Evelyn Reed
12 Published Stories
Evelyn Reed's Books and Stories
The Jilted Heiress And Her Possessive Guardian
Romance Ardella caught her fiancé Braden cheating with an actress in a downtown VIP room.
It was supposed to be a simple business marriage to save her family's bankrupt company.
But instead of supporting her, her uncle and aunt demanded she get on her knees and apologize to the cheating fiancé.
They didn't care about her dignity; they only cared about the merger capital.
Her cousin publicly mocked her, and her uncle threatened to permanently hide the police file revealing who murdered her father if she ruined the deal.
To make matters worse, Ethelbert Stone, the terrifying billionaire who raised her—and the man she was desperately trying to escape—publicly claimed he didn't know her.
Yet, moments later, he trapped her in his car, his eyes filled with a sick, possessive rage, reminding her that every inch of her belonged to him.
She was completely cornered by a cheating fiancé, a parasitic family, and an obsessed former guardian.
They had drained her father's trust fund dry and now wanted to sell her off to cover their debts.
They really thought she was just a helpless pawn they could manipulate and discard at will.
But they were dead wrong.
Ardella calmly wiped her hands after throwing scalding tea at her aunt's feet, staring down at her greedy family.
"The headline tomorrow will read: Price Group Bankrupt, Fails to Sell Niece to Cover Debts."
She backed up the video of her fiancé's betrayal to ten different servers and sent a text to her private investigator.
Tonight, at the elite society dinner, she was going to blow the scandal wide open and drag them all down with her. Fated to the Dangerous and Possessive Lycan King
Werewolf After catching my fiancé cheating with my adoptive sister, I broke off our engagement on the spot.
In retaliation, my abusive adoptive parents sold me to Kaelen Knight, the Lycan King, to clear our pack's debts.
He was rumored to be a ruthless, reclusive monster who had been horribly crippled in a fire centuries ago.
To ensure my absolute ruin, my sister planted fake love letters to my ex in my luggage and anonymously destroyed my university scholarship, cutting off my only escape route to the human world.
"A wolfless whore. You planned to drug me," Kaelen sneered, looking at the fake evidence with absolute disgust.
Believing I was a spy, my new husband had his guards throw me into the freezing woods with the Dire Wolves, leaving me to survive the night alone.
I was just a broken, wolfless Omega, entirely at the mercy of a cruel, powerless Lycan and a family that wanted me dead.
But I was wrong about him being powerless.
One night, I accidentally saw him rise from his wheelchair, his tall frame radiating an overwhelming, lethal aura.
He wasn't crippled at all.
The secret I thought was my shield was actually a loaded gun pointed at my head. Trapped with a terrifying predator, I had to stop playing the victim and fight for my life. Broken And Betrayed: A Billionaire's Regret
Modern My ten-year contract marriage was over. I had saved my sister's life by playing wife to a billionaire and mother to his two sons. Today, I was finally free.
But at my stepson's birthday party, my public execution began when a deepfake porn video starring my face was broadcast to all of New York's elite.
Then, my husband's ex-wife, Carolina, orchestrated my downfall. She stabbed herself and blamed me. The boys I raised screamed that I was a monster. And my husband, Justin, believing her lies, beat me so brutally that I miscarried the child I never knew I was carrying.
He chose her. He chose the lie. He let our child die.
But his mother, the woman who orchestrated our marriage, saved me. Months later, my ex-husband and stepsons found me in LA, crying and begging me to come home. I looked at the men who destroyed me and smiled.
"No," I said calmly. "I don't need you anymore." Data of a Broken Heart
Sci-fi The kiss was cold. Not just the late hour, but his eyes, fixated on a spiking graph over my shoulder, measuring my every breath.
"Perfect," Ethan murmured, pulling away. "The oxytocin response was exactly as predicted." He wasn' t talking to me. Our kiss, a desperate attempt to reconnect, was just data for his obsession: Project Seraph.
Our home had become a lab, our life an experiment. I, Ava, a software engineer who' d set aside my career for his, felt like a ghost, a tool in his grand design.
That night, a thin line of light from his locked office door beckoned. I used a backdoor I' d coded years ago.
The room was a laboratory. And in the center, a shimmering, life-sized hologram of Sophia Reed-his dead ex-girlfriend. "Soon, Sophia. Soon you'll be whole again," he vowed, his voice filled with a reverence he hadn't shown me in years.
