Nouvelles Melodramatic & Romans Ruthless Regret

My world is simple. Everything has a price. A goodnight hug from Mom costs one dollar. Three minutes of Dad spinning me around in his arms costs five dollars. I keep track of it all in my head, then count out the coins from my bear purse to pay them. Dad calls it "splitting bills". He says it teaches me to be independent and never leech off others. I don't have any friends because I have no idea how to pay for friendship. I'm not scared of monsters in the dark. I'm scared of Dad looking over the bill and saying, "Kevin, you overspent on love today." So, I save every penny I can, hoping to buy more and more love. Then comes the day a stranger offers me a candy wrapped in shiny paper. Out of habit, I ask him how much it is. He says it's free, and I just need to walk with him for a while.

Ever since I was little, I knew my mom didn't want me. My dad, though, kept telling me that she loved me, but some complicated stuff was keeping her away. He said that once I grew up, I needed to find her and claim my place in her life. I always figured he was just making things up so I wouldn't grow up resentful of the motherly love I never had. Then the debt piled up. Dad was scrolling through TikTok, looking for any way to drum up sympathy online, when he suddenly let out a wild yell. "Scrappy! Look, it’s your mom! Pack your stuff, we’re going to find her!" I stared at the screen. The woman in the video was stunning, effortlessly poised, and dripping in old-money elegance. A cold pit formed in my stomach. My mom was a wealthy socialite from New York City? How could someone like her ever be connected to a holler like ours? Even with the doubts screaming in my head, I packed my worn-out duffel bag and boarded the bus to Manhattan with my dad.

My fiancé's first love was taking photos on a cliff before the landslide. To save her, he actually left me behind on the crumbling edge. I pleaded with him to save me. "Lucy isn't physically strong—she can't handle this alone. You've always been resilient. I'll get Lucy to safety first, then come back for you." Their silhouettes vanished over the ridge. After a brief commotion, everything went silent. Including me, with my freshly sprained ankle. When he saw the news of my death, he completely fell apart.

The day I found out I was dying, I ran into my ex-husband—yeah, the richest guy in the country—and his three-months-pregnant wife. He asked if I regretted leaving him when he got sick. I just asked for twenty grand. He told me I didn't deserve to live. What he never knew? Back then, when he was fighting leukemia, the only bone marrow match he had... was me.

A fierce storm erupts on a mountain peak at 25,561 feet, trapping me in the mountain camp under heavy snow. My husband, the leader of the mountain excursion squad, ignores my desperate pleas and hands the last oxygen tank to his beloved true love. "You're a professional climber—you won't die from missing a few breaths," he snaps. "Olivia has always been frail. Without oxygen, she's done for!" I watch as the two of them lean on each other, making their way down the cliffside, and I fall into complete despair. He's already forgotten that my body hasn't been able to survive without oxygen at high altitudes since saving him two years ago.

"If you refuse to apologize, stay here and reflect on your actions! Feel the pain Agnes went through!" Kenneth was the Alpha. His childhood friend was accidentally locked in a storage unit for three days. To punish me, he locked me in a faulty walk-in freezer. He left me with nothing but a piece of bread the size of my palm before locking the door and leaving. Unbeknownst to him, this walk-in freezer wasn't actually faulty. Not long after he left, the cooling system was suddenly activated. I screamed for help and desperately sought ways to survive. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I clawed at the door, nobody came to my rescue. A week later, he finally showed up outside the freezer. He was expecting an apology from me. But when he opened the freezer's door, all he found was my frozen corpse.

