

Someone @'d me on Nextdoor. "Hey, penthouse girl. You're single. What do you need a whole rooftop garden for? My husband's throwing a party. We'll be needing it starting tomorrow." "Don't worry, we'll give you two hundred bucks a month for upkeep. You'll make a couple hundred for doing jack shit. You should be thrilled." I stared at the screen. It was a joke. I was Don Ricci's heir, groomed to run the South Side. But I traded that life for a paintbrush. This apartment was my sanctuary, my quiet place. That rooftop garden wasn't some building perk. It was mine. I'd paid half a million cash for the deed when I bought the place. I turned it into my sunroom studio. And now someone thinks they can have it for two hundred bucks a month? I replied with two words: "Dream on." I didn't expect the building manager and two security guards at my door the next day. Someone had filed a complaint about me "misusing community resources." And now, for the sake of "neighborly harmony," they were demanding my keys. Fine. They wanted to throw civility out the window? They were about to learn what real power felt like.

Nineteen-year-old college freshman Carl West was entrusted by his mother, who was away on a business trip, to the care of their neighbor Joanna Luca. Joanna, thirty-eight, had a husband who was rarely home and ran a women’s clothing store by herself. She took excellent care of herself, had a full figure, and was easygoing and generous, never shy about walking around in revealing clothes in front of Carl. Carl was deeply drawn to her mature feminine charm, while Joanna also treated him with the closeness of one of her own kids—pulling him into workouts, making videos, and their daily contact steadily intensified the ambiguous tension between them. One night, after helping Joanna carry her handbag back to her door, Carl heard her husband’s furious shouting from inside. Joanna’s husband, Michael Luca, demanded to know whether she was having an affair, punched and kicked Carl, and publicly humiliated Joanna. Carl was completely defenseless. In the course of seeking revenge, Carl was repeatedly beaten and humiliated by Michael and his men. While enduring the humiliation, he secretly investigated and learned that Michael had gotten ahead by sleeping with his boss Lucas’s wife, Sarah. So Carl teamed up with Dick, a former subordinate whom Michael had cuckolded, and set a trap to let Michael’s boss Lucas catch him in the act himself. After Michael was ruined and reduced to a street beggar, Joanna successfully divorced him, and in the end she and Carl started a new life together.

Once a wealthy heiress, Stella Smith's life takes a tragic turn when her parents become comatose after an accident, and her fiancé betrays her. By a twist of fate, she is pregnant with Jay Pace's child, though she mistakenly believes the father is someone else. Years later, she returns with her child and reunites with Jay Pace as his subordinate, totally unaware that her boss is actually the father of her child. A series of misunderstandings ensue which sparks a growing affection between the two. As the misunderstanding clears up, the reunited family finds their happily ever after.

"After Nora Bennett broke up with her first love, Ethan Grant, Alexander Shaw hired her to be his contract girlfriend for five million dollars. Alexander was the heir to a powerful Manhattan business empire. Three years later, Nora became pregnant with Alexander’s child. She then discovered that their entire relationship had been an act of revenge from the beginning. Alexander had approached her only to provoke Ethan, who had once taken away the woman Alexander loved. He had even used private videos of himself and Nora to humiliate Ethan. For the first time, Nora began to question everything that had happened during those three years. That same night, a news alert appeared on her phone. It reported that Ethan had died after his car plunged off the road. Nora finally decided to leave. In the end, Alexander and Ethan each abandoned her on a mountain road just before a heavy storm. The next day, they received the news that Nora had died in a mudslide. Only after “losing” Nora did the two men begin searching for the truth. Ethan took over the Shaw family business in the name of revenge. Alexander lost everything and searched desperately for any trace of Nora. However, Nora was still alive. Someone had rescued her. She later started over under a new name, Ivy Lewis, and found both an ordinary life and a new love. "

After Nora Bennett broke up with her first love, Ethan Grant, Alexander Shaw hired her to be his contract girlfriend for five million dollars. Alexander was the heir to a powerful Manhattan business empire. Three years later, Nora became pregnant with Alexander’s child. She then discovered that their entire relationship had been an act of revenge from the beginning. Alexander had approached her only to provoke Ethan, who had once taken away the woman Alexander loved. He had even used private videos of himself and Nora to humiliate Ethan. For the first time, Nora began to question everything that had happened during those three years. That same night, a news alert appeared on her phone. It reported that Ethan had died after his car plunged off the road. Nora finally decided to leave. In the end, Alexander and Ethan each abandoned her on a mountain road just before a heavy storm. The next day, they received the news that Nora had died in a mudslide. Only after “losing” Nora did the two men begin searching for the truth. Ethan took over the Shaw family business in the name of revenge. Alexander lost everything and searched desperately for any trace of Nora. However, Nora was still alive. Someone had rescued her. She later started over under a new name, Ivy Lewis, and found both an ordinary life and a new love.

Sean Benson and I have been betrothed since we were kids. But the older we grow, the further he stays away from me. On the day of our engagement banquet, he's found to be making out with Selena White, the heiress of the White family, backstage. This time, I no longer break down in tears. Instead, I just close the door properly for them before returning to the banquet hall silently. After that, I rip the pregnancy report that's pressed beneath a gift box into shreds. On our wedding day, all the guests are all smiles. Sean, however, is the only exception. He maintains a stormy expression the whole time, seemingly not wanting to marry me at all. I know that if it's not the fact that he gets to secure the position as the Benson heir, he will never make any wedding vows with me in the church. But no one expects me not to show up at all, even though the wedding ceremony is already starting. Sean calls me on the phone impatiently afterward. "Where the hell are you? If you don't show up soon, I'm going to cancel the wedding right away!" I merely chuckle softly without saying anything. Then, I throw my phone aside and accept the wedding bouquet that's passed to me. What Sean doesn't know is that my unborn child will be calling another man "daddy" soon.

For three years, Cecilia Nixon had been in a loveless marriage with Nat Gold, untouched by him, and her mother-in-law insisted she leave empty-handed. In a sudden act of defiance, Cecilia managed to force Nat to sleep with her and then vanished, pregnant. Six years later, upon her return to her homeland, the first person she bumped into was Nat. As they engaged in a chase, her rage got the better of her, and she confronted him, demanding a proper distance between them.

Liam Wayne is minding his own business when the apocalypse arrives and drops his entire residential complex, Greenhill, into a monster-infested forest with no warning and no exit. He awakens a survival system almost by accident, unlocks a point exchange store and the ability to merge spaces, and makes a choice that surprises even himself—he is not leaving anyone behind. He pulls together an unlikely team, a motorcycle queen, a firefighter built like a wall, a surprisingly lethal young girl, and more, exchanges system points for weapons and supplies, and turns a community of ordinary neighbors into something that can actually fight back. Seven days of relentless undead waves.Internal betrayals from the selfish and the desperate. And through it all, the quiet stubborn solidarity of people who decide that survival means nothing if they do it alone. Liam leads them through every wave, every threat, every knife in the back, and carves a path out of the wasteland for every last one of them.