Drowning In Betrayal: Watch Me Shine Now
I was lying in the emergency room with acute gastroenteritis on my birthday, but my mother ordered me to rip out my IV needle.
She threatened to freeze all my accounts if I didn't show up to my adopted sister's high-society matchmaking party.
When I arrived, dragging my weak body, I caught my fiancé Julio protecting his mistress.
Worse, my adopted sister Billie framed me for stealing my own grandmother's heirloom earrings just to play the victim in front of New York's elite.
I refused to be their stepping stone and projected the evidence of Julio's affair on the massive ballroom screen.
In a rage, my father cursed me, and my mother slapped me across the face so hard my mouth bled.
During the ensuing physical struggle, my adopted sister, the mistress, and I all plunged into the freezing outdoor swimming pool.
My fiancé desperately swam to save his mistress, while my own brother rushed to pull my adopted sister above the water.
I stopped kicking and let my heavy, soaked clothes pull me down to the bottom of the black pool.
Why did my own flesh and blood treat me like garbage?
After a mysterious bodyguard pulled me from the water, I watched my family frantically wrap the other two women in warm blankets.
I didn't shed a single tear.
"I am no longer a part of this family. I never want to see any of you again."
I publicly canceled the engagement, turned my back on the wealthy estate, and walked away into the freezing winter night.
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Chapter 3
Amanda stood on the concrete steps and watched the rear window of the Maybach roll down. Julio's face appeared in the gap. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes were full of irritation.
The driver hurried out and pulled the rear door open. Amanda walked down the steps. Her face was a mask of ice. She slid into the leather seat and pulled her coat around her legs.
The door slammed shut. Instantly, a thick, suffocating smell filled Amanda's nose. It was a cheap, heavy rose perfume.
Her stomach violently rejected the scent. Acid rushed up her throat. She slapped her hand over her mouth and nose. She reached for the door panel and slammed her finger on the window button. The glass slid down, letting the freezing winter air blast into the cabin.
Julio flinched as the cold wind hit his face. He reached over and pulled the master switch, forcing the window back up.
"Are you insane?" Julio snapped. "You claim you are sick, and now you want to freeze us both to death. Stop throwing tantrums."
Amanda dropped her hand from her mouth. She let out a short, cold laugh. Her eyes locked onto the lapel of his dark suit. A single, long strand of blonde hair was stuck to the fabric. Amanda's hair was pitch black.
"Your car smells like a cheap brothel," Amanda said. "Did you lose track of time at the club?"
Julio's eyes widened for a fraction of a second. His hand shot up to his tie, tugging at the knot. It was his tell. He only did that when he was cornered.
He dropped his hand and glared at her. "Are you having me followed? You are invading my privacy."
Amanda pulled her phone from her pocket. She opened the photo Jeanette had sent her. She shoved the screen directly into Julio's face. The bright backlight illuminated the sweat forming on his upper lip.
Julio stared at the picture of his hand wrapped around Seraphina's waist. He swallowed hard. He pushed the phone away.
"It is a business dinner," Julio said. His voice was louder now, defensive. "I was entertaining clients. Seraphina was there to assist."
The smell of the rose perfume mixed with his lies. Amanda felt physically sick.
"Fire her," Amanda said. Her voice was completely steady. "Fire Seraphina Vance tomorrow morning, and never speak to her again."
Julio stiffened. He squared his shoulders and looked down at her.
"No," Julio said. "Seraphina is a crucial part of the acquisitions team. I am not firing a key employee just because you are feeling insecure."
Amanda stared at him. "She is an intern who cannot even read a basic profit and loss statement. Do not insult my intelligence."
Julio's face turned red. He slammed his open palm against the leather center console. The loud smack echoed in the small space.
"Stop acting like a jealous shrew!" Julio yelled. "You are always so cold. You never smile. You never support me. Seraphina actually looks up to me. She knows how to treat a man."
