Plot Twists Short Stories & Male POV Family Emotions Novels

Less than three months after my wife passed away, my sister-in-law started pressuring me to clear out my room. "Look, I'm not trying to kick you out, Graham. Donovan wants to renovate your bedroom. The sooner you pack up, the sooner we can start the work. Besides, you married into the family. Now that Arya is gone, it doesn't make sense for you to keep living with us." My mother-in-law paused mid-bite, pretending not to hear. Donovan Marlowe kept his head down, eating in silence. Seeing I did not respond, she continued, "Don't get me wrong. I'm just worried people will gossip about you." Only then did I look up at her, my tone calm. "Thanks for the concern, Sloane. But I'm not afraid of gossip." After all, the house was registered in my name.

I took my in-laws to our place for Christmas without telling my wife. It was supposed to be a surprise, but the moment George, my father-in-law, stepped into the house, my wife's assistant shoved him. He crashed into the shoe cabinet and threw out his back. "Ms. Sampson's villa doesn't let homeless people in. I can't believe you're her father-in-law. Look at you. Even a homeless guy wears better than you." I told the maid to hold George, but the male assistant stopped me again. He even shoved my mother-in-law, Diane. "You think you own this place? That's Ms. Sampson's maid. It's enough she has to serve a leech like you. You don't get to make her serve your parents." The fury consumed Diane whole, and she had a heart attack. I called my wife and asked her to come to the hospital. Wendy Sampson, however, shrugged it off. Scoffing, she said, "Zack told me everything. I can't believe you brought your parents to my house! And you want me to see your mother? She's faking her heart attack! I know she is! I want them out of my house! So what if they die? Best Christmas gift I could ever hope for."

On the very first day my biological parents brought me home, the fake heir framed me for stealing and even got my fiancée to break off our engagement in front of everyone. Then my entire family told me to get out and go back to the countryside. Completely devastated, I wandered to the swimming pool, ready to end my life. That was when the Ragdoll cat at my feet, the fake heir’s beloved pet, suddenly spoke. 【For fuck’s sake! Don’t jump, you idiot!】 【In our last life, that two-faced bastard drove you to your death, stole the multi-billion-dollar inheritance your grandmother left you, and then tortured me to death too!】 I froze, one foot already hovering over the water. The cat smacked a paw against the ground impatiently, hatred blazing in its bright blue eyes. 【And that bastard’s biological parents are serial killers! The evidence is hidden inside the teddy bear in his room!】 【So quit trying to kill yourself, go find the evidence, and let’s take him down together!】 I stared at the cat, completely dumbfounded. But after a moment, I changed my mind. If my family wanted to throw away their real son so badly, then I’d make sure they lived to regret it. I turned around, marched into the kitchen, grabbed the biggest meat cleaver I could find, and kicked open the fake heir’s bedroom door.

All I did is ask my dad why not send the fake heir, Ryland Jones, back to his actual home. In return, Dad forcibly sends me to an institution, where I go through the AI Obedience Conditioning program. Since then, I become the most obedient son Dad ever has. I will carry out all orders that he gives me. One day, I secretly stalk Dad and Ryland to a banquet. That's where I hear Dad chatting with his friends. "I was left without a choice. The moment Callum got home, he began targeting Ryland simply because Ryland isn't related to us by blood. "That's why I can only send him to the program and condition him into an obedient son. I'm doing this for his own good." At that moment, Dad's controller begins vibrating. It signifies that I'm not home right now. His expression changes drastically. Then, he punches in the order with his fingers. "Go home right now and get down on your knees!" I lose total control of my body and begin bolting for the streets. On the way home, I get hit by a speeding car, but I still scramble up to my feet and continue running. At the same time, I keep muttering, "I'm sorry, Dad. I'm going home right now to carry out my punishment." By the time Dad reaches home, he sees me kneeling in a corner with my head bowed. His lips curl into a satisfied smirk. What he doesn't know is that my heart has already stopped beating. Even my body is ice-cold to the touch.

On my eighteenth birthday, I was arrested for assault. Nothing I said or did could prove my innocence, because the witness who testified against me in court was my own sister, Alina Beasley. "Zeke, you have a serious sleepwalking disorder. You just never knew about it! But you hurt Brett this time. I can't cover for you anymore!" Just like that, I was sent to prison and sentenced to five years. A week before my release, the inmate who ran our cell block pinned me to the floor and beat me again. My nose suddenly started bleeding, and I lost consciousness. I was rushed to the hospital. Through the haze, I heard the correctional officers talking outside. "Damn. Ms. Beasley really is ruthless. She framed her own brother and sent him to prison just so she could groom her adopted brother." "Keep your voice down! Take it to the grave and pretend you never heard anything." I opened my eyes and stared at the report in my hand. Acute leukemia. Suddenly, I laughed. I laughed until tears streamed down my face. 'Sis, you got what you wanted. Maybe I really should just die.'

