Dumped For Pennies, Returning With Billions
Cari Butler woke up in a damp, smelly dorm room, realizing she had transmigrated into the body of a disgraced fake daughter who had just been kicked out of a wealthy family.
Before she could even process her reality, the real daughter's friends kicked her door open to mock her, flaunting a custom Tiffany necklace that supposedly cost a mere eighty cents.
Cari thought they were crazy, until she saw the news: a top Manhattan mansion had just sold for a record-breaking $3,500.
The entire world's currency value had shrunk by ten thousand times!
This meant the original owner's bank balance of $854,000 gave Cari the purchasing power of eight and a half billion dollars.
But a mysterious system froze her funds, forcing her to work demeaning gig jobs to unlock the money bit by bit.
While working as a hotel server for twenty cents a day, she caught her ex-boyfriend kissing up to the real daughter, mocking Cari for being a desperate beggar.
Even her snobby roommates laughed at her, claiming she couldn't afford a ten-cent iPhone.
What truly angered Cari wasn't the humiliation, but receiving a five-cent transfer from her poor biological brother, who was starving himself just to keep her fed.
Yet, the system strictly forbade her from giving her unlocked billions directly to her family.
Looking at the restrictive system and the arrogant elites who thought they owned the city, Cari's eyes turned icy cold.
"If I can't just hand them the cash,"
Cari sneered, pulling out her phone to outright buy the luxury hotel and fire everyone who wronged her.
"Then I will just buy the entire world and place it at their feet."
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Chapter 4
Cari stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the towering, gold-tinted glass of the Cloud Crest hotel in midtown Manhattan.
She followed the navigation map around the side of the building and pushed open the heavy metal door to the employee entrance.
A wave of air hit her face, smelling strongly of industrial bleach and cheap coffee.
She walked down the narrow hallway to the supervisor's office to check in.
Trina Sharp sat behind a metal desk, slowly painting her fingernails bright red.
Trina looked up. Her eyes dragged up and down Cari's faded t-shirt and scuffed sneakers.
A loud, mocking scoff left Trina's lips.
"We don't need anyone," Trina said flatly, waving a hand to dismiss her. Trina wanted to give the shift to her own cousin.
Megan Keller, another server carrying a stack of folded uniforms, stopped in the doorway.
"Trina, the GigMatch system already confirmed her," Megan said quickly. "If you reject her now, the platform will hit the hotel with a massive cancellation fee."
Trina rolled her eyes hard.
She reached under the desk and threw a bundled uniform at Cari's chest. It was clearly a size too small.
Cari caught the fabric. She didn't argue.
She gave Megan a small nod of thanks and walked into the locker room.
When Cari came back out in the tight uniform, Trina pointed a sharp fingernail at her.
"You take the VIP private dining room," Trina ordered. It was the heaviest, most stressful section.
Cari loaded a massive silver tray with heavy metal cutlery and three bottles of champagne.
She balanced the tray on her shoulder and walked steadily through the maze of kitchen hallways.
She reached the heavy oak doors of the top-tier VIP room at the end of the hall.
Just as she raised her hand to knock, a busboy hurriedly pushed past her to exit the room, leaving the heavy oak doors slightly ajar in his rush. A familiar voice drifted through the resulting gap. Cari's hand froze in mid-air. Her eyebrows pulled together. She leaned closer, peering through the open space before the heavy door could swing completely shut.
The room was dimly lit with crystal chandeliers. A group of wealthy kids sat around a long mahogany table.
Cari's eyes instantly locked onto the young man sitting near the head of the table.
Her stomach twisted violently.
It was her boyfriend, Hamlin Ross. The guy who always claimed he was a broke student and made her split every penny with him.
Right now, Hamlin was wearing a perfectly tailored designer suit. A thick Rolex watch caught the light on his wrist.
Hamlin held a glass of red wine, leaning forward with a sickeningly eager smile.
He was toasting Harper Zamora, who sat at the head of the table.
Cody Boggs, one of the rich followers, slammed his hand on the table and laughed.
"Hamlin, you really worked hard pretending to be poor just to get into the Zamora circle," Cody mocked loudly. "Did the fake daughter ask you for grocery money today?"
