Bias

At the Davenport family dinner, I arrive wearing the same dress Tucker Davenport's true love once wore. His face darkens immediately. He glares at me coldly and orders that my dress be burned on the spot. "Damn it, Willow, can't you show a little self-awareness? Shelby might be too naive to notice, but there's no way I'm letting you appear like this in front of her." The intense heat rushes toward me as the flames consume the fabric. A sharp, burning pain shoots between my legs, crashing over me like a tidal wave. The pain drags me under, but I suddenly jolt awake, barely able to gasp a plea for mercy. Tucker doesn't spare me a glance. He simply turns away to help Shelby cut the cake. Days later, he finally remembers I exist. "As long as you behave and don't bother Shelby again, you'll still be Mrs. Davenport." I stare at the burns on my legs as my tears dry up. I refuse to beg any longer. I'm done being Mrs. Davenport.

My husband is the perfect doctor… or so everyone thinks. However, he delays the critical treatment of an accident patient so he can accompany his first love's son. Later, he even secretly switches out a patient's medication and watches as she dies from the pain. That way, he can take her heart and perform a heart transplant for his first love's son. What he doesn't know is that the patient whose heart he's taken is his daughter's. She's disfigured in an accident after her treatment is delayed. He calls her family's phone number, hoping they'll agree to donate her body to contribute to the medical field. That's when he hears my phone ring.

The day my birth parents found me, the reunion banquet they threw turned into their funeral. My parents and their adopted daughter, Leila, died of food poisoning that night. The only one who survived was my older brother, Alpha Kian. He didn’t like sweets, so he never touched the cake. The cake that I handed to them myself. “So you want to take Leila’s place. “You’re just jealous because she got all our love! “She was the only one who ever accepted you, and you still killed her!” Those were Kian’s exact words as he shouted at me right outside the hospital room. From that day on, I became a sinner. To make up for it, I barely slept four hours a night and worked five jobs just to buy back the villa the rival pack seized during the chaos. However, the day I finally saved up enough, I saw my dead parents throwing a birthday party for Leila in that very villa. Kian stood among them, looking at her with a warmth I didn’t recognize. My mother said, “Isn’t today also Lily’s birthday? It’s been eight years. Maybe it’s time to forgive her.” However, Kian didn’t hesitate to refuse. “No. Even though Leila sniffed out the wolfsbane and saved you, we agreed that Lily gets ten years. “We can’t risk her ever trying to poison Leila again. Not even a day less.” I clutched the diagnosis paper from the clinic tightly and laughed through my tears. I knew I wouldn’t get to ten years. I was already dying.

Grayson Harmon's childhood friend, Sophia Lexton, got into a car accident. She didn't just lose her memory—she came away with some post-traumatic stress disorder, too. That's what the doctors called it. They said we had to keep her calm, avoid anything that might upset her. So, for the sake of her recovery, Grayson asked me not to argue with her. To let her have her way, no matter what. She took my engagement necklace and moved into the little love nest Grayson and I had made our own. And on our wedding day, she threatened to kill herself, forcing Grayson to take her to the hospital. He looked at her bleeding out and said to me, calm as ever, "Brianna, I'll make it up to you after the wedding. I'll throw you an even grander one. Sophia is dying." Then he picked her up and walked away, never once looking back. If he had—just once—he might have seen something was wrong. He might have seen the blood soaking into my wedding dress.

My childhood friend called, saying he was trapped in a fire. He wanted to hear my voice one last time, and I rushed to the scene as fast as I could. But in that small, blazing spot, there was only a cat. Stumbling, I got the cat out, but my arms got burned. A crowd gathered, pointing at me and laughing hysterically. "She actually went for it?" "What a simp, risking her life like that!" Safe and sound, Colin Porter stepped out of the crowd with a grin. He picked up the cat from my arms and handed it to his crush. "See? I told you the cat would be fine. When have I ever lied to you?" Turning back to me, he said, "The cat got spooked and ran into the fire. We didn't know what to do, so we called you. Thank you for your help." The people around us snickered, like they were watching a trained dog. Later, on my wedding day, my husband carried me to the car. Colin, dragging his burned, bloody legs, crawled on the ground. He begged, "I'm hurt, Selena! Come help me!"

