Betrayed Heiress: Married To The Devil
I was tossed into a dark alley like rotting garbage, bleeding and grieving the child I had just lost.
When I was finally brought back to my fiancé Angelo's penthouse, instead of comfort, I was met with absolute disgust.
His family declared me "unclean" after the kidnapping. Angelo coldly announced he was burying the scandal by marrying my sweet, innocent cousin, Carissa.
When we were alone, Carissa stood over my bed, her voice dripping with venomous delight.
"My father arranged the kidnapping. And now, Angelo and I can finally be together."
Before I could react, she forced a silver letter opener into my hand, deliberately stabbed her own shoulder, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Angelo stormed in, struck me across the face, and gathered a sobbing Carissa into his arms, looking at me with absolute revulsion.
The family matriarch appeared at the door, her cold eyes sweeping over the scene before she gave a chilling order to the maids.
"Clean this up."
They pinned me down and brutally drove the blade directly into my chest.
I choked on my own blood, staring at the man who had promised me the world as he turned his back, calling my murder a "mercy."
As my heart beat its final agonizing rhythm, I made a silent vow to the shadows that if there was a next life, I would have my vendetta.
When I opened my eyes again, there was no blood, only the soft silk of my nightgown.
I had returned to the day before my eighteenth birthday.
This time, I wouldn't play the desperate victim. I was going to ally with the Devil of Chicago and burn them all to the ground.
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Chapter 6
Seraphina POV
The heavy, suffocating silence brought by Damien Falcone’s arrival was suddenly broken by the frantic rustle of silk. My aunt Beverly Gallo rushed up the steps of the marble dais, her eyes wide with a perfectly manufactured panic. She grabbed my wrist, her nails digging into my skin.
"Sera, stop this madness now," Beverly hissed under her breath, desperate to keep the marriage market open for her own daughter, Hannah. "It's not too late to step down before you ruin yourself and this family."
I looked down at her hand, then up at the sea of vipers waiting for my downfall. I coldly yanked my arm from her grip. "I never regret, Aunt Beverly."
Beverly shrank back, her mask of concern slipping into bitter resentment. But before she could retreat into the crowd, the heavy iron gates of the garden swung open with a resounding clang.
Luca, the fiercely loyal emissary of the Moretti family, marched down the red carpet. He was flanked by a dozen stone-faced Soldiers whose presence instantly suffocated the remaining air in the garden. He stopped at the base of the dais, his voice booming with absolute authority.
"A message from the Matriarch of the Moretti family," Luca announced. The crowd froze. "Isabella Moretti formally recognizes Seraphina as the adopted daughter of her late, beloved friend, Isabella Gallo Marino. From this day forward, Seraphina enjoys the absolute protection of the Moretti bloodline."
A collective gasp rippled through the elite. Luca wasn't finished. He signaled a Soldier, who handed me a leather-bound folder. "A birthday gift from the Queen. The deed to a Fifth Avenue high-rise, and the controlling shares of a luxury import company."
Carissa’s face contorted, her manicured nails biting so hard into her palms they drew blood. Sophia looked as though she might faint. I was no longer the orphaned collateral; I was a Princess crowned in gold.
I leaned into the microphone, my eyes scanning the stunned crowd. "As I said. Any man who wishes to be my husband may step forward."
Sophia frantically nudged her useless nephew, Marco Conti. Marco puffed out his chest and took a step toward the dais.
He didn't make it to the second step.
Damien Falcone moved with terrifying speed. He didn't even spare Marco a glance; he simply clamped a massive, unforgiving hand onto Marco’s shoulder. Marco’s face drained of color, his knees buckling under the sheer, predatory force of the Chicago Underboss. Damien’s Soldiers seamlessly boxed out anyone else who dared to breathe in my direction.
Damien ascended the marble steps. He ignored the hundreds of staring eyes, dropping to one knee before me. It wasn't a gesture of submission, but a lethal promise. His dark eyes burned into mine.
"I accept your terms, Princess," Damien said, his deep, gravelly voice carrying effortlessly across the silent garden. "I'm here to claim what's mine."
"Absolutely not!" Francesca Marino’s cane struck the marble floor like a gunshot. Her face was purple with rage. "A Marino will never ally with a Chicago—"
"Signora Marino," Luca interrupted, his polite smile not reaching his cold eyes. He pulled a second document from his breast pocket. "Isabella Moretti sends her deepest blessings for this union. In fact, she has formally invited Don Augustus Falcone to New York next week to discuss the young couple's future."
