Claimed By The Ruthless Billionaire Boss
Tonight was supposed to be Cordelia's grand engagement party, the night she finally secured her future.
But an hour before the banquet, she received an anonymous video. Her fiancé was in the hotel's penthouse, tangled in the sheets with her stepsister. They had even paid off her trusted staff to keep her isolated.
Cordelia didn't shed a single tear. She walked onto the grand stage, hijacked the screens, and broadcasted their betrayal to hundreds of New York's elite. She tore up the multimillion-dollar prenup and threw the pieces in his face.
"The engagement is canceled. My legal team will seize your family's assets by tomorrow morning."
But instead of support, her own father violently grabbed her wrist, furious that she ruined their reputation. Her stepmother tried to slap her for the cameras, and her ex-fiancé threatened to completely destroy her career. Surrounded by the people who were supposed to be her family, she was treated like the villain.
Just as she was cornered, Justice Duncan, the most ruthless billionaire on Wall Street, stepped out of the shadows.
He offered her absolute protection and capital, but only if she signed a five-year contract marriage to mother his four-year-old heir.
But when Cordelia finally met the little boy, her blood ran completely cold.
The boy was the exact baby she was told she had miscarried four years ago. And the billionaire handing her the marriage contract was the same stranger who had taken him.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 5
The heavy mahogany doors of the estate's private study clicked shut, sealing them inside.
The nanny had gently coaxed Leo away for his afternoon nap. Now, the silence in the room was suffocating.
Cordelia sat on the edge of a massive Chesterfield leather sofa. Her back was rigid. Her hands were clasped so tightly in her lap that her fingernails dug crescent moons into her own skin.
Justice walked over to the vintage globe bar in the corner. He poured two glasses of neat whiskey. He walked back and pushed one glass across the low wooden table toward her.
Cordelia stared at the amber liquid. She didn't touch it. She couldn't. The six-week-old secret in her womb demanded absolute sobriety.
She reached into her bag, pulled out the marriage contract, and slammed it onto the table.
She grabbed the heavy Montblanc fountain pen resting next to the glass. Her hand shook violently, but she pressed the nib to the paper and signed her name on the final line.
Justice watched her. He picked up the contract, his dark eyes scanning her signature.
He walked over to the wall, pressed a hidden button behind a painting, and a steel safe revealed itself. He placed the contract inside and shut the heavy door.
The loud clack of the locking mechanism echoed in the room. It sounded like a prison cell slamming shut. Her freedom was officially gone.
Cordelia took a sharp breath. She looked up and met his gaze.
"If you are not his father," Cordelia said, her voice trembling but defiant, "why did you take him? Why are you raising him?"
Justice didn't walk back to his chair.
He turned around and walked slowly toward the sofa. Each step was measured, predatory, and completely silent on the thick Persian rug.
Cordelia's heart rate spiked. She pressed her back into the leather cushions, trying to put distance between them.
Justice didn't stop. He stepped right between her knees.
He dropped one knee onto the edge of the sofa cushion, leaning his massive frame over her. He planted both of his hands on the leather on either side of her head, completely caging her in.
Cordelia gasped. The scent of whiskey and cedar washed over her. His chest was inches from her face.
Justice lowered his head. His nose almost brushed against hers.
"Because," Justice murmured, his voice a dark, gravelly vibration that she felt in her own chest. "Four years ago, in that hotel suite in Las Vegas... the man who pinned you against the floor-to-ceiling window was me."
Cordelia's eyes blew wide open.
A physical jolt of pure shock hit her brain. Her lungs seized.
She brought both hands up and shoved hard against his solid chest, trying to push him away. He didn't budge a single inch. He was like a wall of granite.
"You're insane!" Cordelia gasped, her chest heaving. "You just showed me the DNA report! It said zero percent! You're lying to me!"
Justice's eyes darkened, completely ignoring her question about the DNA paradox.
He shifted his weight, pressing closer, forcing her to look up at him.
"I remember the taste of your skin," Justice whispered, his gaze dropping to her lips. "And I remember exactly what you look like when you break."
Cordelia shivered violently.
"From the moment I left that room," Justice continued, his voice dropping to a chillingly calm register, "I have watched you."
Cordelia stopped struggling. Her blood ran ice cold. "What?"
"I know you moved to Brooklyn three years ago to save rent," Justice said, his eyes locking onto hers. "I know your architectural firm almost went bankrupt twice. I know exactly how much money Julian's family stole from your accounts."
Bile rose in Cordelia's throat. This wasn't a sudden rescue. This was a hunt.
"You stalked me," Cordelia breathed, horrified. "For four years. Why didn't you just come to me? Why did you let me get engaged to Julian?"
