Crime Series Novels & Stories

I've been married to the prince of the underworld for ten years and have endured countless life-or-death situations by his side. My hands, once trained to play the piano, are covered in calluses from holding guns and stained with blood. But at 28, my husband ends up falling for a young woman from the slums. She's as delicate and pure as a chamomile. She's his well-kept little secret—until I run into them at the woman's prenatal appointment one day. I storm up to him, demanding an explanation, only for him to nonchalantly hand me divorce papers. "Sonia is a devout follower of the church and can't have a child before marriage. I must make an honest woman out of her. Sign these, and you'll get 40% of the company's shares." I refuse to do as told, so he corners me. In the end, he has my crippled younger brother tied up and forced under a hydraulic compression machine. "Sign the papers, Maeve, or watch your brother become a human mince pie. The choice is yours." I fall on my knees and beg him to stop. As the machine turns on, my hands fly to my aching lower belly, and I scream as I lose consciousness. When I wake up again, I'm back in the hospital, in the same spot where I ran into my husband and his mistress at her prenatal appointment. This time, I don't confront him. Overnight, I make arrangements with a sanatorium abroad, get divorced, and run away from home. Yet the moment I truly disappear, my husband loses his mind.

There's a little shop downstairs that sells organ soup. It's always packed with customers. People line up as if bewitched, eager for a bowl. I've often wondered what secret ingredient made their soup so irresistible. This afternoon, I finally found my answer. Floating in my bowl was a piece of human skin—inked with a tattoo I knew all too well. It was the one etched on my boyfriend's arm.

The day before our wedding, my fiancé invites our family onto a cruise ship. He says he wants to test the authenticity of my feelings for him. He shoves my mother off the ship when the waves are at their choppiest. Then, he jumps into the water, too. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. I panic, not knowing what to do. My mother had already choked on a lot of water, but she pushed me away weakly. She cried, "Save Adrian first! He can't swim!" However, after I drag Adrian Lawson onto land and go back for my mother, I find that she's already stopped breathing. Adrian watches me cry, his expression frosty. "Drop the act. Your mother was a swimmer when she was younger—how can she be dead? I can't believe you didn't save me first. "Vi is right—you don't love me enough. Our wedding is postponed. It'll happen only after you've reflected on your mistakes and I've received an apology from you and your mother." After that, he leaves while holding Vivian Sinclair's hand. He doesn't know that my mother can no longer swim after a major illness a few years back. He's shoved her to her death.

On my husband's birthday, I poured my heart into preparing a feast and selecting the perfect gift. Yet, he didn't come home. Instead, I received a picture message—a snapshot of him at the hospital, standing outside the OB-GYN ward, his hand resting tenderly on his childhood crush's belly. Beneath the photo, a message read: [The best birthday gift and a symbol of our decade-long bond.] Furious, I called her. "Don't you know he's married?" Before I could say more, my husband snatched the phone and lashed out at me. "Yvonne just wanted to share the joy of becoming a mother. Why are you overreacting? "Yvonne and I have been best friends for over a decade. Your petty jealousy is disgusting!" I once believed his busyness was for our future, but now I knew—he had been busy supporting the girl of his dreams through her pregnancy. Clutching my own stomach, I bit my lip to stop the tears from falling. Ten years of love had drained away. It was time to let go.

My wife, Alayna Watson, is childish as ever even though we've been married for eight years. From time to time, she'll use her prank toys on me just to trick me. Oftentimes, I just toss the toys into the store without thinking much about them. A few days later, when I'm cleaning the house, I suddenly remember the box that Alayna has pranked me with, so I decide to throw it away. When I open the lid, I smell a foul odor wafting from within the box. A severed arm lies quietly there. I slump to the floor instantly out of alarm and shock. With trembling fingers, I manage to call 911. When the DNA results are out, the police officer shows a weird and conflicted expression. "Sir, the DNA we've extracted from this arm… belongs to Alayna Watson."”