My family has always seen me as a lunatic. The day I catch Tiffany Egan cheating on me, I jump from the fifth floor with her in my arms. She survives, while I become a coma patient. From then on, that man makes a point of getting intimate with her right beside me every night, all to get back at me. In the first year, whenever Tiffany mentions me, her voice will catch with resentment. She says dying together would've been letting me off too easily. In the second year, she bites down on him in the heat of the moment and says she wants to set the three of us on fire and let us all burn to death. By the third year, they barely talk about me anymore. They spend most of their time calculating her ovulation cycle and picking a date for their wedding. The day they finally get married, I wake up. Under the harsh sunlight, Tiffany, visibly pregnant, rises onto her toes to accept a kiss from my best friend, Dominic Green. I lift my thin, frail hands and clap along with my old friends. The applause is so out of place that it startles everyone. My older sister, Sophia Young, is the first to rush over and block my way. She warns me coldly, "Don't start going crazy again, Zachary. Tiffany and Dominic registered their marriage years ago. If it weren't for you, they wouldn't have had to wait until today for their wedding." Dominic is Mom's prized student. She has always favored him. "Zachary, just think of Tiffany as having died three years ago when you jumped with her. Please, let them be happy." My eyes pass over Tiffany's anguished face, and I slowly nod. But the moment Dominic speaks, my empty stomach clenches on instinct. I grab the knife from the cake beside me. Three years of suffering is more than enough. I want something sweet for a change. I'm ready to let them go this time, but unfortunately, they don't believe I'm sane.

My stepsister falsely accuses me of causing her allergies to act up. My three brothers stuff me into the cramped cellar and chain the door shut. I pound on the door and beg them to let me out. My eldest brother, an outstanding businessman, snaps, "It's bad enough that you keep bullying Lori. How could you make her eat seafood when you know she's allergic to it? Isn't that just murder? Stay in there and reflect on your mistakes!" My second brother, an award-winning singer, and my third brother, a genius painter, scoff contemptuously. "It's unbelievable that someone as evil as you is making excuses to garner pity. You can stay in there and repent for your sins!" After that, they take our shuddering stepsister to the hospital. The oxygen in the cellar soon runs out, and it gets difficult to breathe. Ultimately, I die in there. My brothers only remember me three days later when they bring our stepsister back from the hospital. Unbeknownst to them, I've already died of asphyxiation.

On New Year’s Eve, I ran after my sister, Yelena Smith, who had left the house in anger. However, a bunch of thugs dragged me into an alley. The torture ripped me apart, both inside and out, and I had been living with severe PTSD ever since. I tried to hurt myself countless times. My sister would grab my hand as I held the knife and drive it into her own body. It was as if she was punishing herself. For every cut I made, she gave herself two. Our blood would mix while she held me and cried. “Felix, please! I’m begging you. Stop hurting yourself! “I swear I’ll heal you!” After that night, my sister, who had always been careless and aimless, seemed to become a different person. She burned her racing cars, which she used to be so proud of, to ashes. She also started studying, which she used to hate. It took her five years to become a chief psychiatrist. However, just when I was finally starting to get better, I heard voices outside my door. “Miss Smith, your acting’s too convincing. If I hadn’t known the truth, I would’ve never thought that you hired those thugs. “To avenge your step brother, you’ve been interfering with Felix’s recovery with medication while guilt-tripping him with love just to make him suffer. Aren’t you being too cruel?” My sister let out a dismissive snort. “He bullied Julian like that in the past. He deserves every bit of this. “But I know my limits. Felix is still my biological brother after all. I’m just teaching him a lesson. I could never bring myself to make him end his life.” I felt like I had fallen into an ice-cold abyss. I even forgot to breathe for a moment. Everything turned out to be my sister’s punishment all along. That night, I dragged my broken body up to the rooftop. ‘Yelena, you don’t have to punish me anymore this time,’ I thought.

In my final year of high school, my parents died, leaving me nothing but a crumbling brick house. And yet, I somehow got myself a younger brother. He was a second-year student at our school, at the top of his grade. But no one respected him. Even when he was bullied, the teachers turned a blind eye. Why? Because even if others didn't beat him, his drunken father did it every day, while his cowardly mother never dared to fight back. I dragged him home with all my strength, patched up his wounds, and kept him with me for several days. Later, when his mother was beaten to death, I called the police and had his father arrested. "Hey," I told him, "from now on, live with me. I don't have any family left. Call me sister, and I'll put you through school." He dreamed of getting into a prestigious university. So I dropped out, set up a street stall, sold my own blood, and even took illegal jobs just to support him. When he graduated, he said he wanted to start a business. I gave him every cent of my savings. And then one day, I watched him stand beneath the dazzling lights, a radiant girl at his side, holding a trophy for a youth entrepreneurship award. I looked down at the cancer diagnosis in my hands. A bitter smile tugged at my lips. In the end, I had raised him into someone I could no longer reach. It was time for me to leave the stage.

