Operating Systems: Internals And Design Principles Novels & Stories

“The contract was only for a year, Mr Gray. I marry you for one year and you stay the fuck away from my properties,” her tone was high-pitched annoyance and anger. “You got it all wrong, sugar. The contract was to quench my thirst for you but all you did was fuel that desire. Now, I want to own you. Your body, heart and fucking soul,” that honeylike baritone was void of its usual teasing now. He meant every word of it. There was no escape for her. ********** As she lay on the operating table, bleeding to death from an abortion her husband, Regal had arranged, Claire saw her life flash before her eyes. Even in her dying state, he refused her a transfusion because donating blood would ‘hurt’ his unborn child. The words pierced through her heart. The man she'd given her world to chose her sister over her without blinking. But then life smiled at her and she was given a second chance to correct her mistakes. What happens when she gambles this chance by stealing from the famous trillionaire, Asher Gray? What will be her fate when he barges into her life and overturns her world with his wicked seduction? When life throws Regal at her feet, begging for a second chance, when old flames ignite, will she let go of the past and forgive or pursue the prospect of a beautiful new love?

In our galaxy, there are at least twenty billion Earth-like planets able to sustain life. My name is Skye. I am eighteen years old. Our astronautic scientists discovered a planet within our galaxy with human life similar to ours. By probing this planet’s satellite systems, they have learnt that wars have wracked this world over many millennia, where various zealots strive for dominance. Before setting out on a twenty-year expedition to visit this planet, our group has spent a year being educated in the various languages of this alien world and acquiring the skills to survive in any hostile environment we may find ourselves in. OUR DESTINATION IS EARTH. SKYE is the first book in a trilogy. It is a coming-of-age adventure of Skye, a young alien girl, and her fight to survive in a post-apocalyptic world governed by fundamentalists. After surviving a meteoroid tsunami, her spaceship crash lands in the Mexican wilderness. One of the survivors, Judah, a gifted physician from a superior technological civilization, is discovered in the desert and taken to Texas. Judah is promoted as the new Messiah by a right-wing extremist known as ‘The Preacher’. The Preacher’s propaganda machine convinces America’s devastated survivors that it was the sins of the world’s population that, as prophesized in the Bible, brought down the wrath of God. Judah is exploited to restore the people’s faith in the divinity of God as decreed by the Preacher’s tyrannical interpretation. The Preacher aims to reverse the emancipation achieved by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and bring about a dictatorship through the reunification of America. Skye must put her trust in a member of the Preacher’s security team to rescue Judah from this new confederacy.

My older brother, Ethan Earnhart, was the Alpha of the Shadow Pack. Right now, he was slicing my chest open with a silver surgical blade. Beside him, my adopted sister, Sara, had tear-filled eyes. "Elina went as far as faking her own death just to escape the loan sharks. She even used the body of a disfigured rogue." Ethan's gaze was filled with disgust. He pointed at the bruises covering my body, marks left when I was alive, and explained calmly to the young healer beside him. "Look. This is what happens to a traitor who betrays the pack and sleeps with filthy rogues. Elina, being the liar she's always been, even found a stand-in for her little performance." My wolf soul hovered beside the operating table and watched in despair as he handled my body the way one would process prey. 'Ethan, that really is me. I was trying to retrieve something you lost. That was why they–' "Check the stomach contents," Ethan said flatly as he cut open my stomach. Unexpectedly, there was no food residue. Instead, there was a single ring. It was corroded black by stomach acid, but the emblem engraved on it was unmistakable. It was the Alpha heirloom Ethan had lost five years ago. I had swallowed it just before I died. I had to protect that secret even if I were dead. Ethan's hand trembled violently while holding the forceps. He tore into my facial flesh like a madman. "Elina?"

After my wealthy biological parents found me and brought me home, the vicious family drama I had imagined never happened. Both the fake heiress and I entered arranged marriages. However, after getting married, I, who was perfectly healthy, struggled to get pregnant for a long time. Meanwhile, Angela Miller, who had been diagnosed with a cold womb condition, quickly gave birth to a daughter with her husband, who suffered from low sperm count. Outside the delivery room, the private doctor mistook me for the fake heiress and comforted me gently. "Everyone has their own fate. Your sister has a good constitution for pregnancy, but that doesn't mean you have no hope." Forcing a smile, I explained who I really was. The doctor stared at me in disbelief. "Then why haven't you gotten pregnant yet...?" His words cut deeply into me, and I thought maybe I simply had not worked hard enough while trying to conceive. After returning home, I desperately adjusted my diet and managed my figure. I even accepted Angela's recommendation and went to the hospital for IVF treatment. The moment I came off the operating table, my back aching so badly I could barely straighten up, I received a message. Angela, whose first pregnancy had already been considered a medical miracle, was pregnant with a second child again.

On the day I attend the centennial celebration of my alma mater, I encounter my first love, Victor Whitmore. After he delivers a speech as an alumni representative, he publicly presents me with a diamond ring. "Back then, you said you wanted to use your 'Wild Roses' design to make me a wedding ring. Now it's my turn to propose. Claire Webb, will you marry me?" The auditorium erupts in excitement. Everyone waits for me to nod tearfully in agreement. After all, I once pursued Victor with such passion that it shocked the entire school. However, everyone has forgotten something. Back then, I was accused of plagiarizing Emma Palmer's work for my graduation project. Victor knew the truth, yet he slandered me as the plagiarizer. At the press conference, as the brand representative, he announced that they would cease collaboration with me and called for me to be blacklisted across the industry. On the very day my reputation was ruined, I moved abroad. Now that I'm back, his close friend keeps advising me. "He's been waiting for you all these years. Even though you embarrassed him back then, you're still the one in his heart. "He even made a scene at the principal's office just to get your graduation certificate. Claire, he truly loves you."

