The Unforgivable Plot Novels & Stories

On our Christmas break road trip, my cousin Felix Lloyd spotted some high-powered speakers at a highway rest stop. He had to have them—said he wanted to "blast it." "It's Christmas. We finally get to see everyone! We need some vibe!" My wife, Lana Ramsey, smiled and helped him pay. "Young people have energy. They know how to enjoy life." I yanked the power cord out. "Those aren't for regular cars. This is an EV. Overload it, and the whole system fries. Then what—just stuck in the middle of nowhere?" Lana's parents, Vincent and Donelia, booed me, calling me a buzzkill. Felix cranked the volume all the way up. Lana glared at me. "Say one more word and get out. I'll drive." Later, the speakers fried the battery system. We were stranded in total darkness on a rough mountain road. They finished the last of the food, then shoved me out to "go find help." I slipped, rolled down the slope, and died. When I opened my eyes, I was back—right when Felix jammed the speaker plug into the charging port. I grabbed a few more subwoofers and handed them over. "One isn't enough. Add more. That's how you really crank it."

Eleanor Hale had four years of marriage, four years of quiet accusations, and finally, a daughter she’d waited a lifetime for. She never got to hold her. What she woke up to instead was a stranger’s face in a stranger’s mirror, a debt that wasn’t hers, and a countdown she couldn’t outrun. To survive, she signs her name to a marriage that’s supposed to mean nothing, a convenient arrangement with a man who wants a wife on paper and nothing more. But paper doesn’t stay paper forever. Not when he wakes her from nightmares with his arms already around her. Not when he remembers exactly how she takes her tea. Not when every quiet morning starts to feel less like a transaction and more like something she isn’t ready to lose. Somewhere across the city, the people who ended her old life are grieving her at a funeral she isn’t allowed to attend as herself. They think she’s gone. They think it’s over. She’s just getting started. A story about the body you’re given, the life you steal back, and the terrifying discovery that starting over might mean falling for the one person who isn’t supposed to matter.

On our third wedding anniversary, Kent gave me a gift. A black metal wristband. Cold. Sleek. He called it a new product from his company—a pain-sharing system. The other user was Violet. His "girl bro." The person he was closer to than his own sister. Kent brushed a hand over my cheek, his gaze soft. "Clara, you're too coddled. You should learn from Violet. She's tough." Then he snapped the wristband onto my wrist. So while Violet got a full-back tattoo and an entire sleeve, I felt every single needle. When Violet went wingsuit flying, I collapsed at home. Every bone in my body felt shattered. I threw up blood. While she soaked up attention online as the "extreme sports queen," I was drowning in nonstop pain. Kent sat beside me, holding my hand as he cared. "Just hang in there. Violet's just being herself. As my wife, you should be more understanding." To finally push me over the edge, Violet decided to livestream herself jumping into the ocean to make me die in her place. Their friends couldn't wait to watch. Later, I watched calmly from a hospital room as the system slowly drained the life out of her. Kent looked deranged as he demanded to know why I wasn't dead. Because I had already reversed the system. All her vitality had become the nourishment that sustained me.

My little sister Willa? Always played the noble princess—even during the freaking apocalypse. She was pregnant and still trying to look like some graceful queen. I told her to end it. Safer that way. She slapped me. "Shut up. How can you be so heartless?" Meanwhile, I skipped meals so she and her rescue-pet gang could eat. When I collapsed from hunger, she snorted. "Drama queen. Think of it as a free weight-loss plan." I dragged her to the base, the safe zone, and nearly died doing it. She snatched the last of my rations. "The baby and I are good. Give the rest away." I died from my injuries—frozen, starving, forgotten. Willa? She got crowned a saint. Even landed the baby daddy—the Deputy Governor—and kicked off her perfect little fairytale. Then I woke up. Back to the moment she asked me to swear I'd protect her and the baby. This time, I laughed in her face. "Die for all I care."

The first thing I do after being reborn is secretly keeping six stunning male models behind my wealthy husband’s back. I seduce them and sleep with them for 999 days to get myself pregnant. I do all this because in my past life, my husband found out that he had asthenozoospermia and married me because I am known for being fertile. He wants to carry on the family line so that he will have a successor to inherit the family fortune. I try everything I can to get pregnant, but nothing works. Conversely, my infertile best friend gives birth to twins and triplets within two years after marrying a 70-year-old man. When my wealthy husband hears that my best friend is blessed with children, he is immediately captivated. They get together behind my back and even arrange for someone to run me over with a car when I find out the truth. After my death, I discover that my best friend has bound herself to the child switch system. Any child I am impregnated with is transferred into her womb. My best friend's infertility is transferred to me in return. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day when my husband married me and brought me home. I smile happily when I think about all the things that took place in my past life. My best friend wants lots of children, doesn't she? If so, I will make her experience the joy of having 18 babies in one pregnancy!

