Jakeila Ortiz Pop Smoke

“You stare like you’re trying to memorize me,” she murmured quietly, without looking up. He stepped closer, voice rough. “I already have. Every inch. Every sigh. But I still feel like I’m starving for you.” He walked up behind her. His fingers trail over her collarbone, slow, reverent. She shivers. “You shouldn’t touch me like that,” she whispered. “Say stop, and I will. But don’t lie.” He leaned down, brushing his lips against the side of her neck. Her breath hitched. “This… this is dangerous.” He murmured, “You’re the most dangerous thing in my life. I’ve killed men with steadier hands than I have when I’m near you.” She turned to face him, their eyes locked. One look—everything trembled between them. “Let me ruin every thought you have of gentleness, Inayat. Let me be the fire you crave but don’t dare name.” He lifted her, gently, set her on the table beside the couch. His hands lingered on her thighs, the tension coiling like smoke in the air. He whispered, “You asked me once why I watch you like I might break. It’s because loving you has become my most violent instinct.” *** When King Agnil is betrayed and slain by his own commander, Samarth, his kingdom falls into chaos—and his daughter, Inayat, becomes the obsession of the man who murdered her father. Years later, the exiled prince, Ayman, returns to reclaim the throne. His plan? Use Samarth’s sister as a weapon of revenge. But as vengeance tangles with emotion, Ayman finds himself torn between justice and the forbidden pull of love. Can he destroy the man who stole everything—without losing the girl who might save him?

Elena had once believed that silence could mean safety. That a gentle hand and a warm cup of tea placed quietly on her desk every morning could be a form of love. Lucien was never cruel—not in the obvious ways. He remembered how she liked her eggs, noticed when she swapped her perfume, and sent flowers on days he knew she wouldn’t expect them. He raised her like one would raise a pet—softly, without question. And Elena, foolish in the way only the very lonely can be, mistook his quiet affection for devotion. She told herself he was reserved. Mysterious. That love didn’t always wear its heart on its sleeve. But when the old flame returned—the one who spoke his language without needing to try—Elena saw it. The difference. He looked at her like a man who had found his lost religion. And Elena? She had simply been convenient. No tears, no scene. Just papers on the breakfast table, beside the eggs he cooked perfectly. She didn’t accuse or beg. She only asked for freedom. He didn’t sign. He chuckled. A soft, dismissive sound. “A cat raised indoors doesn’t know how to survive on the street, Elena. You’ll come back." But she didn’t. She disappeared, like smoke—except she didn’t vanish, not really. She lived. She wore colour again. Laughed at bad jokes. Let strange men hand her coffee and ask for her number. Lucien? He watched. He watched her become someone without him. And it drove him mad. The night he cornered her outside the gallery, rain in his hair and desperation in his eyes, he looked like a man undone. "Elena," he breathed, "please. Look at me. Just once." She did. Calm as ever, and her love already gone.

Delilah thought she married the perfect man. Charming. Respectable. Devoted. But then she discovered the man she trusted was a fraud — cheating behind her back, controlling her every move, and secretly stealing from the people who once believed in him. Her marriage wasn’t love. It was a trap. And when she lost the child she was carrying, alone, abandoned, and broken in a cold hospital bed, everything shattered. That’s when he returned. Thorne Weston. The estranged, adopted brother her husband never spoke of. The boy who once made her college life hell — cruel words, wicked smirks and relentless taunts. He's her tormentor. Her shadow. The one who looked at her like he wanted to ruin her… and maybe always did. He disappeared after graduation. Vanished. Forgotten. But now he’s back — colder, richer, and far more dangerous. And he’s watching her. And when she breaks down in the hospital, barely breathing through grief, he corners her in the shadows and makes her an offer that freezes her blood — and sets her body ablaze. “You want revenge? I want you. Be mine… and I’ll destroy him for you.” She should scream. She should hate him. But hate doesn’t explain the fire curling in her belly every time he whispers her name. Hate doesn’t make her knees tremble when he steps too close, smelling of smoke, leather, and sin. And hate isn’t what makes her crave the rough, twisted salvation only he can give. Because Thorne Weston is no longer a cruel boy with a chip on his shoulder. He’s a man forged in violence. Obsessed. Possessive. Unhinged. And he doesn’t just want her — he owns her. Body. Soul. And every shattered piece her husband left behind.

