It sounds like the punchline to a dark joke, the kind you tell to break the tension at a dinner party, but as I sat in the sterile, fluorescent-lit conference room of my office, staring at my buzzing phone, I felt nothing but a cold, suffocating dread. The device vibrated against the mahogany table for…
The soil beneath my fingernails was cool, a stark contrast to the humidity pressing down on the Connecticut afternoon. I was on my knees in the dirt, the knees of my grey sweatpants stained a deep, earthy brown. To the world—or at least, the very small slice of the world my husband allowed me to…
I won $2.5 million in the lottery on a random Tuesday afternoon. My name is Elise Turner, and I grew up as the invisible daughter in a family that worshipped my younger sister, Natalie. She was the miracle, the golden child, the one who “deserved the world.” I was simply… the spare part. When I…
They laughed before I ever said a word. Not openly. Not cruelly enough to draw a warning from the bailiff. Just the kind of quiet, confident laughter people allow themselves when they believe the ending has already been written. A few murmurs. A couple of knowing smiles. A soft exhale from someone in the back…
My life was reduced to the constant beep of monitors and the stench of antiseptic the night my husband Daniel was admitted to the hospital following a car accident. Another motorist ran a red light when he was making his way home from work. He was fortunate to be alive, according to the doctors, but…
The puppies of the dog were strange, but everything changed when a Navy SEAL entered the room. His arrival revealed the startling reality, and the young animals’ destiny was abruptly changed.Ethan Langley had been living in a cabin for the past three years when the wind rushed across the Vermont ridges like a freight train,…
Section 1: The Discarded InvestmentBlackwood Ridge was attacked by the snow, not the other way around. Every breath seemed like inhaling glass as the wind howled through the skeleton trees like a dying animal, robbing the air of its warmth. On the other hand, the Sterling Estate had a perfect, costly, and controlled climate. The…
The Grand Sapphire Resort did not sparkle; it glowed. It was a monolith of white marble and gold leaf, perched on the edge of the Mediterranean like a crown dropped by a careless giant. I sat in the lobby lounge, sipping sparkling water from a crystal flute. Across from me sat Jason, my fiancé of…
The crystal chandelier in the Roberts’ dining room was so polished it hurt to look at. Beneath its aggressive sparkle, the long oak table was set for twelve, laden with roasted duck, truffle mashed potatoes, and bottles of wine that cost more than most people’s monthly rent. Elena sat at the far end of the…
The slap came so fast I didn’t have time to react. One second I was blinking under the chandelier light, the next my head snapped to the side and the room spun. My glasses went flying, skidding across the polished floor and shattering like thin ice on the elegant ballroom tile as 130 guests watched…
My name is Claire Mitchell. I am 30 years old, and I make a living predicting worst-case scenarios for a fintech company in Denver. But nothing in my job ever prepared me for the ten-second voicemail that blew up my family. It came in on a Tuesday afternoon, right between a risk report and a…
The female Navy SEAL who changed everything by silencing four bullies in fifteen seconds Mara Selene has been hiding in places that most people didn’t even know existed for the past ten years. The standard-issue navy-blue uniform concealed a body refined by years of Navy SEAL training, a secret only a few knew. She entered…
My name is Laura Bennett, and for most of my sixty-two years, I believed I lived a quiet, ordinary life in a modest house in Ohio. My husband, Michael, and I bought the place three decades ago, raised our son Daniel there, and paid off every cent with discipline and sacrifice. That house was our…
After graduating, Chloe saw all the indications of betrayal in her father’s odd conduct. Visits to her best friend’s divorced mother, late nights, and covert phone conversations. It wasn’t an affair at all, though, when the facts eventually came to light. In reality, what was he concealing? Graduation night was meant to be flawless. There,…
Caleb has created a peaceful life for himself and his children ten years after losing his wife on Christmas Day. However, Caleb is forced to confront the one truth he has never questioned and the price of the love he has battled to preserve when a stranger shows up with a claim that threatens everything….
I saw a six-year-old youngster walking by himself in the dark a few days before Christmas. He stated that he didn’t want to go with strangers because his mother had passed away. I assured him he wouldn’t be by himself. When a woman came to take him away thirteen years later, I discovered that we…
For years, my mother would deliver Christmas dinner to a homeless man at the neighborhood laundromat. She passed away this year due to cancer. I followed her custom and went alone. However, I felt uneasy when I saw the guy. I was unprepared for the secret my mother had been hiding from me all along….
My stepdad informed me that he was getting married to Mom’s best friend just one month after Mom had left. I should have been broken by that alone. But when I found out what they had been concealing all along, that’s what broke me. They didn’t anticipate what I did next. It still seemed like…
My longtime wife believed I was unaware of what she was doing behind my back. However, I was discreetly gathering evidence for something she never anticipated while she was busy lying to me. When I discovered that Maren, my wife of six years, was unfaithful to me, I was thirty-two. I’m referring to deliberate, unrepentant,…
Chapter 1: The Weight of Plastic The trash bag wasn’t tied. It sagged pitifully on her small frame, a whisper-thin layer of grey plastic that stuck to her skin like shame. Lily, my seven-year-old daughter, stood in the doorway of our kitchen. She didn’t cry. She didn’t complain. She just looked at me with eyes…