Selling Crime

Kimora Beatrix Lucien Gomez possesses all a person could desire. She has the looks, the wealth, the friends, and the ability to make guys drool over her. She's the life of the party. Kimo's the princess, or at least for the Gomezes. What if she found out that she was not the only princess of the Gomezes one day and ran into her as she stripped off everything and everyone from her, including the chinky-eyed guy she wanted to keep for herself?

On a flight, my boyfriend Cassio tried to steal a seat for his pregnant childhood sweetheart. Last time, I stopped him. I forced him to return the seat to its rightful owner. Out of spite, his sweetheart Ella refused to take the seat. She stood through the entire flight. By the time we landed, she miscarried. She bled out and died. Cassio never blamed me. He arranged her funeral quietly… Then married me. He gave me the best prenatal care, the finest doctors, and a seemingly perfect life. Until the day I went into labor. He put me on a long-haul flight with multiple layovers. And when I collapsed in a filthy airport restroom, bleeding and barely conscious— He looked down at me with pure hatred. “Serena, this is what you owe her.” “If you hadn’t interfered back then, Ella would still be alive.” “Today, you and your bastard child will pay for her and her baby.” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on that flight. Watching him berate the plainly dressed woman, I quietly put on my noise-canceling headphones. He didn’t know that woman was the beloved wife of the most dangerous mafia Don in the city. And the kick he was about to deliver— Would be their death sentence. This time, I just watched.

I opened my eyes to a dark, windowless room. Overhead, a voice crackled from the speakers. “Welcome to The Judgment Room. Each player will state the crime they committed. Do not lie. After all six of you speak, you will vote. The one with the most votes will be eliminated. “The game starts now.” In this deadly game, whose sins weighed the least?

It was the night before my best mate’s wedding—his bachelor party, we made a deal to get blind drunk, but I arrived late. When I opened the door, I was not met with cheers, but with three corpses stalled in motion. My body went limp as my mind went blank. The only thought left in my head was that I had to call the police. “I’m calling from Block 3, Unit 301 of Silkwood Gardens. My three friends are all dead!” On the other end of the line, a female police officer responded calmly, “Please stay calm and don’t touch anything. Keep the crime scene untouched. A team will arrive shortly.” This should have been a night of wild debauchery, but I was the only one left alive. I slowly ducked my head and smiled.

I broke my leg in a car accident last week and had been stuck at home recovering, unable to go anywhere. Just as I was starting to go stir-crazy, a couple moved into the house next door—the one that had been empty for ages. I pressed my ear to the wall, catching every sound of them making love, and even recorded quite a bit. Still, I never expected something so sinister to happen. The man next door sounded exactly like my dead husband! I moved my phone closer to the wall and listened carefully. Suddenly, a scream exploded through the wall. “Lindy, you’ll die for this!” My scalp went numb. My husband was mute. The only time he ever spoke in his life… was the night I forced his head into a bucket of water. How did the man next door know my husband’s last words before he died?

There are no grown men in our village. When girls turn 18, they participate in a coming-of-age ceremony in the ancestral hall. Dressed in ceremonial clothes, they line up to enter, and when they come out, their faces show a mix of pain and joy. When my eldest sister turned 18, Grandma forbade her from attending. However, one night, she snuck into the hall. When she came out, she was limping, and blood was dripping between her legs.

Walang mga lalaki sa aming nayon. Kapag umabot ng 18 taong gulang ang isang babae, sumasailalim sila sa isang seremonya ng pagdating ng edad sa ancestral hall. Suot ang mga damit pang-seremonya, pumila sila para pumasok, at paglabas nila, ang mga mukha nila ay may halong sakit at saya. Noong ang panganay na kapatid na babae ko ay naging 18, pinagbawalan siya ni Lola na dumalo. Gayunpaman, isang gabi, lumusot siya papunta sa bulwagan. Paglabas niya, hirap siyang maglakad, at may dugo sa pagitan ng mga binti niya.

I gave birth prematurely, just twenty days before the due date. Two hours after I entered the surgery room, I had a stillborn baby. I did not cry at all. I did not even spare a glance at the dead baby. I endured the pain from childbirth and calmly walked into the hospital nursery. After the door was tightly shut, I turned down the temperature of the air-conditioning. The temperature inside the nursery would be too cold for newborns to bear after an hour. The doctors and parents were begging me on their knees to let their babies live. They screamed and cried. They said I was a mother and hoped that I would understand. Instead, I laughed and said, “Yes, I was a mother. But my baby died!” The gynecologist knelt on the floor and begged, “We may be at fault for not being able to save your baby, but these babies are innocent! “Please don’t be reckless just because you lost your baby! You’re so young. You’ll have more babies in the future.” I gritted my teeth and roared, “But my baby isn’t dead! “She’s still alive. I’ll give you one hour. Bring her back to me!” But I was unsure if she would still be alive after an hour.

During the annual awards gala, I stepped out to use the restroom. When I came back, my year-end bonus was gone, canceled for allegedly assaulting a new coworker, Elan Crowe. In my first life, I desperately tried to prove my innocence by showing my fitness tracker’s movement data, proving I had been in the bathroom. Calder Roane, the department head, flew into a rage. "Everyone in the department saw you hit him. And you still want to deny it?" I struggled and explained frantically, but in the chaos, I accidentally fell down the stairs and died on the spot. In my second life, I took medical leave and skipped the gala entirely. I never expected that just past noon, the police would surround my home. "Lyra Vale, you’re suspected of intentional homicide. You need to come with us." Elan’s enraged family had then rushed forward and stabbed me repeatedly. I died again. In my third life, I ran to the city plaza, started a livestream, and rapped on camera, turning every viewer into my alibi. That night, the police still came. "The evidence is conclusive. Please come with us." At the station, they pulled up surveillance footage. It clearly showed me sneaking into the gala hall, arguing with Elan, then picking up a knife and stabbing him straight in the back. I was completely stunned. Three days later, I took a bullet. After endless rebirths, I finally laughed in anger. This time, I stormed straight into the gala hall, pressed a knife across Elan's throat, and said, "This is a kidnapping."

I'm the Alpha's eldest daughter and the rightful heir to the Grimwood Pack, but I'm cursed. Every boyfriend I brought to the Shrine of the Moon for the mate test walked out and did the exact same thing.They don't reject me. They try to kill me. By the time I turned thirty, I'd survived ten murder attempts from ten different men. My own father, Alpha Damian, screams at me every time it happens. He beats me until I'm covered in bruises and claims my blood will atone for my sins to the Moon Goddess. The entire pack says I'm too sinful to deserve a mate. Even my grandmother, the woman who raised me and loved me most, came out of the temple and tried to strangle me. I finally couldn't take it anymore, so I needed to see what was inside that temple. But when the truth appeared in front of me, I broke down.