Cerita Pendek & Novel Scumbag Face Slapping

A drunk rich kid speeds down a pedestrian walkway and hits my daughter, shattering her femur and breaking multiple ribs. She hasn't woken up since. Now the boy's mother wants to settle. She sits across from me with her chin lifted and slides a settlement agreement across the table. "Ms. Carlisle, just sign it and don't hold up my son's future." Rage burns through every last shred of my composure. I grab the document and hurl it in her face. "Not a chance!" She doesn't even flinch. Her lips curl into a smirk, and she looks me up and down. "The law says you only have to pay about a million if you kill someone. Your daughter isn't even dead. I'm offering medical expenses plus two million dollars on top. How does that sound?" She pulls out a black card and holds it up like a trophy. "You probably don't even know what this is. It's a globally limited black card." My eyes land on it, and I recognize the pattern instantly because I had it custom-made as a birthday gift for my husband. A metallic taste rises in the back of my throat, but I force the blood down, every ounce of rage coiling behind my eyes. "How much is your son's life worth? Name the price. I'll buy it."

While we were scuba diving, my boyfriend, Raphael Carlisle, ripped off my oxygen mask and put it on his childhood friend, Lucia Fairchild, whose mask had started leaking. I was left thrashing helplessly in the freezing water. Just as I thought it was over, Raphael's younger brother, Gabriel Carlisle, swam over, breathed life into me, and brought me back to the surface. After he saved me, he presented me with the purple diamond ring he designed himself and proposed, "For as long as I live, I'll never let you face danger again." I believed that he was my one true love, so I married him, leaving my job behind to focus on starting a family. On the day Lucia was given a critical condition notice, I ended up in a car accident. As I lay half-conscious on the hospital bed, I overheard Gabriel talking with Raphael. "Get a doctor to induce labor right away! Lucia's illness can only be treated with a stem cell transplant from umbilical cord blood. The only reason I got Phoebe pregnant was for this very day." "But she's carrying our bloodline! How could you have someone hit her with a car?" Raphael yelled. Gabriel replied, "Lucy matters more to me! As for Phoebe, I can spoil her rotten once she wakes up." At that moment, I realized the love I held on to was nothing but a lie. If that was the case, I'd just leave.

As the only expert in the world capable of rescue dives below 3,000 feet, I received a once-in-a-lifetime salvage contract worth tens of millions of dollars. I had dived in those same waters over a decade ago. My son's research submersible had been damaged on the ocean floor. After his oxygen ran out, he suffocated in the dark. The grief nearly destroyed me. My husband, Griffin Lattimer, held me through it, staying by my side through countless miserable nights. I found out later that he had personally redirected the only rescue vessel capable of reaching the depths our son was at to save his childhood friend's daughter. That girl had merely choked on a mouthful of water in the shallows. I divorced Griffin and threw myself into deep-sea salvage like a woman possessed, diving over and over until I knew the undercurrents of those waters better than I knew my own home. I never wanted another child to die the way mine did. Today brought the same stretch of ocean, the same crushed hull, the same depleted oxygen, and the same impossible odds. When I opened the client's file, I went completely still. I recognized the name and face inside instantly. I would never forget either of them for as long as I lived. I smiled and slid the folder back across the table to my partner. "I can't take this one."

Valentine's Day falls on the same day my boyfriend's company goes public. I spend one million dollars reserving an entire hotel, certain that Michael Cosby is finally going to propose. After all, he promised to marry me once he made something of himself. I wait for ages, only to receive a curt message saying he has something to take care of. Feeling crushed, I go on Instagram and unexpectedly come across a post from my best friend, Winona Ashe. "Back in Mr. Cosby's hometown for the wedding. Congratulations, Lylia! After everything you've been through, you're finally getting your happy ending!" The photos show a small-town wedding, with Michael as the groom and his secretary, Lylia Sutton, as the bride. Unable to believe what I'm seeing, I leave a single question mark in the comments, and that exposes everyone else who has been betraying me behind my back. Linda Cruz, the manager who personally got hired at the company, is the first to comment. "Holy shit, Winona. Did you forget to hide this from the golden goose?" The receptionist, who constantly fawned over me as the future Mrs. Cosby, joins in, "Great. Now the spoiled princess is going to throw another fit." Even an intern I've sponsored chimes in, "What if she gets petty and pulls her investment? Wouldn't we be screwed?" Finally, Peter Crane, the deputy CEO I personally mentored, reassures everyone. "Relax. Ms. Jenner only gave us the seed money. The company's already public, so even if she cashes out, it won't make any difference." How ironic. I spent six years helping Michael build himself up from nothing, only for him to betray me, and every person at the company I bankrolled all the way to its IPO betrays me right along with him.

