Death Of A Marriage, Birth Of Revenge
My husband watched as my skin melted, scalded by boiling soup, yet his hands were busy comforting my attacker. Five years of marriage, built on a foundation of my family's power, crumbled with a single, brutal act of betrayal. He bought me off with a penthouse and a trust fund, but I tore out my IV and threw his charity back in his face.
It was our fifth anniversary, but my husband, Ethan, remained distant, avoiding any talk of Chicago or the mafia protection my family once offered him. He then pushed a black velvet box across the table.
Inside was a Separation and Property Division Agreement, not a diamond. He told me to sign for Ilene's security, offering millions. When I refused, Ilene hurled boiling soup. Ethan shielded her, not me, as the scalding liquid melted my dress.
With second-degree burns, he blamed me, ordering me from our home for Ilene’s comfort. My family saved him, yet he sacrificed my body and marriage for another woman.
The love I felt turned to ash. What kind of debt demanded my flesh and marriage?
I ripped the IV from my arm, hurling his "charity" keys back. My diamond ring placed on the agreement, I walked away. From today on, Ethan, you and I are dead to each other.
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Chapter 2
Aurora POV:
Ilene didn't wait for a response. She charged into the room in her stilettos, making a direct line for me.
Ethan reacted instantly. He took a wide step forward, using his massive frame to physically block the space between Ilene and me.
Ilene didn't stop. She threw herself directly into Ethan's arms, her hands gripping his suit lapels in a death hold as tears immediately flooded her face.
I stood frozen in place. I watched my husband embrace another woman on our fifth anniversary. The spasms in my stomach twisted into a sickening knot.
Ethan's large hand moved to Ilene's back, rubbing it in soothing circles. His voice dropped to a level of softness I had never heard him use with me. He asked her why she wasn't resting in the hospital.
It was his subconscious double standard. To him, Ilene was fragile glass that needed protecting, while I was an unbreakable warrior who needed nothing.
Ilene turned her head slightly from his chest. With red-rimmed eyes, she pointed a shaking finger at me and shrilly accused me of occupying a position that didn't belong to me.
I crossed my arms over my chest. A mocking smirk tugged at the corner of my lips. I coldly reminded her that I was his legal wife.
The moment Ilene heard the words "legal wife," she acted as if she had been struck by lightning. She began to hyperventilate violently, pressing both hands over her ears.
Ethan whipped his head around and glared at me. He growled a harsh command, telling me to shut up and stop triggering her condition.
My heart sank completely to the bottom of my chest. I realized then that the truth meant absolutely nothing to this man.
Outside the open doors, a terrified waiter pushed a second serving cart to the threshold, too afraid to step inside.
Resting on top of the cart was a ceramic tureen of French lobster bisque, brought straight from the kitchen. It was still boiling.
Ilene's peripheral vision caught the cart. A flash of pure, calculated madness flickered in her eyes.
She had clawed her way up from the bottom of the underworld. She knew exactly how to use environmental chaos to her advantage.
Ilene suddenly shoved Ethan away. Feigning a complete emotional breakdown, she acted as if she were trying to flee the room and bolted toward the door.
Ethan immediately spun around to chase her, turning his back to me completely.
I frowned. My instincts flared, acutely aware that Ilene's trajectory wasn't aimed at the hallway. She was aiming directly for the cart.
Ilene crashed hard into the silver cart. The metal lid clattered to the floor, and a thick cloud of scalding steam instantly billowed into the air.
The waiter stumbled backward in horror, desperately trying to keep the cart from tipping over.
Ilene spun around. With her bare hands, she grabbed the sides of the ceramic tureen filled with boiling soup.
The extreme heat instantly turned her fingers a bright, angry red, but she gritted her teeth and refused to let go.
I registered the danger a second too late. I instinctively stepped backward, but the heel of my shoe caught on the thick edge of the rug.
