I Keep My Exoskeletons To Myself

After I graduated, I kept hitting walls while job hunting, but my boyfriend landed a position at a big company with ease. My boyfriend of two years voluntarily gave me his salary to comfort me. When I finally found a job, he worried about my long commute and bought me a car. All my friends envied me for having such a thoughtful boyfriend. In order to buy our first house, I secretly transferred my own salary into his account as well. A year later, we decided to get married. He held my hand and said excitedly, “I know you don’t have much saved. I don’t want a single cent from you. All I want is your whole heart.” I was deeply moved by how considerate he was. However, on the day of our engagement, he pulled out photos of me with more than 40 different men and accused me of cheating. I stared at them. I had never even seen these people before. Then, he showed me his card’s transaction history, filled with charges from a place called Sunshine Club. “I trusted you with my card, and you used my money to fool around! I’m not marrying you. Give me back my car and the 800,000 dollars you’ve burned through.” I calmly took out the card he had given me before and sneered, “Sure. Let’s settle the accounts properly.” The moment my attorney revealed the true financial statements, he was completely stunned.

My dad’s crush came back, and my mom decided to fake her death. “Jane, I’m the main character of a tragic story. If I don’t fake my death now, I’ll end up miserable. “Go tell your dad that Quiana killed me.” In my past life, I had done exactly as she said. My dad had flown into a rage and destroyed the Sullivan family. After that, my mom returned to the land of the living. I thought our family would finally be whole again. Instead, she clung to Dad and cried. “I gave Jane my contact information. How could she say I was dead?” To punish me, my dad locked me in a cold storage room. My mom shot me a cold look. “That’s what you get for calling that woman pretty.” In the cold storage room, at −58°F, I froze to death. When I opened my eyes again, my mom had already faked her death and ran off with her devoted admirer. I looked at my dad and asked with an innocent expression, “Dad, what does eloping mean?”

I had a unique profession. I was a breakup specialist. I did not need to go to court or write any contracts for that. That was a lawyer’s job. Everyone kept saying that love was priceless, but a couple who professed their love to each other for an entire night could be paying me tons to break their relationship up the following day. I was shaking my head upon those matters when I received a message from my husband, Matthew Grant, asking me to pick our wedding anniversary’s destination. A few seconds after that, a beautiful woman walked into my office. She appeared timid and had to take a lot of time to summon the courage to speak. “I’d like to hire your services for my boyfriend. He has decided to divorce his wife.” I made no comment as I picked up the documents she had handed me, only to see Matthew’s name on the paper. I froze, while the woman sitting in front of me ducked her head and continued, “My boyfriend says that his wife is a good person and that he doesn’t want to hurt her.” I smiled as I stared at the picture; it clearly was Matthew, but I had the strange feeling of seeing a foreign person too. My heart throbbed, and I could only lament. This was my third year as a breakup specialist, and I was actually hired to break up my own relationship.

After I transmigrate into a Gary Stu novel as the evil male supporting lead, a system appears in my mind. It tells me that as long as I can conquer one of the female leads, I will be able to return to my original world with a healthy body. But I've failed in my conquest. There are a few female leads in this novel. There's the fake heiress, Leslie Jackman, who I have grown up with and have viewed as my older sister. The true heiress, Miranda Suller, is a boxer who happens to be seatmates with me during our high school times. My childhood sweetheart, Catherine Langdon, who's also a genius surgeon, happens to be one of the female leads too. Heck, even my own daughter, Natalie Jackman… my own flesh and blood… All of them are quick to fall for Gabriel Linner, the poor yet strong-willed young man who's also known as the Gary Stu of this novel. Because of that, they hate me deeply. The system sighs before telling me that as long as I can die in the hands of any of the female leads, it will let me return to my original world. Later on, I use all of the tricks up my sleeve and succeed in getting killed by the female leads. But why is it that they've lost their minds after I die?

Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé. Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now—billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn’t mind. I’d crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one? Wrong. One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That’s when it hit me—he didn’t love me. He didn’t even see me. Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol. Enter him. Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised. But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life. And, as it turned out, the best decision I’d ever made. Because my one-night stand isn’t just some random guy. He’s richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with. And now, he’s not letting me go.

