Short Stories & Novels

Every Christmas Eve in Port Saint Giovanni, the Camerlano family hosts the Claiming Rite at Saint Giovanni Manor. Twelve girls stand in a line. Whoever receives the white-gold signet pin becomes the heir’s publicly acknowledged bride candidate. I am Grace Sorrento, the bastard daughter of the Sorrento family. If I do not receive that signet tonight, by sunrise I will be put on a plane to Chicago and married off to a Rizzo, a man rumored to have killed two former fiancées. Adrian Camerlano, the boy I grew up with, swore to me in blood three days ago that the signet would be mine. But when the moment came, his hand turned. With a smile, he pinned it on Lucia, the orphan his family had sponsored. Then he leaned close to my ear. "Let Lucia have her moment. No one has ever really looked at her before. Don’t worry. This is my estate. No one will dare arrange your marriage without my say." I grabbed his sleeve, but he removed my fingers one by one. "Lucia has no roots and no last name. Tonight is all she has. But you are a Sorrento. Even without the signet, no one will touch you." That phrase, no last name, drew every gaze in the ballroom toward me, full of pity and quiet mockery. The next morning, I boarded a flight to Chicago. When Adrian heard, he made one call to Port Saint Giovanni Air Control. "Ground every plane. Nothing leaves today!"

I took my newborn son to my husband’s mafia compound for his christening. His ten-year-old niece, Bianca—the Family’s spoiled little princess—pushed my baby’s stroller straight into the deep end of the freezing pool. My son sank to the bottom. The clinking of champagne glasses drowned out his final struggles. I dove in like a madwoman. But I only pulled out a cold, lifeless body. Because Bianca was "Family blood," the murder was ruled a tragic accident. My father-in-law, the Don, handed me a limitless black card as "compensation." But I didn't want money. I wanted my son. I wanted my Nico! I dropped to my knees. I begged my husband, Matteo, to avenge our baby. Instead, he just held his crying niece and looked at me with dead eyes. "Mandy, she’s just a child. Are you going to destroy one life over a mistake?" Denied my vengeance, I wasted away in our penthouse that long winter, dying a broken woman. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the christening. My husband’s arm was wrapped around my waist. His hot kisses trailed down my neck. "Our boy will be blessed by the priest today." I shoved him away instantly. I called my personal guards. I had them rush my son safely to my family's estate. But later that day, a tiny body still floated in the pool.

In the third year since my husband, Axel Kramer, starts working as a rideshare driver, we finally manage to buy a home of our own. On the day we move in, he suddenly says to me, "Some friends want to come over for dinner tonight. I already said yes." I'm someone who values boundaries and doesn't like outsiders coming into my home. Even when we host relatives, we take them out to restaurants. "Can't we just go to a restaurant?" I ask. He looks helpless as he replies, "I already suggested that, but Lindsay said it would be more fun if we hang out at home. She said we should liven it up in our new home. And since everyone knows I'm a good cook, she wants to try my cooking too." One corner of my eye twitches with displeasure. Lindsay Brun is the female driver he's mentioned the most over these three years. She's also the only woman in their rideshare drivers' group chat.

After I started dating Ryan Kellogg, I gave up the little rituals I had loved for twenty years. No birthday cakes. No fireworks on New Year's Eve. No more searching for the restaurant with the prettiest view on our anniversary. Ryan always said real life didn't need all that decorative nonsense. He only agreed to a modest engagement dinner because I insisted. But when he arrived that evening, he was wearing a perfectly tailored suit. Our friends and relatives looked at him with new respect. I was thrilled, convinced he was finally learning to meet me halfway. Then, on the drive home, I happened to see a post from Sophie Bennett, the younger graduate Ryan had been mentoring. In the photo, she stood beside him outside Bellhaven State University, wearing the heirloom brooch his late mother had meant for his future wife. Her caption read: My mentor said he never expected the first time he'd wear a full suit would be for my graduation. I scrolled farther. Ryan had sent Sophie flowers and a cake for her birthday. He'd even helped celebrate the adoption anniversary of her dog. I touched the empty place above my heart and felt something inside me turn cold. His romance was a privilege reserved for Sophie. Our engagement dinner had merely fit into his schedule. As we entered our apartment complex, Ryan tapped the steering wheel. "Han, I gave you the engagement dinner you wanted. Let's just do the courthouse ceremony next week and skip the wedding." I put away my phone and smiled. "All right." He was right about one thing. There was no reason for us to get married.

