol from my hand, and his voice was gentle yet resolute. Five years later, my power resurged. I was about to completely crush Marina's smuggling network and reclaim everything I had lost. My caporegimes, the captains of my organization, were ready and waiting for my command. But on the night before the operation, my weapons warehouse suddenly exploded, turning priceless arms into worthless scrap metal. I barely escaped through the thick smoke, my body covered in burns. In a secluded monastery, I overheard Lorenzo and Silvio whispering outside my door. "You really had the guts to blow up the arsenal. Weren't you afraid of blasting her to pieces too?" Silvio's voice carried a mocking tone. "If she died, just died. I've always loved Marina. If it weren't for that unlucky family marriage lottery five years ago, I wouldn't have had to endure this ugly bitch for all this time." Lorenzo's voice was ice-cold and unfamiliar. I closed my eyes, feeling like a dagger had pierced my chest. Explosion. Arranged marriage. Ugly bitch. So those five years of shared hardship were just his unwilling choice after losing a high-stakes gamble. "I married her to keep watch. If it weren't for me paving

We can't settle on our holiday plans, so my girlfriend, Janine Simpson, starts a group chat with the three of us. "Let's roll the dice. Whoever gets the highest number decides. That's the fairest way." My friend, Mitchell Stone, rolls a six and wants to go to Marisport. I roll a one. I wanted to go to Rosemont. Rosemont isn't a random pick. It's the place my late mother had always wanted to visit but never got the chance to. This year marks five years since she passed away, and I've promised her I would see Lake Azure for her. Janine knew that, too. Three months ago, she held my hand and promised she would go with me this year. "Fair's fair. You lost the bet." She sends a little pat-on-the-head sticker in the group chat. This is the 27th time this year that I've rolled a one. The week before, I'd lost when we were choosing a restaurant for our team dinner. The week before that, it was a movie. Then yesterday, I used Janine's tablet to look up travel guides and accidentally came across her synced text messages. Her chat with a friend sat right at the top. "I sent you the dice plugin. It can roll whatever number you want." "Thanks. Cameron can get quite stubborn. This is the only way to get him to agree to things." I stared at those messages for a long time and placed the tablet back where I found it. She has known all along what Rosemont meant to me, and it turns out I haven't been losing because of sheer bad luck. I've been losing because she has already taken someone else's side. I leave the group chat and book a direct flight to Rosemont. On the first day of the holiday at 7:00 am, I will board the plane alone.

I stood by Leo through three hard years. At last, his company launched. But at the celebration dinner, he didn't propose. He handed me a check for $30,000 instead. "Elena, take this money and go back to your little town. Stop clinging to me." Leo looked down at me with the smug pity of a man who thought he'd made it. "I'm going to marry Chloe, the governor's daughter. It's my ticket to Rockwell Ranch." He pinched my chin and said cruelly, "You're a penniless orphan. You didn't think sleeping with me for three years would buy you a place at the top, did you?" I looked at him and suddenly felt like laughing. I'd helped Leo build his studio from nothing. We couldn't afford staff, so I did everything and worked late every night. Once, my blood sugar dropped so low that I fainted and ended up in the hospital. Three years of love. Three years of giving him everything I had. And in Leo's eyes, a mere $30,000 was enough to settle it all. I studied him for a few seconds, then took the check. "Fine. Since Mr. Green is so generous, let me be the first to congratulate you on your marriage." He thought I was forcing a smile and strutted off to mingle with the important guests. Outside the banquet hall, I climbed into the black bulletproof sedan waiting for me. In the back seat, my father, the governor, was leafing through Leo's bid proposal. "Elena, you ran away from home and hid who you were for three years, all to test this man? "If you're done playing, come home. The papers transferring Rockwell Ranch to you are waiting for your signature."

