Nouvelles Homewrecker Romance & Romans Karma

My sister, Vivian Richmond, is celebrating her birthday with the rest of the family while I lie trapped in an abandoned factory, bleeding heavily. She's hired four thugs to torture me, and they've left me fighting for my life. I crawl toward my phone with what little strength I have left. When I finally reach it, I call my husband, Ethan Monroe. "Ethan, I'm seriously injured. Come save me now… I'm at the factory nearby. It won't take much of your time…" He scoffs at my weak, desperate voice. "Sienna, whining won't get you anywhere. Are you playing the victim now?" he says. "You'll stop at nothing to ruin Vivian's birthday party, huh? Hurry back with a gift and apologize to her, or I won't go easy on you this time." Before I can speak, I hear Vivian calling his name over the line. Ethan has no idea that the moment the call ends, I no longer need his forgiveness. He doesn't know that the foul, rotting corpse that makes even an experienced forensic pathologist like him recoil in disgust belongs to the wife he's hated for years.

On my wedding night, I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance after a tampered condom left me in excruciating pain. The surgery took over twenty-four hours, and the story spread like wildfire. My husband, Alexander, let it be known that anyone who managed to photograph me in my post-surgery state would be rewarded with ten million dollars. Overnight, I went from being a billionaire's new wife to the laughingstock of every elite circle in New York. The next day, Alexander's childhood sweetheart Dahlia showed up at my door. That was when I learned the truth: she'd coated the condom with industrial-strength adhesive as part of what she called a "social experiment." She didn't show a shred of remorse. Her tone was flippant and cruel: "It was just an experiment. I mean, how was I supposed to know you'd react like that? Besides, we both know you were never good enough for Alexander. So drop the act." Alexander stood beside her, his gaze cold and dismissive: "If it weren't for the marriage contract, no one would've touched you. You know that, right?" What he didn't know was that the woman he was calling a slut had saved his life more times than he could count.

On the day my daughter, Dakota Bradshaw, gets into a car accident, I rush over to save her, only to get crippled instead. Both my wife, Delilah Rowland, and Dakota don't mind the fact that I'm being a burden to them. Instead, they put in a lot of effort to take good care of me. But one day, a fire breaks out at home. Yet, Delilah personally closes my room door. Since I'm crippled, I end up falling to the floor in my state of panic. That's when I notice Dakota's shoes through the gap under the door. "Dakota, save me!" I call for help at the top of my lungs. But only the sounds of the crackling flames respond to me. I have no idea how much time has passed when I catch wisps of a conversation hazily. "Mom, the firefighters are here. What should we do?" Dakota's voice is very low. Delilah replies calmly, "Tell the police that your father started the fire when he was cooking. We just reached the corridor at that time, so the doorknob was already warped from the fire." Dakota simply says one word. "Okay."

I begged my husband 304 times before he finally agreed to spend a birthday with our seriously ill daughter. We waited until the cake on the table melted and the warmth slowly left our daughter’s body, but he never showed up. Then, his first love shared a photo on social media. In it, my husband had one arm around her and the other holding her child. Behind them stood a towering birthday cake display. Our daughter had waited five years for a birthday cake that never came. Yet another child received it without even trying. The caption read: The promised tiered cake is finally here! I quietly liked the post. Soon after, he texted me, demanding an explanation. [How many times do I have to tell you? Miranda’s daughter is dealing with depression, and I need to be there for her. Don’t call me unless it’s urgent.] I looked down at the child in my arms, whose body had gone completely cold. “Alright,” I said softly. “I won’t do that again.”

I was a princess ennobled by my father, the late king. Marrying the general of the northern frontier, Griffin Quenell was already a great show of royal favor. On my wedding day, just as my royal carriage arrived at the Quenell family’s courtyard, a woman dressed in grey wool knelt before the castle gate. She held a swaddled infant in her arms. Griffin, as the groom of the day, dressed in his wedding tunic, blocked my path with a troubled expression. “Your Grace, Joan is someone I met in the borderlands. She bore me a son and now has no place to go. Please let her move in with me on this special occasion. You’ll be my first wife, and she’ll be my second wife. It’s all for the sake of the Quenell bloodline.” The guests at the gate erupted into commotion. His grandmother, Wilma Quenell, spoke firmly. “Your Grace, you were born into royalty. You certainly do not lack a title. However, Griffin is the only son the Quenell family has had in three generations. This child bears the Quenell name. We surely can’t make him an illegitimate child.” The border soldiers knelt and said in unison, “Your Grace, have mercy!” I looked down at the child in the swaddle, then at Griffin’s pleading gaze. I smiled, removed my coronet from my head, and placed it on the wedding table. Then, I turned and boarded my carriage. “General Quenell, I will not stop you from wanting an heir, but my late father’s decree said I am to be married, not given away as a gift. If your family cannot abide by his words, then I shall take the decree back with me.”

