Clean Code の小説・ストーリー

For the 23rd time, I'm left standing at the altar as Jace Larkin hurries off because his foster sister, Celine Keaton, threatens to end her life again. The guests mock me, saying that we'll never tie the knot and attending our wedding will bring bad luck. I tune them out, holding on to Jace's promise that he'll come back and marry me. I buy his promise yet again, only for him to prove me wrong one more time. After I clean up the mess and pacify the angry guests, I reach home in the middle of the night. While passing the study, I hear Jace's voice. "Cece's always been mentally unstable. Of course, I have to stay with her. Regina will never leave me, even if I postpone our wedding a hundred times." Sorry, Jace, but I'll have to disappoint you this time. Blinking back tears, I unlock my phone and text my childhood friend, Clement Halloway. "Let's get married in three days."

In order to find clean water for his beloved Liana Hughes to bathe, Castiel Fenton, my brother, left the base with all the able-bodied men. But among the zombies, a sentient Zombie King emerged and took it as an opportunity to invade the base. June Morgan, my pregnant sister-in-law, was torn in half by zombies while protecting me, and Poppy, my little niece was devoured down to the bone trying to help me escape. To save the base, I called Castiel for help. Upon hearing the news, he had no choice but to abandon Liana and rush back with his men. Eventually, the zombies were driven out of the base, but Liana was eaten by a passing zombie. Castiel said nothing and only collected Liana’s remains expressionlessly. On the day of Liana’s funeral, Castiel deliberately pushed me into a horde of zombies and let them feast on my body. “If you hadn’t called me back, Liana wouldn’t have died! You must pay for her life!” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the zombies invaded the base.

Ethan Cross doesn’t just defend monsters—he is one. A predator wrapped in a lawyer’s skin, he stalks the courtroom with the same precision he hunts beneath the moon. Every case he wins buries his secret deeper: a beast who thrives on order and control. Until her. Anna. Wild, relentless, and dangerous as the full moon itself. She doesn’t want mercy—she wants vengeance. Years ago, Ethan’s silver tongue freed the man who left her father in the ground. Now, under the ruin of a forgotten chapel, she shackles Ethan in chains he can’t slip, demanding the one thing he swore he’d never give—his loyalty. But justice in the shadows is no clean crusade. Together, they tear into a city built on corruption, where blood is currency and power tastes sweeter than wine. And somewhere between fury and fire, hate begins to twist into hunger. She was his enemy. He was her captive. But under the full moon, chains ignite, and monsters learn that desire is the most dangerous law of all.

When Liana Brooks, a quiet scholarship student, steps into the elite halls of Crestwood University, she only has one goal — to graduate without drawing attention. But fate has other plans when she collides — quite literally — with Axel Knight, the campus bad boy with a reputation darker than his leather jacket. He’s arrogant, untouchable, and dangerously charming. She’s focused, stubborn, and immune to his games. Until one reckless rumor forces them into a fake relationship — a deal meant to save her scholarship and clean up his image. But what begins as a pretended connection soon unravels something real. Beneath Axel’s tattoos hides a broken past he’s desperate to forget, and beneath Liana’s calm lies a fire she never knew she had. As secrets surface and emotions ignite, both will learn that love isn’t about taming someone else — it’s about finding the courage to face the rebel within. He was her chaos. She was his calm. Together, they became something dangerously beautiful.

After my fiancée returned from six months of traveling with her childhood friend, she realized I had changed. For his sake, she broke protocol and promoted him to be the CEO's personal assistant. I obediently stepped aside and gave up my position. When he took over the project I had spent three sleepless months completing, I handed it over without a fight. My fiancée found my sudden compliance strange. Her childhood friend, on the other hand, was smug about it. He said with a grin, "Looks like your cold treatment finally worked. If you want him to behave, you just have to train him like a dog." My heart was calm and unmoved as I listened to their conversation. No one knew that I had been reborn. No one knew that I had finally accepted the truth: she never loved me from the start. No matter how reluctant I felt, from this moment on, I would cut ties with her completely. One clean break, free of all entanglements.

