116 Book(s) Related to after

My name is Mira Sawyer, an orphan adopted by the Rossi mafia family.

The night I was kidnapped, the captor pressed a gun to my temple and told Marco over video: "Five million dollars, or she dies."

I watched Marco Rossi—heir to New York's mafia empire—laugh with a blonde in his arms: "Keep her. Maybe she'll finally learn I don't want a pathetic puppy following me around."

Ten years of waiting, shattered at gunpoint.

Then the warehouse exploded.

Through the smoke walked a man in a black coat, eyes colder than death itself. Three shots. Three bodies. He stopped in front of me: "Nobody touches what's mine to protect."

That night changed everything.

The next day, I returned to the manor and saw him descending the stairs. Marco's face went white:

"Uncle Luca?! You're back from Sicily?!"

The legendary killer, exiled for twelve years. The real power behind the Rossi family. Marco's uncle.

He was the man who saved me.

And in that warehouse, I'd already become his.

I thought I married a cold-blooded businessman.

Three years of contract marriage, he lived at the other end of the hallway, never stepping into my room. I had the divorce papers signed, ready to tell him today.

Until that morning, I suddenly heard his thoughts.

When I walked into the dining room wearing a silk robe, he stared at his iPad, but his mind was screaming: "She's not wearing a bra... don't look! Three years of sitting here every morning, torturing myself..."

Wait, what?

This financial genius called the "Iceberg"—his head was full of me?

I started testing him. "Accidentally" brushing his throat while fixing his tie, his ears turned red instantly, internal meltdown: "She's touching me... calm down! Think about GDP growth rates!"

The most shocking part? I found my "lost" scarves and that pink lace underwear in his nightstand drawer.

Three years of coldness was actually three years of crazy restraint.

Now the question is: should I keep pretending I know nothing, or...

To avenge my father, I married Philadelphia mafia don Salvatore and poisoned him with my own hands on our wedding night. I thought my revenge was complete, until I met his son Matteo at the funeral—a cold, handsome,dangerous man.

Matteo suspected from the start that I'd killed his father. According to plan, I was supposed to get close to him, seduce him, then kill the last Rossi heir when he trusted me most.

"You're trembling." He cornered me against the wall, his long fingers caressing my cheek. "From fear... or something else?"

"I..." Under his burning gaze, I couldn't find words.

"Don't be nervous, stepmother." He leaned close to my ear, his voice low and magnetic. "I just want to see how honest you are."

When the assassin falls for her target, when stepmother becomes obsessed with stepson, can this dangerous game have a happy ending?

"I should've killed you when I had the chance," Julian snarled, his hot breath scorching my neck. "Kneel, Elena. Open wide and take it all!"

Framed by that viper Vanessa and my golden-boy ex-husband, I lost two years in prison—my family, my sweet Elian. Released with nothing, I begged on my knees—stripping in dingy clubs, giving blowjobs in Julian's penthouse, all for money to save our dying son.

But the lies piled up: forged DNA, stolen organs, my boy's death. I donated a kidney to Vanessa, thinking it'd save him—only to learn Julian let Elian die.

Grief shattered me. I jumped from a building, clutching Elian's urn. Now, I watch karma strike: Vanessa confessing in the rain, her daughter's tragic plunge, her arrest. Julian, wracked with guilt, takes his own life.

They destroyed me once. Now, I'll make them pay in blood.

When I was twenty, Samuel called off our engagement and chose Stella instead.

After the engagement party ended, he told me: "Stella saved my life once. Now her father wants to marry her off to that disgusting old man Harrison Burke. I can't just stand by and watch."

He said to give him three years to repay his debt of gratitude, and after three years he would come back to me.

Like a fool, I waited for him for three years.

During those three years, I went from being his fiancée to becoming his secret lover, telling myself it was only temporary.

Until that day, when he knew I had a heart condition but still made me go extreme skydiving for the sake of a business deal.

After that, I completely came to my senses and abandoned him. And he seemed to suddenly regret it.

Ten years of secret love, and what did I get? Watching him fall for another woman at MY art exhibition.

