Drifted Mga Nobela at Kwento

I hid behind the study curtains, heart racing with a fragile, trembling joy. In my hands: an ultrasound photo—two heartbeats—and a no-limit black card. Alessandro had given it to me last night, his lips on my neck, calling me his Donna, his queen. Tonight, I was going to tell him about the twins. "The Petrov family needs to see my good faith," his voice drifted in, smooth as velvet. "Vittoria arrives Thursday. I’ll announce the engagement then." My blood froze. "What about Elena?" someone asked. "She’s been with you three years. She manages the books, dug that slug out of your side herself. Is this fair to her?" "Elena?" He leaned back in the leather chair, cigar smoke curling around his jaw. "She’s like a trained hound, Salvatore. After the Rossi family got wiped out, I pulled her from the gutter, gave her a gun and a bed. Have you ever seen a hound leave its master? I could kick her, and she would lick my boot and ask for another." My nails sank into my palms, crumpling the ultrasound. "Aren’t you afraid she’ll leave?" Marco, his Capo, asked. Alessandro paused. Then he said: "She would die for me without question. How could she ever leave?" Those words struck my chest like two 9mm rounds. I didn't wait. I ran through the cemetery, past the tombs of dead Dons, and hurled that card into the Hudson. I vanished into the night with his heirs in my womb and three years of lies in my throat. "I'm sorry, my babies," I whispered to my belly. "Mommy was a fool." But I wouldn't be a fool anymore.

Manhattan was doing that thing again twinkling like it had all the answers, when really it just had expensive lighting. Alexander Knight leaned against the glass wall of his penthouse, seventy-five floors up, watching the city hum below him. Bourbon in one hand (mostly untouched), phone in the other. The merger docs stared back at him from the screen, but the part that actually kept him up at night wasn’t the billions on the line. It was the fine print from the Japanese investors: “Family stability preferred.” Translation: get a wife, look settled, or watch the whole deal slip away. He exhaled, fogging the window for a second before it cleared. His assistant had already sent over a neat little list of “suitable” women—discreet, polished, zero drama. Women who understood arrangements. He hadn’t even opened the attachments. Because something about the whole thing felt… hollow. His gaze drifted down, past the grid of lights, to the tiny café on the corner. Golden glow spilling onto the sidewalk, handwritten sign in the window: Local Artist Pop-Up – One Night Only. A woman stood in front of a canvas, head tilted, paint-smudged shirt slipping off one shoulder. She was talking to someone out of view, laughing softly, then stepped back to study her work like it had personally offended her. She glanced up—straight toward his building, straight at him somehow, even though there was no way she could see him up here. But for a split second, their eyes locked across the impossible distance. But right then, with the whole damn city glittering between them, he had this ridiculous, unshakable thought: She’s the one I’m going to ask. And hell help them both when she says yes.

I am the youngest daughter of the King of the Sea, the most beloved little mermaid princess. The man I married is the world's most brilliant marine biologist. He has a childhood sweetheart who grew up with him, a woman who knows everything about extracting ocean toxins. The two of them, her brewing poisons and him developing antidotes, spent over a decade happily doing research together. Until the day she injected that toxin into my body. I nearly died. When I came to, he was sitting at my bedside writing up a treatment plan. "Don't be mad at Vicky," he said, still writing, his voice impossibly gentle. "She's just immature. She didn't mean to hurt you." "She knows I can save you. She just wanted to get a rise out of me." The moment those words left his mouth, one of Vicky's people came to call for him. After he left, I looked down at the treatment plan. He had left out one key ingredient. He'd been in too much of a hurry. He hadn't even noticed. That was when the sprite, silent for so long, finally stirred. The glowing pearl that had traveled with me for over twenty years drifted out from my collar, floating lazily in a slow circle. "Your Highness, once your human-form energy is depleted on land, your soul will return to the sea, and you'll never be able to come ashore again. This treatment plan is missing deep-sea spirulina extract. Following it will drain your energy even faster. The choice is yours." I stared at that line for a long time. Then I passed the treatment plan to the caretaker and smiled. "Let's go with this."