Justice raised one hand from the sofa. He trailed his knuckles lightly down the side of her neck.
Cordelia flinched, but his touch was burning hot. He pressed his thumb against her pulse point, feeling her heart racing in panic.
"The Duncan family board is a slaughterhouse," Justice said coldly. "If they knew you existed, if they knew you were my weakness, you would be dead. I had to secure my absolute power first. I had to clear the board."
He tilted his head, a cruel smirk playing on his lips.
"As for Julian," Justice said softly. "Who do you think sent that encrypted email to your phone tonight?"
Cordelia's stomach dropped. The video. The timing. It was all him.
"You're a monster," Cordelia spat, turning her face away from his hand. "You orchestrated everything. You drove me into a corner so I would have to sign that paper."
Justice didn't look angry. He looked victorious.
He grabbed her chin, his grip firm but not painful, and forced her to look back at him.
Slowly, deliberately, Justice lowered his gaze. He looked away from her face and stared directly at her flat stomach.
Cordelia's breath hitched. A spike of pure terror shot through her veins.
Justice leaned in until his lips brushed against the shell of her ear.
"So tell me, Mrs. Duncan," Justice whispered, his breath hot against her skin. "What exactly does a woman carrying my six-week-old child plan to do next?"
Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut. A tear slipped down her cheek.
He knew. He knew she went to the clinic. He knew everything. She had never had a chance to hide.
Justice pulled back. He stood up, straightening his cuffs, instantly transforming back into the untouchable billionaire.
He walked over to the desk and pressed the intercom button.
"Have the staff move Miss Nguyen's luggage into the master bedroom," Justice ordered the butler. He looked back at Cordelia, his eyes completely devoid of mercy. "My wife sleeps in my bed."
You may also like
9.3
On her wedding night at The Plaza Hotel, Clara went looking for her husband.
Instead, she found him in the dimly lit parking garage, passionately pinning down her bridesmaid.
She couldn't even scream or expose them. Just hours before the ceremony, Julian had tricked her into signing away her twenty percent shares of their co-founded company, leaving her completely penniless and unable to pay her grandmother's life-saving medical bills.
Fleeing in absolute despair, a sudden hotel blackout plunged her into a second nightmare. She was dragged into a pitch-black room and brutally violated by a heavily drugged stranger.
When a shattered Clara returned to the office to audit the books and reclaim her power, Julian demoted her to a dusty desk by the trash cans.
He flaunted his mistress in the executive suite and deliberately sent Clara into a horrifying trap. He arranged for vicious clients to drug and assault her, demanding high-definition blackmail photos so he could divorce her with absolutely nothing.
"Since you want to play rough, you can service Mr. Petrocelli tonight," the thug sneered, locking the VIP room door.
Clara was pushed to the brink of hell. Why was the man she devoted three years of her life to trying to destroy her so completely? And why did the freezing cedarwood scent of the stranger who ruined her in the dark perfectly match Conrad Vance, the ruthless CEO and Julian's untouchable uncle?
Rather than let Julian win, Clara smashed a glass bottle, held the jagged edge to her own throat to force the men back, and threw herself off the second-floor balcony into the freezing night.
But the bone-crushing impact never came. A massive figure shot out from the shadows and caught her, and her brutal counterattack finally began.
8.0
Finley's stepfather gave her a sickening ultimatum: marry her predatory stepbrother Shane tonight, or he would throw her fragile mother out on the street.
To escape this hell, she used a matchmaking agency and hastily married a complete stranger. Garrison Strickland claimed to be an ordinary data analyst making $95,000 a year, driving a beat-up Honda Civic, and needing a wife in name only. They got their marriage license at City Hall that very afternoon.
But when Finley returned home to pack her bags and threw the certificate on the table, her family just laughed. Dozier ordered Shane to drag her into the bedroom to "teach her a lesson" and trap her forever.
"Come on, little sister," Shane crooned, lunging at her. "Don't fight it."
Finley's own mother just stared at the floor, blaming Finley for ruining the family, watching blindly as Shane cornered her.
Terrified and desperate, Finley smashed an ashtray over Shane's head and frantically dialed her new husband's number. Shane snatched the phone, mocking the "imaginary husband" before the line went dead. Finley felt a bottomless despair. Garrison was just a normal guy; he would never risk his life against her violent family. She was completely on her own, waiting for the end.
Suddenly, deafening bangs echoed through the house, and Garrison stepped into the living room radiating a cold, terrifying fury. This supposedly "frugal data analyst" effortlessly snapped Shane's wrist, leveled a ruthless death threat that made Dozier tremble, and whisked Finley away in a waiting Bentley. Looking at the powerful man beside her, Finley's heart raced: just who exactly had she married today?
