Payoff Chapter 13 Early Novels & Stories

Katherine Salazar. A girl from Spain whose life changed the day she first held a knife. She learned early that silence can be sharper than any blade. Her weapon a slender knife, always hidden beneath her clothes. Her adopted parents named her "Ghost Knife". She moved like a shadow—silent, precise, deliberate, clean. As she grew into a woman, her beauty captivated—and haunted— people around her in ways almost impossible to resist. When she took a mission she wasn’t supposed to handle herself, it tore her world apart, everything changed. She was caught by two brutal twin—opposites in behavior, different in power, identical in blood. Instead of ending her life, they chose to use her skills for their own dirty work. But then things got complicated. When both twin fell in love with her. A forbidden love, dangerous and consuming. Her next mission was supposed to be simple: eliminate the twins’ greatest enemy. But the target… was her “dead” father. "Dad?” My voice barely escaped, thick with disbelief, my vision blurred by unshed tears. “Kat?" His voice trembled with shock, more startled than I had ever seen him. In a fluid motion, he lifted his left hand, swift, precise—and the guards froze, stopped as if caught in a web of unseen power. " Y..You , I saw..." My words faltered, the knife quivering in my grip.

In a world where Omegas are bought, sold, and treated as slaves, Arwenna learned early what survival meant... what it entails and what it should be. Sold by her aunt at the age of sixteen, Arwenna was married off to an old man to pay the debts her aunt owed. A mere Omega was not cared for by the clan nor the Alpha... It never really mattered if they survived or not. Years later, she was blamed for the death of the same man she was forcefully married to. And now she was to be sold... dragged back to the same clan, to the same guardian who sold her off like a commodity; she was thrown back to everything she once escaped but now as nothing but the slave she always has been. Time flew by like a curse that came to haunt, sticking to her like glue. She lost her wolf... lost. She never got her wolf, only to realize during the mating season that she doesn't have a mate. "The Moon Goddess is so shrewd," she cried out, with emotions that have been bottled up for years. Nothing seems to be working, and now her aunt gives her away... No, she sells her again to the palace as a 'Dwangi,' a slave specially to keep the Alpha sane before finding his mate. She agreed. What's the purpose when she's like a useless paper plate that doesn't serve any purpose other than to be used and discarded? But what she doesn't know is that her story just begins.",

Some mistakes are never meant to be forgiven. Some marriages are never meant to be chosen. Thalia Ashbourne has spent her life understanding one rule: in powerful families, love is a luxury no one can afford. Raised to protect legacy over happiness, she learns early how to endure quietly—even when it costs her everything. Nikolai Ravenhart is the man she loved in silence. Cold, brilliant, and untouchable, he was never meant to be hers. Their lives were bound by family ties and old promises, but his heart belonged elsewhere. Then one reckless night changes everything. A mistake becomes leverage. A secret becomes obligation. And an arranged marriage is rushed to protect reputations and preserve power. Trapped in a union built on resentment and unspoken truths, Thalia becomes a wife to a man who never chose her—while carrying expectations that demand more than love. As pressure for an heir mounts and the past refuses to stay buried, Thalia must decide how much of herself she is willing to lose to survive a marriage that was never hers to begin with. When an old love returns and secrets begin to surface, the line between duty and desire fractures—forcing Thalia to choose between enduring silently or walking away from everything she was raised to protect. Inevitable Temptation is a slow-burn billionaire romance about power, sacrifice, and a woman who learns that sometimes the bravest love is choosing herself.

In my previous life, everything I do to care for myself somehow ends up benefiting my new housekeeper instead. I apply expensive skincare, yet dark spots and fine lines spread across my face, whereas the 45-year-old housekeeper's face becomes silkier. I jog every morning, yet my body only grows heavier and bulkier, while hers becomes slender and toned. When my husband notices the stretch marks on my abdomen, his face twists with disgust, and he never touches me again. "I genuinely can't bring myself to touch you. How can you look worse than Mirabelle when you take such good care of yourself?" My housekeeper looks at me with a sinister smile. A chill crawls up my spine, and the strange feeling makes me fire her on the spot. Yet, as soon as she leaves, I start aging at lightning speed, entering menopause 20 years early and developing diabetes and high blood pressure. I see every doctor I can, but after hanging on for a week, I die from a stroke. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day she first reports to work. This time, I push away the royal jelly she sets in front of me with a pleasant smile. "I've been avoiding certain foods lately. You can have it instead."

The carousel malfunctioned unexpectedly. My daughter was pulled into the machinery and died on the spot. I survived by sheer luck, but my groin was crushed beyond repair. My wife, Jody Parker, tore apart the entire amusement park. After refusing any settlement, she dragged dozens of staff members who had mishandled the equipment to court. She even dug our daughter's grave with her bare hands and nearly cried herself blind from grief. To help me recover from both emotional and physical trauma, she spent a fortune hiring a well-educated male nurse to care for me. Six months later, I was discharged early, hoping to move on from the past—only to accidentally find her and the male nurse naked together on a swing. "Jody, you crushed your husband's manhood and forsook your daughter's life. Am I really that important to you?" "Of course. Only with her dead and Sam crippled will he love our child without limits. Once our baby is born, Sam can take care of it. He's so gentle and attentive—he'll raise our little one to be perfectly well-behaved." My mind went blank. My blood ran cold. My daughter's death. The nightmares that tormented me every night. All of it had been orchestrated by Jody. Since she hated my existence so much, I would make sure she never saw me again.

