Novel & Cerita Penguin Classics The Count Of Monte Cristo

From the time I could count coins, my parents hammered one lesson home—if a boy did not start saving young, he would never have enough to win himself a wife. They opened a bank account in my name, vowing that money would only ever flow in, never out. And so, every birthday bill and crumpled allowance found a home in that card. I kept funneling every hard-earned paycheck into that same old account even after I moved to the city to chase my own future. At that point, that habit was done more out of reflex than reason. However, I was blindsided by acute kidney failure after years of working myself to the bone. Suddenly, that money was not just savings—it was my lifeline. My dad's voice trembled on the phone. He claimed he had forgotten the password and urged me to just take out an online loan for now. I hauled myself to the bank, my feet still shaky from my dialysis treatment. I clutched my ID, determined to file a loss report and reset the password myself. The teller's words froze me in place. "Sir, this account was emptied six months ago." Panic surged through me. I demanded a full printout of every transaction. The statement of the most recent transfer glared up at me from the paper, stating, "Wedding fund for our precious daughter, Natalia Callahan, plus the down payment for her luxury car."

Divorced and remarried—I've lost count of how many times Aaron and I stepped in and out of marriage. He once treated me like something precious, but less than a year after our wedding, he asked for our first divorce. The reason was simple, Vivian was coming back. "Vivian's a public figure," he told me. "I don't want anyone thinking she's involved with a married man." That third-tier actress had nothing but her father's sacrifice to her name. He had taken a bullet for Aaron—a life for a life. And because of that, Aaron believed he owed her everything. Every time Vivian returned to the country, Aaron divorced me. And every time she left, we remarried. The first time we split, I drowned my tears in whiskey and stumbled back to his house half-drunk. The lights inside were warm. He was with her. And I stood outside, shivering through the night. The second time, I tracked his every move—restaurants, auctions, charity galas—just to "accidentally" run into him again. Later, I learned better. The moment he mentioned divorce, I would quietly pack my suitcase and disappear from his mansion. My love and humiliation kept me trapped in that endless cycle of breaking up and coming back together. But this time, when Aaron waited for me at City Hall to remarry, I never showed up.

The day my adopted sister Xina was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, I was captured by rival pack hunters and taken across pack territories. In a hidden den beneath the mountains, I was chained like an omega during the day and subjected to endless humiliation. At night, they locked me in a moonless chamber and extracted my blood and bone marrow while I was conscious. By the time my pack found me, my body was broken beyond recognition, covered in bite marks, and infected with numerous diseases that even our supernatural healing couldn't combat. My mother, Alpha Serena, looked at me barely clinging to life, and howled so painfully she collapsed several times. My brother Ivan even traveled beyond our ancestral lands to find healers who could treat me. But in my half-conscious state, I accidentally overheard their conversation: "Mother, we captured Lisa just to save Xina, and let her be violated by so many rogues. Now we're taking one of her kidneys too—isn't that going to kill her?" Mother was silent for a long time, then choked up and said: "For Xina, I had no choice." "Besides, Lisa challenged Xina's rank all these years, made her severely depressed. This is just me atoning to Xina on her behalf." "It doesn't matter if she's been tainted. From now on, we'll keep her in the packhouse and take care of her. That'll count as compensation." As the silver blade sliced into my body, tears streamed uncontrollably from my eyes. A den with four wolves... was simply too crowded.

For five years, Mira poured her obsession into The Reckoning of Caelen Mors—a dark fantasy about a ruthless duke and the woman he becomes dangerously fixated on. At 2:47 AM, exhausted and alone, she died at her laptop. Her final words still glowed on the screen: "Duke Caelen finally showed her his true face. It was nothing like she imagined." She woke as Isadora Vess—the secondary character from her manuscript—in a silk bed, in a monster's house, with servants calling her by a name she'd invented. The problem: Mira remembers writing this world. She knows every dark secret. She knows how the story should end. Except her memories are fractured. The manuscript was never finished. And the characters have evolved without her input, making choices she never wrote, saying things she never scripted. Worse—Duke Caelen knows she's different. He's been waiting for her. Across seventeen timelines, he's seen her arrive at this exact moment. And in three of them, everything burned. Now Isadora must navigate a world she created but no longer controls, surrounded by men who each want to use her—a charming prince offering escape, a dark count offering power, and a villain offering the only thing that might be true: the answer to why she's here, and what happens when an author gets trapped in her own story. Because in every version where Isadora arrives, the empire falls. And Caelen has been waiting a very long time to see which ending she'll choose this time.

My father was one of the first dons to rise out of the Naples mob. My mother was an iron-fisted businesswoman with a reputation that made grown men flinch. When I was ten, somebody had the nerve to hijack one of my father's freight ships. He had the man's arms and legs broken with a crowbar, then stuffed a handful of gold rings down his throat — told him to count his money while he crawled. When I was fifteen, some scheming woman tried to get her claws into my father. My mother hired the filthiest pimps off the docks, shipped her down to a back-alley bar in Marseille, and told her to make her own way. And me — I grew up running the streets of Naples like I owned them. The sons of every other family knew to call me Miss Ferrante and keep their hands to themselves. Then I met him. A rough, quiet man fresh out of the army. For him I put down the knives, traded the silk for plain cotton, and followed him back to that little nothing of a coastal town, Porto Scuro. Today my mother-in-law and my husband went down to the dock warehouses to settle a dispute. They held her face down in a barrel of rotting fish guts. They kicked in three of his ribs. I stared at the salt fish I'd been slicing on the kitchen board, let out a cold laugh, and brought the knife down so hard the oak split in half. Then I dialed my father's private line.

