Familial Bond Revenge 단편 소설 & 소설

Three days after my mom died, the hospital called. "Mr. Carter, your mother has an outstanding balance of $1,873.60. Please come in and pay it as soon as possible." What? I stared at my mom's body. They had to have the wrong person. I'd paid every bill before she was discharged. She was supposed to be cremated and buried today. How could she still owe money? The person on the phone clicked their tongue. "Her family is responsible for the bill! She received treatment, so someone has to pay for it. It's $1,873.60." "Are you sure that's for Winona Carter?" "Yes. Come quickly."

To repay my parents for raising me for 20 years, I donate one of my kidneys to Samuel Caldwell, their biological son, curing him of his uremia. After Samuel recovers, he returns to the stage, dazzling audiences with his piano performances. Meanwhile, I survive on hormone treatments. My body is swollen beyond recognition, and I look utterly disgusting. I lock myself up in the house, staring blankly out the window day after day. Through it all, my fiancee, Shelby Holloway, never leaves my side. She comes up with new low-calorie meals every day and patiently helps me rebuild my strength. "Nick, make sure you get plenty of rest and don't overexert yourself, okay? I have a meeting to attend, so wait for me at home." Before she leaves, she gently straightens my collar. I truly believe life is slowly getting better. Then, in the backstage area of a theater, I catch Samuel holding Shelby tightly in his arms. "Shelby, Nick's in such poor health. I shouldn't be taking you away from him." Shelby buries herself against his chest, her voice full of pain. "What are you talking about? If it weren't for saving you, I never would have married that impostor. Every time I look at him, I feel sick. He looks like a pig! He'd have done everyone a great favor if he'd died on the operating table that day!" Shelby casts aside the bond we've shared since childhood and even wishes for my death, all for Samuel's sake. Just as well, I have no desire to continue living anymore either.

Every time my assistant booked a private room for me, he brought his girlfriend along. I let it slide. The room was on his way home anyway. Then today I pushed the door open and found a sticky note slapped on the head chair: "Freeloaders not allowed." I peeled it off and turned to him. "What's this about?" His girlfriend was already sitting in the head seat, glaring at me. "Can't you read?" she snapped. "Mooching off my boyfriend every damn day. Have you no shame?" "If you can't afford Michelin, don't show up. I can't stand cheap old hags like you. Honestly, if I lived your life, I'd kill myself." I just stared at her, baffled. Justin rushed over and lowered his voice. "Boss, I'm so sorry. She thinks I'm paying for this dinner." "She's a bit of a princess. Doesn't like sitting with people who can't keep up. Tell you what. Let us eat first, and you can order after we leave." Then he took my black card and handed it to the server. I stood there for a second. Then I picked up my phone and called the restaurant manager. "Send security to the private room. Someone stole my card. Call the police."

By the fifth year of my marriage to James Hill, he began pretending to be his late twin brother, the late Don of the family. With that, he took over all of a Don’s duties and the role of my sister-in-law, Hilary’s husband. Every time after he slept with her, he would cut his arm open, kneel before me, and beg for forgiveness. “Pia, you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. Once Hilary gives birth to the heir and secures her position, I’ll fake my death and come back for you.” He told me his twin brother had died saving him, so he had to fulfill his brother’s last wish. During the year he pretended to be his brother, James slept with Hilary ninety-nine times. After a full year, Hilary finally gave birth to the family’s heir. I truly believed James would fake his death as promised, then take our son and me away from this bloody life. However, I saw him with Hilary in his arms, teasing the tiny baby she carried. “Hilary, I’ll stay with you and our child until he’s ready to take over as the next Don.” Silently, I wiped my tears and went back to my room to pack my suitcase. My son saw me crying and ran into my arms, gently wiping away my tears with his little hands. “Ma, Aunt Hilary already had her baby. Why isn’t Papa coming home yet?” I placed my clothes into the suitcase as I told him softly, “Because he doesn’t want us anymore. But don’t be sad, sweetheart. I will build us a home.” If James wanted to raise an heir, then I would return to North Atlantis’s most powerful mafia family, take my rightful place as my father’s heir, and become the Godmother of the Mafia.

