Chicken Little Characters

On my way back from a business trip, I scrolled past a video. A newborn was abandoned by the roadside, crying so hard. As a first time dad, I couldn’t help looking at the baby a little longer. I froze because that baby looked exactly like my son. I had booked the best confinement center in the city for my wife. I had checked them into a VIP suite. I had employed a nanny and a nursing team to look after my wife and my son full-time. I broke out in a cold sweat. My wife didn’t check her phone, so I immediately called the center's manager, Ms. Thompson. She laughed lightly. “Don’t worry, Mr. Smith. Your wife and baby are perfectly fine. They just fell asleep.” The next second, she sent me a photo of my sleeping baby. I stared at the tiny, unfamiliar face. In that instant, the blood in my body turned to ice. I was only gone for four days. So how was my son a different person?

During the long National Day holidays, I planned a Golden Highlands trip for the whole family. I even booked tickets for a luxurious train ride so we could enjoy the scenery. But on departure day, my husband and son vanished. I called my husband. I could hear an airport boarding announcement in the background. My voice trembled. "Where are you?" He panicked and mumbled that the company had an emergency before hanging up. I tried calling again, but the line was busy. The next day, he posted an update on his social media. In the photo, he stood beneath the snowy peaks of Wintercrown with one arm around his old love while the other held our son. The caption read: [If we had been a little braver back then...] A friend commented: [Where is your wife?] I stared at his reply: [She's sick and resting at home.] Three expired train tickets sat on the table as my eyes welled up with tears. A decade of marriage. A pack of lies. It was time to bring it all to a close.

Although I was the second child in the family, my mother loved me the most. When Dad bought my sister a new dress, she stayed up late knitting a sweater for me. When Grandma took my younger brother out for burgers, she baked me a homemade sponge cake. Until the New Year’s Eve dinner. Dad placed the big chicken drumstick onto my sister’s plate. Grandma immediately stuffed the other one into my brother’s. My mother hurriedly picked the chicken wing from her plate and placed it onto mine, smiling as she said, “I saved this especially for you.” The relatives laughed and teased, “Your family really has a clear division of love. Everyone spoils a different child. What a loving family.” The next second, I suddenly flipped the table. Under everyone’s stunned gaze, I grabbed that chicken wing and shoved it straight into my mother’s mouth.

On the night of my wedding, my best friend's younger brother wiped the sweat from his forehead and asked me, “It’s a little big. Can you handle it?” I stared at his perfectly defined abs, my mind going completely blank. “What?” He repeated, “Can you handle it?” My voice jumped an octave from my panic. “Aren't we supposed to take things slow? Isn’t this way too fast?” That night, the sound-activated lights in the house flickered on and off until dawn. Meanwhile, my ex-husband was squatting downstairs. His eyes were swollen red from crying, but I did not even spare him a thought. Back then, when I agreed to let him proceed with a fake wedding with his childhood sweetheart, Miles Carter thought our cold war was over. When he explained things to me, he said, “Vivian and I will only be married on paper. The ceremony is just to satisfy my mom. I swear, when this is over, we’ll live as a real couple.” I remained silent. I just stared at the countdown on my phone, counting the days until I could finally leave. He did not know that the moment he tricked me into signing the divorce papers, our marriage had already ceased to exist.

A heatwave swept across the surface of the Earth right after the end of boot camp. Temperatures rose to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and all electronic items stopped functioning. Even our water source had all dried up. I was lucky that I never liked the taste of water in college, and I always had five boxes of bottled water standing by in my hostel room. If I rationed my water, I could sustain myself until help arrived, but our instructor suddenly requested everyone to hand in their water to be managed by one person. "We're a group, and it's only by working together that we will be able to sustain ourselves until help arrives! Whoever doesn't hand in their bottled water will be considered the common enemy!" I had no choice but to hand in all the water I had. However, the instructor was not fair with his water rationing. He would give the women one bottle a day, while I only had one bottle cap's worth of water. "You're a man, aren't you? It doesn't matter if you have less water. Do you really want to fight the fairer sex for a little water? The ladies should be pampered like princesses. Can't a man like you bear some responsibility to take care of them?" I wanted to argue with him, but my girlfriend, who was also my childhood sweetheart, helped the instructor tie me up and flung me under the sun to be burned to death. When I opened my eyes next, I had returned to the day before the heatwave. This time, I moved all of my water into a cave and watched gleefully as that lecherous instructor got thrown under the sun by his pampered female trainees to be burned.

The night Gloria Leach—my husband's ex—died in the rain, he floored it and drove us off a cliff. That's when it clicked. Evan Patterson had always hated me for getting between him and Gloria. Then I woke up, I was back on the wedding day. This time, he didn't even pause. Ditched the rings. Ran straight to her outside the church. I didn't cry. Didn't make a scene. I just called it off. While they turned their reunion into a show, I said yes to someone else. In this life, Evan and I were strangers. Until eight years later. An auction. I placed a no-cap bid on the final item—sapphire cufflinks. Won. I was leaving when Evan stepped in front of me, scowling. "Robyn, stop embarrassing yourself. Even if you bought every cufflink on earth for me, I still wouldn't love you. Gloria's the only one in my heart." I didn't even look at him. Just reached for the little girl beside me. "Sweetheart, say hi to the gentleman." He saw her face—mine, copied clean. His eyes went red, and his grip snapped around my wrist. "She's our daughter?"

A compilation of the complete Suit Series: The Bad Boy Inside the Chicken Suit, The Bad Boy Inside the Black Suit, The Bad Boy Inside the Fairy Suit, The Bad Boy Inside the White Suit, The Bad Boy Inside the Mermaid Suit.

It was all her fault. My life could have been simple—40-hour shifts at KFC, sneaking extra chicken crumbs, and binge-watching reality shows. But no. Instead, here I was, standing at the altar, saying I do to a man whose idea of “casual” involved drugs, women, and murder on speed dial. Thanks, Mom. Not only did she ruin my life, but she also sold it—traded me off to the deadliest Mafia boss alive, Mario Santiago, as if I were some secondhand couch on clearance. Mario Santiago. Yeah, that Mario Santiago. The Human Terminator. The guy whose enemies mysteriously vanish like my paycheck two days after payday. And now, I was his wife. He glanced at me with a slow, wolfish smile that practically screamed trouble. That was when I knew two things: 1. I was completely doomed. 2. This man was going to wreck my heart (and probably my life). But hey, it could be worse, right? At least I’d get a killer wardrobe out of it. *** Are you looking for romance and humor? Stuck with Mario Santiago is a hilarious, Mafia billionaire romance filled with danger, betrayal, drama, and a love story you won’t forget. Dive in—you won’t regret it (but the characters might).

The whole world knows that Rachel Saffron is Matt Quillon's and Sean Coal's true love. My best friend, Winnie Hamilton, and I are merely substitutes for Rachel. It seems like I'm the love of Matt's life, and Winnie is the only woman Sean has ever had eyes for. However, we both know this is nothing but an act.

I catch the eye of a stranger on the bus. Then, I'm lured into his trap…