Liyue Harbor

On the first day of my rebirth, I turn straight into the bedroom of Don Raffaele Caruso and begin undoing my clothes. In my previous life, I was in a marriage of convenience with his son, Matteo Caruso, but there was no love between us. We were notorious in Liberty City's mafia circle. Matteo believed I was the reason he lost his first love. He thought I had deliberately gone into his room the night he was drugged with an aphrodisiac, trapping him in a marriage. Hence, for eight years after our wedding, he stayed out drunk every night and refused to come home. Even when I went into obstructed labor and was on the brink of death, he never asked about me even once. Then, the hurricane came. A storm surge swallowed Liberty City. The harbor collapsed under the waves, and there was only one seat left on the evacuation boat. Everyone thought Matteo would keep it for himself. Instead, he shoved me hard onto the boat. "Go! I'm giving you my chance to live, Chiara. If there's a next life, don't come saving me again. I just want to be with Lucia." The next second, his body was dragged into the pitch-black sea. I survived, only to be hacked to death by a rival family afterward. What Matteo never knew was that he wasn't the only one who was drugged that night. His father was too. This time around, I step into the room just as the effects of the aphrodisiac take hold. Raffaele is currently forcing himself to endure it, his control stretched to the limit. I walk over and say softly, "Let me be your antidote, Don Caruso."

Investigative journalist Justine Sky will go to great lengths to find out the truth. Even if it means rubbing elbows with the city's most feared billionaire. As a prime time crime solver, she’s tackled a great deal of scandals during her career, but nothing could prepare her for a life with Bentley Thomas. Because of his criminal past and merciless ambition to get to the top, Bentley has been the scapegoat for the people of Westlake, Texas. With all fingers pointing to him as Ivy Smith’s slayer, Justine becomes hellbent on exposing him. After pulling strings to get an invite into his mysterious world of luxury, Justine enters, thinking she'll be met by a cold and vicious mobster. Instead, he reels her in with soft charm and a passion that catches her off guard. Their chemistry is automatic, and Bentley is more of a hopeless romantic than she ever thought he could be. However, even though he's quite the charmer, Bentley does harbor secrets of his own. When Justine learns that he might have been the last person to see Ivy alive, her doubt settles in once again. It's her relentless fight for the truth and growing love for Bentley that makes her dig deeper. Only to find out that the killer is someone she knows very well. As the danger of the investigation sneaks closer, Justine is caught in a deadly game of ransom, and Bentley doesn’t hesitate to risk everything he has to save her. In a world full of lies, secrets, and betrayal, she has to trust someone. But is Bentley her most dangerous enemy, or the only one who has been telling the truth?

I’d just set sail to escort the cargo to the border when a Category 8 typhoon warning suddenly blared. I steer the ship back in the direction of the harbor, only to realize that the ship has run out of fuel. The distress beacon has been dismantled, too. Immediately, I pick up the radio and call the maritime rescuers for help. As soon as the call gets connected, I hear my wife, Melanie Watkins' mocking laughter instead. "I've already rewired the emergency number so that you can never reach the rescuers. Have fun surviving in the ocean!" Her student, Darell Parker, is with her as well. "Remember when you made fun of me for not knowing how to swim, Clifton? Well, now you're given the chance to show off your swimming skills! You can swim all the way back to the shore on your own! You'd better not be as slow as the sea turtles!" The waves have almost capsized the cargo ship. If I can't get rescued anytime soon, I'll end up dying in the sea. I can only grit my teeth before pleading to Melanie, "No one can possibly swim back to shore! Help me call the maritime rescuers—" But she laughs coldly in return. "Why do you need the rescuers' help? Didn't you say one must learn how to protect themselves? Now swim! "If you think the waters are too cold, then swim faster! Maybe you'll feel warmer the faster you swim!" I give up on arguing with Melanie. After that, I head toward the cargo area with a blade in hand and get ready to sever the ropes tying the cargo down. Said cargo contains the ransom money that's capable of saving Ella Zimmerman, the daughter of Hugh Zimmerman, the wealthiest man in Starbury.

"St... Stay away" Her voice trembled in fear as he leaned closer, invading her personal space. His palms were pressed against the wall, caging her in his embrace while her tiny fists were making futile attempts to push him back. "So, you want me to go out to satisfy my needs when I have a beautiful wife at home?" His thumb stroked her lips, his eyes fixated on them, unyielding and hungry. "But you made it clear that your heart belongs to someone else and our marriage is nothing but an agreement" her heart throbbed with pain as she thought about it. After the horrific and pitiful past, destiny has bestowed her a devil for a husband. "That's true," he cocked his head. "But we don't love every chic we fuck. Do we?" His callous words shattered Roseline's world. All she wanted was to cry on her fate! Her pain was evident through her eyes but this didn't stop him from getting what he wanted! ~•~•~•~ In an unexpected twist of fate, Orphan Roseline finds herself in a contract marriage with a ruthless Billionaire, Vincenzo De Luca. On the first night, she gets to know that he has married her on purpose, and the doors to his heart are securely guarded. He has money, looks, and fame, but not the love for which she has craved her whole life. She has an infectious laugh, he never graced his lips with a smile. She follows her path, he demands unwavering obedience. She is sympathetic, he is cold-hearted. Their personalities are worlds apart, yet both harbor secrets concealed behind their respective facades. Will Roseline be able to make her space in his heart or will she be cast aside once his hidden purpose is fulfilled?