My wife made me get a vasectomy. Not once, but ninety-nine times. Right before the hundredth operation, the doctor looked at me with pity in his eyes as the anesthesia failed to fully kick in. "Ms. Gibson really knows how to destroy a man," he murmured. "She's put him through ninety-nine vasectomies, then had them reversed—again and again. However, his body's long since broken. There's no chance of children now." "It's probably for her ex. Word is, it's his own brother. The scandals in these wealthy families—unbelievable." Because of a hospital mix-up at birth, my and Jeff Cunningham's fates were exchanged. He grew up with the Cunningham family, while I lived a poor life. Years later, my parents found the truth, taking me in and sending Jeff away. To make things worse, I became Wynnie Gibson's new fiancé. I once asked her, barely able to speak through the pain, why she would marry someone she did not love. She looked at me calmly. "To get revenge," she said. "You came home and stole Jeff's place. He was the one I love. He drank himself to death after you returned." Even my biological parents knew she was poisoning me. However, they turned a blind eye. They did nothing to stop her. They knew Wynnie had got pregnant with Jeff's child through IVF—planning to raise the child and let him inherit the family fortune. I coughed up blood and threw myself into the sea. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I was first reunited with them. This time, when I saw the sorrow in their eyes—sorrow not for me, but for the son they lost— I chose to let them go.

I'm the McGee family's true heir, the one who went missing for ten years, and I still tied with their adopted son for the top score in the state. My parents made a show of treating us equally. They booked two private rooms for our college send-off dinner and told us to pick whichever one we wanted. I'd grown up poor, poor enough that it still scared me, so I didn't hesitate. I chose the Gilded Room. The adopted son, Pete McGee, nodded and said that was fine. Then, right as we were walking out the door, he burst into tears and said he'd been raised by our parents too. Why should he always be the one to give way to me? My father, George McGee, stepped in with an awkward smile to smooth things over. "Blake, you've been welcomed back into this family. We won't shortchange you materially. Just take the Laurel Room instead." Once the head of the household had spoken, my mother, Lisa McGee, and my sister, Alexis McGee, were quick to agree. Looking at the three of them play favorites so openly, I said nothing and let Pete have his way. I didn't even mind that much. I only wanted my family together. Then I walked into my private room and discovered the truth. I was the only person in it. Everyone else was somewhere else.

My mother-in-law, Teresa Hawke, said she was trapped inside her burning villa. I called my husband, Asher Jensen, begging him to save her. But he was too busy at some bar, flirting with his childhood sweetheart, Melanie Lanner. It wasn't until I begged him, over and over, that he finally went to save Teresa. But Melanie was snatched from that same bar, tortured, killed, and dumped. He acted like none of it mattered until I got pregnant. Then out of nowhere, he threw it all back on me, saying it was my fault. Asher pulled every string he could to bankrupt my family, driving Mom and Dad to leap to their deaths. Then he rounded up a gang of violent psychopaths and threw me in with them. I begged again and again, but he just watched me with that dead stare. "You'll suffer like Mel did before she died! She left this world in agony. Why should you get to live? That's not fair." 99 stab wounds—that was how many it took before I finally bled out and died. And then, I woke up, right back on the day Teresa screamed for help from inside that burning villa.