Just as I was on the verge of miscarriage from a fall, my husband—New York's most powerful Don—was throwing a lavish birthday gala for his childhood sweetheart, Camilla. I called, begging for help, but he dismissed it as a cheap stunt and coldly hung up. As his wife, I bore the honor of being the Donna—yet no one knew I couldn't even scrape together a thousand dollars. All because, to "train" me into a proper Donna, he had handed total control of my life and finances straight to Camilla. Desperate, I begged anyone who would listen. But by the time I finally scraped the money together, my baby's heartbeat stopped forever. After waking up in that hospital bed, I dragged myself back to his penthouse to pack my bags. That was when I stumbled upon the auction receipt for Camilla's birthday gift. A ten-million-dollar mansion in Beverly Hills, plus endless custom jewelry. Just then, his deep, raspy voice drifted from the study next door. He was on a call with his underbosses. "Boss, was Scarlett really at the hospital begging you for a grand?" Cassius scoffed. "Scarlett is my Donna. She has my men guarding her 24/7. How could anything possibly happen to her? She's just pulling a cheap stunt for attention. Camilla is right. I've spoiled Scarlett too much lately. If Camilla isn't strict with her, how is an orphan going to earn the Famiglia's respect? She'll understand my good intentions later." Tears slipped down my face. Fuck his rules. Fuck his Donna. The second the doctor called my baby's time of death, I decided I was out of his life—never to return.

"Betrayal is a sin, flower," He murmured near my ears, his arctic orbs whisking the warmth of my flesh against his. A course of harrowing singeing fire drifted down my body from the swell of my breasts to my heated core. My nerves screaming with torturous touch of his skin against mine, I couldn’t think for he had me confine in his arms. Brutally, he swept his tongue under the rim of my ear whilst my breath hitched and my tears become uncontrollable. The blood seeped through the cut I gifted him with as he inflated every bit of my scent I had to offer. His filthy tongue leapt across my lower lip with hellish slowness. The bond tempted me to submit to him. "I do not yearn to hear your cries, Katarina. Worship me with your moans." He commanded and I closed my eyes tightly not wishing to swim in those ocean pools of his. Their intimidating tone of his made me want to submit fully to him, to hand over the reins of my soul in his fists. Tears streamed down my face. "F-Forgive me, Xerxes." I stammer softly unable to face his wrath for I knew he was just playing with me, toying with my emotions before he punish me for deeds I've done. Xerxes cruelly grasped my wrists whilst locking them above my head so he could fully discern my naked flesh. "Forgive you?" He mocked, his eyes holding mine into a captivating grip as he licked his lips. "You let another male touch what belonged to me, tell me, flower, why must you test me like this.” I gulped unable to meet his gaze. He chuckled dryly. “Spread your legs, Katarina. The nectar I’m craving is between your legs.”

In my previous life, I practically dragged my useless childhood sweetheart to Harvard with me. My academic record was top-notch, and I spent three years tutoring him. I asked my father to donate a library to Harvard University, ensuring that they would extend an additional offer of admission to Felix. Finally—when he rejected the offer in favor of taking a gap year to go work in Australia with the girl he was infatuated with—I raised such a massive scene that I ultimately forced him to go to Harvard with me. After graduation, we got married. The natural ending. He built a tech empire and made me the wife of the richest man in the country. One regret. He died too young. Didn't leave me a single word at the end. Just went. And I — I inherited his billions, and lived comfortably all the way to eighty-eight. But when I died, I saw his soul. His eyes were blood-red. "You forced me onto this path. You took me from the only woman I ever loved. I died with regret. Pray we never meet again in the next life." ...What the fuck? He'd been in that much pain? And I was the only one — happily riding it out? Captions drifted across my vision. [Lmao — how thick is this side character's skin?] [Male lead dies young in agony, she breezes through to 88 as the richest widow in the country.] [The girl he actually loved was the one who flunked her SATs and ran off backpacking, hello???] [They both died young, missed each other, and the side character had the time of her life.] Even I felt bad. When I opened my eyes, I was back — standing in that basement he'd sworn would be his life of freedom, on the day he was supposed to reject his Harvard offer. This time, I am not stopping him from going to Australia.

I had argued with Tiffany Jensen at the construction site over a 15-dollar BBQ plate, and the fight had spiraled out of control. Clutching my throbbing head, I watched as she stuffed the freshly cashed paycheck into her pocket. "Are you ever going to let this go? You just want me to pay for your meal, don't you? You're always complaining about headaches and dizziness. I think you're just lazy!" I wanted to tell her about the flashes of luxury that kept appearing in my mind, images I could not explain. However, the words stuck in my throat as another wave of vertigo hit me. By the time I steadied myself and caught up to her, she was already climbing into a black Rolls-Royce Cullinan. Their mocking voices drifted out through the car window. Someone said, "I thought your little 'real-life experience' would be fun, but this is it? You even argued over a meal." Another person laughed along. "Tiffany, Mr. Jensen's about to have a heart attack over this. Now that he's finally agreed to let you date Ethan Parker, just dump this loser already. Are you planning to support him for the rest of his life?" Tiffany replied without hesitation, "He's a nobody who doesn't even know who he is, and he thinks he deserves someone like me?" It turned out that after I lost my memory, I had become nothing more than a pawn in a wealthy heiress' rebellion game. I turned to leave, my heart sinking. Just then, an unknown number flashed across my phone screen. I answered without thinking. "Mr. Shaw, this is Alfred Wright, your family's butler. You've been missing for five years! Your grandfather is dying, and he wants to see you one last time." I glanced back at the car disappearing into the distance and said, "Alfred, come pick me up."