Vanessa never thought she would have a hot one-night stand with a stranger on the same day her boyfriend, Justin, cheated on her with her best friend. She wanted revenge. She wanted him to pay. Justin never felt remorse, instead, he wanted her too. But her words were bold. “ I would rather f*uck your father than give you another chance!” In anger and pain, she had an encounter with a stranger. Sawyer, her one-night stand. Hot. Gorgeous. Every woman's dream even in his early forties. “ I'll f*ck you, Vanessa. I'll make you forget everything else.” “ Do it, hunk…I want you, deep inside me” she said provocatively. The next morning, she saw the same face in the board meeting and Justin cheerfully calling Sawyer. “ Dad!” Vanessa was stomped. She actually f*uvk his dad! She regretted it. She wanted nothing to do with him. She pretended. Stayed away. Little did she know she was never going to get away from this forbidden love. What would happen when Vanessa saw Sawyer in another light and person? Will she open her heart once more to the father of the man who once shattered it? Will this forbidden love triumph over Sawyer's hidden identity or will it shatter every hope of love between them?

While I'm waiting for my vasectomy to start, I see a popular question trending on a forum. "What's the best revenge for a man?" An anonymous answer is upvoted all the way to the top of the comment section. "By stealing everything he's proud of while playing the role of his best friend, of course! To be honest with you, this is how I treat my childhood friend, too. "Before he realizes it, his parents already view me as their biological son. The company has bestowed upon me a position that's superior to his. His wife even gave her virginity to me at the new home he had personally decorated and refurnished. His children are actually mine, and they are super clingy to me! "Because of something I said, his wife made him get a permanent vasectomy. He actually agreed to it. At this rate, that bastard will never be able to have his own children!" Some people are shocked, while others don't hesitate to berate the anonymous poster. But the majority of the commenters are more confused than anything. "What sort of deep-rooted grudge do you have against your childhood friend, though? Why is your revenge going this far?" That poster is surprisingly honest. "Actually, it's nothing much. This friend of mine is superior to me in any way since we were kids. But he's also a smug and arrogant one who doesn't really seem to care about anything at all. "I don't like that attitude of his, so I've come up with this scheme and stolen everything from him. Take now, for example. He's waiting for his vasectomy procedure at the hospital, while I'm hugging his wife right now. In fact, I plan on depleting this entire box of contraceptives!" The latest photo the online poster has uploaded shows a box containing 13 condoms. As for the background, it happens to be my home.

"For heaven's sake mom, I'm just twenty-one. I'm tired this marriage stuff" She reminded plainly, tears welling up in her eyes. Her mother only stared at the tears rolling down her cheeks, sympathetically. But she had no choice but to get her only daughter married again. Flora, a young and pretty lady has been forced into an early marriage. Her husband passed away a year after their marriage and she became a widow. Again, she was forced into another marriage, she was pained, she was troubled,why she? Why was her mother bent on ruining her life? She was just a young girl who wanted to explore and enjoy life. To escape getting married again, she fled. On that night, she met with a dangerous looking guy. She was frightened, but she preferred the dangerous looking guy rather than to get married again. Zayn, a nice looking young man, but a notorious gangster was out on that night, he almost knocked the person down with his car, he became so furious when the person was not getting out of his way. He got down from his car and discovered it was a lady, a lady dressed in black outfit, a lady who looks so timid and innocent, a lady who pleaded to him earnestly to save her. Would he save the lady? Would Flora get a help? And why was her mom bent on getting her married over and over again?

"Hell Gabby I'm such a douche." "I know." "I'm sorry." What defenses did she think of again? Were they even up in the first place? The dull pounding in her heart had better be the early stages of a heart attack. She moved then. Not to him, but away from the door. Seeing him in the flesh like something molded from her deepest desires and darkest fantasies, wearing a tapered black suit that practically worshipped his tall frame, an unbuttoned shirt that brought awareness to his hard chest and broad shoulders making her wonder how many buttons she had to open to see him in all his glory, she'd seen enough of him to compel her to not think. She was a healthy woman after all. Gabrielle Lot or Gabby as she loved to be called was one of the leading names in the Fashion industry, but she didn't do it in just one day she had to work and fight for it. Even if it meant disappointing her parent. Everything was going on well for her, with the success of her business waxing stronger and her name getting acknowledgment from different spheres of the fashion and business world. It changed when she met the one who broke her heart, Tan. Would she risk her heart being broken again or would she forget about the business proposition brought to her by Tan.

Devlin Ashford has spent her whole life being the daughter her family always forgot. Inside the high walls of the Edevane stronghold, built to keep lycans and wolves out and everything else rigidly in, she learned early that love in her family was a privilege distributed by usefulness and she had never been the most useful child. That distinction belonged to Mara, her older sister, who was beautiful and charming beyond words. When their father arranges Devlin's engagement to Corvin Hale, son of a neighboring chief, it is the first time in her life she has been given something that feels like a future. Corvin was at least decent and had a bright future as the youngest son of a Chief. Mara decides that's too good a future for someone like Devlin. Her parents make him choose, marry Devlin and live as just the youngest son of a Chief or marry Mara and become the chief of Edevane. Corbin makes a choice without thinking twice, he chooses the more attractive sister with a bright future tied to it. Inciting Incident Devlin goes over the wall with just forty coins, a knife and an extra set of clothes. She doesn't make it far before she's captured by slave hunters. In the borderlands auction market, the mate bond snaps in place between her and the lycan king, Ronan. That night he marks her in his room.