Defying The Ruthless Billionaire Heir
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."
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Chapter 5
Johana stared at the ceiling of her dorm room. The clock on her nightstand said 1:00 AM. The building was dead quiet.
She picked up her phone and called Hazelle again. It rang once, then went to voicemail.
"Hey, it's me again," Johana said, her voice tight. "Just... call me when you get this. Please."
She hung up and opened her contacts. She scrolled through Hazelle's friends, sending texts to anyone she could think of. Have you seen Hazelle? Is she with you?
Nothing. No replies.
The door banged open. Chloe stumbled in, giggling, leaning heavily on the doorframe. The smell of expensive perfume and vodka wafted in with her.
"Chloe!" Johana sat up. "Have you heard from Hazelle? She's not answering her phone."
Chloe kicked off her heels, wobbling slightly. "Who? Hazelle?" She waved a hand dismissively. "I don't know. She's been weird lately. Secretive."
"What do you mean, secretive?"
Chloe flopped onto her bed, not bothering to take off her dress. "She thinks she's moving up in the world. She met some guy. Some finance guy." Chloe rolled her eyes. "She wants to play with the big dogs. She's going to get bitten."
Johana's stomach dropped. "What guy? Where?"
"I don't know, Johana. Some Hamptons crowd. Hedge fund guys. The kind of guys who eat girls like her for breakfast." Chloe pulled a pillow over her head. "Go to sleep."
Hamptons. Finance guys. The words echoed in Johana's mind.
A hundred miles away, in the Hamptons, the party was roaring.
The glass house was packed with bodies, the bass thumping so hard the windows vibrated. Dalton Black stood on the edge of the terrace, a glass of whiskey in his hand, looking out at the black ocean. The cold sea breeze was a relief after the stifling heat inside.
Zane Croft stumbled through the sliding doors, a model on each arm. He was already sweating, his shirt unbuttoned to his sternum.
"Dalton, my man!" Zane clapped him on the shoulder. "Why do you always look like you're at a funeral? Loosen up."
"Where's Kamren?" Dalton asked, ignoring the question.
Zane jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "In the den. Doing his mentor thing. He's got that new assistant practically in tears."
Dalton looked past Zane, into the house. Through the glass walls of a side room, he could see Kamren Hubbard sitting on a couch, leaning forward, talking intently to a young woman. She was sitting very still, her hands clasped in her lap, her face pale.Something was off. The way she wasn't blinking. The way her head was starting to tilt, just slightly, as if she was losing control of her muscles.
Dalton didn't recognize her.He watched for a second longer, then looked away. Kamren was always collecting strays. And strays always came with problems he didn't need to solve.
"I'm getting another drink," Zane said, dragging his entourage back inside.
Dalton stayed on the terrace. He pulled out his phone. He opened his email, scrolling past the financial reports, until he found the one from Johana Neal. He opened the PDF again. In the middle of this chaotic, loud, meaningless party, her words were the only thing that made sense. Order out of chaos.
Johana was pacing now, a frantic energy thrumming through her. The silence in the room was louder than any party. She was about to dial campus security—
In the Hamptons, the sliding doors to the terrace slammed open. A high, keening scream cut through the thumping bass of the music. It wasn't a scream of fun. It was a scream of pure terror.
Dalton looked up from his phone. Inside the house, by the pool, a crowd was gathering. Someone was shouting for a doctor.
The two worlds had just collided.
—when her phone buzzed in her hand, the screen lighting up with an unknown number. Her heart leaped into her throat.
Before she could second-guess it, she answered.
"Hello?"
A man's voice, tense but controlled, came through the line. "Is this Miss Johana Neal?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"My name is Kamren Hubbard. I'm a friend of Hazelle's. There's been an incident. She's unwell, and we're on our way to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. I think it would be best if you met us there."
The world tilted. "An incident? What happened? Is she okay?"
"She's stable," the voice said, offering no real comfort. In the background, Johana could hear muffled shouting, the thump of music abruptly cut. The chaos was leaking through the line. "We can discuss the details when you arrive. Please, come as quickly as you can."
The line clicked dead.
Johana stared at the phone, the name 'Kamren Hubbard' echoing in her mind. She turned to a now-sober Chloe.
"Southampton Hospital," Johana said, her voice a raw whisper. "We have to go. Now."
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8.0
When gifted cellist Vivienne Aurel inherits her late father's catastrophic $4.2 million debt, she expects to lose everything. She doesn't expect the debt to be bought by Caspian Vane, the most feared private equity magnate in New York. Caspian doesn't want to ruin her; he wants her to work exclusively for him as the artistic director of his new cultural foundation for eighteen months. Forced into his world under a binding agreement, Vivienne prepares to fight against a cold, transactional cage. But as the intense, quiet proximity between them begins to blur the lines of their contract, she discovers a terrifying truth: the man who now owns her future has been watching her from the shadows long before she ever knew his name.
8.6
I was the untouchable Mafia Queen, but my reign ended in the blood-soaked depths of a damp dungeon.
My half-sister, Kelsey, drove a rusted, sharpened spoon into my chest, screaming about the unfairness of fate.
In my past life, my father sold me to the ruthless Don Dante Blackwell as collateral to pay off his debts.
To survive, I took a black-market fertility drug, birthed his heir, and clawed my way to the throne through sheer ruthlessness.
But in the mafia world, a pregnant woman isn't a queen; she's a walking target.
