Hercules Eighth Labor の小説・ストーリー

Even after being married for three years, my husband treats me like a stranger. When I throw up blood from pregnancy complications, he's in the prayer room chanting for his foster sister, Yvie Springton. He accuses me of being dramatic. If Yvie so much as gets a headache, he drops everything and flies overseas to be by her side. When his parents are in critical condition after a car crash, I beg him to go see them one last time. But what does he do? He claims I'm cursing Yvie. When I go into early labor and cling to life after giving birth to our son, he posts a photo of his international boarding pass on social media. At his parents' funeral, he returns to the country with Yvie and demands I leave the marriage with nothing. The day our divorce finalizes, he holds a wedding ceremony with her. I bury his parents alone. Then, at an exclusive auction, dead set on winning the famous painting for Yvie, he offered a staggering price. Even his accounts are frozen. That's when he finally realizes he's been disowned by the Springton family. His eyes are bloodshot, and he's furious as he demands answers. I simply gesture for my lawyer to step forward. He says, "Mr. Springton, take a look at this will."

To help my wife, Mia Lowell, through labor, I blew a fortune on the latest paternity-linked pain transfer device. Right before she went into the delivery room, Mia grabbed my hand. Tears streamed down her face. "Honey, if it gets too painful, turn it off. I can't stand watching you suffer." A nurse gave me one last reminder. "Sir, the device automatically transfers the pain to the baby's biological father through DNA matching. Please be prepared." The device switched on. I felt nothing. Not a twinge. Just as I started wondering if I'd gotten scammed, a scream ripped through the hallway. Ryan Duffy. My best friend dropped to the floor, clutching his stomach. "Aaaagh!" A second later, my boss Andy Drake, who'd stopped by with a fruit basket, staggered out of the elevator with both hands between his legs. Then came Luke Foley, a yoga coach seeing a doctor across the hall. He was flat-out rolling on the floor, howling. Inside the delivery room, Mia's weak voice drifted out. "Honey, thank you for taking all this pain for me!" I looked at the three guys writhing in agony. Then I quietly turned the device all the way up. Max load. Holding my breath, I shouted toward the delivery room. "I-I'm fine. I can still... take it."

Julian Ashford, the golden boy of the city's elite, had his left leg broken by his father with a golf club -- all because of me, a scholarship student. He was stripped of his billion-dollar inheritance and cast out of the family. For three years, he dragged that ruined leg around an auto repair shop, doing backbreaking labor just to scrape together enough for my college tuition. Everyone said I was the luckiest girl alive -- that I'd brought the untouchable heir of a financial empire to his knees, made him willing to live on scraps in the worst part of town. Today was our three-year anniversary. I was carrying the freshly signed Holloway Group inheritance confirmation documents, ready to finally tell him my real identity and pull him out of this misery. I walked down the corridor of The Grand Pavilion, holding a box of vanilla shortbread -- his favorite. Through the half-open door of a private suite, Julian Ashford stood tall on two perfectly healthy legs, dressed in an immaculate tailored suit, sliding a rare pink diamond ring onto the finger of Victoria Sterling -- the city's most celebrated socialite. "Victoria, I used that scholarship girl as a shield to survive three years of my old man's relentless arranged marriage schemes. My body's completely untouched. You've always been the one I was going to marry." I looked down at my own hands, cracked and raw from the cold, and tore the inheritance documents to shreds.

In the eighth year of helping Keith Hunter pay off his debts, I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. I tested the waters and asked him, half joking, "If I got cancer, would you save me?" He laughed, saying I was overthinking it. Then he added firmly, "If it ever came to that, I would sell my blood to pay for your treatment." I lay awake all night, tossing and turning, still feeling like I couldn't drag him down with me. Before taking a sleeping pill, a notification popped up on my phone about a social media post. [How do I dump an older woman who paid off my debts for eight years without too much drama?] The profile picture looked eerily like Keith's silhouette from behind. He wrote, [Eight years ago, my family went bankrupt. She stuck with me, living off dry toast and squeezing into a rented apartment. She helped me pay back over 600 thousand dollars in debt. [Back then, I thought she was innocent and cute. Now, I feel like she's just a materialistic woman putting on an act. [Last month, she even asked whether I would save her if she got cancer. How does someone even ask that? [Obviously, she was trying to get money out of me. Good thing I didn't tell her that my family recovered three years ago. [Now, my family has arranged a fiancée for me. She's the daughter of a publicly listed company. [I want to cut things off with my girlfriend, but I'm afraid she'll cling to me. After all, she wasted a lot of her youth on me.] By the time I finished reading, I had crushed the stomach cancer diagnosis in my hand into a wrinkled mess.

Shortly after we said "I do," the Family sent my husband, Dario, down to the Mexican border. He told me it was a meat grinder down there—cartel territory. where guys were zipped into body bags every day. He said he had to go—to expand the territory, for the glory of the Family. He claimed it was too dangerous and that his enemies would paint a target on my back, so he wouldn't take me with him. I believed him. I stayed behind in his old, rot-infested house in New Jersey, taking care of his bitter, spiteful parents. I spent my days and nights in the Family's moldy laundromat, washing bills stained with blood. He told me he sent every dime he made down there to the widow of a brother who took a bullet for him. He asked me to be understanding. I never complained. Day after day, I pressed expensive suits in that humid laundromat, waiting for him to come home. It wasn't until the eighth year that a mobster came back drunk. When I asked about Dario, he froze, then sneered at me through a haze of alcohol. "Dario? Are you kidding? He’s been a King in Manhattan for years. He’s the youngest Underboss of the Corleone family." I stood frozen, the iron in my hand burning a hole right through a shirt. "And he got married seven years ago. Biggest cathedral in New Jersey. Half the mob was there to toast the groom..." He pulled a crumpled photo from his leather jacket. Snuggled up against my husband was a woman in a high-end couture gown—the very same "poor, widowed sister-in-law" he had told me about. The next day, I contacted a fixer who specialized in fake IDs. On the application for a one-way ticket to Europe—a ticket to vanish off the face of the earth—I filled in the fake name I had prepared long ago. He trapped me for seven years with a sham marriage. From now on, I’d be done with this damn loyalty.

