Without Remorse Tom Clancy

I brought home eighty dollars’ worth of durian. When my sister-in-law, Lily Ward, saw me, she clutched her stomach and screamed from the couch. “Ugh, my stomach! Summer, you know I can’t stand that smell. Are you trying to suffocate my baby?” Before I could even steady myself, my mother, Rosemary Ward, slapped me across the face. It made me see how much my mother favored my younger brother, Jasper Ward. When we were children, she always reminded me that he was younger and told me to give him a pass. I thought things might change after he grew up and got married. Instead, her favoritism only got worse. “Summer, you jinx! Hurry up and sign over your apartment to Jas to make up for this!” Watching Jasper pull out a property transfer agreement, I covered my swollen cheek and smiled. So, this whole act was just to get the apartment I had bought. “Sure.” They were delighted to see me agree readily. However, they failed to consider one thing. I might have willingly given it away, but I wondered if any of them had the nerve to take it.

The Rossi family has a rule. If you want to be the next Donna, you have to prove yourself. Make three hundred million dollars, clean money, in a single year. All on your own, no family help. I spent ten years trying to do it for Vincent. I built ten companies from the ground up. But every single time, just as I was about to cross that finish line, something would go wrong. Everything would just… collapse. This year, I finally did it. I ran to his study, audit in hand, my heart hammering against my ribs. I thought I’d finally won. Instead, I learned my entire life was a lie. He handed my entire empire to Ava—my father's bastard. All because she supposedly saved his life once, and he wanted to make her the real Donna. I gave up. On him. On my family's dream of rising with his. Then I picked up the phone and called the Outfit in Chicago. "Your marriage proposal," I said. "I accept."

My sister was the golden child, the pride of our family, but she had a rare blood disorder that required treatments costing thousands every month. To keep her alive, I became her personal blood donor, working nonstop to pay for her care and delivering food all day and night. But one day, she nearly died from hemorrhaging after trying to abort a pregnancy. That’s when I learned the child she was carrying belonged to my boyfriend. When I confronted him, he didn’t even flinch. Instead, he dragged me to the operating table himself. “You were born to be her blood bank. Dying for her? It’s the best thing you’ll ever do.” I was left there, bleeding out, my life slipping away with every drop. But as death closed in, something changed. The people who once hoped I’d disappear—the ones who used me, betrayed me—they all began to unravel, losing their insanity.

The day Bryson—the Harding heir—chose Talia Connell, the Connells' real daughter, I found out I was pregnant. For seven months, he went all out planning her dream wedding. Meanwhile, I fought through a brutal delivery and almost bled out bringing Kyle into the world. Then a breaking alert hit— [Harding Heir in Late-Night Street Racing Crash: Wife Critically Injured, Bryson Harding Permanently Loses Fertility] Scared he'd take Kyle from me, I stayed hidden for five years. Then came Bryson's mom's birthday banquet. I got pulled in as a server. Kyle was waiting in the lounge—until he bolted out and slammed straight into her. The whole room went dead quiet. Kyle looked just like Bryson as a kid. No question. Bryson shoved through the crowd, voice rough. "Kid... who are your parents?" Kyle froze, then broke down. "Mommy... I can't find Mommy. Her name is Joanna."

This marks the third year since Alan Cohen and I became mates, and today's finally the day of the Luna ceremony. As the ceremony begins, Alan takes my hand. But then he hesitates, refusing to move forward. I'm still trying to make sense of it when my adoptive sister, Eden Parker, suddenly breaks into the mind-link. She says she's just ended a failed mate bond with another Alpha and will be back within the hour. That's when I see a flicker of a smile on Alan's face. Then, without a second glance, he lets go of my hand and walks away. I turn to my adoptive brother, Dexter Parker, and my adoptive father, Hank Parker, hoping for some kind of comfort, only to realize they've already left the ceremony with Alan. And just like that, I became the joke of the entire pack. Eden sends me a photo. She's glowing beside Alan, her arm looped through Dexter's, with Hank beaming next to them. That's when I give up. I reach out through the mind-link to my birth father. "Dad, I'm ready to return to the Bloodmoon Pack."

