Tic Attack Novels & Stories

I was three months pregnant when my fiancé left me to marry his first love, Isabella Thompson. Soon after, I was in a car accident. I survived, but our baby didn't. My childhood friend, Daniel Smith, found out and insisted on marrying me despite his family's objections. He spent a fortune on the best doctors to ensure I recovered fully. Later, he arranged a grand proposal, confessing he had loved me for years. I was touched and agreed to marry him. But three years later, I overheard his conversation with his friend, Mike Perez. "Remember years ago when Isabella stole Jessica's fiancé? To avoid any future trouble for Isabella, you married Jessica and even caused that car accident, which killed the baby she was carrying. Now, can she even get pregnant anymore?" Mike asked. "No, I love Isabella," Daniel replied. "I just didn't want to have any babies with Jessica, so I put birth control in her water." I trembled, unable to believe what I had heard. It turned out Isabella was also Daniel's first love. I figured it was time for me to leave.

After I lost the baby, I gave up everything my mate, Alpha Rhydian, hated. I stopped using our bond to sense where he was. I could sleep soundly even when he didn't come back to our bedroom all night. I didn't even tell him when a rogue's silver blade sliced my arm during a border skirmish. The pack doctor told me to notify my family. I just answered calmly, "I don't have a family." The doctor recognized me. "You're the Luna. Alpha Rhydian is at headquarters. Should I inform him?" I shook my head gently. "No, don't." But half an hour later, Rhydian came anyway. His tall frame cast a shadow over me, his voice ice-cold. "You're hurt. Why didn't you call me through the mind link?" I lowered my eyes. "It's just a scratch. No need to bother the Alpha." A low growl rumbled in his chest. The air crackled with his fury. He was about to speak when a guard whispered outside the door, "The Alpha cares so much for Isla. She just pricked her finger on a rose thorn, and he gave her the pack's most precious moonlight herb." I saw his jaw clench. His gray-blue eyes shot to me, searching for the jealous rage I always used to show. I gave him nothing. Not even a blink. I just leaned back against the cheap hospital pillows and closed my eyes. But Rhydian's composure finally shattered.

The company had just taken off when a project my wife, Lenora Peterson, was in charge of ran into trouble. To ease her mind during her pregnancy, I went overseas in her stead, spending ten perilous years abroad before finally returning home, barely alive. Instead of the joyful reunion I had imagined, she greeted me with cold detachment and thinly veiled disgust. "Why are you back?" Lenora asked. "Today is Nathan’s housewarming party," she added. "Let’s head there first—we’ll talk later." We rode in silence the entire way. When we arrived, a ten-year-old girl came dashing over and clung to Lenora affectionately. “Mommy, why did you take so long? Daddy’s been waiting for you forever!” Daddy? My eyes burned with rage—until I saw my old friend Nathan Grant stepping out to greet us with a smile. "Lily, come to Daddy. Mommy’s tired—don’t bother her now." When I met Lenora’s eyes, the guilt I saw there told me everything I needed to know. I turned away and texted my assistant, Morgan Williamson, to begin acquiring the company that, by right, had always belonged to me. He soon reported back. "Mr. Brooke, the acquisition process will be completed in three days."

On the day of my wedding, my fiance, Oliver Parker, asks me to take off my wedding gown. He wants to let his childhood friend, Angela Summers, be the bride instead. In helplessness, he tries to explain, "Angela has leukemia. Her dying wish is to be a bride and have a wedding. Once I've fulfilled her wish, I'll marry you." Everyone seems to think I'll just go along with it and wait for him to come back and marry me. After all, I've spent three years preparing for this wedding. I've poured my heart into every detail and devoted so much time to making it perfect. However, while Oliver and Angela celebrate their wedding that night, I gave my biological parents a call to tell them I'm coming to be with them. I board a red-eye flight out of Stonevale, leaving everything behind without looking back. … Three years later, I flew back to Stonevale with my husband, Daniel Holden, to attend the anniversary celebration of the Holden Group's Stonevale branch. However, I never expected to run into Oliver at the airport. "You've been gone for three years. Isn't that enough time to let things go? Angela's leukemia is cured, and we're divorced now. Come back to me. Let's finally have our wedding. Don't be so stubborn anymore!"

Five years into my relationship with a Godfather-to-be, I realized Cicio Russo had fallen for someone else. And I decided that the choice should be his. I laid the options right in front of him: break up with me, or send that someone else far away overseas. Cicio Russo stood outside my windows all night, down there with the coldness of the night cutting through him and fogging his breath. By morning, Cicio told me that he'd decided. His choice was me. Or at least - that was what I was made to believe. Surprise came on the very day of our wedding, a strange little boy ran straight down the aisle that was supposed to be mine to walk. “Daddy,” he cried at Cicio and Cicio’s face of stony indifference, “What about me? You have left mommy already. Are you going to abandon me, too?” The ring slipped from Cicio’s hand and hit the carpet with a muted thud. He turned his back on me and walked away without even looking back. I pulled off the white veil. And I snatched the microphone from the host. “If you take one more step,” I screamed into the microphone, “if you leave, I will give all this up. And you, too. Do you hear me? I will give you up.” He froze. For only one second. Then he stepped away anyway.