The most ridiculous part? He turned to me and said, "Harper, you have to help me win her over."

I orchestrated their romantic encounters, taught him how to charm women, even told him what flowers she liked. I was the perfect wingman, watching them fall in love while I licked my wounds in the dark.

Until Dr. Avery confronted me with one devastating question: "Do you really think he doesn't know you love him?"

When I finally screamed "I've loved you for ten years!" at Mason, his response froze my blood:

"I know. I've always known."

Turns out, my ten years of devotion were nothing more than a free emotional dumping ground to him—the convenient girl who would never leave. He enjoyed my care while pretending not to see my love, because that was safest, easiest.

Pathetic, right?

A woman wastes ten years loving a man, only to end up pushing him into someone else's arms.

Until Blake appeared.......

I've always lived in the shadow of Sofia, my adopted sister.

Fifteen years ago, Sofia's parents died in a warehouse explosion, supposedly while protecting us from rivals. My guilt-ridden parents took in five-year-old Sofia out of some misguided sense of penance.

While I was being groomed to run this empire, my parents and brother Lorenzo showered Sofia with all the credit. She was their "orphaned angel" who needed their protection, their love, everything that should have been mine.

The cruelest betrayal came from Dante Romano, my childhood sweetheart and our top enforcer. The man I was supposed to marry fell completely under Sofia's spell, charmed by her practiced innocence. He started siding with her in every family meeting while I watched my birthright slip away.

I had it all planned out, after our wedding, we'd escape to New York. A fresh start, away from Sofia and my family's misguided guilt.

But the night before our engagement party, Sofia and I were both "kidnapped" by a rival gang.

"Mommy... there's so much blood..."

My daughter's fevered whisper haunts me as I flee the nightmare I created—stabbing my abusive husband to death in self-defense. With little Emma burning up in the backseat, I run to the one man I betrayed five years ago: Atticus, now a small-town doctor living happily with his perfect girlfriend, Sarah.

What starts as desperate shelter turns into forbidden passion. Atticus pulls me back into his arms, but his kisses hide a vengeful agenda—to make me fall, then shatter me like I once shattered him. Sarah, the kind-hearted angel who calls us family, uncovers our affair and my deadly secret, forcing a devastating betrayal that lands me in cuffs.

Can a murderer rebuild her life, or will the ghosts of my past destroy everything?

Six years of obsessive devotion to her Alpha, only to witness his wedding to another woman!

Raven had sacrificed everything for Asher, only to be completely abandoned at his most important moment. Even more cruelly, she was framed for harming his new Luna and exiled to the deadly borderlands.

With her heart turned to ash, she drank the Love-Erasing Potion without hesitation.

"If I can't have true love, then I'll sever these feelings completely."

Four Betas surrounded me like hungry beasts craving my attention. Marcus's muscles, Felix's innocence, Leo's silence, Nero's mystery—they thought they were enjoying the body of a fallen queen.

They had no idea I was thinking of another man.

When Marcus's lips were about to touch my neck—

Victor's ghost appeared.

"I've only been dead three months, Bella. And you're already having this much fun?"

My bleeding lover questioned me, and I had to maintain my queen's dignity in front of four shocked Betas.

This was my hell—numbing pain with alcohol during the day, filling emptiness with flesh at night, yet never able to forget that dead Alpha.

Three months ago, Victor breathed his last in my arms, his blood staining my white dress red.

Until I realized all this pain had one name: Dante Crimson.

And now, that demon called Dante forced me to miscarry, killing mine and Victor's child.

My childhood friend, Victor's sworn brother, the traitor who personally destroyed our love.

So I began the most dangerous game—using my body as bait, tears as disguise, weaving a revenge web with each Beta lover. Everyone thought I'd gone mad, fallen, finished.

But they forgot who I was—a dominant Omega, rare bloodline capable of controlling Beta armies.

"I was never drunk, Dante. Every night, every tear, every moan was calculated."

This is the story of how a woman reforged herself in brokenness, weaving death traps between lovers' beds.

