The Apartment Novels & Stories

"He is my best protector. He is also ... the suspected murderer of my older brother." Arka and Bima's friendship was never normal. On campus, Arka was an ice-cold figure with a sturdy, athletic physique and an overly protective instinct. Behind closed doors—from sharing a single blanket on a mountain to the stuffy atmosphere of the basketball locker room—Arka always demanded absolute dominance, claiming and marking Bima's body as if the guy belonged solely to him. Bima didn't resist. He deliberately surrendered, intentionally trapping himself in the snare of Arka's possessive passion for one secret mission: to gather dark evidence of the fatal accident five years ago to destroy Arka's life. However, playing with fire with a predator like Arka was a fatal mistake. When a rival named Satya tried to get close and the terror of the past began to threaten Bima's life, Arka's pure instincts fully emerged. From a broken elevator to a heated confrontation on a rooftop, Bima realized that his scheme had backfired. Arka didn't just want to protect him—Arka wanted to isolate Bima in his private apartment, lock him away from the outside world, and ensure Bima would never be able to run anywhere. "I don't just want to protect you, Bim. I want to mark you, so everyone knows you belong only to me." As the bloody truth of the past peeled away, was Bima's surrender a tactic of revenge ... or the very beginning of a pure obsession he could no longer control?

The first day we moved into our new place, the girl next door, who lived alone, came over with red-rimmed eyes and begged my son to fix the broken water heater in her room. In my previous life, I felt sorry for her, so young and already without parents, so I sent my son over to help. That night her room caught fire. She stumbled out and sobbed to everyone who'd listen. "Her son tried to rape me, and when he couldn't, he set the fire to burn me alive and silence me!" The day the verdict came down, my son's bright future as a pilot was destroyed in an instant, and he became a murderer the whole internet spat on. In prison, my son couldn't take the torture and the bullying, and he ended his own life by throwing himself against a wall. To pay off the debts, I worked three jobs, until one night a heart attack dropped me dead on the street. She, meanwhile, played the fire survivor and launched a crowdfunding campaign, raised three hundred thousand dollars, and paid cash for an apartment downtown. Now, living this life all over again, the girl stood there with red eyes, her voice small and timid. "Ma'am, I'm scared of electricity. Could your son help me out?" I pulled my son back inside, my face blank. "There's a repair number on the wall. The service call is twenty-five dollars."

According to company policy, anyone who achieves the feat of being the top salesperson for three years in a row will receive a thousand-square-foot apartment as a bonus. To achieve this goal, I work day and night, chasing every order I can find. But once I finally meet the criteria, I'm told that the policy has been abolished. Saul Hurst, my direct superior, brushes me off with a bonus of 500 dollars instead. Smirking at me, he says, "Being good at sales is all well and good, but you still need to improve your understanding of the company's rules and values. "Young people need to stay humble and know their place. Don't keep trying to show off. It isn't good to constantly hog the spotlight." I don't lose my temper. Instead, I manage to stay unusually calm as I took the "massive bonus" I got in exchange for three years of hard work. Two days later, our company headquarters conducts its annual sales evaluation. When one of our clients offers me a sales deal worth eight million dollars, I turn it down on the spot. After all, I believe that part of what it means to be professional is to do as my superior says. Since I'm supposed to stay humble and know my place, I've chosen to keep a low profile and not do anything that puts me under the spotlight. Besides, even if our branch fails to meet the total sales target, I'm not the one who's going to be held accountable for that.

I never wanted a man. I wanted a baby. After years of failed treatments, a cheating fiancé, and a body that kept betraying me, I made a decision. I would do this alone. No man, no heartbreak, no complications. Just me, a clinic, and a dream I refused to let die. Except the clinic made a mistake. One catastrophic, life-altering mistake. The sample I was inseminated with didn't belong to the anonymous donor I selected. It belonged to Dominic Sinclair, billionaire, ruthless businessman, and the most terrifyingly beautiful man I have ever seen in my life. And now I'm carrying his child. He finds out before I've even processed the shock myself. I expect lawyers. Paperwork. A cold corporate transaction. What I don't expect is him standing in my apartment doorway, silver eyes burning with something that looks nothing like indifference telling me that no child of his will be born outside his pack's territory. Pack. That's when I realized Dominic Sinclair isn't just any billionaire. He's a werewolf. Campaigning to be Alpha King of the entire North American packs. And I, a human, broke, still-heartbroken, carrying his heir, have just become the most dangerous variable in his entire political rise. He says he wants to protect me. His wolf says something else entirely. And the way he looks at me, like I'm something he wants to consume slowly, makes me terrified of one thing above all else. That I might let him.

"Okay, if that's what you want. But–" He paused words. Excellent response, unexpected. Liana thought Revan would change his mind to not to force her to do things that she didn't want to. "But what?" "I will not let you go until I get what I want." Revan got closer to Liana, and before she tried to escape — he had locked Liana's movements. He started to tilt his face until Liana felt the breath getting closer. Liana's hand gripped tightly made her unable to rebel, she refused and she shook her head. Her heart was beating fast and a feeling of disgust surrounded her. Without waiting further, Revan put his lips on Liana's and crushed her lips greedily. He looked hopeless and disappointed because Liana did not kiss him back, even didn't open her mouth. With her martial art skill, Liana herself out of Revan's hand. She pushed hard Alex's body. Finally it succesfully made Revan stay away and weak. Revan clenched his fists, angry and more angry. While Liana didn't care anymore, this included as sexual abuse. “REVAN! YOU JERK! WE BREAK UP NOW!" shouted Liana emotionally. “OKAY, IF REALLY WANT TO KNOW MY REASON ... BECAUSE I HAVE SEX PHOBIA!" After saying that, Liana went and opened the door to Revan apartment room and closed the door violently. Leaving Revan who was silent after hearing Liana's words.