When Tessa Shoreman read Henry Jennings' cancer report, she immediately paid her hard-earned money of sixty thousand to the hospital. She had saved the money from working part-time while she was in university. However, she was worried the money was not enough, so she held back her fear as she sold a kidney to the black market to get more. As she walked to the ward door with a heavy bag filled with cash, she heard shrill laughter coming from inside. "That cheap woman, Tessa Shoreman, got tricked by us again. Haha!" Tessa's hand gave pause right when she was about to push the door open. What did he mean by saying she was tricked? Tessa looked through the glass on the door to see inside the ward. When she left, the man looked extremely weak, but he was now sitting up lazily in bed. Henry had a cigarette in his mouth, and he was blowing smoke rings nonchalantly. He did not look like a cancer patient at all. "It's been two years, and that woman still has no idea." "If she hadn't beaten Serene to first place, Henry would never have left behind his life as a rich heir and planned such an elaborate scheme to become a working-class man living in a cheap rental home. The way that cheap, penniless woman looks at Henry is so amusing." "We agreed that the punishment ends when Henry and Serene get engaged. It looks like time is almost up. We've probably punished her 108 times in the past two years." "The first time was lying to her that Henry didn't have a suit for a job interview. She worked tirelessly for 72 hours straight before she earned enough money for one, but that suit was given to the domestic help to use as a cleaning cloth. The second time was tricking her into believing Henry had a high fever. She forfeited during the finals of a scientific research competition to race home and take care of Henry in the hospital…" "Sigh. Too bad it's coming to an end. I'm going to miss entertaining myself with her."

"Did you think I’d just let you go?" Suzanne’s grip on her son tightened as Charles took a slow step forward, his smirk curling like smoke in the air. "I sent you the damn divorce papers, Charles. Sign them and leave." He chuckled. "Oh, I got them." Another step. "But I don’t sign away what’s mine." She backed up. "I am not yours. I stopped being yours the night you betrayed me." His jaw clenched. The silence stretched—thick, suffocating—before he lunged. Suzanne barely had time to gasp before his hands were on her, ripping their son from her arms. The boy hit the couch with a soft thud and let out a startled cry. "You son of a—!" She shoved at him, clawing, struggling, but he was stronger. His hands dug into her waist, yanking her against him, his breath hot and reeking of alcohol. "You’re mine, Suzanne," he growled, fingers digging into her skin. "And if I can’t have you—" his grip tightened, his lips brushing her ear, "no one will." Then—CRACK! Charles gone—ripped off her, sent flying across the room. Suzanne gasped, chest heaving, scrambling back just as her attacker crashed into a table. A voice, dark and furious, sliced through the chaos. "Touch her again, and I’ll kill you." Her heart stopped. She knew that voice. Liam Carter. --- Trapped in a loveless marriage to a ruthless CEO, Suzanne Smith thought she had no way out—until Liam Carter, her high school sweetheart, walked back into her life. He’s everything her husband isn’t—kind, passionate, and willing to fight for her. But leaving Charles Langford won’t be easy. His Lies. Betrayal. Violence. Will she escape his grip, or will her past consume her? How far will she go for freedom?

That year, during the Sicilian arms trafficking conflict, my lover of three years, Silvio, deliberately betrayed my transport routes at a critical moment in a deal with the rival "DiMarco" family, causing me to lose all my territory. He immediately defected to the DiMarco family's leader Marina, becoming her lover. As he left, he didn't even bother to disguise his betrayal, coldly tossing out, "What we had was just business, nothing personal." While I was burdened with my family's blood debts and pushed to the edge of a cliff, Lorenzo, who had secretly harbored feelings for me since childhood, found me and offered his family's entire fortune. "Isabella, don't be afraid. In my eyes, you'll always be Sicily's most formidable Queen of the Arms Trade," he said. He took the Colt pistol from my hand, and his voice was gentle yet resolute. Five years later, my power resurged. I was about to completely crush Marina's smuggling network and reclaim everything I had lost. My caporegimes, the captains of my organization, were ready and waiting for my command. But on the night before the operation, my weapons warehouse suddenly exploded, turning priceless arms into worthless scrap metal. I barely escaped through the thick smoke, my body covered in burns. In a secluded monastery, I overheard Lorenzo and Silvio whispering outside my door. "You really had the guts to blow up the arsenal. Weren't you afraid of blasting her to pieces too?" Silvio's voice carried a mocking tone. "If she died, just died. I've always loved Marina. If it weren't for that unlucky family marriage lottery five years ago, I wouldn't have had to endure this ugly bitch for all this time." Lorenzo's voice was ice-cold and unfamiliar. I closed my eyes, feeling like a dagger had pierced my chest. Explosion. Arranged marriage. Ugly bitch. So those five years of shared hardship were just his unwilling choice after losing a high-stakes gamble. "I married her to keep watch. If it weren't for me paving

