Bound By Blood To The Mafia King
Ashlyn was supposed to be just a fragile college student, selling her rare blood to a vicious crime syndicate enforcer to keep his dying sister alive.
But the dynamic shattered when Alex returned from a two-month disappearance. He stepped into the penthouse covered in dirt and blood, sporting a horrific, jagged knife wound slashed completely across his face.
Knowing exactly how to exploit his insecurities, Ashlyn played the role of the terrified victim to perfection. She screamed, pushed against his chest, and called him a terrifying monster. Humiliated and enraged by her blatant disgust, Alex violently smashed a marble table and kicked her out. He forced her out into a freezing, torrential rainstorm without a coat, vowing to kill her if she ever showed her face again.
What the ruthless enforcer didn't know was that her pathetic, trembling tears were a flawless, calculated lie. She wasn't a helpless, greedy girl. She was a cold-blooded corporate mastermind hiding from a family of elite assassins. She desperately needed his impenetrable penthouse fortress to stay alive, and she knew the only way to secure her place wasn't to ask for it, but to make him beg for her return.
Three days later, his sister's organs began to fail, and the hospital's blood bank ran dry.
"I'll pay you whatever you want. Just get here."
Listening to the desperate, broken voice of the monster over her burner phone, Ashlyn smiled coldly in the dark. The trap had snapped shut, and he had just handed her all the power.
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Chapter 6
Three days later. The Obsidian, Empire City's most exclusive private club.
Alex strode down the gold-leafed corridor. He wore a tailored black suit that stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. He made absolutely no effort to conceal the jagged, red scar slashing across his face. Among the polished, tuxedo-clad billionaires and politicians, he looked like a feral wolf that had wandered into a dog show.
The waiters pressed themselves against the walls, lowering their eyes as he passed.
Two massive bodyguards pushed open a set of heavy, carved mahogany doors. Alex stepped into the private VIP room. The air was thick with the suffocating stench of expensive Cuban cigars and cloying designer perfume.
Dempsey 'Six' Rocha, the head of the city's most violent crime syndicate, sat at the head of the table. He rolled a cigar between his thick fingers, his reptilian eyes assessing Alex with lethal calculation.
Sitting next to Dempsey was Cora Livingston-Armour, a top-tier socialite. She wore a haute couture gown, her posture stiff and arrogant.
Alex's instincts flared. This wasn't a business meeting. This was a test. Dempsey was trying to chain his best attack dog to the syndicate with a marriage leash.
Alex walked over to the seating area. He didn't wait for Dempsey to offer him a seat. He grabbed a chair, dragged it back with a loud screech against the floor, and dropped into it. He spread his legs wide, his posture radiating pure, street-level arrogance.
Cora's perfectly sculpted eyebrows twitched. Her eyes darted to the horrific scar on his face, then down to his crude posture. A flash of intense disgust crossed her features.
Dempsey smiled, a cold, empty expression. He introduced Cora, heavily implying that her family's banking connections could provide excellent money-laundering channels for the syndicate. He suggested Alex should "get to know her."
Alex leaned back against the chair. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cheap, generic cigarettes. He pulled one out with his teeth.
He completely ignored the solid gold lighter sitting on the table in front of him. Instead, he pulled out a scratched, oil-stained metal Zippo. He flicked it open with a loud clack and lit the cigarette, blowing a thick cloud of acrid smoke directly across the table.
The smell of cheap, burning tobacco instantly overpowered Cora's expensive perfume. She pulled a lace handkerchief from her purse, pressed it against her nose, and let out two exaggerated, delicate coughs.
Alex watched her pathetic, fragile display. For a split second, his mind flashed to Ashlyn-shivering in the freezing rain, soaked to the bone, yet staring at him with stubborn, terrified eyes. His chest tightened. He pushed the thought away violently.
Desperate to complete her family's assignment, Cora forced a tight smile. She tried to engage Alex, bringing up the topic of high-yield art investments.
Alex cut her off. He lifted his heavy tactical boot-a stark, aggressive piece of footwear that entirely broke the dress code of the elite establishment-and slammed it down onto the center of the priceless, antique mahogany coffee table.
The wood groaned under the weight. Cora gasped, her body jerking backward against her chair.
Alex tapped his cigarette. The gray ash fell directly onto the million-dollar Persian rug.
"Art?" Alex sneered, using the thick, guttural slang of the slums. "It's just overpriced paper rich pricks use to wash their dirty money."
He let his eyes drag slowly up and down Cora's body, his gaze deliberately lewd and insulting. "You want to talk business with me, princess? The only business I do with women like you happens on your back."
Cora had been pampered her entire life. She had never been spoken to like a whore. Her pale face instantly flushed a violent, blotchy red. Tears of pure humiliation welled up in her eyes.