Eight months pregnant, I went into labor at the exact same time as my husband Jason's sister-in-law after a fall. But Jason thought I was trying to fight for the family inheritance. "Janet, I told you the family has already accepted Rachel's child as the future heir of the Martinez family. I never expected you'd go this far—hurting yourself—just for the so-called birthright. I'm so disappointed in you." According to family rules, the first child born into the Martinez family is the future heir, inheriting everything. They thought that because I married in as an "ordinary" woman, I would covet that inheritance. But that crown? It wasn't worthy of my child. What I never expected was that, the moment Jason walked out, his sister Ashley would deliberately inject me with a drug to stall my labor. "Janet, Rachel's child is the one who should inherit this family. Your baby? He doesn't qualify." "Don't worry. Once Rachel's baby is safely delivered, I'll make sure you're well taken care of." With that, she turned and left me alone in that empty, godforsaken room. The pain was unbearable. I fought with everything I had to protect my baby. I screamed for help, but no one answered. In the end, I pressed the signal button my father had given me. Dad—please, save me and my baby.

"Your husband is so wild in bed!" On the eve of my childbirth, I received a provocative video from my husband's mistress, flaunting their affair.In the video, my supposedly loyal husband, Max Jennings, and his mistress were entangled in a hotel bed, exchanging dirty talk and engaging in various sexual positions.The shock of it all triggered premature labor, resulting in a stillbirth that left me utterly devastated.Max, consumed by guilt, fell to his knees before me, tears streaming down his face. Desperately, he begged for my forgiveness. Little did he know, I had already uncovered all his schemes - the secret transfer of his assets, the signing of substantial life insurance policies, and the true cause of our baby's tragic demise.I clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably, like a typical housewife shattered by her husband's betrayal.But in the depths of my heart, a grim thought emerged: "Max, since you won't agree to a divorce, it seems that becoming a widow is my only way out."During this tumultuous period in my life, I met Luke Walker.The people in our town describe Luke as an angel who has fallen to Earth—an honorable and composed beacon of light. Yet, somehow, he took an interest in me—a woman scorned and deemed hopeless after a failed second marriage.No one understands the truth. It was Luke who relentlessly pursued me, drawing me deeper into a complex relationship!

On the night of the Blood Moon, a feral surge ripped through our territory. I ended up pinned under the ruins of our collapsing den. My mate—the Alpha of the Northern Pack, Kaius—abandoned me. He left me to rot so he could save his childhood sweetheart Lina. I didn't stop him. I let him go. In my last life, faced with the same choice, Kaius had chosen to save me first—back then, I was eight months pregnant. Because he was late to the rescue, Lina was torn apart by the beasts. She died in a pool of her own blood. Later, on the day I went into labor, Kaius dragged me to Lina’s grave. He stood there, stone-faced, watching me scream in agony on the dirt. He ignored every single plea. "Does it hurt, Elena? It’s not even a fraction of the pain Lina felt when she died!" "You were in a safe bunker that night, Kaius! Lina only died because you used our pup to blackmail me into staying!" "Lina suffered. Now, it’s your turn." He ignored my begging as blood soaked the ground beneath me. I died of a massive hemorrhage in the healer’s tent that night. Now, I’ve opened my eyes back on the day of the surge. This time, my pup and I aren't counting on him.

On the tenth year of being bonded to my mate, Alpha Lucian Blackwood finally returns to my side. He no longer calls out his puphood sweetheart, Sadie Marrock's name in his sleep. He no longer forces me to shift into my wolf form and go hunting right after my labor just because Sadie wants to drink deer blood. Even my son, Conan Blackwood, who's always disliked me, begins to kiss up to me by nuzzling against my leg. The entire pack is flying with rumors of the Alpha finally realizing what he actually wants. They think I'll be the happiest Luna ever. I thought I'd be happy as well. That is, until Lucian rejects Sadie's call for help and chooses to stay at home with me. After that, he pins me down and tries to kiss me on my lips. This is the first time in ten years Lucian wants to be intimate with me, but I instinctively tilt my head and avoid his kiss. Then, I push him away coldly. All traces of happiness vanish instantly. Angered by my behavior, Lucian roars, "Weren't you jealous of Sadie over the past ten years because of how well I treated her? Well, I'm only good to you now! What more do you want from me?"

Katherine Nolan, my husband's first love, was drugged while studying abroad. When she returns to the country, she is pregnant, just like me. On the day I suffer a massive hemorrhage during labor, my husband, Gabriel Donovan, shows up with Katherine to force me into a divorce. "Kate comes from a highly educated family, and her reputation means everything. If anyone finds out that she's carrying another man's child, it will destroy her. I have to be the father of her baby. Let's get a divorce," he said. In my previous life, I refused to divorce him and even exposed the truth. Katherine's image as an educated and independent woman collapsed. She became the target of public scorn and accusations of fraud. Heavily pregnant, she went to a bar to drink herself numb, but someone took advantage of her afterward. It led to a miscarriage and massive blood loss. She died despite emergency treatment. Gabriel held a funeral for her and offered me a sincere apology. Three months later, I was hit by a car sent by him and left disabled. He even threw our six-month-old son, Adrian Donovan, into a dog cage and left him to be mauled by wild dogs. Only then did I realize that he had long wanted to kill both me and our son. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the very day he brought Katherine to pressure me into a divorce.