Novel & Cerita Calmly Antonyms

My older brother, Ethan Earnhart, was the Alpha of the Shadow Pack. Right now, he was slicing my chest open with a silver surgical blade. Beside him, my adopted sister, Sara, had tear-filled eyes. "Elina went as far as faking her own death just to escape the loan sharks. She even used the body of a disfigured rogue." Ethan's gaze was filled with disgust. He pointed at the bruises covering my body, marks left when I was alive, and explained calmly to the young healer beside him. "Look. This is what happens to a traitor who betrays the pack and sleeps with filthy rogues. Elina, being the liar she's always been, even found a stand-in for her little performance." My wolf soul hovered beside the operating table and watched in despair as he handled my body the way one would process prey. 'Ethan, that really is me. I was trying to retrieve something you lost. That was why they–' "Check the stomach contents," Ethan said flatly as he cut open my stomach. Unexpectedly, there was no food residue. Instead, there was a single ring. It was corroded black by stomach acid, but the emblem engraved on it was unmistakable. It was the Alpha heirloom Ethan had lost five years ago. I had swallowed it just before I died. I had to protect that secret even if I were dead. Ethan's hand trembled violently while holding the forceps. He tore into my facial flesh like a madman. "Elina?"

When I bring up divorce in front of my husband, Vito Corti, he happens to be toying with a lace thigh strap that's gifted to him by a rising adult film star. Vito, the head of the Corti family as well as the youngest Don in Emaly, orders his Soldato to pick up his new lover tonight. Then, he shoots a languid glance at the divorce agreement on the table. "How big of a tantrum are you throwing this time, my dear Donna?" I reply calmly, "I didn't touch the bank card tied to the private account. I also don't want the estate in Emaly as well as the bulletproof convoy. I have already entrusted the asset management authority to your Consigliere." Vito is stunned for a moment, but he still thinks I'm still throwing a tantrum. "You don't want those assets? Then what do you want? My devotion? Gia, I already told you in the past that you're the woman with the highest position in the family. But it's too boring for a Don to own just one woman." He tries to reach out to feel my cheek, thinking that I'll act the same way as before; that I'll forgive him in a roundabout way after lashing out at him. But I just avoid his hand. I no longer want Vito's devotion to me. Now, I just want to leave him.

The day my parents brought home an AI daughter, I lost my place in the family. Maddison Matthews was flawless. Gentle, intelligent, and obedient, she was the perfect daughter. Overnight, I became the problem child. Dad stopped hiding his disappointment. Mom compared me to Maddison in everything I did. Even my brother, Bailey, treated me like an embarrassment. "What else do you know how to do besides throwing tantrums and fighting for attention?" The day I finally snapped and shoved Maddison, Mom slapped me so hard my ears rang. "If you were even half as mature as Maddie, I wouldn’t be so exhausted every single day! Go to the Intelligent Excellence Academy and learn properly how to be an obedient daughter!" Then she sent me away. I was forced into a three-year exchange program at the Intelligent Excellence Academy, a place designed to train human children alongside advanced AI models. Three years later, my family finally came to bring me home. They called my name again and again, but I never answered. The director smiled calmly beside them. "Mrs. Matthews," he said softly, "you’ll need to say ‘Power On’. Unit 1314 no longer responds to human names."

My stomach flared up again after pulling an all-nighter at work, so I asked my fiancee to go home and grab my medicine. Two hours later, she finally came back, but she was empty-handed. "Where's the medicine?" I asked weakly. "Oh, I forgot. Chris called last minute and said he had a fever, so I went to bring him some fever meds first." After she said that, she dialed a number on her phone and asked worriedly, "Are you feeling any better now?" On the other end of the line was the childhood friend she always talked about. At that moment, I calmly pulled the IV needle out of my hand and told her we were done. She frowned. "Just because I went to take care of Chris first?" "I was on an IV drip. He just has a common cold." I said each word slowly. "Can you be a little more mature?" she asked with a look of disappointment on her face. "Fine. If that's how you feel, then whatever." She thought it was just an ordinary argument. She had no idea that the moment she chose to forget the medicine that could've saved me, our relationship had already reached a point of no return.

I've worked with my wife, Naomi Prescott, for seven long years. Yet, she refuses to make my identity public in the company. Naomi claims that she's worried that the entire company might think of me as a man who relies on his partner. Believing her excuse, I stick to myself and keep a low profile all this time. But on the day my project team secures a ten-million-dollar business deal, Naomi is quick to make me give the credit to her childhood friend, Matthias Crowell. When faced with my questions, Naomi retorts in a matter-of-fact tone, "Matt is new to the company. Can't a veteran employee like you take care of him at work?" I'm furious, to say the least. "What if I say no?" Naomi throws a resignation letter at my face. "Well then, you can pack up and get lost, you pathetic loser!" I pack my belongings calmly and leave the company afterward. Three days later, Naomi's company is on the brink of bankruptcy. She sobs loudly as she begs me to return with her. I produce a business card and give it to her. "Sorry, but I prefer being the boss of my own company. It so happens that my company still needs a janitor. I suppose I can reserve that position for you, seeing as we used to be married and all."