She shot up from her chair, grabbing her Birkin bag. She glared at Dempsey. "How dare you set me up with this... this unevolved animal!"
She spun around, her high heels clicking furiously against the floor, and stormed out. The heavy mahogany doors slammed shut behind her.
The room fell dead silent.
Dempsey slammed his cigar into the ashtray. "Are you out of your fucking mind, Alex? You just blew a billion-dollar connection."
Alex pulled his boot off the table. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He stared Dempsey dead in the eyes, his gaze feral and unblinking.
"I'm a street dog, Six," Alex growled, a cold smile twisting his scarred face. "I don't play house with porcelain dolls. I like my women cheap, obedient, and bought with cash."
He let the silence hang for a second. "I don't do marriage. I don't do leashes. If you don't like how I operate, find another trigger man."
Dempsey stared at him. He searched Alex's ruined face for any sign of deception, any hint of a deeper agenda. All he saw was the raw, violent independence of a thug.
Slowly, Dempsey threw his head back and laughed. He reached over and slapped Alex hard on the shoulder.
"I love that crazy bastard energy," Dempsey chuckled. The lethal tension in the room evaporated. The test was passed.
Alex stood up. He adjusted his suit jacket, gave a curt nod, and turned toward the door.
His hand had just wrapped around the brass doorknob when his burner phone-tucked into his inner breast pocket-vibrated violently.
It was the emergency line.
Alex's stomach dropped. He pulled the phone out. The caller ID flashed the name of Diana's lead physician.
He answered the call, his knuckles turning white around the plastic.
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7.8
Alayna was working a grueling catering shift in worn-out heels to support her broke college boyfriend, Caiden, who claimed to be studying at the library.
But through the crack of a VIP suite door, she saw him wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch, sipping expensive liquor.
"It's a little poverty role-play. Keeps things interesting."
He was laughing with his rich friends, mocking her as his clueless "charity case."
To make matters worse, she was forced into a humiliating mascot costume just in time to watch him passionately kiss his wealthy ex-girlfriend.
That same night, Alayna's mother collapsed with gastric cancer, requiring a half-million-dollar surgery.
When a desperate Alayna begged Caiden for help, he refused.
"Why don't you just apply for Medicaid? That's the path for people like you."
For two years, she had starved herself to buy his textbooks, his tickets, and his shoes.
He had stolen her sweat and her sacrifices, all for a cruel game.
The sheer audacity of his betrayal made her blood run cold.
When a billionaire stranger stepped in to pay her mother's medical bills in exchange for a one-year fake marriage, Alayna didn't hesitate to sign the contract.
She slipped the flawless diamond ring onto her finger, opened a spreadsheet, and sent Caiden an invoice for every single cent.
This time, she was going to dismantle his entire life.
8.9
I sold myself into a loveless marriage for $500,000 just to afford my little niece's life-saving surgery.
But my new husband, Kash, despised me, completely convinced I was a shameless gold-digger after his assets.
At 2:00 AM, he called to demand I fulfill my end of our twisted bargain: giving him an heir.
He forced me to sign a supplementary agreement surrendering all custody rights before I was even pregnant, treating me like a rented womb he bought at auction.
When my niece's condition suddenly worsened and I desperately begged him for a $50,000 advance, he hurled a black credit card directly at my face, leaving a stinging red welt.
"Take the money and get out," he sneered, his eyes filled with absolute disgust.
He immediately set up real-time transaction alerts to track my every purchase, waiting to catch me on a selfish shopping spree.
He thought I was a parasite, completely unaware that every single penny went straight to the pediatric intensive care unit.
Even my abusive former guardians cornered me at the fertility clinic, loudly mocking me for selling my body while my niece was dying.
I endured the degrading contracts, the cold IVF appointments, and Kash's relentless contempt, suffocating under the weight of his cruel assumptions.
Why did he have to strip away my dignity when he already owned my life on paper?
But as I clutched the hospital receipt that finally secured my niece's surgery, the fear inside me died.
With a new career starting tomorrow and a high-powered lawyer suddenly stepping in to audit my stolen inheritance, I was done playing the helpless victim.
I was going to show my arrogant husband exactly what happens when you push a desperate woman too far.
8.4
For twenty years, I lived as the adopted daughter of the wealthy Hill family.
But today, they forced me to sign a severance agreement and kicked me out so their precious biological daughter, Malia, could marry my fiancé.
To ruin me completely, they framed me for stealing Malia's engagement bracelet, threatening me with prison.
I calmly exposed the "sapphire" as cheap glass, then rolled up my sleeves to show the reporters my scarred, punctured arms.
For two decades, I wasn't a daughter. I was Malia's living blood and bone marrow bank.
They drained my health to keep her alive, even ordering doctors to ignore my failing organs just so she could attend a gala.