Amanda stopped breathing. The air in her lungs turned to ice. The last tiny ember of hope she had for this three-year relationship went out. It did not fade. It was crushed.
She leaned back against the headrest. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest to keep her hands from shaking.
"It is her or me," Amanda said. The words tasted like ash in her mouth.
Julio let out a loud, mocking scoff. He leaned closer to her.
"You will never leave me," Julio said. His voice dripped with pity. "Without the Mathews family name protecting you, your parents will eat you alive. You need me."
He reached into his jacket pocket.
"If you behave tonight and play the perfect fiancée," Julio said, "I will buy you that diamond necklace you looked at last month."
Amanda turned her head away from him. The proximity of his breath made her skin crawl.
"Disgusting," Amanda whispered.
Julio's jaw tightened. His pride was hit. He sat back in his seat and pressed a button on the ceiling console. The thick, soundproof glass partition rolled up, separating them from the driver.
The back seat fell into a dead, suffocating silence. The only sound was the heavy thud of the tires rolling over the asphalt.
Amanda turned her face to the window. The yellow glow of the streetlights flashed across her pale skin in a rhythmic, hypnotic pattern. Her jaw ached from how hard she was clenching her teeth.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Julio pull out his phone. He angled the screen away from her, but she could see the soft, affectionate smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. He was texting her.
A sharp, physical pain pierced Amanda's chest. It felt like a hand had reached through her ribs and squeezed her heart until it bruised.
She forced her eyes away from him. She opened her phone and tapped on her notes app. The screen was filled with a long, numbered list. Dates. Times. Lies. Canceled dinners. Smudged lipstick on his collars.
She scrolled to the very bottom. She typed the current date.
Defended his mistress. Tried to buy my silence with jewelry.
She looked at the number at the top of the screen. It was 98.
She locked her phone. The car merged onto the Long Island Expressway. The distant, glowing lights of the massive estates appeared on the horizon. The slaughterhouse was waiting.
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7.6
When the Pollard family kicked Alyssa out into the freezing rain, Walter threw a ten-thousand-dollar check into a dirty puddle.
"Take it and get out. Don't ever come back," he sneered.
Her adoptive mother and stepsister stood on the mansion's porch, mocking her as a worthless country girl who tarnished their wealthy name. They laughed, claiming she wouldn't even be able to afford community college and would be begging on the streets in a week.
They looked at her cheap clothes and worn backpack with absolute disgust.
They were completely unaware that for the past five years, Alyssa was the secret mastermind who had built their failing gallery into a multi-million-dollar investment empire.
Every key investment, every fortune they made, came from the anonymous notes she had slipped into their unread books. They genuinely believed they were business geniuses, while treating the true architect of their wealth like a stray dog.
Looking at their smug, arrogant faces, Alyssa didn't feel a shred of sadness, only a cold, sharp irony.
They actually believed they had raised her.
She stepped close, whispered the master code to Walter's most secret offshore account, and watched the blood completely drain from his face.
"I raised you," she said, turning her back on the mansion without hesitation.
Walking into the storm, she pulled out a heavily encrypted phone and gave a single, cold order.
"Initiate a full hostile takeover of the Pollard Group."
It was time to end this little game and step into her true life—as the world's most elusive medical genius, and the long-lost billionaire heiress of the Summers dynasty.
8.6
Marrying Theron Draix in a few days was a life long dream come true.
For seventeen years, I'd loved him, revolving my life around him, and in just three days, we should be married.
"Let's break up. I won't be attending the wedding," he said.
My life shattered in that instant.
Finding out he was in love with my adopted sister was worse. They had played me and controlled my emotions.
At the end, Mireya had killed me.
If I was given a second chance, I would never love Theron and never trust Mireya.
9.5
One night, I was a girl seeking vengeance in a velvet mask. He was the stranger who took me against a cold stone wall, his touch a silent, lethal promise.