I get home from a business trip over Thanksgiving and find out Mom came all the way from Larkwyn to visit me. She was made to sleep in the storage room. I'm just about to lose my temper when my mother-in-law, Deborah Garner, rolls her eyes. "Next time your mom comes, give us a heads-up. What will the neighbors think if they find out we have relatives from the sticks?" Mom looks down, so humiliated she doesn't know what to do with her hands. My wife, Ella Shaw, finally looks up from her phone when she sees the look on my face. "Come on. Mom's just looking out for us. Everyone in this building is either rich or well-connected. Next time your mom visits, she should stay at a hotel. It's such a hassle having to get the place professionally cleaned every time she leaves." She grabs the pecan pies Mom brought and throws them straight into the trash. "And don't bring stuff like this from the sticks into our home. It's full of germs." Mom apologizes over and over, clutching the few things she brought to her chest. Then she lowers her head and walks out the door. I don't argue or make a scene. I grab the deed, call a real estate agent, and put the condo on the market. Mom paid for the place in full when I got married. If they're so embarrassed to have relatives from the sticks, they can stop living in the condo Mom paid for. After all, I wouldn't want to embarrass them.

Someone @'d me on Nextdoor. "Hey, penthouse girl. You're single. What do you need a whole rooftop garden for? My husband's throwing a party. We'll be needing it starting tomorrow." "Don't worry, we'll give you two hundred bucks a month for upkeep. You'll make a couple hundred for doing jack shit. You should be thrilled." I stared at the screen. It was a joke. I was Don Ricci's heir, groomed to run the South Side. But I traded that life for a paintbrush. This apartment was my sanctuary, my quiet place. That rooftop garden wasn't some building perk. It was mine. I'd paid half a million cash for the deed when I bought the place. I turned it into my sunroom studio. And now someone thinks they can have it for two hundred bucks a month? I replied with two words: "Dream on." I didn't expect the building manager and two security guards at my door the next day. Someone had filed a complaint about me "misusing community resources." And now, for the sake of "neighborly harmony," they were demanding my keys. Fine. They wanted to throw civility out the window? They were about to learn what real power felt like.

To get rid of our pup and date with his assistant on Valentine's Day, my mate Marcus forced our injured pup to go rock climbing and poisoned him. When I rushed my dying pup to the hospital, I unexpectedly saw my mate accompanying his assistant for a prenatal checkup. Our terrified pup lay convulsing from the poison, but Marcus didn’t even care about him. "He's just an Omega. If he was a proper wolf, he'd heal instantly!" I clutched the $100 million Moonlight Blessing herb in my pocket. I accidentally found it in the forest this morning. I was planning to tell him the good news today. But now? It was time to break this five-year mate bond.

In my last life, my boyfriend’s adoptive sister, Lexi, asked to borrow my jacket at a class party. I lent it to her. The next day, she bullied another girl and pushed her off a rooftop to her death. The security cameras didn't catch her face, but the limited-edition custom jacket she was wearing—my jacket—made me the prime suspect. I tried to explain, but Lexi just threw herself into my boyfriend Preston’s arms, looking utterly wronged. "Vanessa, I know you're upset that Preston pays more attention to me, but you can't just frame me like this." Then Preston pulled out a video. The person pushing the girl off the roof and running away in a panic… it was my face, clear as day. "Vanessa," he said, his voice laced with disgust. "You're a monster." Consumed by grief, the victim's family pushed me out of a window to my death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Lexi asked to borrow my jacket. This time, I wasn't just going to say no. I was going to send Preston and Lexi straight to hell. What they didn't know was that I am the only daughter of the Falcone family, the most powerful mafia in New York.

My fiancé’s pampered niece, Jenna Quinn, had just returned from abroad. The moment she got back, she caused a scene at our engagement party, throwing out so-called “evidence” of my alleged affair in front of the media. Zac Quinn had no choice but to leave me with the mess, clutching his hysterical niece as they left. His parting words? “This is just an engagement party. Jenna’s well-being is far more important.” After I painstakingly managed to control the public narrative and was waiting for Jenna to make a public clarification to settle the matter, she instead curled up in Zac’s arms, crying softly. Zac’s expression turned cold. “Jenna only has me, while you have so many people who love you. Why must you target her?” At first, I thought Zac was just being overly protective of his niece, who had lost her parents at a young age—until I saw the two of them kissing. “You’re the precious girl I’ve raised with my own hands. From now on, Nina will be your aunt, and she’ll shower you with love, too,” he said. I clenched the ultrasound report in my hand and, without hesitation, tossed it into the trash. Love that can’t be held onto isn’t worth keeping. I decided to return home, accept my family’s marriage alliance, and fully embrace my role as the heiress of the Walker Corporation.