I discover Quilton Fuller's affair before our wedding, so I lie to him about having aborted our child. He hates me for that and gets engaged to a woman who looks just like me. On his wedding day, he video-calls me, wanting to show me his bride. However, he's greeted by the sight of me bloody and battered after being tormented by abductors. I beg him to at least save the baby in my womb, but he says to the abductors, "You'd better kill her and her child."

My husband, Daniel Thompson, looked down on me. I was just a farmer's daughter in his eyes, and he never loved the son I gave birth to. It wasn’t until our baby turned 100 days old that he held him for the first time. Then, one day, his first love, Claire Matthews, came back to the city. That night at dinner, Daniel, who was always cold and distant, finally smiled. He even reached across the table and placed a piece of meat on Noah’s plate. Noah beamed all evening, clutching onto that tiny gesture like it was a treasure. Just before bed, he whispered to me, "Mom, do you think he likes me now… even just a little?" I wrapped him in my arms, tears blurring my vision as I gently shook my head. "No, sweetheart. It’s because the woman he truly loves is back. It’s time for us to go."

Buried deep in the Aster estate was the Heartwood—ancient, sacred, mine. Told my husband, Julian Aster—back when he actually listened—that if it ever fell, I'd die with it. At first, he freaked out. Flew in glacier water, hired a whole squad of plant experts to nurture it 24/7. Then one day, just because his childhood friend—Isabella Duvall—got a scratch from the bark, Julian had the Heartwood ripped out. The second it crashed, I choked on glowing blood—ichor. My power? Gone. Barely standing, I grabbed his arm. "You knew. If the Heartwood dies, I—" He laughed. Straight-up mocked me. "Sera, come on. That fairy tale? Only Grandma still believes that crap. Is that mayo on your mouth? Relax—it's a tree. I'll buy you a forest if you want." Overnight, my hair turned gray. Skin cracked. Eyes dulled. Still, I dragged myself to his grandmother, Henrietta. "I kept your family safe for two hundred years. That's why the Asters thrived. But the Heartwood's gone. Debt's paid. One day left. Whatever happens next? Not my problem."

My fiancé was the CEO of a powerful financial conglomerate, and to the outside world, he adored me beyond measure. A week before our wedding, I found out I was pregnant with triplets. I had planned to tell him the joyful news in person. But instead, I witnessed him in bed with other women. Not with just one. It felt like a knife had carved into my soul, cutting so deep I lost all hope, all trust. My tears begged for release, but I held my head high, forcing myself to stay strong. For him, I had given up everything—my pride, my family, my career. Yet he chose to share our love with others. All those vows to love me and only me for a lifetime had been lies. Our so-called future, our wedding—it was all a cruel joke. He was no longer the man I once loved. He had become tainted. I would not endure his betrayal. He no longer deserved to be the father of my children. So I made my decision—to disappear, to fake my death and start over, to give myself and my babies a chance at a free, unburdened life. But I never imagined he'd become obsessed and start searching the world for women who resembled me, all while declaring I was the only one he ever loved. Too little, too late. His affection now is worth nothing. This time, I'm not looking back.

My newlywed husband forces me, a late-stage liver cancer patient, to drink hard liquor just to please his secretary. When the secretary later stages a setup, pretending to take a knife for him, she loses too much blood. In a panic, he demands that I give her a blood transfusion. I name my price—ten million dollars. He sneers. "Your blood really is worth its weight in gold, huh?" Of course it is. A liver cancer patient's blood doesn't come cheap. Later, when his precious secretary crashes into my car, he mocks me again. "You caused the accident on purpose, didn't you? Stop pretending—you just want more money. Wendy Yaeger, you disgust me." I'm done. All I want now is to get that divorce certificate before I die, but he looks down at me with disdain. "Don't use such pathetic tricks to get my attention. You're not even qualified to negotiate with me." Fine. Once I'm dead, the marriage will end on its own.