Operating Systems: Internals And Design Principles Novels & Stories

Three years ago, Aria Sinclair loved her billionaire husband Damien Cross with everything she had. In return, he destroyed her. Framed for infidelity by her own sister, Vanessa, Aria was publicly divorced, humiliated, and cast out with nothing, pregnant and alone. Now she’s back. Operating under the name Seraphina Kane, Aria has rebuilt herself as the CEO of a rival luxury empire. She’s powerful, untouchable, and unrecognizable. She returns to New York with one goal: to take everything from the people who took everything from her. But she didn’t plan on Damien falling desperately in love with her new identity. She didn’t plan on the old feelings resurfacing. And she definitely didn’t plan on him discovering that her two-year-old daughter has his eyes. As Vanessa schemes to expose Seraphina’s true identity, and Damien grows closer to a truth that could destroy them all, Aria must choose: complete her revenge, or risk her heart one more time for the man who shattered it.

Tobin Leith was never supposed to survive the first week. When his older brother's gambling debts spiral out of control, the Saal mafia syndicate comes to collect. They want collateral to keep on a leash until the debt is settled. Tobin volunteers before his brother can speak. Emeric Saal, a dominant underworld boss, is cold, calculating, and bored by almost everything. He accepts the arrangement without emotion. Tobin is just a pawn housed in his guest wing under constant surveillance. Except Tobin refuses to act like a hostage. He stays defiant. On the fourth night, Emeric catches him picking the lock on his office door with a fashioned tension wrench. Emeric simply sits down across from him, lights a cigarette, and says the words that change everything: "I was wondering when you would try." Emeric already knows the truth. Tobin is operating under a hidden identity, actively hunting for revenge. What begins as a volatile cat-and-mouse game quickly twists into a steamy, intense MM romance. Emeric, for the first time in years, is deeply interested in seeing what happens next.

To snatch a limited-edition piece of jewelry for his mistress, my blind brother was shoved down a flight of stairs. Ethan Sterling, one of the best surgeons in the country, refused to enter the operating room — all because of a tiny cut on his precious sweetheart's finger. He forged a forensic report and bought Daniel's life for a mere fifty thousand dollars. Even my own daughter turned against me: "You're a liar! Aunt Vivian is the best person in the whole world!" Later, in front of everyone, I stepped off the third-floor terrace and plunged into the void. Ethan Sterling lost his mind. He knelt by the river for three days and three nights, clawing his fingers raw against the stone. A year later, desperate to save his daughter from going blind, he knelt in a downpour begging that mysterious, world-renowned surgeon. I stood there holding my umbrella, utterly unmoved. "I'm afraid you have the wrong person, Mr. Sterling. Miss Holloway died a year ago." "I'm Mrs. Ashford. I'm here to acquire Sterling Medical."

"I, Leila Steen of the Lycan King's Pack, rejecgt you, Lucas Lavoie, Alpha of Kingfisher Pack."
 "You think this stunt will win me over? You're gravely mistaken." In her past life, Leila, a Lycan princess, cast aside her pride to appease her mate, Lucas - a cold, merciless Alpha whose heart belonged to another. While Leila groveled for scraps of his affection, the entire kingdom whispered of his torrid affair with Josephine, his true love. Scorned and discarded, Lucas drained every ounce of Leila's worth, leaving her to perish in agony on an operating table. Reborn with fire in her veins, Leila vows to reclaim her destiny and sever ties with the man who shattered her. But after her bold rejection and demand for divorce, Lucas, once repulsed by her very existence, undergoes a shocking transformation, pleading for a second chance. Unmoved by his groveling, Leila turns away, her gaze fixed on a new horizon - and into the arms of Darren, Lucas' fiercest rival, whose dangerous allure promises a future forged in passion and power.

I'm seven months along with my second pregnancy when a truck almost hits me. My husband threatens the doctor like a maniac. "I'll make all of you retire prematurely if anything goes wrong with my wife!" Before I enter the operating theater, I can't help thinking he's being too anxious. The truck merely brushed past me and made me fall. He doesn't need to be so panicked. However, when I open my eyes again, I find that my belly is flat. I crawl out of bed in a panic and head to the door, where I overhear Lucian Jacobe talking to the doctor. "Mrs. Jacobe wasn't in a major accident, sir. The child could've been saved. Why did you insist on aborting it? It was a baby boy, too." "Jenny will cry if she finds out about me having children with another woman. How can I bear to see her upset? It's not my first time doing something like this, anyway."