Ethan reached Ilene's side. He stretched out his hands, trying to pry the burning tureen from her grip.
Ilene dodged his hands with surprising agility, her eyes locked dead onto mine.
She screamed at the top of her lungs that because I existed, Ethan refused to marry her.
I steadied my footing. I stared at her with ice in my veins and warned her to put the soup down, or she would face the consequences.
It was a mafia heiress's final ultimatum, dripping with the promise of blood.
Ilene didn't stop. Instead, an eerie smile stretched across her face, as if my threat was exactly what she had been waiting for.
She hoisted the heavy tureen and violently hurled the boiling lobster bisque straight at me.
The orange-red liquid formed a deadly arc in the air, radiating a pungent seafood aroma and a wave of searing heat.
My pupils shrank to pinpricks. I threw my left arm up to shield my face.
Ethan's eyes tracked the flying liquid, and his brain made a split-second, instinctual choice.
"Go to hell, you thief occupying his side!"
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9.1
With only fifteen days of cash flow left to save her tech startup, Aida had no choice but to seek a five-million-dollar bridge loan from Brendan Walls, a ruthless billionaire predator.
He agreed to sign the check, but on one sickening condition. He demanded Aida act as bait to get close to his corporate rival, Grayson Lott, treating her like a high-end call girl for a business transaction.
Forced to comply to save her employees, Aida let Grayson take her to a windowless underground club, where he secretly spiked her whiskey.
As the drugs paralyzed her body, triggering horrific flashbacks of a brutal assault from six years ago, Aida locked herself in the bathroom. She had to shatter a mirror and slice her own thigh open with a jagged shard of glass just to stay conscious enough to call Brendan for help.
Brendan's armored SUV immediately smashed through the club's wall to save her, and Grayson was arrested. But lying in the hospital, the horrifying truth finally clicked in Aida's mind.
The rescue was too fast. Brendan’s men hadn't rushed from Midtown; they had been parked outside the entire time. He had watched Grayson drug her and waited for the felony to happen just so he could legally seize Grayson's company. He had gambled her life and trauma for a hostile takeover.
When Brendan casually tossed a signed contract and luxury car keys onto her hospital bed as hush money, the last thread of Aida's sanity snapped.
"The deal is dead. NovaTech is mine. If you ever come near me again, I will kill you."
Bleeding and shaking with icy rage, Aida threw the keys at his chest, formally declaring war on the monster who thought he could buy her soul.
7.9
June was an ordinary architect struggling to pay rent, completely estranged from her high-society mother.
But one night, she was kidnapped and beaten in an abandoned warehouse by Gage Becker, the city's most ruthless billionaire, who demanded payback for her mother's sins.
Gage pointed a high-definition camera at June's battered face and video-called her mother, threatening to release the footage and ruin her upcoming billion-dollar wedding.
"I will never throw away a billion-dollar marriage for a useless daughter."
Her mother's cold voice echoed through the warehouse before the line went dead.
From that moment, Gage systematically destroyed June's life. She was publicly humiliated and forced to hack off her own hair with a cigar cutter. She was blacklisted from every firm in the city, evicted by her landlord, and violently mugged in a freezing New York blizzard.
Curled up in an icy tunnel waiting to die, June felt a suffocating despair. She hadn't spoken to her mother in months. Why did she have to endure this hell for a woman who didn't even care if she lived or died? Why was a monster like Gage so obsessed with driving her to the grave?
When Gage's armored Maybach pulled up, he stepped into the snow to mock her, waiting for her to finally surrender and beg for his mercy.
But the absolute humiliation snapped the last thread of June's sanity.
Instead of crying, she lunged forward with feral energy and sank her teeth directly into the devil's flesh.
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.
My universal translator kicked in just in time to hear their priestess, Chelsea, declare that I was a cursed demon who ruined their hunt. To save the clan from winter starvation, I was to be burned alive.
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.
