9 Hours Novels & Stories

At the express train station entrance, I was stopped by a security guard. He asked, “What is in the container?” I said, “It is a living heart. It needs to be transplanted in two hours.” I handed over the urgent medical pass. After the security guard checked the document and prepared to let me through, a hand reached from behind and grabbed the container. A voice shouted, “Do not let her go! The container contains prohibited items!” I turned and saw my sister‑in‑law, Ariana Cole. She pointed at me and shouted, “Sir, I am reporting her! She is my sister‑in‑law. What is in the container is not a cure for illness. It is drugs she bought from the black market. She plans to transport them and sell them by using her doctor identity!” Armed police surrounded us with their guns drawn. My eyes were bloodshot from anxiety. “Ariana, have you lost your mind? There is a donor heart inside! The recipient only has two hours to live!” Ariana rolled her eyes and sneered. “Why are you pretending? My brother said you have acted mysteriously lately. You are definitely up to no good. If you have nothing to hide, why not open it and show us?” The place fell silent. The SWAT officer leading the group spoke in a cold voice. He said, “Please cooperate with the inspection. Open the container immediately.” I looked at my countdown watch as cold sweat soaked my back. If the heart became contaminated, Arthur Quinn, the national hero who depended on it, would not survive.

Penelope Davenport—perfect Luna, devoted mate, strategic partner—thinks she is a smart woman who built an unbeatable empire beside her Alpha husband. Until the sex tape message that shatters her and instantly makes her realize that she had only ever been a stepping stone. But her unremorseful alpha husband rejects her when she confronts him, calling her infertile and casts her aside for his mistress—a cruel widow who has hated her all along. By nightfall, Penelope is kidnapped to be used as leverage in a struggle between pack Alphas grasping at power and authority.  When her husband is offered the chance to come and save her, he tells them to kill her and get her off his hands. And so they do, unaware that Penelope had been thrown under the bus. But death is not the end. Penelope wakes two hours before the public proposal that once sealed her fate and this time she refuses to be sacrificed.  She rejects her mate afore the entire elite circle and exposes his affair, claiming that she has already moved on. She kisses a stranger walking into the room on impulse to cement this and he turns out to be Lorcan Callahan—the most powerful young Alpha heir in the country. What no one knows is that Lorcan remembers dying too, and this time, he refuses to lose his mate again. Now bound by a contract marriage and a shared thirst for retribution, Penelope and Lorcan will dismantle empires because revenge is always sweeter the second time around.

Seven years ago, Vivienne Vane sacrificed her elite standing, her breathtaking beauty, and her health to save her daughter, Maya, through a secret, high-risk bone marrow transplant that left her chronically fatigued and physically altered. To protect her family from a ruthless shadow syndicate, she went undercover as a plain, submissive housewife, while secretly operating as "V"—the genius quantitative architect who single-handedly built her husband Julian Vance’s startup into a multi-billion-dollar empire. Julian, blinded by historical prejudice and convinced Vivienne drugged him to steal him from her beautiful older sister Cynthia, treats her with freezing disdain. The breaking point arrives when an active gunman storms a high-end restaurant. Julian uses his own body to shield Cynthia, leaving Vivienne directly in the line of fire. Hours later, brainwashed by Cynthia, their six-year-old daughter Maya tells Vivienne she wishes Cynthia was her real mother and leaves her alone in the hospital. Having paid her debt of love, Vivienne cuts the ties. She unleashes the Vane Financial Kill-Switch, strips Julian of his automated algorithmic edge, and walks out. As she enters a premium medical sanctuary to reclaim her health, she collides with Damian Thorne—the dangerous, sharp-witted titan of the city’s shipping cartels and Julian’s most lethal rival. While Julian and Cynthia realize their empire is hollow without "V," Vivienne undergoes a ruthless physical and social rebirth, ascending the ladders of global shadow power alongside a man who craves her mind as much as her body.

