Lohra

They were created; they weren’t born. They were trained; they weren’t raised. They were genetic creations. Human DNA merged with that of the animal. The perfect soldier, a disposable creature. They were created to die, often in the most horrible experiments that the human mind could ever imagine. Their lives were a horror story from the moment of their births. Babes that knew no tender care, no sweet lullabies nor a mother’s love. They cried until hoarse, until they learned no one was coming unless they required feeding. And many times, they were allowed to go hungry until they lay weak and in pain. Only the most basic of service was given to the babes. Creations that millions, billions of dollars had gone into in more than a century of scientific experiments and genetic engineering. “Cubs,” they were called, never “babes,” but they were living beings that, in terms of the cost of their creation, were nearly priceless. Yet in the eyes of those who made them, they were worth no more than the young women who died giving birth to one after another of the creations implanted in their wombs. Human and animal. Determined and far stronger in both spirit and body than the scientists could have ever envisioned. Despite the cruelties heaped upon their young bodies, the experiments, the demented training exercises designed to ensure their success in any mission they were given, many of them survived. The strength of their hatred, of their hunger for freedom, refused to allow them to pass quietly from the world they’d been brought into. Those creations are free now. They’re triumphing against all efforts to see them back in the labs from where they came. Their intelligence is far greater than any could ever comprehend. Their strength is more primal than any could ever suspect. And they’re living on the fragile, desperate hope that the world never learns the secrets they fight to hide.

She had to leave. Summer Calhoun, the woman the world knew as Summer Bartlett, was smart enough to know that this phase of her life was over. And though she wasn’t normally one to run, or to give up, even she couldn’t ignore the fact that she simply couldn’t do this anymore. Teeth clenched, battling tears and anger, Summer threw an armload of dresses into one of the suitcases lying open on the bed. Jamming the material into the leather bag, uncaring of the wrinkles and years of careful packing habits, she added more, pushing the frothy, girly material from the sides of the bag and stuffing them in before zipping the back with short, jerky movements. She promised herself she wasn’t going to cry. Tears didn’t help. They had never helped in the past and they damned sure wouldn’t help now. Nothing would help but getting away and running from the pain. Like serrated blades, the memories of the past few days sliced into her, tore at her. God, how naïve she had been. Four years with the CIA, two with various other agencies, and two more risking her ass in the private sector should have killed any naiveté she might have possessed long ago. Hell, she was certain it had done just that. And how very wrong she’d been. So wrong that for eight years she’d believed an enemy was a friend, and that insults were just a brasher attitude than those Summer was used to in the South. And because she’d let herself be fooled, she’d just spent three of the most hellish days of her life, two of them attending the funeral and burial of the very woman whose deceit and black heart had nearly destroyed far too many people Summer loved. Easing to the padded bench at the bottom of the bed and propping her face in her hands as she rested her elbows on her knees, she tried to tell herself it was the price of ignorance. Of not seeing the true nature of the woman she’d known most of her life. The woman Summer had killed. The funeral had been somber, saddening, and subtly beautiful. Cascades of flowers, over a hundred friends and family mourning. Tears and heartrending testimonials for a woman no one had known for a traitor and a murderer. Summer had remained tearless through the viewings she’d been forced to attend. She’d watched, listened, and taken her turn at the gleaming cherrywood casket where she stared into the pretty, silent features of the woman she’d been forced to kill. A woman who had hated her, whose jealousy and greed had destroyed so many over the years. Summer had remained just as silent during the burial, her head lowered, so much anger burning inside her that keeping it hidden was next to impossible. However, she had no other choice. Because she’d killed the woman they were laying to rest. Because it was her bullet, not an enemy’s, that had slammed into Gia Barrett’s black heart. And God forbid that the world should learn about the woman’s crimes, crimes that would shame her way too influential family. Questions would be asked if Summer and the man Gia had turned her weapon on hadn’t been there for the partner the world believed was so kind and warm of spirit. Money talked, and the Barrett family had plenty of it. Enough to ensure that the world would never know the true reason their daughter was dead. She could have refused to be there, Summer knew. She could have found a quiet place to nurse the wounds gouged inside her heart if it weren’t for the man Gia was trying to murder when she was killed, and the man he called his brother. Esteban Falcone, known as “Falcon,” was the wild, Spanish bad boy whose pale blue eyes could burn with laughter and fun or turn icy with danger or disapproval. The partner whom both Summer and Gia had fought alongside for two years. Playful, sometimes dramatic, always protective and loyal. So protective, he’d had Summer dragged from the chapel seconds before security arrived to find Gia’s body sprawled on the floor and Falcon holding the weapon that had killed her. His half brother, John Raeg, had arrived with security. The half brother was nothing like his sibling. Older by only a few weeks, harder, colder, he’d handled everything and ensured the truth was buried so deep it never saw the light of day. The truth that for eight years Gia had betrayed all of them. Friends and family alike. Even more, she’d betrayed the friend Summer had sworn to protect years ago. A vow that had been broken when she’d failed to keep Gia and those she was helping from nearly destroying Alyssa’s life.