When Tanya Spencer was eighteen, she was sexually assaulted by a stranger who was drunk. She went straight to the police. Despite the fear and enormous pressure she faced, she refused to back down and made sure the powerful, well-connected man who had assaulted her ended up behind bars. But the trauma he left behind ran deep. For years afterward, even having a man come too close would make her tremble uncontrollably. Sometimes the nausea was so overwhelming that she would throw up. Tanya thought this was simply what the rest of her life would look like. She felt ruined. Tainted. Like she'd never be able to love someone or live a normal life again. Then Preston Hayes came along. He was the head of one of the most powerful families in Harbor City, a man who could have had almost anyone he wanted. Yet for some reason, he chose to pursue her, an ordinary woman carrying scars she believed no man could ever accept.

My fiancee tossed me onto a remote island just because I accidentally smashed the cup of my adopted brother. "Please, let me go home, Yvonne Johnson! There are beasts here! I'll die!" I kept pleading until my phone was dead. The only response I got was, "I'll let you go after Harold's not angry anymore." A month later, Harold joked with his friends, "I bet Christian's looking real primitive now. How about we check him out?" The only thing left on the island was a skeleton that wore my clothes.

The day I agree to marry James Hunt, he is eager to announce our love to the whole world. Later, when I get pregnant, he even acquires a hospital so that I can rest easy and focus on the baby. But during a checkup in my sixth month, I overhear a chilling conversation. "Mr. Hunt, the baby's developing well, but it's too large. The delivery could put the mother's life at risk." James only laughs, cold and unbothered. "So what if she dies? I only married her to give me children." The smile on my face freezes, and it feels like I have been plunged into ice. His next words cut me even deeper. "She pushed Natasha into the water, and now Natasha can never have children. This is nothing but her retribution." The perfect happiness I think I have is nothing more than a lie. So, I quietly register at another hospital and schedule an abortion. James, I hope you live to regret this.

I'm waiting for my wife, Sophia Young, to pick me up. My colleague, Tony Shaw, who habitually hitches a ride with us, stays with me. He complains incessantly, "Why isn't your wife here yet? It's freezing cold! I'd prefer to be home by today!" He lives in the western part of the city. Every time we drive him home, Sophia has to make a large detour. However, my stomach is killing me that day, so I politely break things to him while cradling my stomach. "Tony, I'm not feeling well today and would like to get home early to rest. You should take a taxi home yourself. I'll let you hitch a ride next time." Tony snorts coldly and walks away. I wait downstairs for another 30 minutes, only to receive a call from Sophia. She informs me, "Traffic along the street outside your office is unusually congested. I've stopped the car at the intersection up ahead, so come find me there." I venture into the rain to find her car while struggling to keep the umbrella up and open. When I open the car door, I realize it's already filled with her colleagues and there's no space for me. Sophia rolls the window halfway down and points at the blond-haired man drying his hair with a towel in the front passenger seat. She explains, "Ian saw his friend at the intersection just now. The handsome young man looked rather pitiful soaking in the rain, so I gave him a lift. Your company's close by anyway, so why don't you head back in there first? I'll come back to pick you up once I've sent them home." The storm ruins my umbrella, and rain gets in my eyes, making them sting painfully. As I gaze at Sophia's packed car, I find that my marriage to her suddenly feels incredibly meaningless.

I’d just wrapped up a short trip with my daughter, Elara. On the way back, I figured I’d swing by the Hale, our family’s casino, to check in on my son, Cassian. Maybe grab dinner together. I didn’t expect to be mistaken for his latest fling. Correction: not mistaken—accused. Violently. “You think you can just waltz in here like some queen?” she hissed. “I’m the woman Cassian loves! What kind of whore are you? And is this your bastard daughter with him?” She locked us in the basement. No phone. No light. Just concrete walls and the stench of mildew and madness. Then came the fists. She slapped me across the face—again and again—until my skin stung and my ears rang. When that didn’t satisfy her, she pulled a gun and aimed low. The bullet tore through my knee. I bit back a scream, shielding Elara with my body. “You need to die, whore,” she spat. One of her men hesitated, “We should at least tell Mr. Hale first. If we are going to kill these two in his casino.” Lila of course said no. But that man brought Cassian anyway. My son stepped into this dark little room like it was any other Tuesday—until he saw me. His whole body went still. The blood drained from his face. And then, in the smallest, most broken voice I’d ever heard from him, he whispered, “Mom? What are you doing in my basement?”

