روايات وقصص ضمن Crime

Shortly after I married Andrew Lorne, my mother-in-law has my husband's widowed sister-in-law move in with us. She wants my husband to bear the responsibility of caring for two families. My husband says he wouldn't be who he is without his elder brother's help, so he won't let his sister-in-law suffer. And so, she and her son steal my home and my husband's love. Meanwhile, my daughter and I are banished to the countryside. On the first day of our banishment, I'm violated and murdered by beggars who barge into the house. … It takes three years for my husband to remember me. He comes to the countryside to take me home. "Come out, Jovana. I'll immediately bring you home as long as you agree to give your property to Tiana as an apology for the things you've done." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, my daughter emerges from the yard, which is overgrown with weeds. She tells him I was dead. He doesn't believe her. He allows his mother to beat my daughter half to death and berates me while he's at it. "How dare you, Jovana! You haven't learned your lesson at all, have you? These dirty tricks are all you know, and you even taught our daughter to lie! It's been years, yet you still can't compare to Tiana!"

On Mom's death anniversary, drug dealers break into the cemetery and take me away. To get revenge on my brother, Zack Smith—a forensic pathologist—they torture me until there isn't even a single uninjured spot left on my body. I hold on for almost three days, barely surviving, until I finally get a chance to call him for help. However, Zack replied, "Why didn't they kill you for good? A jinx like you who killed your own mother shouldn't be allowed to live!" When the drug dealers notice my action, they shatter all of my bones. The next day, a janitor discovers several large bags of human remains in the trash can. Zack painstakingly reassembles my body back together with his own hands—yet he fails to recognize that it's me, his younger sister he always claims to hate. When the drug dealers are finally arrested, he descends into madness.

I loved Stella for five years, and we were even engaged. However, she never helped when my grandfather was dying, all because the adopted son of my family suggested that she should use the opportunity to put me through adversity—so that I would toughen up. After my grandfather died helplessly, I toughened up just as she hoped for, no longer relying on her for everything. Naturally, I no longer loved her anymore either.

Just as my wealthy boyfriend and I were talking about getting married, his mother dismissed me as an unrefined girl and demanded I attend a finishing school to learn how to be a proper wife. Looking at Zach’s pleading gaze, I gave in. I endured relentless psychological and physical torment for three months. However, on the day I was discharged, I overheard a phone call between Zach and his friend. “Zach, if you don’t want to marry Cathy, why didn’t you just tell her? Why did you have to send her to that hellhole to suffer? That finishing school your family runs is a freaking torture chamber. Constant beatings, electric shocks, forced kneeling for hours… No one comes out of there the same.” “You don’t get it. Jen is about to get engaged, and I can’t risk Cathy ruining it. As long as Jen is happy, I don’t care who I marry. Cathy grew up poor, so she can endure a little hardship. Three months of hardship for a lifetime of Stein money is a fair trade.” My vision blurred with tears when I heard those cruel words from his mouth. I thought. “Zach, since you loved Jenna so much, why did you have to toy with my feelings?”

Everyone in the social circle of Kingsford said I was nothing more than a lapdog raised by Charles Mankin. I was always at his beck and call. I did every filthy, ludicrous thing for him under the sun. When he street raced, I rode shotgun. When he drank himself senseless, I made him hangover soup. When he chased girls, I prepared protection for them. Over time, everyone knew: Charles had a dog who never ran, never bit back, no matter how hard he kicked. They all said I must be madly in love with him. Even Charles started to believe it. So he pushed further, more freely, more cruelly, crossing lines as if they never existed. Then came my twenty-fifth birthday. He, in a rare stroke of mercy, said he'd celebrate it with me. But instead, what he got was the news that I was leaving the country. He went berserk, charging through the airport like a man possessed. I peeled his fingers off my wrist one by one, smiling like I'd never been happier. "Don't be stupid," I told him, still smiling. "That was never love." That night, Charles smashed apart his family home like a rabid dog.

My wife's first love kills me without a shred of mercy. But my wife, a world-class surgeon, doesn't try to save me. Instead, she comforts her first love. "He's so ruthless! How could he hurt you this badly?" She even tells the police that I've severely injured her first love, claiming she wants to press charges for attempted murder. Then she points at my body and demands that I get up and apologize to her first love. "Charles, stop pretending! You just want me to pity you, right? Get up and apologize to Steven!" she yells.

After my girlfriend of seven years checked in from the foreign third-world country, Bayndemar, she suddenly vanished without a trace. That same night, I received a video from her phone. In the footage, a man wielding an electric baton sneered at the camera. "Bring five million dollars to the compound if you want her back alive." Beside him, my girlfriend's clothes were torn, her body covered in blood. Trembling, she begged through tears, "Ryan! Save me! They promised they'd let me go once the money's paid!" Without hesitation, I went alone. But the moment I landed, I was drugged into unconsciousness. In the end, I was tortured to death. Meanwhile, my girlfriend returned home with one-third of the ransom money and married the student my family had sponsored. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the very day she disappeared.

As my murderer's claws tear into my abdomen inch by inch, my father and brother are seated in our family's banquet hall. They're celebrating Carly's 18th birthday and coming-of-age. "You'll always be my little girl." "Happy birthday, Carly." They light 18 pink candles for her. On top of the exquisite red velvet cake is a wolf figurine that they carved for her, and there are well wishes and laughter all around. Meanwhile, I'm curled up in a sewer filled with liquid silver as I bleed to death. My phone has been crushed, and I can't get out. I can only cry for help. A few days later, my father and brother show up together at the autopsy room. My brother stands by the operating table with a scalpel. He slices open the body and sews it back up like it's nothing. My father just covers his nose as he shoots a disgusted glance at my body. He urges my brother to hurry up with the autopsy report. "The victim is a young female wolf presumed to be of pure lineage. Before her death, she was subjected to prolonged captivity and torture. Her throat is nearly severed, her cervical spine is dislocated, and her chest cavity has collapsed. She was also injected with liquid silver before death." Hearing the report, my father looks so calm that it's just like a case study of no consequence. Neither of them can recognize that the body belongs to me—their daughter and sister!

The wealthy Hanson family makes it clear that whichever sister gives birth to the family's first grandson will inherit the billion-dollar fortune. In my previous life, my sister, under our parents' arrangement, married the strong and healthy third son, Jerome Hanson. I, on the other hand, was given to the gloomy eldest son, Lester Hanson, whose legs were paralyzed. Under my treatment, Lester regained full use of his legs. I became pregnant with the Hanson family's first grandson. Meanwhile, my sister was driven to madness by Jerome's abuse, becoming the laughingstock of every wealthy woman's dinner gossip. On the day I went into labor, my sister stabbed my belly with a knife. Then, she pulled me off a rooftop with her. Now, in this life, we start over. The moment Lester sends over a golden bridal bouquet, my sister snatches it without hesitation. "I want to marry Lester!" she declares.

My brother and I get into a car accident. My heart is ruptured—I need emergency surgery. But my mother, the hospital director, calls every available doctor… to my brother's room. He only has a few scrapes, yet she orders a full-body scan for him while I lie there bleeding out. I beg her to help me, but she snaps, visibly annoyed, "Can't you stop fighting for attention for once? Your brother almost injured a bone!" In the end, I die on the operating table. But after the news of my death breaks, my mother, who has always hated me, completely loses her mind.