Bound To The Devil From My Past
To save my family's dying company, I was forced to marry a billionaire I hadn't seen in fourteen years.
But right outside the City Clerk's office, he tossed our marriage certificate at me like a cheap receipt and shoved a four-year-old boy into my arms.
"Your new life has begun. You're on babysitting duty now."
He sneered and left me stranded on the sidewalk. I realized with absolute horror that my new husband was Ellsworth Marshall, the sickly boy I had relentlessly bullied in middle school.
He didn't spend five billion dollars to save the Bradford family. He bought me to execute a slow, suffocating revenge.
He used his orphaned nephew as a pawn, explicitly threatening my father that if I failed to play the perfect, compliant nanny, he would instantly destroy our family's legacy.
He even had his guards lock me out of his Long Island estate on my first night, forcing me to stand in the cold dark just to prove he owned me.
I was trapped in a gilded cage, suffocated by the guilt of my past and the terror of my present.
Why did he involve an innocent child in his twisted vendetta? How much humiliation was enough to pay for my childhood cruelty?
Looking at the terrified little boy clinging to my skirt, I tightened my grip on my suitcase.
If he wanted to destroy my will piece by piece, I had to find a way to survive the monster I created.
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Chapter 2
"Sign here, please."
The clerk slid the paper across the counter, her tone bored. Ashlie stared at the line. Ashlie Bradford. If she signed, that name would be gone.
She uncapped the pen. Her hand trembled slightly as she brought the tip to the paper. She forced herself to write, each stroke a tiny act of self-destruction. The ink bled into the cheap paper, permanent and unforgiving.
She glanced sideways. Ellsworth was already signing. His hand moved with swift, brutal efficiency. Ellsworth Marshall. The letters were sharp, aggressive, exactly like the man. There was no hesitation, no tremor. Just absolute control.
The clerk stamped the documents and slid two thin booklets across the counter. "Congratulations," she said, the word flat and meaningless.
Ashlie stared at the marriage certificate. It looked so flimsy, just a piece of paper with a gold seal. It was supposed to be a symbol of love, of a future. To her, it felt like a death sentence.
Ellsworth reached out and picked up both certificates. He held his own with a casual indifference, then turned and dropped the other one onto the counter in front of Ashlie. It landed with a soft slap, the sound echoing in the quiet hall. He also tossed a slim, heavy black envelope beside it. "Your compensation," he murmured, the words laced with ice. He treated it all like a receipt for a cup of coffee, not a marriage license.
He was already walking toward the exit. Ashlie's face burned, the shame hot enough to bring tears to her eyes. Her fingers dug into her palms as she told herself to endure it. For her father, for the Bradford name, this was nothing. Like a robot, she scooped up the certificate and the envelope, her movements stiff, and followed him.
Outside, the sunlight was blinding. Ashlie felt dizzy, untethered from reality. She had done it. She was a married woman. Married to her enemy.
The driver, Ray, stood by the open door of the Bentley, bowing slightly as Ellsworth approached.
Ellsworth didn't get in. Instead, he stopped and turned. He stepped into Ashlie's path, forcing her to halt. He moved closer, backing her up until her shoulders hit the cold metal of the car door. He caged her in, one hand resting on the roof of the car, his body a wall of heat and expensive wool.
He leaned down, his face inches from hers. His breath smelled like mint and something darker, something dangerous.
"Don't think this is over," he whispered, his voice a low rasp meant only for her. "Marrying you, keeping you legally bound to me... destroying your will slowly, piece by piece. That is the highest art of revenge."
The words slithered into her ear, cold and venomous. Her blood seemed to freeze in her veins. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move, trapped between the car and the solid wall of his chest.
Suddenly, the rear door of the Bentley was shoved open from the inside.
A small head popped out. A boy, maybe four or five years old, with dark hair and eyes that were a miniature version of Ellsworth's. He looked at them with a curious, innocent expression.
Ashlie's brain short-circuited.
A child.
Ellsworth had a child.
The implication hit her like a freight train. He had a son. A secret son. And he had married her anyway.
He wants me to be a stepmother to his illegitimate kid.
The humiliation was crushing. It wasn't enough to force her into marriage; he had to rub her face in his past, make her the caretaker for the evidence of his other life. It was a degradation so profound she couldn't even process it.
