Anna When Marnie Was There

After Ryan Spencer cheated on me again with his secretary, I completely lost it. When my mind started to spiral, I grabbed the fruit knife off the table. I just wanted it to end. “Why are you hurting yourself again? He doesn’t love you anymore?” I looked up. The sixteen-year-old Ryan was walking toward me, heartbreak written all over his face. His voice was gentle. “Tell me who he is. I’ll make him pay.” I stared into the bright, earnest eyes of the boy standing in front of me. I didn’t say a word. I simply lifted my hand and pointed at his face. Later, Ryan was the one who had me admitted to a psychiatric hospital. When the sedative began to wear off, the teenage boy appeared again, sitting by my bed. He stared at the man outside who looked just like him. The light in his eyes faded little by little. Then he spoke, his voice strained. “I don’t care who he is. I’ll kill him.” The sixteen-year-old Ryan never lied to me. When he said something, he meant it.

Mom and I board a flight to Fangoria to visit Alicia Carter, my wife. She's a special forces soldier who's here on a peacekeeping mission in this foreign country. But the moment we walk out of the airport, we're ambushed by a group of kidnappers. One of them holds a gun to Mom's head and says, "If you don't give us the ransom in three days, we'll blow her head off!" In a panic, I make a video call to Alicia, my hands shaking as I beg her to help me. "Calm down, honey. I'll put in a request to lead a rescue mission. We'll save her within 24 hours!" But the next day, I keep failing to get in touch with Alicia. After I blow up her phone with multiple calls, one finally connects. Amid her rushed panting, she tells me, "Sorry, honey. I just got assigned to an urgent escort mission. You guys just hang in there. I've arranged for the local authorities to—" Her voice is abruptly cut off by a familiar male voice. "Alicia! Thank goodness you came over just to pick me up. I didn't have to spend 100 dollars on a cab after all! That cab driver didn't even have a license, and I can't believe he tried to ask for more money…" The three-day deadline passes, and the kidnappers keep their word, letting me hear the gunshot myself. As I clutch Mom's cold, dead body, Alicia calls me out of nowhere. "Hey, honey. I just completed the escort mission. How are things on your end? Have the kidnappers released her?" I look down at Mom. Her eyes will never open again. I gently wipe the blood off her face as I reply to Alicia in an eerily calm voice, "Yeah. They have."

After I finished the Luna training that every she-wolf dreamed, I went to my Alpha, Damien, with a request. To break our mate bond. "All this, just because I missed your ceremony to help my late brother's mate, Lilith, with the rogues in her territory?" A smirk twisted his lips, his voice a low rasp. I nodded, silent. "I gave my brother my word before he died. I swore I would protect Lilith. I can't break that vow! Why can't you understand?" he whispered, sighing heavily. "Stop being so childish! Why can't you be reasonable, like Lilith is?" I pushed him away with a chilling calm. Ten years. For ten years after our bond was confirmed, I gave up everything. Every hobby, every dream… all to learn how to be his Luna. Everyone in the pack thought I was helpless without him. That I couldn't even survive without his protection. But this time, I was done. He didn't know I'd already contacted the neutral packs in another land. I was going somewhere his Alpha scent could never reach me.

Sa araw na nakipag divorce si Calista Everhart, ang divorce papers niya ay kumalas sa internet, at naging headline agad ito. Ang rason ng divorce ay nakahighlight ng pula. “Baog ang asawa, kaya hindi mabigay ang pangangailangan ng asawa.” Sa gabing yun, ang asawa niya, si Lucian Northwood, ay hinuli siya sa stairwell. Ang boses nito ay mababa habang sinabi sa kanya, “Papatunayan ko sayo na hindi ako baog…”

The day Calista Everhart gets divorced, her divorce papers end up splashed online, becoming hot news in seconds. The reason for divorce was highlighted in red: "Husband impotent, leading to an inability to fulfill wife's essential needs." That very night, her husband, Lucian Northwood, apprehends her in the stairwell. He voice was low as he told her, "Let me prove that I'm not at all impotent …"

I am the woman of a mafia boss, Arthur Borne. Ever since we got married, he doted on me endlessly, professing his love for me publicly. The entire time, I believed he loved me deeply and simply could not help but flaunt his love for me to the world. Until one night, I overheard a conversation he had with his men. "I have dealings in both business and the underworld. Enemies are lurking everywhere. The only way to protect Ely is to make Juniper appear as my weakness so she can be Ely’s shield." This entire time, all the pain I suffered for him was nothing but a sick joke… Fine, two can play at this game!

