Ashes of Our Vows: My Ex-Husband's Bitter Regret
In the two years after I married Daniel Carter, my private photos had gone viral nine times, and Daniel had been taken into custody ten times.
Because every time his mistress, Emily Morgan, was unhappy, she would leak my private photos all over the internet.
I, Claire Parker, never let it slide. I reported every shady business Daniel was involved in and personally sent him behind bars.
That lasted until an unexpected kidnapping. I took a bullet for him, one aimed straight at his heart, and he shielded me beneath his body, taking the brunt of the explosion for me.
After we survived, the man who had always been so cold-blooded knelt before me, his voice hoarse beyond recognition.
"Honey, let's leave the drama behind. I just want a peaceful life with you."
Right in front of me, he ordered his men to send his mistress out of Northhaven and never let her appear before him again.
In the third year after we reconciled, I carried my eight-month pregnant belly and brought him lunch.
But on the way there, I was hit by a car. The hospital issued three critical condition notices, yet they still could not save the baby.
Daniel rushed over, but he did not even spare me a glance. Instead, he pulled the woman who had hit me and her child into his arms, soothing her in a low voice.
"Don't be scared. I'll protect you and the child."
Only then did I realize that the woman who had hit me was the very mistress he had sent away three years ago.
When I demanded an explanation, Daniel brushed it off as if it were nothing. "She didn't do it on purpose. Don't take it out on her and her son. You can have a baby another time."
At that moment, I finally understood. They had gotten back together long ago.
I looked at him and nodded. "Don't worry, this will never happen again."
Chapters
Share
Chapter 2
Seeing how emotional I was, Daniel frowned, his tone impatient. "Claire, get your emotions under control. Why are you making such a scene? You can't have children anyway. Just treat this child as your own."
I stared at him and said each word clearly. "Daniel, I am not raising your mistress's bastard child."
Daniel acted as if he had not heard me at all, completely lost in his own delusion.
"From now on, the three of us can still be a family. I'll also talk to Emily and ask her to be more understanding. She won't fight you over anything. If you hadn't kept holding on to this, things between us would never have gotten this bad. Claire, we've only been back together for three years," Daniel sighed, sounding deeply wounded. "Can't you cherish what we have?"
Even though I had witnessed Daniel's shamelessness countless times, his words still made my heart ache.
But this time, I did not break down hysterically. I only spoke calmly. "Daniel, let's get divorced."
I lifted a hand and motioned to the secretary behind me.
"The divorce agreement has already been drafted."
The secretary stepped forward and handed the document to him.
"All you need to do is sign it."
Daniel's gaze fell on the agreement, and his expression darkened at once.
The next second, he raised his hand sharply and tore the papers into shreds, scattering them across the floor.
"Claire, enough. Don't take this too far."
He paused, as if forcing his emotions back down.
"You're emotional right now, so I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Rest properly in the hospital. We'll talk when you've calmed down."
With that, he turned and left.
Watching his back, I said firmly, "Daniel, I want a divorce! If you won't sign, I'll see you in court!"
Daniel walked even faster, his steps almost hurried.
The ward fell silent again. I closed my eyes, and tears slipped from the corners.
Between the car accident and the miscarriage, I spent nearly a month in the hospital before the doctor finally allowed me to leave.
During that entire month, Daniel did not visit me once.
By the time I returned to the mansion Daniel and I shared, the sky had already begun to darken.
The lights in the living room were on, and I could faintly hear Daniel talking with one of his friends inside.
"I heard Claire wants to divorce you?"
Daniel leaned against the sofa, a cigarette between his fingers, his tone indifferent. "She found out I'm with Emily again, so now she's making a fuss about divorce."
"Apologize to Claire properly. She'll forgive you."
Daniel's voice rose sharply. "She's the one who should apologize to me! We've been doing well these past three years. She's the one being petty and ruining what we had."
His friend asked again, "What if Claire insists on leaving?"
"She won't." Daniel sounded certain. "What we have survived life and death. It won't fall apart that easily. Besides, our families' interests are still tied together."
Daniel and I had been brought together through a business marriage arranged by our grandparents' generation.
I had not resisted it. At the beginning, I had even thought that perhaps we could build real feelings over time.
But not long after the wedding, I found out that Daniel had been keeping a mistress.