Cara Lewis sat quietly as her boyfriend of three years pushed a plate of dessert across the table, wearing a rehearsed mask of sorrow. He claimed he had to break up with her for her own good, blaming his lack of connections on Wall Street and insisting he couldn't give her the life she deserved. He acted like a martyr making a tragic sacrifice, waiting for her desperate tears and trembling denial. Instead, Cara calmly pulled out a stack of glossy photos and an elegant engagement invitation. She exposed his secret affair with the wealthy Hailie Lewis, completely dismantling his hypocritical social climb. Leaving the cheating narcissist pale and humiliated, Cara paid the bill and walked out, thinking the trash had finally been taken out. But her newly single evening took a chaotic turn when a teenage gaming partner called in a panic. He begged her to crash his elite prep school and pose as his aunt to save him from expulsion. Cara agreed, flawlessly playing the role of the secret new wife to his uncle, a notoriously ruthless Wall Street titan. She was thoroughly dominating the snobby school board when the office doors suddenly swung open. The real billionaire uncle, Beck Greer, walked into the room. Cara's heart dropped into her stomach as his glacial eyes locked onto her, knowing her social existence in New York was about to end. Caught in a terrifying, inescapable lie, Cara made an insane calculation. She stepped forward, firmly hooked her arm through the billionaire's, and smiled sweetly. "Honey, what took you so long? Julian and I were being bullied." She waited for the executioner's axe to fall, but the untouchable tycoon simply covered her hand with his and played along.

I was in the hospital, enduring the agonizing pain of labor, while my husband, a famous hockey captain, refused to show up. When I called him for the twelfth time, begging for him, he lost his patience. "Giving birth is a woman's job, don't bother me with this stuff." Then, I heard my stepsister's sweet voice offering him a drink, and he immediately softened before hanging up on me. I gave birth to twins all by myself. The nurses treated me with cold indifference, and the family in the next bed loudly mocked me as a pathetic "Puck Bunny" who was just an adopted orphan about to be dumped. They were right. A month ago, my husband had thrown divorce papers at me, demanding I make way because my stepsister was pregnant with his child. I thought my life was a joke. I was just a discarded prop he married to satisfy his grandfather, a fake daughter my adoptive parents only used to elevate my stepsister. I was completely alone, ready to sign the papers just to protect my two babies. But then, the head of the hospital rushed in, transferred me to the top-floor VIP suite, and handed me a DNA test. It turned out I wasn't an unwanted orphan, but the long-lost daughter of the ultra-wealthy Sinclair family who had been searching for me for twenty years. Looking at my billionaire parents and three powerful brothers who just flew in on their private jets to protect me, I picked up my phone to call my arrogant husband. This time, I was going to make him leave with nothing.

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."