After five years of keeping the demon sealed away, I finally saw my sister again—inside a coffin, her body mangled beyond recognition. The men carrying the coffin were whispering to each other. "She died like this, and nobody even investigated? Isn't her brother-in-law some big shot?" "Shh! She's only his sister-in-law. How could she matter more than his new lover? Mr. Smith even helped cover the whole thing up!" "His ex-wife has been dead for five years. Ms. Sophia runs the house now!" "They say the wedding is tomorrow, and it's going to be huge!" For five years, I'd stayed in a graveyard, keeping a demon sealed away for my husband, Victor Smith. Meanwhile, he'd found another woman to replace me. Worse, he'd stood by while she erased every trace of my existence and tortured my only sister for years. When my sister finally tried to escape and come looking for me, Sophia ran her over and killed her. I stroked what remained of my sister's face and smiled. I'd given up everything to protect Victor. This was how he repaid me. Fine. Then I'll stop protecting him. It's time to let the demon have him.

I was the daughter of the Blackwood Pack's Alpha, and my mate, Damien, was the Alpha heir of the neighboring Pack. We grew up together, and when we turned eighteen, our wolves recognized each other as mates. I thought I would be happy forever, until Damien rescued an Omega named Sarah at the border. She was beautiful, appearing as fragile and innocent as a doe. Two months later, Damien finally made his decision. "Elena, let's break the mate bond. My wolf might have chosen you, but that's just instinct. I’ve never actually loved you, Elena. You've always just been like a sister to me." In my past life, I cried until I fainted. My father, heartbroken for me, personally pressured the Shadowcrest elders. Ultimately, Damien was thrown into the dungeon and Sarah was exiled. However, Sarah was killed by rogue wolves on her way out of our territory. Damien remained despondent for six months. Eventually, through my patient companionship and care, he pulled himself together and marked me. But fifteen years later, as I lay in bed suffering from silver poisoning, Damien appeared before me holding Sarah’s hand. He personally injected the final dose of silver into my body, watching me struggle and die in agony. But when I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the year I turned eighteen. After my rebirth, I severed all ties with my Alpha mate, Damien. In my previous life, I had spent six months pushing myself through combat training I wasn't suited for just to attend the Alpha Academy with him, leaving my body covered in scars. This time, I tore up the admission offer and headed to the Royal Lycan Academy of Healing in Europe. Years later, I returned to the pack house for my marking ceremony with my second chance mate—the Alpha King, the most powerful werewolf in existence. Damien knelt outside the pack house, his eyes bloodshot. "Please, just give me another chance to love you..."

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.

My fated mate, Alpha Baton, had once shackled his bloodlust for me. He’d built a corporate empire from the ashes of his bloody conquests, all to give me a civilized home. Even when my father was framed for murdering the brother of his first love, Seraphina, he held me gently. "Don't worry, Tricia. I'll face this with you." But on the day of the trial, my father was condemned as a murderer and exiled to the North. And Baton? He was celebrating, with his arm wrapped around Seraphina. I hunted down the witness, demanding answers, only to find him trembling as he stared at Baton, who stood right behind me. It was Baton. He had threatened the witness into lying. He was willing to destroy my father, just to make Seraphina happy. "Seraphina's brother is dead. Someone has to pay the price." The mate bond between us didn't just snap—it shattered. Agony ripped through my soul. If I meant nothing to him, our marking ceremony was a promise. And now, it was one I had to break.

Rumors said Fabrizio Medici, Don of the Medicis, was ruthless in everything he did. Yet he was nothing but devoted to me, his mother, as if I were his lifeline. Ten years ago, my husband, Victor Medici, betrayed us all. He conspired with foreign enemies, abducted Fabrizio, and staged a coup from within. To save my child, I blew up a car, destroying my leg and face, and erased myself from the world by faking my own death. Fabrizio hardened and lay low. Ten years later, he wiped out our enemies, killed Victor with his own hands, and reclaimed everything that had been stolen from him. Afterward, he spent a fortune rebuilding my body, piece by piece. But when I returned to the country under a new identity to attend Fabrizio's engagement party, his fiancée, Giovanna Valery, mistook me for a hidden mistress. She stormed in with her friends and humiliated me in every possible way. By the time Fabrizio finally arrived, I was covered in blood. Giovanna pointed at me, her voice shrill as she screamed, "No wonder I never see you messing around. So this is your type? Older women?"

