No Longer A Victim, Now I Rise
The fluorescent hum of the DMV was the soundtrack to my boring life, until I tried to replace my lost driver's license.
"Your marital status. It says you're divorced," the clerk said, shattering my five-year marriage to Jackson Parks with a single, flat sentence.
My husband, Jackson, the man who swore he loved me, had secretly divorced me three years ago. Not only that, he had remarried the very next day to Candida Camacho, the woman who had tried to murder me on my wedding day and left me infertile. And they had a two-year-old son, Joey.
I stumbled home, my world a blur, only to find Jackson and Candida in our living room, arguing. "I hate having to pretend for that pathetic woman!" Candida shrieked. Jackson, my husband, pleaded, "I love you. I've always loved you."
The man I sacrificed everything for, who swore to destroy her, was now playing house with my attempted murderer, and I was the fool living in his house, sleeping in his bed, believing his lies.
The pain in my abdomen, a phantom ache from five years ago, flared to life, mirroring the gaping wound in my soul. I would not be his victim anymore.
"Hamilton," I said into the phone, my voice clear and steady. "I need your help. I need you to help me die."
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Chapter 4
The next morning, Jackson was in the kitchen, wearing an apron, a cheerful smile plastered on his face. He was humming as he flipped pancakes. It was a grotesque parody of a happy domestic scene.
"Good morning, darling," he said, his voice bright. "I made your favorite, blueberry pancakes."
He looked at me, his eyes full of a tenderness that was now obscene. I felt like I was looking at a complete stranger.
"I thought we could go out today," he continued. "Just the two of us. A lovely drive up the coast."
"No," I said, my voice cold and empty.
He froze, the spatula hovering over the pan. He stared at me, his smile faltering. "What?"
"I don't want to go anywhere with you," I said.
He put the spatula down and walked over to me, his face a mask of concern. He crouched down, taking my uninjured hand in his. His touch felt repulsive.
"Elena, I know you're upset about yesterday," he said, his voice a low, soothing murmur. "I am so sorry. I was out of line. Please, forgive me."
His eyes were soft, pleading. It was the same look he had given me in the hospital five years ago. This time, it made me feel nothing but disgust.
I pulled my hand away and started eating the breakfast Maria had left for me, ignoring the pancakes he had made.
He watched me for a moment, then seemed to decide I had forgiven him. His smile returned, relieved.
"Come on," he said, pulling me to my feet. "Let's go shopping. I'll buy you anything you want."
He practically dragged me to the car.
Candida and Joey were already sitting in the back seat.
My heart sank. Of course.
"Joey was feeling a little down," Jackson explained, not meeting my eyes. "And Miss Camacho needed to pick up a few things for him. I thought we could all go together. A family outing."
His gaze flickered to Candida in the rearview mirror for a split second, a look of longing and possession that he tried to hide.
I said nothing. I got into the car, a silent, unwilling passenger in the charade of my own life.
At the mall, Jackson was a whirlwind of activity, pulling me into the most expensive stores. He bought me dresses, shoes, a diamond watch. The sales clerks fawned over him.
"Mrs. Parks, you are so lucky," one of them gushed. "Your husband adores you."
I managed a tight, painful smile. Adored me. If only she knew.
My eyes drifted over to Candida. She was standing by a jewelry counter, her gaze fixed on a sapphire necklace, a look of raw longing on her face. She had come from a wealthy family, but Jackson had taken everything from them. Now she was a kept woman, dependent on the man she claimed to hate.
Jackson followed my gaze. He saw the look on her face.
A few minutes later, he came back with a small, velvet box. Not for me.
He walked over to Candida. "Here," he said, his tone clipped and impatient, as if he were annoyed. "Try this on. I need to see if it would suit a client's wife."
He put the sapphire necklace around her neck, his fingers brushing against her skin. It was a lie, a thin, pathetic excuse to give a gift to his mistress in front of his wife.
I felt a cold laugh bubble up inside me. It was all so ridiculous, so insulting.
I turned and walked out of the store. I couldn't breathe in there anymore.
I was standing on the curb, waiting for the valet to bring the car, when it happened.
A white sports car, its engine roaring, screeched around the corner. It was out of control, heading straight for the sidewalk.
Straight for Candida, who had just stepped out of the store.