All I wanted was to find a computer genius to process the non-linear dynamic equations for my ecological model. Instead, I found myself cornered by Julian Andrews, the university's hockey prince, trading a public, staged kiss for his academic support. To finalize our "deal," I was dragged to the campus ice rink. The cheerleaders and puck bunnies immediately swarmed him, mocking my plain clothes and treating me like a pathetic joke. Brooke, the head cheerleader, even set up a figure skating competition with a date with Julian as the grand prize. She performed a basic spin, blew him a kiss, and smugly waited for me to fall flat on my face and humiliate myself. His hockey teammates laughed from the sidelines, watching me try to support Julian as he stumbled around the ice like a newborn giraffe. But as I held his warm hand to keep him from falling, I couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong. Why was a top-tier athlete faking such awful balance? And why did his ice-blue eyes stare at me with such knowing anticipation, as if he already knew about the professional figure skating past I had spent years trying to bury? "Just let go and skate." He whispered, slowly releasing my hand. I took a deep breath, glided to the center of the rink, and landed a flawless double Axel. As the entire rink fell into a dead, shocked silence, I realized I had just exposed not only my own hidden past, but also the biggest secret of the campus god.

Chloe had just given birth to twins, lying exhausted in a cramped, bustling hospital ward. When she called her husband, Julian, he was busy partying with his actress mistress. He coldly hung up on her, having already drafted a brutal divorce agreement that would leave her with a pittance. Strangers in the next bed loudly mocked her pitiful state, gossiping about how Julian was dumping her. For years, Chloe had erased her own identity to fit into his elite world, only to be thrown away like garbage. She was completely alone, clutching her helpless babies, bracing herself to sign the cruel papers just to survive. She couldn't understand why her absolute devotion was met with such chilling indifference. Why did she have to suffer this ultimate humiliation while he celebrated with the woman who ruined her life? But then, a senior doctor noticed a unique mole on her wrist and ran a secret DNA test. The results were staggering: Chloe was the long-lost daughter of the billionaire Beaumont family. With her fiercely protective parents and three powerful brothers suddenly forming an impenetrable fortress around her, Chloe picked up her phone and texted her arrogant husband. "City Hall tomorrow at 10 AM. If you don't show up, my lawyer will handle everything. And trust me, you won't like their terms."

Olivia grew up in a small Florida town, happy despite dreaming of something bigger-until a car accident took her entire family and left her alone. She was forced by her cold, strict grandmother into a life working at a convenience store, but her uncle stepped in. She left with him for New York City. Olivia began rebuilding her life alongside her loving uncles. Then one day, she met Alex-her uncle's boss. Strong, sexy, controlling, obsessive. A perfectionist who discarded anyone he deemed incompetent, a womanizer who never tied himself down. Until Olivia. She was younger than his usual type, but the moment he saw her, he was captivated. Olivia was drawn to him too-but she avoided him at every turn, refusing to give in so easily. Alex pursued her with every trick he had. What he never expected was that, in the battle to win her, his own heart would surrender first.

"From tonight on, Farrah is my one and only Old Lady! As for you, Sloane... you're just my personal bed-warmer." In the deafening roar of the crowded motorcycle club, my boyfriend of five years hauled another woman against his chest, publicly stripping me of my title. The entire room erupted in laughter, waiting for the "helpless orphan" to break down and cry. His bloodsucking mother and sister smirked in the crowd. For five years, I had served their family like an unpaid maid, secretly bleeding my dead father's legacy dry just to pay off their debts. Now, they were thrilled to see me thrown into the dirt. Beau pinched my chin, offering his mercy like a king to a beggar. "As long as you know your place and stay in the basement to do the chores, I'll generously let you be my secret baby mama. It's the greatest mercy a cursed orphan with a dead bloodline will ever get." They thought they had stripped me of everything. They expected me to crawl on my knees and beg for their scraps. The very next morning, I broke into their safe, took back my stolen inheritance and the keys to my father's legendary motorcycle, and rode straight to the National President-the man who held the absolute power of life and death over the entire outlaw world. When Beau smugly swaggered into the President's office, fully expecting to find me begging on my knees for him to take me back, he was instead slapped in the face with a wax-sealed document of formal severance. "She is a free agent now. Anyone who touches her answers to my gavel." I straddled my father's roaring heavy chopper, looking down at my ex's humiliated, panicked face. "This is just the beginning, Beau. I'm going to make your family bleed out everything you stole." But what I didn't realize was that the moment I took my first step toward revenge, the dangerously wild man I collided with in the dark the night before-the one wearing the forbidden insignia of the absolute royal bloodline-had already locked his sights on me like a predator claiming his prey...