Hamlin let out a short, cruel laugh. He waved his hand dismissively.
"Cari is a desperate beggar," Hamlin sneered. "Looking at her makes me sick."
Hamlin turned his attention back to Harper.
"I only dated her to get close to your family, Harper," Hamlin said, his voice dripping with loyalty. "I gathered all her embarrassing secrets just for you."
Harper covered her mouth with her hand, her shoulders shaking with a delicate laugh.
"You did well, Hamlin," Harper praised him. "Like a very obedient dog."
Outside the door, Cari stood completely still.
The heavy silver tray dug into her shoulder. Her fingers gripped the edge of the tray so hard her knuckles turned stark white.
A sharp, stabbing pain hit her chest as the original owner's lingering emotions flared up.
But Cari's eyes were dead and cold.
A brutal, icy smile slowly formed on her lips.
She took a deep breath, shifting the heavy tray entirely to her left hand.
She freed her right hand and gripped the heavy brass handle of the door.
Down the hall, Trina walked around the corner. She saw Cari standing still and immediately opened her mouth to yell.
Inside the room, the laughter paused at the sound of Trina's approaching footsteps.
Cari ignored Trina completely. Her eyes stayed locked on Hamlin through the crack.
She pulled her right leg back, shifting all her weight, and prepared to strike.
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7.9
I woke up in a sterile hospital room, my head split open from a horrific car crash.
But the pain in my skull was nothing compared to the memory burned into my retinas just before the impact: my billionaire husband, Dawson, walking into a luxury hotel with a woman who looked exactly like his dead first love.
When Dawson finally arrived at the ward, there was no panic or relief in his eyes. He just coldly looked at my bloody bandages.
"Your reckless driving just forced me to postpone the quarterly board meeting."
Even our seven-year-old son, who I almost died giving birth to, didn't spare me a single glance. He kicked my hospital bed in annoyance.
"The Wi-Fi here is garbage. You're a bad mom! Dad said Aunt Angelita should be the one living with us!"
My blood turned to ice. For five years, I had bent over backward, wearing the hideous pale dresses he picked, starving myself to maintain a fragile figure, all to be a perfect, obedient substitute for a ghost.
And this was what I got. An unfaithful husband who would rather bury me in debt than grant me a divorce, and a son who wished I was dead.
The weak, subservient Charlene died on that wet asphalt.
When the doctor pointed to Dawson and asked for his name, I looked at my husband with a hollow, defensive stare.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
Using retrograde amnesia as my shield, I was going to tear their perfect world apart.
7.2
I am a resident surgeon, secretly married to Dr. Barrett Walters, the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. It was a transactional marriage; he paid my mother's mounting medical bills, and I was his secret, obedient wife in the dark.
But at the hospital, he was a cold-blooded tyrant who deliberately made my life a living hell. During a major medical conference, he viciously tore apart my successful surgical repair, looking me dead in the eye as he called me incompetent in front of all my colleagues.
The humiliation didn't stop there. With his tacit approval, the senior residents bullied me, assigning me every brutal night shift. When his beautiful, wealthy heiress "girlfriend" visited the ward, he publicly mocked my background to make her smile.
"Some people get in through the back door. They're not fit for the front lines."
Even when I was forced to work as a secret banquet waitress to cover the medical copays he ignored, he found me, ruined the job out of pure possessive jealousy, and then fined my meager resident salary the very next morning just to show his absolute control.
I endured his punishing kisses and cruel rebukes, sacrificing my dignity just to keep my mother alive. But I couldn't understand why he had to destroy every shred of my peace. If he wanted the perfect heiress, why did he refuse to let me go?
Staring at his cold, controlling eyes in the stairwell, my exhaustion finally overpowered my fear. I was done being his victim, and it was time to tear up this contract.
9.3
They say you can't have it all. I'm about to prove them wrong-or destroy myself trying.
When my struggling mother married billionaire Richard Stone, I thought I was gaining a family. Instead, I found three stepbrothers who became my obsession, my downfall, and my salvation.
Dominic, the eldest, cold and commanding, who kisses me like he's claiming his kingdom and looks at me like I'm the only thing he can't control.
