Anna Kendrick: Poppy 소설 & 이야기

The operation had just gone dark when the chatter started in the comms. “Easy, Zane. Don’t burn through another mattress.” A low laugh came through the headset. Relaxed. Careless. “I’ve been deployed for six months. I needed the release. And don’t let my wife hear that.” More laughter. “Right. Take care of the little mistress first, then call home and play devoted husband?” My phone rang. His voice when I answered was warm. Intimate. Soft in a way it never was on the field. He said he missed me. Said he counted the days until he could come home. I watched the live drone feed while he said it. What he didn’t know was that three months ago, I had quietly transferred into the family’s Strategic Intelligence division. Every operation his crew ran, I was the one behind the monitors—tracking shipments, rerouting safehouses, intercepting rival signals, listening to every word spoken over secured lines. The first night he slept with her, I logged the timestamp. 00:43 hours. When the call ended, I dialed another number—encrypted, family internal. “I’ll accept your offer,” I said calmly. “After this job, I’m stepping away.” The voice on the other end was steady. Controlled. Powerful. “You’ll leave after the Palermo Capture,” he replied. “I’ll personally see to your relocation.” A pause. “Three days.”

Our grandfather had always been a strange man, but what he did before his death shook my brother’s and my world to its core. Stas had already come to terms with the fact that the entire inheritance would go to me as the older one. But the will changed everything—our lives, our bond, our closeness as brothers. The family business and property would go to the one of us who married the granddaughter of our grandfather’s best friend—the small, awkward, unattractive girl who had been pushed on us our entire lives. The old men had long dreamed of becoming family, and when they failed to earn our sympathy, they chose a far more twisted solution. Back then, we couldn’t even imagine that the ugly duckling would one day turn into a swan… or that our rivalry for the business would fade into the background.

“Some people walk into your life quietly, yet some ruin you without even trying to.” Isabella Young, a twenty-five-year-old woman, comes back to New York to rebuild her life. Her agenda is clear: find a job, get an apartment, get married. It all seems easy enough until she finds herself in the worst position of her life, with no job, no apartment, no partner, and running low on her resources. Prideful Isabella doesn’t ask for help or pity. She believes she will stay single forever. But fate is ruthless in her timing. Because when she least expects it, she meets him. Damian Sinclair, a thirty-two-year-old man, bound by duty, loyalty, and control. He knows what he must do: find a suitable match, get married, and have an heir. A son to carry the family name. Until he sees her. The timing is wrong. Circumstances are worse. Connections are inconvenient. Will either of them be able to resist the temptation and continue their lives as if the other never existed or will they risk everything for something neither was supposed to have?

When I was eighteen, Kael pulled my sister and me out of a rogue auction ring on the northern border. From that day on, I fought for him, bled for him, and helped him carve out his place among the northern packs. By the time his name carried weight across the borderlands, everyone knew I was the one who stood closest to his power. I thought that one day, he might finally look at me and see more than a weapon at his side. Then he brought home a soft-spoken Omega named Liora. “Mira, look at you. Covered in blood again.” “Wash up before you frighten Liora.” After that, everything changed. The pack began calling her future Luna. Kael took my blades away, tied an apron around my waist, and made me responsible for her every need. Whenever she slipped into places she should not have been, got hurt, and claimed I had frightened her out of jealousy, Kael believed her. Every punishment came with a reason. Neat enough to sound fair. Sharp enough to hurt. I accepted all of it. Because years ago, when I asked how I could repay him for saving my sister and me, Kael had said: “You want to repay me?” “Then do one hundred things for me.” I lowered my eyes to the yellowing notebook in my hands. Only three were left. When I finished them, I would owe him nothing. And then I would leave.

Four years of loving Marchello Enzo taught me one thing— it was finally time to let him go. He was the Don of the Marchello mafia empire. And I was supposed to become his Donna—his partner, his equal, the woman who stood at his side. But the moment his childhood sweetheart returned, radiant and adored, I understood something painfully simple: The title of Donna was never meant for me. It belonged to her. So before I walked away, I made three quiet decisions— First, I tossed the wedding ring he believed I treasured, and altered my million-dollar wedding dress to the measurements of the woman who had always held his heart. Second, I packed every extravagant gift he had ever given me—and donated them all to charity. They had once felt like proof of love; now they were nothing but proof of my foolishness. Third,I reclaimed a position I once abandoned for him—one I had turned down twice because he wanted me at his side. This time, I chose myself. My work. My life. A path that did not depend on his promises. On the day of his wedding, when he lifted the bride’s veil and realized it wasn’t me… the ruler of a billion-dollar underworld empire shattered. He tore the city apart looking for me— But he never found me. Because by then, I was already thousands of miles away, buried in my work, building the life he never believed I’d choose. I held the one secret he never imagined he’d lose: our child.