Jackson's face went white with terror.
"CANDIDA!" he screamed.
In that split second, he did something that sealed my fate. He was standing next to me. He shoved me, hard. I stumbled backwards, falling against the wall of the building.
He didn't do it to save me. He did it to get me out of his way.
He lunged towards Candida, pushing her out of the car's path.
He wasn't fast enough.
The car hit him, the sound a sickening thud of metal against flesh. He flew through the air, landing in a crumpled heap on the pavement.
The world erupted into chaos. People were screaming. The sports car sped off.
I looked at Jackson, lying on the ground, his leg bent at an unnatural angle. His eyes were wide with pain and fear.
But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking past me, at Candida, who stood frozen in shock.
"Candida," he gasped, his voice a pained whisper. "Are you... are you okay?"
My blood turned to ice. My heart stopped beating. In that moment, watching him lie broken on the ground, caring only for her, I knew.
Any last, lingering ember of love I had for him died. It turned to cold, hard ash.
I didn't go to the hospital. I didn't call an ambulance.
I stood there for a moment, looking down at the man who had destroyed my life.
Then, I turned and walked away.
The phantoms of a past life echoed through my own. I looked at the dark mark on my hand, the new skin still tender.
But the real pain was in my chest, a deep, hollow ache that was far worse than any burn.
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7.6
I moaned out his name. "Damien, you are not trying hard to get me, yet .."
He smirked and whispered to my ears. "I like being hard, Not "trying" hard."
When Lila Sinclair's mother is sentenced to life in prison, her world collapses overnight. With nowhere else to go, she is taken in by Sebastian Blackwood, her mother's former lover. A powerful, reserved man who agrees to shelter her under strict conditions.
Lila is placed in his household... and into a life she never asked for, sharing a roof with two stepbrothers who change everything.
Damien is danger wrapped in charm...intense, controlling, and impossible to ignore. Ethan, on the other hand, is steady, kind, and grounding...the only place she feels safe when everything else feels like it's slipping away.
But Lila's situation comes with a hidden clause: her stay in the country is temporary. Within 365 days, her legal protection expires. To remain, she must marry one of the Blackwood heirs.
One house. Two brothers. Twelve months of blurred lines, buried secrets, and emotions she was never meant to feel.
As desire clashes with safety and passion wars with peace, Lila is forced into a choice that could secure her future...or destroy it completely.
8.7
Ada was eight months pregnant, sitting peacefully in her husband's Manhattan estate, looking at a baby nursery catalog.
Suddenly, her husband's mistress, Jacklyn, walked in, threw an ultrasound photo on the table, and locked the door.
Before Ada could process the betrayal, Jacklyn dragged her to the top of the marble staircase and threw herself backward just as Desmond walked through the front doors.
"She pushed me, Desmond! She tried to kill our baby!"
Desmond looked at Ada with absolute hatred.
He ignored Ada's breaking water and her agonizing screams for help, leaving her to miscarry on the freezing floor while he rushed Jacklyn to the hospital.
He sent Ada to a brutal federal prison for three years, where she was tortured and left with a body covered in horrific scars, mourning the baby she was told died at birth.
When Ada was finally released, Desmond destroyed her cousin's company to force her back to his estate as a lowly maid.
But when Ada saw Jacklyn's three-year-old son, her world stopped.
Right in the center of the little boy's palm was a faint crescent moon birthmark.
It was the exact same mark Ada had kissed on her own lifeless baby's tiny hand before the doctors took his body away.
How did her dead child become Jacklyn's little prince?
Looking at the woman who stole her life and the husband who threw her in hell, Ada clenched her scarred hands and swore she would tear their world apart to get her son back.
9.1
For ten years, Ran hid in the shadows as Hollywood star Jincheng Lu's secret girlfriend and assistant, starving herself to pay for his acting classes.
On their tenth anniversary, she sat in a cheap apartment with $9.87 in her bank account, watching him slide a massive diamond ring onto a wealthy heiress's finger on live television.
When she called the number she had memorized for a decade, she only heard a cold busy tone. He had blocked her.
Despair swallowed her whole. She forced down a handful of sleeping pills with stale whiskey and died alone on the cold bathroom tiles.
His mother found her rotting body three days later, calling her a "filthy bottom-feeder" before ordering a cleanup crew to dispose of her existence like industrial waste.
