A Contract Marriage With My Nemesis
My fiancé always told me he loved me. But not long after our engagement, I woke up suffocating in the dark.
He was pressing a pillow over my face, his eyes cold and dead, while my half-sister stood by watching with fake pity.
They had orchestrated everything just to steal my trust fund.
It all started with a massive hotel scandal. They had drugged me, thrown a cheap escort into my bed, and brought a mob of paparazzi to ruin my reputation.
When my fiancé broke through the crowd, playing the heartbroken victim, he knelt down with a massive diamond ring.
"I know things have been hard, but I love you. If you come home with me, I will forgive all of this."
In my past life, I cried tears of gratitude and let him slide that ring onto my finger.
That ring sealed my death warrant. I lost my company, my dignity, and eventually, my life.
Until my lungs burned and my heart stopped, I didn't understand.
How could the people I trusted most plot my murder so ruthlessly?
Why did they have to tear my entire life apart?
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the morning of the hotel scandal, exactly one year ago.
But the man lying bare-backed in my bed wasn't a random escort.
It was Johnathan Chase, my family's biggest corporate rival and the most ruthless predator on Wall Street.
Listening to the paparazzi pounding on the door, I smiled coldly.
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Chapter 7
Elena pulled back from the hug. She took a deep breath, smoothing her features back into a mask of professional calm. She grabbed her purse, and the two women took the private elevator straight down to the underground garage.
Elena drove her Porsche out of the city, heading toward a narrow, dimly lit alley in Soho. They stopped in front of a heavy iron door disguised as a bookshelf.
Elena pressed her thumb to the hidden scanner. The door clicked open, revealing a dark, narrow staircase.
They descended into the speakeasy. The air inside was thick, smelling heavily of expensive cigars and aged bourbon. Low, rhythmic jazz played through hidden speakers, creating a heavy, insulated atmosphere.
Elena navigated the dark room easily, leading Thea to a secluded, velvet-lined booth in the far back corner.
Before they even ordered, a bartender silently slid two custom dry martinis onto the table and vanished into the shadows.
Thea grabbed her glass and took a massive gulp, the alcohol burning down her throat as she tried to calm her racing heart.
Elena didn't touch her drink. She sat back, staring at Thea in the dim light. The memory of Haylee standing over Thea's bleeding body flashed behind Elena's eyes. A sharp ache gripped her chest, and the edges of her eyes burned. She quickly picked up her glass and took a sip, letting the cold liquid hide her emotions.
Thea lowered her glass. She noticed the redness in her boss's eyes. "Are you okay? Is the scandal getting to you?" she asked, her voice laced with genuine worry.
Elena shook her head. She set the glass down and looked Thea dead in the eye. "Thank you for not running away today."
Thea sat up straighter. "I work for you, Elena. I'm always on your side."
Elena unzipped her leather handbag. She pulled out a thick manila envelope and pushed it across the table.
Thea opened it. Her eyes scanned the legal document inside. Her jaw dropped.
It was a heavily drafted proxy voting agreement, alongside a new executive contract. The title listed at the top was Chief of Staff for the CEO, granting her full authority to act as Elena's proxy in all board decisions.
Elena took a silver pen from her bag and pressed it firmly into Thea's palm. "Sign it."
"Elena, I can't take this kind of power," Thea stammered, her hands shaking as she read the immense legal weight of the document.
"You are no longer just my assistant," Elena said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "I need an absolute loyalist with voting power on the board to execute my orders without hesitation. Sign it."
Thea's eyes filled with tears. She gripped the pen tightly and signed her name on the dotted line, permanently binding her fate to Elena's.
Elena took the document back. Her eyes instantly hardened, the brief moment of warmth vanishing. "Tomorrow morning, you are going to freeze the security clearances of three people."
She listed the names of the Chief Financial Officer, the VP of Operations, and the Head of Acquisitions.
Thea gasped. "They've been with the company for twenty years. If you fire them, the board will panic."
"They've been on Darron's payroll for three years," Elena said coldly. "They are bleeding the company dry."
She tapped her phone screen, sending a massive encrypted file to Thea's inbox. "All the proof of their kickbacks is in your email."
Before Thea could respond, a sudden shift in the room's energy made Elena look up.
There was a commotion at the entrance. The heavy door swung open.
Johnathan Chase stepped into the dim light. He was wearing a perfectly tailored black suit that clung to his broad shoulders. Four massive bodyguards trailed behind him.
His dark eyes swept the room like a radar, instantly cutting through the smoke and locking directly onto Elena's booth.
Elena's stomach tightened. Her eyebrows pulled together in a sharp frown. This speakeasy was an invite-only secret. But as Elena looked past his shoulder, she saw the usually arrogant bar manager bowing respectfully to him. Of course. The underground establishment was just another hidden asset quietly owned by Chase Capital. He hadn't tracked her; she had walked right into his territory.
Johnathan waved off the nervous bar manager who tried to approach him. He walked straight toward their corner, his long strides eating up the distance.
Thea felt the dangerous shift in the air. She immediately stood up, stepping in front of the table to block Johnathan's path.
Johnathan stopped in front of the booth. The sheer physical dominance radiating from him made Thea's breath catch in her throat.
He didn't even look at Thea. His eyes remained fixed on Elena, dark and unreadable.
"Tell your assistant to take a walk," Johnathan said, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that cut through the jazz music. "We have a deal to discuss."
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7.4
Four years ago, to protect the man I loved from losing his billionaire empire, I drugged his drink, told him I only used him for his money, and vanished.
