Dream Family

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."

After a car accident left Vincent Holt, head of the powerful Holt family, disabled, he stunned high society by publicly seeking a wife. My father immediately submitted my profile. “Since you’re so determined to break up with Cole, let’s see if you can land someone from the Holt family instead.” I refused, only to get slapped hard across the face as I tried to grab his phone. “You have no choice in this.” With nowhere else to turn, I went to ask Cole Brody for help. He was the only one who could change my father’s mind. However, I overheard their conversation. “Don’t worry, Mr. Brody. Vincent Holt is just a cripple. Bethany’s too proud to accept him. Just give it some time. She’ll come crawling back to you.” Cole chuckled. “Lulu wants a baby. I’m just helping her out by sleeping with her a few times. It’s not a big deal, yet Bethany just won’t leave it alone. I knew you got a way to keep her in check.” My body went cold. It turned out that I had been standing alone in a ruin of lies all along. However, when the Holt family really picked me, they panicked.

The night I find out I'm pregnant, my family's villa suddenly goes up in flames. I endure the suffocating smoke and run the risk of being disfigured as I run to my son's bedroom. However, it's empty. Just then, I hear his excited exclamations outside the window. "Monica, you look so cool when putting out fires! I bet you'll get first place in this upcoming Firefighter Challenge!" I'm about to head downstairs to lecture him when a wall collapses and crushes me. As I drift in and out of consciousness, I hear my stern, stoic husband praise Monica Sloan for her courage. If I'm guessing correctly, my husband and son have started this fire to please her. I stare at the door, which is so close and yet so far. I send out one final text before dying of asphyxiation.

On the first day Thea Storme is accepted back to her wealthy family, she signs a betting contract with the fake heiress, Clara Storme. The contract states that if Clara is able to steal from Thea nine times in a row, Thea will have to leave the Storme family on her own. Thea agrees to the bet. On the ninth time, Clara has her eye on Thea's boyfriend, who's a low-income student. She gives him two million dollars and demands that he marry into her family as a live-in son-in-law. "You want me to marry into your family? Sure." Thea raises her head in disbelief. Leonard Falkner taps a finger on the bank card. The moment he meets Thea's gaze of despair, he flashes her a comforting smile. "But I will marry into your family as Thea's husband. I might be poor, but I still have my pride. Except for the woman I love most, I won't lower my head for anyone in this world." That day, Clara cries as she runs out of the house. She even agrees to marry into the Larkin family out of spite. Leonard remains unmoved. He just watches Clara making a fool of herself coldly. But that night, Thea overhears something…

In my past life, my husband brought our daughter, who was down with a cold, to his father's hospital so she could see a doctor. Later, she was pronounced dead. When I hurried to the hospital after hearing the news, he'd already transferred her organs to his true love's son's body. It was later that I learned my father-in-law was the one who extracted my daughter's organs when her vitals were perfectly fine. I was heartbroken and devastated. I wanted my husband and his family to give me an explanation for this, but he and his parents killed me by poisoning. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the moment my husband has just taken my daughter away.

I knew that my father did not like me since I was young. When I wanted to commit suicide to end the pain caused by my illness, he was celebrating another child’s birthday. He hated my mother and me alongside her. So, when I told him that I was sick, he did not believe me. “Is this your new tactic to get money from me?” No one believed that the daughter of the Powell family could die because she was too poor to pay the hospital fees. My father did not believe it either. However, when he saw my dead body, the famous actor who hated his daughter actually went insane.

The day after my mom used 880 grand from selling our family restaurant to buy a house for my cousin, my girlfriend of five years dumped me. "Evan," Ruby Lawrence said while she sat across from me. "Let's break up." My hands trembled. "Why?" "I waited for you for five years." Her eyes welled with tears. "You said once the restaurant was sold, we'd have the down payment for a house in Seahaven. Where is it now? Where's the money?" I tried to explain, but she cut me off. "In your parents' eyes, you're not even as important as your cousin. So tell me, who's really their son? I'm 28, Evan. I can't keep waiting." She grabbed her bag and walked away without looking back. My phone buzzed. My mom sent me a photo of her and my cousin at his new house. That was followed with a voice note. She sounded joyful. "Your cousin finally achieved his biggest life goal. We can relax now." I stared at his smug smile in the photo. I laughed until tears ran down my face. I exited the 'Clark Family Forever' group chat and blocked every single relative. 'Since you all choose him, then from this moment on, your reputation or loyalty will have nothing to do with me. I only wonder if you'll think of the son you abandoned when that precious nephew of yours, who you poured all your resources into, throws you out of your own home.'

My sister and I were caught up in a severe car accident during a family road trip down the mountain for the New Year. Shattered glass pierced straight through my heart. Amid the excruciating pain, my fiance and family insisted the rescue team take my sister, who only had a scratched arm, to the hospital first. As I cried out for them to save me, my fiance snapped at me. “Carol, you should know when to stop vying for attention! “Delila is bleeding so much. Why must you compete with her?” Dad shook his head and sighed while Mom looked at me with disgust. I forced my stiff neck to look over. They were all surrounding my younger sister. She only sported a faint red mark on her arm. No one saw the blood gushing from my chest. No one heard my fading heartbeat. I died during that snowy, bitterly frigid night. When they finally remembered me and came across my cold body, my fiance and family went mad.

My parents think I'm not ladylike enough, so they buy themselves a docile and sweet AI daughter called Serafina Moretti. On the day Serafina is brought home, I get bullied by the entire family. Papa hates the fact that I'm really bad at studying, unlike Serafina, who's quick to pick up on the knowledge after being taught for the first time. Mamma wrinkles her nose at my bright and active personality. Apparently, I'm not quiet enough, which annoys her and gives her a pounding headache all the time. My older brother, Dario Moretti, even berates me all the time. "You're a disgrace to the Moretti family! What else are you capable of doing other than eating and sleeping?" Even Serafina has the gall to make fun of me, so I shove her to the floor out of anger. Mamma's expression darkens immediately. Then, she delivers a heavy slap across my cheek. "Serafina is your sister! If you're as docile as she is, you won't annoy me to the point I keep having headaches! "It's time for you to learn how to be a docile and understanding daughter in a behavioral correction academy!" So, I'm forced to study there. Two years later, my family picks me up from the academy. They keep calling my name, and yet I never respond to them. Professor Luca Caruso corrects them smilingly, "Mrs. Moretti, you must say the words, 'Activate.' Only then will NS-5 boot up on her own."

My name is Adrian Hart. The day my sister Serena found me and brought me home, I thought I finally had a family again. I was wrong. In Serena's eyes, her adopted brother Evan mattered more than I ever would. When he was too scared to marry into a powerful family, I walked down the aisle for him. When he wanted out, I swallowed a fake-death pill and disappeared. Every time, Serena swore it was the last. The seventh time, she poured the pill down my throat herself. And that was the time I actually died. My soul stayed behind. I watched Serena stand over my body in the morgue and fail to recognize me until it was too late. And the cruelest part wasn't dying. It was knowing that, until my very last breath, my sister still wasn't on my side.