Now, he is Caspian Blackwood-the most feared architecture professor at Aethelgard. When my "perfect" boyfriend, Dominic Calloway, cheats on me and sabotages my degree, Caspian offers a lifeline with a razor-thin edge: Be his silent, nude model for thirty days.
The rules are absolute. I must wear a silk mask and a weighted collar. I must never speak. I must hold the poses he demands until my muscles scream for mercy. In the lecture hall, he ignores me with arctic indifference. In the studio, his gaze is a physical weight, stripping me faster than his hands ever could. But as the charcoal scratches against the paper, I realize the "deal" isn't just for art. It's for the soul I accidentally gave him in the dark. Will the deal destroy his career, or consume me first?
9.0
Carli followed an anonymous text to a dark garage, only to find her fiancé of seven years tangled with another woman in his Porsche.
She smashed his window, threw her engagement ring at his face, and walked away.
But the betrayal didn't stop there. Her own family sided with the cheater. Her father slapped her across the face so hard she bled, demanding she hand over her late aunt's trust fund.
"If you don't do exactly as you're told tonight, I will freeze every credit card in your name," her father roared.
Forced to attend the exclusive Gutierrez family gala, Carli watched her ex-fiancé parade his cheap mistress to humiliate her, while her stepsister tried to publicly ruin her.
Suddenly, a violent screech echoed as the massive crystal chandelier above them snapped from the ceiling.
In a split second of pure instinct, Vaughn shoved his mistress to safety and threw himself to the ground, completely abandoning Carli to be crushed.
Staring up at the plummeting glass, Carli felt the crushing reality that her entire life had been surrounded by monsters.
But the fatal impact never came.
A massive force yanked her into a hard chest, shielding her body entirely from the explosive shrapnel.
Carli opened her eyes to find Fletcher Gutierrez—the ruthless billionaire king of Wall Street and the masked stranger from her reckless one-night stand—bleeding heavily over her.
Feeling his warm blood on her hands, Carli knew the game had just changed.
9.3
My husband of three years dragged me into the freezing autumn ocean because my stepsister claimed I bullied her.
When she faked a sprained ankle in the shallow water, he immediately abandoned me in the roaring waves to save her, not knowing I was eight weeks pregnant.
The icy undertow swept me away, causing a brutal miscarriage. Later in the hospital, my traumatized body started hemorrhaging, and I desperately needed a rare blood transfusion.
My stepsister, who shared my blood type, held my life hostage. She forced my husband to sign our divorce papers before she would donate a single drop.
By the time the blood reached me, my uterus was irreparably damaged. I permanently lost the right to ever be a mother.
"The Anderson family can't have an infertile matriarch."
My own parents said this as they falsified my medical records to protect her. And my husband, blinded by his misplaced loyalty, simply walked away, leaving me with a meager settlement.
I lost my baby, my fertility, and my marriage all in one week. How could the people I trusted most be so completely heartless?
But looking at the divorce papers, I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed my name and unsealed my Yale architecture degree.
"I'm in. Send me the files for the Manhattan project."
The weak, pathetic Mrs. Anderson died on that operating table. Crista Cherry is back, and it's time for them to pay.
9.0
Ellen had spent ten years cleaning her husband's home, a quiet devotion to the man who demanded her constant labor. But while vacuuming under their bed, her world shattered with a single, horrifying discovery. Hidden away was a secret phone, revealing a life her husband had built with another woman and child for the past eight years.
A decade of devoted homemaking for Adrian in their Los Angeles home was Ellen’s life. While cleaning, she found a hidden compartment and a new iPhone, which she shockingly unlocked. The wallpaper revealed Adrian with a secret family in Austin—a double life since her own pregnancy. Texts detailed a $1.2 million house and lavish expenses for “Angel.” Adrian stirred, forcing Ellen to hide the device. Her son was denied a $200 class, while her $50,000 inheritance funded Adrian’s secret family. Rage replaced her tears. Ellen photographed all incriminating details, hid the phone, and forced a submissive smile. Her quiet devotion was over; her war had just begun.