Then, the horror. He saw me. "Ava? She' s served her purpose. Her neural patterns, her emotional responses… they were the perfect raw data to rebuild you." He filtered out my "weaknesses," my "softness," using our intimacy, our arguments, just to gather data.
I stood frozen. It wasn't just a project. It was a resurrection. And I was the sacrifice. He didn't grieve her; he resented me for not being her. The chilling realization of his malice, extending even to my devastating miscarriage years ago, hit me like a physical blow.
My love turned to ash. I would not be a template. I would not be erased. This wasn't about saving my marriage. This was about survival. And justice. I would burn his project to the ground. The Ex-Wife Who Built An Empire
Modern My mother-in-law, Maria, was crying silently at my kitchen table, her shoulders shaking with a defeated kind of grief.
My husband, Ethan, barely glanced up from his phone.
"Dad had another one of his episodes," he said, dismissively.
This meant Maria, our lifeline for childcare, was being sent back to her abusive husband.
A cold dread settled in my stomach; this was the beginning of the end for my paralegal career.
Then, the strange incidents started with the nannies: a baby monitor blasting static, a gas knob turned on, a back door found wide open.
Terrified, one by one, they all quit, forcing me to give up the job I loved, the independence I cherished.
Ethan, now a newly promoted Regional Director, gloated.
"See? It' s a sign. You' re meant to be home with Maya."
He cut off my access to our joint account, then tossed me a few hundred dollars a week like an allowance, questioning every single purchase.
Our home became a cage, and he was the gatekeeper.
But I wasn' t stupid.
I knew his control was tightening, and I saw a way out.
One night, after he threw a wad of cash in my face and called me a leech, my phone buzzed.
A photo appeared, then quickly vanished: Ethan, arm-in-arm with another woman.
My hands shook with a potent mix of humiliation, rage, and a terrifying clarity.
That night, I hit record on my camera, pouring every ounce of my defiance into my 100th baking video.
The next morning, it went viral. The Violinist's Secret
Modern I spent my childhood isolated, my violin the only companion, fueled by my father's promise: master it, and my estranged mother would return.
She did come back, but not for me. My mother, Sabrina, arrived with a fragile half-brother, Caleb, and eyes that held no warmth, only a chilling disdain.
I quickly discovered I was nothing but a painful reminder of a past she hated. My father, a tech mogul, used Caleb's critical illness as leverage, caging my mother in our sprawling estate. My desperate attempt to help Caleb backfired spectacularly, revealing my own hidden, life-threatening blood disorder.
The world shattered around me overnight. My entire existence was a carefully constructed lie designed by a father who controlled my fate, and a mother who openly despised me, wishing I'd never been born.
Now, with Caleb tragically gone and my parents' twisted war reaching a deadly climax, I must confront the shocking truth of their love, their hatred, and who I truly am amidst the wreckage. The Cost of a Crown: A Mafia Princess's Ruin
Mafia My life as a mafia princess ended the day Dante Moretti, the new Don, killed my family and seized our home.
Now, I was a prisoner, a humiliated servant scrubbing floors in what was once my mansion, enduring his cruel torment day and night.
He swore my family had destroyed his, and his vengeance was absolute.
Then came the impossible truth: I was pregnant with his child.
A tiny, secret hope, a fragile reason to endure, began to bloom in my heart.
But Dante, spurred by his calculating fiancée, brutally forced me to abort our baby.
He then coldly orchestrated the public murder of my last remaining family-my beloved mother.
My entire world shattered in that moment.
That final act of cruelty extinguished every flicker of hope, leaving nothing but cold, dead ash.
My will to live evaporated, replaced by a quiet resolve to end my suffering.
I prepared my escape, a hidden bottle of pills my one solace, planning to simply fade away.
How could one man inflict such unimaginable pain, destroying everything I held dear, yet haunt my every thought with a past love I tried desperately to bury?
Why, in his eyes, did I see both pure hatred and a possessive darkness that called to something deep within me?
Was there truly no undoing the generational cycle of violence he relentlessly pursued?
On the night he paraded me as a broken trophy before his capos, my family's remaining loyalists stormed the ballroom to kill him.
As a blade lunged for his heart, an instinct, a forgotten echo of a life I thought was gone, made me throw myself in front of him.
But as I shielded the man who utterly ruined me, the poison I had taken hours earlier began its final, irreversible work. From Funeral Home to Fortune: A Thompson's Rise
Romance My father' s funeral was a blur of lilies and hushed condolences.
