La Guerrera Capitulo 45

I donated 45 million to the city's best kindergarten, but my daughter failed the enrollment interview. She was a polymath. Furious, I demanded an explanation from admissions. She hurled an assessment file at my face. "Your daughter's brilliant, but you're the exact opposite! You're dead last among the parents!" She continued, "The others have tech domes! You're nothing but a regular Ivy League graduate! Your degree's worth about as much as toilet paper!" The other teachers laughed as well. "If we admit her daughter, it's going to look bad on the other kids. She can't take that responsibility." "Yeah, I can't believe she's demanding an explanation from Ms. Johnson. Her husband is the kindergarten's biggest stakeholder. He can make sure her daughter has nowhere to go." The admission teacher shoved me away. With disdain in her eyes, she said, "Out of my sight if you know what's good for you. My husband is picking me up in his Rolls-Royce. His car plate alone is worth more than your life! It's lucky 777! Only one in Georgeport!" Three sevens? That was my husband's car. I laughed mirthlessly and texted my husband. "I had no idea you had another wife behind me."

They say the devil wears a three-piece suit. Mine wore a ring stamped with a golden lion, the symbol of the Ricci mafia. It was on a night of fire and ashes that my life changed. My name was Alaya, and I was just a girl among many others, born in the alleys of a neighborhood where poverty poisons you from the cradle. My mother, sick, had only me... and the debts. That night, they came. They knocked on the door. Three men in black. Not a word, just an envelope, and a chilling phrase: — "Your daughter is still a virgin, isn't she? The boss pays dearly for that." I had no choice. His name was Santino Ricci. Cold. Magnetic. Dangerous. The head of one of the most powerful families in Italy. He looked at me like one looks at precious merchandise. Then he said: — "You will be my wife. No matter how you feel." And I signed my condemnation. This marriage was not a union... but a gilded cage. I learned to survive among snakes. I saw death. I saw blood. I heard the screams of girls who, like me, had been sold. But what they had not anticipated... was that the little broken virgin would eventually bite back.

Catherine Zoe Aragon was born with a silver spoon. She was one of the princesses of the Aragon Empire, envied by everyone, but unlike what they see in public, no one but the sisters knew the hardships they were put through to maintain their family's reputation. After years of putting up with all the rules and restrictions, she finally had enough. Cath was determined to leave her life behind and start anew, doing the thing that she loves, writing stories and drawing. She cut ties with her family except for her younger sister, leaving all the perks, wealth, and glamour that she was accustomed to all of her life. Eventually, she became a successful comic book editor, hiding the gravity of her last name. She was living her life the way she wanted to and it was wonderful, except for one thing, her creepy pervert boss. Luckily, he finally got his karma and was let go and that's when she met Mr. Gavin Mitchel, her new boss. Gavin came from the world that she escaped from a few years ago. He was a man trying to heal his broken heart by putting all of his time and attention to his work after a brutal break-up with his ex-fiance. When, or if they fall in love could they accept each other's pasts and baggage? What would they do with their pasts hunting them? Could their love conquer it all? Love triangles, family drama, friendship, and office romances... Would they get through it all? Fate might have planned a love story for you, but no one said that it was flowers and rainbows.

Caroline Everett, a 45 year-old woman, escapes a 21 year toxic marriage to Ethan Blackwood, a controlling and abusive man. Forced to leave her first love, Williams, and marry Ethan due to family pressures, Caroline’s life was forever altered. Decades of emotional torment followed, but she eventually found the strength to break free. In search of peace, she rents an apartment from Harrison Reed. However, peace proves elusive when she finds herself drawn to Harrison’s younger son, Bryce, a 29 year-old man whose presence awakens something she thought she had lost forever. As their secret affair intensifies, Caroline must navigate the emotional complexity of their relationship while facing judgment and resistance from her estranged children, Liam and Sydney. Meanwhile, the threat of Ethan’s potential discovery looms large, casting a dangerous shadow over her newfound freedom. Amidst the rising tension, Caroline is also forced to confront the painful truth about her past. Will she uncover the devastating role her own parents played in her years of suffering? Or will she fall into the carefully laid traps of Samantha, her once trusted best friend, whose betrayal runs deeper than she ever imagined? In a world filled with secrets, lies, and buried pain, Caroline must decide if love is enough to heal or if some scars are meant to last forever.

