Frail Words Collapse

As Don Julian Vitale's woman, I've accompanied him every step of the way, from the streets all the way to the peak. It all starts because I don't like the way Julian's god-sister, Milena Santoro, uses so much force in dressing my wounds that I've dismissed her in favor of other people. The next day, my explicit photos are plastered all over the underground casino's chips. I clutch my abdomen, which still sports the stab wound I've blocked for Julian. As I search for him, I end up overhearing his subordinates' lewd laughter outside a private room. "Winona sure is hot, Don Vitale! Now that her body's printed all over the chips, our luck has tremendously increased as well!" "That's not it! Previously, Don Vitale rewarded me by letting me grope Winona's chest! Because of that, I was able to seal a business deal that's worth tens of millions of dollars!" "Then again, Don Vitale, won't Winona get into a fight with you for spreading her explicit photos like this?" Julian puffs out some smoke while toying with a casino chip with my crotch printed on it. "She's just a plaything whom Lady Luck favors. Without my protection, she's even lower than a mutt. Besides, she's nothing compared to Milena, and yet she has the gall to complain about how much force Milena uses in dressing her wounds?" As the crotch-imprinted chip is flung onto the table carelessly, I feel my heart dying once and for all.

Everyone said I was Domenico Calvetti's most obedient woman. On our first wedding anniversary, he flirted with a pair of twins at the gambling table. He had lipstick smeared all over his shirt. I smiled and wiped it away with a silk handkerchief, but he swatted my hand aside. "Don't kill the mood." In the third year, the star performer from the club he ran showed up at my door with a gun pressed to my temple, demanding to take my place. Without flinching, I disarmed her using the technique he taught me and disposed of the body myself. Behind me, he held his new lover and laughed softly. "Lucia, you always know what to do." In the fifth year, he blew up the library my father left behind just to make his new flame, Marilena Rossetti, smile. That library was my mother's favorite spot when she was alive, and it held the only photographs of our family of three. The explosion made me the laughingstock of the city. People whispered, "Signora Calvetti can't even protect her own memories." Everyone believed I could never leave the Calvetti family or Domenico, but they forgot how this all started. Back then, he rescued me from my adoptive father and fell in love with me at first sight. He knelt and begged to marry me, swearing he would protect me from blood and pain for the rest of my life. For ten years, I held onto those empty words. At our tenth anniversary party, his hundredth mistress arrived. Alice Russo, fresh out of college, held a glass of red wine and poured it down my gown while Domenico watched. "Signora Calvetti, this dress is so old. Given your position, you should be wearing something better." Everyone at the party waited to see my humiliation. Instead, I lowered my eyes and dialed Domenico's father's number. "Father, the ten-year agreement is over. I won't be Signora Calvetti anymore."

When I was seven years old, my younger brother went into anaphylactic shock after sneaking a handful of peanuts. Outside the emergency room, my mother slammed my head against the wall over and over, her face twisted with rage. "If you had been watching him like you were supposed to be, this never would have happened! You should be the one with a ruptured stomach, not him!" After that, whenever my brother so much as caught a cold, my mother forced me to eat spoiled leftovers as punishment. I once prepared an elaborate feast. She flipped the entire table and made me crawl on the floor to lick it clean. When I said I wanted to study culinary arts, she poured hot oil over my hands. My father wanted to send me to vocational school to learn a trade, but my mother clutched my brother to her chest and wailed. "She destroyed her brother's health! She owes him a lifetime of service!" When I was fifteen, my brother's gluttony cost my father an important business deal. I took the blame without even being asked, and the furious client forced me to drink more than half a gallon of hard liquor. By the time I was sent home with a bleeding stomach, my father had already scolded my brother. My mother took out her anger on me instead, slapping me so hard my ears rang and my vision went dark at the edges. "You useless thing! You should’ve choked to death at that table! I get sick just looking at you!" I coughed up black blood. From my pocket, I pulled out a piece of sour candy that had gone soft and sticky. It was the only treat my mother had ever given me with a smile, back before my brother's allergic reaction. I put the candy in my mouth and swallowed it down with the taste of stomach acid. The candy was so sour it made my throat burn. Whatever came next, I just hoped I would not have to be my family’s garbage disposal again.

When I saw Vincent Carson again, he was now the formidable head of the Carson Corporation with a net worth of tens of millions. By his side was a young, promising screenwriter. Meanwhile, I dragged myself out of the basement, crippled and in a pitiful state. With a condescending tone, Vincent asked, "Three years ago, you sabotaged Irene's chance to win that award. Do you regret it now? If you wish to remain my wife, you must apologize to Irene first." At the same time, the system's voice sounded in my mind, 'Host, are you ready to go home?' I nodded silently. A look of satisfaction washed over Vincent's face as he stepped forward to embrace me. However, in the blink of an eye, I began to vanish right before his eyes. Subsequently, I heard he lost his sanity.