🌙 Moonlight Mystique At Halewood University—an ivory tower of privilege, ambition, and secrets—Eliot Navarro is a stranger in a world that doesn’t want him. A scholarship student with nothing but grit to his name, he vows to keep his head down, earn his degree, and escape unnoticed. But fate, and one storm-gray gaze, have other plans. Damien Leclair is Halewood’s untouchable king. Beautiful, brilliant, and cruel, he rules the campus with arrogance sharpened to a weapon. To everyone else, he is danger wrapped in silk. To Eliot, he is an obsession he never asked for—a storm that refuses to let him breathe. From the moment Damien’s eyes lock on Eliot, the game begins. It isn’t friendship. It isn’t rivalry. It’s possession. Damien doesn’t chase—he claims. No matter how Eliot resists, no matter how fiercely he builds his walls, Damien circles closer with every step, unraveling his defenses thread by thread. And just when Eliot thinks he’s found a safe harbor in Theo—the warm, messy boy who makes him laugh—Damien’s shadows stretch long. Because Damien doesn’t share. Every smile, every touch, every stolen moment with Theo becomes fuel for his jealousy, twisting into dangerous games that blur the lines between desire and destruction. Caught between two worlds—warmth and fire, safety and obsession—Eliot must decide whether to run from Damien’s grasp or surrender to it. But surrender means more than passion. It means losing himself to the storm, to the man who promises not love, but a haunting claim written in blood and moonlight. Dark. Steamy. Arrogant. Possessive. Moonlight Mystique is a campus boys’ love saga unlike any other—120 chapters of forbidden romance, razor-edged obsession, and a slow burn that ignites into an inferno. It’s a story of dangerous attraction,

I knew my husband, Josh Perkins, had faked his death and taken on his younger twin brother's identity—but I never said a word. Instead, I went straight to the commander of the military district and filed an official report of my husband's death, requesting his name be permanently removed from the service rolls. In my last life, my brother-in-law died in an accident. Josh gave up his rank as regimental commander, abandoned his own name, and stepped into his brother's shoes—all to spare his fragile sister-in-law from becoming a widow. Back then, I recognized him immediately. I confronted him and demanded to know why he was pretending to be a dead man. But Josh just looked through me, cold as a winter morning. "Riley, I know you're grieving Josh. But I'm not him. Don't mistake me for my brother." He shielded that delicate sister-in-law of his behind him, then shoved me into the icy river and warned me not to harbor delusions. Later, our five-year-old daughter cried, asking why her daddy didn't want her anymore. For that, she was dragged to the cowshed for "reflection"—left there, starving, for three days and nights. My mother-in-law called me a curse, a jinx who'd killed her son, and threw my daughter and me out with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Josh made sure everyone knew I'd "gone mad"—that I was lusting after my brother-in-law before my husband was even cold in the ground. The whole town turned their backs on us. That last winter, I wandered the streets with my girl, dazed and numb, until the cold finally took us both. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the very day Josh buried his old life and stole his brother's.

“If I say that I am not okay. Would you help me?” Ivan's peering gaze bored deep into Skylar's eyes, as his strong arms suddenly grabbed her tiny waist and pulled her close, causing her heart to skip and her eyes to widen in alarm. His deep mellifluous voice resonated in her ears, echoed in her mind, and sent tremor signals down her legs. Maybe it was the shots of champagne she had taken, or the secret desire for him that had never fed too much in her mind that took over at that moment, Skylar had no idea. However, staring at his gorgeous face which was extremely close to hers, gleaming and staring at her with intense hunger, she knew she was fucked. ‘This man was a walking temptation!’ ************ Just with one night of passion and pleasure with her boss, Skylar found herself torn between her professionalism and the dire need to act cool and pretend like nothing happened, all while being the best employee, to her cold, arrogant boss, Ivan Hamilton. She knew it was just any ordinary night, so obsessing over details could complicate things. However, things started to entangle more than she bargained for, when Ivan kept giving her reasons to confuse and question his actions. Just how would she keep the feelings she was beginning to harbor to herself, when the relationship between them had never exceeded the employer-employee contract? How would she deal with the truth that she was no longer immune to his endless charms which got her the job in the first place. And suddenly, Skylar was dropped from her pedestal of assumptions and fantasies, when reality dawned on her. Ivan Hamilton could never be the one for her. He was way out of her league. It was time to leave now.

