Tragic Synonym

When Steven Baxter, the heartthrob of the school, admits that he loves action movies the most, my childhood friend, Lisa Thornton, has my limbs strapped to four huge drones. During the flag-raising ceremony on Monday morning, the drones lift me high up in the air in front of the entire school. The students' laughter is deafeningly loud. The videos they take quickly go viral, too. I only get to return to the surface once the drones finally run out of power and make their descent automatically. With a wide grin on her face, Lisa unties me from the drones. "Steven loves action movies, so we had you cosplay the main character from the most popular Tom Cruise movie. "We grew up together since we were kids, Dominic. Surely you don't mind, right?" As I sit on the ground, Steven pulls Lisa into his arms before he starts guffawing at me. Tears soon streak down his face from all the laughing. "I can't believe you actually peed yourself!" "Ahahahaha!" I get up to my feet and walk away. From then on, I don't return to Lisa's side. But Lisa soon loses her mind. "We've known each other for ten years! Must you really do this to me?"

The rules of the Lawson family prevented their heir from marrying women who were from an ordinary background. But the eldest son of the Lawson family, James Lawson, just had to fall in love with a woman named Laura Jackson, who was a fish seller. He gave up his right of inheritance just to be with her. He was punished by his family by being whipped 99 times. He was also forced to kneel for three whole days. His shirt was covered in blood, but he still said to Laura with a smile, "It's alright, Laura. I just want to be with you." In the end, the Lawson family finally allowed James and Laura to be together, but on one condition: James had to leave the Lawson family an heir. After that, what James said to Laura the most was, "Just give me a little more time." The first time he said that was when he wanted Laura to wait for him to get another woman pregnant.

To save his childhood sweetheart, who had a congenital heart condition, my husband tricked me into signing an organ donation agreement. Then he got into a truck and ran me over right in front of the hospital. Barely clinging to life, Elliot Carter tore my heart from my chest. When my body was wheeled out of the operating room, Alan Yates came crashing to my side like a man gone mad. Seeing the gaping hole where my heart used to be, he screamed and wept: "I'm sorry… I was too late… If there's another life, I'll never let you suffer like this again…" Tears fell exactly where my heart had been, and somehow, I even felt a flicker of warmth. He spun around and ran back into the operating room. When he came out again, Elliot and Jessica Foster were lying in a pool of blood. Alan, meanwhile, had slashed his own wrist to die with me. On his deathbed, he ordered that we be buried together. Then I opened my eyes. I had been reborn. Before me stood Elliot, dressed in a wedding gown, holding a bouquet, and proposing. I flung the flowers in his face and turned to embrace Alan in the crowd. However, only a year and a half into our marriage, he changed. Alan began openly pairing up with Jessica, letting her move into our home. Worse, he claimed that our cat's mating season had disturbed Jessica's sleep, and so he allowed her to run over the cat I had raised for seven years. I could not believe it. This was not the man who had loved me so deeply in my previous life. My eyes blazing, I demanded, "What's wrong with you?" However, Alan's gaze was icy. "Nothing. I just don't love you anymore."

Pia Bellucci descends from the slums in Hughlin. Orphans like her are supposed to spend their lives struggling in the bottom rung of society. They are meant to live in the darkness till they draw their last breaths. But the appearance of Vito Castaldo, the Don of the Castaldo family, has completely rewritten Pia's fate. Thanks to Pia's resilience and talent, she fights against all odds and becomes Vito's personal bodyguard. She takes it upon herself to block all harm coming his way and resolve deadly crises for him. Once, when Pia gets kidnapped by Vito's rivals in his stead and almost dies in that ordeal, Vito confesses his feelings to her after rescuing her. After that, he holds an engagement banquet and slides a diamond ring onto her finger before making his vow. "Once I become the Don of Nework, you shall become the Donna." Pia is grateful to Vito for saving her life while showering her with love and affection. It's only natural that she's willing to sacrifice everything for his sake. From then, she works even harder in striking more dangerous deals and wrapping up the most brutal negotiations on Vito's behalf. She practically puts herself at risk just to get rid of all obstacles in his way until his strongest foes are dead. But when Pia thinks her dream is about to come true, she stumbles upon the cruelest truth. It turns out that she's nothing but a tool for Vito to wield from the start till the end.

On the sixth year of our marking anniversary, I travel a distance of 3000 miles just so I can tell my mate, Damon Shadow, that we're finally having a pup. But at the doorway of the Overseas Alliance HQ, I witness him doing something that he's never done for me in the past six years. Damon can be seen kneeling next to another she-wolf. He takes her mud-covered boots off for her while looking so reverent that one would think he was serving the Moon Goddess herself. Meanwhile, I just stand in the heavy downpour while clutching an ultrasound report and a pair of baby socks, which I have yet to finish knitting. Those things are instantly drenched in the rain. It's then that Damon turns to face me. The way he looks at me is as though he's glaring at a Rogue who has accidentally intruded the forbidden grounds. "Get lost, Selena." At that moment, my wolf howls loudly within my mind. Sharp pain tears through my abdomen at the same time.

