Tragic Ending

A unique video went viral overnight. In the video, on a snow-capped mountain peak, my boyfriend, Ted Moretti, knelt on one knee, his expression tender. Amidst applause, the ring on her finger sparkled; it was the ring of the Moretti family's future bride. Within hours, the video topped various trending charts. People hailed it as the most romantic proposal of the year. Anya Rossi later posted a message. "I've been looking forward to this wedding for so long, and now it's finally happening! Thank you!" The comment section was instantly flooded with excited exclamations. "A Mafia family heir and an ordinary woman? I love it!" "It's like something out of a novel." "So enviable." I went to my boyfriend to confirm. Before I could even speak, I heard him talking to a close friend in the study. “Do I have any other choice?” Ted said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “If I don’t marry her, her gambler father will sell her off.” His friend hesitated. “But what about Carly? She’s been with you for so many years. Aren’t you worried she might lose her mind?” Ted chuckled, unconcerned. “So what if she’s angry? Carly and I have been together for six years. She won’t leave. She can’t leave.” At that moment, something deep inside me seemed to freeze completely. A month later On the same day Ted and Carly got married, I married another man. Our wedding processions met downtown. According to custom, we exchanged bouquets between the two passing wedding cars, and our windows rolled down simultaneously. That’s when Ted saw me. I was wearing a white wedding dress. Not behind him. But in another man’s arms. After knowing Ted Moretti for so many years, his consistently perfect composure crumbled for the first time.

Alice Long and I were caught in the crossfire. When my boyfriend—a combat medic responsible for saving the wounded—came to our rescue, he pushed me aside. Gently cradling Alice, the girl I had shielded, he shot me a cold glance and said, "Crystal, I'm deeply disappointed in you. She needs immediate care to avoid infection!" What about me? Was I meant to die instead? When my flag-draped coffin arrived home, he had the nerve to weep openly at my memorial. This once-renowned combat medic, celebrated around the globe, never set foot outside his room again.

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."

After setting a date with my online boyfriend to meet in person on New Year's Eve, I prepare a dress that will drive him mad. I also prepare a gift for him. To my surprise, he brings his twin brother with him. That's not all—he's only reserved one hotel room. I laugh when I see the identical faces before me.

When the earthquake hit, I found myself buried under the rubble, barely clinging to life. My wife, Meghan Hudson, charges into the collapsing office building without hesitation. However, the person she rescues is Gerald Parker, the new technical specialist at my company. Even as she hurries away with the rescue team, she doesn't spare me a single glance. Severely crushed and bleeding heavily, I'm rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. Yet, Meghan pours all her care and attention into Gerald, who barely has a scratch on him. In the end, I'm completely disheartened and pull out the divorce papers. Meghan goes berserk and tears them to shreds, thinking I'll give in like I always did. What she doesn't know is that this time, I'm truly exhausted.

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.

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?"

Because I had a face that screamed 'pick-me girl', I became the target of my mother's deepest hatred. She claimed that just seeing me made her sick, bringing back memories of my father's affair. In retaliation, she channeled all her affection into helping a child from a poor village, praising her for being kind and genuine while insisting she loved her hundreds of times more than she ever loved me. But then that same girl went behind my back and seduced my boyfriend, and my mother reacted by hitting me across the face repeatedly. "How did I end up with such a shameless daughter? You're the third wheel, and you're accusing her of being the other woman!" Yet when I fell gravely ill with cancer, she was beside herself with grief, begging for forgiveness while praying earnestly. "How could I not love you, my dear? I've made such terrible mistakes…"

At eight months pregnant, I was in a car accident and delivered a stillborn child. My husband, who had always been so gentle, turned on me. He called me useless. He said I couldn't even protect our baby. He forced me into a divorce and, without looking back, rushed into a hasty marriage with his long-lost first love. Just as despair threatened to swallow me whole, Grayson Brooke—my childhood friend who had been overseas for years—returned. He confessed his feelings and promised to cherish me for the rest of my life. But in the third year of our marriage, I accidentally overheard a conversation between him and his closest friend that turned my blood to ice. "That car accident you staged—just to get the cord blood—killing Lydia's innocent baby in the process… it was too cruel, even for you." "It was a necessary evil. Only her child's cord blood could save Kayla." "But Lydia had just one month left. Kayla could have held on a little longer—" Grayson cut him off, his voice sharp and absolute. "If there was a way, why would we wait? I couldn't stand by and let Kayla suffer for one second more."

I was eight months pregnant and had just gone into labor, but my Alpha mate, Damien, locked me in a silver cage in the basement to delay my labor. When I cried out for help, he just told me to wait. Because his late brother's mate, Victoria, was also giving birth that day. The Pack Seer had foretold that only the firstborn pup would be blessed by the Moon Goddess and become the future Alpha. "The title belongs to Victoria's child," he said. "She lost Marcus. She has nothing. You already have all my love, Elena. The silver cage will make sure you deliver after her." The contractions were torture. I begged him to take me to the clinic. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. "Stop pretending. I should've known you never loved me. All you've ever cared about is wealth and status!" "To force your labor early, just to steal what belongs to my nephew… You're truly wicked." Pale and trembling, I whispered: "The pup is coming, I can't stop it. Please, I'll make a blood oath. I don't care about the inheritance. I only love you!" He scoffed."If you loved me, you wouldn’t have forced Victoria into that contract to give up her pup’s birthright. I'll come back for you after she delivers. After all, that's my pup in there, too." He stood guard outside Victoria's delivery room. Only after he saw the newborn pup in her arms did he remember me. He ordered his Beta to release me. But the Beta's voice trembled. "Luna… and the pup… they're dead." And in that moment, Damien went feral.