Deku Family

I returned home after studying abroad for three years, only to find that my brother’s girlfriend had brought her entire family to live in my mansion. The moment they saw me, they pinned me against the floor. "How dare you! Call him your sweetheart, spend his money, and now you're here to take my mansion? " When I saw the girlfriend’s crazed antics, I was shocked. “Who did you say owns the mansion?” “It’s my boyfriend’s, but it’ll be mine sooner or later. It has nothing to do with you.” With her parents, she yanked off the ancient pendant on my neck and crushed my heirloom bracelet. They even tied up my limbs, put me on the table, and positioned me in a humiliating pose to post online. Her brother pinned my legs down and reached under my shirt…

On the day my husband married my younger sister, I once again heard the divine message from the Astral Sanctuary: if I sever all ties to the mortal world within three days, I can reclaim the astral power I relinquished and return to the Astral Sanctuary. On the first day, I publicly cut my hair to symbolize the severing of love and signed the separation letter, ending my three-year marriage to the man I once loved. Holding my sister in his arms, he looked at me with disdain. His words dripped with mockery as he called me petty and jealous, claiming that sparing me the title of an equal wife had been his greatest act of kindness. On the second day, I drove a blade into myself six times, severing my bond with my cherished elder brother. He stood by, cold and unfeeling, sneering that I was nothing more than a desperate fool, resorting to theatrics to compete for his affection—a devotion he reserved entirely for my sister. On the third day, I clenched my teeth and carved through my own flesh and bone, severing my connection to the parents who had given me life. Enraged, they called me ungrateful and declared I was unworthy—not just of being their daughter, but even of being compared to my perfect sister. In the end, I succumbed to exhaustion and blood loss. My spirit ascended to the Astral Sanctuary, where I reclaimed my true identity as an Astral Maiden. When my family discovered my lifeless body left behind in the mortal realm, they all descended into madness.

My younger sister, Sophie Sawyer, got pregnant before marriage, gave birth to a baby boy in a small clinic, and then disappeared. The doctor used the address she left behind to find my family and handed the child to me. My parents knelt and begged me to raise him, and that was how I, an unmarried young woman, struggled through life with a child on my hip. When I finally managed to raise him, Sophie came back, standing beside a big-shot boss dripping in gold. She held her son and cried, accusing me of being jealous of her, stealing her child, and tearing them apart. My nephew cut ties with me without hesitation, choosing her over me. My parents kicked me out of the house. The neighbors all condemned me. In despair, I jumped to my death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Sophie gave birth.

The day my brother, Chester Rodney, came to the orphanage to take me home, my boyfriend Dominic Huxley looked at me coldly and said, "If you choose to acknowledge your birth family, we're over." I knew he had his pride—he could never accept the difference in our social standing. So, for him, I turned my back on the family I had yearned for my whole life. In the decades that followed, I toiled without complaint, saving every cent to help him rise to success. By the time I was not yet fifty, overwork had worn me down. Lying on my deathbed, my breathing shallow and weak, I watched Dominic on television. He was now an acclaimed scientist, just awarded the nation's highest research honor. Tears welled in his eyes as he thanked another woman. "All these years," he said, "I never felt worthy of Alicia. But now, maybe I can use this award as the prologue to a love I've owed her for decades." The "Alicia" he spoke of was the woman mistakenly switched with me at birth—the false heiress the Rodney family raised as their own. The camera zoomed out. Alicia Rodney stood radiant, graceful, and perfectly preserved by years of luxury, blushing as she accepted the trophy. "I waited for you for decades," she said sweetly, "but marriage is still something I'll need to ask my brother about." Chester, who had long taken over the family, looked at her with an indulgent tenderness tinged with something unspoken. "I was adopted by our uncle back then for one reason—to protect Alicia. Making the only princess of the Rodney family happy has always been my life's mission." Only then did I realize—everything I thought I had chosen freely, every sacrifice I made without regret, was nothing but a trap, carefully woven by two men, all for Alicia. The betrayal pierced my heart. I died without peace. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Chester came to take me home from the orphanage. I glanced past the two men eyeing me with subtle disdain. Without hesitation, I stepped into the car. "Take me home," I said. This time, I'd send whoever stole my life back to the gutter they slithered from.