It was supposed to be the perfect revenge. Just one night and then it would all be over. An eye for an eye, a betrayal for a betrayal. But the second his fingers touch my skin, it awakened something inside me…something that I shouldn’t be feeling for a man who was supposed to be off-limits. But why couldn’t I be the selfish one for once? Why couldn’t I steal him away, when my sister had done the same to me? But the more I taste him, the more I drown in this endless black hole of debauchery and desire...until I can no longer tell where he begins and where I end. The deeper I get, the harder it is for me to let go…to end this cycle of transgression that should’ve been just for one night. I might have tainted my soul, drowned in a sea of sin…but I wouldn’t be the only one going to hell. I know that when I fall, he’ll be right beside me.

At the Mafia Alliance Academy, reputation is the only currency—and mine was bankrupt in a single morning. One planted file, one flawless performance, and a few crocodile tears from Elena Rossi, the “fragile” scholarship student, were all it took. Overnight, I fell from the heights of the elite to a pariah branded a cruel bully. The ultimate betrayal? My fiancé, Luca Valenti—the future Don who once swore to be my blade—stood by her side, looking at me with nothing but cold contempt. They called me cruel. Entitled. A rich girl bullying someone who had nothing. What they didn’t know was that I could hear the venom dripping from Elena’s mind. While she played the victim, her thoughts laughed—mocking the Academy’s stupidity, sneering at how easily she had Luca wrapped around her finger. I stayed silent… until the Truth System awakened. Now I can broadcast her twisted thoughts to anyone I choose. And without hesitation, I linked her mind to Luca’s. So while Elena clings to his arm, crying about her “shattered dreams,” Luca hears everything— her plans to destroy his family, her contempt for his protection, and her disgust at being touched by him. The girl he chose is already tearing his world apart.

Dr. Anika Mehta had the perfect life. She had finally been accepted at the New York City Hospital as a resident and she was supposed to get married to her fiancé in a month’s time. But her perfect life gets shattered when she finds her fiancé in with her roommate and realizes that he’s been cheating on her for a while now. To add icing on the cake, her pervert boss transfers her to some isolated clinic in the mountains when she rejects his advances. In one night, her entire world is turned upside down. Things couldn’t get any worse, could they? Alpha Axton is one of the strongest Alphas in Sapphire Mountains, New York. But when his Beta betrays him and frames him for a murder he didn’t commit, he has no option but to run. Exhausted and injured, he runs into Anika, who heals him to her best effort and he finds out, she’s his mate. The only problem is that she’s a weak human with no idea of the existence of the supernatural and Axton needs a strong warrior by his side if he has to get back his pack. Will Axton be able to look past Anika’s humanity and accept her as his mate? Or will Anika have to watch the man she has come to love be claimed by another, breaking her heart forever?

Luka was the best Alpha the Brightwater Pack ever had. That is, until he loses his mate and everything comes crashing down. Having lost everything he loved and his one real reason for living, he attempts suicide on a human territory, when Victoria intervenes and ruin his plans. She makes it her duty to help the man that 'couldn't be saved', after he constantly refuses her help. What happens when she uncovers his secrets one by one? Will Victoria give up on him, or will she surprise them both? Who would've thought that she could save him just in the nick of time? Or does she....

Damon Blackwood nearly died for me once. So when he asked me to wait while another woman carried his child, I did. I told myself it was not betrayal. It was duty. I told myself a man who had given up everything for me could not possibly be choosing someone else. For me, Damon gave up his claim to the Alpha title. He endured ninety-nine lashes from the Pack elders, then knelt for three days in the ancestral shrine with his back torn open and his shirt soaked through with blood. When they finally carried him out, he could barely breathe. So when his father said the Bloodmoon Pack needed a pureblood heir before they would allow us to be together, I tried to believe him. Damon told me Victoria Hale was only a duty. He told me one child would be enough. Then Victoria gave birth to a daughter, and the promise changed. One heir became one son. One sacrifice became another year of waiting. Until Victoria’s daughter suddenly fell ill, and everyone said I had poisoned her. Alpha Conrad and Luna Catherine threw me into the dungeon before I could even defend myself. Damon stood outside the iron door. Not angry at them. Not worried about me. He looked at me like I was something he no longer recognized. “I told you to wait,” he said. “Why did you have to touch my child?” My child. Once, Damon had sworn he would only accept a child born from my body. Now he held Victoria’s daughter in his arms and called her his. When the dungeon door finally opened, I did not run to him. I chose the future I had abandoned for him.