I stood by his grave, a shell of grief, the world a gray canvas of loss while my fiancé, Ethan, stood beside me, a comforting presence, or so I thought.
Then darkness. I woke on a funeral home couch, voices drifting in.
Ethan' s smooth tones and his father Senator Carter' s icy pronouncements cut through the haze: "With Senator Thompson gone, the girl' s family is... socially irrelevant now." My breath caught, a sharp, bitter thing.
Their casual cruelty laid bare the truth: Ethan's plan to ditch me for a "much better fit" for his ambitions, seeing me only as "yesterday's news."
The man who whispered promises, who held my hand, saw me as nothing more than a discarded stepping stone.
My heart, already shattered by loss, was now brutally re-fractured by their cold, calculated betrayal.
The sheer audacity of it, planning my discard while my father's casket lay near, left me reeling, choked with a humiliating fury. How could they?!
But as the nausea receded, a cold, hard resolve solidified in my gut.
They thought I was irrelevant, that my family's name meant nothing without my father.
I would show them meticulously how relevant the Thompsons still were, and their own PR firm would orchestrate it. He Murdered Our Son, I Faked My Death
Modern A perfect afternoon shattered in an instant, taking my five-year-old son, Leo, who was skipping happily by my side.
I was critically injured, rushed into surgery, my world already in pieces.
But a strange genetic immunity to anesthetics meant I woke up.
And I heard everything.
My husband, Mark, calm and cold, told the doctor, "Remove her uterus. Make sure she can't have any more children."
Then, a phone call.
"The kid is handled," he muttered. "Payment is on its way."
Leo wasn't an accident. He was "handled."
My own husband had our son murdered, and was making me barren to clear obstacles for his other family – a mistress and the teenage son he' d hidden for years.
Every shared moment, every memory, a calculated lie.
My son' s short life, reduced to an inconvenience to be erased.
At Leo's funeral, Mark, his secret family, and his mother celebrated, flaunting their wealth.
His other son, Brody, deliberately kicked Leo's scattered ashes, sneering, "Guess he's really scattered now."
The depths of their depravity turned my raw grief into a cold, unbreakable resolve.
They thought me broken, unstable, weak.
They had no idea that beneath my feigned unconsciousness, a different battle had just begun.
I faked my own death, but my meticulous justice was just beginning. A Mother's Cold Resolve
Modern My 8-year-old daughter, Lily, was diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening heart condition, needing immediate, exorbitantly expensive treatment.
The doctor' s words were a blow, but the real shock came when I learned our entire savings were gone.
My mother-in-law, Carol, had squandered over a hundred thousand dollars on pseudo-scientific "wellness" products from a charismatic online guru, Tiffany Hayes, believing they'd "cure" Lily and bring "good fortune."
Yet, I said nothing. I even "sold" our townhouse to generate $500,000 for Lily's care, depositing it into a new account.
Predictably, within 72 hours, Carol blew almost all of it-including a $200,000 "Bio-Resonance Chamber"-on more of Tiffany's schemes.
My husband, Mark, complicit, claimed to have tried to stop her.
Lily' s 'symptoms,' conveniently coached by Mark and Tiffany, seemed to worsen dramatically.
Everyone witnessed my unsettling calm, mistaking it for passivity or naiveté.
How could I endure such betrayal? Such financial recklessness at the expense of our daughter' s life? But behind my placid exterior, a cold calculation was at play.
For months, I had been watching them, quietly gathering every piece of evidence.
The moment Lily 'collapsed' and we rushed to the hospital, I knew my moment had arrived.
As Mark frantically begged me to call my wealthy parents for a bailout, and a journalist live-streamed, I looked directly at him and stated, "No money, no treatment. I won't lower my lifestyle for this." The outrage was immediate.
They thought I was a monster. But what they didn't know was this was exactly what I wanted them to think. The Son She Chose to Lose
Billionaires I thought I had it all. A quiet, devoted husband David, a brilliant son Ethan heading to college, and a secret life of immense wealth, lavishing affection and luxury on my high school sweetheart Leo and his charming son, Finn. My two worlds never touched, or so I believed.
Then, a frantic call from David. Ethan was gone, a hit-and-run. My careful composure fractured, but I still played the part of the grieving mother. I performed sorrow, wearing a threadbare cardigan over my expensive dress, hoping to conceal my true life.
But David' s eyes, full of a pain I couldn' t counterfeit, saw through me. And then, Leo, my lover, let slip the horrifying truth: Finn, in the luxury car I' d bought him, was behind the wheel. My own son, dead, at the hands of the boy I' d chosen over him.