On Christmas, I canceled a delivery appointment for the daughter of New Hork’s richest man. Instead, I flew overnight to deliver the baby of my brother, the Mafia boss, and his fiancée. The moment I stepped into the delivery room, she was already writhing in pain. Yet she suddenly grabbed my hand and demanded to know if I was a virgin. Seeing that she was already three centimeters dilated, I assumed the pain had muddled her mind. So I casually replied that I hadn’t been one for a long time. That was when she completely lost it, kicking me hard in the stomach as she screamed, “Get out! A shameless woman like you isn’t worthy of touching my son?! “Switch to a virgin doctor right now! Don’t pass your filth onto my child! Disgusting! “And take away all those imported supplements you brought! Even dogs wouldn’t eat them!” I stared at her as she rolled around on the bed and fell into deep thought. I genuinely couldn’t understand how a woman who got pregnant before marriage and was still living off my brother got the confidence to look down on someone else for not being a virgin? Calmly, I removed my gloves and called my brother right in front of her. “Your fiancée says I’m dirty, so I won’t be delivering this baby. Let her give birth on her own. “Oh, and I’ve canceled the top-tier delivery suite I reserved for you, too. After all, I wouldn’t want them to offend her eyes.”

“I want a divorce, Lauren. You're infertile and incomplete.” With these words, Ethan shatters three years of marriage and everything Lauren believed to be true. Betrayed, humiliated, secretly pregnant, and facing the collapse of her father's company, which ended in his tragic suicide, Lauren finds herself alone amidst the chaos. That is, until an accident nearly takes her life, and Henry Carter, a mysterious CEO, saves her. Accepting the job as his son’s nanny, Lauren discovers a man harboring secrets about a past she doesn’t remember, but that could change everything. Between grief and newfound feelings, Lauren must decide if she’s ready to trust again and risk her heart one more time.

On the day my twin sister, Alexia Cavanaugh, and I turn 22, I collapse and find out that I have late-stage cancer. Ignoring the doctor's advice to be admitted, I walk out of the hospital. All I want is to spend one final birthday with my family without a single worry. But when I arrive at the party, a server stops me at the door and tells me the venue has been reserved exclusively for Alexia. Outsiders aren't allowed in. Through the glass, I watch as my brother holds a cake and my father places a birthday hat on Alexia's head. Even my boyfriend is there, smiling as Alexia makes a wish. I stand there for half an hour, gripping my phone, before my boyfriend finally answers my call. "I was just at the hospital. I—" He cuts me off. "Ophelia, you've always been healthy. It's Lexi's birthday today. We should talk later." Isn't today my birthday too? My mother died giving birth to me. The doctor later explained that I deprived Alexia of nutrients before birth, which left her frail from the start. And just like that, everyone decided I should always step aside for my twin, who was born five minutes before me. I ball up the report with my cancer diagnosis and toss it in the trash. I'm done letting their favoritism hurt me. I've never received their love anyway, so I choose to leave for good.

Katelyn cannot let go of her past, which has caused her trauma and fear of men. She is unable to get into a normal relationship due to her mother's engraved words that she should not trust men since they are wolves in sheep's clothing. Her father abandoned them to marry another woman, causing their family to collapse and, especially, to believe her mother's words. Until she grows up and experiences a strange dream, in that dream, a man always visits her every night and helps her overcome her fears. A man she didn't know made her feel a peculiar thrill she'd never had as a woman. What if she somehow learns the man in her dream is actually someone she knows? What if she discovers his true intentions for her? Can she learn to accept it? Can she learn how to love that man? Or will she escape the beautiful dream it brings?

In my previous life, I, Ruth Spencer, fell seriously ill. Because of that, I managed to stop my husband, Zayne Colman, from going on a business trip to the country border. He immediately canceled his flight, pulled me into his arms, and gently comforted me. Over the phone, he gave instructions to my younger sister, Reagan Spencer. "The project comes first. You go in my place." But no one could have known that the so-called business partner was actually a ruthless scam syndicate. Reagan had her organs harvested and was tortured to death. I was devastated. Zayne held my frail body in his arms and hoarsely promised that even though Reagan was gone, he would still love me twice as much. And he kept his promise. For ten years, he never let me suffer at all. In fact, he spoiled me rotten. This went on until the day I gave birth. The pain nearly knocked me unconscious, but Zayne put his hand over the call button to prevent me from summoning help. The words he spoke were laced with malice. "If you hadn't gotten sick at such a convenient time back then, Reagan wouldn't have gone alone! I could have saved her. "It's your fault she's dead! She must feel so lonely down there. You and this bastard child can go keep her company!" That was when I finally realized that our love were nothing but a lie. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day he is about to leave for that trip to the border. This time, I release them to the path leading to freedom, or, in other words, to hell.

Lila, the frail and powerless daughter of the Alpha of Nightshade Pack, is relentlessly mocked and belittled by her pack. Her mate turned her away, deeming her weak and unworthy. Things take a darker turn when her father is killed by Alpha Vance, who seizes control of the pack. Desperate to protect both her life and her mother's, Lila makes the painful decision to become one of the concubines of the cruel and self-absorbed man who killed her father and is now her enemy.