For ten years, Kinsley played the perfect, invisible wife to billionaire Christian Decker. She lived on a meager allowance, secretly pouring her heart into earning first place for a prestigious Hollywood directing fellowship. But on the day her gold-stamped acceptance letter arrived, she stood outside his study and heard him give her hard-earned spot to Blair, his live-in mistress. Christian casually dismissed Kinsley's months of grueling work, claiming a mere housewife didn't need industry resources. He threw an unlimited black credit card on the desk, telling her to go buy some jewelry and stop throwing a tantrum. That same night, he paraded Blair at a Wall Street gala wearing the Decker family's heirloom sapphire, letting Manhattan's elite look at Kinsley with pity and mockery. When Blair boldly moved into their master bedroom, Christian fiercely defended the mistress, warning Kinsley not to cause a scene over nothing. Ten years of quiet devotion were trampled for a fake heiress's vanity. Kinsley looked at the man she had loved, her heart turning completely to ash. She finally understood that in this massive estate, there was never any room for her. She took off her platinum wedding ring, left all his luxury gifts behind, and walked out of the mansion empty-handed. Then, she calmly dialed a private number to her production team. "Scrap the fellowship transition. I'm taking the director's chair directly." She was going to make Blair audition for her on a global live stream, and let Christian watch his precious investment burn.

I was the President's Old Lady - and the only reason his MC was still breathing. For three years, I ran every legal business the Serpents of Redemption owned. While Craig chased road glory across state lines, I turned a failing auto shop and a tattoo parlor into the money that kept the brothers fed, the bikes fueled, and the clubhouse lights on. Then he rode home from a two-month run with a sweetbutt on the back of his Harley - and her son. Ginger, he said, had saved his life on the road. So he put her in the main residence, in the room directly across from our bed. He handed her my ledgers and called it repayment. When her son dumped a cup of scalding coffee over my hand, Craig never checked my burns. He scooped up the boy and blamed me. His grandmother - the club's Matriarch - stood before every patched brother and accused me of hurting "family." That night, Craig told me Ginger held a place in his heart I could never reach. A debt of blood he'd honor above me. Three years. My family's fortune. My scarred hand. All of it - worthless next to his roadside savior. So I did the one thing a President never expects his Old Lady to do. I gave back his patch. Now they can keep their empty ledgers. They can play happy family in a clubhouse I built. And when this motorcycle club burns - I'll be the one holding the match.

Five years ago, I stood in the freezing rain at my mother's funeral, waiting for my husband. Blake Knight, the billionaire NHL superstar, was two hours late. When he finally showed up, he brought his rumored girlfriend, the woman he had just rented a hotel rooftop for to celebrate her birthday. Watching him defend her fake tears, my heart completely died. I took off my diamond wedding ring, placed it on my mother's headstone, and walked away from my marriage forever. I fled to London, changed my name to Ava, and secretly raised the triplets he never knew existed. I thought I was finally safe from him. But today, my kids vandalized a silver Aston Martin in our apartment's parking garage, and the owner caught my youngest daughter. My phone rang. The voice on the other end was Blake's. He had moved into my building, and he was holding my little girl in his penthouse, demanding her mother come get her immediately. Panic suffocated me. If I walked through that door, my five years of hiding would be instantly destroyed. He would recognize me, realize I didn't get rid of our child like everyone thought, and he would use all his power to take my babies away. I couldn't let him ruin my life again. "I'm just her nanny," I lied through my teeth. I frantically begged my best friend to go upstairs and rescue my daughter in my place. He bought the disguise, but now, the King of the Ice is dangerously obsessed with investigating my new identity.