The night was ink-black, the bedroom lit only by a bedside lamp. She curled in the man’s arms, her hair clinging to his chest, breathing steady—like a dream that had finally found peace. But the door cracked open, soundlessly. Heels still on, suit still buttoned, he stood in the shadows, a photograph pinched between his fingers: her laughing against another man’s shoulder, sunlight spilling over them both. On the back, in my handwriting: *Congratulations on your marriage*. I stared at her for three minutes. Long enough to memorize the faint crease between her brows even in sleep. Long enough to confirm that every anonymous threat letter sent to her home over the past three years—she’d kept them all, tucked beneath the lowest drawer of her vanity. I hadn’t burned them. In fact… I was almost glad. Her lashes fluttered. She woke. “You…” I raised a finger to my lips, softly shushing her. Then, from my pocket, I pulled out a ring—identical to the wedding band on her finger. "You promised you'd only wear the one I gave you," I whispered, my voice like a blade dragged across bone. "But now you're wearing his." She jerked backward, only to be caught and shielded by the man beneath her. He sat up, bare-chested, muscles taut. "Who the hell are you?" I didn’t answer. Just slowly unbuttoned my cuff, let it drop to the floor. "I’m the bastard she knelt in the rain ten years ago, begging not to leave." "I’m the ex-boyfriend who missed seventeen calls the day she miscarried." "I’m the madman who stood on the street corner the day she walked down the aisle—into someone else’s arms." I paused. Then smiled. "Now, I’ve come to collect what’s owed." The moment he lunged, I was ready. Twisted, struck—elbow to the face—he collapsed with a grunt. She screamed, reaching for the phone. I closed the distance in one step, knee pressing down on her legs, and gently placed the ring into her mouth. "Keep it there," I murmured. "You once said, if I ever found myself again, you’d walk away with me." "Well, I’m back—career, identity, freedom. All rebuilt." "What about you?" "You were the first to give yourself… to someone else." Tears spilled down her cheeks, lips trembling. "It’s not what you think… we were already—" "Shut up." My eyes burned. "You don’t get to explain." Behind me, the man staggered up, swinging a lamp. I dodged, kicked hard into his gut—he slammed against the wall, sliding down, coughing blood. Then she screamed, raw and desperate: "He has heart disease! You’ll kill him!" I froze. Turned. There she was, tears streaking her face, arms wrapped tight around that broken man—like a mother shielding her cub. And suddenly, I laughed. Pulled a document from my coat. Slapped it onto the nightstand. A divorce agreement. Signed by me three months ago. She never knew. "I’m not here to take you back." I looked at her, voice frayed. "I’m here to set you free." Then I turned to the bleeding man on the floor, speaking each word like a curse: "But the ten years she stole from me—you’ll pay them back." "Starting tonight, every time she laughs, I break one of your fingers." "If she ever loves another—" I leaned close, whispering into his ear: "I’ll make sure you live long enough to watch her marry him." Before I left, I gave her one last look. That single glance—ten years of youth—reduced to ash. The door clicked shut. Inside, only gasps and sobs remained. And I? I stepped into the dark, pulling out my phone. "Hello, police? There's been an assault… The address is…" Sirens wailed in the distance, drawing closer. I knew they couldn’t save her. But this time— I wanted her to see, with her own eyes, how I would utterly destroy her happiness. The story has only just begun.

Twenty years ago, on a rainy night, I stood in front of her with my frail body, clutching a rusted iron pipe, trembling all over but shouting the harshest words I’d ever said: "If you dare touch her again, I’ll kill you!" No one knew that night—I wasn’t a hero. I was just a fool strangled by fate, who personally shoved the one who saved me into hell. Today, I stopped her in the hospital corridor. The white coat made her look cold as frost, her badge reading “Dr. Aurora Lin.” How laughable—she even changed her surname, escaping completely. But when I stepped closer, her fingers trembled, and the medicine bottle dropped to the floor. She’s still afraid of me. “Your mother is dying,” I said, my voice like sandpaper scraping over wounds. “The man who held a knife to her throat back then—was your father. But the one who signed the organ donation consent form in the end? My mother.” She snapped her head up, her eyes exploding with stormy waves. Memories rewound— She knelt in a pool of blood, wailing as she held her mother’s body, while I sat in the police station giving testimony, praised as a “brave good boy.” No one told me the “attacker” I knocked unconscious that night was the father she had tried desperately to protect. No one mentioned that my mother, to clear me of guilt, quietly took the blame—and died three years later from liver failure. Aurora lost everything—her name, her identity, her life. And I? I wore the mask of a hero and lived as the greatest demon. “You have no idea how these twenty years have been for me,” she suddenly laughed, tears crashing down. “Every day, I wish it had been you who died instead.” I pulled out a knife from my chest—a stainless steel scalpel, stolen last night from her office. “Here,” I turned it around and offered her the handle. “Now you’re the doctor. Now you’re the winner. Whatever you want to take from me, I’ll accept.” She didn’t take it. Instead, she lunged forward and hugged me, her nails digging into my back as if trying to carve me into her bones. “Rory… kill me,” she whispered against my ear, laughing through sobs. “We should’ve both died that rainy night anyway.” The heart monitor shrieked sharply. Inside the room, her mother’s heartbeat flattened into a straight line. And we stood at the edge between life and death—neither willing to let go.