After I developed transient amnesia, fragments of my memories would come back to me every day. But after a month, I would lose part of my memory again. The doctor said my condition would shorten my life and that there was no cure. Devastated, I went to my parents, ready to tell them I was giving up on treatment. Instead, I overheard my family talking inside the room. "His memories are returning! We have to increase the dosage before he remembers everything!" My older sister, Lena Jackson, hesitated. "This has already happened 99 times. If we do it again, we might really ruin him." "What if he gets his memory back and wants to return to the other world? Won't Zach die because of him?" "Don't forget! The more he suffers here, the better Zach's life will be over there!"

On our first wedding anniversary, my husband came home with a woman who was six months pregnant. He introduced her as his cousin, someone who had fallen on hard times, and asked me to take care of her. I was just about to agree when fragments of imaginary commentary floated through my mind: [She's just my 'cousin'. Uh-uh, that's a cliche.] [Poor supporting female character! A maid by day, the husband's bedwarmer by night.] [But she totally deserved it! If she hadn't broken up the main couple, they'd have a whole soccer team of kids by now!] Wait—what? Supporting female character? Me? And what's this about breaking them up? So now these two get to cheat under my roof, and somehow I'm the villain? Before I could process it all, my husband was already dragging her luggage inside. "Alice doesn't like fried food," he said matter-of-factly. "And nothing too salty or spicy. Make sure you keep that in mind when you're cooking. "Oh, and pregnant women love sweets. Go out now and buy a cherry cake. The one from that bakery in the suburbs."

Every time my driver took me back to Camorra Family, he brought his girlfriend along. Since she was going the same way, I said nothing. That was until one day when I opened the car door and found a note stuck on my usual seat in the back: "Freeloaders are not allowed in this car. " I ripped the note off and looked at my driver,David. "What is this supposed to mean?" David's girlfriend was sitting in the passenger seat, glaring at me with hostility. "Can't you read?" she snapped. "You've been shamelessly hitching rides from my boyfriend everyday. If you can't afford a car,just stay home. Son of a bitch." I stared at her in disbelief. Before I could say anything,David immediately got out of the car and hurried over to me. Lowering his voice,he explained nervously, "Princess,my girlfriend doesn't know that I'm your driver. She's just very possessive because she loves me,that's why she wrote it ." Then he added, " She feels uncomfortable sitting in the same car as you. I'll take her home first,and then I'll come back for you." With that,David got back into my Maybach and drove away. I stood there, watching my own car disappear down the road, then took out my phone and called the family soldiers " Someone has taken possession of family property without authorization. I need you to come and handle it."

"How can there be a perfect choice in this world—one that betrays neither the Sandharan Order nor the one you love?" It's a romantic line, but it has nothing to do with Rosalie Stone. Her fiance, Bradley Wakefield, is a man revered like Sandhara himself, but it's not because of her that he leaves the Sandharan Order. She thinks he will never fall in love. But later, she learns that it's just her that he won't fall for. And so, she gives up on him. She gives herself seven days to forget about Bradley.

My flower stall that's stationed outside the university entrance gets thrashed by the hooligans hired by my husband, Anthony Rivera. So, I show up at Sienna Wright, the low-income student's graduation ceremony with a bouquet of roses. Anthony, who's a university professor, is in the middle of turning Sienna's tassel for her. When they are taking a photo together with smiles on their faces, I turn on my megaphone right away. "My husband longs to have two wives. One is the student he's sleeping with. To celebrate their affair, all roses are now 3 dollars each." Everyone just stares at Anthony, clearly dumbfounded. Meanwhile, Anthony, who prides himself on being cool and composed, finds himself panicking once again.

I had just won the Hawthorne Scientific Laureate on the international stage when my father called me back home. "Bring the betrothal gifts to the Hayes family. That childhood engagement should finally be fulfilled." Afraid of getting stuck in traffic, I took my modified motorcycle, carried the national heritage porcelain obtained through generations of the Keane family's military merits, and headed toward their house. Just as I arrived at the community gate, a Porsche suddenly cut across the lane, nearly knocking me over. A heavily made-up woman, Zoey Mercer, stepped out of the car, raised one sharp high heel, and kicked the top box off my motorcycle. "You rode this junk motorcycle yet dared block my way? If you dent my car, your whole family won't be able to afford the compensation!" My heart sank. I quickly opened the case, only to see the entire box of celadon porcelain shattered. "So you’re just some delivery guy. Think this pile of trash is worth even one of my shoes? "You even know whose neighborhood this is? It belongs to Kingshore's Hayes family! My best friend’s family developed this place! Believe it or not, I can have you thrown out right now!" Right then, my fiancee, Lauren Hayes, called me. "Where are you? My friend just messaged me saying there’s a delivery guy causing trouble at the entrance."