He left me bleeding on an operating table while he wined and dined my replacement. Three months later, Julian Voss has everything: the heiress with "proven fertility," our penthouse, his perfect life. I have nothing. Until I meet Damien Hale the billionaire rival Julian destroyed eight years ago. The enemy who's been waiting for the perfect weapon. Me. One proposition: Pretend to be his wife. He'll give me everything I need to burn Julian's empire to ashes. But revenge gets complicated when Damien's possessive touch makes Julian's jaw clench with jealousy. When our fake marriage starts feeling dangerously real. When the man who was supposed to be my tool becomes the one thing I can't control. Julian's begging now, destroying his perfect life trying to win me back. He doesn't know I'm not his anymore. I'm the weapon they both created. And when the ashes settle, only one man will have me.

Caleb Finley tells me he wants to have a child with me during the year when our love is at its strongest. I agree, but that very same night, I fake my death and make my escape, becoming his first love who meets an early death. Six years later, the system seeks me out, on the verge of a breakdown. "Ms. Rockworth, Mr. Finley told me to let you know that your son has just entered the operating room. Do you want to visit him?" "I never gave birth to his child," I answer calmly. The system breaks down even more. "He lost his mind and suddenly turned evil on the night you faked your death. To maintain the balance of the world, we gave him a child who has both your genes. "Now that he has completely gone insane, he told me to tell you that you must meet with him today. If you don't, he'll remove your son's oxygen tube."

After getting retrenched, former sales representative Nathaniel Underwood searches for ways to gain employment, but fails. Left with no other choice, he becomes a gigolo serving wealthy older women in Neon City while keeping the truth from his long-time girlfriend Regina White, a renowned travelling journalist. With bills to pay and a house mortgage to pay off, Nathaniel resorts to seducing these women so that they will keep on taking his services and also to increase his feedback score. However, fate causes Nathaniel to get entangled with the wealthiest young woman in the whole of Neon, Alyssa Dawson, the wealthy CEO of AD Systems Corp. When he extorts from her with a sex tape of their night together, she retaliates by presenting him with an offer that he cannot refuse: to become her exclusive gigolo! But when Regina returns one day to stay in Neon for good, can Nathaniel continue keeping the truth from her? Or will she divulge his secret relationship with Alyssa? And what feud does Sirius White, Regina’s stepbrother, have with Alyssa, and why does she hate him so much?

Under the Moon Goddess, I was once the happiest Luna of the Black Pack. Alpha Mike cherished me, cradled me in his palms, and bestowed upon me a name and glory. But on that day— I lay on the operating table as he slit open my abdomen himself, offering my liver to his white moonlight, Lina. My husband held Lina’s hand, whispering tenderly in her ear: "Don’t be afraid. Anna’s life is worthless—yours is the one that matters." As the anesthesia wore off, agony seared through me. The doctor gasped: "She’s in her differentiation phase! Forcing the surgery will cripple her for life!" Yet Mike didn’t even glance back, leaving with Lina in his arms: "Just an Omega. Saving you is her privilege." Later, I knelt before the witch Jery, trading all my memories for freedom. When Mike stormed into the shop, roaring at my amnesiac, bubble-blowing self— I shrank into the witch’s arms, trembling: "Sister… who is this madman?" His eyes burned crimson as he tore our contract to shreds.

Is it possible to fall in love when you don't know what love is? Turns out it is. Chiara had no idea what love meant, she could not comprehend complex emotions. She had lived her life based on logic and certain principles, until he comes in and the sensible way no longer seem right. Murder came easy to her, it was like breathing, yet she could not kill him. For the first time ever, she could feel and it was all because of him. Feeling was something unexpected and strange, it was something she could not control, yet she wanted it. Nothing would make her give up the feeling, not even him. She was everything he despised, covered up in an alluring beauty. Death surrounded her, it lurked around her and so did he. He ought to stay away from her because she was a psychopath, but he could not. There was something about her that attracted him, pulled him in when he should have been repulsed. He hated her with about the same amount of passion that he loved her. Everything about her made him crazy, but he was ready to be crazy for her.