I was the most famous lawyer in the city, with a constant stream of clients. However, my career took a hit after I adopted my daughter — all because of her toxic, rebellious nature. When I took a child abuse case, she told the victim’s family, “My father loves taking cases with little girls, because he loves little girls.” When I hosted a seminar online, she barged into the camera and said, “Don’t believe my father! He uses his work to harass victims.” Today, I joined a speech competition on behalf of my law firm. The audience was filled with VIPs. I told her again and again not to act up. She promised, then turned to wail at the national panel of judges. “My father said he’ll send me back to the orphanage because I won’t let him molest me. Are you sure you want him to represent you?” I looked up at her triumphant, vicious gaze and stayed silent. This time, however, she would soon regret it.

Drenched in mud, I've just climbed down the scaffolding and started munching on a cold piece of stale bread when a luxury car speeds past me, effectively drenching me in muddy water. The car window on the driver's side is quickly lowered. A sleazy guy hurls a pack of cigarettes in my face the next moment. "Hey, peasant! This is a reward for you! I got really lucky today, after all!" While I pick up the cigarette pack silently, the man happens to be boasting loudly to the woman sitting in the front passenger seat. "My brother-in-law really is an idiot! He seriously thinks that my sister has a terminal disease! He went to the black market last night night just to sell his blood in exchange for 200 thousand dollars' worth of surgical fees! I end up winning double in the casino with that money of his! "My sister told me that once that idiot gets his hands on the work injury compensation, she'll divorce him right away and buy me a new home!" I grip the bread so hard that it crumples in my hand. After all, my wife, Estella Wilson, was just diagnosed with "late-stage stomach cancer" yesterday. Suddenly, I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket. It's a voice message from Estella. "Hubby, it hurts so much going through the chemotherapy! The doctor told me that I'd be eligible for better medication if we could cough up another 200 thousand dollars. Can you please plead to the foreman and borrow some money from him?"

After returning to my in-laws' home for Christmas Eve dinner with my wife, Winona Zachary, only my mother-in-law, Jenny Stroll, was busy while the others were all on their phones. I had just sat down when Jenny started cursing, "They just sit there and wait to eat. They didn't even offer to help. Are they trying to exhaust me?" She would even slam the pots and pans from time to time. "How heartless for young people to let an elderly person like me serve them!" I felt a bit restless and nudged Winona. "Maybe you should go help her?" Jenny's insults escalated after hearing that. Remembering it was my first time spending Christmas at my in-laws' house and not wanting things to get too ugly, I got up to help. However, Jenny dumped everything on me as soon as I entered the kitchen. Suppressing my anger, I finished cooking dinner, served it, and got ready to eat. Jenny suddenly spoke up. "Wait, we need to settle some accounts before we eat."

I was the heir to a wealthy family, yet my biological parents were drowning in debt and living on the streets. Out of pity for them, I decided to give up my status as a young heir and care for my family. To help them live better lives, I worked three jobs, working myself to the bone. But one day, I discovered the truth. Their so-called "bankruptcy" was a lie. They had been living a life of luxury all along. To make matters worse, my fiancée had already gotten involved with my younger brother. I was heartbroken and devastated. I decided to return to my foster father and seek his help. To get revenge for me, he ruined my biological parents' business, bringing them down for good.

After I was taken into the mountains, I became the whole town's slave. If one field remained unharvested or one family's firewood went uncut, they beat my face bloody. They avoided my arms and legs only because they expected twice as much work from me the next day. On New Year's Eve, I finally decided I couldn't survive another day and went to the river to end my life, only to hear two people whispering behind the trees. "Watch yourself. He is still the Hawthornes' biological son. They sent him to Red Willow Hollow to learn discipline, not for you to use however you want." "Biological son? His parents haven't asked about him in years. They already have another boy, the polished young heir who visited last time. The difference between them is night and day. "If anything happens, we'll blame him. Mrs. Hawthorne said that a boy without manners doesn't deserve to be her son. He may as well die out here." I stood frozen above the river, forgetting even why I had come. My mother always boasted that her family came from old money. She said a gentleman's most important quality was proper conduct. So why, after seeing my body, did she abandon every rule of dignity she had ever demanded from me?