Livia, an insatiable nymph with unacknowledged desires, is about to become much more than just a servant in the eyes of the powerful businessman Alessandro. Every glance from the billionaire Alessandro burns her from within. He, ruthless and arrogant, knows exactly what he wants, and he also knows that his power can obtain anything, including her heart, if she grants it to him. But a contract, signed under the impulse of growing passion, will bind their lives in an unprecedented way. A contract that goes beyond the simple terms of an agreement. Livia must bear his child, and Alessandro, much more than just a businessman, finds himself forced to lose himself in a dangerous game where feelings and sensuality intertwine. The question remains: can a contract signed in ecstasy truly be a promise of love, or is it merely a trap? Will Livia have control, or will she be the one dominated by a billionaire whose heart seems as cold as his gaze? They will cross boundaries that neither of them had anticipated…

**Perfect Blind** *She pretended to be her blind twin. Then she watched her brother-in-law die. The killer tested her—held the bloody head five inches from her face. She didn't blink.* **But what he didn't know? She's not just pretending. She's hunting him too.** --- Jiang Yan has spent three months learning to be her blind twin sister: the walk, the voice, the empty stare. She breaks into Lin's apartment seeking a diary—evidence of a murder Yan committed ten years ago. Instead, she finds a body. A killer who knows sign language. And a "dead man" who won't stop breathing. Trapped in a locked room with two strangers and one lie, Yan must play the perfect blind woman while uncovering the truth: her sister isn't blind, her father isn't dead, and the murder she confessed to never happened. **In this family, everyone wears a mask. The only way out is to see through them all.** --- **Perfect for fans of:** - *The Silent Patient* (unreliable narrator) - *Gone Girl* (toxic sisterhood) - *Behind Her Eyes* (identity games) **Tags:** #PsychologicalThriller #TwistedFamily #BlindPOV #ShortRead #DarkSecrets --- **Word count:** 10,000 words | **Chapters:** 10 | **Reading time:** 45 minutes *Every chapter ends with a twist. The final page changes everything

"Why is a young girl like you destroying her kidneys and liver?", I heard that deep husky voice behind my ear and I froze on the seat. He was forbiddenly inches away from me and his breath was against the back of my neck. Who was he? Whoever he was. He had the guts and I wasn’t ready to tolerate nonsense. "You....." , My mouth fall open the moment I turned to look at the atranger who was behind my back. As unbelievable as it was, he was fucking hot. Just a glimpse of his dirty blonde spiky hair , a nice chiseled jawline , pink lips and eyes that had a mixture of dark blue and light grey made my mouth fall more open. Honestly l had never seen such eyes. l felt mesmerized , they were damn beautiful. He didn't look young , he was something like 45 to 50 but good lord he was so hot. Realizing that I was checking him out, a smirk appeared on his face. "Is there something a young beautiful girl like you, wants to forget so badly?." He whispered and I shuttered as I leaned back into his chest. Yes It was there. I want to let go of my past. But I didn't reply him. "I can let you......", "Go on, make me forget him" , l cut him off short in mid sentence. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Yes I was drunk. But just one night with a stranger.... in fact an experienced old man. It is not wrong. Is it?!

“King of the North,” he hissed, checking the device. He already expected me to betray him. He’d hated me ever since my twin, Enzo, outed me in middle school. I could still feel the sting of his spit on my face from that day. “Come on, pretty son,” he smiled. “Let’s get you married.” I put on my Ray-Bans. I wasn’t Luca anymore. I was a mask. I walked down the stairs with a fake swagger, hiding the pain in my chest with every dancey step. To unite the fractured syndicates of Chicago, a marriage is arranged. The groom? Silas Vane, the ruthless, cold-blooded “King of the North,” who is 45 and widowed. The other groom? Lucas De Santis, the 22-year-old reckless partying son of the southern boss, viewed as a pawn and a liability by his own father. Silas expects a brat to ignore. Luca expects a monster to fear.

When Ethan Reed shoves divorce papers across the anniversary dinner Mia Thompson spent hours preparing, he believes he's trading up — swapping his quiet schoolteacher wife for her glamorous best friend and the "power couple" image his investors demand. What he doesn't know: the woman he's throwing away funded his entire empire with her dead parents' life insurance money — and still owns 45% of the company he just sold for $25 million. For six years, Mia paid his loans, wrote his pitch decks, and worked two jobs while he coded his dreams into reality. She loved him enough to carry his child alone for eight weeks, waiting for the perfect moment to tell him. That moment came in a doorway — divorce papers in one hand, her best friend smirking behind him in a red dress. She signed. She walked out. She collapsed in a hospital parking lot and lost the baby no one knew existed. Some men burn down the wrong house. Some women have to lose everything before they realize they were holding the match the whole time. And some betrayals come with a price tag — exactly $25 million, plus interest.

- Oh yes ... there ... again ... stronger! Saccaded groans resounded through the walls, sneaking like a poison to the ears of Élodie. His breath was cut. Her heart tightened in his chest. No ... not that ... His trembling fingers gently pushed the door ajar in the guest room. And what she saw cut her legs. His fiancé, Victor, naked, in sweat, tackled Isabelle's offered body against the mattress, her hips hammering her basin with frightening brutality. -Damn, you are so good ... he growled, grabbing his sister's hair. Élodie gave her mouth a hand to stifle a cry. His big sister. His landmark. Her lifelong ally. And there, before her eyes, she stole the man she loved to him.