Chapter 4 Things Fall Apart

The mayor was in a car accident and rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment. My boyfriend, Joe Reid, wanted our junior colleague, Melissa Cross, to become the mayor's savior, so he convinced the entire department to delay the surgery while waiting for her. She was late because she had been making her special herbal drink. The mayor's life was hanging by a thread. If we did not act fast, we'd all be in serious trouble! I pleaded with them to start the surgery immediately, but all I received was accusations. "You're just jealous because Joe promised Melissa a permanent position. You're trying to ruin her chance to impress the mayor, aren't you?" I dropped to my knees and begged my colleagues. Only then, reluctantly, did they agree to proceed to the operating room. I served as lead surgeon with Joe and my colleagues assisting. After twelve hours, we finally saved Mayor Richard Carter's life. Afterward, our entire department received a massive bonus from the mayor. Both Joe and I were promoted. Yet on the night of my promotion, Melissa drugged me and had me locked in the hospital morgue's refrigeration unit, where I froze to death. Meanwhile, Joe led the entire department in lying to the police. "Kimberly Hayes had corrupt medical ethics. She stole credit for saving the mayor's life from Melissa to get promoted, then killed herself out of guilt." I died with my name destroyed. Melissa used this opportunity to secure her permanent position and even became department director with Richard's help. My father believed there was more to my death and fought for justice everywhere, but Joe had him committed to a psychiatric hospital where he was beaten to death by other patients. Only after death did I learn the truth. This was all a conspiracy between Melissa and Joe. Melissa was too afraid to be lead surgeon. They delayed everything just to replace me! When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to the day Joe led the entire department in waiting for Melissa before the surgery. In this life, I would not stop these ungrateful colleagues from destroying themselves.

It's already passed 10pm when she walk along the narrow street to go home from somewhere. While she's walking on the side walk, she suddenly passed on a strange nearby abandoned building near the rainforest not too far from where she is. She stopped from walking when she notice that there was something different on the sky, she didn't know if she was just hallucinating or she just saw a light from it. But in a moment of realization, there was really a light on the sky that opened which she can't bear to stare. It's so painful in the eyes and it's really glamorous. A moment later, the light was vanished and there was a faint cry. The cry bacame louder until she notice that it was a voice of a man. A man who obviously suffering from the most painful thing. She composed herself from what she just saw earlier as she started to walk slowly to the direction where she heard the cry. Her legs brought her at the back of the abandoned building when she heard a heavy breathing behind the big tree as her heart begin to pound. "Is anybody here?" She said as she walk closer to the big tree, when she felt something who passed through her. She didn't recognize if what was it because it was too fast. When she reach the big narra tree, she took a peek on it that made her heart pound more. There was nothing behind the big tree but a blood on the ground with a soaked silky gray beautiful feathers.

After an explosion in Philadelphia, Mike loses his mother while his fiance, Rose , is at the verge of dying. He vows within himself to take up the fight and put and end to the national crisis. His best friend, Steve who was a brother stood with him in the fight. He goes through too many life seeking encounters in his course to know the truth behind the crisis. But he is stunned by a strange discovery. The head of the secret organization behind the crisis happened to be his biological father who his mother had left pathways to find. Was he going to put an end to his own father? While battling with this reality, he also finds out that his best friend, Steve, was not who he thought him to be. Steve was a traitor who was sent by his father to keep an eye on him. Justice demands that he end his father and best friend, Steve while bond calls on him to do otherwise. While standing at this crossroad, an outbreak of a deadly virus sought to wipe the whole country. Will this be the end of the United States of America? The answer now rested upon his shoulders.

Some lines aren't meant to be crossed. We cross them anyway. A struggling artist signs a contract to become a billionaire's live-in muse, in exchange for her to surrender her body, and even her soul. A college student watches his best friend's father through the window. The father watches back. And puts on a show. A therapist knows every trigger point of his patient's body. Late-night sessions become something far less professional. A man confesses his darkest desires to a priest who's bound by vows to only listen. The priest's restraint shatters. A photographer's lens captures more than boudoir photos. Eventually, he puts down the camera. Two stepbrothers' best friends steal moments in a house full of people who can't know. The risk makes it hotter. A student loses a dare and brings a vibrator to her strictest professor's class. He hacks it. Control it and own her. Two rival lawyers hate each other in court. In hotel rooms, they work out their aggression the only way that satisfies. This isn't romance. This is an obsession collection not for the faint hearted. GET WET. GET WILD. GET LOST IN THE FORBIDDEN.

A CHRISTMAS LOVE STORY Single mom Sparkle Pearce needs this temporary holiday housekeeping job working for a reclusive billionaire. But her sexy, aloof boss pulls at Sparkle's heartstrings and her long-denied desires in unexpected ways. Kaleb Brantley never got over the loss of his wife and son, and he's shut himself off from happiness, love, and the holidays. But Sparkle and her sweet daughter bring laughter into his life. And living with his new maid ignites a passion he can't ignore. After one glorious night in Sparkle's arms, will this beauty be the Christmas miracle that changes the beast forever?