After I developed transient amnesia, fragments of my memories would come back to me every day. But after a month, I would lose part of my memory again. The doctor said my condition would shorten my life and that there was no cure. Devastated, I went to my parents, ready to tell them I was giving up on treatment. Instead, I overheard my family talking inside the room. "His memories are returning! We have to increase the dosage before he remembers everything!" My older sister, Lena Jackson, hesitated. "This has already happened 99 times. If we do it again, we might really ruin him." "What if he gets his memory back and wants to return to the other world? Won't Zach die because of him?" "Don't forget! The more he suffers here, the better Zach's life will be over there!"

My sister, Ruby O'Brien—the family's formidable CEO—had just landed herself a top-tier celebrity boyfriend. Now the two of them were filming a reality show right in her house. All I wanted was to go home and collapse on the couch. Instead, I wound up as his living control group. While he worked out, I lay there. While he read books, I lay there. While he cooked gourmet meals, I still lay there. The internet wanted my head on a platter. [Poor Josh, stuck with a useless future brother-in-law!] [Someone drag that lazy bum off the screen. We just want to watch Josh and his girl fall in love!] [I heard he didn't even sit for the SATs. Total dropout, rotting away at home.] [That's our Josh, though—a certified genius who just got accepted into Layne University's graduate program!] I rolled over lazily, completely baffled. Getting into Layne's graduate program was supposed to be impressive? And I was the lazy dropout? Were they talking about the guy who'd just won an international physics prize?

On the day we decided to get a divorce, I saw Miranda’s account book while I was packing up my stuff. Aside from our daily expenses, Miranda had also set up a scoring sheet for me. Miranda had taken notes of all the things I had done ever since we started dating. Some of them were such miniscule things that even I had forgotten. She took note of them all with a red pen, and she scored them by either awarding me points or deducting them. However, the further down the sheet, the more points were deducted. In the end, I saw Miranda add one line in black ink. [He’s no longer the Henry Jones who used to love me: -100]

My sense of direction has always been terrible since young. Getting lost is a norm for me. When I was eight years old, I had to face the worst consequences of getting lost. That time, I almost got kidnapped by human traffickers. So, my older sister, Aubrey Cochran, gifts me a GPS watch and repeatedly teaches me how to use it. "As long as you follow the GPS, you can find your way home. Have you remembered it yet?" I nod heavily. Since then, the watch stays strapped onto my wrist. But later on, my adoptive mom has found her actual son. That's when the entire family's attitude toward me begins shifting. They no longer panic even when I don't return for the day. This year's Thanksgiving holidays are coming soon. Aubrey decides to take me on a trip out of the blue. Our trip lasts for more than a dozen days. Our last stop is a remote village. There, Aubrey takes my watch from me and fiddles with it for a long time. At the start of the next day, I can't get in touch with her no matter how hard I try. As I stare at the unfamiliar GPS coordinates on my watch, I feel realization dawning on me immediately. When I'm about to leave, a villager looks at me in confusion. "You're leaving too, eh? Where are you headed to?" I smile at her. "I'm going home." Since Aubrey doesn't want me anymore, I shall grant her wish.

On New Year's Day, my childhood friend asked me for the passcode to my new house. I thought she was planning to bring a housewarming gift, but when I opened the door, I froze in shock. There were more than a dozen people inside. She walked over with a smile before giving me a subtle look. "Ryan, what are you doing here? Come on in. You're just in time. You're lucky enough to catch our family gathering." I stood there in stunned silence. Before I could even ask what was going on, her boyfriend suddenly spoke in a mocking tone. "Is your childhood friend very persuasive? I'm curious how he sweet-talked you into giving him your house's passcode." Her expression instantly turned serious. "He didn't sweet-talk me. He got on his knees and begged. He said he had a fight with his family and got kicked out with nowhere to stay. You know how soft-hearted I am. I didn't think much of it and just gave it to him." Her boyfriend's eyes had a look of contempt. "No normal man would stoop that low. Who knows how many women he's begged behind the scenes just to get what he wants." She gave him a look of approval. "Babe, how are you so smart? There was a time he stripped naked and begged me just to buy a watch he liked. I've told you about it." Her boyfriend burst out laughing. "So that was him? He's honestly shameless." Seeing her spew lies so casually and irresponsibly, I couldn't contain my anger. I stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face. "Who the hell do you think you are? Taking over my house and slandering me? Get out."