Kyle Waugh wants something from Dawn. That's all. They decide to give this marriage a go for one year, and if it works out, Dawn will become the senior design editor in Kyle's parent firm and receive a fantastic divorce settlement. Kyle wants her to sleep in his bed, hold his hand at night, wear his ring on his finger at all times, and keep working for him. He also wants to convince his sceptical father that they are happily married and in love, and he's settled enough to run Waugh Industries. Dawn Brooks wants nothing more than stability and would marry a mysterious man to give her the stability she deserves. Even though she slowly learns that Kyle's heart has inbuilt cold walls, she'll do anything to keep the company job and never return to her parents. For now, she'll sleep in his bed, kiss him goodnight with a hole in her heart. Her heart may skip whenever Kyle is around, and his touch may ignite nerves that she never knew existed, but she won't actually give in to him. Would she? After all, she can be his wife if she can put her mind to it.

When her brother’s life is buried under a crushing gambling debt, Alina Dusk agrees to marry Dorian Vale—the ruthless black-market king feared across the underworld. The bargain is simple: her brother’s freedom in exchange for her hand. But from the moment their vows are spoken, Dorian reveals a terrifying truth—he has been watching her for years, and now she is his to cage forever. What begins as a marriage of convenience spirals into a dangerous game of obsession, secrets, and betrayal. Alina tries to run, only to discover that Dorian knows her darkest secret: the night she killed a man. Caught in his grip, she becomes both his queen and his prisoner, forced to navigate a world of blood and power where nothing is what it seems. When Alina learns her brother’s debt—and even his betrayal—were part of Dorian’s design, her world shatters. Yet, amid the manipulation, she finds herself carrying his child. As enemies close in, a spy infiltrates her trust, and a tragic miscarriage ignites a mafia war. Torn between love and hatred, freedom and chains, Alina must decide: is Dorian Vale truly her monster—or the only man who can keep her alive

My husband's first love, Daeleen Reed, is abducted and murdered by the Wood family, a mafia family. The final call she makes before her death is to my husband. "Samuel, Louise's green eyes are beautiful. If there is an afterlife, I hope I can have a pair of eyes like that so I can always gaze at you with them." My husband, Samuel Sterling, is the Capo of the Sterling family, a mafia family based on the West Coast. Instead of getting revenge on the Wood family, he comes home and forces me onto an operating table. "Daeleen says she loved your eyes. That was her dying wish, and I will make it come true." I clutch my stomach and grovel at his feet. I beg him to let me off the hook. I've yet to witness our child's birth—I can't lose my eyes! However, Samuel thinks I'm using my pregnancy as an excuse to not give up my eyes. "You can't be so selfish, Louise. You'll only be losing your eyes—you'll be fine." Daeleen is the only one who holds his heart. I am left with nothing but a world of darkness. Later, I drag my broken body into the sea. I forge ahead until I'm submerged. That's when Samuel goes insane.

Adrian Foster once walked away from a life most men would kill to possess—a life of privilege, prestige, and unchallenged influence. He moved within elite circles where power whispered his name, where security convoys shadowed his every step, and where surveillance was the price of importance. But the weight of status became suffocating. The constant scrutiny, the political entanglements, the invisible chains disguised as honor—he grew tired of them all. So he chose disappearance over dominance. Simplicity over spectacle. He stepped away from the throne of influence and allowed the world to believe he had fallen. He married into the Lane family seeking nothing more than quiet peace. Instead, he found humiliation. For three long years, he endured their scorn. He was treated as a burden, a useless son-in-law with no ambition, no backbone, no worth. He was slapped, insulted, dismissed—reduced to something small in a house that never saw his true height. But the Adrian they discarded is not the Adrian who exists. What they saw was a mask. Adrian is operating under a hidden mandate—one far greater than pride or marriage. He left his homeland not out of weakness, but strategy. He buried his name, his power, and his legacy to move unseen. There is an enemy rising in the shadows, a calculated plot designed to destabilize his nation to dust. And to uncover it, he had to disappear. He had to lose himself. Because he will be the man who stands between his homeland and the darkness threatening to consume it.

At the awards for the Global Jewelry Design Competition, my stepsister Sandra took the grand prize. She used the designs she stole from me. What she didn’t know was the show’s biggest sponsor: Jude Moretti. Godfather of the Moretti family. A bloodthirsty monster scarred in an explosion, a man they say can never have children. And the grand prize? Becoming the Godfather’s bride. That night, Moretti’s men, all in black, delivered a gold-trimmed marriage contract. They were here for the “genius designer.” My fiancé, Marco, panicked. He whisked Sandra off to Vegas to save her. They got married that night. With the deed done, Sandra strutted back in, wearing my silk robe. She flashed the ring on her finger and the hickies all over her neck. “Marco’s mine now,” she purred. “What are you going to do, Odessa? The Godfather’s only giving you a day. If you don’t marry him, the Family will have to appease him. That means sending you to the red-light district. Selling you to the kind of sicko who gets off on broken things.” She was wrong. I had another choice. I found my father and stepmother, both scrambling to deal with the contract. “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll marry the Godfather.”