Now, at a high-society gala, Callum Wyatt is back. He isn't just a CEO anymore; he's a ruthless predator, and the second his eyes lock onto me, I know I am his prey.
When my wealthy half-sister publicly humiliated me, calling me the cheap bastard child of a homewrecker, Callum stepped out of the shadows. He nearly snapped her wrist in half and declared to New York's elite that anyone who touched me would be dismantled.
In the back of his Maybach, he pinned my arms above my head, his eyes burning with psychotic obsession.
"If you run again, Aubrey, I will burn your entire world to the ground just to keep you."
My heart bled. I had spent four grueling years tearing myself apart to keep him out of my messy, blood-soaked revenge against the family that watched my mother die.
But his terrifying protection only made my biological father's family target me harder, using their massive capital to buy out my movie set and crush my acting career.
They thought I would cower.
But as I walked onto the soundstage, facing the heiress trying to steal my role, I took off my sunglasses. I wasn't running anymore; it was time to make them pay.
9.7
I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing.
During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me.
I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst.
She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side.
"Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house."
I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip.
My heart went completely dead.
So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate.
I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table.
"I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today."
7.3
Clara came home from a fourteen-hour board meeting to the sound of a piercing scream in the playroom.
When she rushed in, she found her husband, Chadwick, kneeling on the floor in a panic.
But he wasn't looking at their five-year-old son, Leo, who had a massive bleeding welt on his forehead.
Instead, Chadwick was trembling as he held the nanny's daughter, Autumn, who barely had a microscopic scratch.
"She needs ice. And antibacterial ointment," Chadwick snapped, carrying the nanny's daughter away and leaving his bleeding son behind.
From that moment, the nightmare only escalated.
Chadwick ordered Clara to cook a three-hour meal for the nanny's kid, threw away Leo's favorite toys because Autumn sneezed, and even secretly took the nanny and her daughter on Leo's promised Disney trip.
The final humiliation came at the Met Gala.
Right before their sponsor speech, Chadwick received a frantic call from the nanny claiming Autumn was having a panic attack.
He abandoned Clara in front of hundreds of flashing cameras, sprinting out of the ballroom.
Clara stood completely alone, the humiliation eating through her veins like acid.
She couldn't understand how a father could call the nanny's kid his "little princess" while watching his own son cry.
Why was he treating his own flesh and blood like garbage just to play savior to another woman's child?
Suddenly, the blinding camera flashes were blocked by a massive shadow.
Erasmo Chase, the heir to New York's largest financial dynasty, stepped out of the darkness and shielded her.
"A man like that is unworthy of your grief, Ms. Best," he whispered, pressing a silk handkerchief into her trembling hand.
Looking at the sharp profile of the powerful man beside her, Clara's shock hardened into a lethal, cold fury.
She was going to dump her family's shares, crash the board, and make Chadwick lose absolutely everything.
7.5
I was Nyx, a top-tier covert operative. But when I opened my eyes, I was trapped in the unfamiliar, overweight body of a bullied girl named Eliza.
Before I could even process the body swap, the bedroom door splintered open. I was in bed with Julian Malone, a wealthy military heir, both of us heavily drugged. Cameras flashed wildly. It was a vicious setup to ruin his career, and I was the bait.
To save his family's reputation, Julian was forced to marry me. But the moment the wedding was over, he abandoned me. His elite family treated me like a disease. His mother froze my only bank account, trying to starve me into submission.
I even intercepted a private conversation between his parents.
"Once she's in a private facility, she loses all legal standing. We can sign anything we want on her behalf."
They planned to lock me up in a mental asylum and erase my existence entirely to get rid of the "trailer park trash."
To them, I was just a weak, pathetic pawn they could crush without a second thought. They thought they had backed a helpless girl into a corner.
They had no idea they had just declared war on a lethal weapon.
I didn't cry or beg. Instead, I bypassed their state-of-the-art security, cracked their safe, and stole the financial secrets that could destroy their entire empire.
"I want five hundred thousand dollars, or these files go to the IRS."
This time, I was playing by my own rules.
8.4
Kenzie, the former leader of the Aegis Alliance, opened her eyes to find herself reincarnated as a freezing, abandoned infant in a wet cardboard box.
She was rescued from the rain by Devin Ayers, a ruthless billionaire, and rushed to a private hospital, but a deadly threat was already waiting for her.
The ER doctor, Desiree Dillon, approached her with a syringe. Through a sudden burst of telepathy, Kenzie read the doctor's dark thoughts. Desiree wasn't trying to cure her fever. She deliberately ignored the safe dosage, drawing a lethal amount of Diazepam to permanently silence the crying baby and disguise it as sudden infant death.
"This will make it all go away," Desiree smiled gently, the needle glinting as it moved inches from Kenzie's arm.
Trapped in a weak, paralyzed three-month-old body, Kenzie couldn't run, fight, or even speak. She could only watch the poison inch closer.
How could she survive death only to be assassinated in a hospital bed by a corrupt doctor? She used to command armies. The sheer injustice and terror of dying completely helpless in this tiny body ignited a blinding rage inside her.
Refusing to be a victim again, Kenzie pushed her newborn brain to its absolute limit and unleashed a desperate telepathic scream directly into the billionaire's mind.
"Poison! She's trying to kill me!"
Devin, who had been looking away, suddenly froze, his icy gray eyes locking onto the doctor's wrist.
8.1
On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes.
She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia."
Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours.
He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity.
But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture."
I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her.
And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm.
Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite.
He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet.
He is wrong.
I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door.
And I changed the groom.
As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears.
The Reaper.