On the third day of my son, Zeke Murphy's disappearance, I've hacked into the smart AI system belonging to the entire apartment block. All 202 families in this block are locked up in their respective homes thanks to my ministrations. After that, I leave my first text message in the residents' group chat. "My son, Zeke Murphy, is in this very building. From now on, I will expose a family's secret every hour. If I can't find Zeke, all of you will go to hell with me." A CEO of a company with tens of millions of dollars' worth of assets is quick to lash out at me angrily in the group chat. "Have you gone nuts? Your son's disappearance has nothing to do with us! I order you to stop what you're doing immediately!" I type out my second text and attach a screenshot of an encrypted financial statement. "@1502Mr.Cooper, you have 59 minutes left. Here's a friendly reminder to check your overseas bank account. I'd like to see if the tax department is interested in its contents." I know that Zeke is currently staring at a resident on this very block right now.

My son, Tim, was kidnapped by a group of rogues. My husband, Alpha Kieran, spared no effort, using every resource at his disposal to find him. Finally, he tracked him down to an pub training center nearby. But when Tim regained consciousness, he discovered that he was disabled. As the only son of Kieran, destined to inherit his father’s title, he couldn’t bear the reality of his condition. Despair consumed him, and in his grief, he attempted to take his own life by drowning himself in the lake within our territory. I arrived too late. By the time I pulled him from the water, my strength was nearly gone. Kieran rushed me to the pack hospital, holding me close as he whispered into my ear, "Please, Selene, stay with me. I cannot lose you too." But after my surgery, as I lay in bed, I overheard Kieran speaking to his Beta, Damon, in the hallway. "Alpha, sacrificing the rescue mission that could have saved Tim seemed… excessive. Finding another heart donor wouldn’t have been impossible. Using Tim’s—he was your only son with Luna Selene." "I allowed him to be born because I knew he could save my daughter. I’ve already raised him long enough. It’s only right that he gives me what I need now." "And the doctor said siblings have a better chance of surviving heart transplants. Ana is my most precious child—I won’t risk her suffering another heart attack." Kieran’s words shattered me. He was my fated mate, the love of my life. Yet he had sacrificed our son—our son—to save the bastard child he had with his mistress. The marriage I once cherished, the fated mate I once believed in, had now become my own personal hell.

I was the real daughter of the Sinclair family, yet I was the one abandoned when their fake daughter and I were kidnapped and taken to the top of a building. They were given a choice between the two of us, and they chose to save the fake daughter, letting me be pushed off from the eighteenth-floor balcony. Even though I survived, I was completely disappointed in them. Then, their attitudes changed overnight. My parents, who despised me, started asking me about my likes and dislikes. My brother who wished me dead, started suddenly giving me precious jewelry. Even my fiancé, who always claimed I was nothing compared to the fake daughter, started to prepare for our wedding. To say I was confused was an understatement.

On my way to the interview, my best friend—who had always warned me not to meddle in other people’s business—suddenly rushed toward the crashed luxury car without hesitation. That was when I knew she had been reborn too. In our previous life, she and I were known as the two top aces of the Finance Department. After graduation, we both made it to the final interview at one of the world’s top five hundred companies. On the day of that interview, we encountered a terrible car accident. The company’s president was inside the wreck. I gave up the interview to save him, while my friend ran straight to the interview without looking back. In the end, she got the offer, and I lost my chance at the prestigious firm. Everyone pitied me. However, the president held a grand wedding to repay me. I became the wife of my friend’s boss. I was admired and envied by all. She, on the other hand, struggled under endless performance targets. She got buried by work. At the company’s annual gala, I stood beside the president, dazzling under the lights, while she faded into the crowd—exhausted and invisible. Jealousy drove her mad. She grabbed a knife and stabbed me right there at the gala. When I opened my eyes again, she and I had both returned to the day of the president’s car accident.

I was once the pack's strongest beta. I broke my wolf saving my mate, Alpha Damon. I lost my hearing. I lost our mind link. But Damon never treated me like I was broken. He learned sign language for me. He made sure the whole pack respected me as their Luna. Our daughter was sweet and perfect. She always showed me how much she loved me. Then one day, it happened. My hearing returned. The mind link snapped back into place. I was so excited. I wanted to tell Damon and Lily at the full moon ceremony. Instead, I heard them. Lily, my precious daughter, talking to Damon on our link. "Daddy, the cripple is still carrying my brother. When can we bring Momma Elara home? I want her to be our real Luna!" That’s when I knew. My daughter. The son in my womb. They were never mine. They belonged to Elara. Elara was a half-breed omega. She couldn't carry an Alpha’s pups. I was just a surrogate. A living incubator. Damon fed me poison to make me barren. Then he used black magic to implant his lover's child inside me. I trembled. Tears streamed down my face. Damon betrayed me. I would burn his entire world to ash. Then, I would vanish from his life forever.