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.
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Chapter 9
The news of Justice Duncan's impending marriage hit Wall Street like a seismic shockwave.
Within forty-eight hours, Cordelia's face was plastered across every major financial and social publication in the country. The narrative Justice's PR team spun was flawless: a secret, long-standing romance between the city's most ruthless billionaire and a brilliant, independent architect.
Cordelia stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the master suite, adjusting the diamond clasp of her midnight-blue evening gown. Tonight was the annual Duncan Foundation Charity Gala. It would be their first public appearance together since the Plaza Hotel incident.
"Nervous?"
Cordelia looked through the mirror. Justice was standing in the doorway, impeccably dressed in a tailored black tuxedo that accentuated his broad shoulders.
"A little," Cordelia admitted, turning around to face him. "I'm used to pitching architectural designs to boardrooms, not parading in front of the city's most vicious socialites."
Justice closed the distance between them. He reached out, his warm fingers brushing against her bare collarbone as he adjusted a stray lock of her hair.
"They are vultures," Justice said, his voice a low, reassuring rumble. "But they only prey on the weak. Tonight, you walk in as my wife. You do not bow your head to anyone. You look them in the eye, and you let them know you own the room."
Cordelia took a deep breath, drawing strength from the absolute certainty in his gaze. She nodded.
The ride to the Metropolitan Museum of Art was a blur of flashing cameras and shouting paparazzi. The moment the Maybach's doors opened, Justice placed his hand firmly on the small of her back. The heat of his palm anchored her.
They walked up the grand steps, flanked by a wall of bodyguards. The crowd parted for them like the Red Sea.
Inside the grand hall, the murmurs died down the second Justice and Cordelia entered. Hundreds of eyes locked onto them, calculating, judging, and ultimately, submitting to the sheer power radiating from the couple.
"Mr. Duncan," a silver-haired man approached, a forced smile on his face. It was Richard Sterling, one of the oldest and most stubborn members of the Duncan family board. "A surprise to us all. And this must be the lovely Miss Nguyen."
"It's Mrs. Duncan," Justice corrected smoothly, his tone laced with a subtle, lethal warning. "And Cordelia is not just my wife. She will be overseeing the structural redesign of our new European headquarters."
Sterling's smile faltered slightly. "Ah. An ambitious endeavor."
"Cordelia's firm has my full backing," Justice stated, his dark eyes pinning Sterling down. "I expect the board to offer her the exact same level of cooperation they offer me."
It wasn't a request. It was a royal decree.
Sterling swallowed hard and nodded. "Of course, Justice. Congratulations to you both."
As Sterling scurried away, Cordelia looked up at Justice. He had just handed her the keys to a billion-dollar project in front of his greatest rivals.
"You didn't tell me about the European headquarters," Cordelia whispered.
"Consider it a wedding gift," Justice replied, the corner of his lips twitching upward.
Suddenly, a shrill, desperate voice cut through the elegant music.
"Cordelia! You ungrateful little tramp!"
Cordelia turned. Eleanor, her stepmother, was trying to push past a security guard near the entrance. She looked disheveled, her expensive gown wrinkled, the panic of impending bankruptcy etched into every line of her face.
"Let me go! She's my daughter!" Eleanor shrieked, clawing at the guard's arm.
Before Cordelia could even react, Justice's lead bodyguard materialized out of the shadows. With a single, sharp nod from Justice, two men in black suits flanked Eleanor. They didn't cause a scene. They simply gripped her arms with bone-crushing force, silencing her protests instantly, and dragged her backward out of the venue.
Justice didn't even look at the commotion. He kept his eyes entirely on Cordelia.
"The trash has been taken out," Justice murmured, offering her his arm. "Shall we dance?"
Cordelia looked at the heavy oak doors where her stepmother had just vanished. She felt no pity. She turned back to the man who had pulled her from the wreckage of her past.
She smiled, a genuine, radiant smile, and took his arm.
"We shall."
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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.