Johannes 15 12 Novels & Stories

Three days before my wedding, I find out that my fiance, Carlo Romano, has changed the wedding venue from my mother's estate to a villa located in St. Morizia, which happens to be his childhood sweetheart, Adriana Montanari's favorite place in the whole wide world. When I'm about to confront Carlo, I overhear him complaining to his friend. "Thank goodness Adriana has a good eye for beauty! Otherwise, I'll definitely get humiliated and mocked by everyone for hosting my wedding at such a rundown place!" His friend asks, "Didn't you agree to host the wedding ceremony at her late mother's home? Aren't you worried that she might not marry you out of fury once she finds out that you changed the venue without her permission?" Carlo merely sneered in return. "Giada's family is insanely weak. Marrying me is her only path out of poverty. She can't risk losing me at all. "Besides, I've already told the wedding planner to call her and inform her about my decision. She must be booking another flight and rushing toward the new destination as we speak." Rage and humiliation swirl around in my chest. I gnash my teeth together, but I opt to turn around and walk away in the end. Three days later, Carlo's wedding goes on as usual at the snow mountain. But I never bought myself another ticket, nor did I appear at the new wedding venue. Instead, I've exchanged wedding rings with another man in Mom's manor located in Tuscanica. Carlo fails to realize that I chose to marry him not because I view him as a ticket to wealth. It's purely because I've loved him for 12 long years. I, Giada Castellani, am bold enough to show my feelings. Since I can enter a relationship, I can always exit it freely. That's why Carlo is never my one and only choice in marriage.

My little brother, Rylan, wanted to go to the park. However, Dad told me to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't wander off. So, Rylan said he wanted to play hide-and-seek at home with me, and I agreed. Unfortunately, I couldn't find him after he hid. I searched everywhere for him. I looked through all three floors of the house and even searched the yard. At the time, I just thought that Rylan had found an incredible hiding spot. It wasn't until that evening that our neighbor brought him home with the police. Only then did I realize that Rylan had slipped out of the house while I'd been counting with my eyes covered. Terrified that Dad would find out he'd snuck off to play, Rylan threw his arms around Dad's leg and burst into tears. "Dad, Caleb threw me out of the house!" Dad flew into a rage and slapped me across the face. "How could you be so cruel? Your brother is only five years old! You told me he was playing hide-and-seek with you. You rotten liar!" But Dad... I was only seven. I tried to explain, but Dad never believed another word I said. From that day on, I ranked lower than even the chauffeur in our house. Every day, I was fed spoiled leftovers and forced to sleep in the doghouse. When I was 12, a bad woman kidnapped me and made me call Dad for ransom money. All I got in return was his furious voice yelling over the phone. "You rotten liar! You really will say anything for money, even something like this. If they won't let you live without it, then go ahead and die." The woman was so furious that she kicked me off the unfinished balcony of an abandoned building. I hit the ground, and my body was splattered beyond recognition. Before I even had a chance to feel the pain, I found myself drifting upward. Dad… I hadn't been lying.

My heartbeat is so steady that sometimes, I don't resemble a human being at all. The fluctuations in my heart rate are very small even though I might be sleeping, suffering from a fever, or losing too much blood. When I'm 18 years old, the Ziegler family admits me into a rehabilitation center. My new home is now a temperature-controlled intensive unit located on the top floor. Oh, Aiden Ziegler doesn't love me at all. It's merely because the one and only artificial heart present in this world—and also in his chest—needs to be fine-tuned with my own heartbeat as its primary frequency. If my heartbeat is steady, he gets to live. If not, he dies. Three months ago, a nurse accidentally took off one of the monitoring pads on my chest. Five minutes later, Aiden, who was ten thousand miles away, went through a temporary crash where his heart stopped. The next day, the third-party medical company filed for bankruptcy. Everyone who was involved in this incident got banned by the medical world. Because of that incident, all of the sounds get eradicated from the top floor. Even the elevator's chimes get muted when it reaches the top floor of the rehab center. Everything changes when Aiden flies to Iropa. That's when his fiancee, Mandy Sutherland, takes over the rehab center. As she flips through my medical bill of nine figures, she sneers at me. "So, the Zieglers are basically sustaining a loser who does nothing but gasps for breath while lying in bed, huh?" After that, Mandy tears off the monitoring pads and unplugs the sync line. Then, she forces me to get on a treadmill. "That'll be a six-mile run for you. You can forget about returning to the top floor if you can't finish the run." As I grip the handrails tightly, I can feel my heart rate turning erratic for the first time ever. It feels as though my heart is about to burst out of my chest. As soon as the alarm goes off, Mandy turns it off immediately. What she doesn't know is that Aiden's artificial heart has already gone crazy, just like mine, while he's stuck in a place that's 12 time zones away.

During the two months that I was away for a competition, my neighbors insulted me in the neighborhood’s common group chat. [The girl living on the ninth floor, you look like a decent girl. Why are you bringing so many men back home every day?] [Can you moan a little softer? I don’t care if you’re a sex worker, but if you keep making loud noises until midnight, don’t blame me for calling the police!] [Don’t call the police yet. I haven’t had my turn. How much are you charging, Charlene?] My heart sank. Before I left for my competition, I had asked my boyfriend, Jacob Smith, to take care of my luxury river-view apartment. That way, he could keep an eye on my expensive paintings. What was happening? I rushed home in confusion, but when I opened the door, I was further dumbfounded. My 3,000-square-foot apartment had been partitioned into 30 rooms. Meanwhile, Jacob’s childhood friend, Prissy Black, was holding a string of keys as she collected rent money. When they saw me, everyone started laughing. “What? Are you here to rent from Prissy after learning that she’s providing cheap rooms in such a pristine location? “Too bad everyone knows that you’re eyeing her boyfriend. You won’t be able to benefit from doing such a thing!” I was extremely furious as I approached Jacob to talk about it. However, he told me that it was Prissy’s dream to be a landlady. He asked me not to pay it any mind and to treat it as doing a good deed. “You’re rich anyway. Don’t be so calculative. Everyone’s happy now, so what’s wrong with that?” The keys tinkled in Prissy’s hand as if they were taunting me. “This house doesn’t welcome stray animals like you. You have yourself to blame for not having such a nice boyfriend.” The two of them acted all lovey-dovey in front of me, and I immediately called the police. “Someone’s trespassing on my property, and my painting that’s worth 15 million dollars has gone missing. What type of punishment would this entail?”