“I want a divorce, Sera. It’s time we both moved on.” She had heard those words before, rehearsed in the cold space between them, in the silences that stretched too long over dinner, in the way he never quite looked at her anymore. But hearing them out loud was different. Hearing them made it real. Sera Calloway had spent four years being the perfect wife. Quiet when she should have been loud. Patient when she should have been angry. She had loved Elliot with the kind of love that asks for nothing — and received exactly that in return. She thought their marriage was simply struggling. Broken, maybe. But still theirs. Until she found out it was never only theirs to begin with. Another woman. Another home. Another life he had carefully built in the hours she never thought to question. She hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t shattered. She had simply gone still, the way a person does when the ground disappears beneath them and there is nothing left to hold onto. Sera left without a word. No ultimatums. No tears he would ever see. Because some heartbreaks are too deep for noise. Now Elliot is unraveling. The life he thought he could keep — the one he hid behind — is falling apart without the woman he took for granted holding everything together. He never knew what she was. Not really. Not until she was gone. And now the question isn’t whether he still loves her. The question is — did Sera ever stop?

I paid the ultimate price in my last life for being too polite to refuse others. During a summer vacation, four children ended my life. "Talia, we’re already on the way to your place. We should be there in about two hours. No need to prepare anything special. Just keep things the way you normally do. Don’t fuss." I stared blankly as the voice came through my phone. The agony of my skin being scalded raw by boiling-hot stew was still vivid in my mind. When I had struggled and begged for help, those children had dragged me back together. In the chaos, I had fallen from the seventh floor and died with my eyes wide open. I glanced at the calendar on the wall. I had been reborn. In my previous life, my sister-in-law, Vanessa Mercer, had dumped her four kids at my home for the summer and left. I was forced to care for six children alone and was pushed to the brink of collapse. Simply because I wouldn’t let my nephew, Jaxon Mercer, play on his tablet for hours on end, and because I told him not to wander around the house in nothing but his underwear, the conflict escalated until it led to that horrifying death. My whole body trembled at the memory. I rushed into the bedroom, grabbed my identification documents, and fled toward the high-speed rail station with my two daughters, Kaia and Nova Mercer. "Mom, where are we going?" "I'm taking you on a trip. We’re going to have as much fun as we want!"

04:00 AM. JFK International Airport. I switched off airplane mode, and my phone lit up. The first notification was an Instagram story from my husband, Donovan Valentino, Don of the Valentino family, posted at 3:30 AM: a photo of Seraphina Moretti’s back, captioned, “Run 50 completed. Package delivered safe.” An hour before that, my flight had hit catastrophic clear-air turbulence, dropping two thousand feet in seconds. I’d clung to my seatbelt until my knuckles turned white, the crumpled threat letter from a rival crew pressed like a blade against my ribs. In those blind, falling seconds, one thought burned through the panic: If I live through this—if Donovan is waiting at arrivals—I’ll tear up my transfer papers to Dubai and stay. But there were no missed calls. No messages. He’d been too busy collecting Seraphina. He knew my flight details. He just didn’t care. Four years of marriage. 50 fully armed security details for Seraphina. For my 112 long-haul flights over those same four years? The most I ever got was a driver in an unmarked sedan. Even the night Gambino’s crew tailed me from Manhattan, and I spent six hours locked in a diner bathroom. He didn’t pick up until dawn, after the twelfth try. My transfer to Dubai was confirmed. The signed divorce settlement was in my bag. This was the last time I’d ever come back for him.

I never broke eye contact as he slicked his already hard cock up with it. It never did take him long to get hard in my presence, especially after working me open when we had stood under the stream of the shower. Shuffling his ass forward just a little, he pulled me close to help me slowly sink onto his cock. Once my ass was flushed against his lap and he was to the hilt, he sighed, and I could see the exact moment that all the stress left his body. “Thank you.” He whispered. ______ I got pregnant after a sizzling one-night stand. I didn’t know then he was the son of a billionaire mafia Don. That night, he walked over to me with powerful strides that announced to the world, that he owned it. The dim light dancing over his sculptured face, Teased me with a glimpse of perfection. His deep baritone voice vibrated thru my core, and before I knew it, we were back at my place, thrusting into ecstasy. For hours he took me to heaven and back, But on earth, he became cold as ice. Then, without so much as a name, He walked out the door and out of my life. I tried to forget him, Until I got unexpected news from my doctor weeks later. and before I had time to digest the information, I was snatched by two men. Now I’m in the presence of the Don of all Dons, congratulating me on my pregnancy. And the man that took me to heaven, is now tasked to keep me in hell.