The night before the marking ceremony, Joanna Grant kills my father by running him down with her car. At the same time, my fiance, Samuel West, breaks the pack's betrothal agreement and asks to end our engagement. The next day, Samuel and Joanna show up at the marking ceremony that was meant for me. With the entire pack as their witnesses, they pray to the Moon Goddess for her blessing. Just then, I arrive at the ceremony with the surveillance footage from the crash, demanding that Joanna pay with her life for what she's done to my father. Joanna is arrested by the Alliance guards, yet I am exiled from the pack and cast out as a Rogue. Out on my own, hunted and mauled by wild beasts, I am rescued by the Alpha of the Redmoon pack, Alexander Rowe. He saves me when I'm on the brink of death and then proposes to me, pulling me out of hell itself. But after two years of marriage, I overhear a conversation between Alexander and his Beta, Marcus Hale. "Alpha, you forgave Joanna in the Luna's family's name and helped secure her release. If this ever comes to light, the Alliance will arrest you, too." "She'll never know," Alexander says. "Joanna has served a year in prison. That's enough. She deserves the chance to move on and find happiness." So, the marriage I think saves me turns out to be Alexander's carefully planned trap all along. I decide it's time for them to pay the price.

After the Ig publication S.H.I.T Journal goes viral, I search its website out of curiosity. The satirical journal bills itself as a home for all things academic garbage. The moment I open the site, the top trending article catches my attention. It reads, "A Research on How to Deceive a Gullible Foster Mother With Face Blindness and Trick Her into Raising Me as Her Biological Daughter for Twelve Years". "Keywords: deception, face blindness, self-delusion, false family bonds" I freeze and click into the full article with trembling fingers. The more I read, the more terrified I become. "1.1 Definition of face blindness and how to swap daughters to deceive the foster mother" "2.1 Practical uses and drawbacks of the foster mother" "3.1 How to profit by exploiting the foster mother through her face blindness" The content sends a chill through my entire body. The comment section is already in chaos. "Does this mean the author is actually the daughter of the mistress, and her father swapped her to be raised by his wife for twelve years?" "That's not all. Didn't you read 2.1? The wife had her own daughter, and the husband deliberately handed her over to traffickers!" "What the hell… In 3.1, it even says that because the wife has face blindness and can't tell people apart, the author makes deals with single fathers of classmates and sends the wife to…" At that point, my phone slips from my hand and crashes to the ground. The screen shatters instantly. I have severe face blindness, and I have a daughter who was kidnapped and only found again after three years.

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.

In order to find clean water for his beloved Liana Hughes to bathe, Castiel Fenton, my brother, left the base with all the able-bodied men. But among the zombies, a sentient Zombie King emerged and took it as an opportunity to invade the base. June Morgan, my pregnant sister-in-law, was torn in half by zombies while protecting me, and Poppy, my little niece was devoured down to the bone trying to help me escape. To save the base, I called Castiel for help. Upon hearing the news, he had no choice but to abandon Liana and rush back with his men. Eventually, the zombies were driven out of the base, but Liana was eaten by a passing zombie. Castiel said nothing and only collected Liana’s remains expressionlessly. On the day of Liana’s funeral, Castiel deliberately pushed me into a horde of zombies and let them feast on my body. “If you hadn’t called me back, Liana wouldn’t have died! You must pay for her life!” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the zombies invaded the base.

