Somehow Synonym

*Excerpt* My gaze met Sergio's. He didn't look away. I couldn't look away either. It felt like there was an invisible magnet pulling us towards each other. He looked away, breaking us from the trance. "Are you sure you're okay, Nicole?" "Come inside." He shook his head. "I was worried, and—" "Come inside, let's talk." He shook his head again, unyieldingly. "We're already talking." "Are you scared?" I asked in a challenging voice, my gazed fixed on him. "What are you so scared of?" "Nicole..." "To answer your question, no, Sergio, I'm not okay." "What's bothering you?" The vulnerability in his eyes towards me was palpable. It was my chance to act. I couldn't afford to waste it. "You," I replied, my gaze still boring into his. "And your fiancee. I couldn't bear watching you together." Sergio swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I was jealous, Sergio." • *Blurb* In a turn of events, Juliana bears witness to the brutal murder of her father—a sight she never thought she'd witness. Amidst the turmoil, she finds out she's their next target, but somehow, she manages to evade them. Determined to seek closure and justice for what happened to her father, Juliana takes on a new identity as Nicole and embarks on a quest for vengeance against the masterminds. With a heart hardened by grief, she takes on the journey. A journey that would test her limits and push her to do unthinkable things. Will she succeed? Follow her on this journey as she confronts the demon of her past.

“We need help,” The man supporting the other up said roughly, voice strained like he’d been screaming. “Are you a doctor?.” He hefted the slumped man up and said, “He’s been shot.” “Y-yes,” Gianna managed to choke out, but she had to lean on a nearby wall as she saw the gun. And it was aimed at her. The third man, snapped out, “You save him. Now.” “The clinic isn’t--” “Now!” The man thundered, gesturing down to the gun. “Or I’m not going to be heartbroken about emptying a bullet into you.” *** *** Their worlds were never meant to collide. He was the boss of the Mariposa Mafia after all, he was ruthless, insane, cunning, the shadow king of the underground… he had no time for love. But somehow that all changes the first time Dante laid his eyes on the beautiful doctor coerced with a gun to her head to save their boss’s life. For Gianna, the rules for being a doctor in gang territory were simple: keep her clinic open at all costs, treat her patients with care, watch out for her rebellious little brother, Giovanni, and most of all, avoid the thugs. The last thing she expected was to get caught up in a gang war, or to find herself falling for Mariposa’s leader himself, Ferrari Dante. And in a world where rules are everything, sometimes breaking them can mean the end of everything, like helping Dante. That is, if her heart doesn't kill her first. Dante never fathomed he would... care, so much about her, about anyone. Or maybe it’s deeper than just caring as Gianni shows him a whole new perspective to the world. .

What is obsession? Am I obsessed? At first, I was just his substitute, then I became his real bride, then the supposed real bride returned, and I was kidnapped, tortured, and forced to divorce. Then I committed suicide because I couldn’t handle it, but I didn’t fucking die. Then I became a stalker of my ex-husband, who barely remembers me because I was declared dead by the world, and my face got melted down when acid was poured on me. I had a surgery that changed my whole face and my entire identity. Then I started working for him again and he fell in love with the new me, yet still traumatized by the old me, so I had to reveal to him that I was the same person. He was happy and relieved, but the world wasn’t. We were chewed on, spat out, and stepped on. Then he was fired from his company by his grandmother, who adopted a new son to take over the company. Then I was kidnapped again, and bombs were planted on me. We were able to defuse the bomb and escape. Then we were shot in the head by God knows who. His surgery was successful, but mine wasn’t, so I forgot everything about him and was forbidden to remember because a damn bullet is stuck in my head that could kill me if it moves to a sensitive part of my brain. Then suddenly, he was on the TV, framed for murder. I couldn’t hold back, I found myself in prison fighting for him with a gun in my hand, and somehow ended up in a coma, because the damn bullet in my head shifted… to the wrong direction. Then, in between this chaos, the doctor announced I-was-pregnant.