I found a massive supply of wild potatoes and even gained the protection of Bronson, a terrifyingly powerful saber-toothed tiger beastman.
But Chelsea wouldn't stop.
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.
I was a scientist offering them endless food, yet their primitive ignorance and one woman's vicious jealousy kept pushing me toward a brutal end. I was terrified, completely powerless against their monstrous physical strength.
As five ruthless challengers drew their bone axes to claim me, I begged Bronson to leave me and run.
Instead, he pulled me against his scarred chest and kissed me fiercely in front of the entire clan.
"She is my mate," he roared, unleashing a soul-crushing aura. "Anyone who wants her, come at me together."
7.9
Hannah came home under a false identity, ready to keep her head down and avoid trouble. Then a near-drowning opened her eyes, and the family she had wanted gave her nothing but disappointment.
She severed every tie, shed the disguise, and rose in revenge as a miracle doctor, brilliant hacker, and feared underworld ruler. Shock followed her family at every turn.
Her parents regretted everything. Her eldest brother clung desperately to the bond of their shared blood, while her second brother gave up his entire fortune just to earn her forgiveness. Her third brother offered up his own body for a surgery-all to save her.
But Hannah stayed cold and built her empire alone. Only one deadly rival refused to be ignored.
"I was hired to kill you, mister."
"Then take my heart, too."
7.6
Johana walked half a mile through a brutal blizzard just to secure a tutoring job with the elite Black family.
But the very night she was hired, she received a terrifying call from the ER—her quiet roommate, Hazelle, had been drugged and severely traumatized at a Hamptons party.
When Johana rushed to the hospital, she didn't find the police. Instead, she found a team of ruthless billionaires erasing the crime.
Leading them was Dalton Black, the cold, arrogant older brother of her new student.
Within minutes, Dalton's fixers wiped the hospital's security footage, deleted all digital evidence, and forcefully transferred Hazelle to a locked private psychiatric facility.
"We are ensuring her privacy."
Dalton's voice was devoid of emotion, treating the horrific assault like a minor PR glitch.
His friends mocked Johana's powerlessness, while Dalton authorized a blank check to pay for the private ward, effectively burying the scandal and buying their silence.
Johana stood in the sterile hallway, trembling with a mix of despair and absolute rage.
How could they destroy an innocent girl's life and simply pay to make it disappear? Why was the truth so easily erased by money?
She had no wealth, no connections, and no proof, but she refused to be a victim of their cover-up.
Staring directly into Dalton's intimidating, icy blue eyes, Johana made a vow.
"I don't want your money. I will find out what you monsters did to her."
She thought the billionaire heir would crush her on the spot, but instead, he watched her walk away and quietly ordered his assistant: "Find out everything about Johana Neal."
9.2
For four years, I was the Silvercrest Pack's biggest joke—a scentless, wolfless Omega who somehow became the Alpha's Luna.
I thought I was just naturally defective, until our fourth anniversary, when I overheard my husband Adrian talking to his Beta.
"I’ve been having the kitchens slip a silver-based compound into her meals since the day I marked her."
He confessed the poison was meant to suppress my inner wolf and keep my womb permanently barren. He only married me as a power play to make his highborn mistress, Seraphina, jealous. While I wept over my empty cradle and apologized to his family for my broken body, he was using pack funds to buy her custom luxury goods, tossing me the leftover wrapping paper. When I finally confronted him about the silver and tried to leave, he flew into a feral rage. He violently smashed my head against the marble vanity, leaving me bleeding on the floor, and locked the bedroom door behind him.
I lay there in the cold, staring at the pool of my own blood. My entire life, my endless pain, and my unborn pups were nothing but a cruel, calculated joke to the man who was supposed to be my Mate.
But Adrian didn't know I wasn't just a brainless Omega.
I wiped the blood from my face, climbed down the balcony trellis into the freezing rain, and pulled out an encrypted burner phone.
"The cage is broken. Initiate Phase Two."