I survived countless bombings and poisonings, only to be betrayed and slaughtered by my own family.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand. I had sacrificed everything to secure our survival in the empire. Why did my blood and tears only earn me a rusted spoon to the heart?
Opening my eyes again, I am seventeen, sitting in my father's drawing room.
Two black velvet boxes sit on the mahogany table.
Kelsey greedily snatches the box containing the fertility drug, her eyes gleaming with feverish triumph.
"I'll take this one, Papa."
She thinks she is stealing my golden ticket to the crown, completely unaware that she just chose a death sentence.
I lower my gaze, letting my eyelashes mask the cold, lethal amusement pooling in my eyes as I take the remaining box.
Inside is the detailed psychological profile of the Don's dead fiancée.
This time, I won't be a breeding mare fighting off assassins. I will dissect the devil himself.
8.3
EDEN
8.3
Elianila, an AI Architect, is part of an elite team tasked with designing a global system meant to prevent threats, manage disasters, and distribute resources to vulnerable regions. After five years of tireless work with her colleagues, she uncovers disturbing anomalies, code-named, X-variables, that flag individuals according to criteria she never programmed.
As Elianila digs deeper to understand what the X-variables measure and where their origin, she finds herself in direct conflict with the authorities. Soon, the System marks her and her daughter as threats - targets to be eliminated.
With a small band of colleagues and dissidents, Elianila goes on the run, hiding in places beyond the Systems reach. As they evade surveillance, they race against time to warn others, expose the truth, and fight back against the omnipresent authority of the System.
9.3
Six years ago, my adoptive family framed me for commercial espionage, stripped me of my identity, and threw me out. Now, I finally returned to the Solis estate as a commercial pilot to take back what was mine.
But the first thing my adoptive mother did was threaten me with that forged evidence again. She demanded I take my sister Kiana's place in a marriage contract with a disabled man, simply because Kiana refused to marry him.
When I refused, Kiana ambushed me at the airport with a mob of reporters. She cried for the cameras, publicly accusing me of causing our father's and brother's deaths. She painted me as a ruthless monster who bankrupted the company and ruined the family. The crowd instantly turned on me, screaming that I was a murderer and a gold-digger. Kiana wanted to completely destroy my reputation so I would have no choice but to submit to her arrangement.
I looked at her fake tears, feeling a cold, absolute fury. How dare she use the tragic deaths of the only family members who actually loved me as a prop for her sick show? They had ruined my life once, and now they wanted to bury me alive.
I didn't hesitate. I slapped her hard across the face right in front of the flashing cameras.
"That was for my father and brother."
Then, my real fiancé, a decorated Delta Force commander, rolled through the crowd in his wheelchair. He tossed a classified Pentagon file to the reporters, completely clearing my name and exposing Kiana's lies. I married him to start my revenge, but as I stepped into his heavily secured penthouse that night, I realized my powerful new husband had been preparing for me for a very long time.
9.7
Giana woke up drugged and burning with fever in a luxurious hotel suite. Standing before her was Cornel Stark, the most ruthless billionaire in New York.
Memories of her past life stabbed into her brain. In that life, her adoptive family and her fiancé Gary had stolen her inheritance and left her to die a brutal, agonizing death.
She also remembered how fighting Cornel only made him more violent. So this time, she didn't scream.
She endured his brutal punishment, escaped the moment he let his guard down, and swallowed a Plan B pill on the freezing streets.
Returning to her adoptive family's mansion, she faced the people who had destroyed her. Her fiancé and her stepsister put on masks of fake concern, secretly mocking her.
Instead of throwing a useless tantrum like before, Giana deliberately threw herself down the steep wooden stairs.
She smashed her head against the marble floor, using her own blood to shatter their plans and win back her mother's trust.
She thought she had finally taken control. She was ready to crush the people who had betrayed her and live for herself.
But she didn't understand why the billionaire she had just escaped was suddenly turning her life upside down.
When she woke up in the hospital, her room wasn't filled with her family's fake tears, but an ocean of blood-red roses.
The heavy door swung open, and Cornel Stark walked in, his gray eyes locking onto her with a dark, predatory hunger.
"Remember this feeling, Giana. Every breath you take belongs to me now."
7.7
Dasia's twin brother, Gerald, was an e-sports prodigy, the rising star of the Glory team.
But during a crucial moment, he was framed by his own teammates. They orchestrated a trap that completely destroyed his reputation and left his right hand brutally crushed.
Instead of getting him medical help, the club threw him out into the freezing rain, bleeding and disgraced. The manager labeled him useless trash and slapped him with a five-million-dollar termination fee to bleed him dry. Stripped of his pro status, the wealthy bullies at his prep school relentlessly targeted him, mocking his crippled hand and beating him down.
Dasia watched her twin brother cry in his room, his life and dreams shattered by the people he trusted. A violent, suffocating rage boiled in her chest. How could they smile while crushing his hand? Why should the victim be treated like a rotting piece of garbage while the perpetrators get rich and celebrated?
She didn't shed a single tear. She stood in front of the mirror, took a pair of scissors, and ruthlessly hacked off her waist-length hair. She wrapped her chest in coarse medical bandages until her ribs screamed, and pulled on his oversized black hoodie.
"Everything you took from him, I am going to take back with interest."
The girl in the mirror was gone. She was Gerald now. She secretly passed the brutal online tryouts for Glory's biggest rival, the elite Blackflame team, and signed their official contract. The revenge had officially begun.