I miss out on a call from my fiancee, Lauren Sink, because my phone is out of service when I'm in the elevator. The next thing I know, I receive a text from her, stating that our wedding has gotten called off. "Let's call off our wedding. I don't want to marry you anymore. Gregory isn't feeling well, so I've gone over to his place to take care of him. I don't want you disturbing us." This is the 99th time Lauren has called off our wedding because of Gregory Cooper. But this time, I don't get to plead to Lauren in time because I'm in too much agony from the news. Suddenly, I see a row of comments appearing before my eyes. "Why aren't you pleading with Lauren to stay with you, Cameron? She loves you, you know! She just doesn't know how to convey her feelings for you!" "She doesn't love Gregory at all! She gets close to him and calls off the wedding with you just to make you jealous!" "If Lauren genuinely doesn't want you to disturb her, why would she tell you where she is? Hurry up and please her already!" My heart skips a beat at the sight. So… So Lauren has loved me all this time? But I don't want the love that I can't feel at all.

When my Alpha mate, Logan noticed I hadn't submitted a single expense request in three days, he reached out to me on his own for the first time ever. "Baby, I've already approved the next phase of your wolf's healing. See? As long as you learn to behave, there's nothing I won't give you." His tone was still so affectionate, as if he were truly a good Alpha, worried sick over his mate. But he didn't know that as his "Baby" flashed across my phone screen, I had already finished drafting the agreement to sever our mate bond. Before I left, the only thing I could take with me was the old T-shirt I had worn when he marked me. No one would ever believe that the beloved Luna of the Blackmoon Pack, in the three years since our bonding ceremony, couldn't even scrape together five decent dresses of her own. Every household expense I incurred had to be approved by the Luna's seal, the very symbol of my power. "Sienna, managing the books is too tiring. It will wear you out." "Just let Chloe handle the tedious work with the seal. All you have to do is be beautiful, be my perfect Luna." And so, the Luna's seal, which should have been mine, became something I had to beg for from Chloe, the Alpha's secretary who was supposedly "handling the tedious work for me." Three days ago, my wolf was on the verge of collapsing. I cried and begged him for the two hundred thousand needed for an emergency intervention. But Chloe deliberately withheld the seal, delaying approval by claiming improper procedure. Finally, my already fractured wolf went completely silent in the depths of my soul. And with that, I was done with this Alpha, too.

Apat na taon matapos iwan ni Mara ang nasirang marriage nila, muli niyang haharapin si Rafael—ang lalaking minahal niya at piniling kalimutan. Ngayon, boss na niya ito—mas makapangyarihan, mas malamig… at mas delikado pa rin sa puso niya. Habang unti-unting bumabalik ang dating damdamin, pilit niyang tinatago ang pinakamalaki niyang sikreto— ang anak nila. Pero habang lumalapit si Rafael sa katotohanan, mas nagiging imposible ang pag-iwas. Sa pangalawang pagkakataon na magtagpo ang mga puso nila… pipiliin ba nila ang isa’t isa? O mauulit lang ang sakit ng nakaraan?

I was supposed to marry Marco DeLuca, the man of my dreams, in just three days. He was the mafia don of the South—dangerous, ruthless, the kind of man everyone warned you about. And I came from the Moretti family, just as powerful, a dominant force in the North. But just when I thought I had it all, fate had other plans. What was supposed to be a simple drug deal negotiation—one Marco had asked me to cover—quickly spiraled into a gunfight. In the chaos, a bullet tore through my chest. Marco made sure everyone in that room paid for my accident, but no matter what he did, it didn’t change the fact that I was lying here, wondering if my life would ever be the same. And it only got worse. In the haze between consciousness and dreams, I overheard Marco speaking with his family doctor. “After removing the bullet from Miss Moretti’s chest, we found fragments near her heart,” Dr. Levois said. “She may need another surgery.” “There’s no need for another surgery. As long as she can breathe, I’ll take care of her for the rest of her life. But if you treat her now, she’ll wake up and ruin everything I’ve planned.” Marco’s words hit me hard. “And I promised Camilla I would bring our daughter, Violetta, into the family,” he continued. “It’s better this way. Gianna won’t be a threat to her then.” So the wedding I’d longed for, the love I once believed in, was nothing but a cruel illusion. What Marco wanted, what I thought was mine, had twisted into my worst nightmare. If this was what Marco truly wanted… so be it. It wasn’t like I cared anymore.