Hope Bagel Novels & Stories

I'm getting married. But Ryder, my boyfriend of seven years, has no idea. He recently hired a new assistant, Blair, and has been swamped ever since. The two of them are the toast of the high-society circuit, a perfect power couple frequently seen at galas and parties together. To celebrate a major project Blair landed, Ryder booked an entire restaurant for a celebratory dinner. During the dinner, Blair intentionally swapped my lemonade for a strong cocktail. Unaware, I took a large sip. Ryder just watched, smiling playfully as he asked, “How is it, baby? How does it taste?” He forgot. He forgot that I have a deadly alcohol allergy. My throat swelled shut faster than I could have imagined. As I collapsed, the only sounds were my own gasps for air and a porcelain plate shattering on the floor. That night, I lay in the family's private medical wing. When I opened my eyes, the oxygen mask was still pressed to my face. I nodded at my mother. The arranged marriage. I agreed to it.

At two in the morning, when the pack elders' urgent summons came, I had just crawled out from beneath my childhood sweetheart, the Alpha heir Slade. My body was still aching from his rough possession. As the only human healer in the entire Blackwood Pack, I was ordered to prepare herbs as a gift for Slade's marriage alliance with the Thorne Pack. I gently lifted Slade's arm from where it was wrapped around me. After a night of passion, his powerful Alpha body was still radiating a feverish heat. I assumed this was just another wolf princess he needed to turn away, so I poked his chest playfully and asked with a smile, "Slade, what excuse are you going to use the 99th time? That you've suddenly developed an allergy to the princess?" He rolled over and kissed my forehead, his eyes heavy with sleep. "My sweet girl, this time the herbs must be prepared by you, and you alone. The success of this alliance rests on your shoulders." I froze. For the past ten years, I had been his secret solace, the one who soothed his violent rages every night. I thought I would earn a formal bonding ceremony, sooner or later. But in that moment, I understood. I was just a convenience, a body for him to use. If that was all I was to him, then I would burn everything we had to the ground. I made a call to my old mentor at the National Institute of Medicine, Professor Sterling. "Professor, that research position regarding gene... is it still open? I'm ready to return to the human world." But when that arrogant Alpha, who claimed we were 'just friends' and 'strictly professional,' discovered he could no longer catch even a faint scent of me in the air, he completely lost his mind.

I was once the most respected female intelligence officer in the underworld. I controlled black market trade, port lockdowns, and risk assessments for every smuggling route. These were the basics every new recruit learned on their first day in the Mafia. But my intel was never reliable. As time went by, everyone caught on. In this city, whether the ports were locked down or open for business didn't depend on intel. It depended on whether Vincenzo's childhood friend was in a bad mood. I had just sent an order over the family's secure channel: "Level-one lockdown. All shipping routes are closed." A moment later, the ports were thrown wide open. My rival mocked me in front of everyone. "Isabella's supposed to be the queen of underworld intelligence, isn't she? What happened, did she lose her touch?" Other family members twisted the knife without a second thought. "Her husband changes the rules at a word from his precious Amelia. Who's going to listen to her anymore?" "She's on the hook for any losses from this. That route reopening is going to bankrupt her!" I clutched a stack of formal censures from the family. I said nothing. It didn't matter. I was done being a pawn in their games. Soon, I would be gone for good.

My mafia boyfriend, Finn, is always bickering with his childhood friend, Amanda. For my birthday, she brought me a bullet vibe. "Here. For round two, just in case. I know his stamina better than anyone." He tossed a bottle of pale foundation at her. "Slap some more on. Maybe then someone will actually want to touch you." They shoved each other on their way out, slamming the door behind them. The candles on the cake burned down to nothing while I sat alone at the dining table. The first time our families sat down for a formal dinner, she smiled and slipped him a small bottle of lube. "Take it. So you don't make the poor girl suffer." His face darkened. "Better than you crying at night, hugging a body pillow." This time, Finn had arranged a private island vacation. A mutual friend quietly gave me a heads-up, telling me he was planning to propose on a cliff at sunset. After a seven-year marathon, I told myself this was it. The finish line was finally in sight. I dressed meticulously, putting on my most expensive dress, and walked toward the helipad. I pulled open the helicopter door. Amanda was already in the co-pilot's seat. She raised an eyebrow at me. "Chloe, you're here? I'm claustrophobic, so you don't mind if I sit up front, right?" Finn, gripping the controls, turned to look me over. "Chloe, you sit in the back. I'm worried she'll have a meltdown and start scratching and biting. It'll ruin the mood." Before I could say a word, Amanda was already arguing with him. "What's that supposed to mean? You think I'm a burden?" "It's not the first time I've thought so. Why are you being so dramatic today?" Their back and forth was so practiced it felt like a script they had rehearsed a thousand times. In that moment, the exhaustion of the past seven years washed over me. And for the first time, I realized I didn't want to say yes to his proposal anymore.

The day the Thorne family announced our engagement, the New York underworld let out a collective sigh of relief. Because I was set to marry Daemon, the most straitlaced Don in the city, which meant I could no longer be the wild rose who tore up the racetrack. But I resisted with every fiber of my being, finding creative ways to test his limits. During his ten-million-dollar card game with a rival family's Capo, my hand "slipped" and sent a bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti spilling across the ancient map that outlined their territories, sabotaging the entire negotiation. Daemon, however, just slowly and deliberately wiped the wine from the back of his hand. He didn't even frown as he cleaned up my mess. Then I "accidentally" let my spirited Arabian stallion loose in his immaculately manicured courtyard. The beast went wild, trampling his prize-winning rose garden into mud. But he arrived with his private doctor in tow, crouching before me as his long fingers gently traced the scratch on my arm. "Did the beast hurt you?" Just that one question, and my heart melted completely. "Daemon, I can marry you. But before that, has there ever been another woman who owned your heart?" "I don't share my man. Not in any way." He pointed to his heart, his gaze unwavering as he met my eyes. "Before you, this was empty." After we married, the word on the street in New York's circles of power was this: If you angered Don Thorne, his Donna might plead your case. But if you angered the Donna, you were on your own. Even I began to believe that Daemon, that mountain of ice, would eventually melt for me. Until the day I went to find him, clutching a positive pregnancy test, bursting with joy. Only to hear the family's Consigliere ask him, from the top-floor study, what the best lie he'd ever told was. Daemon chuckled and said casually, "She asked me if anyone had my heart before her." "I told her no."

