221b Baker Street

As the youngest daughter of the Costellos, I had always lived in my sister’s shadow. That was until five years ago, when she betrayed the family and ran off with a street thug. I took her place and completed the wedding with Elio Ross. Over the years, he loved and indulged me, but we never got a marriage license. He always said family matters kept him busy, and that, with or without it, I was his wife in his and the family’s eyes. I believed him. Until today… I watched as Elio walked out of the church with my sister Alyssa, who had been missing for five years, both of them wearing the family rings that symbolized their union. At the church entrance, three black SUVs opened their doors simultaneously, and my three brothers stepped out in tailored suits. “The ceremony’s done? We’ve already booked Antonio’s to celebrate Alyssa’s return.” They climbed into the cars, expressing their joy, while no one noticed my pale, shattered face across the street. Later that night, under the guise of apology, my sister let a venomous spider bite me. “A substitute is always a substitute. Now that I’m back, it’s time for you to die.” I screamed for help. However, my husband and my three brothers only rushed to hold my sister, who had pretended she had fallen, without a glance at me, writhing from the poison. They called in every specialist from the hospital, only to tend to my sister’s scraped knee. That was the moment my heart truly broke. After being dragged back from death’s door by the doctors, I made my decision. I picked up the phone and called the International Private Island Exchange. “That isolated, uninhabited island… I’ll take it.”

After my physical examination, I'm about to leave the pack infirmary located in my cousin's territory when a heavily made-up healer suddenly grabs my arm. She hisses, "Stop right there! You think you can break something in the infirmary and just run away? No way!" I look at her unfamiliar face and blink, feeling utterly confused. "What did I break?" She points to the crystal potion bottles on the shelves and wrinkles her nose exaggeratedly. "You reek, and your stench has contaminated all the potions, making them unusable! Alpha Xander bought these at a high cost, and all of it is worth 500 thousand dollars. There's also compensation for causing me emotional distress—that's another 200 thousand. "Altogether, that's 700 thousand dollars. Will you pay by cash or card?" My scent is a mix of violet and amber. It's noble and cool, like a winter dusk. Of course, not everyone loves this scent, but "contamination"? Please! I can't fathom why the infirmary in Xander's territory is operating like a scam. I laugh out of anger and say, "I'm Alpha Xander's cousin. I don't pay a single cent in his territory. If anyone has a problem with that, have Xander come say it to my face." But the healer only rolls her eyes. "You bitch, trying to use such lowly tricks to get my Alpha's attention? You wish! If you don't pay up today, I'll strip you naked and throw you onto the street so that everyone can smell how foul you are!" She has no idea who she's threatening. I take a deep breath and quickly contact my Beta. "Tell Xander—either banish this healer from the pack, or I'll banish him."

You were a three-year charity project, Elena. Now, the project is over." On their third anniversary, Julian Thorne didn't bring flowers. He brought a divorce decree and his mistress, Elena’s own adopted sister, Sarah Vance. To Julian, Elena was just the plain, penniless orphan the Vances took in after a tragic fire, a convenient pawn he used to bleed the Vance fortune dry. He never loved her; he only married her to fund a merger while secretly warming Sarah’s bed. He expected Elena to beg. He expected her to crumble. Instead, she signs the papers with a chilling smile and hands him a gift of her own: A total bankruptcy notice for the Thorne Group. Unmasked as the legendary Blackwood Heiress, Elena is ready to watch the world burn. But the trap has two sides. A hidden Reconciliation Clause forces her to still appear and be with her cheating husband and her backstabbing sister for thirty days, or she loses her claim to the Blackwood throne while Julian loses the Thorne-Vance merger. When Sarah frames her for a high-profile theft to get her out of the way, Elena finds herself in a cold jail cell, until the "Executioner" of Wall Street, Theo Sterling, appears. He offers her a Devil’s bargain: a contract marriage to save her from her predatory cousin, Lucius Blackwood, who is hellbent on declaring her mentally unfit to seize her empire. Elena falls for her savior, unaware of the blood on his hands. Theo is atoning for a sin she doesn’t know exists: his own father was the arsonist who murdered her parents. Trapped between a husband who wants her wealth, a sister who wants her life, and a lover whose family killed her past, Elena must decide.