Ellsworth straightened up, his expression unreadable. He looked at the boy and gave a slight nod. The boy immediately scrambled out of the car, running to Ellsworth's side and hiding behind his leg, peeking out shyly at Ashlie.
Ellsworth looked at Ashlie, his gaze hardening. "Pick him up," he ordered.
Ashlie stared at him, her body refusing to cooperate. Her pride, what little was left of it, screamed in protest.
The boy-Keenen-shrank back further, clearly intimidated by the stranger.
"I said," Ellsworth repeated, his voice dropping to a dangerous register, "pick him up. That is your first task as Mrs. Marshall."
Ashlie looked at the boy. He was small, fragile-looking. He hadn't asked for this. He was just another pawn in Ellsworth's game, a tool to humiliate her.
But he was a child. An innocent child.
She closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of Ellsworth's triumphant face. She thought of her father's white hair. She thought of the Bradford Group.
She opened her eyes, took a shaky breath, and knelt down on the sidewalk. She forced her lips into a stiff, unpracticed smile.
"Hi," she said softly, holding out her hand. "It's okay."
Keenen looked at Ellsworth, who gave a barely perceptible nod. Then the boy took a tentative step forward.
Ashlie reached out and scooped him up. He was lighter than she expected. He smelled like baby shampoo and milk, a scent that was entirely out of place in this nightmare. But holding him felt like holding a bag of stones. It was the weight of her new reality.
Ellsworth watched them, a strange, unreadable expression flickering in his eyes. Then he pulled out his phone.
Click.
The flash was bright, making Ashlie blink. He had taken a picture of her, holding the child, her face a mask of misery and shock.
"What are you-" she started, but he cut her off.
"A souvenir," he said, pocketing the phone. A cold smile touched his lips. "A reminder that your new life has begun."
He didn't introduce the boy. He didn't explain. He just turned and slid into the back seat of the car.
Before Ashlie could move, Ray, the driver, stepped forward. "Ma'am," he said, his tone professional and devoid of emotion. "Mr. Marshall requires a contact number for logistical communication. May I have your cell?"
It was another order disguised as a request. Numbly, Ashlie recited her number, and he tapped it into his phone with brisk efficiency.
"Get in," Ellsworth commanded from the dark interior. "You're on babysitting duty now."
Ashlie clutched Keenen to her chest, her legs shaking as she climbed into the car. The leather was cool against her legs, the air smelling of money and Ellsworth's cologne.
The door slammed shut behind her. The sound was final, like a cell door closing.
She was locked in. With the boy she thought was his son. With the man who vowed to destroy her.
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8.4
Grace, after three years of silence from a crash that stole her voice and family, finally uttered a hoarse syllable. It was her first sound, a breakthrough she desperately wanted to share with Josiah, her childhood protector. Instead, through a slightly ajar door, she heard his careless chuckle, followed by a sharp, entitled voice.
Alexandria's voice sliced through the air: "Josiah, are you really planning to bring that little mute to the banquet? She's a walking trailer park tragedy. It's embarrassing." Grace froze, waiting for Josiah to defend her. He didn't. Instead, he sighed, calling her "a responsibility" and "a lifeless ghost," then pulled Alexandria closer.
The words were serrated blades. Her silent devotion, her self-erasure for his peace, had made her a punchline. He was relieved she was broken. The bitter realization of his betrayal ignited a cold, white-hot fury.
Wiping away tears, Grace met Josiah, feigning her usual submissive smile, and quietly refused his "hush money." As he walked away without a glance, her inner voice was clear, sharp, and resolute: "I'm done playing your game."
9.3
Halie woke up to a sharp pain and a terrifying reality. She was in a new body, her face covered in a hideous web of scars, and her spiritual power reduced to a pathetic D-Class.
Before she could even process the memories of being framed, her bedroom doors were violently kicked open.
Her sister Seraphina sauntered in with a venomous sneer, followed closely by Halie's S-Class fiancé, Jett.
"Look at the disgrace of the Avila family. What a waste," Seraphina mocked, throwing a mirror at her bed.
"I can't be tied to a cripple. As an S-Class, I have to break our engagement," Jett added, his gaze full of disgust.
The nightmare didn't stop there. Her father called, screaming about how she had shamed the family name. He officially stripped her of her inheritance, froze all her accounts, and exiled her to the decaying Southern District to rot.
