Bound By Blood: His Unwanted Contract Bride
Four years ago, I was drugged on a luxury yacht and ended up pregnant with twins.
I raised them in secret, enduring my stepfamily's daily abuse, until the billionaire West family patriarch cornered us at the airport.
He instantly recognized my son's face—an exact replica of his ruthless grandson, Bernardo West.
My malicious stepmother and stepsister immediately leaked to the press that I was a delusional gold-digger using fake kids to trap a billionaire.
They wanted the West family to destroy me to save their own social standing.
Bernardo himself looked at me with pure disgust, demanding a DNA test.
"If you ever lie to me, I will take the children, and I will make you wish you were never born."
I didn't want his money. I was a victim of that night too, left with a crescent-shaped bite mark on my collarbone and zero memory of who set us up.
Why did someone drug us? And how could I protect my babies from a corporate predator who could crush me with a snap of his fingers?
But when the DNA test came back 99.9999% positive, I didn't cower.
I showed him the scar he left on me, looked the most dangerous man in the country right in the eye, and made my demand.
"If you want to claim your heirs, you have to marry me."
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Chapter 1
The wheels of the luggage cart squeaked against the polished terrazzo floor of the LAX VIP terminal. Darleen pushed it forward, her knuckles white against the handle. The smell of jet fuel and expensive perfume hung heavy in the air.
Julian walked close to her side, his small hand gripping the hem of her coat. His eyes darted around the crowd, sharp and watchful. Aria skipped between them, her pigtails bouncing.
"Stay close," Darleen said, her voice tight.
Aria ignored her. The massive crystal chandelier in the center of the hall caught the light, throwing rainbows across the floor. Aria's eyes went wide. She gasped, pointing at the sparkling fixture.
"Mommy, look! A star!"
Before Darleen could grab her, Aria yanked her hand free. She darted into the sea of arriving passengers, her little legs pumping fast.
"Aria!" Darleen shrieked.
She let go of the cart. It rolled a few feet and crashed into a pillar. Darleen shoved past a man in a tailored suit, her eyes locked on the pink pigtails disappearing into the crowd. Her heart hammered against her ribs, the sound roaring in her ears.
Aria ran straight toward the center of the hall. She didn't see the silver-tipped cane. She didn't see the polished shoes.
Thud.
Aria bounced off the solid object and landed hard on her bottom. Her face scrunched up, ready to cry. She looked up, her gaze traveling up the expensive fabric of a suit, past a watch that cost more than a house, until she met a pair of sharp, pale blue eyes.
Thurston West glared down at the child. His jaw clenched, ready to scold the careless brat who had bumped into him. But as his eyes focused on the small face staring back at him, the words died in his throat.
The breath caught in his chest. The shape of her eyes. The stubborn set of her chin. The exact shade of her hair. It was a face he hadn't seen in thirty years, not since he had last looked at a photograph of his grandson as a toddler.
Darleen burst through the crowd. She dropped to her knees, her arms wrapping around Aria so tight the little girl squeaked.
"I'm so sorry," Darleen panted, her voice shaking. She looked up at the old man, her body angled to shield her daughter. "She didn't mean to. Are you okay, baby?"
Thurston didn't hear her apology. His gaze shifted past Aria, locking onto the boy who had just run up behind Darleen.
Julian stood there, his chest heaving from the run. He didn't cry, but stared at Thurston with a watchfulness far beyond his years, his small hand clutching his mother's coat as if ready to pull her away from danger.
Crack.
Thurston's cane struck the floor. His entire body began to shake. The blood drained from his face, leaving his skin papery and thin.
"Surround them," Thurston rasped.
Black suits moved in from the shadows. Within seconds, a wall of muscle and dark fabric closed around Darleen and her children. The noise of the airport faded away, replaced by the suffocating silence of the bodyguards.
Darleen shot to her feet. She pushed Julian and Aria behind her back, her hands trembling but her spine rigid. She glared at the old man, her pulse thudding in her neck.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the tension. "Who are you?"
Thurston ignored her questions. He leaned forward, his blue eyes burning with a feverish intensity. His voice shook as he spoke.
"Who is their father?"
Darleen felt a drop of sweat slide down her temple. She recognized him now. The West family patriarch. The most dangerous man in the room. She swallowed hard, forcing her fear down into her stomach.
"That's none of your business," she said, her tone icy. "It's my privacy."
Thurston straightened up. The shock on his face melted into absolute certainty. He didn't blink.
"Bernardo West," he said, the name echoing in the space between them. "He is their father."
