Larry Brooks Story Engineering の小説・ストーリー

Late one night, as I scrolled through social media, I came across a relationship influencer with over a hundred thousand followers, teaching men how to "control" their wives. "She actually tried to talk to me about privacy?" he scoffed. "I ignored her for three days, and she handed over all her passwords, crying and begging me not to leave her." The comments exploded almost instantly. The chat went wild. [Take me under your wing, man!] I felt sick to my stomach. Then, without warning, he lifted his phone and pressed a kiss to the screen. A face appeared in the reflection. Mine. Smiling, he turned back to his audience of thousands. "See this? This is the perfect wife I spent three years training." A chill ran through me. I clicked into his profile and scrolled all the way back to his first post. The upload date was the same day we got married. He claimed he was filming prank videos and that it was all just for the livestream—no wonder he got increasingly out of hand. That was when it hit me: he had been lying to me all along. From the moment I stepped into that marriage, I had been nothing more than his experiment, his content, his source of money. Fine. If that was the case, then I would turn his livestream into his worst nightmare. I picked up my phone and sat directly beneath the camera he had installed, then sent a deliberately suggestive message to another man. Three seconds later, the bedroom door burst open. Matthias stormed in and snatched my phone. After reading the message, his lips pressed into a tight line. However, he did not explode. He did not even look at me. Instead, he turned, opened his livestream, and faced the camera. "Send something through, and I'll show you exactly how to put a cheating woman in her place."

After I brought in 300 million dollars in investment for his company, my fiance showed me the home we would share. I thought we would finally get married after eight years together, but instead, he turned on a building game. “I laid every brick here. Once the company is listed, I’ll build you a house just like this one.” I found him and his secretary showing off their love. He had bought her an expensive villa as a gift. I sent the photo to my fiance. “You can afford to buy someone a villa as a gift, but not our home?” Displeased, he said, “Alyssa is the company’s backbone. I’m only giving her a villa to encourage the other staff to do better!” But in the background, I heard Alyssa’s pleased laughter. “Some people should really be more self-aware. Does she think getting some investment makes her the boss of this company?” I did my best to suppress my anger. I wanted to see just how long the company would survive if not for the investments I found!

My younger sister, Rosalind Thorne, stole nine boyfriends from me in a row. I was too terrified to ever fall in love again until Nikolai Volkov proposed to me. He doted on me as if I were a rare treasure. I truly believed I had finally found the one. I thought I was destined to become his Donna, living a life of peace and security by his side. On the eve of our wedding, Nikolai sent Rosalind abroad. Four years into our marriage, I crossed paths with Rosalind at a banquet. A guest smirked. “Nikolai sent you overseas to rot for four years. Don’t you hate him?” Rosalind offered a provocative smile. “He’s the father of my two children. Why would I hate him?” The room suddenly fell deathly silent. “My elder sister is so stupidly naive, believing Nikolai actually despises me!” She sneered, wearing a look of disdain. “The truth is I’ve borne his heirs, lived in his estate, driven his supercars, and spent his money.” As she finished, every single gaze in the room snapped toward me. As Nikolai Volkov’s lawful wife, I knew nothing about what she said. But, I didn’t cry and cause a scene. I simply tapped ‘send’ on the email I had drafted long ago. The reply came swiftly. [You are more than welcome to join my medical team. I’ve been waiting for you.] Staring at the reply, a genuine smile slowly returned to my lips. Nikolai Volkov, from this moment on, you no longer need to pretend to love me.

On my 50th wedding anniversary, I took my worn, crumbling marriage certificate to City Hall to renew it. The clerk glanced at it—and froze. “This certificate is fake. Our records show you’ve never been married.” I stared. “Impossible. I’ve been married to Damien Slater for fifty years.” The clerk pulled up his file. “Well…Yes, Mr. Slater is married—but his wife’s name is Vanessa Grant.” Vanessa. His widowed sister-in-law. A military doctor who’d spent decades living among the troops. My hands shook as I returned home and confronted Damien. He didn’t even try to deny it. “I’ve treated you well all these years. Isn’t that enough? Vanessa is my true love. I only ever wanted her—our children, our life.” My son counseled me and said, “To spare your feelings, my parents kept it a secret their whole lives. You’re getting old now. What more do you want?” Only then did I learn the truth. The child I had raised with my own hands was never mine by blood. Decades ago, Vanessa and I gave birth on the same day. To ensure her child would grow up with intellect, privilege, and a future that I could provide, Damien switched our children. My own son? Damien drowned him in the pond the moment he drew breath. And I—fool that I was—raised Vanessa’s boy as my own. I even got him all the way to Claremont University. The truth broke me, and I collapsed. When I opened my eyes again—I was back. Back to the day I went into labor.