Two months after I stepped down as Boss, my eldest son Gideon pressed a barrel to the back of my head. I put him in that chair with my own hands. "Mom. An eighty-million-dollar shipment went down. The Five Families want blood." My adopted daughter Alessia stood beside him, sobbing fake tears. She ran the books. "Mom, Gideon just took the seat. He can't have a stain like this. You're retired anyway. Do this for us, one last time." Such devoted children. I signed the exile contract. In return, I got five million in hush money and an order to get the hell out of Chicago. Then the enforcers from the High Commission slammed a ledger onto the table. It was my younger son, Silas. The one who ran the docks. He sold out the route and laundered the payout with our South American rivals. I thought the circus was over. My sweet little girl wiped her tears in a second. She shoved the papers against my chest, cold as stone. "The streets already think it's you, so just die for us. We have pure Mafia blood in our veins. We can't let our future burn." Right then, I laughed out loud. These ungrateful mutts really thought they carried royal Sicilian blood. They took twenty years of my mercy and treated it like dirt under their shoes. They had no idea. They were just street rats I pulled out of slum dumpsters. Now they want me to take the bullet? When I built this empire on dead bodies and became the only female Boss in the Great Lakes, their little hands couldn't even hold a gun without shaking.

My brother had bonded with an Academic Prodigy System, and its mission was simple: get into Northbridge for graduate school. If he failed, the system would erase his intelligence and leave him permanently disabled. To save him, my parents told me, "Aaron, you're smart. You still have options, but your brother doesn't." So they secretly switched my guaranteed admission file and gave my place to him. My fiancee, Vivian Harkins, a professor at the university, personally helped him forge the records. She touched my face with the same tenderness she always used. "Aaron, everything has an optimal solution. Sacrificing one year of your time to protect this family is worth it." My brother held the admission letter with his own name on it and became the star of the celebration banquet. I stood in the corner and watched the system panel in front of me as the [Hope Value] hit zero. The cold voice in my head asked, [Host, you have reached the threshold for extreme injustice. Confirm activation of the death program?] I watched Vivian, with her own hands, fasten the pair of cuff links she had once promised me onto my brother's sleeve. I smiled, swallowed the taste of blood rising in my throat, and said, "Confirm." "Use my life to trade for the rest of theirs... beyond redemption."

I opened a restaurant in an alley, and business was booming. When the lease expired, I took the initiative to talk to the landlord about renewing it. The landlord, Jasper Smith, crossed his legs and said, “My dear Flynn, my dear little nephew Harvey Jordan, wants to open a restaurant too. So, this place would be perfect for him. “He thinks your food is delicious, so he went out of his way to learn all the recipes for your dishes and soups. Come to think of it, he has you to thank for your careful guidance!” The blood rushed to my head. Harvey Jordan had kept his relationship with Jasper from me and worked at my restaurant for half a year. He had stolen my recipes, and he was trying to kick me out to steal my customers? I was furious. “Mr. Smith, isn’t this going a bit too far?” Jasper slammed his hand on the table. “The shop lot is mine. I’m free to rent it to whomever I want! Clear everything out before the lease expires!” I laughed through gritted teeth. “Are you sure you want to go down this road?” I had a secret blend of spices that I had never shared with anyone. Without it, my soups would become increasingly bitter the longer they boiled. Harvey had only learned some surface knowledge. He had yet to grasp the soul of it. I was interested to see how he would manage running a restaurant without its soul.

My five-year-old daughter loved telling lies. I had taken her out to a simple school supplies run, but she yelled on the street that I was a human trafficker. Consequently, I nearly got arrested and taken to the police station. When we went home, she cried and threw herself in my husband’s arms to complain about me before I could say anything. “Dad, Mom wouldn’t buy me stationeries. She even hit me on the street!” I offered my husband an explanation. He heard me out, but I did not expect him to angrily slap me when I was finished. “Our daughter is only five. She can’t lie. Can’t you just put up with it?!” When I drove my daughter to school, she got down on her knees in front of me while the other parents were around. “Mom, please let me go to school. I don’t want to take naked photos for those guys.” When the teacher checked my phone, it was full of my daughter’s explicit photos. A mob of angry parents pushed me into the traffic, killing me. I could not figure out why my biological daughter would behave that way, even as I lay dying. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day when I was about to buy stationery for my daughter.