Cinzia, brutalized and sold off after the death of her parents, found herself at the mercy of the ferocious Hybrid King. She lost all sense of reasoning while with him, and even her main goal, which was to avenge the death of her parents. He was known as the Hybrid King, a man of mixed blood, shrouded in mystery. But no one truly knew who he was. Cinzia, in his eyes, was the solution to a problem he had suffered for many years – a possession he acquired on impulse. Despite his treatment of her, her presence in his life was somehow redeeming. Could she succeed in penetrating his frozen heart and curing him of the curse before it was too late? Would she succeed in bringing justice to her dead parents when she found the killer, or would she cower forever in the presence of the Hybrid King, who now more than ever treated her as nothing? ______ "I, Cinzia Aetos, daughter of the slain Alpha and Luna of the Royal wolf tribe, reject all your possible advances, whatever you have in mind..." His anthracite eyes swirled into a dangerous golden color, and his grip on my wrists tightened. "W-what are you doing?" I sputtered. "Let go of me this instant!" "I, Raphael Grace, The Hybrid King, accept you, Cinzia Aetos, as the mate sent by the goddess Selene. I promise to do as I desire with you. I swear on the river Styx and by my father, Zeus, the god of the sky!" The heavens thundered, and I saw a lightning flash in his eyes briefly before he pushed me away from him. What had just happened? He swore and accepted me as his mate?!

"I need you to smile, darling," Adrian whispers, his fingers digging into Isabella's waist as cameras flash. "Your father's business empire depends on it." The champagne in her glass trembles as Isabella forces herself to play the perfect mafia bride. She hasn't told him about the baby yet. Hasn't mentioned the way his eyes linger on the judge's daughter, Elena. Hasn't revealed that she knows about the poison they've planned for her "tragic accident." But Isabella Romano isn't going down without a fight. "Please," she whispers to Santa Muerte as poison burns through her veins. "Give me a chance to make them pay." Death has a price. Isabella awakens in the body of Valentina Salvatore—wife to Adrian's greatest rival and mother to twin girls who somehow see through her deception. She has 150 days to either claim vengeance or find true love. The clock is ticking, and Nicolas Salvatore, her new "husband," is proving dangerously easy to fall for. "You're not really her, are you?" Nicolas murmurs one night, his fingers tracing her jaw. "My Valentina never looked at me the way you do." But as Isabella navigates the deadly waters of rival crime families, she discovers Valentina had secrets of her own—secrets worth dying for. Now, with her father plotting a takeover, Adrian suspicious of her resurrection, and her borrowed body slowly rejecting her soul, Isabella must choose: the revenge she died for, or the love she never expected to find. In this dangerous game of second chances, some fates are worse than death. And some loves are worth dying for twice.

It's hard to tell who has your back, from who has it long enough just to stab you in it.... "Why are you making it so difficult?" I screeched on top of my lungs. God, why does he have to make everything so difficult? "I'm your boss and you're responsible to follow my orders. You have no authority to defy me." He snarled, his hands balled into fists. "Are you even listening to your baseless blabbering?" "Shut the up!" He roared with pure antagonism and fisted his hand on the glass painting that hung by the wall. I gasped at the sight of glasses shattered into tiny pieces, droplets of blood oozing down his knuckles. His jaw was clenched as he shot daggers to my eyes, not because of the pain that was inflicted from the quick punch, but the remembrance of my betrayal. ~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~ Mystery. Romance. Deception. It's a famous saying that, hate is a strong emotion- so is love. You can only hate someone you place in high esteem since you care about what they think. Just when Evelyn Williams thought she could bring some light into her miserable life, destiny played its cruel game again, bringing her back to the place where she started. Five years later, she is forced to work with one and only Xavier Blake Knight, the one who remembers how Evelyn Williams has broken his heart. After what she did to him, would she be able to look into his eyes? Unbearable secrets will be revealed with a mixture of irresistible desires. Desires that Evelyn fears would only deepen her wounds, but somehow heal Xavier's.

Gianna Benton, a woman who came from a great family, a family with ancient history, had always lived a life that's overshadowed by her younger sister, Quinn. After her unfair death with her unborn baby at the hands of the man she loved, Gianna got reborn. Now with the opportunity to live again, Gianna rejects her mate and gives herself to alpha Axel, falling into an unexpected contract marriage. Both plans to use each other, and falling in love isn't part of the deal for them. Gianna plans to get her revenge on her former lover, alpha Nathan, who killed her in the past because of her younger sister, but surprisingly to her, alpha Nathan wants his mate back, and Gianna is determined not to let the past repeat itself. —------------------------------------------------ "Is this hell?" "Gianna, what's wrong with you? I know that you are excited, but you need to stop acting weird." Mom said. I reach out my hands to touch her face, but she slaps my hands away. This is real, I thought. Somehow, I have gone back in time to the day I got married to Alpha Nathan. "I need to take a picture of you, but I can't do it without your sister. Wait here for me while I go get your sister." Mom left the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. My hands formed a fist in anger as I thought of Quinn and Alpha Nathan. I don't know how I have traveled back to the past, but I'm not going to let myself make the same mistake I did in my past life; I'm not getting married to alpha Nathan. No matter what, I need to put a stop to this wedding.