He had even leaked my explicit photos on purpose just to please her, turning me into a laughingstock across the internet.
I refused to back down. I reported his shady businesses directly and sent him behind bars.
Each fight became uglier than the last, and the rift between us grew deeper and deeper.
"Daniel, if you don't want a divorce, why did you get back together with Emily? You even had a child with her."
Daniel fell silent for a long while before saying lazily, "After so many years with Claire, of course there are times when things get tiring. And Emily was standing naked right in front of me. Any man would have lost control."
Rage surged from my chest straight to my head, and I almost lost control and shoved the door open.
But in the next second, I stopped myself.
Since Daniel no longer even bothered to hide the fact that he had a mistress and an illegitimate child, what would confronting him change?
It would only waste my energy.
I took a deep breath, turned around, and left.
After returning to the apartment I had bought before the marriage, I began investigating the evidence from the car accident.
Fortunately, there was traffic camera footage from the intersection.
I had my staff retrieve the footage immediately, then handed it to my legal team to organize the evidence and prepare a lawsuit against Emily.
But before we could formally file the case, my lawyer contacted me with the news that the crucial footage had been deleted.
I rushed straight to Daniel's office, unable to keep the anger out of my voice.
"Did you delete the footage?"
He did not deny it. He did not even look up.
He simply closed the file in front of him, his voice cold and flat. "Give up. Even with the footage, you wouldn't win. I've already hired the best legal team in Northhaven for Emily. They've never lost a case."
You may also like
7.5
On the morning of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, I found a cream-colored document tucked inside my husband's suit pocket.
It was a twenty-million-dollar asset transfer for his former receptionist, Carmen. But what made my blood run cold was the contingent beneficiary: Leo, my newborn son who the hospital claimed was kidnapped twenty-three years ago.
When I confronted Devonte, he didn't even try to explain. He handed me a fake Cartier watch, canceled all my credit cards, and publicly called me delusional.
The next day, he moved Carmen into our mansion and emptied all our joint accounts into offshore trusts.
"If you don't sign these papers and walk away, I will have you committed," he threatened, his mother nodding in agreement.
They had orchestrated the kidnapping of my baby, hiding him with the mistress while I spent half my life sedated and screaming in grief. Now, to keep his secret, Devonte was going to lock me in a psychiatric ward and bury me in debt.
I didn't understand how the man I loved could be such a monster. Why did he steal my child? What else was hidden in that confidential adoption file?
Pushed to the absolute brink, I refused to be his victim.
When his goons came to my temporary apartment to drag me away, I turned to the rugged union electrician who had just fixed my lights.
"If you need a husband to keep you out of a psych ward, I'll marry you," he said, offering himself as my legal shield.
I took his hand. It was time to tear my husband's perfect life apart.
8.2
When our family empire crumbled, my sister and I were sold off as collateral to the Chicago Outfit.
My fierce sister Frankie was forced to marry Damien Moretti, the terrifying Don. I was shackled to his brother Leo, a notorious, degenerate playboy.
I thought my life was over, but the real nightmare began on our wedding night. A terrified maid handed me the wrong room key. Exhausted and numb, I crawled into a dark honeymoon suite, praying my new husband would be too drunk to find me.
Instead, the heavy door opened, and a man fueled by a drug-laced drink stepped in. He was ruthless, punishing, and entirely stripped away my dignity in the pitch black.
When the morning light finally broke, I turned my head, expecting to see Leo's boyish face. Instead, I saw a profile carved from ice.
Damien Moretti. The Don. My sister's husband.
The very man who had previously called me a "liability" and ruined my life. When he realized who I was, his eyes filled with absolute, chilling disgust. He dragged me out of the ruined sheets, threw me onto the floor of a freezing shower, and demanded to know why I had sneaked into his suite.
"You ruined me. How am I supposed to look at Frankie? You should have just killed me. Kill me now, Damien. It would be a mercy compared to this."
I sobbed, the freezing water mingling with my tears. He just stared down at me with cold, unreadable intent. I was now trapped in a house of monsters, carrying the Don's darkest secret, and I had to figure out how to survive without destroying my sister.
8.7
My new boss is gorgeous, arrogant, and filthy rich.
The only problem?
He doesn't know he's also the father of my baby.