It wasn't a blessing. It was a command from the highest power in our world. Francesca’s mouth snapped shut, her absolute authority within the family shattered in an instant. Angelo Valenti stood frozen in the crowd, his face the color of ash as he realized he had just lost the ultimate prize.
As the initial shock wore off and the jazz band nervously resumed playing, the party fractured into tense, whispering clusters. Sophia and Angelo wasted no time cornering me near the champagne tower.
"You are betraying your own blood," Sophia hissed, her eyes venomous. "We will never ally with their enemies."
Angelo stepped closer, his arrogance barely masking his wounded pride. "I could have given you a dignified way out for Carissa's sake. You chose the stupidest path. The Devil's reputation isn't a myth, Sera. He will destroy you."
I looked at the man I was supposed to marry, feeling nothing but pure disgust.
"It's Miss Marino to you now," I said, my voice dripping with ice. I stepped into his space, forcing him to look up slightly. "Are you questioning a union blessed by Isabella Moretti? Or perhaps, you believe you know better than the Queen of New York?"
Angelo’s jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might shatter. Sophia grabbed his arm, pulling him back before he could do something that would get him killed by Luca's men.
They retreated into the thinning crowd, but as the evening bled into the after-party, I caught Carissa whispering frantically into Angelo’s ear. Her eyes darted toward me, gleaming with a desperate, malicious light. The rats were cornered, and I knew they were about to bite.
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8.0
When gifted cellist Vivienne Aurel inherits her late father's catastrophic $4.2 million debt, she expects to lose everything. She doesn't expect the debt to be bought by Caspian Vane, the most feared private equity magnate in New York. Caspian doesn't want to ruin her; he wants her to work exclusively for him as the artistic director of his new cultural foundation for eighteen months. Forced into his world under a binding agreement, Vivienne prepares to fight against a cold, transactional cage. But as the intense, quiet proximity between them begins to blur the lines of their contract, she discovers a terrifying truth: the man who now owns her future has been watching her from the shadows long before she ever knew his name.
8.5
After four years of marriage, my wealthy husband Brad handed me a $50,000 severance check outside the Manhattan Family Court.
He linked arms with his mistress, Jenna, who flaunted the diamond ring that used to be mine.
"Just take it, Hayley. Take the money and get out of our lives," he sneered, looking at me with absolute disgust.
I tore the check into pieces, but my nightmare was just beginning.
To access my grandfather's trust fund, I had exactly seventy-two hours to get legally married, so I desperately proposed a one-year contract marriage to a poor insurance salesman I met in a dive bar.
When Brad found out, he and his arrogant family cornered me at their estate.
Brad mocked my new husband for being a penniless, money-grubbing parasite, while my former mother-in-law slapped me hard across the face, knocking me to the ground.
"You are trash, just like your mother," she spat, watching my knee bleed onto the sharp gravel.
Jenna gleefully kicked my phone away, shattering the screen and cutting off my only lifeline.
Lying there in the dirt, I stared at the broken glass in absolute despair.
I didn't understand why four years of quiet devotion had earned me nothing but cruel betrayal and endless humiliation from the people I once called family.
Just as I thought I had completely lost, a black Lincoln Navigator slammed to a halt at the gates.
My "penniless" new husband stepped out, radiating a terrifying, righteous fury that made the entire Patton family freeze in horror.
8.8
I was the despised adopted daughter of the Sanders family, hiding behind heavy gothic makeup and enduring their daily disgust.
The day my adoptive father died in a severe car crash, my adoptive mother and stepsister didn't even bother to call me.
Instead, while his body was still warm, my mother filed a multi-million dollar life insurance claim.
"I am not feeding a useless freak for another day. Pack your trash and get out."
She kicked me out into the freezing rain, but that wasn't the worst of it.
My stepsister Cornelia stole my greatest secret. Five years ago, I saved the life of Fidel Vaughan, a ruthless billionaire heir, from a burning estate.
Cornelia claimed my identity, accepted a million-dollar reward, and secured a marriage proposal from him, burning my only proof to ashes.
They thought I was just a helpless, pathetic high schooler they could discard and replace.
