A Good Neighborhood Novels & Stories

On the company's designated monthly day off, Gigi Lott, Donald Hoover's secretary, posted an Instagram story. The caption read, "So what if you're the boss of me when we're at work during the day? At night, I'm the one on top!" In the photo, she was lying atop a water bed covered in rose petals, and the usually stern Donald was kneeling down to massage her feet for her. From his pocket hung a brand new golden necklace. Just that morning, I bought several gold bars and gave them to Donald while beseeching him to make our relationship public. He happily took the locket from me, but when I tried to take a photo of us with our phone, he smacked my phone out of my hands, smashing it into pieces. With a look of pure derision, he declared, "Why don't you take a good look at yourself in the mirror first? You really are a motherless wretch who wasn't raised right. Look at the lengths you'd go to just to ruin me!" Throughout the last five years, I had meekly gone along with his demand that we keep our relationship a secret, claiming it was because office romances were forbidden. But now, I was abruptly hit with the realization of how laughable it all was. The next day, I sent my father a message. "I admit defeat. I'm willing to come home and inherit the family business."

Lewis Gordon says he likes older women. Seeing that he's young, energetic, and good in bed, I agree to be his girlfriend. But when he runs into me with his friends while I'm dressed in business attire, he is stunned and doesn't know how to react. Then, he quickly introduces me. "She's just a neighbor like an auntie." What? Middle-aged? I immediately break up with him. He sends a clumsy explanation, "When you dress like a middle-aged woman, it's really embarrassing for me." I block him and don't bother replying. Five years later, I bring my son along to celebrate my husband's godfather's birthday. Lewis shows up, holding hands with his girlfriend. When he hears my son call Johann Tucker "Grandpa Johann," he pulls a long face. He blurts, "This is my son, right? He should be calling him great-grandfather." I shoot him a look of pure disgust. "He's not your son." Lewis points at my son's face and sneers, "Look at his eyes and his face. He looks exactly like me. How can you still insist he's not my son?" All I can think of is my extremely jealous husband. If he hears Lewis claiming that he's my son's father, will he go crazy and kill him?

I went into labor at the same time as the woman next door. My husband took me to the hospital, but I delivered a stillborn child. Instead of comforting me, he lashed out, "Did you mess around while you were pregnant? Is that why you gave birth to such a monster?" I lost my baby, my name was dragged through the mud, and I was forced to divorce him and leave with nothing. One day, I happened to overhear my husband speaking to the neighbor: "Good thing we swapped your stillborn baby with May's healthy one. If your in‑laws had looked closely, they would have realized the dead baby was actually ours." That was when I finally understood the truth. They had been involved long before. He pushed me on purpose, causing premature labor, just so they could take my healthy baby and give me her dead one. When I confronted them, they held me down in the bathtub and drowned me. Yet when I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day I went into early labor. This time, I'll make sure she gives birth to that stillborn child. This time, I will expose them both for their affair and for what they did to me.

On the day two couples come to the orphanage to adopt, a row of comments suddenly appears before my eyes. "Hurry, Nancy! Make the first move! The couple who look like bumpkins is just pretending to be poor! The ones dressed nicely are actually poor." "Call them Mom and Dad quickly! Do not let Nadia steal them away!" In the next second, Nancy, who is standing beside me, suddenly rushes toward the country bumpkin couple. Nancy says, "I'll gladly go to the countryside with you. I will leave the rich girl life to my sister." Everyone starts cheering in the comments. "This is great! Nancy, our dear female lead, won't suffer anymore!" "Nadia, the evil villainess, will rot and stink for the rest of her life. Nancy will crush her under her foot. She will never have the chance or the right to meet the male lead!" I am stunned. So Nancy can see the comments too. She is the female lead, while I am the villainess. But what she does not know is that I am reborn. In my previous life, the real wealthy family takes me away. I look at Nancy and smile coldly. "Just wait, dear sister. Your 'good fortune' is yet to come."

The day my mother-in-law discovered she had uterine cancer, she packed up and moved in to our home. “I don’t have much time left. I’m all out of hope!” she choked out. “You’d be cruel to kick me out. Show me some mercy!” I looked at my speechless husband, then at my beloved son I had raised with so much love and care. I asked them, "What do you guys think?" My husband silently made a grim expression and grabbed my arm. “How long are you going to hold on to that little incident that happened after Everett was born? Mom's already so sick." My son echoed his sentiment, “Grandma doesn't have much time left. Of course we have to take good care of her!" I smiled at them and said, “Alright. You guys can take care of her if you love her so much."

