This Isn't Going To End Well

Cesare Xandri, the rising gangster of the Nalitan mafia, unexpectedly lost a bet at an elite private casino in Ithel, the kind that smells like cigar smoke and blood money. The penalty was simple, he had to call his hard-to-tame pet. The phone was on speaker. The men circled him, whistling and hooting, waiting to be entertained. He asked what I was up to in a relaxed and amused tone. I replied softly, insinuating he was sinful, hiding my defiance behind innocence and fake devotion. When I finished my insult, the room fell silent, then burst into loud and uncontrollable laughter. The call ended. Less than thirty minutes later, the mansion gates were smashed open. He stormed in smelling of gunpowder, a Beretta still in his hand. He pushed me against the wall furiously beneath the Virgin Mary statue. I leaned into him without hesitation, fingers brushing the heated gun, and I met his gaze without fear. I chose virtue and rejected him in my past life, in return I was thrown into the open sea to die. I intended to be his temptation when I got a second chance at life, I wanted to be a beautiful sin that ends his story under the Cecilian sun.

Childfree by choice for five years, Eve Watson’s husband suddenly adopted a pair of twins. He told her to raise the twins as if they were her own. Not only that, but he even planned to leave them his trillion-dollar fortune as heirs. Eve thought her husband had simply changed his mind about staying childfree. Hence, believing he now wanted a family of their own, she went to the hospital, preparing to have her IUD removed so she could get pregnant. However, the doctor’s words shattered her world. As it turns out, she had no uterus. It had been surgically removed five years ago.

Sette’s only choice was to kill her mate. Her whole existence is tangled with a curse. A love she’ll once have. A life she couldn’t hold. The man she couldn’t save. The curse will take the life of her mate, Lane Emerson, the Alpha. To kill him in her own hands means she doesn’t have to suffer his death. To kill him before she’ll love him was Sette’s mission. But what can Sette do when the heart is stronger than the mind? What can she do when she’s slowly slipping to the curse? Will she save him to savor the time they have left or kill him so she could save herself from dying pain? Only one thing Sette knows. It’s either her love will save him. Or kill him. This is the first installment of Dival Sisters.

My wife and I were both liars. She lied to me 99 times. "I'll forget all about him, I swear." That man was her first love. She never did forget about him. I only lied to her one time. To get her to sign the divorce papers. Time came to the final day of the cooling-off period. Three hours before it was up, I packed up all my stuff and bought a flight ticket to another country. Two hours before it was up, I cut up all my photos that had her in it, leaving only myself. One hour before it was up, I placed the divorce papers on the table. When she saw the papers, they drove her mad.

After five years of dating, my girlfriend, Rachel Meyers, cancels our wedding 52 times. The first time, her intern, Ethan Cole, messes up a form at the law firm where she works. She rushes back to fix it, leaving me stranded on the beach for the entire day. The second time, during the wedding ceremony, she hears that Ethan is being bullied by another attorney. She abandons everything to help him, leaving me to become the laughingstock of our guests. After that, no matter when we hold the wedding, Ethan always seems to have some kind of emergency that demands her attention. Eventually, I grow numb and decide to break up with her. But on the day I move out of Westerbay, Rachel loses her mind trying to find me.

At the height of her ballet career, Sienna’s life was brutally shattered when her ex-boyfriend maliciously broke her legs. She fell into despair, and when she climbed to the rooftop to end it all, I was the one who saved her. I gave up a million-dollar salary for her sake. I spent ten years as her golden agent watching her starting from a background actor and becoming a superstar. When she reached the pinnacle of fame, she publicly declared her love for me. Our love story was hailed as the last fairy tale of the entertainment industry. I stood by her through her lows, and she held my hand through the glory. However, on the day I proposed… Her ex-boyfriend stormed in and publicly claimed that Sienna was carrying his child. His face was full of arrogance, and his eyes brimmed with provocation. “Every night, she throws herself at me like an animal. “You think she loves you? Her heart, her mind, it’s all mine.” I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. My mind went blank. I turned to Sienna. She pressed her lips together, remained silent and offered no explanation. At that moment, my heart shattered into pieces.

When I have a pen in my hand and paper before me, I think I want to write something to cast every despair in my pathetic life away. I have a figure of a depressed guy whose fate is too much: saving the world. He is not stupid nor even smart, he is not ugly nor even good looking. He is just a nijikon (A person who loves an anime character more than the real one) like me. He once thought to give up on life, but an event changes his life. I'm sure you guys start guessing how the story goes, but too bad, this one is different than the others.

I'm the second child of the family. Because of that, I'm also the one everyone neglects by nature. The birthdays of my older brother, Joe Thompson, and my younger sister, Lyra Thompson, are jotted down on the calendar by my parents. But they always fail to remember my own birthday. Joe and Lyra often have new clothes to wear, whereas my parents keep forgetting to buy new clothes for me. Heck, Joe and Lyra often receive holiday gifts! Meanwhile, my parents never bother giving me anything during the holidays. In fact, when we're traveling back to our hometown, my parents end up ditching me at a deserted highway rest stop when the temperature is extremely low…

My sister-in-law, Sabrina Linskey, never hides her hatred for me. Yet, on my daughter Elena Satchwell's birthday, she does something I can never imagine. She gives Elena a dress, claiming she had sewn it by hand. She calls it a blessing for Elena's health and safety. I let her ease the dress onto Elena, relief washing over me as I convince myself that Sabrina finally understands the importance of upholding peace in the family. But Elena's skin begins to fester, until even the lightest touch makes her flinch in pain. That's when I realize Elena's fate has been swapped with Sabrina's son's. Mom and Dad, along with my brother, know all about it. Elena, beyond saying, eventually dies. I, too, am killed the moment I uncover the truth. But when I open my eyes again, I return to the day Sabrina arrives with that dress for Elena's birthday.

After going bankrupt, I do the unthinkable for my gravely ill younger brother, Ricky Ashford, and climb into the bed of Damien Blackwood, the notorious mafia boss. When his smoldering gaze sweeps over my shirtless body, I stay perfectly still. The reason is that I'm afraid to set off this infamous man in front of me. However, the next instant, his lips are everywhere on my skin, and the night dissolves into a wild, reckless blur. For three years, I endure every torment in his bed. Thoughts of escape and even suicide cross my mind, but the fact that my brother is fighting for his life in the ICU keeps me going. One day, I accidentally overhear him speaking with his childhood friend, Chloe Sterling. "How long do you plan to toy with your enemy's daughter? You're not falling for her, are you?" "Don't be absurd." "And what about her sickly brother?" "He died long ago." The last thread holding me together snaps. Now, there is no reason left to live. As I prepare to end my life by burning charcoal, tears well up in his eyes as he pleads for me not to leave.