On our seventh wedding anniversary, my wife handed me a divorce agreement that was valid for seven days. She had fallen for a male intern at her company who was seven years younger than her. She wanted to experience what she called a proper romance with him, one that would last exactly seven days. On the first day, they booked an entire private cinema and made love to each other from the entrance to their seats. On the second day, they went to the seaside to set off fireworks, and the light spread across half the skyline of Veyron. On the fifth day, the intern burst into an art exhibition I hosted and cried in front of the entire press. He accused me of coming between them. That same evening, the story of a rising painter becoming a homewrecker for love reached the top of the trending searches, and the hate comments poured in. On the sixth day, my wife apologized to me on the intern’s behalf, and his punishment was a three‑day ban from shopping. On the seventh day, my wife finally sensed something was wrong. She called me ninety‑nine times and reminded me that we were supposed to reconcile the next day. I replied with a single “okay” and quietly told my assistant to arrange for my luggage to be shipped out. What she did not know was that seven days earlier, I had already made plans to go abroad to continue my studies. This time, I was done playing her game.

I worked for a restaurant, and our boss loved making empty promises about giving us restaurant shares. The boss said we would start with zero shares, but we could earn 0.01% for every two hours of overtime, covering someone else’s work or saving the restaurant 1,000 bucks. I suggested she write this down in an official document and have someone track it properly. She just smiled and told everyone to work harder. She never actually put it in writing. The experienced staff did not believe her, but one prep cook took it seriously. At the end of the year, he went to the boss to claim his shares. The boss said, “Sorry, the head chef told me there’s no official document, so it doesn’t count. You can’t claim any shares.” The prep cook worked hard all year and got nothing for it, so he took his anger out on me. The day before I was going home for the New Year, he killed me with a knife. “If you hadn’t said it doesn’t count without an official document, this whole restaurant would’ve been mine!” I lay in a pool of blood. When I opened my eyes, I was back to the day the boss first made those empty promises.

It was a national holiday and we decided to drive back to my husband's hometown to spend the holidays. One day before we left, my husband's childhood crush came crying to him that she had not managed to buy train tickets home. My husband immediately decided to let her have my seat in the car and insisted that I take the train instead. I looked at him in disbelief. There was shock in my eyes. Even my son insisted I take the train. "Mommy, Aunt Rosie is so pretty. How could you make her take the train?" I did not argue. I booked my train ticket right in front of them. However, it was to my own hometown. I no longer wanted a biased husband and a disloyal son.

At the marriage ceremony before the altar, my Alpha partner stepped forward in front of everyone, took the Luna's crown that was about to be set on my head, and placed it instead on the head of that trembling human girl. "Don't make a scene. She's my fated mate." He pulled the girl behind him, a warning in his eyes. "You're the strongest she-wolf. I will allow you to stay and look after her, but you must respect her, or I will cast you out!" He thought I would keep compromising for him, just like I always had. What he did not know was that I had already decided to tear up this alliance that had long since gone rotten. Once the night of the full moon passed, I would no longer be the Luna who had stood by his side for five years and was about to be crowned. I would be the Blood Wolf King, and I would crush the entire pack beneath my feet, along with the pair who had humiliated me.

After I shared my five-million-dollar commission with my department colleagues, they drag me to a hotel and celebrate with me for three days straight. But when I walk past the bathroom, I overhear a conversation between two of my colleagues that stops me cold. "Have the results of the vote come out yet?" What vote? Confused, I check my phone and find that I've been removed from the Project Department's group chat. "Who else could it be? Our hero, Zane Carter, received eleven votes. It was unanimous, and the motion was passed." "Serves him right. I've never liked him anyway." I freeze. I can't believe that my colleagues would betray me after what I've done for them. After taking a moment to calm down, I immediately decide to resign. The next thing I know, I receive a call from the company chairman, Wilson Smith. "Have you made up your mind? Quitting now would breach your contract. As a result, your five-million-dollar commission would be revoked. "You're also a key technical staff member. If you leave, your entire department would most likely be dismissed. Once that happens, your colleagues will end up unemployed. Are you sure about this?" I lower my gaze and let out a cold laugh. "Absolutely."

It was only after my boyfriend, Julian Mercer, received his HIV diagnosis that he finally understood what his childhood friend, Luna Sullivan, truly meant by "life and death together". In my previous life, after Julian collapsed from anemia, Luna insisted on donating blood to him. I fought with everything I had to stop it. I told him that Luna had already contracted HIV. If she donated blood to him, he would be infected as well. He refused to believe me. Luna cried and swore that she had never even had a boyfriend. To prove her innocence, she climbed onto the rooftop and pretended she was going to jump to her death. However, she slipped. She missed her footing and fell to her death from the building. To avenge her, Julian conspired with our classmates to kidnap me. He strangled me with his own hands. I still remember his furious roar. "This is all because of your slander! You killed Luna! I will make you pay for her life!" When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the blood transfusion. I watched as Julian lay there, already receiving blood from his beloved Luna. I smiled faintly. HIV? Fine.