" I don't know why your helping me" I stated as I walked away from him . " I know what you must think about me just like the rest of them , I know you hate me just like the rest ..." before I could even finish my words kalib was by my side with a furious look in his eyes. for a moment I almost step back fearing his alpha command but something told me he wouldn't hurt me " mea I never hated you I never thought of you badly even now even in the mess we are in I could never " "but..." I interjected "no buts we are in this together and nothing is going to change that" "ok" I anwered I knew there was no hope in arguing but I couldn't understand why he was helping me why he was here it's not like I'm his mate. Let me introduce myself I'm Mea I'm your average girl, well if you don't count the fact when I reach the age of 18 I will shift for the first time , shifting is the most amazing feeling in the world , when uou can be free to run in the woods as you please to feel the ground under your paw feel the breez in your fur well atleast thats what we have been told growing up but there is a curse plased on our pack . A curse that could stop us from shifteing and goddess help anyone that cant shift.

I forgot to bring a No. 2 pencil, so I filled out my SAT exam with a red pen. The proctor warned me it would count as cheating, and I just shrugged and told him it didn't matter. Tyson Jenkins, the school heartthrob who ranked near the bottom of the class, suddenly got anxious. In my last life, we went back to school to pick up our acceptance letters. I already had a guaranteed spot at Kingsford University. And yet, I was the only one who didn't receive a letter. Tyson had used a system to swap our exam scores. Because my score showed up as zero, Kingsford University revoked my guaranteed admission. I demanded a review of the scoring, but Tyson, who had suddenly become the top scorer out of nowhere, sneered at me. "Kieran, couldn't cheat your way through the exam this time, huh? Everyone knows you only got that guaranteed spot by cheating. You've got some nerve playing the victim!" I went to our homeroom teacher to clear my name. I never expected her to cry on camera and say, "I tried to talk Kieran out of it in private. It's not fair to the other students if he does something like that, but he used his family's influence to pressure me into staying out of it." Overnight, I was at the center of a storm. Before I could even explain, a group of fanatics dragged me up to the roof and shoved me off. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day before the exam.

Just before her husband and son have her locked in a psychiatric ward, Nora Yates wakes up—reborn, wide awake, and done playing nice. Two men who never truly loved her? Who used and discarded her? Fine. She’s cutting them out for good. When she signs the divorce papers and walks away, the world cheers—including the internet. Oddly, the only one upset is her adoptive sister, the mistress. “Come on, Nora,” she pouts. “I only borrowed your husband and son for my birthday. Was that really worth all this drama?” “You’re lucky to have a husband and son like that. You should count your blessings.” Nora lets out a sharp laugh. “Then consider this ‘blessing’ my personal gift to you. After all, trash belongs in the dumpster.” She walks off without a second glance—glowing, untouchable, and ready to run the world. Soon, her business is booming. Suitors line up. The woman they tried to destroy becomes the woman everyone wants to be. Years later, now a titan in her field, she sits down for a high-profile interview. “Ms. Yates,” the reporter asks, “it’s rumored that Mr. Luther, CEO of Luther Corp, is your ex-husband. Do you still keep in touch?” Nora smiles politely. “Sorry. I’m a widow with no children.” Then she turns to the camera, smiles straight through the lens—at the ex-husband and son losing their minds behind the scenes—and adds, “Just remarried. Baby girl on the way.”

“You don't belong here, pest,” Alessandro spits, his grip on my hand tightening. I bit my bottom lip, trying not to wince. Trying to suppress the pain shooting up my arm and spreading to the rest of my body. Tears prickled my eyes, but I'll rather eat mud than let them fall. “You're a poor, stinky menace! And I will make life a living hell for you, so long as you still show your face around!” — When eighteen-year-old Cora Williams saves spoilt, rich, arrogant, and bratty Alessandro Beckham's life, she doesn't count on getting rewarded for her heroics. To show his gratitude to her for saving his son's life, Alessandro's father enrolls her in the notorious Royal Elite Academy, the top high school in the country, exclusive to the wealthy and snobby kids of the elite. Although Cora is sad to let go of her old life, and friends, she's coerced by her parents to accept the offer. She knows the rich and the poor don't mix, and intends to lay low until she scales through senior year. But Alessandro Beckham is the king of Royal Elite Academy, and he's made it his personal mission to make her life a living hell for reasons best known to him. Cora has never been a pushover. And she won't start now. She wouldn't let Alessandro belittle her whichever way he pleases. She would fight. But fighting Alessandro might cost her something. Her heart.

After losing her mother, Ayesha was left under the care of her stepfather. She is now an orphan and the only person she can count on is Hector. Her life with her stepfather was quite simple in the countryside, it was far from the bustling city life she previously had. It was peaceful ---the quiet life she had always been yearning for. She was engrossed by the solitude; little she knew it will all be ruined because of one curious night. Wondering where her stepfather goes late at night, she sneaked on the back of his truck. She never expected that she will be greeted with something she would never imagine even in her wildest dreams. She saw familiar the faces she comes across daily gathered in circle with cubs in the middle, her stepfather included. They served the cubs with live preys which they immediately pounce on. They didn't let go of it until it stopped breathing. And under the moonlight, when the moon blooms into its peak one after another, the cubs grew into large beasts howling under the full moon. The aura emanating from them was dominating that it made it hard for her to breathe. The people who were there also started to turn. She was stunned. It was a sight that normal people would never believe even if she were to tell them. Forget about telling people! She doesn't even know if she'd still be alive to tell a tale. She can only hope this is just a passing dream. She then cursed and fell into horror when she made an eye-contact with one of them. In a blink of an eye, a large black figure was on top of her.