Just after I finish a meeting, the parents' group chat for my daughter's kindergarten suddenly buzzes with activity. Someone shares a viral post. The poster writes, "A daughter is always her daddy's sweetheart. She's already using her allowance to buy her dad a birthday present! I wonder who my gentle, wealthy little princess will marry someday." The one who shares the post adds excitedly in the comments, "She's the one and only successor to the Webb family in Jemton! She's a true heiress!" The parents in the group chat eagerly offer their sycophantic compliments. They can hardly wait to offer their own sons as potential suitors for the little girl. But I'm puzzled. Other than my wife, Lucy Webb, I don't think there is any other family with the surname Webb in Jemton. Then, I open the photo attached to the post and instantly freeze. The sweet little girl smiling as she holds the gift is unmistakably my daughter, Emilia Webb, whom I personally drive to and from kindergarten every single day.

When I turned eighteen, I awakened my wolf. That was also when a strange System appeared in my mind. It told me that if I won over Matthew Reed and survived his betrayal-and-groveling arc, I would receive $32 billion. That was the only reason I agreed to keep our marriage secret. But the night Matthew won Best Actor, he posted a photo on Instagram of himself feeding Hellfire Wings to his childhood sweetheart, Layla Bennett. The caption read: [After all this time, this is still the flavor I crave most.] Immediately afterward, he exposed our secret marriage and posted evidence that I had paid him to mark me against his will. The trending page crashed on the spot. My hands shook as I reached for him through our mind-link, but Matthew didn't sound sorry at all. "Layla's been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. This is her last wish. "She can't be labeled a homewrecker. You've had me for three years. Can't you show a little compassion for a dying woman?" The entire internet called me a homewrecker who was destroying their true love. Some of his fans even made black-and-white memorial photos of me and plastered them across my front door. They demanded that I, the "vicious mate," break our bond and step aside for his true love. I sat there in silence, tears running down my face, when the System suddenly roared inside my head: [Hostile betrayal by target detected. Host bears no responsibility. Groveling Protocol disabled.] [Mind-link backlash blocked. Switching to: Maximum Savage Comeback Mode!] The moment the System fell silent, my head snapped up, every trace of tears gone. I went live to the entire internet, grabbed a megaphone, and planted myself right outside Layla's VIP hospital room. "Terminal stomach cancer, and she's still stuffing her face with Hellfire Wings? Is she trying to die even faster?"

Three months had passed since my husband vanished while hiking in the fjords. Then I spotted him in a VIP room at a Manhattan strip club, one arm wrapped around my adopted sister's waist, looking like he didn't have a care in the world. "Thank God you came up with this idea. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be free of that control freak." His friends raised their glasses and cheered, asking how much longer he planned to play dead. Alex swirled his drink as he considered the question. "Next week. Once the guilt and panic drive her crazy, I'll show up and give her a nice surprise." I stood in the shadows, watching him enjoy his newfound freedom. Then I called a friend who worked at the courthouse.

On my twenty-ninth birthday, I was supposed to be formally announced as the next head of the Ashford family. But before the charity gala began, my mother fed my succession speech into the shredder and replaced it with a written pledge to my sister. "Lydia hasn't had an easy time since the wedding. Announce in public that you're giving her the Harbor Hotel. Think of it as backing her up." It was the first property my grandmother had left me, and the only project I had been allowed to run on my own in eight years. I asked my mother, "And if I'm not willing?" My father looked at me coldly. "Don't forget, you'll inherit all of Ashford one day. She only has us." They had always used the inheritance to keep me in line, forcing me to hand over what was mine to my sister Lydia. This time, I didn't argue. I took out the resignation letter I had signed long before and set it in front of my father. "Then let Lydia inherit all of Ashford. "From today on, I want nothing."