6000 Seconds To Minutes

At one in the morning, the general manager posted the project assignments in the group chat and tagged everyone. I reviewed my responsibilities carefully, going through each detail to make sure I understood exactly what was expected of me. When I was done, I typed a simple "OK" and hit send. Two seconds later, my phone rang. It was him. As soon as I answered, his voice came through, icy and sharp, filled with unmistakable disgust. "Eric, I'm very disappointed in you. I must have been blind to trust you with anything important." My mind went completely blank. "What… what do you mean?" I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop them. What he said next was something I never could have imagined.

I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to graduate top of my class, get into the best law firm, and make my brother proud. What I’m not here for? Sharing an apartment with Cade freaking West. My brother’s best friend. Tattooed, cocky, insufferable. A walking red flag on skates with a motorcycle named Roxie and a different girl in his bed every night. We don’t get along. We never have—especially not after what happened. He hates me for it. I don’t regret it. I was right. But the longer we’re forced to live under the same roof, the harder it gets to ignore the heat. The tension. The way he looks at me like he’s two seconds from ruining my entire life.

Betrayed. Beaten. Bought. Allison thought she found freedom in her boyfriend, Elliot, who promised to help her escape from her abusive father and grandmother, but instead, he delivered her straight to a black market auction. Now, she was left bleeding on the stage, grieving the brutal loss of her unborn child. She was seconds from death when a voice echoed through the hall: “I’LL BUY HER.” The buyer is Lazar, a Lycan Alpha who paid a fortune not for a slave, but for his mate. In order to avenge the injustice and cruelty that has been done to Allison, he delivers savage justice to her abusers and offers her absolute protection in his Pack. Allison's fight just began because now, she is caught between the Alpha’s possessive love and the hatred of a Pack that wants her dead.

"Have you ever loved me, even once?" I hummed when I herd that. Ridiculous. The tall man falling in a pool of blomanod. The scarlet stained his still perfectly delicate face. I never expected a proud Mafia King of all the underground, in the last few minutes of his life, would humbly say this insane words to me -- One who dreams of sending him to hell every day and night; one who could only become his eternal enemy. "No," I didn't spare even a glance to the man on the ground, replied ruthlessly and clearly in hatred, "Never."

What would you do if you stumbled upon a bride crying her eyes out minutes before the wedding, begging you to help her escape? You help her, of course. What would you do if you stumbled upon a drunken guy being mugged in the dark alley later that night? You help him too, of course. What would you do when you discover he was the same guy left hanging at the altar earlier that day? You regret everything, of course. What would you do when you start seeing that same guy everywhere you go? You fall in love, of course.

A security guard caught a snake in our apartment complex and delivered it straight to my door. I was just about to scream when floating comments cut in. [The male lead got dumped and turned back into his real form just to spy on his girlfriend, and he actually got caught? This is funny as hell!] [He got dumped, and his girlfriend hates him. He's probably gonna cry himself to sleep!] [Aww, poor little snake can't curl up on his girlfriend tonight.] The big black snake looked pitiful in the guard's hands. It secretly sized me up with its slit pupils. I tried holding out my hand, and the black snake stared in disbelief. Two seconds later, it obediently rubbed its head against my fingers.

They said the boarding schools are a training ground for the best students but they also said it was a deep quagmire for students who forgot what their motives were. But, who told the seniors that the junior girls were their servants? Who brought up referring to juniors as fags? Who said the 'journey of no return' was fun? Who claimed that 10 minutes was enough for mealtimes? Who said siestas' were opportunities for punishments? "Come you junior girl, why did you walk past the front of your seniors' classroom" "Senior I..." "Go down low" And so another junior girl gets into a day's worth of troubles.

A week before our wedding, my fiancee announces that she is pregnant using my younger brother's frozen sperm. "I'm grateful that our love can carry on in another way," she gushes on social media, showing off the test results. My brother replies, "Meeting you was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me." Then Mom chimes in. "Jenny, you've been through so much. Nathan's apartment should be under your name alone." I don't argue and simply reply with a single word—"Congratulations". My phone rings almost seconds later. "Your brother can't have kids anymore. It's just one child, and it's still related to you. Why are you being so petty?" she snaps. I laugh under my breath, hang up, and dial another number. "Want to get married?"

He was never supposed to fall in love with her. Now he will burn the world to keep her safe. Diego De' Luca is a ruthless Italian mafia boss with blood on his hands and a lot of enemies. The bride he was promised runs away and her younger sister has to take her place. Isabella Ford is untouched, unwilling, but very prepared. She has just one agenda in the De' Luca's home and she has to see through it, even if she ends up getting caught. ******* His callous hands grabbed my arms, pinning them above my head. "You're my wife, I should know what you look like beneath those hideous clothes." "I'm going to give you five seconds to strip, or I will rip it off you."

I was moments from freedom—seconds from marrying the Beta who loved me—when he walked in.Lucien Hale. Alpha of Crescent Ridge. Billionaire. Cold-blooded. And somehow my fated mate. He didn’t speak to me. He didn’t ask.He simply claimed me—right there in front of everyone.Now I’m trapped in his world of glass towers and growling shadows. He says he hates me. That he’ll never love the daughter of the man who ruined his family. But his hands say otherwise. His eyes say otherwise.And every time I try to run, he pulls me back… like he’s punishing himself as much as he’s punishing me.I want to hate him. I should hate him.But the bond is breaking us both.