Tony Stark Anxiety Attack

For eight years, I was the ghost in Lorenzo Valenti's empire. By day, I was his executive assistant, the engine of his criminal enterprise. By night, I was the most submissive bird in his gilded cage, and the nameless body in his bed. I loved him with a devotion that bordered on madness, a foolish flame I'd nurtured since I was a scholarship student pulled into his orbit. I believed my quiet love could one day melt the ice around his heart. I was wrong. The day his unforgettable first love, Isabella, returned, the man I knew vanished. The rare smiles once reserved for me were now all for her. My presence by his side was erased, replaced by hers. Even when she framed me, he believed her without hesitation. He chose her, again and again. I submitted my resignation. He signed it without looking. He thought I'd crawl back, broken and begging. He was wrong. While he was busy playing house with his "cuore mio", I was quietly packing away my life, preparing to vanish from his world forever.

While collecting samples in Antarctica, I was caught in a blizzard. When I finally made it back to the vehicle, I found the fuel tank drained and my thermal suit shredded into rags. I screamed for help, but laughter crackled through the communicator. It was the voice of my husband's childhood sweetheart. "No need to rescue her, you guys! Sophie's got the world record for low-temperature endurance! "Today, let's see if she can hike across the ice in a T-shirt, all on livestream!" Then came my husband's doting voice. "Baby, I've already spoken to the manager. If she pulls this off, you'll get your spot in next month's expedition!" That was when I understood. My husband had turned me into a stepping stone for her future. As I shivered violently in the cold, I begged, "Please, Zachary. After all our years of marriage…" Before I could finish, he cut me off coldly. “Save your body heat and keep walking. Luna's future depends on you. "You've got the stamina anyway, so just hold on for another five kilometers!" At that moment, my heart froze solid. If they wanted me dead, then I would make sure they froze at the base instead. With trembling hands, I raised the axe, aiming it directly at the base's heating pipes.

For our seventh anniversary, my mate, Alpha Ethan, sent my daughter and me to the Moon Goddess Altar. He told me it was a surprise—to give our daughter her dream of watching a meteor shower from the highest peak in the territory. But Ethan never came. The protective runes at my feet sputtered, then died. The ground beneath us began to crumble. My daughter screamed, her small body sliding toward the abyss. I lunged, grabbing her hand just before she went over the edge. I screamed his name through our mind-link. Ninety-nine times, he refused to answer. On my hundredth cry, the link didn't just open—it was ripped wide. It wasn’t his voice that answered. It was his senses, flooding mine. I saw it all. Him. Another she-wolf. And him, buried deep inside of her. "I knew you loved me, Ethan," her sickly-sweet voice purred. "You even sacrificed Marcus, just to save our Leo from the soul-sickness. I'll do anything for you." Ethan’s voice was velvet and ice. "Stop. If Sera hadn't betrayed me, you never would have had the chance to carry my heir. Once I get rid of her other pup—Jullian's bastard—we can be perfect again." My world shattered. My son... Rogues. I'd always believed rogues had stolen him. But it was his own father. He sacrificed him for a lie. With my last ounce of strength, I called Julian. "I'm breaking my bond with Ethan," I snarled into the new link. "Make me your Luna. In return, I will help you burn his pack to the ground."

After my pack fell, my father and I joined the Black Moon Pack. Alpha Victor admired my gift for runes and promised to make me his Luna. I was so full of hope, I didn’t even mind that he was using my gift to shield his entire pack. But he kept delaying our marking ceremony, leaving me to endure the pack’s scorn for my fallen bloodline. On the eve of my father’s death, he even temporarily marked Seraphina, the daughter of another Alpha. He claimed it was to secure an alliance. I cried myself dry in the endless wait, only to hold my father as he died in my arms. Victor, however, continued to use my gift, commissioning runes from me only to give them to Seraphina. The final straw was when Seraphina destroyed my rune sanctum and flaunted the very pendant I’d crafted for my own bonding ceremony. That’s when my heart finally shattered. I no longer cared about being his Luna. I simply walked away. But after I left, Victor’s desperate plea echoed from the Moon Goddess altar. “Come back and be my Luna. Please.”

