Family Problem Story

“Joe…” Her eyes closed and he lunged forward. She went down so fast, he almost missed her. Maggie slid down the wall, limp and pale, and he went to his knees and grabbed her shoulders before her head hit the floor. He pulled her up against his chest, touched her cheek. She was freezing cold. “Fuck, Maggie,” he muttered. “What have you done to yourself, baby?” He stood up, cradling her in his arms, and walked over to the sofa. He set her down on it and memory washed over him: making love to Maggie right here, her hot and writhing under him as he thrust inside her. God, he still remembered how hard she came that one night, hard enough to shake his whole body with her spasms. **** Two years ago, Maggie Branson walked in on her boyfriend in bed with another woman, and walked out without a backward glance. She never planned to see Joe Carlisle again. But when he offers her a high-paying commission she can’t refuse, Maggie decides to take the money, do the work, and get gone. Fast. Joe, however, has other plans. Two years ago, Joe was an arrogant, cheating disaster, and he knows it. Maggie was the woman he should’ve fought for, and this commission feels like his last chance to prove he’s changed. She’s not buying it. Then tragedy rips through Maggie’s life, and it’s Joe who shows up... steady, remorseful, and impossible to ignore. As grief strips away old defenses, Maggie is forced to confront the past she buried and the man Joe might have become. The question isn’t whether Joe wants redemption. It’s whether Maggie can forgive the one betrayal that broke her heart – and risk trusting him again.

In Evergreen Pack, turning 18 means awakening, shifting into wolf form, and being marked by your mate. But on the day of my coming-of-age ceremony, my older brothers and my fiance bring back a gravely injured Omega from the border. They place her in my room, and my eldest brother, Corey Newman, personally put the moonstone pendant my parents left me around her neck. My fiance, Zachary Russell, who's supposed to mark me, instead takes the Omega, Nora Gates, by the hand. He looks at me coldly and hisses, "I refuse to be your mate." The pain is too much for my wolf and me. Yet, my other brother, Wesley Newman, only says, "Stop making a scene or get out." I realize then that they were no longer my family. So, I decide to exile myself and throw myself into ten years of closed research in Central City. They think I'm just throwing a tantrum, and they even take Nora to see the aurora in Everfrost, something I've always longed to do. When they finally realize that I'm never coming back, they fall to their knees at my feet, begging me like lunatics to return.

After I studied and lived in Descensio for five years, I finally graduated and was ready to return to my home country to take over my dad's company. When I arrived at the Sullivan Group building, I took a picture and posted it on my Instagram story with the caption. 'Since you're the man I love most, I'm here to see you immediately after graduation.' Yet, a woman appeared out of nowhere and slapped me as soon as I arrived at the company's lobby. "It's her! She's the hussy! She had seduced my husband back in high school. Now that my husband has become the director, she shamelessly showed up here to flirt with him. So, I want you girls to beat her up. I'll take the blame if anything happens." While the woman was cooking up a story about me seducing Marcus Lane, a director of Sullivan Group, others around simply looked on coldly and judged me. She slashed my limited-edition bag to pieces and smashed the expensive seal I wanted to give my dad. "You're just a gold digger wearing and buying fake luxury goods. It's just a few hundred dollars. I can still afford to pay you." However, little did she know that everything I had was real. Even if she and her director husband worked for the rest of their lives, they would never be able to afford to pay for the damages.

I was the top engineer at the National Deep-Sea Research Center, and the only person in the world with experience in deep-sea rescue. When my sister’s submarine malfunctioned and was stranded ten thousand meters below the surface, I hung up on her distress call. Then I calmly walked into a police station and turned myself in for leaking classified research. A few minutes later, my father called. His voice was frantic and furious. “Your sister is missing. Where the hell are you? I’m ordering you to get to the site immediately and save her, or you won’t see a cent of the family inheritance!” I calmly pulled the blanket over my head and said into the phone, “I don’t have time, and you’re interrupting my sleep.”

When my boyfriend came to my family home to ask for my hand in marriage, my sister-in-law, who was usually cold and aloof, became a completely different person. She flung her arm around me warmly and asked, “Cassie, who’s your favorite? This boyfriend or one of the dozen or so men that you’ve brought home before?” As I denied her accusation and interrupted her, she cheekily batted her eyelashes at my boyfriend and cooed, “Oh, yes, yes. Cassie has never brought another man home. You’re the lucky first!” In the midst of dinner, she deliberately took her own soiled underwear out of the bathroom, pinched her nose, and waved it around as she screeched, “Oh my goodness, Cassie! I know you don’t really care about hygiene, but we have guests today! How can you have no shame? It smells so bad!”

I'm forced by my mother, Karen Brown, to raise Matt Brown, my uncle Jared Brown's illegitimate son. She justifies the coercion by saying that family should always help each other. I sacrifice everything to raise Matt for over a decade, only to discover that he despises me. It stems entirely from Mom and Uncle Jared telling him that I'm raising him with ulterior motives, that I'll be able to get back double the amount of money I spend on him in the future. I'm lecturing Matt once more about studying hard when he suddenly lashes out in frustration and murders me. Mom and Uncle Jared not only cover up for Matt, but they also take all my assets for themselves. I'm definitely not raising anyone's child now that I have been reborn, as the parents should raise their own child. It has nothing to do with me!

I'm severely allergic to many things, so my husband buys a separate villa for me. It's supposed to be sort of a nursing home. When my future daughter-in-law learns about this, she thinks my son is cheating on her. She breaks my bones to vent her anger. When she finds out I'm her future mother-in-law, she caresses her belly and looks at me smugly. "I'm already pregnant with Shawn's child. Think about whether you want this child to make it into this world." What she doesn't know is that the Ziegler family's fortune belongs to me and that Shawn Ziegler is only my adoptive son.

In my past life, I worked at a secret research lab abroad. From there, I learned the pyro-calypse was approaching, so I quit my job, intending to gather my family to stockpile necessities and hide out in the mountains. However, my evil mother, her lover, and my brother killed me. When I next open my eyes, I find myself reborn on the day I return home. This time, I keep the news to myself and stockpile necessities in our mountain villa. At the same time, I get revenge on my evil family and make them get the punishment they deserve.

It's my third day of being a ghost, and I feel like I'm going to starve to death again. The underworld messenger takes pity on me because I'm a child and secretly tells me that people like me, who suffered grievances and died with resentment, have to stay by the sides of the people who loved us most in life. Then, we survive on their "guilt". I lower my head and narrow my eyes. I choke up and say, "You might as well just leave me to starve." My mother hated me to the core. Why would she ever be guilty over my death?

My mother-in-law is extremely frugal. She reuses paper others have discarded, carefully saving the unmarked portions. She even takes the black waste oil from the kitchen range hood and uses it to cook our meals. She says, "Frugality is a virtue—it brings blessings!" I try tirelessly to convince her otherwise, throwing out all her filthy items to protect my family's health. But while she praises me to my face, behind my back, she uses my baby's food scissors to clip her grimy toenails. My child eventually dies of a lung infection, leaving me heartbroken. My mother-in-law, however, points her finger at me, saying I'm unlucky and that I've brought misfortune to their family. Even my husband blames me. In the end, they use a knitting needle to pierce my throat and stab me to death. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day I first see her picking up dirty paper. The first thing I do is hide all the high-quality tissue paper I had stocked up on before my pregnancy, pretending I knew nothing. She calls these blessings, right? Fine. The blessings of this miserly frugality—she can reap them all herself!