"You know, you always look so much better when I mark you up." He husked out as he palmed my burning cheeks. I buried my face in the soft, silky sheets some more, muffling the stuttered whimper that bubbled past my throat. "If you're going to act like a desperate little brat, I'm going to treat you like one. Got It?” ——— When eighteen year old Mia’s identical twin gets betrothed to an underboss, Mia was silently grateful for being the least favorite twin who was never noticed. Her relief was abruptly shortened when her twin disappeared on her wedding day, which resulted in Mia being forced to take her twin’s spot and marry a man way older than her father. Mia thought her life could never get any worse, but was proved wrong on her wedding night, when her newly wedded husband was killed and she was being kidnapped by a Mafia Lord hellbent on getting revenge on her father through her, showing her just how cruel and heartless, power starved and rage-blinded men could be. And yet, Mia found herself falling. Falling ridiculously fast, for the most dangerous mafia lord to ever walk the earth. Lorenzo Domenico, the one who never dies. All Lorenzo wanted was to get revenge, he was supposed to put a bullet through the petite girl’s pretty face and send her body back to her father as a present. But somehow, here he was– willing to go to any lengths to protect, keep her safe, and all to himself.

Ruby Sinclair has spent eleven years as a servant in the Gallagher pack, hiding her true identity as the last survivor of a slaughtered Alpha bloodline. Orphaned at seven when rogues destroyed her pack, she's endured relentless torment from the Gallagher quintuplets—five Alpha heirs who've made her life a living hell. To survive, Ruby has suppressed both her wolf and her deadly secret: she's a seer, the very ability that painted a target on her family. On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Ruby's carefully controlled world shatters. Her first shift triggers early, and all five brothers simultaneously recognise her as their fated mate. But years of abuse have left deep scars, and Ruby wants nothing more than to escape the men who tormented her—mate bonds be damned. When Dr Reeves, the pack's trusted physician, attempts to drug and deliver her to the rogues who murdered her parents, Ruby's dormant powers explode. She kills him with a thought and teleports away, terrified of what she's becoming. As the quintuplets discover recordings proving they were systematically drugged for eleven years to hate their own mate, they must somehow earn back the trust of a woman who has every reason to reject them all. But a carved symbol on a dead rogue reveals the true threat: the Shadow Alpha, an ancient corrupted Guardian who has hunted Ruby's kind for millennia. A mystical wolf spirit reveals Ruby's destiny: she's a cosmic Guardian, and her five mates are meant to be her anchors. Now Ruby must decide whether to trust the men who destroyed her, or face an unstoppable evil alone.

“I’m s-sorry,” Katiya moaned, her body vibrating due to the intensity of the vibrator he was using on her. “You seem to like being punished, Katiya,” he groaned, using his cock to tease her red, moist and slippery pussy, not removing the vibrator from her clit. “Alex please,” Katiya's begs came as a satisfying moan to his ears, as she struggled against the rod she was cuffed to. “Tell me, love. You want my cock?” “Hmm,” she whimpered, silently praying for him to put it in already. “As you wish, baby girl,” he groaned, thrusting his full length and girth in, very very slowly, making her realize this was not for her pleasure but her punishment for not carrying out his orders. “Such a beautiful, sexy, tight, sweet, wet, disobedient little girl…” ******** Katiya's life is turned upside down when her father falls into a coma, and her wicked step-family throws her and her father away. Desperate to save her father's life and somehow live a better life, she enters into a contractual friends-with-benefits relationship with the guy who deflowered and gave her, her first orgasm, Alexander Brown. However, things take a turn when she breaks his first most important rule. Alexander believes she did it on purpose and ends everything with her hereby chasing her away from his side and country. That's not all, when he decides to take her back, things get worse when he realizes she's connected to an event in his past, an event that haunts him to date. Will she be able to live happily with her lover or will the past push them further away?