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 9
The noise in the ballroom was deafening. Reporters who had sneaked into the back of the room started snapping photos of Julio standing next to the crying Seraphina.
Harrison Rogers shoved his way through the crowd. His face was dark red, the veins in his neck bulging against his tuxedo collar.
Julio lunged forward. He reached out to grab the microphone from Amanda's hand. He wanted to cut the power.
Amanda stepped back. Her heel caught the edge of the table holding the massive champagne pyramid. A wave of dizziness slammed into her, black spots swarming her vision. She swayed and swung her arm back to catch her balance. The heavy metal microphone smashed into the bottom tier of glasses.
The glass shattered. The entire pyramid collapsed. Hundreds of crystal flutes crashed to the marble floor. Amber liquid splashed everywhere. The guests screamed and scrambled backward to avoid the flying shards.
Harrison stopped at the edge of the broken glass. He pointed a shaking finger at Amanda.
"You ungrateful bitch!" Harrison roared. "You ruined this family's reputation!"
Meredith stepped around Harrison. She did not yell. She walked straight up to Amanda, pulled her right arm back, and swung with all her body weight.
Smack.
The slap echoed over the sound of the breaking glass. The force of the blow snapped Amanda's head to the side. Five bright red finger marks instantly swelled on her pale cheek.
Amanda stumbled backward. Her teeth cut into the inside of her cheek. A thick drop of dark red blood leaked from the corner of her mouth and ran down her chin.
The ballroom went completely silent. Billie stopped fake-crying. Seraphina froze on the floor.
Amanda raised her hand and wiped the blood from her chin with the back of her thumb. She looked at the red smear on her skin. She slowly turned her head back to face her mother.
Amanda did not dig her nails into her palms. She did not hold back. She let out a low, dark laugh. The sound was hollow and completely insane. The fever was burning through her now, stripping away the last of her restraint.
Meredith's eyes widened in fury. She raised her hand to slap Amanda again.
Amanda's hand shot out. She grabbed Meredith's wrist mid-air. Her fingers locked onto the bone with a grip powered by nothing but adrenaline and spite. The effort made her whole arm tremble.
"This is the last time you ever touch me, Mrs. Rogers," Amanda said. Her voice was dead.
She shoved Meredith's arm away. Meredith stumbled backward into Harrison's chest.
Amanda turned her head. She locked her eyes on Billie, who was standing near the open French doors leading to the patio. Seraphina was crawling toward the same doors, trying to escape.
Amanda marched across the broken glass. Her black heels crunched over the crystal. Each step sent a fresh jolt of pain up her spine, the fever blurring the edges of her vision, but she did not stop.
Billie held up her hands. "Amanda, please calm down-"
Amanda lunged. She grabbed the collar of Billie's custom white gown with her left hand. She twisted the fabric tight, choking off Billie's words. The wound on her palm screamed in protest, hot and wet against the silk.
Seraphina tried to stand up and run. Amanda shot her right hand out and grabbed a massive handful of Seraphina's curled hair, ignoring the fresh sting where the earring post had pierced her skin.
Both women screamed.
Amanda did not say a word. She hauled them backward, stumbling under their combined weight, her fever-ravaged body running on nothing but rage. She pulled them through the French doors and out into the freezing winter night. The cold wind whipped her hair across her face and cut through her thin evening gown, shocking her burning skin.
"Let them go!" Julio yelled from inside. He and Donat—Amanda's older brother, who had been standing frozen near the bar since the chaos began—sprinted toward the doors.
Amanda ignored the heavy footsteps pounding behind her. Using the last reserves of her strength, she dragged the screaming women across the stone patio toward the edge of the massive, unheated outdoor swimming pool. The water was pitch black and freezing.
She reached the edge. Her knees buckled. Billie and Seraphina clawed at Amanda's hands, begging and crying.
Amanda lifted her right leg and drove her knee into Billie's stomach. At the exact same time, she ripped her right arm forward, hurling Seraphina over the water. The momentum tore her grip free, and she dropped to one knee on the freezing stone.
Two loud splashes shattered the quiet night.
Billie and Seraphina hit the freezing water. They thrashed and screamed, their heavy gowns pulling them under.
Amanda struggled back to her feet on the edge of the pool. The cold wind bit through her thin dress. She listened to the frantic footsteps of Julio and her brother rushing onto the patio.
She closed her eyes. She needed to know. She needed one final, physical proof that there was nothing left for her here.
Amanda spread her arms out to her sides. The torn skin of her palm stung in the icy air. She leaned backward and let gravity take her.
She fell backward off the edge of the concrete. The freezing, black water swallowed her whole.
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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.