8.8
When Nigerian financial analyst Eniola Adeyemi exposes a 2.3 billion naira money laundering scheme, she becomes the target of powerful criminals who'll stop at nothing to silence her. Her only protection? A contract marriage to Elijah Kingston-the cold, ruthless, American billionaire CEO whose own family is at the heart of the conspiracy. What begins as a transactional arrangement for safety and an heir becomes a dangerous game of power, betrayal, and undeniable passion as they're forced to choose between empire and love.
8.9
Ava Kidd just wanted to escape her abusive stepmother when she got drunk at a high-end club and stumbled into the wrong hotel room.
She woke up the next morning in a luxury penthouse, lying naked next to a terrifyingly handsome man covered in her scratch marks.
Recalling rumors of the hotel's secret underground concierge, she immediately assumed she had accidentally slept with an elite male escort.
Desperate to settle the bill, she offered him her only debit card with a pathetic $1,800.
But the man, who was actually Garrison Terry, the ruthless billionaire CEO, was deeply insulted by the cheap plastic.
He trapped her against the bed, coldly demanding a half-million-dollar service fee.
When Ava frantically offered her dead mother's tarnished locket as collateral, he cruelly dismissed it as worthless junk.
Ava was humiliated, her heart pounding with absolute terror.
She didn't understand why this arrogant gigolo was acting like a deranged extortionist, demanding a fortune from a broke girl who had clearly made a mistake.
Furious and refusing to cower, she sneaked out, put on his oversized designer shirt, and aggressively ate his $800 truffle breakfast.
Having no money left, she grabbed her cheap red lipstick, wrote a defiant IOU on his expensive linen napkin, and fled the hotel.
She thought she had escaped a criminal, but upstairs, the billionaire traced her lipstick-stained name with a predatory smile.
"Ava Kidd, I will absolutely find you."
7.5
Bryn hovered as a translucent soul over her own fresh grave, just three days after she was buried.
She had been shoved off a cliff by Keifer, the boyfriend she provided for, while her adopted sister Fabiola watched and laughed.
Now, they stood at her grave crying fake tears, ready to steal her massive inheritance.
Suddenly, Dominic Hutchinson, the arrogant school tyrant who made her life a living hell, arrived.
He didn't come to mock her. He dug up her grave with his bare, bleeding hands, hugging her freezing urn as he sobbed in pure despair.
He ruthlessly exposed Keifer and Fabiola's murder plot, sending them to federal prison.
Three months later, Dominic stood before her rebuilt headstone in a pristine white tuxedo.
"It's finally over. I can finally come pick you up."
He pulled out a silver scalpel and slit his own wrist, leaving a bloody kiss above her carved name as he died.
Bryn fell to her knees, screaming and sobbing uncontrollably.
The boy she thought hated her had loved her with his entire life, while the parasites she trusted had killed her.
Why had she been so utterly blind?
A blinding light swallowed her soul, and Bryn suddenly snapped her eyes open.
She was standing by her high school lockers, completely alive.
She had returned to exactly three years before her death.
7.5
Daisy spent her birthday cooking a perfect dinner, waiting in their massive penthouse for her billionaire husband, Emmett.
Instead of coming home, a breaking news alert flashed on her screen: Emmett was at the hospital, protectively shielding his old flame, Eryn. When Daisy rushed to the VIP ward, Emmett physically blocked her to comfort a crying Eryn, completely forgetting it was his wife's birthday.
Heartbroken, Daisy demanded a divorce and fled. In response, Emmett ruthlessly froze all her bank accounts and trust funds, leaving her penniless in the freezing Manhattan rain. When she cornered him with divorce papers at a public funeral, a heavy metal cart slammed into her, tearing her calf wide open. Bleeding onto the marble floor, she begged him to sign. Instead, Emmett violently ripped the bloody papers to shreds.
"Unless I am dead, you are my wife," he snarled, locking her inside a room.
Daisy risked her life to escape through a window, dragging her bleeding leg to a dingy motel. But the real nightmare began when Eryn called. The tragic car crash that killed Daisy's adoptive parents ten years ago wasn't an accident—the brake lines were cut. And Emmett, the man she loved, had been using his vast corporate empire to protect the murderers all along.
Why did Emmett bury the police report? What was the deadly secret behind her true identity and the antique "Venus" necklace? Staring at her blood-stained hands in the cracked mirror, the terrified wife died. Daisy grabbed her coat and limped out into the dark, heading straight for the Navy Yard to burn his empire to the ground.