Brian Stanton was the definition of a textbook husband in everyone's eyes. He left work on time every single day, rain or shine, and whenever he traveled for business, his video calls arrived like clockwork to report his whereabouts. If a dinner involved even a single female colleague, he would call me first to ask for my explicit permission. Even the honey-ginger tea he prepared for me during my periods had never skipped a single month in half a decade. Yet, the better he treated me, the more it felt like I was serving a life sentence. Five years ago, his assistant had shown up at our wedding, her heavily pregnant belly protruding as she begged me to let them be together. Brian had violently dragged her away. When he finally returned, he was covered in blood, collapsing before me and trembling. "Honey, I was wrong. I've taken care of her. She won't ever show up again." He hadn't slipped up once since then. In fact, he had been so flawless and so completely beyond reproach that I thought it was finally time to forgive him. I went to his company, hoping to ask him out for lunch. But a child's voice drifted out from inside his office. "Dad, it's Mom's birthday today. Let's go home and celebrate with her." "Okay." In the next instant, my phone screen lit up with an incoming message. [Honey, I'm working late tonight. Will be home later.] Peering through the narrow crack in the door, I looked at the father and son, who looked as if they had been cast from the same mold. All at once, I flashed back to the moment when his assistant begged me, her belly so massive she was on the absolute verge of giving birth. The pregnancy test result I had been clutching so tightly in my hand slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor.

“Give my best friend one month to stay in our house, Love.” Aurelia had been enjoying her afternoon snack when her husband’s words made her turn toward him. “Stay… with us?” “Yes.” Ethan stepped closer, taking her hand, his voice soft with pleading. “Just one month. You heard what Anna told us yesterday about her life, didn’t you? Could you really bear to see her suffer even more? What if her ex-husband comes back and hurts her again? She’s pregnant too—just like you.” Auri looked at her husband for a long moment, searching his face. “Please,” Ethan said quietly. “Will you?” The permission Aurelia gave that day became the beginning of a ruin she had never imagined. From the moment Anna arrived, Ethan’s attention slowly drifted away from her. The affection that once belonged fully to Auri was now divided—often leaning toward his childhood friend, who had come carrying sorrow and carefully displayed wounds. Day after day, she lost more than her husband’s warmth. Until one day—heavily pregnant, her body was still weak after nearly losing her life due to a severe allergic reaction—Aurelia was driven out of the house she had once called her heaven. But her suffering didn’t end there. At the lowest point of her life, Auri was abducted by her husband’s business rival—used as leverage to pressure Ethan Harrow in a ruthless corporate battle. A real threat. A pregnant woman’s life is placed on the line. And yet, to Ethan… it was nothing more than a trick. Ethan didn’t come. He believed it was all a lie. A cheap performance—one he thought his own wife had staged.And perhaps, in that moment, he had already lost everything… long before he realized what he had thrown away.

Everyone knew Elio Carbone, Don of the Carbone family, was a cold-hearted womanizer. He had one rule: never sleep with the same woman twice. But for me, he broke it. The first day after our breakup, he stood outside the old Bianchi estate for a day and a night, his entire security detail in tow, just to win me back. The second day, he flew to Sicily and bought the deed to my family's ancestral estate at auction for triple its value, and had it delivered to me. The third day, he tattooed my favorite flower, the lily, over his heart. The tattoo artist said he refused any anesthetic and didn't make a sound. Later, at a banquet for the Five Families, in front of all the other Dons, he sliced his palm and made a blood oath. He swore loyalty only to Eleonora Bianchi for the rest of his life; if he broke his vow, he would pay with his life. After a year of his relentless pursuit, his devotion finally wore me down, and I agreed to take him back. I truly believed him then. That Elio truly loved me. Until one night. He took me to an underground racetrack to broker a deal with an ally. But in the roaring crowd, I saw a girl, trembling and crying, her clothes in tatters. Ava was shoved to the starting line. She was the wager for the death race. One look was all it took for Elio's face to darken. The next second, he dropped his hand from my waist and, without a word, walked toward the track entrance. I stood frozen, watching his back as he disappeared into the driver's seat of a modified sports car. I used to wake up crying, terrified he would lose his life in one of these reckless races. He had smashed his trophies, burned his marker for the illegal track, and sworn to God he would never again enter such a life-or-death gamble. My hand drifted to my stomach, covering the secret I hadn't yet had the chance to share. His blood oath was broken. And so was I.