Novel & Cerita Doing The Right Thing When No One Is Watching

Warning: Mature Content Shock, cold and absolute, rippled through me. My jaw dropped. “Owned? I am not an object! You can’t just—” His dark chuckle cut me off. It was a chilling sound, devoid of warmth. “Oh, but I do, little bird. You became mine the moment your dear brother, Carlos, sold you to clear his debts. Along with almost all the shares in your father’s company.” The air left my lungs in a ragged gasp. What was he talking about? That couldn't be true, yet the look in his eyes said otherwise. He had sold me like an object, like chattel. Rage, raw and unadulterated, surged through me, eclipsing the fear for a fleeting moment. I tried to push past him, to escape and to run anywhere but his hand shot out, grabbing me by the neck, not quite choking but enough to hold me in an iron grip. He pinned me to the wall, his face inches from mine, his eyes burning with an intense possessive fire. “You now belong to Lorenzo Blackwood,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous. “You are mine. To possess. To claim. To own.”

After Ryan Spencer cheated on me again with his secretary, I completely lost it. When my mind started to spiral, I grabbed the fruit knife off the table. I just wanted it to end. “Why are you hurting yourself again? He doesn’t love you anymore?” I looked up. The sixteen-year-old Ryan was walking toward me, heartbreak written all over his face. His voice was gentle. “Tell me who he is. I’ll make him pay.” I stared into the bright, earnest eyes of the boy standing in front of me. I didn’t say a word. I simply lifted my hand and pointed at his face. Later, Ryan was the one who had me admitted to a psychiatric hospital. When the sedative began to wear off, the teenage boy appeared again, sitting by my bed. He stared at the man outside who looked just like him. The light in his eyes faded little by little. Then he spoke, his voice strained. “I don’t care who he is. I’ll kill him.” The sixteen-year-old Ryan never lied to me. When he said something, he meant it.

Just as the Garner family teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, Seth Garner's parents come to my doorstep. They beg for a marriage alliance. My father knows I've loved Seth for ten years. So, he pours ten billion into the Garners to save their empire and marries me off to him. On our wedding night, Seth blindfolds me with red silk and takes me again and again with ruthless intensity. A month later, I excitedly bring him the pregnancy report. However, I overhear him at a bar, laughing with his friends. "So, who do you think knocked up Luna?" Laughter erupts. "Seth, don't tell me the child's mine!" "I bet a hundred grand it's his!" That’s when I realize the man in my bed on our wedding night wasn't even Seth. I storm in and demand answers, but he just sneers. "What are you crying for? If your family hadn't threatened me with money and driven Ash away, you think I'd treat you like this? "Let me be clear—the day Ash forgives me is the day I let you go." Dead inside, I ask for a divorce. He responds by threatening me with footage from our wedding night and locking me in the basement. "You're not leaving. You owe Ash, and you'll repay it!" Eight months later, I die in that basement, along with the baby I couldn't deliver. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day the Garner family first begs my father for that deal. This time, Seth is the one crying on my wedding day.

Tamara Winslow stands amid the crowd while clutching two different documents in her hand. One of them shows a diagnosis report on her alexithymia, while the other showcases a divorce agreement. Three hours ago, she had specifically visited the Clerk's Office because the hospital's system had shown her marital status as "divorced". The city clerk looks up at her. "Ma'am, it's true that you and Mr. Braxton Merrick got divorced three years ago." Tamara's expression freezes on her face. "How could that be? We got married three years ago!" The city clerk checks the details once again. This time, he adapts a rather awkward tone. "The results are correct. It's true that you got divorced three years ago. In fact, it took place… on the seventh second right after you got married…"

I secretly sent Lena Parker, my husband Dominic Caballero's mistress, away to Sicara. I'm defying his authority as the Don of Coastwick, New Hudson. That very night, he abducts my parents and younger brother, using their lives to force me to reveal Lena's whereabouts. Dominic pushes his phone in front of me. On the screen, I see my family tied to chairs, the timer of the bombs ticking down. 00:59:59 00:59:58 He sits across from me and taps his fingers softly against the table, like he's closing a business deal. "Alyssa, you have 59 minutes," Dominic says in a calm, almost gentle voice. "Where's Lena?" I freeze, my throat tightening as if strangled. I can't get a word out. This is the third time he's pressed me. The first time, he asked where Lena had gone, but I stayed silent. The second time, he grabbed my chin and said in a low voice, "Alyssa, don't play games." Now, for the third time, he's threatening my family's lives. "Dominic…" I call out, my voice trembling. "They're my family. They're the most important people to me." He chuckles. "Is that so? Then why didn't you think about how important Lena is to me when you sent her away?" I stare at him, feeling how utterly absurd it all is. Important? He told me before that other women were just playthings. Once he got bored, he'd dump them. He swore I was the only one he loved. But now, for Lena, he's willing to kill my family.

