Cerita Pendek & Novel Feel-Good Story Revenge

On our seventh wedding anniversary, my husband—Don Enzo Cavina—suddenly put a motion before the family council: The Donna would be barred from taking part in family affairs. “One vote in favor.” “Two.” “Three.” The motion passed unanimously. Being forced off the council just as I completed seven years meant the family no longer had to honor its promise to grant me the twenty-percent stake that was about to vest. I had been reduced to nothing more than an appendage to the Don. My fingertips turned cold, but my gaze remained steady as it swept over every face around the long table. “Why?” Jack was the first to stand. “You’re nothing but an outsider who married into this family, yet you’ve controlled the port, the banks, and the union for seven years. Who knows how much you’ve skimmed for yourself?” James sneered. “If we let you take twenty percent, sooner or later, the Cavina family will become the Medici family.” I turned to my husband, Don Enzo, seated at the head of the table. “Is that really what you think?” Enzo came to me and pulled me into his arms. “You’ve given seven years of your life to this family. I just can’t bear to watch the council drain you any longer.” “You won’t have to sit through these pointless meetings anymore. But you will always be my wife.” Without a seat on the council, I had no say in any decision. But the Cavinas couldn’t manage their dealings with the Five Families without me. So that was it. They still expected me to bear every risk—they just didn’t want to give me the share I had earned. I smiled, slipped off my wedding ring and family badge, and slapped them both onto the long table. Three days later, Enzo came to me with every elder who had voted for the motion. Together, they knelt before me, begging the “outsider who did nothing but steal everyone else’s credit” to come back and save them.

It was three days before New Year's Eve when a court summons arrived. The court ruled that I had defamed Ethan Tanner and his mistress when I insulted them in the homeowners' group chat and ordered me to issue a public apology every day for fifteen days straight. Ethan was beside himself with delight as he waved the judgment in my face. "I told you. This is a society governed by law. Shrews who hurl abuse have to pay the price. You better get cracking on those 15 days of apologies and not a day less!" I stared at his smug face. Instead of crying or making a scene, I turned around and set up my phone stand. "Fine. Have it your way. I'll apologize right now." "I'm gonna make sure that you go viral and watch as your whole life goes up in flames," I thought to myself.

After our family went bankrupt under millions of dollars of debt, I risked my life to protect my little sister from the ruthless loan sharks. She, however, floated above the squalor—a saint who treated money like filth. I was beaten half to death trying to guard the last thousands of our savings. Once the money was secured, she handed every last dime to a pitiful distant uncle. I saved us from the goons with a smashed glass bottle, shielding her all the way to the police station. Instead of thanking me, she called me barbaric, insisting I should have sat them down for a civilized conversation. I toiled for months pulling three grueling shifts a day to settle our father’s debts, while she lounged at home basking in a peaceful domestic paradise, handing out charities when it pleased her. Then came the day I was framed for embezzling funds from my father’s friend’s company. I begged her to testify in court—to tell them it was a predatory scheme I was tricked into. But she simply looked down at me. “If you did nothing wrong, then you have nothing to fear. The law will grant you justice when the time is right.” Her pious refusal was my death sentence. Driven to the brink to repay the missing funds, I was cornered on the edge of a half-built construction. A shove sent me plunging down, my bones shattering on the cold concrete below. While I bled out on the ground, she was promptly adopted by our father’s friend, married off to a high-born heir, and crowned the darling of elite society—a pristine gem everyone adored. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the day the loan sharks kicked down our door.

I did everything to be a good friend, only to be treated as my so-called best friend’s scapegoat. When her husband found cigarette ash in their house, she claimed I was the one smoking. When she snuck off for a private rendezvous with her lover, she told him she was celebrating my birthday. And when she got pregnant, she pinned the blame on me again, declaring I was consumed with jealousy—that I had spiked her drink and hired someone to violate her. Enraged, her husband marched to my doorstep wielding a blade and hacked me to death. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the exact day she had asked me to cover for her affair.

