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 6
The lawyers filed out, leaving the two men alone in the heavy silence of the office. The air felt thick, charged with the aftermath of the signing.
Warren repeated his question, his voice hoarse. "What do you really want?"
Ellsworth didn't answer immediately. He stood by the desk, his fingers casually adjusting his cufflinks. The gesture was arrogant, dismissive, as if Warren's question was beneath his notice.
His gaze drifted across the desk, landing on a framed photo. It was Ashlie, smiling brightly in her graduation gown, her eyes full of hope.
Ellsworth's posture shifted, an almost imperceptible change. He didn't soften, but the harsh lines of his shoulders seemed to settle as he stared at the image. Warren couldn't decipher the look-it wasn't just coldness, but it wasn't warmth either. It was something else, something intense and possessive that made the hairs on Warren's arms stand up.
"What I want," Ellsworth said, his voice low, "doesn't depend on me. It depends on her."
Warren frowned. "Her? Ashlie?"
"Who else?" Ellsworth scoffed. "Did you think I bought half your company to be friends with an old man?"
Warren flinched but held his ground. "What are your plans for Ashlie? If this is about revenge for what happened back then-"
"Revenge?" Ellsworth cut him off with a cold laugh. "Mr. Bradford, you give me too little credit. I have no interest in childish games."
The denial confused Warren even more. If not revenge, then what?
"I married her for one reason," Ellsworth said, stepping closer to the desk. "To provide a stable family environment and a legal mother for my nephew, Keenen."
Warren stared at him, bewildered. His mind screamed that it was a lie. What a preposterous excuse! He expects me to believe he spent five billion dollars to find a nanny for his nephew? He must think I'm an absolute fool. This is a smokescreen, a ridiculous story to hide his real intentions. The real reason, the terrifying reason, is about Ashlie herself. "That's it? You could hire the best nannies in the world. Why marriage? Why Ashlie?"
"I've reviewed her file," Ellsworth said, his tone clinical. "She's clean, intelligent, and the Bradford upbringing wasn't entirely useless. She needs money, and I need a wife. It's a fair trade."
He paused, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "As for how I treat her... that will depend entirely on her performance."
Warren felt a knot of dread tighten in his stomach. "Performance?"
"Whether she can make Keenen happy," Ellsworth said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Whether she can play the role of a competent aunt. Whether she can... please me. If she performs well, the Bradford Group remains safe, and you and your daughter live comfortably."
He leaned in closer, his face inches from Warren's. "If she fails... Mr. Bradford, you know as well as I do that destroying a company is much easier than saving it."
The threat was explicit. He was tying Ashlie's well-being to the survival of the entire family. She was a hostage, and her good behavior was the ransom.
Warren's heart sank. He had saved his company, but he had placed his daughter in a gilded cage with a master who held all the keys.
Ellsworth straightened up, turning away from the despair on Warren's face. He walked toward the door.
At the threshold, he stopped. He glanced back over his shoulder.
"Oh, one more thing," he said, his tone casual. "Ashlie will be moving into the Long Island estate tonight. It's part of the agreement."
Without waiting for a response, he walked out, the door clicking shut behind him.
Warren collapsed into his chair. He felt like he had aged a decade in the last hour. He had sold his daughter's happiness, and the price was a prison.
He reached for the phone, his fingers hovering over the keypad. He wanted to call Ashlie, to warn her, to tell her to run.
But his hand trembled, and he slowly placed the receiver back down.
What could he say? It was done. He was the one who had pushed her into the tiger's den.
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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.