Darleen's stomach dropped. The airport seemed to tilt. Flashes of that night four years ago-the storm, the heat, the confusion-blasted through her mind. Her palms grew slick with sweat.
Aria peeked out from behind Darleen's leg. She tilted her head, looking at the scary old man.
"No, he's not," Aria said, her voice clear and high-pitched. "He's the stinky king daddy."
Thurston stared at the little girl. A strange, strangled sound escaped his throat. It was almost a laugh. The child's words confirmed everything. Bernardo had been called worse by his own family.
"Bring them to the estate," Thurston ordered, pointing his cane at Darleen. "Now."
A bodyguard reached out, his thick fingers closing around Darleen's arm.
She twisted violently, ripping her arm free. She bared her teeth, her eyes flashing with a raw, vicious fury.
"Don't touch me," she hissed. "Try that again, and I will scream kidnapping so loud every camera in this terminal will be on you."
Thurston saw the wildness in her eyes. He saw the protective stance, the way she was ready to fight a dozen armed men for her cubs. He held up a hand.
"Back off," he commanded.
The bodyguards stepped away, giving them a few feet of space. Thurston adjusted his grip on his cane. The frantic energy was gone, replaced by the cold calculation of a corporate raider.
"Why did you hide them for four years?" he asked, his voice hard and demanding. "Did you think we wouldn't find out?"
Darleen didn't cower. She lifted her chin, staring him down from across the gap.
"If the West family wants to claim their blood," she said, her voice ringing with defiance, "they should learn some manners first. You don't send goons to grab a mother in an airport."
Thurston's eyes narrowed. He hadn't been spoken to like that in decades. He studied her, reassessing the woman in front of him. She wasn't a scared little girl. She was a fighter.
Julian tugged on Darleen's sleeve. He looked up at Thurston and said clearly, his voice small but steady, "You look rich, but you're mean."
Darleen smoothed her son's hair. She reached into her purse, her fingers trembling slightly as she pulled out a simple white business card.
She held it out to Thurston.
He took it, his brow furrowing. The card was blank. No name, no company, no address. Just a single phone number printed in black ink.
"If you prove he is the father," Darleen said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous register, "he has to marry me."
Thurston stared at the card. He looked up at her, his mouth slightly open in sheer disbelief. He thought he had misheard.
"What did you say?"
"You heard me," Darleen said. She didn't give him a second to process it. She turned, grabbing Julian's hand so tightly her knuckles were white. She forced herself to walk, not run, each step a battle against the urge to flee. She didn't look back, terrified that if she did, the fragile courage she had summoned would shatter.
Thurston stood frozen, his grip crushing the business card. He watched the three figures disappear into the crowd.
His eyes hardened. A fire lit in their depths, the kind that burned before a hostile takeover.
"Get me the head of security," Thurston barked into his earpiece. "I want every detail of Darleen Reynolds's life on my desk in one hour. I want to know what she ate for breakfast four years ago."
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9.3
Alyssa Gregory slept with Benton Steele, a recently disgraced and bankrupt heir, just to humiliate him.
She threw a massive check at his bare chest, treating the former prince of Wall Street like a cheap escort.
But Benton didn't take the charity.
Instead, he manipulated her anger, tricking her into signing an ironclad contract that surrendered absolute control of her entire trust fund to him.
When her abusive mother found out she had funded a penniless outcast, she slapped Alyssa across the face.
Her mother froze all her bank accounts, locked her inside her bedroom, and arranged to sell her off to a degenerate politician.
Desperate to escape, Alyssa climbed down her balcony, falling fifteen feet and shattering her ankle on the stones below.
Stripped of her money and freedom, she dragged her broken body to a VIP club just to publicly declare that Benton belonged to her.
She thought she was the boss, playing a rebellious game with a broken man.
But when Benton effortlessly carried her away from the club and locked her inside his rundown apartment, the terrifying calculation in his dark eyes shattered her illusion.
How could a man stripped of his entire empire still radiate such suffocating, violent power?
"You bought me," Benton whispered, his massive frame trapping her against the sofa. "That means I have to take care of you."
Physically trapped and completely broke, Alyssa stared into his consuming eyes, her mind racing to find a way to turn the tables.
7.4
I was a broke clinic doctor drowning in debt, so I took a confidential job to evaluate a billionaire heir's fertility.
I marched into the VIP ICU, pinned the struggling patient down, and injected a sedative. I finished the extraction and loudly declared to the family lawyer that the Holt heir was completely sterile.
But then, a chilling laugh echoed from the doorway.
The real heir, Jarrod Holt, the tyrant of Wall Street, stepped in. I had just sterilized his younger brother right in front of him.
