The Unseen Daughter Novels & Stories

THE UNSEEN HUSBAND Sebastian found the journal by accident. It was three days after the confrontation with Helena, and he'd been looking for a book to read to the children before bed. Alessia had mentioned keeping some books in the chest by the window, so he'd opened it without thinking. Inside, beneath a few worn volumes, was a leather-bound journal. He almost closed the chest immediately—it was clearly private, clearly Alessia's—but the page it was open to caught his eye. Not because of nosiness, but because of the handwriting. The same careful script from the letters Helena had intercepted, but this time formed into poetry.

“That’s the storage room. Why would you pick that? Choose another.” “I’m used to small rooms. They make me feel safer.” My tone carried a hint of self-mockery. After a sigh, they agreed. Just like that, they agreed to let their biological daughter, who had been missing for ten years, live in the storage room. Leila, their fake daughter, returned right on cue. She ran upstairs and looked visibly surprised when she saw me in the storage room. I glanced at her, calm and composed. She thought I didn’t know her little schemes—that she had deliberately placed a panda plush in her room to lure me into choosing it.

Mom's face went pale. She gripped the mic, her voice shaking. "Wh-What... what is this? Is this donor cadaver really my daughter, Charlotte?" She stared at Elayne, frozen in disbelief. Elayne took a shaky breath. "Yes. The cadaver in front of you... it's Charlotte." The mic slipped from Mom's hand, slamming to the floor with a sharp, earsplitting crack. People in the audience flinched, hands flying to their ears.

The pack knew my mother, Wynne Carter, a renowned pack healer, as the very definition of fairness. To avoid any accusation of favoritism, she once had me removed from the emergency ward while I was suffering from a severe allergic reaction, all because she couldn’t let her own daughter take medical resources away from other pack members. Even when I invited her to the academy’s open day, she turned me down because my instructor was pregnant. She reprimanded me sternly, “Get those funny ideas out of your head. My position is not a way for you to get special treatment from your instructors.” I had always believed my mother was merely strict. Then, the fire happened. My adopted sister,

When I was three, a fortune-teller ran his hand over my skull and said, "This girl was born unlucky. Money will never stay with her. "Give her no more than $6.60 a year. One cent more, and she'll pay for it with her life." So every birthday, my card held the same thing: a crumpled five-dollar bill, a one-dollar coin, and sixty cents in change. My adopted younger sister, Sophie, was different. Her birthday cash could cover an entire bed. I cried and threw tantrums. I even snatched one of Sophie's envelopes, the one with $660,000 in it. That same night, I broke out in hives from head to toe, went into respiratory failure, and ended up in the ICU. It took three days to save me. When I wok

When the wildfire reached our family’s vacation home, I dragged my younger sister, Chloe, out through the back door. By the time we circled around to the front, our parents were begging the firefighters to go inside. “We only have time to search one bedroom before the wind shifts,” a firefighter warned. “Which one?” “The upstairs bedroom!” Mom cried without hesitation. “Please save our younger daughter!” Dad gripped her shoulders. “She has asthma. She won’t survive the smoke.” Neither of them mentioned which room I had been sleeping in. My sister rushed past me. “Mom! Dad! I’m here!” Mom pulled her into her arms, sobbing, while Dad checked her for injuries and called for a paramedic. I stood

I was Vina, a ghost that shouldn’t exist. I adjusted the lace of my corset, my hands trembling slightly. Just like every other Friday and Saturday, the ritual continues. My father, Levi, Alpha of the Shadow Fang pack would drop me off two blocks away, his eyes never meeting mine. “Don’t come back until the envelope is full, Davina. You don’t want our family crumbling now, do you? Your brother needs all the help he can get to carry on my legacy.” He never looked at me when I was dressed like this. He was in denial. Perhaps if he didn’t look, he wouldn’t have to admit he was selling his daughter to keep his failures hidden.

Of what it meant to be seen. "It must have been lonely," I said softly. "Being invisible. Being unseen. Walking through rooms full of people who look right through you." "It was." "I know what that feels like." He looked at me sharply. I met his eyes. "I was invisible too," I said. "Not physically. Not like you. But in every other way. My father ignored me. My brother chose Bella over me. My boyfriend betrayed me with her. The servants in my own pack house looked through me like I was not there. I was the Alpha's daughter, but I was nobody. I know what it is like to be unseen, Hector. I know what it is like to wonder if you even exist."

Brian stood there, phone in hand, all traces of personal horror gone from his face. Security Brian had returned. Luca turned immediately. “What is it?” Brian looked at me first. I hated when he did that. “We found someone connected to Don.” Luca’s posture changed. “Who?” Brian stepped inside and closed the door. “His daughter.” The word moved through the room like a match struck in darkness. I frowned. “Don had a daughter?” Brian nodded. “Surviving daughter,” he said. “Hidden under her mother’s name for years.” Luca’s face went unreadable.

After our parents ended their marriage, my sister and I became the children they passed back and forth between two packs. Every August, the leaders of the two packs sat down to decide where we would live for the coming year. Both our names were on the agreement, but there was only one daughter they ever fought to keep: my younger sister, Lena. Mom wanted to take her to the coast for the winter. Dad had already promised to spend the next full-moon celebration with her. In the end, they agreed to go together so Lena wouldn’t have to choose. When it was my turn, Mom suggested a school dorm. Dad reminded her that I wasn’t his responsibility that year. Neither of them asked where I wanted to go.