I am a firefighter. A beam crashes onto me in the middle of a burning building. At the same time, my oxygen is about to run out. I writhe and struggle as much as I can to reach for my backup oxygen canister, only to feel my fingers brushing over a bottle of water instead. When I turn around, I see my wife, Leah Sawyer, giving the last backup oxygen canister to her new mentee, Roderick Wyndham. I begin calling out to her via a walkie-talkie. "Leah, I'm being pinned down right now, and my oxygen's running out! Where is the oxygen canister?" As Leah shields Roderick behind her, she replies impatiently, "I've already given it to Roderick. It's his first time inside a burning building, so he's frightened. Having an extra canister on him gives him a sense of security. "You're already a veteran firefighter, so you can just think up a way to resolve your situation. Don't go around wasting precious resources." I can feel thick smoke infiltrating my lungs at that moment. Feelings of asphyxiation soon overwhelm me. "My leg is broken, so I can't move at all! Without oxygen, I won't be able to hold out till I get rescued!" But Leah merely chortles in response. "Stop playing the pity card! Every time we're out on a mission, you're always the cowardly one who's terrified of dying! You have zero sense of dedication at all! I shouldn't have let you join the firefighting squad, to begin with! "What's the use of you clinging to the equipment? Giving it to the newbies is the best way of maximizing its value!" I can only smile bitterly in response. Using what's left of my strength, I switch to a public channel and begin reporting to the command center. "For the record, Captain Leah Sawyer deliberately tampered with the essential rescue equipment in order to protect Roderick Wyndham, causing me, a fellow firefighter, to be trapped in a deadly situation. "I hereby request the immediate activation of the Firefighter Emergency Evacuation Act. Also, I formally charge Leah with gross negligence and attempted homicide."

My husband, Luca, had a childhood sweetheart named Sophia. Years ago, during a brutal gang shootout, Sophia shielded him from the worst of the bloodshed, and since then, she had suffered from severe PTSD. Because of that, Luca would push aside family business every year and fly to our estate on a secluded island off the coast of Sicily to spend three months “helping her recover.” “Victoria, she lost her mind because of me,” he told me. “I’m responsible for her. I hope you can be magnanimous.” So, I nodded. And eventually, I got used to the fact that every year, my husband would disappear for three months to fulfill what he called a moral obligation. That was until the day I flew in without warning to inspect the family’s money-laundering network on that island and saw him. In the town square, under the bright Mediterranean sun, Luca was standing there with a five-year-old boy by his side. “Papa, how long do we have to hide on this island?” the child asked. “I want to go to New York. I want to see the Empire State Building.” Luca laughed gently and scooped him up in his arms. With his other hand, he held Sophia’s. “Antonio, be good,” he said affectionately. “Papa’s position is… complicated. When you turn eighteen and pass the family’s initiation ceremony, I’ll kill that woman and her dead old man. Then, I’ll take you back to New York to inherit the entire Corleone family.” I stood in the shadows, unseen. Slowly, I lit a cigarette. The smoke curled around me as their voices drifted over, the conversation getting more vicious as it went. Sophia leaned into his chest, her tone sweet and coy. “Luca, I’ve been with you for seven years without a name or a title. How much longer are our son and I supposed to live like ghosts?” Luca sighed. “I don’t have a choice. The old man in the Corleone family is still alive. I married Victoria just to get her territory. Don’t worry. I’ve been adding something to her milk every day. She’ll never get pregnant in this lifetime. My family bloodline will only continue through you.” The last thread of reason in my mind snapped. In the six years of marriage we shared, I had been infertile. I’d taken countless hormone injections to stimulate ovulation. I’d knelt in church and prayed more times than I could count. Yet, all along, the devil poisoning me was my own husband. The initial shock faded quickly into rage. I crushed out my cigarette and pulled out my phone. Then, I dialed my uncle, the family’s clean-up man. “Uncle Rocco,” I said calmly, “Luca betrayed me. He betrayed the family. Order a coffin in the finest black walnut for me, and make it large, large enough to fit a family of three.”