I'm a capybara. Yet, after taking a single nap, I wake up as the scion of the Kensington family, Drake Kensington. When I crawl back to the sprawling 32,300-square-foot villa, my entire family's scared stiff. Matthew Kensington, the Kensingtons' adopted son, points at me and screams, "There's a ghost!" Without even looking up, I deadpan, "Oh, yeah, I'm whatever you say I am." He passes out on the spot. Drake's biological father, Garrett Kensington, slams his fist down on the table and snarls, "Look at you! Do you look anything like the heir to the wealthiest family? Have you seriously forgotten how to walk?" I give his question some serious thought. Crawling does take less effort than walking, and having a lower center of gravity does make me feel safer. Hence, I answer truthfully, "Yeah, I have. Can you teach me?" Drake's older sister, Sage Kensington, strides up to me. "Drake, did you get water in your brain? You've been screwing around for a year, and now you come crawling back and pull this stunt just to get attention?" Come to think of it, I really did gulp down a ton of seawater earlier. I can still hear it sloshing around in my ears. I nod at her vigorously. "Yeah. My brain's full of water. Lots of it. It hasn't even dried out yet. Do you want to hear it slosh?"

After hitting the five-million-dollar jackpot, I plan to leave every cent to my son, Caleb Dawson. But sitting inside the notary office, I suddenly hesitate. My wife, Zoey Watts, looks at me in utter confusion. "Caleb passed the test, so why are you hesitating?" A few days ago, I found a lottery ticket on the street that turned out to be worth five million dollars. Zoey was ecstatic. She immediately wanted to call our son and daughter, but I stopped her. "We can't just hand over five million dollars. Tell them I'm terminally ill. Whoever steps up to pay for my treatment gets the money." Our kids have always been good to us, so Zoey accused me of overthinking things. But our daughter, Jayda Dawson's, reaction completely blindsided us. She lives in a mansion and drives a luxury car. Yet, she only handed me 200 bucks, told me not to bother her, and ordered me to get out. Meanwhile, Caleb has just graduated and doesn't even have a job yet. Still, he gave me all 3,000 dollars he saved up over the years. Without any hesitation, Zoey and I decide to leave the entire five million dollars to Caleb. But now, I have changed my mind. "Sir, I want to leave everything to my daughter!" Zoey snaps. "Henry Dawson! Have you lost your mind?" I shake my head. "My mind is perfectly clear. Mom came to me in a dream last night."

I am not my parents' biological son. When they find their son and bring him back, he looks skinny and malnourished. My parents feel sorry for him, so they offer him compensation. But Kenneth Lawson says, "I am your son. If you are going to compensate me, then give me the company." My family persuades me by saying, "You are not related by blood after all. You should return the position to him." With a smile, I hand everything over to him. The next day, the company's biggest client, core technical team, and all distributors announce that they will only work with me. My parents panic and rush to beg me. I fold my arms and say, "Tell your biological son to come and beg me—the employee—to go back."

I have always known since I was young that I am not the Luther family's biological son. I accidentally break my younger brother Henry Luther's limited-edition figure while cleaning the room, and Dad punishes me by making me kneel in the rain all night. Dad actually defends Henry when he accidentally blinds me in one eye with a high-powered laser pointer, saying, "Henry didn't do it on purpose. He just got rowdy while playing around, Julian." Henry flashes me a triumphant smile once I go permanently blind in my right eye. "That's what you get for living in our house when you're nothing but an outsider!" I am nothing but an outsider to them. I have done everything I can to please them for the past 18 years, but I have never managed to become part of their family. I accidentally discover a shocking truth one day—the paternity test clearly proves that I am Dad's biological son, whereas Henry is the adopted one. In that instant, my breath catches in my throat.

Over the holiday weekend, I brought in a specialist surgeon from out of town to operate on my grandson, Ben Xander. I personally paid the $20,000 surgical fee. But that night, my son Ryan called me in a panic. “Dad! Ben’s surgery is tomorrow! Why haven’t you paid the hospital yet?!” I didn’t have time to figure out what had gone wrong. I’d checked everything myself. I immediately transferred the money to the hospital again. But the next day, the hospital still claimed they hadn’t received the payment and said they were going to cancel Ben’s surgery. Panicking, I rushed to the hospital cashier. But after checking the system, the billing clerk on duty told me there was no record of any payment on Ben’s account. The surgeon I’d brought in immediately went cold. “If you don’t want the surgery, then cancel it now. Don’t waste my time.” Terrified that any further delay would put Ben in danger, I withdrew $20,000 in cash that very night and personally took it to the hospital cashier. But the next day, Ben still died without ever getting the surgery. Ryan held Ben’s body in his arms and sobbed. “Dad, did you really hate him that much?” That night, Ryan set the house on fire and burned us both alive. Even as I died, I couldn’t understand why the hospital had never received a single payment I’d made. My daughter-in-law, Lina York, died in the line of duty when Ben was one. After that, I helped Ryan raise him. They were both my whole world. How could I possibly have hated Ben? When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Ben was admitted to the hospital.