The carefully constructed walls of my indifference crumbled. Yet, the real blow came reading Ethan' s journal: his quiet dreams, his deep love for his father, and the heartbreaking entries about my blatant neglect. "Mom seems to like Finn more than me." His words, his uncomplaining endurance, shattered me more than any physical pain.
In that raw, desolate moment, surrounded by the remnants of my lies, a new, cold resolve ignited. They took my son. Now, I would make them pay. And I knew precisely how. Shattered Compass, Broken Empire
Xuanhuan I, Ethan Thorne, had quietly ensured my fiancée Seraphina Vance's family wealth for years.
It was a sacred pact, tied to my ancient Thorne Providence, a legacy of power I cherished.
At the grand ballroom, I sought Seraphina, only to find her locked in a passionate kiss with Marcus Blackwood.
She brazenly announced our breakup, publicly mocking me and our past, calling me a "relic."
Then, with chilling contempt, she desecrated our engagement compass, a powerful conduit for her family's prosperity, flicking it to the ground.
The crowd snickered, their whispers fueling her disdain, as she declared it "lost."
My heart, once bruised, solidified into cold, stark resolve as she deliberately shattered the compass, unwittingly destroying the very source of her family's fortune.
She still thought this was about her petty pride or common money, completely blind to the profound act she had just committed.
Unaware of the ancient force she had provoked, she laughed when I offered her a final chance to avert disaster, to simply pick up the pieces.
Then, I calmly revealed her fate: her company would plummet by thirty percent on Monday.
And for her new lover, Blackwood: a crippling leg cramp, within minutes.
He scoffed, mocking my "magic," but then screamed and collapsed, writhing in undeniable agony.
The lavish ballroom fell into a terrifying silence as everyone witnessed the brutal materialization of my words.
Seraphina, her face pale with dawning horror, finally saw the terrifying power she had irrevocably unleashed.
This chilling demonstration was just the first payment for her betrayal. You might like
Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father
Madel Cerda I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector.
That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world.
The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor.
The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist.
Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch-a titan of industry and my best friend's father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared.
"Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb.
Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen.
"Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back."
I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe. Shielded By The Ruthless Military Boss
Mo Yufei I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing.
During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me.
I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst.
She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side.
"Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house."
I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip.
My heart went completely dead.
So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate.
I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table.
"I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today." While I Was Bleeding Out, He Lit Lanterns For Her
Katie Oettgen As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole.
I begged him for help, my vision blurring.
But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background.
"Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again."
He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm.
I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube.
Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry.
Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled.
"You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up."
He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research.
I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym.
They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive.
They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity.
I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding.
I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it.
Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house.
The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born. One Night With My Billionaire Boss
Nathaniel Stone I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn.
Beside me lay Ezra Gardner-my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers.
He didn't offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement.
"Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins."
He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend's apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I'd spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes.
I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe.
"Showtime, Mrs. Gardner."
Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend's face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down. Too Late, Mr. CEO: Watch Me Shine
Nieves Gómez Kayla stood outside the CEO suite, holding a custom suit for her fiancé, Brennon. They had spent seven years building a tech company from a freezing garage into a billion-dollar empire.
But through the cracked door, she heard the breathy laugh of Evelin, the newly hired director. Then came Brennon's low, careless voice.
"The wedding's a PR milestone for the IPO, nothing more."
Kayla's blood turned to ice.
"She's comfortable. Makes sense on paper," Brennon continued. "But you, Evelin. You understand ambition."
The betrayal hit her like a physical blow. She had written the core code that made him a billionaire. She had stayed up until 4 AM debugging while he slept on a futon. Now, he was mocking their relationship to his mistress and handing over her life's work to a woman who couldn't even read a data log.
Seven years of loyalty, reduced to a PR stunt. She didn't cry. Instead, a cold, violent clarity washed over her. Why should she let him keep the crown she forged?
Without a word, she pulled the three-carat diamond off her finger and dropped it into her bag. She walked out of the building, drafted her resignation, and accepted a VP position at his biggest Wall Street rival. It was time to show Brennon what happened when the real genius behind his empire decided to tear it down. Broken Ring, Billionaire Secrets: Watch Me Shine
Cornelia I sat on the edge of the examination table, the crinkle of the sanitary paper sounding like thunder in the sterile room. The doctor didn't even look at me as he confirmed the news: the pregnancy was over. My husband, Keyon, didn't answer my call. He just sent an automated text: "In a meeting."