I'm dying at seven months pregnant, and the one behind it is my husband. Hearing that a premature baby's blood can save my sister, he conspires with a shady clinic to take the baby out through surgery. After draining the baby's blood, he walks away—leaving my fragile preemie to die. Later, my parents say, "You owe Yvie. It's time to repay her." My husband says, "We can always have another child. A baby's life can't possibly be more important than Yvie's, can it? The overwhelming rage and grief cause me to bleed to death. My soul floats above them as I watch them prepare my sister's surgery. They don't even bother to change me into clean clothes. No one mourns me. No one loses their mind over my death. Without a care, they wheel me into the morgue and celebrate Yvonne's recovery. When I open my eyes again, I've gone back three months earlier—to the day my whole family forced me to divorce.

Blair has always lived overshadowed by her family, alphas by destiny and nature, but the real danger does not lie in the darkness. Her own sister sells her to the renegades, without remorse, believing her power to be insignificant. However, her mistake is fatal: Selene is not just a wolf. She is the beast with the power of the moon. A latent force that only her soul mate can unleash to claim her destiny and lead the kingdom of wolves. But how can a wolf who has been betrayed and abandoned trust a destined mate to forge a new path and claim a throne that was denied her by blood?

The day after his beloved falsely accused Yvonne of hitting her with a car, her husband and two sons hung Yvonne’s younger brother above a massive vat of bubbling oil, threatening to deep-fry him alive. Yvonne rushed forward like she had gone mad, but the bodyguards held her back tightly. “Have you learned your lesson?” Justin stood nearby in a crisp suit. His sharp features were cold, and his voice was edged with ice. “Will you dare hurt Sophia again?” “I never hit her!” Yvonne cried, struggling desperately. “Justin, let my brother go! He’s only 18. He just got accepted into MOT University!”

I was slowly dying from Silverthorn Wolfsbane, and there was only one cure—the Miracle Elixir. But my mate, Leah Ashford, bought it and gave it to my adoptive brother,Jason Smith. She did it because she thought I was faking my illness. I gave up on the treatment and swallowed a potent painkiller instead. It would kill me in three days by shutting down my organs. In those three days, I gave up everything. I handed over the fur manufacturing business I built from the ground up to Jason, and my parents praised me for caring about my brother. I offered to sever our mate bond, and Leah praised me for finally being sensible. When I told my son he could call Jason "dad", he happily said that his new dad was the best! I transferred all my savings to Jason, and no one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. They were just pleased with my "better behavior". "Victor is finally not so bad." I wondered—would they regret it after I was gone?

I stood in the shadows, the scent of pine and frost heavy in the air, watching my mate, Ethan, smile—truly smile—for the first time in years. But not at me. At her. My cousin, Isla. His first love. She sat beside him, warm and glowing, with our pups, Lucas and Mia, curled up against her like she was their real mother. They were laughing, sharing bites of ice-cream cake, the kind Lucas once said made his stomach hurt. I was never meant to be here. I wasn't his choice. He didn't fall in love with me—he was assigned to me. To him, our bond was never about love. It was a political arrangement—an alliance between two packs: his power, my father’s ambition. A tie forged not by hearts, but by bloodlines and borders. He never touched me unless required. He never looked at me like I was his Luna. In that moment, as their laughter echoed under the full moon, I felt the mate bond falter—thin, fading, like breath in winter. And I knew. I had played my part long enough. So I turned away. It was time to severe the bond that was never truly mine. But when he sensed I was really leaving, when the tether between us began to snap, he broke. Dropped to his knees, clutching the pups like lifelines, his voice raw. "Please," he whispered, "don't leave me." Even the pups cried, reaching for me with shaking hands. "Mom, we’re sorry… We didn't mean it. Please don't go."