The wheat has yet to ripen when my Grandma, Julia Simmon, appears to me in a dream. "There will be a plague of locusts in the autumn. Sell off the produce and raise fish to ensure the family has income." I, Vanessa West, convince my parents to harvest the wheat for grain and feed before irrigating the fields to raise fish. Then, a severe drought strikes and the fish die, leaving my family drowning in debt. We're at a loss to know what to do. Then, Grandma appears in my dreams again. "There are gold bars buried under the oak tree on the hill at our old home. Selling them will sort out our debts and leave you with money to spare." After telling my father, Alan West, this, he digs up a whole crate of white powder. The police happen to be staking out the area. They have him arrested, thinking that he means to buy the drugs. For the amount he gets caught with, he faces life imprisonment. My mother, Hannah Smith, is unable to bear the sight of this and faints on the spot. Again, Grandma appears to me in a dream and offers guidance. "Dr. Hank Vance at Central Hospital can cure her. If you don't hurry, she'll be in danger!" Desperate to save my mother, I threaten Dr. Vance with my life, and he agrees to operate on her. Then, my boyfriend gets into a car accident and urgently needs treatment. However, he succumbs to his injuries due to my asking for Dr. Vance. In the meantime, Mom doesn't receive treatment in time. As she is dying, Mom weeps, asking me why I ruined the entire family. Then, she passes away on the operating table. My boyfriend's parents think I am responsible for their son's death, and they stab me 18 times. While being rushed to the emergency room, I see Grandma again. However, she is grinning maliciously as she plunges a knife into my heart, mimicking the stabs I got from real life and giving me a ruptured heart. I died without understanding why Grandma's appearances led to my family's end. I open my eyes and find out that I've returned to the day Grandma told me to sell our crops.

At my 20th birthday banquet, I am to sign and receive the ten-billion-dollar inheritance left to me by my mother. My half-sister, Samantha Hatfield, and Howard Daley, her husband, who is also a secretary, eagerly urge me to sign the document. In my previous life, they trick me into signing the very same agreement, and the inheritance somehow becomes theirs. When I try to fight back, no one listens to me. Together, they have me confined to a sanatorium, where I spend the rest of my life drugged, imprisoned, and forgotten. But this time, their scheme is going to fail—I have returned with memories of what happens from the past life. Under their confident, expectant gazes, I pick up the pen. However, I do not pick it up to sign. I raise my hand and slash the pen's tip across Howard's face. As he lets out a terrified scream, I tear the agreement into pieces in front of all the guests and hurl the paper scraps at them. I say coldly, "My mother left all this to me. What makes you two heartless parasites think you're worthy of laying even one finger on it?"

The intern secretly submitted a voluntary pay-cut application on my behalf. As a result, my salary dropped from $10,000 to $2,000. When I found out and confronted him, my boss and colleagues all defended him. "The company is not doing great right now. Oscar was just trying to save costs for us. Do you have to nickel-and-dime over this?" With my salary so low, I couldn't afford the special medication for my chronic migraines, and one day I passed out at my desk during an attack. But the intern snuck a video of me unconscious and posted it on the company's website. He even whipped up a detailed 100-page slideshow breaking down how I was slacking off on the clock and dumping all my work on him. Overnight, I was labeled a workplace bully. My boss gave me the cold shoulder, and my colleagues whispered about me. Even worse, some extreme "anti-workplace-bullying" activists tracked me down to my home, showed up with two cans of gasoline, and burned me and my parents alive. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on that very day when the intern had submitted my pay-cut form. In this second chance at life, I would make sure everyone saw the intern for who he truly was.

When I'm three months pregnant, I fall down the stairs at home and end up losing my unborn baby. Since then, I'm immersed in the sorrow of losing my baby. On top of that, I hate myself for being careless during my pregnancy. But my husband, Domenico Ferrante, doesn't blame me at all. Instead, he keeps staying by my side and taking good care of me. "Honey, we'll still have another baby in the future. Don't be sad, okay?" I thought I married my true love. But on the day I get discharged, I overhear a conversation between Domenico and his Underboss, Rocco Carini. "Have you cleaned up the oil spill at the stairway? Nadia is about to get discharged. Don't let her discover the truth." After Rocco makes all arrangements, he hesitates for a moment before telling Domenico, "Don Ferrante, if the Donna ever finds out that you're the one behind her miscarriage, she will never forgive you." Domenico falls silent for a moment. Then, he replies casually, "I will never let Nadia find out the truth. Valentina has finally gotten pregnant after so long—I won't let anyone threaten her child's inheritance right. This is the vow I've made to Valentina in the past. "As for Nadia, she will always be my wife even if she doesn't have a child." It turns out that this isn't an accident. My own husband actually makes me miscarry our child just for the sake of another woman. Heartbroken, I call my older brother, Alessio Nucci. "Alessio, Domenico has killed my child. I want to divorce him and leave him forever." After a moment of silence, Alessio says in a cold, harsh tone, "Fake your death, then. Only after you've completely vanished from this world can Domenico forever live in the pain of not being able to find you ever again."

The real heiress, Alicia Grant, gets reunited with the Grant family and is scheduled to marry Cory Dawson, who's supposed to be my fiance. On the very same day, I, the vile fake heiress, get kicked out of my home. When I'm about to take my own life out of despair, I go through an awakening all of a sudden. It turns out that I'm just a vicious supporting character in a sappy romance novel whose tragic fate is already penned by the author. After I die, Alicia decides to adopt my daughter out of "kindness", only to let her get bullied from a young age. In the end, my poor daughter dies tragically in an alley. I throw the knife away immediately. With stumbling steps, I whisk my daughter into my arms and quickly immigrate elsewhere. As a supporting character, my life is already filled with misfortune. I mustn't let my daughter go down the same path as well. Initially, I thought I wouldn't see the Grants anymore. Unexpectedly, when I step into Carmont five years later, I end up bumping into them again.