Even knowing that wailing at an Eravalen aristocratic funeral was considered disrespectful to the deceased, I let my husband's adopted sister make a scene anyway. In my previous life, my husband, Robert Baker, had a distant relative among the Eravalen aristocracy who passed away. A lawyer informed him that he stood to inherit the estate and invited him to attend the funeral. His adopted sister, Mia Carter, insisted on tagging along to see how the privileged few in another country lived. She wanted to rub shoulders with nobles and make herself look important, even planning to wail dramatically in front of everyone. I rushed to stop her. "Loud mourning is taboo among the Eravalen nobility. Forget inheriting anything. We'll all be thrown out!" Yet she burst into tears, accusing me of looking down on her and thinking she was not good enough to mingle with aristocrats. She stormed out and was killed by street thugs in a random attack. I thought Robert would fall apart, but he stayed silent through the entire funeral and collected his inheritance without a hitch. Six months later, on our wedding anniversary, he took me to the snowy mountains for a photoshoot. The moment we reached the peak, he shoved me into a sleeping bag and tied it shut. "If you hadn't blown everything out of proportion, Mia never would've run off and gotten herself shot." He buried me alive in the snow. I froze to death, and he used that aristocratic fortune to become the CEO of a publicly traded company. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Mia insisted on wailing at the funeral.

When the Jensens reunite with their long-lost biological daughter, Lyra Jensen, they kick out my girlfriend, Lorraine Jensen, the daughter they'd mistakenly raised in her place. Not wanting to see Lorraine fall into destitution, I go crazy spending all my money on luxury goods for her so that she can still hold her head up high in public. For Lorraine's sake, I openly refuse to marry Lyra. Moved to tears, Lorraine swears she'll love me forever. Yet, when she eventually becomes the top female CEO in Jannington, the first thing she does is bring my family to ruin and destroy my life. She drives my father to jump off a building and gives my mother a heart attack. I beg her to save my mother, but she locks me in a cage and lets her assistant, Evan Scott, torture me as he pleases. When I confront her, she sneers and says to me, "I've had enough of you acting all high and mighty in front of me, Cyrus. Your so-called attempt to support me was just you using your money to humiliate me! "To me, your money is worth less than a bowl of soup Evan makes for me." Even until my last breath, resentment is all I can feel. … My eyes open once more. I've been reborn back in time, during my first attempt to back Lorraine up in public. She throws aside the sapphire necklace I gave her and declares with a cold, haughty gaze, "I don't need your pity, Cyrus. Don't even try to act all superior to my face."

The Horror Game invaded the world. Real players entered the game, and their every move would be broadcast live. My adopted son shoved me—an eighty-eight-year-old woman—straight into a deadly dungeon to save his own skin. One of the comments in the live stream predicted: [What? They’re tossing in such an elderly woman? No way she’s gonna survive the first night!] On the first night, a frost-bitten ghost exhaled icy breath in my face. I shrugged off my thick floral coat, feeling sorry for her. “You poor thing! You must be freezing. Listen to me and bundle up quickly!” The second night, a starving ghost lunged at me with blood dripping down his chin. I sniffed the air, then found a jar of pickled cabbage. “Look at how skinny you are! Come on, let me get you something hot to eat.” On the final day, the last surviving players tied me up, desperate to steal the one ticket to escape. However, before they could touch me, every ghost in the dungeon came storming out, cleavers and rolling pins in hand. “Touch her, and you’re dead meat!”

After the tragic death of my best friend, I took her younger brother in and treated him like my own. Everyone knew how much Zach Lawson meant to me, so much so that I vowed not to marry because I could not bear leaving him. The day he turned eighteen, he got on one knee and asked me to marry him. With tears of joy streaming down my face, I took the bouquet from him, only to realize they were made of writhing snakes. Everyone laughed at my misfortune. It was an artfully crafted joke, at my expense. Thalia Lewis laced her arm through Zach's and grinned. "Sorry about that, Sydney. It was just an innocent prank. Zach is willing to do anything to make me smile!" Zach gave me a look of utter disgust. "Is this what you think of me? You're my sister! How can you even think of marrying me? This is vile! Is this the reason you took me in? Have you been secretly pining for me since the start?" My whole life had come crashing down around me. I was overcome with shock, misery, and despair, until Connor Grey showed up and asked for my hand in marriage.

On the day I went into labor, my mate Caleb Ashford received a call from his first love. "Caleb, I'm back. Can you end your mate bond with her and become my mate?" Caleb glanced at me in the delivery room, said nothing, and hung up without hesitation. I thought he had chosen me. But the day I was discharged after giving birth, he slid a mate bond dissolution agreement across the table toward me. "Nora, I'm sorry. I can't say no to Lila. After the bond is dissolved, I'll give you a large sum of money to make up for it." I stared at the dissolution agreement in front of me. I didn't cry or make a scene. I picked up the pen calmly and signed my name, Nora Hart, at the bottom. Caleb hadn't expected me to agree so readily. A flicker of shock crossed his eyes. I handed him the signed agreement. "It's fine. I've always known Lila is the one you've loved all these years. "Being your mate for seven years was already more than I could have ever asked for." With that, I turned and walked away under his stunned gaze. Once I was out of his sight, I looked at my copy of the agreement again. The settlement was enough to keep me comfortable for three lifetimes. He had no idea that playing it cool was a gold digger's oldest trick.

