Dumbledore Asked Calmly

My older brother, Ethan Earnhart, was the Alpha of the Shadow Pack. Right now, he was slicing my chest open with a silver surgical blade. Beside him, my adopted sister, Sara, had tear-filled eyes. "Elina went as far as faking her own death just to escape the loan sharks. She even used the body of a disfigured rogue." Ethan's gaze was filled with disgust. He pointed at the bruises covering my body, marks left when I was alive, and explained calmly to the young healer beside him. "Look. This is what happens to a traitor who betrays the pack and sleeps with filthy rogues. Elina, being the liar she's always been, even found a stand-in for her little performance." My wolf soul hovered beside the operating table and watched in despair as he handled my body the way one would process prey. 'Ethan, that really is me. I was trying to retrieve something you lost. That was why they–' "Check the stomach contents," Ethan said flatly as he cut open my stomach. Unexpectedly, there was no food residue. Instead, there was a single ring. It was corroded black by stomach acid, but the emblem engraved on it was unmistakable. It was the Alpha heirloom Ethan had lost five years ago. I had swallowed it just before I died. I had to protect that secret even if I were dead. Ethan's hand trembled violently while holding the forceps. He tore into my facial flesh like a madman. "Elina?"

"Ten million." He uttered calmly like he was discussing the weather. Bella's steps slowed behind him. He continued with a nonchalant shrug. "Ten million. After six months, you'll walk away with ten million." She took a deep breath, heart pounding as she spun around to face him, speechless. Ten million wasn't just a lot. It was life-changing. Turning, he met her glare, a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "All you have to do is be my wife – pretend rather." ________ Arabella Carver always has things under control but finds out she isn't as lucky when everything comes crashing down. She is betrayed by her fiance, on the brink of eviction, and with her mother's life hanging by a thread, she's desperate for help. But as she tries to get the help she needs, only one person is willing to offer and it is none other than Adrian Davidson. The first man to claim her heart only to shatter it like it meant nothing. However, there is a catch to his generosity. He needs a wife to appease his grandmother, and Arabella happens to be her ideal choice so he gives her the papers that bind them. A marriage contract. With little choice and a grudge in her heart, she signs them. Besides, what could go wrong? It is, after all, just a contract. But what happens when old wounds resurface and sparks begin to ignite?

When I bring up divorce in front of my husband, Vito Corti, he happens to be toying with a lace thigh strap that's gifted to him by a rising adult film star. Vito, the head of the Corti family as well as the youngest Don in Emaly, orders his Soldato to pick up his new lover tonight. Then, he shoots a languid glance at the divorce agreement on the table. "How big of a tantrum are you throwing this time, my dear Donna?" I reply calmly, "I didn't touch the bank card tied to the private account. I also don't want the estate in Emaly as well as the bulletproof convoy. I have already entrusted the asset management authority to your Consigliere." Vito is stunned for a moment, but he still thinks I'm still throwing a tantrum. "You don't want those assets? Then what do you want? My devotion? Gia, I already told you in the past that you're the woman with the highest position in the family. But it's too boring for a Don to own just one woman." He tries to reach out to feel my cheek, thinking that I'll act the same way as before; that I'll forgive him in a roundabout way after lashing out at him. But I just avoid his hand. I no longer want Vito's devotion to me. Now, I just want to leave him.

At the pack's anniversary dinner party, the Alpha, Matt White, told us to write down the gifts we wanted. He would make sure every request was fulfilled. When it was my turn, the newly arrived intern suddenly snatched the paper and pen out of my hands. "Mr. White works so hard managing the pack. We can't let him spend money on us! You shouldn't write down your dream gift," she said. I ignored her, grabbed the list back, and calmly wrote down one item: a washing machine. Peyton immediately flew into a rage and splashed the champagne on the table straight onto me. "I told you not to write anything down! As a Beta, how can you be so inconsiderate of Mr. White?" My coat was completely soaked, and I looked utterly disheveled. I couldn't hold back my anger anymore. I flung the list straight at her face without mercy. She instantly covered her face and screamed, "How dare you hit me! Do you know who my father is? He's the Alpha King! Even Mr. White has to be polite to him. I'll have you kicked out of the pack for laying a hand on me!" I froze. I was the Alpha King's biological niece. My uncle didn't even have a partner, so how would he have a grown daughter?