Valeria’s plan was simple: Endure living in the same house as her notoriously sexy stepbrothers. Make it through the last months of high school. Leave the Red Ridge Pack—forever. And things were going quite well until the first thing her wolf - Hazel - screamed on her eighteenth birthday was, “Mates!” To her horror, she looked up and saw it wasn’t just one—but all four of her stepbrothers. Alerion, the cold and calculating leader. Caius, the cute geek Zane, the Casanova, who made her heart race and her head spin. And Lysander, the quirky one who had sworn to make her life in school difficult Each of them is determined to stake their claim, but Valeria has no interest in being part of their game. With her stepfather pressuring her into an arranged marriage and her mother turning a blind eye to her struggles, Valeria has one goal: to escape and never be found. But the bond between mates is impossible to ignore, and when secrets unravel and tensions ignite, Valeria finds herself caught in a dangerous web of jealousy, desire, and betrayal. Her freedom was all she ever wanted, but will she risk losing her heart to the ones she vowed to leave behind?

After a brutal humiliation turns Aria Collins into the campus joke, she decides revenge isn’t enough—she wants power. And the fastest way to get it is by stealing the one thing her enemy wants most. Zane Parker. The problem? Aria has no idea how to make a guy like him notice her. So she makes a reckless offer to the four most dangerous boys on campus—the Steel brothers… who are now her stepbrothers. At dinner, she slides a paper across the table. “I want sex education.” Reed’s slow grin spreads across his face. “You want us to teach you?” “Yes,” Aria says calmly. “Oh, little sister, you are being naughty." Cole’s hands smoothed down my back, over the curve of my ass. “Naughty girls get punished before they get taught.” His palm connected with my right cheek in a sharp, stinging slap. “Suck it, Aria,” Kai ordered, his grip tightening on her cock while he gave inside my mouth. “Get it nice and wet. That’s your only job right now.” “She’s gonna come,” Reed announced as he fingered my cunt. “Look at her. Gonna squirt all over the fucking table. Do it, Aria. Come on, your stepbrothers’ hands.” Jasper finally released my hair, letting my head fall forward. He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear. “Well, Aria? Did you like your first sex education lesson?” I was wrecked, used, humiliated. And utterly, completely owned. My voice was hoarse from screaming and sucking. “Yes, Daddy.”

Faith Hoewar, a savvy businessperson known for being cold and untouched by anyone, never expected to be trapped in a marriage with a beautiful doctor named Kasih Alayah. Initially, Faith desperately wanted to reject this arranged marriage. However, she couldn't do anything because her grandmother was seriously ill. Her grandmother wished for Faith to marry as soon as possible and give her a great-grandchild. Coincidentally, the doctor caring for Grandma Meri's illness was Dr. Kasih. Dr. Kasih couldn't refuse the arranged marriage due to her family's frequent assistance from the kind-hearted Grandma Meri. Will their marriage be successful? Especially when they don't love each other. Moreover, Faith despises women more than anything in the world. "Can Kasih bring love into Faith's heart? Or will they have to part ways?"

“Joe…” Her eyes closed and he lunged forward. She went down so fast, he almost missed her. Maggie slid down the wall, limp and pale, and he went to his knees and grabbed her shoulders before her head hit the floor. He pulled her up against his chest, touched her cheek. She was freezing cold. “Fuck, Maggie,” he muttered. “What have you done to yourself, baby?” He stood up, cradling her in his arms, and walked over to the sofa. He set her down on it and memory washed over him: making love to Maggie right here, her hot and writhing under him as he thrust inside her. God, he still remembered how hard she came that one night, hard enough to shake his whole body with her spasms. **** Two years ago, Maggie Branson walked in on her boyfriend in bed with another woman, and walked out without a backward glance. She never planned to see Joe Carlisle again. But when he offers her a high-paying commission she can’t refuse, Maggie decides to take the money, do the work, and get gone. Fast. Joe, however, has other plans. Two years ago, Joe was an arrogant, cheating disaster, and he knows it. Maggie was the woman he should’ve fought for, and this commission feels like his last chance to prove he’s changed. She’s not buying it. Then tragedy rips through Maggie’s life, and it’s Joe who shows up... steady, remorseful, and impossible to ignore. As grief strips away old defenses, Maggie is forced to confront the past she buried and the man Joe might have become. The question isn’t whether Joe wants redemption. It’s whether Maggie can forgive the one betrayal that broke her heart – and risk trusting him again.

Forced to return to the past and then venture back into the realms of the dark lord to save her friend, Esmerelda faces loss, love, and a new awakening in this final installment of the Esmerelda Sleuth Series. Filled with excitement, love, loss, time travel, family dynamics, dimension hopping, and a few vampires, this is the completion of a story that you won't want to miss.