Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 329 short novels in Revenge
I remember the day he brought the child home as if the sun had gone rude and turned its face away. "Madam, please," the little girl begged on her knees, her hands pressed together like someone asking a temple for mercy. "Please let my mother come in. We will serve you. We will do anything." She was no more than five or six, a sharp little face like a seed, and her eyes—my God—those eyes were the same as Hayes's. They cut through me. Hayes Gustafsson carried the child, pressed her to...
I never expected my birthday to change everything. "You promised a surprise," I said, voice soft in the kitchen light. "You deserve it," Enzo said, smiling like a photograph. "Just wait." The plan was simple and sweet: family, the small crowd that still loved to call our house warm, cake, balloons. He'd always been astonishingly romantic for a man in his forties, and after two broken marriages between us, romance felt like a fragile, cherished currency. "You look beautiful," he told...
1 "I drew a name," I said, holding the scrap of paper like it might bite. "Valentin Gonzalez?" "Valentin Gonzalez?" the senior at my side repeated, and his laughter was half a scoff. "You got Professor Gonzalez? That's everyone’s nightmare." "He's old," I said, and felt like I should know more than that. "They said he's... retired. Lives alone." "Exactly," Brecken Reynolds said. "He’s exactly the kind of old professor people avoid. Just go, get the signature, don’t ask questions." He...
I waited ten years because he once said he would marry me. "You said you'll marry me," I told him that night in the hall full of candles and woven banners, offering the plum wine we had buried together when we first left home. Alonso Garcia smiled, polite and distant, and raised his cup. "Try it, Brianna. It is Mei Blossom wine from the south. Penn brought it back." "I remember," I said. "You buried it with me when we left." I poured a small taste into his cup and watched him lift...
I woke to a woman's shouting and the smell of cheap perfume and spilled wine. "Open the door! If you've got the gall to sleep with my son, at least have the decency to open up!" she screamed. I blinked at the ceiling, my head pounding in a way that said someone had rearranged my insides overnight. A man—stiff, shirt half unbuttoned—was sprawled on the bed beside me, his face pale and still. My hand found the thin sheet and I curled it around myself. "Who—" I started. "Wake up!" I...
"I don't want your pity," I said, and closed the file drawer with a sharp breath. I had no time for pity. I had a child to bring home, a mother to keep safe, and a life half-broken that I needed to piece back together. Buying a secondhand apartment was supposed to be one tidy, sensible step. It was supposed to be a small, clean line from chaos to normal. "Okay," the agent said, flipping a pen between his fingers. "So, the inspection is final and— "—we agreed on the deposit," I cut in....
"I am the eleventh daughter," I said once, aloud, to the rafters. "Call me Eleven." "You are Eleven," Finn said, flat, and let my mouth be muffled by his hand. I remember the day the household fell. "They took Father first," Kenna hissed when we huddled in the dark. "They dragged him before the magistrates." "They shaved his head, but did not spare his skin," our eldest said, voice like flint. "They sewed verdicts into his collar and tore his papers." "I thought they would not come...
They said my mother was kept because she was beautiful. "She was a treasure taken," people would murmur behind curtained doors. "A danger." I was born into that danger. I grew into it the way ivy grows into stone—without asking. I have my mother's face. I have her fate. "Jana," the servants whispered when I passed the hallways. "Princess—" "Call me Jana," I told them once. "Not princess." They would never obey that request for long. Nobility sticks. Titles clamp down like...
I remember the birthday banquet as a bright room full of candles and old soldiers’ laughter. I remember my father — Emperor Mario Montgomery — lifted on the throne like a giant who had carried us across a storm. I remember, most of all, the moment he folded as if a rope had been pulled from his knees. "I will say it plain," he said first, breath rattling. "Keep things simple. No show." "Father," Dalton Clemons answered, voice steady as he poured wine. "We will honor your wish." He had...