To help his childhood friend secure a spot in a high-ranking institution, my boyfriend, Frederick Linton, steals my academic report. The two of them use my work to publish a research paper before I can. Then, they proceed to accuse me of plagiarism. After they twist the truth and spread it online, I become the target of a vicious wave of cyberbullying. Eventually, the relentless harassment drives me into severe depression. Meanwhile, Frederick's childhood friend, Elaine Anders, rises to prominence in the academic world using my work. On the day Elaine receives her award, Frederick gets down on one knee and proposes to her. I, on the other hand, end my life by jumping off a rooftop. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the very day I finished my research paper.

After my little brother, Cochran Ceberano, dies in a car crash, my parents hand the toy poodle he raised over to me. But I haul the dog to an unlicensed, back-alley animal clinic right away and have him neutered. Why? Because I've been reborn. In my previous life, on the day the dog arrives at our house, he suddenly turns vicious, scratching and biting me at every turn. Afraid of upsetting my parents, I bend over backward to win him over. I feed him the best dog food, and I even sleep next to him on the couch. But he only gets worse. Day by day, my sanity crumbles. Insomnia sets in, followed by auditory hallucinations. I even start dreaming that he's chasing me down and tearing me apart every night. Unable to endure it any longer, I hesitantly suggest rehoming the dog. Dad flies into a rage at this, slapping me hard across the face. "Rehome it? He's the only piece of your brother left in this world, and you can't even tolerate him? How can you be so cruel and heartless?" Mom doesn't say anything. She just clutches the dog close to her as she sobs. Driven to the brink by the relentless torment, I finally snap and jump out of a 30-story window. After I die, I drift into the sky in my ghost form, only to discover something that leaves me stunned. Cochran, who supposedly died in the car crash, is awake and alive. My parents throw their arms around him, weeping tears of joy. "The shaman was right! As long as your soul inhabits a dog and stays next to an immediate family member for seven full weeks, you can exchange lives with her!" Only then do I realize that the toy poodle was never just a dog. He was my own little brother.

To win votes for the school's annual honors award, my stingy roommate picked rotten fruit out of the trash and made it into fruit cups for our classmates. The moment I found out, I rushed to stop them from eating it. Instead, they accused me of being jealous and tore into me for trying to ruin their chances. That very night, they were rushed to the hospital with severe food poisoning. Afterward, my roommate framed me, claiming I had deliberately poisoned the fruit because I did not want her to win the school honors award. She even hid a bottle of pesticide in my locker and convinced our other two roommates to lie for her. With no way to prove my innocence, I became the target of furious parents. In the end, they hacked me to death. My roommate, meanwhile, became an internet celebrity by publicly trashing me and made a fortune from the attention. Now, when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my roommate had picked those rotten fruits out of the trash to make her fruit cups.

The executive I meet on a dating app, Eric Cole, convinces me to invest in a supposedly foolproof investment scheme. After weeks of him wearing me down, I invest my entire savings of one million dollars. The next morning, I open the app and find a message saying the server is unavailable. Confused, I assume it's just a system update and immediately text my perfect boyfriend. But the message won't go through. Realizing the investment platform has vanished, I rush to the cybercrime unit to report it. After tracing the IP, the police tell me I've fallen for a classic scam. I'm stunned. Eric and I have even picked out names for our future children! No matter how many chat logs I provide, Eric is nowhere to be found. When my coworkers find out, they spread rumors that I lost my mind from being so desperate to marry a rich man. My boss uses the scandal as an excuse to fire me. Eventually, overwhelmed by severe depression, I swallow an entire bottle of sleeping pills. Even as I die, I can't understand why giving someone my everything leaves me with nothing. When I open my eyes again, I'm back at the moment Eric first messages me. This time, I become the ultimate player and turn the tables, bleeding the scam operation dry.