PHOEBE - Holy mother of craps! I had lost my virginity to the college’s bad boy, Asher Gilbert. And, he told me it meant nothing to him. He told me to get lost! ********* ASHER - All my life till now, no one had ever intimidated me. Not anyone. Not my dad, nor the school principal… Not those street gangs… lastly, not the mafia. But this strange girl— a Maserati shows up. Making me urge to brand her, as mine. ********** “Why are you like this to me?” “What do you mean?” “Why are you so dismissive but save me, every time I land in trouble?” He didn’t reply that. Instead, he sighed, crunching the plastic bottle in his hand. He threw it in anger to the other side of the room. Then he approached me. I took three steps back, timidly. His intimidating gaze dropped towards mine. He didn’t stop until the back of my head contacted the wall. Only then did his both hands angle at the sides of my head. My eyes immediately gorged at his hard-on. Flash backs of the night we had together immediately ran through my brain. The only thing I could think of was the way my mouth was wrapped around him. His Adam’s apple swallowed numerous times, making me wonder what he thought of. It was like one of those scenes of movies. Like he was in a battle with himself. But the question was, what was he so protective about? Why didn’t he like making conversations with females? “I’m never gonna change, Phoebe. Remember that,” ********* What is worse than drunken one-night-stand, with the college’s bad boy? Or a cold treatment thereafter? However, one pregnancy changes it all. In this love so wrong, can they ever make things right?

Ria's life was turned upside down when her billionaire husband threw the divorce papers at her face! He wanted to divorce her and marry his lover who was a thousand times better than her. "It's time for us to go our separate ways, Ria. These five years have been nothing but torture to me. I don't love you," Wyatt Earlson declared. His tone was emotionless and indifferent. It seems like all the years together were nothing but a joke in his eyes. Eventually, he would choose that woman over her. Heartbroken and depressed, she took off on a dark rainy night. She had devoted herself to him and his family yet they treated her like trash. She was continuously abused and neglected yet she stayed by his side because she thought he loved her. Suddenly, a man in an exquisite black suit drove a limousine up to her and said, "Miss Flinch, I'm assigned to pick you up and return to your family. Your brothers and grandfather are awaiting your return," Few months later, she came back with a new identity and title that SHOCKED the world. When she arrived at the ball a few weeks later, they asked, "Isn't she that broke country girl who was divorced by her husband?" "How dare a street rat like her show up in this place?!" The moment Euphoria (Ria) Riley Flinch was born, the people who looked down on her, scorned and treated her like trash started to drop on their knees and beg for her mercy. "Please forgive me. I was wrong," they cried. Even her ex husband was now begging her for forgiveness. However, she only raised her chin and stepped on their fingers.

Excerpt "Lily, I never stopped thinking about you, you were always on my mind" I heard Ryan say as he stood behind me. I felt the hardness of his crotch as he pressed himself to me. I turned around and kissed him, and then we heard a knock on the door "Mommy, I'm coming in" my little daughter Isabella called out and we scampered for our clothes that was everywhere on the floor. Lily Thompson was a single mother that was abandoned by her college sweetheart when she was nineteen. She was disowned by her parents days after her parents found out that she was pregnant and she had to drop out college and fend alone for herself and her baby Years later, her baby grew up to be a young, beautiful and innocent girl, Isabella . Isabella was Lily's comfort through trying times. She was so sweet but sometimes she was a little too sweet She decided to play matchmaker with her mother to find her a husband when she saw how lonely her mother was. She would pretend to be lost when she found someone attractive on the street, she would then and ask for his help to send her home. As she said, it was the most convenient way to set me up with a kind-hearted and charming man. Well, she did have a point, right? Once again, Lily heard her daughters voice talking with some guy from the porch. She opened the door and planned to thank the man. But she almost froze when she saw him. It's HIM! The familiar face and scent immediately brought her back to the night years ago. Isabella flew into her arms and whispered to her. “Mommy, I got you a husband, for real this time!” If only she knew

Three months before my wedding, I found my fiancé buried deep inside my maid of honor. ​I gave Leo five years of my life. I ironed his shirts, managed his stress, and sacrificed my own dreams to build our perfect future. My reward? Standing in the doorway of our bedroom, listening to him call me "boring" while he ruined our bed with my best friend. ​Shattered, humiliated, and completely alone, I ran out into the freezing, torrential rain with nothing but the clothes on my back. I thought my life was over. I thought I had hit rock bottom. ​Until a massive black umbrella blocked out the storm, and a heavy, expensive suit jacket was draped over my trembling shoulders. ​Alexander. Leo’s incredibly wealthy, terrifyingly ruthless Godfather. ​He is older. Untouchable. The most feared man in the city and the patriarch who controls Leo’s entire inheritance. He is the ultimate forbidden fruit. ​He didn't look at me with pity as I sat bleeding and broken on the pavement. He looked at me with a dark, consuming hunger that made my breath hitch. Kneeling in the wet street, he wiped a tear from my jaw and whispered a promise that would change my life forever: ​"Tell me who did this to you, and I will ruin his life by morning." ​I only wanted a place to dry off. I only wanted a little bit of revenge. I never meant to let him back me against the marble counters of his penthouse. I never meant to crave his rough hands, his possessive growls, or the intoxicating danger of his bed. ​If Leo’s family finds out, it will destroy Alexander’s empire. ​But once the Godfather claims you... there is no going back.