Reborn as the long-lost Rogers heir, missing for fifteen years, I avoided every chance to bond with my two brothers in this family. When they tossed me Vivi’s discarded, ill-fitting gown for the family gala, I smiled and put it on. When they sent Vivi to get an elite education while ordering me to scrub the utility room, I picked up the mop without a word. When they let Vivi chase love and dumped her rejected suitor on me, I didn’t fight. I accepted her leftovers with a calm nod. This was all because in my past life, I had spent my entire life desperate for my brothers' approval, only to end up despised by everyone for it. When I died in the crossfire of a gangland shootout, my own son pushed my body away in disgust. "Mom, did you really waste your whole life on such a petty fight with Aunt Vivi? Dying for the family would have been a more dignified end. At least then you wouldn't have disgraced our name." I left this world filled with resentment, only to open my eyes and find myself back at the moment I first set foot in the Rogers estate. This time, I'm done fighting. The power, the name, the honor. I'm letting them have it all. I’ve already been accepted into a closed-door medical project. Soon they will never see me again.

When I was ten, I accidentally overheard my mother on the phone. It seemed like she was talking about me being a switched-at-birth rich girl, and that my real last name was Gardner. The coldness and cruelty my mother had shown me all these years suddenly made sense. When I turned 11, I paid an adult to get a maternity test done for both my mother and me. The results confirmed that I was indeed her biological daughter. I kept the report to myself and pretended I was still in the dark.

I need to drive to and from work due to a change in my job scope. However, my father-in-law hoards my car and refuses to return it. My husband stands up for him. "How can you be so materialistic? So what if you have to take an electric scooter to work?" So, I sell the car. My husband points at me and snaps, "What right do you have to sell Dad's car?" I look at him calmly. "I've sold the one you drive too."

When I was five months pregnant, my mafia husband Dante Pierce had an affair with his childhood sweetheart. That was when I discovered that our marriage certificate was fake. He had secretly married someone else behind my back. Even worse, the child I was carrying would be excluded from the family inheritance. From beginning to end, I was nothing more than a public front for his precious childhood sweetheart. After learning the truth, I did not cry or throw a tantrum. I quietly erased my legal identity, changed my name and disappeared forever with my child. However, later, everyone claimed that Dante, head of the Pierce family, was a hopeless romantic who had given up everything to search for the wife and child who had vanished without a trace.

Back in New York to pursue her medical degree, Mykaela navigates her way through a dangerous web of lies and family secrets while contemplating a long-distance relationship with Miles, her best friend. Maximiliano "Miles" Falco, a pureblood from a surreptitious clan of vampires, wants a quiet life away from his family and only wants the best for Mykaela—but that means pushing her away and dealing with the mobsters awaiting his family's downfall. Magnus Roiz is a wealthy vampire-werewolf hybrid and the firstborn of Ilya—a pureblood alpha and boss of the Božić crime syndicate. When Magnus learns of his estranged father's deathbed wish, Magnus tries to find Mykaela to inherit the alpha's multibillion empire. Will their choices protect them from the dangers along their path? Or will they resort to drastic measures to escape the lethal fury of the Italian and Russian mafia? 18+ Romance Crime Vampire Werewolf [This story is intended for MATURE readers.]

My three older brothers, Marcus, Jeremy, and Andrew Graham love me to the moon and back. Marcus clumsily practices peeling apples for me when I lie on a hospital bed. Jeremy blushes as he buys sanitary pads and prepares a warm drink for me when I have my period. Andrew spends all his pay to buy me new clothes and even declares, "Whoever bullies you will pay the price." He isn't shy to express his brotherly love for me. I once believed that my life would stay happy like this forever. However, my adopted sister, Mackenzie Falk, accuses me of swapping the graduation thesis she has been working on for three years. I suffer a heart attack on the spot.