To make matters worse, a cold, mechanical voice suddenly echoed in her skull, warning her of an impending genetic collapse. Without an immediate energy infusion, she would face total organ failure in thirty days.
A ruined face, a treacherous family, a world that wanted her dead, and a literal death clock ticking in her brain. The original owner had died in absolute despair, a tragic victim of sheer cruelty.
But if they thought she would just sit there and die, they were severely mistaken.
Armed with a mysterious system and her brilliant scientist mind from her past life, Halie packed her bags. She chose the craziest survival quest: head to the slums, find the exiled, sterile S-Class "madman" Coleman, and cure him to harvest his life energy. It was time to start her counterattack.
8.3
On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news.
He was shielding another woman—his ruthless business partner—from a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city.
The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: “Something came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.”
For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets.
My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me.
So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts.
He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line I’d marked.
He didn’t know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree.
He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies.
8.8
My husband thought I was just a docile wife, easily controlled. He didn't know I'd spent five years meticulously dismantling his life. Tonight, his world would finally crumble into dust.
For five years, I endured Jackson's entitled demands and his family's greed, silently funding their lavish life in our Beverly Hills mansion.
My illusion shattered finding his mistress Amber's lingerie in his suitcase. My attorney just severed all financial ties, making Jackson's arrogant demands hollow.
I tossed my diamond ring into the trash, summoning an industrial compactor. Jackson, his mother, and mistress watched in horror as their designer luggage, bought with my money, was crushed, turning their lavish trip into garbage.
A cold, dead smile marked my cathartic release from five years of betrayal. How could they be so blind to the woman they dismissed?
Stepping into an armored Maybach, I left them in chaos. My iPad confirmed Jackson's credit cards freezing. This wasn't just divorce; it was a calculated demolition, making their pampered lives very real.
9.3
My husband Hudson had kept me a medicated ghost for three years, convinced I was unstable. But a cheap pink hair clip, tangled with golden blonde hair in his car, ripped through the chemical haze. The bitter pill he forced me to take wouldn't numb the burning truth, only fuel my awakening.
I was an architect once, but now I was just Cora, a docile wife trapped in his suffocating world. When he saw my shock, his concern was sickeningly sweet as he offered another Xanax. I pretended to swallow the poison, letting it dissolve under my tongue, a constant reminder of my awakening.
Back at the mansion, his massive car deliberately blocked mine, a crude barricade confirming his control. Then, a message from an old intern confirmed my darkest fears: this was domestic abuse. He urged me to check Hudson’s closet, to record everything.
I knew then I was living with a dangerous monster, and my denial shattered. The anger burned, fueled by the bitter taste of that undissolved pill.
That night, Hudson walked in, wearing a hideous, sloppily tied red polka-dot tie. It was a clear, undeniable sign of another woman. My architect’s mind was awake, cold and calculating. "Game on, Hudson." I would make him taste this bitterness back a thousand times.
7.4
The house was a living inferno, the heat devouring the air in my lungs as I clutched my five-year-old daughter to my chest. Emily was dead weight, her skin already cooling even as the room turned into a furnace of orange and black.
Through the stinging smoke, I saw my husband, Kenney, crawling toward the door with a wet handkerchief pressed to his face. He didn't look back at the crib, and he didn't call my name; he was simply leaving us to burn.
I lunged forward and grabbed his ankle, my nightgown catching fire, but he didn't reach down to save me. He recoiled in horror at the sight of my burning hair and our dead child, kicking me back with a panicked shriek.
"Let go!" he shrieked.
I died as a massive, flaming timber snapped from the ceiling and crushed us both into silence. I couldn't believe that the man I loved would leave his family to die just to save his own skin, but the rage I felt was colder than the death that followed.
But then the burning stopped instantly, replaced by a cold so sharp it made my teeth ache. I gasped, jerking upright in my bed to find the velvet duvet cool under my palms and the nursery quiet, with Emily still breathing softly in her crib.
I had returned to the winter morning two years before the fire, the exact day Kenney finalized the deal to sell me to the King for a promotion. As Kenney stepped into the room with a practiced mask of concern, I realized I was no longer the victim of this story.
"A nightmare, my love?" he asked, reaching out to touch my shoulder.
I flinched away, my eyes burning with a hatred he couldn't yet understand. Tonight was the Winter Masquerade, the night he planned to offer me to the King as a prize, but this time, I was going to turn his social ladder into a gallows.