Ginger Brave Novels & Stories

My sister, Fiona Miller, has recently opened a luxury spa for business. As such, I bring Dad along to check it out. Of course, we pick the most expensive treatment package available. But barely a few presses from the male therapist, and Dad feels a sharp pain in his chest and can't seem to breathe properly. All the color drains from his face, and cold sweat starts beading on his forehead. I call the manager over, but he seems annoyed. "Oh, he just has poor blood circulation. He'll be fine after the massage. That's just a normal reaction." I can't believe what I'm hearing. "My father has a heart condition. What are you lot even doing to him?" The manager, Seth Zeller, explodes as if I've insulted him and raises his voice. "That's his own pre-existing condition. How is that our problem? We run a legitimate business here. No refunds once treatment begins. Got it?" I gesture at the credentials displayed on the wall. "I don't see your name anywhere up there. You're not even certified. Is this the kind of operation Fiona's running?" Seth folds his arms across his chest, looking down his nose at us. "I'm the boss here. You and your dad look broke as hell. I can tell you're just trying to get a free massage and walk out without paying." "Let me spell it out for you. This package is 38,000 dollars. Adding in the cost of my emotional distress and lost time, the total is 100,000 dollars. Pay up now, or I'm having you both arrested." A massage that almost kills Dad costs 100,000 dollars? So that's why Fiona was suddenly so eager to open this spa. As it turns out, she and her boyfriend are running a fraud scheme. I reach for my phone to call her, but Seth is already making a video call. "Babe, you need to get here right now. A couple of deadbeats are trying to get a free massage and walk away without paying."

On the day Winter Everhart suffers a miscarriage, her husband, Joshua Stroud, and their son, Terence, are out with his beloved Jessica Lynch. They watch the very performance Winter has always loved. "You're just so unreasonable. What's the point of all this?" "Dad, can you get me a new mom? She's so annoying!" On Winter's birthday, she returns from the hospital only to find Joshua celebrating Jessica's instead. Even Terence, the child she nearly gave her life to bring into the world, pledges to protect the woman who has stolen everything from her. Tears glisten in Winter's eyes as she smiles. Then, with quiet resolve, she walks away from the cage of a marriage that has bound her for five years. Joshua and Terence believe she won't survive without the Stroud family. What they don't expect is that she rises so high that they can no longer reach her. "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud's car design is now number one nationwide—Stroud Group has been completely outshone!" "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud has just won the World Championship in Artificial Intelligence Design!" "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud has been invited by a foreign president to attend a state banquet!" Regret tears Joshua apart. Dragging Terence with him, he kneels before Winter and pleads, "Honey, please give me another chance! If being your servant is what it takes, I'll do it!" But just beyond the door, a strikingly handsome man kneels on one knee, a leather collar fastened around his neck. Twining a diamond leash around Winter's palm, he vows with his gaze burning with feverish devotion, "My master, from this moment on, I bow to no one but you. Please, take me in."

My mom ran a clinic her whole life, charging just five dollars for cold medicine. After I took over the clinic, I followed her teachings closely, doing my best to care for the folks in our community. However, after I charged an influencer 30 dollars for medication, I got blasted online as a scam clinic that was out to rob people blind. The entire town showed up at my door, young and old alike, demanding I return the 'overcharged' fees. I gave them exactly what they wanted and refunded every penny before shutting down the clinic for good. "There you go, just like you wanted. The clinic's closed. From now on, if you've got health concerns, feel free to drive 30 miles to the county hospital for consultation. I wish you all good health." The very next day, they were back at my door again. Only this time, they were begging me to reopen.

Marlene Cole, who has always been a reliable nanny, has called me three times in a row out of panic today. "I got bad news for you, Mr. Spence! The security guard of the kindergarten refuses to let Erin into the kindergarten! "He claims that the name on the student ID is wrong! The ID belongs to a little girl named Jodie! It's not Erin's ID at all!" I look up from the spreadsheet I'm holding, a frown already gracing my features. "Marlene, wasn't Harper the one who gave you the ID last night?" Marlene sounds like she's about to burst into tears from panic. "She did! But the scanner shows that Jodie Holmes is the ID owner! The security guard says that we've gotten the wrong ID, so now he's interrogating me!" That's odd. Half a year ago, I've pulled a few strings just so I can enroll my daughter, Erin Spence, into Starry Kindergarten, known as the most prestigious kindergarten in the city. In fact, I have to sponsor the kindergarten 300 thousand dollars in order to secure a slot for Erin. Over the month, my wife, Harper Gilmore, has always been the one driving Erin to school every day. Today, Harper claims that she can't take Erin to school because she needs to pull overtime shifts at her company, so she has instructed Marlene to do so. But how is it possible that Erin's student ID now shows another name when it's Marlene's turn to take her to the kindergarten?