For three years, Mara Croft played the perfect CEO's wife, graceful, patient, invisible. When Ethan slides the divorce papers across the desk without meeting her eyes, she doesn't fall apart. She names her price, one point eight billion dollars and watches the most powerful man in the city agree without blinking. To him, she was never the woman he wanted. Just the one he settled for, and settling has a price. What he doesn't know is that Mara isn't just leaving. She's disappearing with a secret that will destroy everything he thinks he knows about their marriage. But when a clinic receipt surfaces and his lawyers start making calls, the clean exit he paid for begins to unravel. The woman he dismissed as a quiet, lovesick wife has been three steps ahead of him the entire time. He let her go once, he won't make that mistake again. Some exits come with consequences neither of them saw coming.

As the most well-known weather forecaster in the city, my forecasts were always wrong. Over time, everyone caught on. In this city, whether it rained or snowed depended entirely on the emotions of Cody Harper's lover. One moment, I'm on air announcing "moderate to heavy snow," but the next, the clouds in the sky parted and cleared. My boss openly mocked me. "You used to be the most popular presenter at our station, but not anymore, huh? Your husband’s throwing money around to manipulate the weather. What's the point of you reporting the forecast?" A coworker ruthlessly added, "I heard her husband's new lover doesn't like the cold, so there probably won't be any snow in the city for half a year. I think she's gonna be hit with a lot of fines." Clutching over a dozen penalty notices, I remained silent. When I got home, I tossed the penalty notices at Cody expressionlessly. "Clean up your own mess. I'm tired of being Mrs. Harper. I quit."

Mia Brooks thought leaving Callum Blackwood was the right decision. Their relationship had been short but intense, leaving her overwhelmed by a world that felt too big and consuming for her sense of self. Choosing to walk away, she set out to rebuild her life on her own terms. But independence comes at a cost. Struggling financially, Mia is forced to find a roommate just to stay afloat. What she doesn’t realize is that the person she chooses is the same man she tried to leave behind—Callum Blackwood. Callum moves into her space with quiet certainty, and what should have been a clean break becomes something far more complicated. Living under the same roof forces them back into each other’s orbit, where unresolved emotions, tension, and unfinished feelings resurface. As boundaries blur and the past collides with the present, Mia is forced to confront whether she ever truly moved on—and Callum makes it clear that he never did. What begins as an arrangement quickly becomes something neither of them can easily escape.

I've been with Giovanni Rossi for ten years. In fact, I'm the only lover he has. During countless nights of passion, he promised me that he'd marry me as soon as he became the Don of his family. But on the night he sits on the throne, he decides to cast me out for the sake of my replacement, Lisa Esposito. "Selena, she's different from you. You can stay as my secret lover, but she needs an official title. Lisa has been living in a clean world. The love she has for me is pure as well. She's just like you when you were 19 years old." After that, Giovanni gets down on one knee and puts on a pair of ballet flats onto Lisa's feet in a tender manner. As I step out in the heavy downpour, I never look back. What Giovanni doesn't know is that Vincenzo Bellini, the strongest Don of the mafia world, has been waiting for me for the past ten years with a crown in his hands.

The Rossi family has a rule. If you want to be the next Donna, you have to prove yourself. Make three hundred million dollars, clean money, in a single year. All on your own, no family help. I spent ten years trying to do it for Vincent. I built ten companies from the ground up. But every single time, just as I was about to cross that finish line, something would go wrong. Everything would just… collapse. This year, I finally did it. I ran to his study, audit in hand, my heart hammering against my ribs. I thought I’d finally won. Instead, I learned my entire life was a lie. He handed my entire empire to Ava—my father's bastard. All because she supposedly saved his life once, and he wanted to make her the real Donna. I gave up. On him. On my family's dream of rising with his. Then I picked up the phone and called the Outfit in Chicago. "Your marriage proposal," I said. "I accept."