When I returned to our cold mansion, I found his iPad glowing with a message from his "muse," Katina. He was throwing her a secret gala tonight-on our third wedding anniversary. He told her he couldn't wait to escape the "boring" and "draining" atmosphere I created at home.
Keyon didn't stumble in until 3 AM, smelling of Katina's perfume with a smear of red on his collar. When I handed him the divorce papers, he laughed in my face. He called me a "glorified housekeeper" with no skills and no future, promising I'd be back in three days begging for a subway ticket. He even bet his friends ten thousand dollars that I wouldn't survive a week without his name.
He had his assistant cancel my credit cards and block my gate access before I even reached the end of the driveway. He wanted me to starve. He wanted me to crawl. He sat in his office, mocking the "desperate" woman who pawned her three-million-dollar wedding ring for scrap metal just to pay for a meal.
I stood on the rainy curb, watching the man I had protected for three years treat my life like trash. He didn't know about the ultrasound I just threw in the bin. He didn't know that while he was calling me "dull," I was the one secretly writing the code that kept his billion-dollar empire from collapsing.
As I slid into a cheap Uber, I opened a hidden, encrypted app on my phone. The screen refreshed to a dashboard for an account Keyon didn't know existed. The balance was ten figures long-the accumulated wealth of "Solaris," the world's most elusive tech genius. Keyon thinks he just evicted a parasite, but he's about to find out he just declared war on the only person who can hit "delete" on his entire life. Pampered By The Cold Mind Reading Tycoon
Hen Bu I woke up from a coma in the hospital, universally condemned as the vicious daughter who pushed the beloved fake heiress, Georgina, down the stairs.
My ruthless billionaire brother, Angelo, stood over my bed with cold eyes, ready to destroy me for hurting his precious sister.
But as I looked at him, a terrifying prophecy from my coma flooded my brain. Our entire family was doomed.
In the original timeline, Georgina would team up with corporate rivals to bankrupt the company, frame Angelo, and send him to federal prison, while our parents would abandon me to die miserably.
Lying there, I didn't dare speak. I just desperately cursed my idiot brother in my head.
"This stupid brother is still yelling at me for that fake heiress. He doesn't even know he's going to be framed and sent to prison next month!"
I just wanted to stay quiet, let them ruin themselves, and run away from this toxic family.
But strangely, Angelo didn't strangle me. Instead, his attitude took a shocking turn.
He abruptly fired the driver plotting to kill him, destroyed the abusive fiancé of a family ally, and publicly humiliated Georgina at a high-society gala.
He even shielded me from our abusive parents, declaring to the world that I was the only sister he would ever protect.
I was completely terrified and confused. Why was the tyrant brother suddenly acting like a protective beast?
It wasn't until he flawlessly crushed a massive corporate attack using the exact financial secrets I had just complained about in my mind that a horrifying realization hit me.
He could hear my inner thoughts! He Thought I Was A Doormat, Until I Ruined Him
SHANA GRAY The sterile white of the operating room blurred, then sharpened, as Skye Sterling felt the cold clawing its way up her body. The heart monitor flatlined, a steady, high-pitched whine announcing her end. Her uterus had been removed, a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, but the blood wouldn't clot. It just kept flowing, warm and sticky, pooling beneath her.
Through heavy eyes, she saw a trembling nurse holding a phone on speaker. "Mr. Kensington," the nurse's voice cracked, "your wife... she's critical." A pause, then a sweet, poisonous giggle. Seraphina Miller. "Liam is in the shower," Seraphina's voice purred. "Stop calling, Skye. It's pathetic. Faking a medical emergency on our anniversary? Even for you, that's low." Then, Liam's bored voice: "If she dies, call the funeral home. I have a meeting in the morning." Click. The line went dead.
A second later, so did Skye. The darkness that followed was absolute, suffocating, a black ocean crushing her lungs. She screamed into the void, a silent, agonizing wail of regret for loving a man who saw her as a nuisance, for dying without ever truly living.
Until she died, she didn't understand. Why was her life so tragically wasted? Why did her husband, the man she loved, abandon her so cruelly? The injustice of it all burned hotter than the fever in her body.
Then, the air rushed back in. Skye gasped, her body convulsing violently on the mattress. Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified, staring blindly into the darkness. Her trembling hand reached for her phone. May 12th. Five years ago. She was back. 
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