I notice that the surveillance camera we bought when we got married keeps glitching. I casually open the accompanying video app while I request an on-site repair from customer service. I suddenly hear Edward Zucker, my husband who swore to love me for the rest of his life, wishing for my death. "Maddie treats me well and hasn't done anything wrong. She has lost her parents in the car accident, though, so she's of no use to me now." I then hear my seemingly gentle and kind in-laws, Victor Zucker and Mary Smith, thoughtfully toss out various suggestions. "You can just sneak something into her food since she's allergic to so many things. You can also claim she suffered from depression after losing her parents and jumped off a building, then cremate her body on the very same day. "Your cousin just got diagnosed with a psychiatric condition, so he won't face criminal charges for murder." Edward struggles to pick the best way for me to die. "It can't look suspicious. I have to secure the three-million-dollar inheritance her parents left her without a single slipup." I tremble violently with rage. If they want me dead, then let's see who ends up dying first!

To get me out of the way for Simon Luther, the man who steals my position as heir of the Luther family, the three young women my dad took in as children and raised alongside me work together to send me to prison. "Once you get out of jail, one of us will marry you—but on one condition. You'd better take this secret to the grave." To stop me from revealing the truth, the three women even fed me a drug that rendered me mute. As the years go by, the endless and inhumane torment I endure in prison slowly destroys what feelings and affection I have for the three women I once considered my sisters. When we meet again, I watch impassively as the three of them fight to win the auction that gives them the chance to marry Simon. Chuckling, I arrange for the key evidence of Simon's crimes to be put up for auction. The three of them seem to have a thing for making bids. Let's see them scramble to win this one.

On the third night of my business trip out of state, I scrolled past a video of my wife locking lips with my best friend at a music festival. Jack Wilson and I had been brothers for twenty years. The day I married Emily, he cried like a baby and swore he'd give up everything he had if it meant I'd be happy for the rest of my life. But tonight, my best friend and my wife proved that promises don't mean a damn thing. After a few minutes of silence, I called Jack. "Hey, you end up catching that Bruce Springsteen show? Heard the production was insane." He paused. Then, casual as ever: "Yeah, it looked good. Saw some clips online." "Too bad you weren't there, though. Kinda boring going alone. When you getting back? We'll catch the next one together." I said sure. Hung up. Caught the next red-eye straight to his apartment. They took everything I gave them—my loyalty, my trust, my love. Now I'm going to take everything they have.

The day a rat sold out our East Coast safe houses, the FBI got its hands on the addresses of every old base belonging to the Five Families. The Commission gave the order: every associate had to report to the neutral church and register within seventy-two hours. Only those who completed registration would make the evacuation list and be picked up by the convoys. Once the list was sealed, no one could be added. But Viola Romano claimed she was the daughter of the Commission's Chairman. She said her father had already saved a spot for everyone. They didn't need to register, and they could still leave on the priority convoy. My friends believed her and canceled their registrations, one after another. I begged them not to gamble with their lives and told them to register just in case. Viola immediately accused me of being jealous and trying to ruin things for everyone. My boyfriend, Matteo Russo, said I didn't understand power and that I belonged in line with the ordinary members. In my last life, I reported the whole thing to the Commission. Viola was exposed. Everyone managed to register before the deadline and secure a spot on the evacuation list. She was cast out of the Family for impersonating the Chairman's daughter and obstructing an emergency evacuation. In the end, she died in an FBI raid. Everyone said she got what she deserved. They thanked me for saving them. But after we moved into the new safe house, Matteo shot me from behind. The bullet went straight through my heart. The people I'd saved just stood there, watching coldly. "The worst that could've happened to us was getting arrested by the FBI. Viola lost her life!" When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Viola promised to get everyone onto the evacuation list.

As soon as I became a chief surgeon, I immediately had my corneas removed. In my previous life, on my first day in the operating room, my boyfriend's childhood friend secretly used my access badge to perform a critical procedure on a wealthy patient. She botched the surgery through sheer negligence, causing the patient to bleed out and die on the table. However, the medical staff testified that I was the one who performed the failed operation and then fled the hospital. When the medical board confronted me, I desperately explained that I had never performed that surgery in the first place. However, she threw herself into my boyfriend's arms and said with great grievance, "Serena, I know you don't like me, but you can't frame me like that!" Lucas took out the operating room's surveillance footage. The video showed that I was the one holding the scalpel, causing the fatal hemorrhage, and leaving in a panic. "Instead of repenting, you're trying to push the blame onto someone else." After seeing this, the victim's grieving family confronted me and savagely beat me to death. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day before my boyfriend's childhood friend stole my access badge.