On the day I get released from prison, Joshua Caldwell's adoptive sister, Madeline Caldwell, hosts a live stream to welcome me home. She makes sure to shove the phone right in my face. "This is my older sister, Victoria. Even though she has gotten violated by 13 people, she still has the courage to continue living in this world." The comment section explodes instantly. Joshua frowns slightly, but Madeline merely sticks her tongue out at him with a cute smile on her face. Instead of going hysterical like I did three years ago, I just smile at everyone. "A woman's body is never her weakness. The offenders are the ones who deserve to die, not me." After returning home, I don't stop Joshua from letting Madeline visit our parents' graves on their death anniversary on my behalf. I don't mind Joshua giving my room away to Madeline and telling me to stay in the storeroom. Even when Madeline pushes me into the water once again, Joshua chooses to save her despite her knowing how to swim. After I get rescued by a passerby, I just go home on my own silently. Mixed feelings swirl in Joshua's eyes as he looks at me. "That three-year sentence has changed you for good, Vicky." I just smile softly in response. All I've done is finally see reality for what it is and not harbor any hopes for him at all. Moreover, the system, which I've lost contact with, has finally returned three days ago. It told me that it could take me home in seven days. But why is it that Joshua loses his mind after I've left this world for real?

Everyone in Palermo knew Alessandro De Luca had a reputation. He was the Boss of the De Luca family, one of the oldest bloodlines in Sicily — a name tied to the port, the courts, and half the construction contracts in Palermo. Wealth, power, discipline—those things were expected. Romance was not. He didn’t chase women, and he never went back to the same one twice. Until me. When we broke up after a brutal argument, he did something no De Luca had done in generations—he stood outside the gates of the Moretti estate, my family home, for an entire day and night. I watched from behind the curtains and never opened the door. The next day, he came inside the estate kitchen himself. Alessandro De Luca, who grew up surrounded by servants, tried to cook my favorite seafood pasta with his own hands. He burned the sauce. I threw it away without tasting it. On the third day, he found the necklace my grandmother had left me—something my uncle had sold years ago—and bought it back, paying far more than it was worth, just to return it to me. At a formal family dinner, in front of elders and allies, he made it clear: No more women. Only me. It took him a year to win me back. That summer, fireworks lit up the Palermo coastline as he announced our engagement. I believed he had chosen me. Until the night of a private gathering at an old harbor estate. A young woman was being pulled forward in the middle of the courtyard, her dress torn at the shoulder, tears running down her face. Alessandro went still. Then he stood up. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t explain. He just walked toward her. And something inside me went cold. I rested my hand over my abdomen. There was something I hadn’t told him yet. He broke his word that night. So I broke mine.

At the afterparty, my daughter, Mia Volpe, suffers from a sudden asthma attack. She collapses to the carpeted floor and goes through a seizure on the spot. But my Capo husband, Lorenzo Volpe, wraps an arm around his secretary, Sophia Bianchi, while watching Mia suffer before his eyes. Sophia had once shown him a forged paternity test of Mia and him. As such, he firmly believes that Mia is the bastard child of me and a Soldato. When Mia tries to reach out for Lorenzo, her complexion already bluish-purple from suffocation, he merely averts his gaze with a disgusted look on his face. "Daddy… S-Save… me…" I look everywhere for Mia's inhaler like a madwoman, only to realize that it's already empty. Sophia covers her mouth while tittering softly. "Dear me, Mia sure has an affinity for acting! Elena, I can't believe you and your daughter are willing to go to such lengths just to get Lorenzo to pay attention to you! "Since Mia likes acting that much, she might as well make the performance perfect." She lifts a high-heeled foot before crushing Mia's fingers, which were attempting to curl around Lorenzo's pant leg. Poor Mia was in so much pain, yet she couldn't let out a single sound. All she could do was scream silently into the void with her mouth wide open. I kneeled on the floor, my forehead already bleeding from smashing it against the floor repeatedly. "Lorenzo Volpe, Mia is your flesh and blood! Please, I'm begging you! Give me some medicine or call a doctor!" But Lorenzo just looks at me coldly, as though he's looking at trash. "A bastard like her is better off dead. Elena Corleone, stop using such underhanded methods to spoil everyone's mood." At that moment, what little love I still harbor for this man completely dissipates as I feel Mia's heartbeat gradually weaken. I no longer beg him for help. With trembling hands, I press the button on the emergency transmitter that I've sworn I'd never touch. That transmitter is the direct line to the highest authority in Smeraldia—my father, Don Vito Corleone.