At eleven p.m., I'm staring at the charity foundation's financial report, barely able to focus on the numbers—Theron is "networking" again, but for three years now, his "networking" has always involved another woman. Then my phone rings. It's Tommy, the paparazzo: "Mrs. Sterling, your husband's on his private yacht, all over some 22-year-old blonde intern!"

Thirty-seven times. Have you ever tried treating your husband's affairs like routine maintenance? Smiling at reporters while quietly wiring money to delete photos? I believed his bullshit promises that he'd "change," convinced myself this was just the price of a high-society marriage. But looking at the photos in my email—there in the bedroom of the yacht he "only uses for business meetings"—is a girl whose face I saw at the company just yesterday.

My stomach turns as I call Tommy back: "Don't delete them. Send the photos to every media outlet." I grab my car keys and rush out the door, asking myself: Do I really want to play the perfect Mrs. Sterling this time? No—but am I ready to blow up my entire life?

I died clutching our unborn baby's ultrasound photo while he fucked another woman in our marriage bed. But death isn't the end—

I died loving him. When I watched his hands touch her skin, his lips kiss hers where we once swore our vows, love became hatred. Now he'll taste my wrath." Three months pregnant, dying alone, yet forced to watch their moonlit intimacy. I couldn't stop it, couldn't scream—only witness him choose her. But a ghost's fury burns hotter than the moon's light."

He thought I'd vanished, so he welcomed her into our sanctuary without hesitation—playing with the console I gave him, sharing our secrets with her. I watched it all, and hatred consumed what love remained.

I thought death was the cruelest pain, until I saw him tenderly bandaging her wounds, almost kissing her in the place where we pledged our souls. That moment taught me—some agonies transcend death itself.

Three days ago I was his beloved. Now I'm a restless spirit, condemned to witness every touch between them. But they don't know—my hatred burns fiercer than my love ever did.

What if your greatest sacrifice became your deepest regret?

Sarah Miller believed love meant unconditional support—abandoning her nursing degree, working double shifts, and funding her husband's coding dreams. When Jake's app hit one million downloads, she thought they'd finally taste success.

But success brought shame, not gratitude. Jake demanded a "low-key marriage," listed himself as "Single" on LinkedIn, and denied his family on national TV. Sarah wasn't a wife anymore; she was a stain on his success.

When their daughter Emma was dismissed as "the help's kid," Sarah understood a brutal truth: gaining everything means losing yourself, while losing it all can make you whole.

Colt Brennan and I were the couple everyone either envied or hated. Seven years of the kind of chemistry that made people uncomfortable at parties—one look and we'd be gone, burning through each other like we had something to prove.
While our friends settled into dead-bedroom marriages, we were still tearing clothes off in parking lots.
So when I lay there that night, breathless and buzzing, ready to ask if he wanted my name tattooed somewhere only I'd see—
He reached for his cigarettes instead.
"Let's break up."
I laughed. He didn't.
"I'm bored, Sloane. I want something purer. Platonic. Love without the sex."
He was already getting dressed.

After Nicholas got engaged, his assistant handed me a plane ticket.

"Leave. Don’t ever show your face in Silverlight City again."

"Otherwise, Mr. Jackson has more than enough ways to ruin you."

All those years I spent by his side, I was admired by everyone, living in the spotlight.

Yet when I finally left, I was reduced to a pitiful, laughable sight.

I said, "Fine."

But that very night, the flight plunged from over thirty thousand feet in the air.

My husband abandoned a billion-dollar deal and flew back overnight for me.

Everyone envied Mrs. Harris and her perfect life.

Only I knew that when he knelt by my bed, holding my hand, his cuff was still stained with another woman's breastmilk.

He thought I'd just taken a fall.

He didn't know that while he was cradling his bastard child with that tender smile, our baby had already dissolved into a pool of blood and left me forever.

This time, I won't make a scene. I won't love him anymore.

I slipped the suicide note I'd written long ago into the drawer.

And on this rainy night, I began planning a "death" that would belong to me alone.