My wife was in a car accident and barely clinging to life, but I calmly stood outside the operating room listening to a sales agent introduce a new apartment to me. The doctor, covered in blood, came up to me. "The patient was impaled by a hard object in her lower body. There are two options. We can remove her uterus immediately, or we can try to preserve the organ, but that will require extremely precise equipment and the cost will be very high. "Please decide quickly. She doesn't have much time." I answered impatiently, "Then remove it. Don't waste the effort." When my mother-in-law heard that, she broke down in front of me, wailing. "Jason, I'm begging you. Use the money to save my daughter. If they remove it, how is she supposed to hold her head up for the rest of her life?" My father-in-law pleaded through tears too. "She's your wife. Can you really bear to watch her lose the chance to be a mother? Aren't you going to think about your own future?" I quickly stepped back and said, "If you want to save her, pay for it yourselves. I don't have any money." "Didn't we give all our money to you two? Take out the four hundred fifty thousand dollars you saved to buy a house and save her first!" My voice shot up instantly. "What? Spend four hundred fifty thousand dollars to save a piece of rotten meat? Are you kidding me?" As I spoke, I tossed my card to the sales agent and paid in full on the spot for the new apartment I had just chosen.

Just a few days before my wedding, I accidentally come across a post while scrolling online. The title reads, "To the guy getting married in this city, your fiancée's already cheated on you." Curious, I click in to see the gossip, only to realize I'm the one being talked about. A deep male voice plays in the video. "I heard you're getting married?" The woman in the frame, bare-backed and trembling, chokes back a sob. "After you left, I realized you're still the one I love most. I'm done with him. Take me away, please!" The moment I hear her voice, it feels like someone punches me straight in the chest. Then I notice something on her wrist—the luxury couple's bracelet I gave her just yesterday. And in that instant, I feel like the biggest joke of all. Turns out the fool was me.

After my mother died, my father, a Mafia Capo, turned our family home into my personal hell. So I put on my sexiest, deep-V red dress. I crashed the private casino of the Don of all Dons. I faked an assassination. That night, the Don’s enforcers painted the casino red. I was the “assassin” who started it all. And I walked away from the wreckage without a scratch. I left a black rose by my bastard father’s corpse. “Enjoy hell, Dad.” Later, I changed my name and started a new life. But my fiancé, a powerful politician, was screwing another woman on his yacht. He even tried to steal my inheritance. So I paid the cold Don another visit. This time, I made sure my ex-fiancé's money laundering network was nothing but ash by morning. And once again, I slipped away unharmed under the Don’s predatory gaze. Finally, I returned to the underground assassin organization that raised me. Only to be framed as a traitor by the top brass. I was strapping a dagger to my thigh. Ready to use the Don's power a third time. Before I could even step outside, the Don’s private army blew my organization’s base to kingdom come. That night, the powerful, dangerous man pinned me to a wall. His calloused fingers traced my lips. “Next time you want someone to disappear from New York,” he growled, “just say their name in my bed. Stop staging fake assassinations on me.”

I should have been the Northern Pack's future Female Alpha, but my mate Alpha King Aiden Blackwood asked me to give it all up. He insisted on keeping me glued to his side 24/7, claiming he'd die without his mate's touch. I loved him so deeply that I agreed. For seven years, I have been both his perfect Luna and his capable Beta, making his pack stronger day by day. I feel it's all worth it, everyone knows Aiden loves me desperately. Because I have trouble sleeping, he spent $10 Million to buy precious "moon tea" from a witch so I could rest well. But they don't know that every night when I fall asleep, Aiden brings Sarah—our kitchen omega—to our bed. The same wolf who called me "Little moon" would fuck her right beside my unconscious body. The day the doctor told me I was pregnant with twins, I discovered it all. I held back the burning in my heart and chest, and with a weary gaze, I spoke to the Goddess of the Moon: "Goddess, I wish to leave this world." "Would you be willing to give up all this, my child?" I gently rubbed my belly and nodded firmly. The goddess sighed and said: "In three days, I will take you away."