"Take this million dollars and shut your mouth," my adoptive father sneered, throwing a check at my feet.
My ex-fiancé looked at me with disgust, and Malia screamed that I was a crazy, vindictive liar.
They had stolen my life and my health, yet they still looked down on me like I was garbage.
I ripped the check into pieces and threw it in their faces.
Just as they ordered the butler to drag me out, a group of men in black suits shattered the chaos.
The heir of the untouchable Montgomery dynasty stepped through the door, ignoring the Hills' fawning, and handed me a DNA report.
I wasn't a disposable blood bag. I was the long-lost true heiress of old New York money.
And now, I was going to take back everything they stole from me.
8.2
My ex-boyfriend of three years, Axel, married a perfect wealthy heiress.
I attended his wedding, not to mourn our relationship, but because he had spent the last three years bleeding me dry.
He left me with absolutely nothing but a final notice from the hospital for my dying brother's life support.
Instead of feeling guilty, Axel cornered me in the church hallway, crushing my wrist.
"I'll set you up with an apartment. You won't have to work another day in your life."
He thought he could buy my silence with spare change, while leaving my seventeen-year-old brother, Julian, to die when his treatments were cut off the very next day.
When I refused to be his dirty little secret, Axel used his power to utterly destroy my acting career.
He had my talent agency terminate my contract under a fake morals clause, publicly humiliated me on set, and blacklisted me across the entire industry.
I was shoved out into the freezing rain, left with a torn dress and absolutely no way to pay the five hundred thousand dollar medical bill.
He actually believed he could step on my brother's dying body to build his own fake empire.
He thought I was just a weak, pathetic victim who would eventually crawl back to him on my knees.
But he forgot about the one monster he was absolutely terrified of: his legitimate, ruthless billionaire half-brother, Jace Bauer.
Looking at the three positive pregnancy tests hidden in my drawer, I stepped right in front of Jace's armored Maybach.
"Marry me, and I'll give you the heir you need to secure your empire."
9.3
Ginny was chained to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, bleeding and betrayed by the two people she trusted most.
Her fiancé, Brant, and her adopted sister, Coretta, had just slashed her face open. Brant coldly admitted she was nothing but a disposable key to a vault, right before he tossed a lighter onto the gasoline-soaked floor.
As Ginny burned alive in the roaring inferno, the heavy iron doors were violently smashed open. Bedford Parks—the notoriously ruthless, germaphobic "monster" of Silicon Valley whom Ginny had always feared—charged straight into the flames. Ignoring the blistering heat, he shielded her charred body with his own. A massive steel beam collapsed, snapping his spine.
"I love you."
He coughed up blood, whispering his final words against her blackened skin before dying to protect her.
Hovering as a ghost, Ginny's soul screamed in agonizing realization. She had spent her life terrified of Bedford, yet he was the only one who truly loved her, while her supposed family laughed at her gruesome murder.
Suddenly, a blinding white light swallowed the warehouse.
Ginny gasped for air, opening her eyes to find herself sitting in the back of a luxury Maybach. She was eighteen again, wearing the humiliating clown makeup Coretta had tricked her into wearing on the day she was brought back to the wealthy Steele estate.
Ginny stared at her reflection, her dark eyes turning cold and sharp.
This time, she would tear her betrayers apart piece by piece, and she would protect her "monster."
7.6
Overnight, Ella lost her family, her home, and her entire life. Discarded by the foster system, she was left shivering in the freezing mud outside her ruined estate.
That was when Javier Shepherd appeared. The terrifyingly cold, powerful billionaire pulled her from the dirt, threw her into a massive glass penthouse, handed her an unlimited black card, and vanished overseas, leaving her in the hands of a cruel caretaker.
The caretaker treated Ella like garbage, feeding her cheap, processed meals while using the black card to buy designer bags. The toxic food triggered a severe allergic reaction. Ella collapsed in the dark hallway, her throat swelling shut, gasping for air while the caretaker locked the door and turned up the TV. She almost died on that cold hardwood floor.
When Javier found out, he ruthlessly destroyed the caretaker and sent her to prison. He guarded Ella's hospital bed with terrifying intensity and even moved into her apartment to stop her panic attacks. Yet, when Ella finally broke down crying over her dead parents, his eyes turned to ice.
"Losing emotional control over a juvenile past is an inefficient waste of energy."
He sneered, treating her grief like a bad financial investment. Ella was completely bewildered. Why did this dangerous man protect her so fiercely, yet hate her past so deeply?
It wasn't until his cousin visited the hospital that the cruel truth was revealed. Javier wasn't saving her out of kindness. He had been obsessed with Ella's mother—his family's adopted daughter who ran away years ago. To him, Ella wasn't a person to be loved. She was just a replacement asset, a ghost of the woman he never got over.