Thirty Sixth

He chose his mistress on our anniversary. He didn't know I was already planning my funeral. For three years, I was the perfect wife. I swallowed the insults from his family. I bore the guilt of our daughter’s death. Everyone blamed me. Yet, I loved Mateo Santiago with everything I had. Until the day I found out the truth. On the same day I discovered I was pregnant again, I learned my husband was expecting a child with another woman: my own step-aunt, Valentina. And worse? I finally discovered that he was the one responsible for our first daughter's death, not me. I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I simply texted him: "Your birthday is in a month. I’ll prepare a gift you’ll never forget." Thirty days later, Mateo Santiago watched my car burn at the bottom of a cliff. He buried an empty casket and cried for a wife he thought he loved. But Isabella Romano didn't die that day. She just disappeared. I was not alone anymore. I had another life growing inside me but then I stumbled upon a stranger. A stranger shadows feared. Dante Galante.

In my previous life, after I got divorced, the court awarded me custody of our newborn son, as he was still nursing. On the other hand, our daughter would live with my ex-husband. I raised my son to be humble and polite. He was admitted to MIT. On the day the results were announced, various media outlets rushed to interview me to ask about my parenting secrets. Meanwhile, my daughter dropped out of school and eloped with a hooligan. She got pregnant before she was even sixteen, becoming a negative example of teenage delinquency. At thirty, she was still sponging off her father, having achieved nothing in life. My ex-husband's dream of having a successful daughter was shattered, much to his shame. He came to confront me at my son's college acceptance party. He insisted that I had passed on bad genes to our daughter, which caused her failure. During the argument, he stabbed me in the chest and then jumped to his death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the courtroom on the day of the child custody ruling. This time, my ex-husband spoke before I could, asking the judge to grant him custody of our son. I immediately realized he too had been reborn.

Alicia’s wedding once made headlines across all of New Yorke. The man who put the ring on her finger was Matteo Vitale, the youngest Don of the Vitale family. She was not a socialite heiress. She was a lawyer who had won countless cases for powerful families. She was also five years older than her husband. When Matteo was thirty and at the peak of his career, Alicia was already thirty-five. Back then, Matteo told her that age would never be a problem between them. As long as she wanted him, he would never let her go for the rest of his life. But in the fifth year of their marriage, a young woman burst into her office and dropped a divorce agreement on her desk. “I heard you’re the best divorce lawyer on New Yorke’s East Side. There isn’t a divorce case you can’t win, right? “I want to hire you to help my boyfriend get a divorce from his wife. “My boyfriend says his wife is thirty-five now. She smells old. Every time he touches her, he feels sick.” She opened the divorce agreement with practiced ease. She looked first at the names, as she always did. [Husband: Matteo Vitale [Wife: Alicia Leon] Her fingers paused for a brief moment. She was Alicia Leon!

“I-I’m near, Zamir. Something is about to… come.” Claudia pierced a soft moan ahead of time. The man’s lips twitched into a curve. “For the next thirty days, I won’t let my maids clean the bathroom.” Claudia’s softest voice warmth Zamir’s heart. “Why?” “Your fingerprints are all over the place. I want to keep all your traces because thinking about you is making me feel aroused real good, Claudia.” *** Claudia Woods was a third year pre-med student. She wanted to be a Doctor due to her grandmother who was sick yet she has no control on the situations and casualties entering their lives. Unfortunately, her grandmother was diagnosed with a terminal disease and Claudia was forced to stop studying and just focused on working. Not until an unfortunate event occured, her grandmother died and the loan sharks were running after her. Yet destiny was a playful one. Claudia met the handsome Greek God-looking Zamir Trian Cassano, a person who will be a huge instrument that will change her life entirely. She thought that Zamir was just a normal person who had a lot of securities in his mansion yet as time goes by, Claudia soon found out the vicious man’s identity, leaving her a lot of doubts, horrific experiences along with his dark past and scars buried six-feet below the ground.

I put my t-shirt down, my hands shaking. I try to ignore them and stare at my reflection in the mirror. My hair color is dark brown and a vague hint of golden. My dad used to say that my eyes are ocean blue. A guy in my history cl once said that I had perfect s. Another guy said that I had a great body. They wanted to date me. And I dated few of them. I brush my fingers in my forehead. Then my dark, thick eyelashes. The side of my nose. My s. I run my hand at my neck, then across my collarbone. Am I beautiful? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I'm not. "You were wrong, Angelina Valentine." A voice inside my head suddenly whispers. "Calm down, Angel," another voice whispers. It's the voice I loved. His voice is fading away. My hands start shake again, my breath rapidly quickening. I am losing control. I have to do something. "Goddammit!" I punch the mirror with my fist. It shatters into thousand pieces. My reflection has shattered into thousand pieces, too. The mirror now looks to me like an art. And my bloody knuckles. "I am sorry, Edwin. I can't promise you anymore, because you left me." I bite my to stop myself from crying. I won't cry. What's the point of crying? My sixth sense is suddenly alert. Somebody is watching me. I spin around. A guy is standing in front of the door, leaning against it. He wears a tight blue shirt, the sleeves folded. His black hair is ruffled and his hands are folded across his chest. The probable most amazing thing about him is his eyes. They are dark green. They are dangerous, beautiful and incredibly unreadable. And they are watching me.

