Broken Doll's Revenge: The Heiress's Sting
I was Grayson Warren’s "broken doll," a disgraced socialite kept on a short leash to pay off my family’s debts. To the world, I was a fragile liability; to Grayson, I was a pet he could humiliate for sport, forcing me to play the role of a mentally unstable girl while I secretly gathered evidence against his empire.
The cruelty peaked when Grayson forced me to break three years of sobriety in front of his investors, mocking my struggle before making me kneel on a golf course to scrub his shoes. He treated my life like a game, literally betting my sanity against a corporate board seat while he soft-launched a new relationship with a high-profile PR queen.
When the pressure triggered a massive panic attack, Grayson abandoned me in a private clinic just so he wouldn't miss a dinner reservation. Even my own mother turned against me, threatening to leak my psychiatric records and brand me a "violent delusional" if I didn't beg for Grayson’s forgiveness. I was trapped between a man who owned my debt and a mother who valued her estate over my daughter’s life.
I realized then that they would never let me go; they would only break me until there was nothing left. They thought they had erased my soul, but they forgot I was the only witness to the night my true love, Felix, was murdered. I was done being the victim.
I faked a suicide jump off the Queensboro Bridge to go off the grid, then crashed Grayson’s elite gala in a dress that signaled his downfall. Just as Grayson tried to physically crush me one last time, the room went silent. Felix Law, the man the world thought was dead for three years, walked out of the shadows with a federal warrant in his hand.
"Take your hands off her, Warren."
The game didn't just change; it ended. Felix was back from the dead, and this time, we were burning the empire to the ground together.
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Chapter 6
The street in front of Sloane's apartment building was lined with overflowing trash cans and parked cars that had seen better decades.
A black Maybach screeched to a halt, double-parking next to a fire hydrant.
Anna had just stepped out of a yellow taxi. She was carrying a bag of groceries.
She saw the car. She saw Grayson burst out of the driver's side.
He didn't look like the Master of the Universe today. His tie was crooked. His hair was windblown. His eyes were wild.
He crossed the distance between them in three strides.
He grabbed her by the shoulders. His fingers dug into her flesh through her coat. He shook her, hard.
"Are you insane?" he shouted. "What were you doing on the bridge?"
Anna dropped the grocery bag. A carton of milk burst on the pavement, white liquid pooling around her boots.
"Let go of me," she said. Her voice was ice.
Grayson ignored her. He was scanning her face, her body, checking for broken bones, for signs of the water. When he realized she was dry, the fear in his eyes morphed instantly into rage.
"You wanted to scare me?" he yelled, spit flying from his lips. "You wanted to ruin the launch? Is that it? You think you can threaten suicide to make me dump Jaylene?"
Anna looked at him. She felt a profound sense of exhaustion.
"I wasn't going to jump, Grayson," she said. "I was throwing away my old life. And we are done."
"Done?" He laughed. It was a manic sound. "We aren't done until I say we're done. You signed a contract. You owe the family two million dollars. You don't get to walk away."
He tightened his grip. He pulled her closer.
"You're mine," he hissed. "You're my broken little toy."
He lowered his head. He tried to kiss her.
It wasn't a kiss of affection. It was a kiss of ownership. He wanted to mark her. He wanted to remind her body who it belonged to.
His lips mashed against hers, hard and bruising. He tasted of mints and panic.
Anna felt a wave of nausea.
She remembered Felix. She remembered how he used to kiss her like she was made of glass, like she was precious.
This was violence.
She didn't freeze this time. She didn't dissociate.
She brought her knee up. Hard.
She missed his groin, but her thigh connected solidly with his hip. It was enough to make him stumble back, gasping.
Anna didn't wait. She swung her hand.
Smack.
Her palm connected with his cheek. The sound was sharp, like a pistol crack in the quiet street.
Grayson froze. He put a hand to his face. He looked at her with wide, shocked eyes. The "pet" had bitten the master.
"That," Anna said, her breath coming in short bursts, "is the termination fee. Get out of my life."
Grayson's shock darkened into something dangerous. He took a step forward, his hands curling into fists.
"Hey!"
Sloane burst out of the apartment building door. She was holding a pink canister of pepper spray with both hands, aiming it at Grayson's face.
"Back off!" Sloane screamed. "I swear to God, I will blind you!"
People on the street stopped. A teenager pulled out a phone and started recording.
Grayson saw the phone. He saw the pepper spray. He saw the milk pooling around his expensive Italian leather shoes.