Julian, the charming playboy who hides a vulnerable soul beneath his perfect smile, making me feel like I'm the only woman he's ever truly seen.
Asher, the brooding artist who paints me like I'm his muse and touches me like I'm his masterpiece, seeing parts of my soul I didn't know existed.
They're forbidden. They're dangerous. They're everything I shouldn't want.
But when I discover my father didn't die by suicide that he was murdered by the very man who now calls himself my stepfather, these three powerful men becomes my unlikely allies.
First it was a forbidden attraction, now it's an arrangement that defies every rule.
The rules are simple:
I'll give each of them a chance.
I'll take everything they offer.
And in the end, I'll have to make the hardest decision of my life:
Choose one of them. Choose all of them. Or choose myself.
9.3
My father ordered me to marry into the cursed Vaughn family.
Their heirs were rumored to die young from a mysterious genetic agony. My sister Kayden laughed, saying she wasn't going to waste her youth planning a funeral. So, I became the sacrificial lamb.
When I refused, my father slammed his hand on the table and threatened to throw my dead mother's ashes into the city dump.
"You are a struggling actress with no money and no power. You have no choice," he told me coldly.
To make matters worse, my own agent drugged my drink at a business dinner, trying to sell my body to a sleazy investor just to secure project funding.
I was completely cornered, suffocating under the weight of their cruelty. I couldn't understand how my own flesh and blood could be so vicious, treating me like a worthless pawn to be traded and discarded.
But none of them knew that while escaping the drug-laced dinner, I crashed directly into the terrifying Vaughn heir, Algot.
When his glowing crimson eyes locked onto me during a violent episode of his cursed pain, we discovered an impossible truth: my physical touch was the only cure for his agony.
Looking at the dark bruises he accidentally left on my neck, I chose not to run. Instead, I pulled out the private business card he gave me and dialed his number.
"You need me," I whispered to the dangerous billionaire. "And I am going to use you to destroy them all."
9.3
Elara Voss never imagined that a single mistake could turn her life upside down. A brilliant marketing strategist with ambition as sharp as her wit, she thrives on control, until the day she crashes her rival's luxurious wedding, causing a scandal that will haunt her in high society.
Enter Dante Cross: the notorious billionaire, charmingly arrogant, and impossibly handsome, the bride's brother. In a moment of impulsive defiance, he proposes an outrageous solution to save face: a marriage neither of them wants... but both are forced to accept.
Thrown together in a world of glitz, power, and unspoken secrets, Elara and Dante clash at every turn. Sparks ignite as pride battles attraction, and the closer they get, the more dangerous their connection becomes. With hidden rivalries, family secrets, and unexpected betrayals swirling around them, Elara must navigate a game of social intrigue and decide if love is worth risking everything.
Will their forced union survive the chaos, or will the very secrets that brought them together tear them apart forever?
9.0
I died on the cold delivery table, bleeding out while the heart monitor flatlined.
Through the blinding surgical lights, I heard my husband Damon's cold, final order to the doctors.
"The child is the priority."
He didn't care about my life. To him, I was just a vessel to produce an heir, a tool to fulfill his prenuptial clause and secure his billionaire empire.
While I took my last agonizing breath, he was already planning his future with his fragile, theatrical mistress, Jasmin.
In my past life, when he first brought her into our home claiming she was a helpless victim, I shattered.
I screamed, threw vases, and played the hysterical wife perfectly.
My desperate pleas for his affection only gave him the exact weapons he needed to ruin my reputation, isolate me, and ultimately force me onto that fatal delivery bed.
Until my very last moment, the suffocating pain in my chest wasn't just physical.
I couldn't understand how the man I loved could treat my death like a simple business transaction.
Why was my absolute devotion rewarded with a carefully calculated execution?
But then, my eyes snapped open.
I was sitting on the edge of my king-sized bed, exactly three years before my death.
From downstairs, I heard Damon's voice echoing in the foyer, bringing Jasmin into our home for the very first time.
This time, the scream building in my chest turned to ice.
I didn't cry or throw a fit.
Instead, I calmly swallowed a secret birth control pill, smiled at his mistress, and dialed the most ruthless divorce lawyer in Manhattan.