When I was eight months pregnant, my husband's foster sister invited me to hike a snow-covered mountain. Midway up, an avalanche hit. We were both buried. My husband rushed to the scene, but before I could utter a word, his sister accused me: "She planned this! She tricked me into coming today!" I tried desperately to explain. He didn't listen. Instead, he lashed out at me. "Sandra doesn't know any better, but you should! So what if she's blunt? Is this your petty revenge? Your pathetic life couldn't even begin to repay hers if she'd been hurt!" Then he left. Took her hand. Walked away. I screamed after him, begging him to save our baby. He didn't even glance back. Worse, he unhooked my safety harness and shoved me out of the rescue group. "Since you're so clever, find your own way down." Not long after, another avalanche hit. This time, I couldn't get back up. Three hours later, Sandra was in a car accident. She needed a blood transfusion. That's when he finally thought of me. But by then, he didn't know—I was already gone. Me, and the child I'd never hold, were still buried under the snow.

When my son suffered a heart attack in the middle of the night, I rushed him to the hospital where my wife worked. Instead of taking charge herself, she handed the operation to an intern. "New doctors need opportunities to learn. I'll be right there supervising. Nothing will happen." But before the surgery even began, a phone call pulled her away, leaving a trembling Marvin Vance alone in the operating room. My son never made it off the operating table. I collapsed in the hallway, sobbing in grief. Yet I overheard my wife gently comforting Marvin. "For your first surgery, you held on this long. You've done an amazing job, my little cinnamon roll." Awkwardly copying trendy slang younger people used online, she reassured him with endless patience. Then she turned to me with a cold expression and demanded that I sign a letter forgiving Marvin. "He has his whole future ahead of him. You can't destroy his life." I tore the document to pieces and threatened to call the police and expose what had happened. In response, she arranged for a medical donation and had my son's body dissected that very night. Driven insane by grief, I threw myself from a building while clutching my son's ashes. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day of my son's surgery. This time, I immediately contacted my parents and transferred him to another hospital. But that night, they still dissected a child.

Lately, my seatmate had been looking at me strangely. Whether we were going to the cafeteria or heading to P.E., she kept her distance like she was afraid of me. I finally couldn't take it anymore and asked her, "Did I do something to offend you?" She flinched, backed several steps away, and avoided my eyes. "No. It's not your fault!" But the next day, she voluntarily transferred out of the honors track and into a regular class. Confused, I went to ask her what was going on. The moment I arrived at the door of her new classroom, she'd been chatting casually with other students. Then she saw me, started shaking all over, and screamed in terror. "It really has nothing to do with you. Please stop looking for me. Please!"

On the night of Mom's birthday, as she was making a wish under the moon, Dad suddenly leaned close to her ear and whispered something. My usually cautious mother, who valued her life above all else, turned around after hearing those words and jumped straight into the pack's silver pit. The silver pit is deadly for us werewolves; only those with a death wish would go there. After her death, countless pack members questioned Dad about what he had said. Someone even offered a million dollars in exchange for those words. But he remained silent. Until the day of my mate ceremony, Dad showed up. He walked up to my fiancé and whispered something...

There is a medical dispute at the hospital. A patient's family member comes at us swinging a knife. Without hesitating, I push my husband, Maxwell Conner, out of the way. But then, he grabs my hand and pulls me in front of his beloved junior, Karina Burton. The knife plunges straight into my abdomen, killing the baby I had just conceived. As my horrified colleagues cry and rush me toward the ICU, Maxwell violently pulls me off the gurney. He barks, "Save Karina first! If anything happens to her, I'll fire every last one of you!" The doctors are stunned and furious. "Maxwell, have you lost your mind? Karina only suffered a minor injury. Your wife is the one in critical condition!" Clutching my bleeding abdomen, I nod slowly. "It's fine. Just forget it." Maxwell, I owe you nothing after this.