My husband, Keaton Smyth, CEO of Orion Corp, ran the company under strict rules. I brought in a $10 million investment. But I clocked in one second late, so bye-bye VP promotion. I got accused of disrespecting company policy, demoted, and slapped with a pay cut. Then there was Evie Larsen, his shiny new assistant. She ditched work on the day of a huge contract signing and trashed Orion's only shot with a public company. Keaton's response? No punishment. No write-up. He called it "personality," promoted her right there, gave her a raise, and tossed her a river-view apartment as company housing. Evie still wanted more. She pushed to take over Orion's core project, all so she could "prove herself." I shut her down. That same day, she marched into Keaton's office and accused me of power-tripping, insulting her, and refusing to train her. I thought Keaton would see through it. The next morning, my name was gone from the project team. My file access was revoked, too. "Since you're too senior to mentor new hires, you're starting over. Entry-level sales rep. Same level as them." Everyone waited for me to snap. I just smiled and handed over the flash drive with the project data. Keaton nodded, pleased. "Don't let it happen again." What he didn't know? That data wasn't complete. The second they uploaded it, the errors would tank the project—and trigger a breach-of-contract penalty big enough to bury them.

"I've been assigned to work out of town for a year, Hunter, but we'll finally be able to buy a house once I return," Queenie Sorenson, my newlywed wife, says. She then moves her paralyzed grandfather, Oscar Sorenson, and her younger brother, Adam Sorenson, straight into our rental apartment after telling me that. She looks at me and says, "I'll have to trouble you to take care of Grandpa and Adam." She leaves in a hurry after that. I have taken care of Oscar's daily needs entirely on my own and handled dropping off and picking up Adam from kindergarten since that day, working around the clock. Queenie goes from frequently sending messages to check in on me to claiming she is too swamped with work to have any free time, rarely even calling. I finally make it through the year, but Queenie sends me a message, saying, "I'm still not done with my work, so I might need to stay for another year." It isn't until Adam's birthday that I find a message from Queenie on his smartwatch. "Joseph and I will pick you up at the usual spot on Friday to celebrate your birthday. You can just tell Hunter that you're sleeping over at a classmate's house Friday night and won't be home. You have to make sure he doesn't catch on." I realize then that Queenie's supposed out-of-town assignment has actually always been within the city.

Sophia was forced to marry a man she never loved just to stop her father from going to jail. The marriage however turned out to be a living hell after she discovered a painful truth that destroyed her. Sophia usually gets home late from work every day with expensive gifts, looking so flashy. She starts getting cold with Shawn, disrespecting him as though he never meant anything to her. He reported Sophia to Joana, her cousin, but she denied her involvement. Sophia kept her secret affair with Mathew away from everyone. Shawn stopped worrying about her mischief and decided to carry out his investigation on her. On her way to work, he trailed her movement and found Sophia heading to a different route. He was confused and kept trialing and behold, her cab alighted in front of a big mansion. Shawn was devastated and knew his girlfriend was cheating on him. He took a photo of her for evidence and returned home, disclosing it to Joana, her cousin. Hard for her to believe, they waited for Sophia to return. As usual, she returned very late. Shawn confronted her and accused her of cheating, but she denied it until he showed her the evidence. She was stunned! She had no idea Shawn trailed her. Frustrated by her act, Shawn beats Sophia to a pulp and throws her out of his house. Now his father's words were starting to get to him. He regretted not listening to his father. Sophia left his apartment in pain and went crying in Matthew's arms.

I was nineteen the first time Cole Whitfield broke me. Not with cruelty. With a single word. Why. Not did you — why. Like the answer was already settled and he just wanted the story to make sense. I told him the truth anyway. He said nothing that mattered. So I picked up my bag, walked out of his apartment, and decided that a man who trusted a rumor over two years of me wasn’t worth a correction. I spent the next two years becoming someone I actually liked. New city. Graduate program. A published paper with my name on it. I was done with Cole Whitfield in every way a person can be done. Then I walked into Seminar Room 114 and he was sitting right there, gray eyes already on the door, like some part of him knew. I sat down. I opened my notebook. I did not look up. Here’s the thing about studying how people form beliefs: you understand exactly why he believed it. That doesn’t mean you forgive it. That doesn’t mean two years of silence disappear because he’s learned how to look at you like he’s sorry. He wants a conversation. I want my degree. But the campus is small, the seminar table is round, and the boy who broke my heart at nineteen is doing everything right at twenty-one — and I’m starting to understand that composed isn’t the same thing as healed. I hate that I still know the exact sound of his voice.

When Ingrid Stewart, the prettiest woman in the factory, got dragged into an abandoned warehouse by a hooligan named Edmund Holloway, I didn't rush after them with a brick in my hand, unlike my past self in the previous life. Instead, I went to the nearest police station right away. In my previous life, I sustained heavy injuries in order to save Ingrid from Edmund. The Stewarts decided to marry her to me so that they could repay my life debt. After our marriage, I treated Ingrid with utmost sincerity, but all I received in return was her resentment. On the night the rundown apartment we lived in was on fire, I rushed into the inferno to push Ingrid and our son out of danger. In return, a beam crashed down on me. When I raised my head, I saw Ingrid dragging our son toward Edmund. Then, she said to me icily, "This is all your fault, you stupid coward! You're the reason why Edmund and I weren't able to get together for so many years!" Edmund guffawed loudly as well. "Right, I forgot to tell you that your son, whom you've loved for 18 years, is actually my child!" In the end, I kept coughing up blood because I inhaled too much smoke. Just like that, I died a gruesome death in the fire. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Ingrid gets harassed by Edmund. In this life, I choose to grant Ingrid and Edmund's wish of staying together.