"Have you ever found yourself in your brother's in law bed?" Justina just had one wish, and that was for her best friend to fall in love with her but what happens when he proposed she married him? Delighted, Justina agreed only to realize three months into their marriage she was being used a pawn to protect his dirty secret. Hurt and in disbelief, ends up committing a great offense with no one other than her brother in law. Trying to get away from him, discovers her husband had impregnated another woman and gave in to her lusts, never expecting to fall in love once again, but then again, she was betrayed. Getting an anonymous warning about Alexander, she had no choice but to run away, with her unborn child, faking her death but then a few years later, this same anonymous sender told her to return back if she wanted to know all answers to pending questions. Who was this anonymous sender and what did Alexander do to hurt her? What if Justina discovers everything she knew her whole life was a lie and she was actually living a second chance life?

I canceled my ticket to Iceland. Even the customer service agent sounded confused. “There are only two seats left on this flight. Are you sure you want to cancel?” “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.” We had been together for four years. Every February, he flew to Iceland. He always said it was for a photography project. On social media, he only posted glaciers and the northern lights. Whenever I said I wanted to see the aurora too, he would tell me, “It’s too cold there. You wouldn’t be able to handle it.” Then yesterday, I helped him organize an old hard drive. Inside was an encrypted folder named **February**. When I opened it, every photo was of the same girl standing beneath the same northern lights. The light was soft around her. Even the strands of her hair glowed clearly in the frame. The only photo he had ever taken of me was outside our apartment complex. Backlit. Out of focus. My eyes were squinting, and my entire face was blurred. At the time, he had even laughed and said, “As long as you can tell it’s you, it’s fine.” So it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to take good photos. He just never wanted to take them of me. For four years, he chased the northern lights. And every time, the same person stood beside him. The farthest light I had ever seen was nothing more than an Iceland photo he had posted carelessly online. While I was packing my things, he called me. His voice was rushed. “Weren’t you the one who kept saying you wanted to see the northern lights? Why did you cancel the ticket?” I hung up without answering. Iceland was too far. The aurora was too cold. Since he was never willing to come toward me, I would walk toward the light on my own.

Restaurateur and self-exiled heir Lucien Lenault's first look at the breathtaking young chef trainee for his trendy Chicago restaurant is a shock. She’s Elise Martin, daughter of a wealthy French fashion designer. She’s also the holder of a secret that could explode his carefully laid plans. Notorious for her flagrant exhibitionism, and for flouting the respectable façade of her aristocratic background, the coquine’s wild streak shocked most people. Not Lucien. He was tempted by it. It was a deliriously punishable offense as far as Lucien was concerned. But taking on Elise is more than a game. She’s a catastrophe waiting to happen, an inferno that’s burned many a lover. Lucien isn’t most men, however, and he won’t allow her to manipulate him. In order to control the defiant beauty—in order to see her submit—he’s going to have to willingly walk in the flames…

“Please just kill me. Please.." with tears in my eyes I begged for my own death. I am not one to have suicidal thoughts but I could no longer bear the humiliating torture I was being subjected to any more. However my abductor smiled at my pain and suffering with joy. “You will surely meet your end but it will be when I decide your pu"*y is no longer of use to me and my men. But don't think that's the only terrible thing I can do to you. So you better apologize to me and my honored guest before I allow the dogs and horses to also get a taste of you too and make no mistake it's not going to be pleasant at all," he said wickedly and I felt so humiliated.. How did my life end up this way? Physically assaulted, starved, molested and made naked; being offered as an object of pleasure to his uncharacteristically attractive but intimidating guest? I used to have a perfect life. A family who cares for me and a man who loves and cherishes me. He only just proposed to me yesterday and I have been dreaming of raising a happy family with him. So where did it go wrong? Oh, I remember now. I was stabbed in the back by the person I love and trusted the most. I didn't know she has always been envious and jealous of my happiness. My best friend Gloria, she betrayed me and sold me out to a gang of ruthless thugs to be violated and murdered. However when it seemed all hope was lost the person I least expect to help me would be my savior.

I was Claire Vitale, the lost daughter they forgot, the bride my lover betrayed—and the dying girl they failed to notice. For five long years, I lived like a stranger in my own home. The Vitale mansion was a beautiful prison, where every kind word hid a lie, every promise was false, and even Lawrence, the man I was supposed to marry, cared more for Vanessa than for me. None of them saw how my body weakened each day, how the pain grew sharper. They were too busy watching their precious Vanessa. Vanessa—the perfect adopted daughter, was the girl my parents loved more than me. She came into our family when I was lost, and when I returned, I found my place already taken—by her. Just as the illness was quietly taking my future. Now she was gone, and they all pointed fingers at me, convinced I was behind her disappearance. The machine they strapped to my head would pull memories straight from my mind. "Where is she?" my father roared. My mother sobbed in the corner. Lawrence, my fiancé, stood silent—his accusing eyes louder than any shout. But I knew the truth would shock them—how Vanessa hurt me, how she faked accidents, how she made sure no one ever believed me. The machine would show them everything. As the machine began its work, I trembled—from fear and exhaustion. After all these years of being unheard, would they finally see?