My boyfriend's tablet, left behind at my place, suddenly lit up with a group chat notification. "Ron, that gold digger's totally hooked, right? When are you taking her to the luxury boutique so we can humiliate her in public?" "Everything's ready. We're just waiting to film her fawning over the designer goods like the greedy little gold digger she is. The guys are gonna love it!" The group chat was called "Exposing Gold Diggers." And my boyfriend Ron was the one who'd created it. I opened the tablet and scrolled through the message history. Screen after screen of vile, disgusting garbage. My blood boiled with every word. So that so-called love at first sight at the designer boutique had been a setup from the very start. He'd spent the better part of a year carefully worming his way into my life, showering me with attention, all while treating me like prey, waiting for the perfect moment to humiliate me for an audience. What a joke. I was the real deal, a genuine heiress from one of the wealthiest families in the country. The gifts he'd gone to such lengths to give me? I couldn't have cared less about any of them. If he was so obsessed with playing people, then I'd give him a taste of his own medicine! Let him see what it felt like to be the one getting played!

For three years, I used my family's mob ties and my own money to pave the way for Declan's crew. He was the boy I survived the streets with as a kid. But at this month's sit-down, his newly hired secretary, Roxy, tossed my casino ledgers and club records onto the table in front of all the guys. She accused me of skimming profits and slacking off. "These underground banks, these smuggling docks," she read the numbers out loud, her voice full of fake outrage. "Every time she bribes someone, she skims thousands of dollars! She's lining her own pockets." "I say the Boss strips her of her club manager title right now to save our cash flow." I glanced at Declan, the boss of the crew. He knew better than anyone what that missing money actually paid for. He knew how much dock security it covered. He knew how many nods of approval it bought from politicians and cops. He also knew what I was doing when I wasn't at the club. I was making deals with dangerous gun runners. I was drinking hard liquor to secure guns and ammo for his boys. But he just stared at me coldly. "Katerina, do you have anything to say about these ledgers and the proof Roxy just showed us?" I smiled. "I have nothing to explain." Very soon, all of them would find out exactly what happens when you pull a stunt like this on a Principessa's turf.

Mom and Dad always disappear at midnight and don't come back until 8:00 am the next day. Even when I'm forced onto the roof because of a flash flood and try calling them 99 times, they still refuse to show up. I've tried clinging to them like glue as it gets close to midnight once. As the clock hands creep toward midnight, they hit me for the first time, lock me in my room, and then vanish once more. That all changes when a prestigious family comes knocking because of an old marriage arrangement and the fake heiress, Suzanne Weston, walks out through a secret door. Only then do I find out that ten years ago, Mom and Dad didn't actually send her back to her real parents. Instead, they secretly bought the villa next door and set up a whole second home there. Mom and Dad push the fake heiress forward before blocking me. "We've only spent eight hours with her every day for the past ten years. She's already had to put up with enough, so don't even try to fight her for this, Danielle Weston." I can't believe what I'm hearing. I try to storm next door and trash the place, but Suzanne shoves me into the man-made lake. As I'm drowning, I catch a glimpse of myself ten years from now beneath the water. She's skin and bones, and all her hair has fallen out. After Mom and Dad pull me out of the water, I speak up before they can say anything. "Mom, Dad, I'm not fighting for the engagement anymore." And I'm done fighting for your love, too.