In my sixth year with Nathan Bennett. "Nathan, I'm getting married," I said. He jolted, suddenly snapping back to reality, looking somewhat troubled. "Hannah, you know the company is at a crucial point with our financing. I'm not in the mood to..." “It’s okay,” I replied, my smile calm and composed. Nathan misunderstood. I was getting married, but not to him.

After seven years of marriage, Kayla Campbell had finally become pregnant. But during her prenatal checkup, she noticed something was wrong. The space to fill in the name of the child’s father was blank. She instinctively spoke up. "The father should be Luke Hudson. Was it missed during registration?" In Havenport's upper circles, almost everyone was aware of how devoted the head of the Hudson family was to his wife. He loved her so deeply that he had once been willing to undergo a vasectomy for her. "Kayla, watching you take medicine and get injections again and again breaks my heart. You're everything to me. If having a child means you have to suffer like this, then I would rather never have one." Perhaps the heavens were touched by them. Luke was a man known for his decisive and ruthless nature. On the day they confirmed her pregnancy, he had knelt and pulled her into his arms, crying until his voice gave out. He had personally handled all the medical registration paperwork afterward. With how carefully he treated her, a mistake like this made no sense. The staff member was clearly new to the job, and she worked at the computer for a long while before finally nodding. "The father's name was blank when the file was created." As she continued checking, her expression changed slightly. "But Mr. Hudson's name does appear in another patient's record. He's listed as the father of her child. The mother's name is Stephanie Campbell. Do you know her?" Kayla froze. Her thoughts went blank. People in their social circle all knew Kayla's background. She had been adopted by the Campbell family. But when the family finally found their biological daughter, they accused Kayla of having taken their real daughter's place for years and kicked her out without mercy. That biological daughter was Stephanie.

After a vicious family power struggle, I fled to a small border town in the south. I took on a new identity and found work in a flower shop. Everyone believed I was dead. Then one day, someone from the family came to the shop to order flowers for the birthday party for Roman Jackson, the head of the Jackson family. The person who arrived was my former Underboss. She stared at me in shock and demanded to know why I had not returned to the Jackson family if I was still alive. She told me that Roman had kept watch over my grave for two years and that he had attempted suicide three times in the cemetery, each time stopped by someone else. Roman was my ex-husband. He had an adopted sister, Liliana. Fifteen years ago, her parents were gunned down while covering Roman's father's escape from a rival family. After that, Liliana became Roman's most cherished sister. She tampered with my armored car. The brakes failed, and the vehicle plunged off a cliff. I broke three ribs. Roman mobilized every resource the family had and pulled me back from the brink of death. She bribed my bodyguard and laced my red wine with a neurotoxin. I lay unconscious in the villa for three days and nights. Roman sealed off the entire city, hunted down everyone involved, and made them pay in blood. She tried to kill me, and he saved me. This absurd cycle went on for three years. Until the last time. She detonated a bomb at an arms deal I was overseeing, burning seventy percent of my body. As I was lifted onto the ambulance stretcher, I clutched Roman's suit and, with the last of my strength, begged him. "Kill her, Roman. She sabotaged the deal. Those are the family rules." He crouched down, his fingers brushing my bloodstained face. His voice was calm, almost cruel. "Liliana didn't mean to. Let it go. For the sake of what her parents sacrificed for the family." In that moment, my heart to him died completely.

I'm seven months along with my second pregnancy when a truck almost hits me. My husband threatens the doctor like a maniac. "I'll make all of you retire prematurely if anything goes wrong with my wife!" Before I enter the operating theater, I can't help thinking he's being too anxious. The truck merely brushed past me and made me fall. He doesn't need to be so panicked. However, when I open my eyes again, I find that my belly is flat. I crawl out of bed in a panic and head to the door, where I overhear Lucian Jacobe talking to the doctor. "Mrs. Jacobe wasn't in a major accident, sir. The child could've been saved. Why did you insist on aborting it? It was a baby boy, too." "Jenny will cry if she finds out about me having children with another woman. How can I bear to see her upset? It's not my first time doing something like this, anyway."

The day after I gave birth to Alpha Albert’s pup, while our son was still fragile and my own wounds still fresh, he demanded I give up the Luna Suite. For his old flame, Chloe, and her unborn child. His reason? Chloe was close to her due date, and the suite’s unique moonlight energy was known to soothe expectant mothers and their pups. I stared at him in disbelief. "But that's the Luna's suite. And our son? Doesn't he need that energy?" Albert’s expression was hard as stone. "I owe her." His voice was ice. "If I hadn't been forced into this mating with you, she never would have married that abusive bastard out of spite. You're the Luna. A small sacrifice won't kill you." A small sacrifice. He’d used that excuse to hurt me countless times since our union. He missed our anniversary to play nursemaid to a sick Chloe. He forced me to give up my position as the pack's Head Healer for her… This time, I didn't scream or fight. I just looked at him, my voice eerily calm. "Fine. I'll move." Then I sent a message to my father, the Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack: Father, come get me. I'm rejecting my mate bond with Albert.