But when I hacked the police files, I discovered my father's crash wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit, and the Vaughan Group had hijacked the traffic cameras to cover it up.
I washed off the ugly black makeup, shedding the disguise of a pathetic outcast.
I am Spectre, the world's most elusive hacker and underground doctor.
I intercepted the billionaire heir's heavily armed convoy in the dead of night. They thought they could steal my life and murder my father, but now, I hold the needle that controls Fidel Vaughan's sanity, and I will make them all pay.
8.5
Cecile jolted awake from months of prescription haze, only to realize she was trapped in a live reality show designed to destroy her.
Her billionaire husband had orchestrated the broadcast to publicly humiliate her and elevate his own PR image. He ordered her to follow a degrading script. What was worse, her five-year-old son, Damien, was genuinely terrified of her. When an empty wine bottle rolled across the floor, the tiny boy instantly threw his arms over his head, bracing for a hit.
The production crew shoved microphones into the trembling child's face, trying to trigger his trauma for ratings. The live chat cursed Cecile as a toxic abuser. The show's golden girl maliciously tried to poach Damien on camera to prove Cecile was an unfit mother. The crew even rigged the game, forcing Cecile and her son into a freezing, rotting mud shack with a collapsed roof. They were all just waiting for her to break down and beg.
"A toxic woman like you doesn't deserve to be a mother."
The crew read the hateful comments aloud, expecting a hysterical meltdown. The realization that she had been manipulated into destroying her own child hit Cecile like a physical blow. How could a father subject his own son to this public cruelty?
The weak, easily manipulated Cecile was dead. She threw the PR script away, rolled up her sleeves, and picked up a rusted hammer. This time, she would protect her son and tear down anyone who stood in her way.
7.4
Alaya woke up in the sterile hospital room to a devastating reality: her six-month-old baby was gone, lost in a horrific car crash.
But as the memories crashed into her, she realized she had been reborn. She was back three years before her ultimate death, back to the moment she remembered lying bleeding on the asphalt while her husband, Hardy, shielded his mistress from the freezing rain.
When Hardy finally showed up at the ward, he coldly dismissed the crash as a mere accident and immediately left to comfort his young lover. To make matters worse, Alaya secretly checked her medical files and found a terrifying detail: someone had intentionally slipped beta-blockers into her system, a lethal drug for her transplanted heart. And Hardy didn't care about her dead baby or her irreversible infertility. He only coldly confirmed with the doctor that her heart was still viable.
A horrifying suspicion made Alaya's blood run cold. Why was her husband so obsessed with protecting her transplanted heart while treating her like garbage? And why was his perfectly healthy mistress secretly racking up massive bills at an advanced cardiac hospital?
Realizing she was nothing but a vessel in a twisted, deadly game, Alaya didn't shed another tear.
She packed her belongings, left her flawless diamond wedding ring on the cold marble table, and vanished from their penthouse.
When Hardy finally tracked her down, she threw a thick stack of documents onto the table.
"Sign the divorce papers," she said, her eyes completely dead.
7.2
Stepping out of the women's correctional center, Karli took her first breath of freedom in three years.
But the luxury SUV waiting for her didn't bring her home. Instead, her adoptive parents tossed a prenuptial agreement onto her lap.
They demanded she marry a violently unhinged, disfigured man so their company could secure a massive commercial deal.
When she refused, her adoptive mother slapped her hard across the face.
The blow brought back the suffocating nightmare from three years ago—how they had drugged her, framed her for a crime she didn't commit, and sent her to prison just so her stepsister could steal her fiancé.
Now, to break her again, her adoptive father ordered his bodyguards to drag her into the estate's freezing, pitch-black basement.
"You can rot in the dark without food or water until you sign that paper!"
Sitting on the damp cement, bleeding and shivering, a white-hot fury burned away Karli's panic.
They had stolen her youth, her reputation, and her grandfather's inheritance. She would rather die than be their sacrificial lamb again.
She smashed the basement window with a hammer, dragged her bleeding body through the shattered glass, and sprinted blindly into the stormy night.
Under the flickering neon sign of a convenience store, she grabbed the sleeve of a terrifyingly cold stranger.
"Are you single? Marry me right now."
She just needed a legal marriage to escape her family, entirely unaware she had just proposed to the most ruthless billionaire in Chicago.