I was the son of the wealthiest man in Capital City, but I had never enjoyed the flattery and fake smiles that came with that title. All I had ever wanted was a normal life. Now that I was pushing twenty-eight and still single, my mom finally lost her patience. She gave me an ultimatum: go on a blind date or she’d disown me. On my way to the date, I passed by a luxury boutique and spotted a watch that immediately caught my eye. I was just about to pay for it when, out of nowhere, a man barged in from behind and slapped a black card down on the counter. “I’ll take this watch. Wrap it up for me,” he said. I stayed calm and said politely, “Sir, I saw this watch first.” However, he just scoffed and snapped back, full of arrogance, “A broke nobody like you can look but not afford it. Get lost. I’m the assistant to Ms. Jackson, the CEO of Jackson Group. In this city, if I want something, no one will fight me for it.” Ms. Jackson? Isn’t that the exact woman I was supposed to be meeting for the blind date? Without another word, I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. “Selena,” I said calmly, “do you know your assistant is out here throwing your name around to bully people?”

“Is Batman my daddy?” my son Jackson pipes up from the back seat. Of course not! But telling him that his father is Asher Giordano, leader of New York’s deadliest mafia empire is out of the question. He found us anyway. “What have you done with Jackson?” I demand. “My son?” Asher asks calmly, looking around my small apartment disdainfully. “The one you’ve been hiding from me and forcing to live in this…pigeonhole?” Our son, not yours. “You’re the one who left me at the alter without as much as a ‘see you later’. If you left me a forwarding address to contact you at, I must have missed it.” Asher regards me coldly. I don’t know this man. The boy I fell in love with was warm, giving and open. This man in front of me is frostier than the arctic with his glacial eyes. “I know you know who I am and what I’m capable of, so don’t try anything stupid, Emmeline. There’s nowhere you can run where I can’t find you.” “Gosh, Asher, that’s like a line straight out of a movie. Have you been practicing delivering it in front of a mirror?”

The day Bryan Abbott received the World Philanthropist Award, the doctors told me I would not live for long because I could not afford to replace my artificial heart. The TV host asked Bryan to call the person he regretted being with the most. Without hesitation, he dialed my number. I answered the call. Bryan asked, “Do you regret leaving me for money back then?” Staring at the astronomical bill for the artificial heart, I chuckled softly, “Bryan, you’re so rich now. Could you lend me $200,000?” The call cut off abruptly. I watched as Bryan icily said on TV, “Now, I have no regrets.” He did not know that back when his heart had failed, I had donated mine to him secretly so that he could live.

"Is this your first pregnancy?" the doctor asked, prompting Marco to adjust his sitting position. "So, she's really pregnant?" Marco asked to confirm, causing the doctor to nod, while Letta tried to close her eyes. It seemed she couldn't escape from the man next to her who was now staring at her intently. "Yes, your wife is indeed pregnant. And if this is your first pregnancy, it seems I should provide some explanations so you won't be in the dark about this pregnancy," the doctor said, leaving Letta only able to nod. After all, she really needed knowledge about this pregnancy, and the doctor's explanations seemed like they would help. But, somehow, what initially made Letta excited because Marco was by her side might make her slightly unfocused in listening to the doctor.

“You know what you have to do,” Blake said, his eyes bearing hatred into Cassandra, “You don’t like me.” “No,” Cassandra answered, she had been rehearsing how to sound nice while she rejected his proposal but it was impossible. “What?” He asked surprised “I said no, I am sorry, I can’t do that.” She muttered. “You don’t have any idea what you are signing up for, do you?” He asked, both his hands balled into fists on the table, while she watched him silently. “How much did my grandfather pay you?” He asked again and then she looked away from his magnetic gaze, feeling embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I told Mr. McKnight that I would marry you. I don’t think anything would change my mind.” She feigned confidence, holding onto her own hands to stop them from trembling. “We can just try to get along.” “Get along? What was I expecting from a gold-digger?” he asked with deep seething frustration. “You all are the same.” I wanted to ask what he meant by that but I couldn’t. “This wouldn’t be easy I assure you, princess, there would be a price to pay, a fucking expensive one.” He gets up and puts on his cap. “See you later, dear wife.” Unable to say a word she watched him storm away, her heart hammering painfully at his threat. Cassandra’s life took a total turn when her uncle forced her to get married to his partner’s grandson. Even though she was reluctant at first but then she didn’t have a choice but to agree, if there was a way she could escape her cousin, Lance. She would gladly marry even the devil because what has she got to lose?

At a dinner party, my genius painter of a husband, Henry Shepherd, used his hands, hands insured for millions, to shell crabs for his young assistant, Tamara Lee. This was all to coax her into eating a few bites when she claimed she had no appetite. Meanwhile, I drank myself into a bloody mess, trying to secure investments for him. When I asked him to hand me some antacids, he refused without even looking up. “These hands are for painting. Use your own.” For ten years, he couldn’t even be bothered to change the way he treated me. That night, as I sobered up in the cold wind, I asked my lawyer to draft a divorce agreement. "Henry, in this vast, chaotic world, our paths end here," I said inwardly