The moment the red nightgown touched her skin, the marriage crossed a line it could never return from. The private villa was silent except for the soft hum of hidden cameras, their lenses locked on the bed where she lay with one hand over her pregnant belly. Upstairs, beyond a concealed bookshelf, the feed streamed into a surveillance room where he watched without blinking. At 3:17 a.m., ash fell from his cigarette as he ordered the recording to continue—every breath, every movement archived like evidence awaiting trial. At dawn, the house transformed into a different stage. Sunlight flooded the bedroom as he returned in a tailored suit, immaculate and unreadable. She approached with warm milk and a careful smile, playing the role she had survived in for three years. He didn’t touch the cup. He pulled the curtains wide and asked a single question that split the room in two: she had never been blind, had she? Glass shattered, blood traced her ankle, and the first mask cracked—but he didn’t accuse. He placed a photograph on the table instead, time-stamped proof of her seeing eyes, her reflection sharp and conscious. The room tightened. She pleaded survival. He answered with proximity. A gun rose, slow and steady, as contracts and recordings surfaced on the screens—prenatal records altered, medical signatures forged, a lineage he believed betrayed. The risk escalated again: not a lie exposed, but a future contested. He pressed closer. She shielded her belly and swore the child was his. He didn’t believe words; he believed systems. Then the systems betrayed him. From the corner, the fetal monitor cut through the silence—beep… beep…—a heartbeat impossible to fake. The weapon hovered, half-pressed. Outside, wind lifted the curtains like witnesses leaning in. Love collapsed into ash; hatred found no landing. He stood frozen between proof and pulse, between a kill shot and a living record that would outlast any confession. He lowered nothing. Said nothing. Somewhere beneath the floorboards, another file began uploading—unplayed, unfinished. And as the heartbeat continued, so did the countdown, toward a decision no contract could contain and a reckoning that hadn’t even started yet.

After her mother's sudden death, a rebellious girl falls dangerously in love with her new guardian—the ruthless mafia boss who once "loved" her mom.

Cate believes her love story with mafia heir Nick is finally turning into the future she always dreamed of—until the very night she decides to give him everything. She opens her bedroom door expecting passion… and instead finds James, the cold, ruthless man who controls the entire underworld, waiting in her bed like a silent verdict. One night. One mistake. And her entire life detonates. The next day, under glittering lights at an exclusive mafia party, the truth hits her harder than any gunshot: she didn’t just sleep with a stranger—she slept with Nick’s father, the most feared man in the city. Overnight, Cate is dragged into a world of dangerous desire, mafia power games, and forbidden obsession, with James refusing to let her walk away. Nick’s heartbreak turns to rage, alliances crack, and the entire underworld begins whispering about the girl caught between a father and a son. But just when Cate thinks she’s reached the bottom, a darker secret about that night threatens to twist everything she thought she knew—because in the mafia world, the biggest betrayal is never the first one… but the one waiting in the shadows.

Morning light pierces through the stained glass of the church, spilling across Tina's wedding gown like blood. She kneels before the altar, golden hair disheveled, blood trickling from the corner of her lips. William—the mob boss who calls himself her "father"—gently lifts her chin with his fingers, burning hot against her skin. His voice is sickeningly tender: "You can't escape, Tina. You're my salvation. My only light." The pews are empty. Only wind sweeps through the towering vaulted ceiling, rustling the marriage contract that should have been filled with blessings. Then, in the suffocating silence, the church doors crash open. Sunlight floods in, silhouetting a tall, slender figure. Impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, he holds a gold-embossed invitation in one hand, a smile on his lips unchanged after seven years. "Sorry I'm late," says William Manchini, her fiancé, stepping forward, each step echoing like a funeral knell on the marble floor. "After all, I've waited for this day… seven long years." Silence grips the hall. Tina’s pupils shrink. A sob catches in her throat. And then the real William—her "father"—smiles. He releases her, slowly removes his ring, and lets it drop. It hits the ground with a sharp, ringing sound. "Put it on," he says, his gaze icy. "Did you really think he came to save you?" Tina trembles as she picks up the ring, her fingers numb with cold. Just as she’s about to slide it onto her finger, Manchini speaks again, his voice soft as a first love: "You know… the night I killed your real parents, you cried in my arms the whole night long." Her hand freezes. A message suddenly flashes across her vision: 【Holy shit! The groom’s the real killer?!】 【This isn’t a wedding—it’s a sacrificial ritual!】 【She was never the daughter—the father wasn’t the monster. He was the only one trying to protect her!!】 The church bell tolls, twelve times. At the first chime, Tina finally sees the madness in Manchini’s eyes. At the sixth, she suddenly clenches the ring in her mouth. At the eleventh, William draws his gun, aiming straight at Manchini. At the final chime— The gun doesn’t fire. But Tina collapses. From her mouth falls not the ring, but a tiny, blood-stained USB drive. She looks at her "father," blood trailing from her lips, smiling with peace: "Dad… mission complete. The police… already have the evidence." For the first time, Manchini’s smile shatters. Moments later, sirens wail in the distance, tearing through the dawn. This wedding was never about who marries whom. It was about this— the prey delivering the predator into hell, with her own hands.