Empty Look In Eyes

I arrive in Chicago with two suitcases, a five-year-old, and no room for mistakes. It is supposed to be a fresh start at the Northline Sports Agency, until I am assigned to their most volatile player, Finn Callahan, the hometown star player I walked away from years ago after an ice accident that almost killed him. And Finn doesn't forgive, nor does he forget. With my job on the line, the best player of the Northline Agency and Finn’s charismatic teammate, Jax Mercer, offers me a lifeline. I am to pretend to be his girlfriend to rehab his Playboy rep and fill the stands. Easy, until the act starts to feel real. Until Finn Callahan begins to reel, until the secrets begin to unravel. Until it is realized that the little boy with me has eyes that look unmistakably like a Callahan.

It was our seventh year of marriage when my husband, Joseph Lowe, brought my best friend, Teresa Shaw, to my ward. And they were the picture of a perfect couple. I gave them my most genuine blessing. "You two make the perfect match." Joseph tossed an agreement in my face. An asset transfer. He demanded that I give Teresa everything I had. I took the papers and signed my name without wasting a moment to think. Teresa laughed happily, pleased with my obedience. She then hugged Joseph and said, "Thanks for taking care of Joseph for me, Selina. Oh, there's the divorce papers, too. How about…" I noticed the look of impatience in Joseph's eyes, so I snatched the papers from Teresa's hand. "Yeah, I'll sign them all."

His hand wrapped in her hair, yanking her face up to him to look into his angry eyes. "Tell me where the fuck is he?" He growled, making her shudder in fear. "Tell me now!" "I..I..won't..." she whimpered due to a sharp pain shot through her skull. He grabbed his pistol and pressed it right on her temple, snarling, "Are you going to tell me or you wish for death?!" "I want to die…" she cried out. Anger roared through him, he pressed the gun in her temple wanting nothing more than to kill that bitch right that moment but something snapped inside him when his eyes fell on her body, and a cruel smile curved his lips. "Not before getting a taste of you!"

Enzo Corretti is a monster. He runs the most powerful crime family in the world. Being ruthless and unfeeling is in the job description but nowhere in the handbook did it ever say how to deal with someone like Dylan. She may look like a saint but underneath her pretty doe eyes there's a monster in waiting. Dylan Monroe is a Saint. That's what everyone always said about her. Growing up in violence and tragedy, she managed to live a normal life despite it. Well, that was until eight men showed up in her house with seven guns aimed at her head and the most vicious of them all, Enzo Coretti claiming she had something that belonged to him. Maybe she did. But Dylan knew if she gave it to him, it wouldn't end well for her.

From standing at the altar, ready to marry her childhood best friend, to being forced into a wedding with the most feared man in Maython City—the Don himself. Salvador is the living incarnation of Hades, a man of cruelty and border line disdain. Those who cross him are marked as his branded dogs for life. Catalina Maria never imagined her fate would take such a cruel turn. It was her fiancé who betrayed the Don, stealing from him and scorning his power. Yet, it is she who must pay the price. Because to Salvador, Catalina isn’t just an innocent bystander. She’s his collateral. She is everything he is not. Soft where he is hardened. Kind where he is ruthless. Terrified of his eyes, while he finds himself unable to look away from hers. Oh, mercy.

Meet Usha Mehta, sitting there calmly on the wedding stage looking as beautiful as ever in that red sari. But observe clearly her face in all the chaos of the few people running here and there in a hurry to conduct a perfect wedding. Is she smiling happily looking at the wonderful arrangements? No way! Nevertheless, she is taking deep breaths so that she will not strangle the man sitting beside her. So talking about man, let’s see what he is doing. Well, he is also looking handsome but doing the same thing, and that is taking deep breaths not to strangle the girl sitting beside him. They both are looking with wide eyes, imagining the guests saying loudly “You both can’t escape this marriage.” Poor them! Or is it really? Well, we just have only one option and that is to look at their journey from starting.

My wife doesn't love me. She doesn't love our child either. On the day our son is born, she doesn't even look at him. She just drops him into my arms. Later, her first love returns. For the first time, the cold, distant woman drinks herself drunk at home. She laughs as she holds our son in her arms, and he wraps his arms around her neck in surprise. "Daddy, what's wrong with Ms. Sutton?" he whispers afterward. I kneel and hold him close. My eyes are red as I explain, "Someone Ms. Sutton loves has come back. We shouldn't bother her anymore. It's time for us to move out."

I'm playing hide-and-seek with my son when he locks me on the balcony. It's freezing outside, and my face turns blue from the cold. However, all he does is laugh at me while I call for help. He makes ugly faces at me through the glass. "You look like the stray dog downstairs, Mom! You're so ugly!" I die a frosty and terrible death. Before breathing my last breath, I see my son excitedly give my husband a video call. "Mom has frozen to death, Dad. Can you take Ms. Cole home to be my new mom now?" When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the moment my son wants me to play hide-and-seek with him.

"I'm a dominatrix, Harry. I need control! In business, in life, in my home... in sex." She looked at him, who now had his eyes fixed on her. It wasn't that he had become less shy or more comfortable, he simply continued to follow orders, without even understanding why he was doing it. "But the club tired me... the submissive guys at the club tired me." She returned to the sofa, then moved much closer to him, bringing their knees together, and took a firm hold of his chin when, for a second, he dared to look away from her. "So I really wanted to try something new, Harry." Kath took a deep breath and said a few words that would have the power to radically change two stories. "I want YOU to agree to be my new submissive."

My boss, who made me work overtime every single day, finally got what was coming to him. Somehow, he got connected to my new keyboard. It was like he was synced to it. His face flushed red, his eyes brimming with tears. "Don't type anymore," he begged. I just smiled and nudged the mouse. "Don't move the mouse either!" 'Do you expect me to just stop because you said so? Wouldn't that make me look pathetic?' I thought to myself. I kept working until midnight. Just as I was about to leave, I glanced down. The carpet at my boss's feet was soaked through. I figured he must have knocked over his glass of water.