Warning: this story contains dark theme about depression, sex, violence, and language that may trigger emotional trauma to people who experienced the same. Read at your own risk. Beauty is a gift from God, or so they say. Bethany Chaleir De Vera learned at a young age that beauty won't give you a free pass from heartaches when her dad left her mom to elope with another woman who wasn't even half her mom's beauty. In fact, she believes that beauty is a curse. Because if not, why do her friends continue to betray and sexually assault her? Eventually, she learned not to trust anyone, she learned how to play the game, how to use her beautiful face and curvy body as a weapon to guard her fragile and broken heart. For her, she'd rather fuck in broad daylight than make love in the dark. She'd rather shed her skin to strangers than readily offer her heart. Not until Artemus Xavier knocked on her door. But in this life led through broken pieces and betrayal, how do one unkiss her? How do one unrape her? How will he unravel her?

wattys 2020 winner • mystery/thriller ━━━━━━━━━ Everyone thinks she is dead. Even I thought so, too. While the town spoke of her dead name, Amethyst Cambray is actually alive, and she is asking for my help. ━━━━━━━━

"Jessica... Just... Just tell me when you hear my heart stop..." ****

Running from hell isnʼt easy. Especially when someoneʼs dragging you back down into it. Belligerent, brash and always in shades of black, Freya is hardly a lady. Hidden away by her father, sheʼs lived a normal life despite being born into the dark waters of New Yorkʼs underworld. Heʼs cold, cruel and calculating, with a proclivity for destruction. Feared by even Made Men, Torren is the boss of the stateʼs most leachorous crime syndicate. Freya hates his crudity and possessiveness, but she canʼt deny the way her breath hitches at his rough touch, the deep timbre of his voice, and his dark, heated gaze. Torren hates her disobedience, her recklessness, and her chaos. To him, sheʼs only something to be tamed. And after he slips a ring on her hand, snatching away her future, she makes only one vow---to become his biggest torment.

{𝘉𝘖𝘖𝘒 𝘖𝘕𝘌 𝘖𝘍 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘓𝘖𝘝𝘌𝘓𝘌𝘚𝘚 𝘛𝘙𝘐𝘓𝘖𝘎𝘠} Ria Romano knew hurt like the back of her hand. She was dealt her fair share of bad cards, more than anyone so young should have to face. A cynical girl riddled with the remnants of her past, a shattered sort of soul. She concealed like it was second nature; her instinct being to suppress. She'd offer you a cigarette with a shrug while you were crying because she never was too great with affection. She didn't smile so often but when she did and it was directed at you, you'd never feel such satisfaction. I was told Aria preferred to be alone, isolated; clouding her mind with inhales of her cigarette and drowning it in alcohol. Until she was dealt her good card, out of the pack of bad. They had a love beautiful enough to last a lifetime, the type directors desire to capture and authors aspire to write. Two souls, shattered by the cruelty of the world time and time again with flames that rekindled each others. They were each other's oxygen. They breathed life back into each other, those two insomniacs. <3