My mate and my brother hated me for twelve years. They believed I stole their precious Sarah's herbal research and bullied her for twelve years into silence. At my marking ceremony, they exposed my "crimes" to the entire supernatural world. "She's nothing but a bully who torments her packmates and a thief who stole the herb formula from Sarah!" But Sarah smiled through her tears: "The formula doesn't matter anymore." "As long as it saved our wolves from silver poisoning, what does it matter who created it?" "I've already forgiven her." She became the pack's angel of mercy. I was condemned by thousands, until the very wolf I'd saved with my medicine poured silver water over my head. In my despair, I dragged Sarah down with me into death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my second year of high school. Sarah was slicing her arm with a silver blade, smiling as she asked: "Have you thought about how you'll apologize to me?" Something in me snapped. My Alpha power surged forth, crushing her to her knees. I grabbed the blade: "Let me show you what real cuts look like."

When I was ten, I accidentally overheard my mother on the phone. It seemed like she was talking about me being a switched-at-birth rich girl, and that my real last name was Gardner. The coldness and cruelty my mother had shown me all these years suddenly made sense. When I turned 11, I paid an adult to get a maternity test done for both my mother and me. The results confirmed that I was indeed her biological daughter. I kept the report to myself and pretended I was still in the dark.

The day my son is born, my husband holds him tightly, looking overjoyed. However, while I'm asleep, he secretly swaps my son with the child next door—his first love's baby. I act like I know nothing and arrange for someone to switch the babies back. My husband wants me to raise someone else's child as my own but has no idea he's not even the father of my son. Ten years later, I transfer all my assets to my son's name as a birthday gift. That's when my husband's first love, Amanda Larkin, crashes the birthday party. She looks at me smugly and says, "The son you've treasured for the past decade is actually mine!"

In order to protect me, Don Salvatore deliberately announces that my fiance, Simone Pozzi, is his long-lost son. Simone shakes with excitement when he sees the man in a bespoke suit stepping out of the Rolls-Royce that is parked outside my house. Just as I'm about to tell him it's all a lie, he shoves me aside. He even brushes his sleeves in disgust, as if he has touched something filthy. Simone says, "Stay away from me. Don't let your poverty rub off on me! Since I'm the Don's son, we'll call off our engagement. An illegitimate bastard like you isn't even fit to wipe my shoes!" When I try to explain, he cuts me off by writing out a check and flinging it hard into my face. The sharp edge of the paper slices across my cheek. "Take this one million dollars as our breakup fee and don't bother me again. We're no longer from the same world," Simone says. I watch the check flutter down into the mud and quietly turn off my phone screen. On the screen is a message Papa—Don Salvatore—has just sent me, "Just bear with it a little longer, Principessa. Papa will bring you home soon to take over the famiglia." Simone is so determined to cut himself off completely. He might have the luck to claim a fortune that big, but not the life to enjoy it.

The night before my mating ceremony with Alpha Garrett Northwood of the Silverpine Pack, he held a grand Luna ceremony for my silver-poisoned stepsister behind my back. He held Serena close under the starlit sky, his smile tender in a way I'd never seen: "You're the only one I truly love, Serena." "Even though Maya and I are already registered as mates with the Alpha Council, she'll never have my heart. You're the only one I recognize as my Luna." The pack members cheered and blessed them as they completed the ceremony with joy. I watched it all without crying or screaming. Instead, I quietly scheduled an abortion appointment. I've loved Garrett Northwood for twelve years, ever since I first shifted as an adult. But his heart still only had room for my stepsister Serena. If that's how it was, I'd let go. Later, I joined the secluded Herbal Research Center of the Alpha Council. I left Garrett nothing but a mate bond dissolution agreement. But for some reason, Garrett—who had always treated me with disdain—suddenly went crazy begging me not to leave.

Everyone in the pack knew that my mate Damien loved me fiercely. After our mating ceremony, Damien gave me three bonding gifts. The first was a protective amulet he'd prayed three days and three nights for at the Moon Goddess shrine. The second was a sculpture he spent months carving with his own hands. The third was a diamond ring — the symbol of the Luna — priceless, and with it came the authority to govern the pack. On my birthday, he went searching for a moonstone and was ambushed by rogue wolves. He fell off a cliff. When he woke, his memory was gone. A bar hostess had rescued him. They fell in love. But the day before their mating ceremony, his memories returned, and he came back to me without hesitation. Just when I thought he'd ended things with her, on the very day I found out I was pregnant, I received a video — an intimate recording of the two of them together. Vivian was already carrying his child, nestled against Damien like a helpless little bird. "You're carrying my child. I won't abandon you. As for Elena — a few sweet words and she'll do whatever I say." I turned off my phone and sent a mind-link to my father. "Dad. The arranged mating you set up for me — I accept."