Jerome Morrison is busy dealing with his ex-girlfriend's lawsuit regarding the inheritance when I die in a car crash. The police officer calls him to identify my corpse, but he merely snaps impatiently, "Has she moved on to using suicide to threaten me? Too bad it won't work." Later, he finds out his ex-girlfriend caused a car crash, he chooses to destroy the evidence. He doesn't notice that I'm the one who died in that car crash.

A group of unexpected guests suddenly barged into my relative’s funeral. The woman, Xena Carter, leading them claimed to be my husband’s girlfriend and declared that she was here to punish me, the supposed mistress. Out of respect for the funeral, I did not want to make a scene, so I calmly suggested she wait until it was over. But out of nowhere, she lashed out and ordered her group to shred all of my clothes. My relatives around us did nothing and watched coldly as it happened. I calmly dusted myself off, stood up, and led her over to the urn. "This urn for my mother was bought by your boyfriend. It cost nearly a million!" As expected, the mistress flew into a rage, smashing the urn to pieces. "You shameless family of lowlifes! Don’t think you’ll get a single cent from my boyfriend, even in death!" What she did not know was that when I said "mother," I was referring to my husband’s mother, my mother-in-law. She was causing a scene at my mother-in-law’s funeral, and she had just smashed her urn to pieces.

I'm a coward—someone who gets bullied and never fights back, who only swallows the humiliation in silence. That is, until the year I turned twenty. A well-dressed, elegant couple found me and told me I was their long-lost son. Overjoyed, I followed them back to their castle-like home, convinced that I was finally about to live a better life. But on the very first day, the fake heir made it clear—I would never know a moment's peace. I didn't dare say a word. Cowardly as ever, I could only think about ending my life. The first time, I slit my wrists. They saved me. The second time, I tried to jump off a building. My sister dragged me back. The third time, I drank an entire bottle of pesticide—and still didn't die. … My family finally saw through the fake heir's true color. "So it was you, pulling the strings all along!" My sister plead, "Brother dear, I'm begging you—please don't kill yourself."

My mom always said, "I've never played favorites. "You and your brother mean exactly the same to me." She said it so often I almost believed it. Growing up, anything my brother had, I had too. If he got a new pair of sneakers, so did I. If he signed up for coding classes, I was enrolled in the same ones. Even this year, when we came home for the holidays, my mom smiled as she handed each of us a neatly-packaged designer shopping bag. "I picked these out for you two at the store. One for each of you, exactly the same. "These outdoor brands are expensive, you know. A single jacket costs thousands. I'd never buy one for myself, but I don't mind splurging on you two." I took the jacket. It was well-cut, structured, and looked high-quality. A small warmth stirred in my chest. However, when I tried it on, the collar felt oddly irritating against my skin. Frowning, I pulled back the lining to check. There was a ring of yellowed sweat stains around the label, and tiny flakes of dandruff were caught in the Velcro. A faint musty smell lingered on the cloth, mixed with the stale odor of cheap tobacco. It was sour and impossible to ignore.

At a gathering, I noticed that Jade Shaw, the woman that my best friend, Michael Ronan, had a crush on, slipped something into his drink. When she walked over and offered him the glass, I deliberately knocked it over, spilling the drugged wine and saving his life. She stormed off in anger. The very next day, she announced her engagement to someone else. Michael came to me in a rage, convinced that I had ruined things out of jealousy. "Taylor, if it weren't for your meddling, I would've already slept with her! She would've engaged with me instead! You just can't stand seeing me happy! You destroyed my love life! You'll pay for it with your life!" He shoved me off a high building. I died instantly. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of the gathering. Michael was staring at Jade with a lovestruck expression. Then, he glared at me, warning me not to interfere. So, he had been reborn too. But what he didn't know was that the woman that he adored had always been disgusted by his persistence. What she put in the drink wasn't some aphrodisiac. It was something lethal that could kill him.

The boy, George Larson, whom I once saved as a child, when he was struggling with asthma, repaid my kindness by imprisoning me for seven long years. "Luna, you're my everything. I won’t let you out of my sight," he said, his voice filled with obsession. He tied my hands and feet, keeping me bound to the bed like a helpless doll, but I did not love him; I wanted to escape. In his madness, he set fire to my family’s ancestral home. The last traces of the Sachs burned to ashes, disappearing into the wind. He said that since my home was gone, I could just live with him and that it would be my new home. However, because I refused to let him touch me, he found someone else—a girl with a beauty mark under her eye, just like mine. The girl, drunk on his affection, thought I was trying to imitate her by faking the same tear-shaped mark. In a fit of jealousy, she gouged out my eyes. My face was covered with tiny, bleeding holes, blood streaming down my body. When George came home, the girl gleefully stuffed me into a trash bag, proud of her handiwork. “George, look! I caught some trash that broke into the house!” George did not even glance at me. He just loosened his tie, his voice calm and detached. “Just toss it where trash belongs.”