Jincheng didn't even ask if she suffered. He just ordered his PR team to digitally erase her ten years of sacrifice from the internet.
"Make sure the press release is airtight. She was an unstable former assistant. She had a history of mental illness. That's it."
Until her heart stopped completely, she didn't understand. She had abandoned her status as the hidden heiress of the wealthy Qin family to build his empire from the ground up.
How could he erase every trace of her without a second thought, using her corpse as a PR shield for his perfect new life?
Opening her eyes again, the sharp smell of hospital antiseptic burned her lungs.
She hadn't just died. She had woken up in the body of a notorious, D-list reality TV influencer who shared her exact name.
Looking at her new face in the mirror, a cold smile spread across her lips. She was going to tear his perfect life apart, piece by bloody piece.
7.4
In a city where data is power and truth is a weapon, some secrets are worth killing for.
Mara Quinn is a ghost in the system, an underground journalist known only as Cipher, feared by corporations and hunted by those with everything to lose. When she breaches a classified network inside Axiom Industries, she uncovers something no one was meant to see: ORACLE, a predictive AI capable of shaping human behavior on a global scale.
She expects retaliation. She doesn't expect Kael Draven.
Cold, brilliant, and untouchable, Kael is the architect behind Axiom's empire, and a man who doesn't make threats he can't execute. Instead of silencing Mara, he offers her a choice: work under his watch, or disappear from existence entirely. Trapped inside his glass fortress known as The Spire, Mara is pulled deeper into a world of surveillance, manipulation, and power plays that stretch far beyond anything she imagined.
But ORACLE isn't just a tool, it's already been used. Governments have fallen. Empires have shifted. And someone else is pulling the strings.
As a rival syndicate closes in and a hidden war erupts across the city, Mara and Kael are forced into an uneasy alliance, one built on intellect, suspicion, and a dangerous, undeniable pull neither of them can ignore.
Because in a world where every move is predicted...
the only thing more dangerous than control is feeling.
And the system is already watching.
7.3
Ten years ago, I was banished from my pack, branded a whore and a traitor for allegedly drugging and stealing my sister's fated mate.
Now, I was summoned back because my father, the Alpha who disowned me, was dying from a poisoned attack.
Standing by his deathbed, a locked memory finally surfaced—I didn't drug anyone. My husband and I were both victims, poisoned with wolfsbane to force our mating.
But before my father could reveal who orchestrated the setup, his heart monitor flatlined.
My brother instantly shoved me to the ground, pointing a trembling finger at my face.
"You killed him. I will hunt you, I will break you, and I will make your life a living hell."
Even my husband, Kieran, the man I was forced to marry to save our unborn child, walked right past me in the hospital corridor.
He didn't spare me a single glance, choosing instead to gently comfort my mother while I sat bruised and shattered on the cold floor.
I didn't understand why my own family hated me so blindly, and I understood even less who had framed me a decade ago.
What terrified my father so much in his final moments that he couldn't even speak the culprit's name?
Watching my cold husband walk away with the family that abandoned me, the last shred of my naive hope died.
I wiped my tears and stood up. This time, I was going to tear this pack apart to find the truth.
8.8
My fiancé, Knox, was the man I’d spent ten years building a life with, the one I’d poured my family’s fortune into. But then I found the lockbox. Inside, a photo of him smiling, his arm around a heavily pregnant woman, marked: *To my only wife Deana.*
I’d been looking for a charger in our Boston penthouse closet when I stumbled upon it. The faded Polaroid showed Knox, younger, beaming, with a heavily pregnant stranger. Its timestamp: "Ten years ago"—the exact year I funded his Ivy League PhD.
Flipping the photo, I saw Knox’s familiar handwriting: *To my only wife Deana and our upcoming miracle.* My world crumbled. The man I’d loved had a wife, making me the unwitting mistress. My opulent life was built on his lies.
His text, "Baby, I'm coming home to *our house*," twisted into a cruel joke. My tears froze. A decade of sacrifices, of family alienation—all for a man who used my money and trust—shredded in my mind. The fragile woman in me vanished; my eyes turned cold and clear. I relocked the box, smoothed the rug, and applied crimson lipstick. Practicing a flawless smile, I whispered, "Welcome home, my sweet liar."