As the daughter of the Silvermane Pack's strongest Alpha, I was born with two enviable protectors. My brother, Adrian, couldn't bear to see me get a single scratch, and my mate, Liam, couldn't stand to see me shed a single tear. But at my transformation ceremony, Iris, an exile's daughter, stole the Moon Goddess Potion that was meant for me. She shifted first, becoming a rare, pure white wolf and capturing the awe of the entire pack. I only confronted her about it, yet my brother handed me over to enemy rogues as a bargaining chip for a truce. And my mate used wolfsbane to block my transformation, stealing my last chance to fight back. With their silent consent, I was tortured by my enemies until death was a mercy. Before I died, one of the rogues gloated, "So what if your father exiled me? My daughter, Iris, will soon be their Luna. The entire Silvermane Pack will be mine!" I died, consumed by hatred. When I opened my eyes again, I was reborn on the day of my transformation ceremony. Eyeing the preening white wolf before me, I sneered. "Guards! Shave all her fur!"

My husband, Liam, got his terminally ill ex-girlfriend, Chloe, pregnant. He said it was to grant her dying wish of becoming a mother. On the day she gave birth, Liam's sister, Isabella, hired a security firm to guard the hospital, claiming it was to prevent me from causing a scene. Isabella stood by Chloe's bedside. "Don't worry, I have people posted at the entrance. If Ava dares to show up and make trouble, we'll have her thrown out immediately." Liam, seeing I hadn't come, breathed a sigh of relief. "Chloe, just focus on delivering our baby safely. Don't worry about anything else." He truly believed that since he was only fulfilling his dying ex's last wish, I would never be so unreasonable as to make a fuss. Looking at the tiny, rosy infant in his arms, he sent me a text: "Darling, I did this for you. I had her carry a child for us, so you could finally be a mother." He thought that as long as I accepted it all, this child was my ultimate reward. But what he didn't know was that I had just surrendered my residency. In one week, I would be in Kenya, working as a volunteer on a project of biomedical research. It was meant to be a final goodbye—a world away from Liam, forever. But he was searching for me like a madman, pleading for me to return.

I once thought I would spend my entire life in love with my husband, Vincenzo, the Don of the De Luca family. In the end, our whirlwind romance was no match for a childhood promise. On the day Vincenzo went through with a sham marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Chloe, to honor a blood oath, I destroyed the penthouse we had filled with memories and left his city for good. When Vincenzo used the family's entire intelligence network and still couldn't find me, the untouchable Don was driven mad. Later, he offered a worldwide bounty for any information on my whereabouts and even publicly begged me to come back. Too bad for him, I already wore another man's ring. Vincenzo, nothing waits for you forever. Especially a love you strangled with your own hands.

The day I decided to donate my body to science, my family gathered around my adopted sister, Hailey, celebrating her acceptance into a cutting-edge experimental treatment program. The one with brain cancer was supposed to be me. But Hailey used my husband Zane's position at the hospital to swap her healthy medical records with my terminal diagnosis, stealing the one chance I had to survive. And the worst part? Everyone cheered her on. The pain became too much. I fought to stay present, only to overhear the nurses whispering, "It's a good thing Dr. Zane secured that spot for Hailey. They said she only had three days left." So, in the last 72 hours of my life, I quietly let go of everything. When I gave Hailey the original manuscripts of my novels I had poured my heart and soul into, my father and brother gave me a satisfied smile. When Zane decided to grant Hailey her dying wish by marrying her, he handed me the divorce papers. I signed without a moment's hesitation. He sighed and praised me for finally being "so reasonable." And when I was the one who coaxed our daughter, Olivia, into calling Hailey "Mommy," Olivia gushed that her new mom was the best. "Don't worry," Zane soothed. "We're just keeping it safe for now. Once she's gone, it'll all come back to you." I gave Hailey everything I had, just like they wanted. So why, when they find out this was all Hailey's vicious lie, do they come crying, saying I'm the one they wanted all along?

I woke up, and I was 28 again. I had twin heirs, and my husband was Santino, Veridia's most feared Mafia Don. He sat at the head of the Commission of the Five Families. His sharp profile was a fixture on the cover of the underworld's most exclusive magazine for several consecutive issues. Even the oldest Valerian families were lining up to offer him their daughters. All the women in Altoria envied my good fortune. But the first thing I did after waking up was pick up the divorce papers, the ink still fresh, and handed them to his childhood sweetheart, Jessy. "My lawyer will handle the divorce. The properties and assets are yours. Santino is yours. The children are yours, too." Sitting across from me, Jessy couldn't believe it, her eyes wide with shock. "Are you crazy, Alessia? Is this some kind of trick?" "How could the woman who has been Donna for six years give it all up so easily?" I lowered my gaze, my tone calm. "Since they all prefer you, I figured it was time to step aside." "Just have Santino sign it and press his signet ring into the wax seal." "Once the divorce is final, I'll leave Veridia for good." This time, I would not make the same mistake. I would never again be a Donna in name only.