My boyfriend of six years, Liam Sherman, proposes to his long-time crush, Vivi Johansen, on my birthday. With that, the passionate love between us is a thing of the past. I come to my senses and distance myself from him, choosing to put our relationship behind us. As such, I decided to go along with the arranged marriage my family has planned.

The day Adrian Knight clinched a contract with our biggest client, I "accidentally" tipped a bottle of ink across the paperwork, voiding it on the spot. Because of that single blot, the project landed in Alex Lewis’s lap, and he won Chairman Henry Carter’s favor almost overnight, moving into the Carter mansion as their future son-in-law and watching his net worth rocket into eight figures. Adrian never blamed me. He just laughed that he’d never been executive material anyway and happily brought me home as his bride. Everyone whispered that, if not for my meddling, Adrian would already be sitting in the Carter family’s executive suite instead of scraping by in an ordinary life with me. Only I knew the truth: stopping him from signing that contract had saved his life. When Adrian learned I was pregnant, he locked me in the basement, fingers digging into my throat. "If it hadn’t been for you," he snarled, "I’d be Henry Carter’s son-in-law by now. You’re the reason I lost Rachel, the princess of the Carter family." That’s when I realized he’d been nursing this grudge for years. After he killed me, I woke up, reborn on the very day Adrian first reached for that fatal contract. This time, I’ll make sure Adrian Knight gets exactly what he wants.

My father is the High God of the Sun, and my mother is the Empress of the Moon. Ever since I was born, they’ve had two suitors lined up for me. First, there’s Sol, the God of Dawn. He rules the Temple of Light and controls everything warm and bright in this world. Then there’s Karnos, the Shadow Sovereign. He rules the Dark Realm with a power so absolute it makes the other gods tremble. On the day of my Millennium Awakening, whichever man I choose as my husband will become the Supreme Ruler of the entire Divine Realm. Without a second thought, I chose Karnos. The crowd went dead silent. Everyone was losing their minds because I’d been head-over-heels for Sol since we were kids. I’d even sworn an oath that I’d never marry anyone but him. But what they don't know is that in my past life, I did marry Sol. And on our very first night as husband and wife, he crawled into bed with my maid, Lilith. When the news broke, Lilith was banished to the mortal world. Sol never forgave me for that. He blamed me for her exile. After I got pregnant, he started bringing a different goddess home every single night, forcing me to watch while they were intimate right in front of me. It got worse. On the day I went into labor, he intentionally sent away every single healing deity. He ignored my screams and pleas for help, leaving me and my unborn child to die in absolute agony. So, now that I’ve been reborn, I’ve decided to let him have his "true love." I’m walking away and choosing Karnos instead. But there’s one thing I didn’t count on... Sol remembered everything, too.

At a class reunion, my best friend snuck onto a private Gulfstream jet parked outside the venue and flew me and my boyfriend out to watch the sunrise over the ocean. She lost control of it, and the multimillion-dollar aircraft went straight into the sea. The second she dragged herself onto the beach, she threw her arms around my legs and wailed, "Elizabeth, this is all your fault! You begged me to fly you out here, and now we're both finished!" My boyfriend of a year, ever the picture of righteousness, backed her up. "Melanie only did it because she wanted you to have a good time. Elizabeth, you need to own up to this." The classmates who'd gathered around pointed fingers and hurled insults, calling me selfish for causing such a disaster. But I was the one they'd tied to that plane against my will. And that jet? It belonged to my brother.

My boyfriend's one true love, Winnie Lynch, lost a wager on the open seas and she was going to be fed to the tiger sharks in the shark tank soon. As the ship's pirate captain watched, my boyfriend, Hank Smith, yanked me up as I was scrubbing the deck and said, "Winnie is sickly and she can't handle the shock. You're a cleaner who works hard labor every day and has great stamina. You should go in there and hold your breath for five minutes for her." Everyone around us burst out laughing. I wiped the soap bubbles from my hands and sighed helplessly. "Both of you thought this through? You really want me to go?" None of them knew that the two leaders of the pirates who were sitting on the main seats, men who were feared across the open seas, were kids I had trained myself a long time ago!

I'd been with Leo Abernathy for five years, and his ex-girlfriend, Cressida Hollingsworth, had spent those same five years trying to come between us. Cressida bet me that Leo would always choose her over me. She had dragged me into a pool and forced me to stand with her on a rooftop ledge, all to make Leo choose between us. Every time, Leo held on to my hand. After her ninth failed attempt, Cressida finally gave up. She stopped coming near me and stopped texting Leo. She even left our social circle, quit her job, and started going on blind dates. I thought I'd finally won the five-year battle. Then, on our wedding day, the wedding coordinator announced the groom's entrance six times, but Leo never showed up. When he finally showed up, he looked frantic. "Cressida is about to marry a man she's met only once on a blind date. We have to cancel the wedding. I need to stop her." I stared at him, suddenly realizing what a joke these five years had been. He'd chosen me the first nine times. But on our wedding day, he chose Cressida. I pulled off my ring and hid it in my palm. "Cressida and I made a bet. If you're choosing her, then we're done for good."