I was the son of the wealthiest man in Capital City, but I had never enjoyed the flattery and fake smiles that came with that title. All I had ever wanted was a normal life. Now that I was pushing twenty-eight and still single, my mom finally lost her patience. She gave me an ultimatum: go on a blind date or she’d disown me. On my way to the date, I passed by a luxury boutique and spotted a watch that immediately caught my eye. I was just about to pay for it when, out of nowhere, a man barged in from behind and slapped a black card down on the counter. “I’ll take this watch. Wrap it up for me,” he said. I stayed calm and said politely, “Sir, I saw this watch first.” However, he just scoffed and snapped back, full of arrogance, “A broke nobody like you can look but not afford it. Get lost. I’m the assistant to Ms. Jackson, the CEO of Jackson Group. In this city, if I want something, no one will fight me for it.” Ms. Jackson? Isn’t that the exact woman I was supposed to be meeting for the blind date? Without another word, I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. “Selena,” I said calmly, “do you know your assistant is out here throwing your name around to bully people?”

“Is Batman my daddy?” my son Jackson pipes up from the back seat. Of course not! But telling him that his father is Asher Giordano, leader of New York’s deadliest mafia empire is out of the question. He found us anyway. “What have you done with Jackson?” I demand. “My son?” Asher asks calmly, looking around my small apartment disdainfully. “The one you’ve been hiding from me and forcing to live in this…pigeonhole?” Our son, not yours. “You’re the one who left me at the alter without as much as a ‘see you later’. If you left me a forwarding address to contact you at, I must have missed it.” Asher regards me coldly. I don’t know this man. The boy I fell in love with was warm, giving and open. This man in front of me is frostier than the arctic with his glacial eyes. “I know you know who I am and what I’m capable of, so don’t try anything stupid, Emmeline. There’s nowhere you can run where I can’t find you.” “Gosh, Asher, that’s like a line straight out of a movie. Have you been practicing delivering it in front of a mirror?”

On my birthday, my husband, Adrian Grant, suddenly showed up with my adoptive younger sister, Bella Reed, and her child, Tia Reed. When it was time to head out, he naturally arranged for Bella to sit in the front passenger seat. Then he turned to me and said calmly, "Tia gets carsick easily. The back seat is full of stuff. Since you're healthy, just take the bus." Our friends immediately chimed in, one after another, "You're the older sister. Taking care of your niece is only right." Four cars were heading out, yet not one seat was left for me, the supposed main character of the day. I sat on the bus, swallowing my grievance, and saw Adrian and Bella interacting ambiguously in the group chat. They were even talking about topics I knew nothing about. When I opened the newly sent video, nothing except leftovers remained on the table prepared for me. Adrian even treated the birthday cake I had carefully prepared as dessert, spoon-feeding it to Bella and her daughter. Someone finally couldn’t stand it anymore and asked whether this was appropriate. Adrian, who was carefully wiping Bella’s mouth, didn’t even look up. "We’re all family. Julia won’t be angry." At that point, our seven-year marriage came to its end.

Within 30 days, Niccolò Romano and I registered for divorce 18 times. The first time, Niccolò's adopted sister stole my research results, but he hired a lawyer to fight for her. Afterwards, he held me and coaxed, "If something happens to Lia, no one will dare to hire her in the future. I'm just helping her." The second time, while my plane was in distress, he was traveling around the world with Lia. His tone was helpless: "Lia has depended on me since she was little. I only look after her like a younger sister." The last time, Lia was pregnant with a child no one would claim, and he took responsibility for it. Faced with my accusation, he just sighed, a bit tired: "Lia's career is just starting to take off. If someone blackmails her with the child, her life will be ruined." "You're a woman too. Can't you understand?" This time, I didn't cry or make a scene. Instead, I calmly signed my name on the divorce agreement that he had signed in a fit of pique some time ago. Then I called my professor: "I've thought it over. I'm willing to go with you to Iceland to do research."

After the school cafeteria for elementary school kids shut down, I decided to offer meals for all the kids in our building at my home. At the end of the month, when it came time to settle the bill, one of the neighbors wasn’t happy. “The new caterer downstairs only charges $2.50 per meal, but you’re charging us $5! That’s an extra $75 per kid per month. Do you have no shame?” she accused me. I calmly explained that I only used free-range meat and organic vegetables in my meals. But no matter how patiently I tried to reason with them, the parents insisted I refund the difference and demanded I charge no more than $2.50 per meal moving forward. When I lowered my costs to meet their demands, they started accusing me of mistreating their children. They went online to expose me and even reported me to the authorities. The online attacks were relentless. I was fined, and my husband lost his job because of the controversy surrounding me. The stress pushed me into depression, and in the end, I jumped off a building to end it all. When I opened my eyes again, I saw those same parents being swayed by others in the neighborhood to send their kids to the new daycare service that only charged $2.50 a day. What they didn’t know was that the lunch caterer next door did serve meat every day—but it was frozen, diseased pork that had been sitting in storage for two years.