"You are mine!" He said with his dominating voice holding my neck, he was choking me, I was frightened to the very core, shaking. "The moment I paid you that huge sum of money, you became an asset to me" he added "You can't back out now. It's too late" he said again, still holding me. "I'm not yours" I managed to say in a cracked voice. "I will never be yours" I replied with a cracked voice trying to breathe." "You are nothing, you are just a mere whore with nothing else but a standing pole, a hoe who spreads her legs for money and  that's all you will ever be. A stripping hoe!" he said, tears rolled down from my cheeks as I began to cry. "If you try to break the deal we have by revealing it to an outsider, you will be dead! And come to think about it, who would believe the words that come from a stripping hoe like yourself? No one, no one will ever believe you! Because you know what you are? A complete Street whore. That's exactly what you are and what you will ever be." "If I'm a complete whore to you. Why did you choose me?" "Because you are nobody. I don't want my family digging into your profile and finding something, so I chose you. You were the perfect match that fit into all of this charade" he said intuitively. "I don't want to do this anymore,  I will wire you back your money first thing tomorrow morning" I said, trying to leave. He drags my hand vigorously. I was scared to the very core, shaking like a drenched rat. "You don't seem to understand the concept of our agreement, you don't seem to understand, Khloe"

The things we want are so very rarely the things we need. Clifton Heights, a modest Adirondack town, offers many unique attractions. Arcane Delights sells both paperbacks and hard-to-find limited editions. The Skylark Diner serves the best home-cooked meals around, with friendly service and a smile. Every August, Mr. Jingo’s County Fair visits, to the delight of children and adults. In essence, Clifton Heights is the quintessential small American town. Everyone knows everyone else, and everyone is treated like family. It is quiet, simple, and peaceful. But shadows linger here. Flitting in dark corners, from the corner of the eye. If you walk down Main Street after dark, the slight scrape of shoes on asphalt whispers you're not alone, but when you look over your shoulder, no one is there. The moon shines high and bright in the night sky, but instead of throwing light, it only seems to make the shadows lengthen. Children disappear. Teens run away. Hunters get lost in the woods with frightening regularity. Husbands go mad, and wives vanish in the dead of night. And still, when the sun rises in the morning, you are greeted by townspeople with warm waves and friendly smiles, and the shivers pass as everything seems fresh and new... Until night falls once more. Handy's Pawn and Thrift sits several blocks down from Arcane Delights. Like any thrift store, its wares range from the mundane to the bizarre. By daylight, it seems just another slice of small town Americana. But in its window hangs a sign which reads: We Have Things You Need. And when a lonely traveling salesman comes looking for something he desperately wants, after normal visiting hours, after night has fallen, he will face a harsh truth among the shelves of Handy’s Pawn and Thrift: the things we want are rarely the things we need. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

"I'm a mess, trying to fix what I became and for your own good maybe you should walk away." — Zayn Cole Santiago. On the surface Zayn Santiago has everything. A powerful name, a prestigious law degree within reach and a father who runs the country's most influential firm. But beneath the surface is a man held together by anger and adrenaline, spending his nights in underground fighting rings and illegal street races, chasing the only feeling that drowns out the silence his mother left behind when she took her life. By day he's the son of the prospective president. By night he's a completely different kind of dangerous. He bleeds for fun and calls it living. Aliya Martinez is a 21-year-old pre-law student with an ambition to become one of the best lawyers in the world. She’s the calm to his storm, The light to his darkness, The peace he never knew he needed, And the perfection in his ruin. Like fire and gasoline, they were never supposed to cross paths, but one night was all it took to turn everything upside down. When Zayn saves a drunk girl from a club, he thinks that’s the end of it—until a photograph surfaces of him carrying an unconscious girl into his penthouse at 2 a.m. With his father, Eduardo Santiago, running for the presidency, the scandal threatens everything. The solution is simple. An arranged engagement between Zayn and the girl. For two years. What starts as a fake relationship turns into something far more complicated as real feelings surface and buried secrets threaten to destroy everything they’ve built. Some secrets don't stay buried. Some feelings don't stay fake. Some pasts should never collide. But some ruins are far too beautiful to walk away from.