My sister Seraphina and I were inseparable growing up. She played the fierce protector. She called herself my guardian angel. Deep down, she was a snake. She wanted everything I had. She stole my man—Rocco, a Capo in the Philly mafia's Cianci family. Her excuse? She wanted to "test" his loyalty to me. She claimed she was shielding me from his dark world of shootouts, blood, and FBI wiretaps. She maxed out the black card he gave me. Then she told him I bought a Rolex for a boy toy. She skimmed money from the family's money-laundering business. She pinned it on me. She said I was a gambling addict with massive debts. She got pregnant. Yet she still messed around with Rocco's uncle at a lavish yacht party. She got high and partied until she started bleeding. But in the end, I took the fall for everything. She spun a lie. She said I locked her in the bathroom out of jealousy. She panicked. She fell. The baby died. To avenge her, my man threw me into a rundown underground casino in Atlantic City. There, his uncle's mistress sold me to a pimp. I got hooked on drugs. Then they tossed me out on the streets. I was passed around from one man to another in pure humiliation. Until my body completely broke down. I died a slow, dirty, and lonely death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the very night my sister miscarried after that crazy yacht party.

When I'm taking Mom and Dad to experience the cable car ride, an infinite display of fireworks suddenly bursts from the bottom of the mountain. Soon, they form a sentence in the air. "Our romance will never fade away, even if we die. Yvonne Shaw, my heart belongs to you always." Right away, I realize that my husband, Henry Glover, has specifically prepared the fireworks display just to please his childhood sweetheart, Yvonne Shaw. Under the powerful attacks of the fireworks, the cable lines begin to shake and tremble violently to the point they are about to snap. My fingers tighten around my phone so much that they've turned white. I scream into the speaker, "Henry Glover, have you gone nuts? Stop it! Mom and Dad are still in the cable car!" But he merely chortles in return. I can hear Yvonne's delicate voice egging him on in the background. "Why should I stop? When Yvonne's parents were lying in the ICU and waiting for help three years ago, you screwed up their life-saving surgery despite the fact that you never failed a surgery before! "Today, I want you to have a taste of what it feels like to lose your loved ones as well!" After that, the bodyguards' responses echo from the other end of the line. Henry orders, "Add another huge batch of fireworks and aim them at the cable car. Just keep firing at it!" Yvonne's titters are like poisoned honey. She continues egging on Henry. "You're amazing, darling! Make those two bastards turn to ash!" The cable car sinks all of a sudden. Mom and Dad are so frightened that their complexions turn deathly pale. With bloodshot eyes, I use all of my strength in roaring at my phone. "Henry Glover, your own parents are the ones trapped inside the cable car right now!"

I was the best liar in the slums. I'd stolen church donations and forged medical records to get relief money. I'd even framed Clara Gray, my younger half sister, and gotten her kicked out of our home. Yet Alpha Logan Blackwood had taken one look at me at an underground auction and marked me as his. A werewolf took only one mate. For life. For three years, I'd played his sweet, submissive fated mate. Then someone brought Clara back from a casino. Clutching so-called evidence, she stood before him and sobbed. "My sister's been rotten since she was a child. She doesn't deserve to be your mate." Logan's expression turned cold. Right in front of me, he took Clara back to the pack house. "I thought you were my destiny. Turns out you're just a snake." That night, the backlash from his rejection killed me in the pack house basement. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the underground auction. The auctioneer had already raised his gavel. Before he could bring it down, I pointed at a man in the corner. "I'm selling my life to Kane Ashcroft."

The day my doctor told me I was dying because I couldn't afford to keep getting treatment, James Zane finally came home with his fiancée. He'd made a name for himself by then, and he was bringing her back to meet his family. When he saw me at the hospital, hobbling along on crutches and gasping for breath every few steps, he asked, "When you left me for $100,000 back then, did you ever think karma would catch up with you?" I looked at the mocking curl of his lips and gave a quiet laugh. "If I apologize and tell you how sorry I am, will you give me another five hundred thousand?" His expression changed instantly. The look in his eyes became impossible to read. Before he left, he said, "I'm getting married next month." I nodded. "Congratulations. But I won't be there." After all, I probably wouldn't live to see next month.