Six years ago, I was supposed to get married.
But the night before the wedding, my groom-to-be showed me sides of himself I'd never seen before.
I might've died in that hotel room...
If Mikhail Novikov hadn't burst in to save me.
Handsome, strong, capable knight in shining armor-sign me up, right?
WRONG.
Because Mikhail wasn't just the hero I never knew I needed...
He was also way more dangerous than I ever could've known.
But for one night, I let myself do something I never should've done.
It was worth it-several times over, if you catch my drift.
In the morning, though, I did the reasonable
I RAN.
For six years, I keep running.
Until I walk into work one day, and find my new boss waiting in my office.
Guess who?
And guess what he does when finds out about our baby?
7.6
Top DEA agent Kaitlynn Bruce woke up to a heavy, chemical lethargy, only to realize she was trapped in the body of a weak, abused war widow.
Before she could even process her new reality, she heard her sister-in-law counting cash, selling her unconscious body to a local thug for a measly two hundred dollars.
The thug dragged her new seven-year-old son, Cason, into the bedroom.
"Mommy!"
When the boy reached out, the man brutally kicked his small body into a wooden doorframe, leaving him gasping and bleeding on the floor.
Memories flooded Kaitlynn's mind. Her predecessor was a pathetic doormat whose husband's military pension had been bled dry by these greedy in-laws, leaving her children to starve and suffer endless abuse.
But as Kaitlynn looked at the bleeding boy's dark, unnervingly alert eyes, a chilling piece of DEA intelligence clicked in her mind.
Cason Richmond.
The name, the town, the abusive aunt—it all matched the classified files of the "Director of the Hive," the most ruthless and feared cartel puppet master in the criminal underworld.
How could this battered, starving child be destined to become the ultimate monster she used to hunt?
The original widow's tragic death was supposed to be the catalyst that pushed this boy into total darkness.
But Kaitlynn Bruce was not a victim.
Adrenaline burning through the drugs, she cracked the thug's neck with a brass lamp and choked the sister-in-law against the wall.
Looking down at the boy who was supposed to become a global nightmare, she made a vow. She was going to rewrite his script, even if she had to burn the whole world down to do it.
7.0
I thought running from the mate who used me as a pawn and rejected me would be the end of my cruel fate.
I was wrong.
I ran straight into a pack that didn't just hate me, but also wanted me dead.
My alpha stepbrothers: Quin, Rio, and Hunter.
They're called the Three Devils: dangerous, wild, and untamed.
Quin wants to claim my rut. Rio wants to mark me. And Hunter? He's ready to burn the world just to make me his.
But the Moon Goddess doesn't play fair. Pack laws don't bend...not even for Alphas.
And now we're trapped in a web of fate that will either bind us together or tear us apart completely.
This is a dangerous game, and I dread who the winner will be: the feral alpha, the biker president, or the sex god?
7.4
I was only fifteen when my venomous family orchestrated my doom by forcing me into an arranged marriage with mafia heir Javier Velasquez.
On our wedding night, Javier paraded strippers into our suite to show his absolute contempt, turning me into the ultimate joke of the underworld overnight.
But being a joke was a luxury compared to what came next.
Three years later, Javier needed to be a widower to marry into a heavily armed family and secure their backing for a coup.
He didn't grant me the mercy of a bullet.
Instead, he dragged me to an abandoned underground safehouse, locked me in the damp, rotting dark, and told the world I had been assassinated.
For six months, I starved in that dungeon, surviving only on the desperate hope that my family was safe.
Then, on the day of his lavish new wedding, a cruel maid kicked a plate of spoiled food onto my floor and delivered the final, fatal blow.
"Annabel is dead. Pined away and died of a broken heart two weeks ago."
My gentle mother was dead, all because she actually believed his lie about my tragic murder.
Driven by pure agony and an all-consuming hatred, I shattered crates of smuggled chemical solvents and struck a match, letting the roaring inferno turn their bloody wedding into my funeral pyre.
I thought the fire was the end.
But when I opened my eyes, the suffocating smoke vanished, replaced by the biting chill of a Long Island winter.
I was standing in the snow, back on the exact day my descent into hell began.
This time, the terrified girl was dead, and I would use their own ruthless rules to tear their empire apart.