Awakening From A Toxic Billionaire Marriage
I woke up in a sterile hospital room, my head split open from a horrific car crash.
But the pain in my skull was nothing compared to the memory burned into my retinas just before the impact: my billionaire husband, Dawson, walking into a luxury hotel with a woman who looked exactly like his dead first love.
When Dawson finally arrived at the ward, there was no panic or relief in his eyes. He just coldly looked at my bloody bandages.
"Your reckless driving just forced me to postpone the quarterly board meeting."
Even our seven-year-old son, who I almost died giving birth to, didn't spare me a single glance. He kicked my hospital bed in annoyance.
"The Wi-Fi here is garbage. You're a bad mom! Dad said Aunt Angelita should be the one living with us!"
My blood turned to ice. For five years, I had bent over backward, wearing the hideous pale dresses he picked, starving myself to maintain a fragile figure, all to be a perfect, obedient substitute for a ghost.
And this was what I got. An unfaithful husband who would rather bury me in debt than grant me a divorce, and a son who wished I was dead.
The weak, subservient Charlene died on that wet asphalt.
When the doctor pointed to Dawson and asked for his name, I looked at my husband with a hollow, defensive stare.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
Using retrograde amnesia as my shield, I was going to tear their perfect world apart.
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Chapter 6
Dawson stared at the glowing screen. His chest stopped moving. For three agonizing seconds, the hallway was dead silent.
Then, the mask of the ruthless Wall Street predator slammed back into place.
His hand shot out like a viper. He snatched the phone from Charlene's grip. His thumb tapped frantically against the glass, trying to delete the image from her camera roll.
Charlene didn't try to grab it back. She stood perfectly still and let out a soft, condescending scoff.
"Don't bother," she said, her voice dripping with ice. "A file that valuable is already backed up on a dozen different encrypted servers."
Dawson's thumb froze over the screen. His knuckles turned stark white. He glared at her, his face contorted with rage, and threw the phone back at her.
The heavy device struck Charlene's collarbone and clattered onto the hardwood floor. She didn't flinch.
He reached up and violently yanked at his silk tie, loosening it. "You're delusional. That was a standard business meeting. Nothing happened."
Charlene tilted her head. "Save it for the judge. I'm sure the tabloids will love debating the nature of your late-night hotel 'meetings'."
Seeing that his usual intimidation tactics were failing, Dawson's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He decided to play his trump card.
He took a slow step forward, invading her personal space. He lowered his voice to a menacing whisper.
"If you file for divorce, Charlene, I will bury you," he threatened. "I will take full custody of Silas. You will never see him again. And with my legal team, I will drag this out until you are entirely bankrupt and drowning in debt."
Charlene's heart remained perfectly steady. She didn't care about the spoiled brat who had just told her to die.
But Dawson couldn't know that. She needed him to think she still had a weakness.
Charlene sucked in a sharp, audible breath. She forced her eyebrows to draw together in a look of sudden panic. She bit down hard on her lower lip, letting her shoulders slump slightly, feigning the devastation of a mother about to lose her child.
Dawson saw the shift. A cruel, triumphant smirk curled the corner of his mouth. He thought he had found the leash again.
His posture relaxed. He reached out, his hand moving to stroke her hair in a sickening display of fake affection. "Be a good girl. Stay Mrs. Conner, and your comfortable life continues."
Charlene felt her stomach heave. She turned her head sharply, dodging his touch.
She lowered her eyes to the floor, hiding the cold calculation in them. She let out a heavy, defeated sigh.
"My head hurts," she whispered, playing the broken victim. "I can't think straight. Let's... let's pause this. Just until Silas leaves for his summer camp in Switzerland next month."
Dawson nodded slowly. He bought the act entirely. He believed she was just looking for a dignified way to surrender.
Charlene turned her back on him. She walked down the hall to the guest bedroom at the far end. She stepped inside and slammed the door, immediately throwing the heavy brass lock.
Dawson stood in the hallway. His hand hovered in the air for a moment before dropping. His eyes were dark and suspicious, but he didn't try to break the door down.
Inside the guest room, Charlene's fragile expression vanished instantly. Her eyes sharpened into blades.
She opened the laptop sitting on the desk and connected to a secure VPN. She logged into her banking portals.
Just as she suspected. Every single black card in her wallet was a supplementary card tied to Dawson's primary account. He could freeze her funds with a single phone call.
She needed her own war chest before the real battle began.
She picked up her phone from the bed. She opened a secure messaging app and texted her best friend, a ruthless Manhattan divorce attorney named Willow.
Meet me tomorrow at 2 PM. We need to talk.
Then, Charlene pulled her designer handbag onto the bed. She opened her velvet jewelry box. She bypassed the diamonds Dawson had bought her and pulled out three heavy gold necklaces that belonged to her before the marriage.
She stuffed them into a silk pouch. Tomorrow, she would hit the pawnshops. She lay down on the unfamiliar mattress and, for the first time in five years, slept soundly.
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7.3
I found out my husband of three years had cheated on me and his mistress is the one who told me-because he didn't have the balls to do it himself.
I move out and get a new apartment, a job as a bartender, and try to move on with a broken heart. I wonder where it all went wrong, if I hadn't been enough for him, if I'd been stupid for marrying him in the first place.
I'm at work one night when he walks inside-the most beautiful man I've ever seen. He sits at the bar and a forest fire burns between us. I was depressed the moment before he entered, but the second I look at his blue eyes, I forget the dumpster fire that my life has become. I invite him back to my place and it's the most passionate night of my life. I expect to never see him again.