I endured hundreds of injections just to give Stanley Brighton a child. He was moved to tears and held me, promising that even if we couldn't have children, he would love only me. I diligently followed the doctor's advice and underwent treatment. The day I confirmed my pregnancy, I was so excited that I wanted to rush home and share the good news with Stanley. But what awaited me was unimaginable. Stanley and the female tenant we shared the apartment with were lying naked together in the bathroom, sharing an intimate bath. He was behind her, holding her close, his lips incessantly biting at her earlobes. "I'll give you as many children as you want! Ten, eight—whatever it takes! Just divorce her!" "Alright, just give me some time. I'll divorce her for sure!" Hearing their whispered entanglement, I turned away, stepping into the rain, determined to leave. I would disappear to a place where Stanley could never find me, not in this lifetime.

While I'm in a bathroom stall, I overhear one of the new hires standing at the sink sharing some good news with his family excitedly. "I've passed probation. My salary is 12,000 dollars a month!" I sat there, swallowed by a heavy, resentful silence. I've been with this company for six years. In my first year, my salary is 6,000 dollars, and I didn't get a raise. In my second year, it's still 6,000 dollars. At the end of the year, I get a 5% raise, which is an extra 300 dollars. In my third, fourth, and fifth years, my salary stays exactly the same at 6,300 dollars. Currently, I'm in my sixth year. HR talks to me today and tells me that next year, I'll receive another 5% raise, bringing my salary to 6,615 dollars. At this point, I'm responsible for coordinating five separate projects. Because the workload is too much, the company hires three new employees for me to train. The newest one has just passed probation, and his salary is 12,000 dollars. It is nearly double of what I make after six years of working for this company. I walk out of the restroom and head straight for the HR office to submit my resignation. The HR manager is stunned as she asks, "Why?" I reply, "Because the pay sucks, and I'm tired of being miserable."

My boss had a new boyfriend called Eugene Larson. The first day he came to the office, he put on a great show of exerting his dominance. He deleted my number from my boss's phone right in front of me. Eugene waved his phone in front of me while playing innocently. "You can talk to me about anything you need to communicate to Tina, Mr. Sanders. I'll help you pass the message to her. I don't have much sense of security, so please don't mind this. It's to avoid any misunderstanding between us." I was hoping my boss, Tina Kayden, would be able to say something fair on my behalf, but all she did was stare at Eugene approvingly and adoringly throughout the conversation. She turned to me and said, "This is a pretty good plan, Mr. Sanders. Do take good care of Eugene from now on." As there was no way for me to reject her, I was forced to add Eugene's contact to my phone. However, the moment he had my number, he flooded my phone with messages. [Mr. Sanders, is the client you're meeting tomorrow with the surname Charleston a man or a woman?] [Where are you having the meeting tomorrow? Wear something casual tomorrow. It would be best if you avoid washing your face and hair. Otherwise, I would think you're trying to seduce my wife.] [I believe your relationship with Tina is innocent. You're not allowed to betray me because I'm treating you like my buddy!] [By the way, you have an extra duty from now on. You need to remind Tina every 30 minutes to send me a message telling me that she loves me.] As I read these ridiculous messages, I laughed in anger. I put my phone on silent mode and flung it to the side before going to bed. The next morning, I woke up to dozens of missed calls on my phone.

To get rid of our pup and date with his assistant on Valentine's Day, my mate Marcus forced our injured pup to go rock climbing and poisoned him. When I rushed my dying pup to the hospital, I unexpectedly saw my mate accompanying his assistant for a prenatal checkup. Our terrified pup lay convulsing from the poison, but Marcus didn’t even care about him. "He's just an Omega. If he was a proper wolf, he'd heal instantly!" I clutched the $100 million Moonlight Blessing herb in my pocket. I accidentally found it in the forest this morning. I was planning to tell him the good news today. But now? It was time to break this five-year mate bond.

My stepmother—my father's new mate—demanded the code to the safe. The safe that held my mother’s moonstone amulet. I ignored her. I was too busy preparing for the pack's centennial blessing ceremony. Not long after, she sent a second text: "Since you wouldn't reply, I had someone force it open. The stone is way too big, though. I'm having it cut down so it looks good on me." I dropped the candlestick, shifted, and tore off toward home. But I was too late. The moonstone lay shattered in the middle of the living room. Its lunar warmth was gone. Heartbroken, I roared, "That belonged to my mother! How dare you touch it?" Livia lounged on the sofa, lazily filing her nails. She didn't even bother to look up. "I needed a necklace to match my dress for tomorrow. You didn't text back, so I handled it myself. Stop being so dramatic." "Dramatic? Do you know what that was? It wasn't just my mother's, it was—" Boom. Alpha aura slammed into me like a mountain. My legs gave out instantly. My father—Marcus, the Alpha of our pack—stood before me. His golden wolf eyes shrank with fury. "Your mother has been dead for twenty years! Why do you keep bringing her up just to upset Livia? Show some respect to your Luna!" I stared at them, fighting the agony tearing through my wolf. Livia let out a bored yawn. My father shot me a look of pure disgust. Hands shaking, I let out a cold laugh. They had no idea. That amulet wasn't just my mother's legacy. It was the pack’s only conduit to the Moon Goddess for the centennial ceremony. Without it, the entire pack was doomed.