The year I turned fourteen, Grandma and I were crammed into a beat-up trailer on the edge of a desert town. She couldn't afford paint, so she mixed colors from the cheapest red clay pigment at the general store. When a frame broke, she hammered it back together herself. When canvas tore, she patched the back with old cloth and sealed it with a paste she boiled from leftover church wax and cheap resin. Grandma never went to school. She painted out of pure love, and she kept at it for thirty years. Then one summer, a gallery owner named Evelyn Hart crawled into Grandma's leaky shed and examined every painting, flipping each one over to study both sides. The next day, every last painting was gone. Finished oils, sketches, pigment records, old photographs, frames. Everything cleared out overnight. Three months later, Grandma walked into Evelyn's gallery and saw her own painting, Madonna of the Red Rock, hanging in the brightest spot. But the brass nameplate beside it bore Evelyn's name. She lunged for the painting. The security guards pried her fingers loose and dragged her out the door. That night, a blizzard sealed off the roads. She pounded on the glass, but no one came. The next morning, when I found her outside the gallery, her body was already frozen solid. After the funeral, I went to clean out what was left of the burned shed. Inside the lining of an old brush pouch, I found a small scrap of painted canvas. It was a piece Grandma had trimmed off while repairing Madonna of the Red Rock. The thief had missed it. I tucked it away and kept it. For twenty years. Twenty years later, I was the compliance director at an international art marketplace. A young woman submitted an auction application for a series of paintings. The Desert Madonna Series was about to be sold to collectors and private museums around the world. The collection was valued at more than $150 million. I opened the file. In the artist field, I stared at the name for a long time. "Application denied."

I was the most renowned pediatrician in the pack. On the day we administered the VRX-17 vaccine I'd introduced, the pups were infected en masse. A neurotropic virus swept through the pediatric ward, killing two pups. Several more developed encephalitis, pneumonia, and permanent paralysis. The Werewolf Court convicted me of deliberate harm. I pleaded desperately that the vaccine was contaminated. But when the drug was sent for testing, the batch number and properties all came back normal. How was that possible? I'd tested the vaccine myself, and my results clearly showed something was wrong. I couldn't accept it. I sought out expert after expert to verify my findings, but every single one told me the vaccine was fine. The judge and the officers wore grim expressions as they spoke. "Ma'am, you can't defraud the pack's medical system like this." "Think of the pups you killed. What had they ever done to deserve it?" In the end, I was sentenced to death for causing a catastrophic medical incident. My parents were accused of aiding my violations. They were stripped of their positions and died under a torrent of blame and injustice. I learned of their deaths before my execution. Even as the wolfsbane seeped into my veins, all I could feel was regret. When I opened my eyes again, a nurse was about to push VRX-17 into a pup's vein.

Six years into our marriage, Matteo Moretti slid a marriage pact across the table to me. My sister's name was at the top. Lucia Belardi, sixteen, unable to speak since birth. The lower-right corner of the document bore the Moretti Family's black seal, and beside it, Matteo's own signature. "The Volkov family has agreed to a ceasefire," Matteo said from behind the wide walnut desk in his study. "Ivan Volkov will marry Lucia. Once the wedding is done, the guns on the northern route will go silent, and our shipments held at the docks will be released." Cold crept into my fingers. "You agreed to hand my sister over to a sadist, just to save Viola?" Three days ago, Viola Conti had publicly humiliated one of the Volkov women at a cocktail party. The Volkovs seized her and threatened that unless the Moretti Family surrendered a girl of equal standing, Viola would disappear for good. "Viola's father took a bullet for me, and she treated over thirty of our men during the dock shootout six years ago." He looked up at me, his black shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing old scars on his wrists. "The Moretti Family owes her. Lucia will be the wife of the Volkov heir, not a hostage." I slapped him across the face. I picked up the letter opener from his desk, cut through the gold chain, and threw the severed chain onto the marriage pact. On our wedding day six years ago, he had fastened the chain around my neck himself. The pendant bore the Moretti and Belardi names on either side. He had told me that as long as the chain held, we would never be apart. He glanced at the broken chain, a brief crease forming between his brows. "Once this crisis is over, you'll understand. This is the choice that costs us the least." "Matteo, Lucia may be the one you're sending away today, but from this moment on, you're sending me away too."

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.”