Leah, Logan’s adopted sister, threw a tantrum at our first engagement party, an episode of her pup dependency anxiety. But after that night, I gave him an ultimatum: if he couldn’t bond me before I turned thirty, he’d have to choose—me or Leah. Logan believed I’d never walk away. After all, I was bonded by my dying mother’s last wish: to be bonded with the werewolf warrior who’d loved me for ten years. Ten years together. Twelve promises that he’d keep Leah in line. And then came my twenty-ninth birthday—our thirteenth engagement party. Leah locked me in a restroom, stole my gown, and stood beside Logan in my place. She was smiling, glowing, claiming everything that was mine. When I finally stepped out, my gown was tattered. I confronted Logan, but he only said, “Alison, forgive her. I promise, this is the last time.” I looked at the torn gown my mother had sewn through sickness and pain… and I laughed. Logan sighed in relief, thinking I’d let it slide again. But I didn’t. I turned and walked away without a word. After a decade together, he thought I belonged to him. Well, he was wrong. He didn’t know that there was someone else who could give me happiness and fulfill my mother’s wish.

I had gained thirty pounds after I was pregnant for six months. My husband, Jordan Smith felt disgusted by me. He would rather stay at work than come home, and he fell in love with his girl best friend, Holly Brown. On our wedding anniversary, they were acting intimately in a private room. Meanwhile, Holly was wearing my wedding gown. I saw the whole thing with my own eyes. She had her arms around Jordan’s neck and said to me coyly, “It’s not what you think.” Jordan was agitated after he was caught cheating on me. “I’ve known her since we were kids. We have been best friends for so many years. If something were to happen between us, it would have happened a long time ago.” However, I saw the hickey on Holly’s shoulder. She said to Jordan, “Your wife looks obese. My cousin didn’t gain a single pound after she had given birth. Instead, she looked even slimmer. Jordan, did your wife secretly eat pig feed?” Jordan felt embarrassed. He instructed someone to lock me in a bedroom and starve me for a few days. I suffered from a miscarriage. Indeed, I lost the weight on my abdomen, but Jordan went insane.

He scammed me out of my fortune. Now, I’m going to scan the marrow from his bones. Ethan Walker was the Golden Boy of Neo-Veridia. A billionaire tycoon with a shark’s smile and a god complex. Until Caleb Morgan—his rival, his shadow, the only man who ever saw beneath his tailored armor—liquidated his empire in a single, cold-blooded night. Ethan fell from the penthouse to the fighting pits, stripped of his name but fueled by a new, terrifying hunger. Because the bankruptcy wasn't a failure. It was a trigger. Deep in Ethan’s DNA, a 1998 secret is waking up. A silver-furred beast that doesn't want a board seat—it wants a mate. And it has its sights set on the man who ruined him. Caleb Morgan played the ultimate game. He didn't steal Ethan’s billions for the money; he did it to save Ethan’s life from the "Hunters" closing in. But Caleb’s mask is slipping. As the Universal Beta, he is the only one who can anchor Ethan’s rising Alpha fury. But anchors can be dragged under. From the glass halls of the city to the ancient shadows of the Moon, their rivalry is no longer about stocks and bonds. It’s about Skin. Silver. and Submission. In a world where thirty percent of humanity is shifting, Ethan is no longer looking for a merger. He’s looking for a total hostile takeover of the one man he’s forbidden to love. The Ledger is open. The Moon is rising. And the Audit is going to be bloody.

BOOK SIX (MATE SERIES) Previous books mentioned inside: He was silent; a brooding stranger basking in the darkness as if it were an old friend. The logical part of me wanted to run away screaming and some other part of me that I never knew existed wanted to learn more about him. He looked deadly but his touch was a gentle caress. He looked rude but he was the most easy-going guy I had ever met. We clicked the moment our eyes met and that was when my world turned from all things logic and science related to something mythical and supernatural. I thought it was magic but he laughed, the only sound I'd ever hear leave his perfect lips, and called it a mate bond. ____________________ Dea Kelly is as human as it gets. She doesn't believe in the divine and she most certainly doesn't believe in the supernatural. What she does believe in is science because everything must have a logical explanation. At the age of thirty, she had her entire future planned out. Marry Jason Yates, a fellow scientist who believed in everything she did. Have children ASAP. And live till a hundred (at least she would try to.) But then something happens that she suddenly can't explain. A handsome yet silent stranger that bumped into her while walking on the side walk and the moment their eyes connected, electricity passed between them. It was in that very moment that Dea's life turned inside out.

Right after finishing a meeting, I opened a forum and saw a warning post. The location tag was our company. The title read: “Red flag! What a cheap company. Anyone who joins is a total sucker. They can’t even afford a decent coffee break.” The photo attached showed the expensive coffee and five-star desserts I had just asked my assistant to distribute to everyone. I frowned and tagged the entire group chat, asking if anyone had suggestions about the afternoon tea. A Gen-Z intern who had just joined, Julian Hayes, instantly replied with a voice message: “Boss, no offense, but these assembly-line desserts are full of trans fats. Nobody would eat them.” “A truly humane company hires a Michelin chef to cook and slice everything fresh on site. That’s what real respect for employees looks like.” I laughed in disbelief. Our company’s daily coffee break budget was thirty dollars per person—already considered top-tier in the industry. So I replied, “Since it’s impossible to satisfy everyone’s taste, we’ll cancel afternoon tea from now on and convert the budget into cash for everyone instead.” Less than five minutes later, that post was updated: “Guys, can you believe this? I made a perfectly reasonable suggestion and the lame boss immediately canceled the whole coffee break perk! This is the true face of corporate greed—can’t handle even a little bit of honesty!”