It took me ten years to become the right hand to Damian Costello, the Consigliere of the Costello crime family. From a nobody to the woman wearing his engagement ring. But two weeks before the wedding, I decided to throw that ring away. Everyone in the family knew how hard I had fought all these years just to stand by Damian's side. I gave up the chance to become a top trader on Wall Street, willingly becoming Damian's assistant, his shadow. This man was infamous for his coldness and exacting nature, keeping everyone at arm's length. So I hid my sharp edges, spending a decade wearing down his icy exterior with gentleness. I cleansed the blood from every dollar he made. I became a necessity to him, as essential as the air he breathed. I thought that after ten years, I had finally made my presence indispensable. And finally earned what looked, to outsiders, like a glimmer of his affection. The family's notoriously aloof genius actually remembered my birthday. He even made an exception, letting me spend the night in his private study when I was unwell. He didn't even push me away when, emboldened by wine, I pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. If the Don's daughter, Isabella, hadn't returned from Italy, I might have kept playing my part, clinging to that false dream forever. But sadly, there are no ‘ifs’. I am going to give up everything here and leave you.

My girlfriend, Kiara Sommer, gets one of her legs crippled in order to save me. Her adopted younger brother, Cain Fullton, suffers from heart failure after shielding us from harm. Since then, his heart becomes extremely weak, and he has to rely on the expensive imported medication just to survive. In order to gather enough money for their surgical bills, I take on a body-casting job in the black market. Not only are my limbs encased in scalding hot silicon, but I also have to endure it whenever a few female perverts cop a feel of me. I can't even move an inch when I'm doing my job. After all, I'll have to compensate for the damages if I ruin the mold. I can only grit my teeth and endure the agony, only to get slapped a few times in the face afterward. "You already have the guts to take on a job like this, and yet you're frightened of getting groped?" As I withstand the humiliation and the burning pain, I return to the hospital with the money in hopes of buying more medicine for Cain. When I walk past a VIP lounge, I hear familiar laughter erupting from within. "Kia, this is the 998th test, right? Once Shane passes 999 tests, are you really going to marry him?" Kiara frowns slightly at the question, though she soon replies coolly, "Yeah. The tests stem from my family's rules, and you're ordered to serve as the supervisor. But still, don't go overboard, yeah? Shane is the only one meant to be my husband." So, Kiara lies to me and torments me to this point just so she can marry me? As I stare at my broken and bruised reflection in the mirror, I feel my lips curling into a smile all of a sudden. With trembling hands, I dig out the old phone that I haven't used for the past two years. My eyes slowly redden as well. Then, I draft a text message. "I regret everything now, Winona. Please take me home."

I find out about my husband's affair by looking at his social media profile picture. The other woman is rich and powerful—she hits me in public and makes me lose my job. She even makes it so that I can never get a job in the same field again! I pretend to give in. In truth, I'm biding my time and slowly exacting my revenge!

I'd been "married" to Zachary for two years—until I tried applying for a loan and the bank's system flagged someone else as his legal wife. Our wedding? Just a private show. The real marriage license had his name next to hers. So yeah. I wasn't the wife. I was the other woman. Crushed, I went home—only to hear Zachary talking to his friend, Ethan, by the door. "Man, watching you stress is exhausting," Ethan said. "You clearly love Sierra. So why marry Cathryn?" Zachary looked torn. "At first, she was just a stand-in. But when she left, I couldn't stop thinking about her. So I brought her back—as my assistant." He paused, then muttered, "I can't live without Sierra. But I can't let go of Cathryn either. So I gave Sierra my love in public and kept Cathryn hidden with the title. That's fair, right?" I stood frozen, heart splitting open. He loved us both. Me—his childhood sweetheart. Her—the hidden wife. I thought I was the one. Turns out, I was just the game. He didn't break my heart. He shattered my whole world. But I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I walked away. And started planning two things.

When I opened my eyes again, I was pinned against the floor-to-ceiling window of the skyscraper by my stepbrother, Rocco. The man I had been infatuated with for a decade. He panted, his hot lips and tongue trailing along my collarbone as he murmured, "Don't go." In my past life, on the night I received my acceptance letter from London Business School, Rocco got blind drunk. Late that night, I gave in to his pleas for me to stay. I willingly gave myself to him. After a debauched night, his cherished fiancée, Clara, caught me walking out of his room the next morning, my clothes in disarray. She ran out in tears, her parting words ringing in the air, "I'll let you have each other." A month after she disappeared, the family search party found her engagement ring at the edge of a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff lay mangled remains, battered by the waves until they were unrecognizable. Rocco clutched that ring and didn't sleep all night. On the surface, he acted as if nothing had happened, even arranging a trip for me to Sicily, telling me to go and relax. The night I landed, I was kidnapped by assassins from a rival family. I screamed for him to pay the ransom, only to hear him give the order himself over the phone: "Don't make her death a quick one. The Costello princess? She's nothing but a damn liability. Torture her. Break every bone in her body. " "This is what she owes Clara." You like playing games, Rocco. But in this life, I refuse to play along.