Facing a decade in federal prison, I was completely at his mercy. To make things worse, my arrogant ex-boyfriend tried to publicly humiliate me, and my greedy uncle threatened to burn my dead mother's belongings for ransom. I was pushed to the absolute brink of ruin.
But instead of destroying me, Jarrod offered a terrifying lifeline. He bought out a Manhattan high-rise in five minutes just to ruin my ex, then handed me a marriage contract.
I was terrified and deeply confused. Why would this ruthless billionaire force a nobody into a fake marriage? He knew details about my past that no one should know. Did he discover my hidden identity as 'E', the underground surgeon the entire medical world was hunting for?
With my back against the wall, I signed the prenuptial agreement.
"I do," I whispered at City Hall.
He shoved his heavy, antique family ring onto my finger. It was supposed to be strictly business with absolutely no physical contact, but when his lips crashed violently onto mine, I knew I had just sold my soul to the devil.
7.1
I was the top commander of a black-ops military program. After slaughtering my way through a hellish mission, I reached the extraction helicopter, trusting my second-in-command to watch my back.
But the moment our hands locked, he didn't pull me up. Instead, he plunged a syringe of lethal neurotoxin directly into my neck.
He aimed his gun at my chest, coldly stating that I was too dangerous to live. My lungs stopped, and I died in a pool of my own blood. But the endless blackness suddenly shattered. My consciousness violently forced its way into a new, broken shell. I woke up in a freezing alley, soaked in muddy rain.
This body belonged to seventeen-year-old Eliza Wyatt. A massive wave of foreign memories crashed into my brain. Her own younger sister had just stood at the top of the stairs with a mocking smile, watching street thugs beat Eliza to death.
"Take good care of the Wyatt family's eldest daughter. Tonight is the night she finally disappears."
The endless humiliation, the cold stares of her family, and the brutal betrayal by her own blood flashed before my eyes. Why was this fragile girl treated like garbage and pushed to her death by the very people who should have protected her?
I looked down at my pale, trembling hands. The top commander was dead, but in this bleeding shell, Eliza Wyatt was very much alive. I picked up a switchblade from the bloody puddle and stood up in the storm. It was time to hunt.
9.2
Nica caught her boyfriend, Chris, and her best friend, Ella, in a shocking betrayal. Chris was kissing Ella while caressing her close, and Ella only smirked at Nica as if she had won. Nica got pissed off and swore she would not let their betrayal go unpunished. What happens next? Read the story and find out for yourself.
7.5
I am the biological daughter of the wealthy Fitzpatrick family, but I spent my childhood eating out of dumpsters.
When I was finally brought back to the estate at age seven, I thought I would experience my parents' love.
Instead, my biological parents looked at my dirty clothes with raw disgust. They only cared about Hallie, the fake daughter who lived like a princess.
The moment I walked in, Hallie hurled a heavy ceramic cup at my head, slicing my hand open.
"Get out of my house!"
My father didn't even look at the blood. He raised his hand to strike me, accusing me of bringing trailer park rules into his home.
In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged for their forgiveness. I endured their abuse, hoping they would eventually love me.
But they let the maids humiliate me, let Hallie steal my identity, and eventually threw me back onto the streets to die. Even my playboy Uncle Byron, the only person who ever showed me mercy, was driven to suicide by them.
I didn't understand why my own flesh and blood hated me so much, or why a vicious liar deserved everything while I was treated like a jinx.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the exact day I first returned to the estate.
As my father raised his hand to hit me, I didn't cower.
Instead, I looked at the family patriarch and pointed directly at my notorious, alcoholic uncle.
"I want him to be my new guardian."
9.5
Eda Roman clutched her father's diagnostic report, its sharp edge cutting her finger. His cancer had mutated, standard treatment failed, and a fifty thousand dollar deposit for experimental therapy was due by midnight. Fail to pay, and his hospital bed would be cleared.
Wife to Axel Foley, a multi-billion dollar CEO, Eda faced an impossible chasm. Her family trust, controlled by Keri Lane, offered a meager three hundred dollars.
An emergency fund request met a forty-eight-hour review—a death sentence. Keri's assistant denied expedite and blocked calls. Desperate, Eda called Axel, but his assistant dismissed her with lies, Axel's laughter echoing.
Humiliation and betrayal ignited cold fury. Wife to Seattle's wealthiest, yet begging on a hospital floor? Axel's indifference and Keri's games showed her: her father's life couldn't be left in their hands.
Wiping tears, the pleading girl vanished; her survival instinct roared. Red lipstick her war paint, Eda Roman marched to Foley Group Headquarters, ready to reclaim what was hers.