I just want him as an anti-depressant-but he wants me all to himself. I just got my heart ripped out of my chest so I want something easy and no-strings-attached, but he wants all the strings because he's hooked.
I don't get much of a say in the matter, and that's not surprising when I learn why-because he's the Butcher. The crime lord of all crime lords, the boss that overshadows all of Paris, that makes everyone abide by his rules-or pay.
And now I'm his.
7.4
Evelina Barrett was the legitimate daughter, yet she was framed for a disgusting sex scandal, expelled from the Ivy League, and locked out of her late mother's massive trust fund.
While she was thrown out to rot on the streets with a jagged, hideous red scar covering half her face, her father and step-family were throwing a lavish charity gala to celebrate her total ruin.
They laughed as they officially published her disownment notice in the Times to cut her off forever.
"Without the school halo, that ugly freak will be begging on the streets by tomorrow," her sister Aspen sneered.
Her stepmother Annabella toasted to taking out the trash, perfectly happy to steal Evelina's inheritance while ignoring the fact that Evelina knew exactly how they had murdered her mother.
For years, Evelina had been locked in a dark basement, abused by bodyguards, and treated worse than a stray dog.
Why should she, the true heir, suffer in the gutter while the leeches who destroyed her life enjoyed the wealth that rightfully belonged to her?
She refused to be their victim anymore.
Washing away her fake scar to reveal her true, breathtaking face, Evelina blackmailed New York's most lethal billionaire into marriage to secure the ultimate shield.
Then, she put on a black mourning dress, ordered a dark web ghost crew, and climbed into a heavy semi-truck.
At exactly 6:00 PM, she smashed through the iron gates of her family's elegant gala, delivering three pure black coffins directly to the lawn.
9.7
For three years, I was the dutiful wife of billionaire Ervin Valdez.
On our third wedding anniversary, he came home smelling of his mistress's perfume, pinned me down, and brutally mocked me.
His mistress, Sylvia, had even sent me a fake ultrasound report to force me out of the picture.
In Ervin's eyes, I was just a vicious, calculating liar who used a pregnancy to trap him into marriage.
He didn't care that I had actually lost that baby, nor did he know the trauma of my gambling father selling me to a dark club where I was assaulted by a stranger.
When I finally handed him the signed divorce papers, giving up all assets, and left the penthouse with nothing but an old suitcase, he just sneered.
"She is playing a game of hard to get. She won't last three days before she comes crying back."
He froze all my bank accounts, let his mistress humiliate me in public, and waited coldly for me to starve and beg.
He thought my entire existence relied on his wealth, completely confident that I would inevitably surrender to his control.
But he was wrong.
I calmly opened my old laptop, bypassed the complex encryptions, and looked at the dozens of unread emails from top-tier global brands begging for my return.
I resurrected my hidden identity as the legendary jewelry designer "R," and walked straight into the top design firm in Manhattan.
"It is time to find myself again."
7.9
Valerie Ashford, a girl who had just turned twenty-one, was introduced by her father to his business associates at a grand party, where she met a frightening, cold-blooded man.
That man was none other than her father's business partner, the CEO of a major corporation. He was taken with Valerie and had wanted her from the moment he first laid eyes on her.
For Rovano Morvane, whatever he desired was absolute and he had to have it, even by the worst means possible.
That night Valerie vanished without a trace and Rovano became the prime suspect, yet the Ashford family could not prove their allegations.
"P-please, I don't want to die, sir..." Valerie whispered so softly that Rovano had to bend down even lower.
"Didn't you just say you didn't care whether you were kidnapped or not? So shut your mouth." Rovano ordered.
Cold, Valerie felt the other side of the folding knife pressed against her cheek.
Rovano was going to mark Valerie.
It felt like something was missing if Rovano didn't take out his psychopathic urges on someone.
And this time, for the first time, he wanted a girl: Valerie Ashford.
Would Valerie's life end here?
9.5
Jennifer, a fiercely independent entrepreneur, never imagined that running her company would put her in the orbit of Joseph, a reclusive billionaire with a dangerous agenda. Their professional clashes ignite a forbidden attraction, drawing them into a passionate affair that threatens to unravel everything Jennifer has built. As corporate sabotage, hidden heirs, and dark secrets from Joseph's past begin to surface, Jennifer's world spirals into a web of betrayal, desire, and moral peril. In a story where power and love collide, nothing is as it seems and every choice could be lethal.
7.6
Elliana Lewis lay dying on the freezing concrete of a federal penitentiary, her ribs shattered by a guard's heavy boot.
She had been flawlessly framed for murder by the one person she trusted with her life: her sweet, innocent stepsister, Jovita.
During her final prison visit, Jovita wore their mother's diamonds and smiled cruelly behind the glass. She revealed she had liquidated the family company, caused their father's stroke, and paid the guards to ensure Elliana suffered a grueling, agonizing death.
"Your marriage was a joke from day one, Ellie. You have nothing left."
As her lungs stopped, the tragic truth finally dawned on Elliana. She had spent months screaming for a divorce and publicly humiliating her billionaire husband, Damon Stirling, believing his silence was weakness. She didn't realize until it was too late that his endless tolerance was the deepest form of protection. She had pushed away the only man who would have burned the world down to keep her safe.
Why had she been so incredibly stupid? Why did she blindly trust a monster and destroy the only person who truly loved her?
Then, a blinding light pierced her retinas. Elliana bolted upright, gasping for air on a massive, king-sized bed.
There was no pain. No broken bones. The digital clock on the nightstand flashed a date from exactly ten years ago.
It was the morning after her disastrous wedding night.
This time, she would tear Jovita's life apart piece by piece. And she would hold onto Damon so tightly that nothing could ever pry them apart.