The PR calculation ran through his head in a split second. Assault charges. Viral video. Stock drop.
He straightened his jacket. He smoothed his hair. He put the mask back on.
"You'll regret this, Anna," he said. His voice was low, meant only for her. "Without me, you're nothing. You'll be starving in a week. And when you come crawling back, the price is going to be double."
He turned and walked back to the Maybach. He got in and slammed the door. The car roared to life and sped away.
Anna stood on the sidewalk. Her hand was stinging. Her legs felt like jelly.
She wasn't scared. She was shaking from the adrenaline leaving her body.
Sloane ran over and wrapped her arms around her.
"Holy shit," Sloane whispered into her hair. "You did it. You actually did it."
Anna looked at the empty street where the car had been.
"I did," she said.
She looked down at the spilled milk.
"Let's go inside," Anna said. "I have work to do."
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8.3
I woke up in a bedroom that screamed old money, but the body I occupied felt sluggish and fragile. I was now Chris Olson, a man known as a pathetic failure who spent his marriage groveling at his wife's feet for a single look of approval.
Elizabeth didn't even wait for me to clear my head before she threw the divorce papers on the nightstand. She stood there in her silk robe, eyes cold as ice, demanding I sign them before breakfast so she could finally go public with her "White Moonlight," Greg.
"You're walking away with nothing," she snapped, her voice full of the disgust she'd harbored for years. She reminded me that my family had disowned me and that I'd be on the streets within a week without her charity.
As I sat up, a metallic, garlic-like scent on my breath confirmed a terrifying truth: the Olson family hadn't just disowned me; they had been micro-dosing me with arsenic for years. They wanted me weak and mentally unstable so they could split the inheritance without a fight.
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I signed the papers without reading a single line and walked out with nothing but a duffel bag and a rusted sedan. I didn't need her alimony; I had already called her greatest rival, Adelia Cherry, to discuss a merger that would rock the city.
"I'm not here to save this marriage," I told Elizabeth as I moved into the mansion right next door to hers. "I'm here to bury it, along with everyone who thought they could poison me and get away with it."
9.2
She loved him until she lost herself.
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When she first met Lloyd, he was magnetic and intoxicating. The kind of man who turned every head when he entered a room, who spoke in promises sweet enough to taste. With him, she felt chosen, cherished, and safe.
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And slowly, piece by piece, he dismantled her until nothing of the woman she once was remained.
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Haunting, raw, and achingly intimate, Boys like him peels back the glittering mask of a toxic love affair to reveal the kind of darkness that hides in plain sight, and the unbreakable strength it takes to escape it.
7.1
The last thing I remembered was the blinding flash of my starship crashing. But instead of a rescue crew, I woke up tied to a wooden post, surrounded by hostile beastmen.
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The flames were already blistering my legs, and jagged stones hurled by the crowd gashed my forehead. I barely negotiated a three-day reprieve to find them food, venturing into the deadly primeval forest.
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She labeled my food as poisonous, tried to sentence me to starve in a penitent's cave, and when my agricultural knowledge proved her wrong, she invoked an ancient law. She incited the tribe's savage warriors to fight over me, turning me into breeding property.
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9.4
"I'm terribly sorry my champagne found your face so magnetic, Captain."
Theodore Ashford does not get angry. No - he smiles. Slow. Amused. Dangerous.
"No apology necessary, Lady Cruelton. In fact, I insist you join us for dinner next week. I find you... fascinating."
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Beatrice Whitmore died once already.
She wakes up inside a 1940s romance novel - not as the heroine, but as the infamous purple-haired villainess destined for scandal, disgrace, and an early grave. Everyone hates Lady Cruelton.
Which is perfect.
Because survival comes with rules.
A mysterious System rewards her with Hatred Points for humiliation, social ruin, and expertly executed cruelty. The more she's despised, the longer she lives. Reform is fatal. Kindness is suicide.
Being terrible should be easy.
Until Captain Theodore Ashford - decorated war hero, heir to an estate as vast as his ego - refuses to despise her. Immune to her schemes, unfazed by her insults, he watches her with knowing amusement... as if he sees through every calculated performance.
Faking her death was supposed to secure her escape from the plot.
Instead, his attention drags her deeper into it.
Now Beatrice must outmaneuver gossip, rewrite a story determined to destroy her, and earn enough Hatred Points to survive - without falling for the only man who doesn't hate her.
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7.8
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