The day before my wedding, I went to our cathedral early to get familiar with the place. Instead, I found my fiancé and my stepsister, Isabella fucking on the altar. Our altar. I caught them. He didn't even apologize and just threw me out into the storm. I collapsed in the pouring rain. That’s when he found me. Alistair, the Vampire Prince. He moved like a god through the storm. He pulled me from the mud, and gave me a palace. He told the world I was his soulmate. The one he’d spent centuries searching for. His one and only. For five years, his devotion made me the envy of the supernatural world. I thought I was the one exception in his eternal life. Until I found his secret room. My fingers brushed against an ancient scroll. The script was written in blood. The first line was her name: Isabella. Beneath it, in Alistair's own hand: “Absolute priority. Above all else.” Underneath was a healer's log I’d never seen before. A vampire's healing log. The date was from the night I found out I was pregnant. The night I was attacked by werewolves. They brought me back to the castle, covered in blood. The healers never came for me. I woke up alone. The baby was gone. Our child. His blood, my blood—gone. And my clothes were soaked in what was left of it. I cleaned every trace of it. When he came home, I broke down in his arms. I never told him. I couldn’t bear for him to feel the pain I felt. Now I understood. That same night, Isabella was also being attacked by werewolves. And Alistair’s order to his council was: “Send every healer. Isabella is the priority.” My heart stopped. Despair was a poison in my veins. “If I was never the one... then you can keep your eternity. I want no part of it.”

At two in the morning, during a raid, I personally arrested my wife, Carolyn Hewitt, in a rundown motel room. Her neck was covered in hickeys. In handcuffs, she sat beside the bed, trying to comfort her younger brother, who had curled up in the corner, quietly sobbing. "Alex failed his exam and has been feeling terrible. So, I brought him here to relax. Don't get the wrong idea." In the past, I would have already been shouting at her. However, at that moment, I did not even have the strength to expose her lies. I had heard them too many times. "Mark… About this…" My partner nudged me with his elbow, glancing toward the registration form. He was telling me it was up to me how I wanted to handle it. Keeping a cold face, I aimed my body camera toward the foot of the bed. "Handle it by the book. No special treatment." "Mark Russ!" She suddenly struggled against the handcuffs. "What kind of brother-in-law are you? Alex is only 20! If he ends up in jail, his whole life will be ruined!" Her eyes reddened as she spoke, but my expression did not change. I said calmly, "When have you ever treated me like family? Carolyn…let's get a divorce."

My mother, Winona Barlowe, who was the medical director at the hospital, decided to let my intern sister, Mia Barlowe, practice her skills by performing a brain tumor surgery on me. I begged my mother to assign another doctor since it was my only chance at survival. She slapped me across the face and cried out, "How did I ever give birth to a selfish girl like you? Mia just started her internship. Can’t you give her the chance to practice?" When I died from the botched surgery, she turned gray overnight.

It had been six years since Vincent Castellano was declared dead in that “car crash”, and I was still alone. My friends kept nagging me to move on. Even in my dreams, Vincent was there, begging me to stop living in the past. So I finally caved and agreed to a blind date with Leo Christopher, the guy who’d been chasing me for years. I’d decided I’d make a clean break with Vincent once and for all on the Day of the Dead. But the second I stepped out of the cemetery, a billboard for a luxury brownstone in Brooklyn Heights caught my eye. It was the exact place Vincent had been obsessed with back when I thought he was alive. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was heading straight for it. What I saw that day is seared into my brain for the rest of my life. There, on the bench outside the house, sat Vincent. The man was laid to rest in the Castellano family crypt. And he had his arm around another woman. That woman? Mia Rossi. The card dealer he’d been screwing behind my back six years prior. The same one I’d caught him red-handed with, the one I’d made him fire from the family casino.

On our third Valentine's Day since marrying the Don Arthur, he set the three places at the dining table. With the same hands he used to wield a gun, he carefully peeled shrimp. Shrimp was Lora's favorite, the first love he'd never gotten over. I was allergic to shellfish. He dismissed every hurt he'd caused me and sided with Lora every time. He was certain I loved him so deeply that I would swallow every insult and step aside forever. Everything changed when I discovered Lora's role in my father's murder and learned how completely Arthur's blind trust in her had buried the truth. That was when I finally saw him clearly. I was done with Arthur and the love he claimed to have for me.