In the middle of a small yet tidy room, Aurora lay fast asleep. Her pale skin, as well as her beautiful face, would immediately make one address her as Sleeping Beauty. It was ever so befitting of her because she actually answered the name of the fairytale character. The only odd thing in this picture-perfect tale was the way Aurora was restlessly writhing on the bed already downed in cold sweat. She seemed to be having a nightmare as her arms flailed aimlessly, and she groaned continuously. Her beautiful face was morphed into a frown as tears escaped from beneath her kids and trickled down the sides of her face. She was indeed a sorry figure, which was a far cry from the fairytale we all knew. Soon, her body froze before she jolted awake in a sitting position. She panted like she had just run a marathon, and her eyes searched the room frantically, looking but not seeing. Her eyes were dazed and unfocused as she seemed to not be mentally present. She soon regained her breath but kept staring at a blank wall facing her bed. She stayed in that position for what seemed like hours but was actually minutes. Ring! Ring! The alarm clock on her bedside drawer blared continuously, disturbing the eerie silence that had engulfed the room ever since Aurora woke up. That seemed to do the trick of snapping her out of her haze and reverie as she jolted, and her eyes finally cleared up. She shook her head and turned to the direction of her bedside drawer before reaching out and hitting the alarm clock. Silence.

For eight years, Elara Voss was the perfect ghost. She scrubbed floors, cooked silent meals, and endured the biting scorns of her husband, Ryan, and their eldest daughter, Chloe. To them, she was a boring housewife. A servant. An embarrassment to Ryan’s rising social status. They had no idea that the woman they belittled was Elara Hamilton, the reclusive titan behind Hamilton Global, the world’s most powerful tech empire. She had traded her throne for a marriage she thought was built on love. She was wrong. The breaking point comes at a high-society gala. In front of the city’s elite, Ryan publicly discards her, calling her a worthless weight around his neck. He thinks he is finally free. He doesn't realize he just declared war on the woman who secretly funded his entire life. That night, the housewife vanished. The CEO returns. Within forty-eight hours, Ryan’s world implodes. His contracts are canceled, his bank accounts are drained, and his reputation is in ashes. As the global markets reel from the return of the "Iron Queen," Ryan is forced to face a terrifying truth: he didn't just lose a wife. He lost the only person keeping him relevant. Now, Ryan is a man with nothing, chasing a woman who has everything. From the neon lights of Tokyo to the boardrooms of Manhattan, he must grovel at the feet of the woman he once stepped on. But Elara is no longer the devoted wife who stayed for the sake of the family. She is a queen reclaiming her crown, and this time, Ryan will have to prove he is finally worthy of the woman who no longer needs him to survive.

On the flight home, the plane starts shaking violently. Certain I'm about to die, I call my husband, Rhys Callahan, to say my last words. He hangs up on me, and his auto-reply flashes on the screen. "Driving. On my way to pick up Daphne." I've taken 86 flights in our five years of marriage. Every time I'm about to land, I ask him to come get me, and every time, the answer is the same. "Daphne's getting in too. I have to pick her up." He picks up Daphne Langston all 86 times. The lowest point comes during a rainstorm. I drag my suitcase through the downpour outside the terminal for two hours, unable to get a ride. When I call him, Daphne's voice comes through, laughing. "Oh, Rhys is helping me with my luggage right now. He can't come to the phone." Now the cabin fills with screaming and sobbing. The plane spirals out of control at cruising altitude, the left wing shearing away as flames light up the windows. My phone buzzes with a message from him. "Just picked Daphne up. What time do you land? I'll come get you." I stare at the screen and let out a bitter laugh. After five years, he's finally offering to pick me up. But fire swallows the plane as it plunges toward the ground. He doesn't know I'm no longer coming home.