I spent three years on a medical aid mission in Afrikad. During that time, my husband and I could only video call twice a year. In our third year, I missed him so much that I secretly flew home, hoping to surprise him. The moment I opened the front door, I froze. A wedding portrait I had never seen before hung in the living room. In the photo were my husband and another woman. Then, I heard a burst of chatter. As I looked closer, I realized the plants in the house had started talking again. The pothos stretched its vines toward the living room. “She’s back! She’s back! That woman is wearing the doctor’s pajamas again!” The spider plant snickered, “She claimed they were a gift from her best friend last week. That old hag comes up with a new story every few days.” The cactus grumbled, “Quit arguing. She’s bringing that other man over for dinner today. How do you think she’ll explain this to her husband this time?” The pothos replied, “She’ll probably call him her cousin. That’s what she said last time.” Just then, a woman walked out carrying a child. She was startled for a moment when she saw me. “Who are you?” I gave her a faint smile. “I'm Justin's mother.”

Luna Smith was a famous tarot reader. When Dean Stark and I were going to register our marriage, she flashed three cards, saying that marrying this day would ruin his destiny and fortunes. Dean promptly called it off, and told me to wait a couple of days… which ended up being five years. When I got pregnant, she said that the child would be a jinx to its father, and I was hence forced to get an abortion… on four different occasions. When my mother was diagnosed with liver cancer, I begged Dean for $200,000 on my knees. Even before Dean said a word, Luna frowned and said, "Your mother and her family are jinxed. If the money changes hands, Dean's career will be over." Dean sighed as he pushed me away. "Death is inevitable. Just accept it." I finally went hysterical, but Luna slapped me across the face. "You're being hounded by jinxes. That's why things aren't going well for Dean lately!" Then, blushing as she turned to Dean, she said, "Just sleep with me once, and let your male vigor erupt to blow away the jinxes. That's the only way." Everyone else promptly told me to be understanding and think of the big picture, while Dean himself said, "I swear—this will happen only once, and I will close my eyes the whole time. "We will marry once it's over. You've waited a long time for this, right?" Hence, he scooped Luna up in his arms and strode into our bedroom. As everyone else laughed and cheered, I quietly left and took out my phone, texting the famous demon king ruling the city, "We should register our marriage today, as it says in the cards. Are you coming?"

An accident leaves Preston Brown unable to have children. The fight over his family's fortune is heating up. Desperate for an heir, Preston arranges for me to sleep with his best friend, Rowan Kerr. I quietly dump the sleeping pills Preston gave me and pretend to be clueless. Then, I lose myself in a night of passion with Rowan. … The next morning, right in front of Preston, I smile sweetly and say, "Honey, you were incredible last night. I've never felt so good." His expression darkens. "Do you prefer the man I am by day, or the one who takes you at night?" I act bashful, tugging on his sleeve. "Both. But I especially love the one who knows how to satisfy me at night."

When Derek Sloan's childhood sweetheart, Nina Graham, has another depressive episode, he hands me divorce papers. I calmly sign my name and tell him I'm leaving the country. He looks at me in surprise, then it dawns on him. "You're so well-behaved this time. Did you realize that throwing a fit won't work, so now you're trying a different way to win me back?" he asks. "Going abroad is fine, too. "That way, you won't upset Nina. Once she's better, I'll come get you." I return my wedding ring to him and look at the ugly scars on my wrist. I say calmly, "There's no need to. Let's let each other go and stop dragging this out."

Lady Winona Adler, the new consort, bears an uncanny resemblance to me when I first entered the palace. King Edward Wright showers her with fine silk, rare pearls, and all kinds of expensive gifts. She sets her sights on the white agate rabbit Edward has carved for me with his own hands. "His Majesty says that if I fancy something, I may have whatever I wish. You're old now, Lady Rosalyn. You don't deserve something this lovely and delicate." During the argument, the maid accompanying Lady Winona deliberately drops the rabbit and shatters it. Edward rushes over upon hearing the news, his tone edged with reproach. "If Winona wants it, just give it to her. It's just a worthless piece of stone. Why are you making such a fuss over it?" I stare at the shattered pieces scattered across the floor and suddenly remember how his hands were covered in small cuts and trembling when he gave it to me. It has only been nine years, and everything has changed. I've had enough. "Inform the Royal Household that I will be departing for Holy Brook Abbey to spend three years in prayer tomorrow."

On my first day at a new hospital, I treated a pregnant woman in critical condition. With the nurses’ help, we stabilized her condition and safely delivered her baby. As soon as she could speak, she reached for her phone. Her voice was filled with pride as she said, “Honey, I gave birth to a son!” The voice that came through the speaker made me freeze. “Baby, you’re amazing!” Those few words were enough to send me spiraling into despair. I had known that voice for ten years. It belonged to my husband, Liam Stretton.