While pregnant with twins, I'm abducted three days before I'm due to give birth. My husband, Sheldon Jackson, refuses to deliver the ransom money himself. Instead, he wants to save Madison Smith, his sister-in-law, who was also taken at the same time. In order to guarantee Madison's safety, he leaves the task of saving me to someone else. "I have to protect my brother's unborn child. Harry is my most trusted subordinate. He'll definitely bring you back home safely!" However, Sheldon doesn't know that Harry Smith wants me dead. "The children she's carrying are bastards!" he says to the abductors. "We can't let them live—both the twins and the woman." I beg the abductors to let me talk to Sheldon one more time to reveal the truth, but he hangs up on me because of Madison. When he finally remembers me, he receives a phone call from the abductors. "We've dealt with your wife for you, Mr. Jackson."

The house was on fire. My husband–a firefighter–rescued our son first. And the kitten his first love had left behind. Then, to comfort the frightened woman, he rushed off without a second thought. When his colleagues asked my son if anyone else was still inside, he glanced in my direction… and shook his head. "There's no one else." I was later found screaming for help, barely alive. Outside my hospital room, my son looked at me with disappointment. "Why didn't you just burn to death in there? "If you were gone, Aunt Maya could be my mom."

Three days after his first love Mandy's death, my husband locked me in a steel cage and sank me into the ocean. "You vicious woman," he spat. "Stay here and repent to Mandy!" He didn't know I carried his child. I thrust the pregnancy confirmation toward him, but he walked away without a backward glance. Yet when he later saw my corpse—bloated and decomposing in the seawater—he went insane.

My pup Asher had been sick for six months. Every time I personally cared for him, he became even sicker. I finally believed the witch's prophecy: I was cursed. My very existence would harm my own pup. I went to the moon temple and prayed that the moon goddess would lift the curse and ensure my pup's safety. From then on, my Alpha mate Damon brought Asher up the mountain every day to see me. Hundreds of miles of mountain road. They made the trip over a thousand times. Our bond never faded with the distance. Until today. A group of rogues broke into the Sanctuary and pushed me down the stone steps. I called Damon all night. No one answered. Then I received an anonymous video. Damon knelt in front of a woman, kissing her swollen belly. Asher stood next to them, grinning ear to ear. "I'm gonna have a brother! Aunt Serena, your pregnancy must have been so tough. Me and Dad will be your knights forever." He turned to Damon, his young face bright with pride. "Dad, I faked being sick pretty well, right? Pretending to feel awful every day, tricking Mom into taking me to the Healer over and over. They never found anything wrong, and she really believed that curse stuff. Went up the mountain all on her own." "But what if Mom finds out? Won't she be mad?" Damon didn't seem worried. "Don't worry. I've got the whole mountain sealed off. She won't find out." Only then did I understand. Everything had been a lie, planned by my mate and my son. I turned around and knocked over the Hope Flame that I had lit for Asher without hesitation. This flame was lit at the cost of my wolf’s strength, offered to the Moon Goddess so that she might bless Asher with health. Through the flames, a familiar figure sprinted toward me.

My husband is a geologist. He took his soulmate, who was suffering from a terminal illness, to an active volcano, to fulfill her wishes. However, I was pushed into the lava when we were there. His soulmate then said, "Don't worry about me, just go and save her. I'm going to die soon anyway." I cried for help, "Please save me, I'm pregnant." However, my husband scolded me coldly, "A cancer patient has the right to live too. How can you be jealous of her and claim you are pregnant? Celine doesn't know anything, unlike you. You're an expert at this, you should know what to do. Just save yourself!"