Dying In Silence: The Unwanted Heiress
Kaia was diagnosed with late-stage bone cancer, with only three months left to live.
She wanted to give up her family's entire trust fund just to have Gerrit play the role of a loving husband for her final days.
But before she could show him the biopsy report, he looked at her with absolute disgust, declaring that their three-year marriage made him physically sick.
He only loved Seraphina.
To force Kaia out, Seraphina constantly framed her. When Seraphina faked a fall, Gerrit pushed Kaia so hard she tore her waist open on a glass table.
When Kaia writhed in agonizing pain from her failing organs, he stood over her coldly, mocking her pathetic acting.
Even when Gerrit finally discovered Seraphina had hired a fake stalker and maliciously burned Kaia's skin with boiling tea, he still chose to protect his mistress.
"I already signed the divorce papers with Kaia. We are going to bury this story temporarily to protect the company."
Hearing those words from behind the wall, the last shred of hope in Kaia's chest completely died.
She had endured his cruelty for three years, only to realize his bias for another woman defied all logic and morality.
Lying in the bathtub, coughing up mouthfuls of dark blood that turned the water crimson, Kaia picked up her phone and dialed her lawyer.
"Julian, initiate the final plan."
Since Gerrit despised her existence, she would make sure he never found her body.
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Chapter 6
Kaia stood up. She ignored the empty trash can where the food lay discarded. She dragged her exhausted, aching body down the hall and into the master bedroom.
She sat on the edge of the mattress. Before she could even lie down, the bedroom door was violently shoved open.
Gerrit stormed into the room. His skin was flushed from the hot water. He wore nothing but a white towel wrapped low around his waist. Water dripped from his wet hair onto his chest. His eyes burned with aggressive, dominating anger.
Kaia instinctively shrank back. Her hand flew to her side, pressing over the black silk robe to protect her injured waist.
Gerrit crossed the room in three massive strides. He stood over her, casting a dark shadow across the bed. "What exactly did you say to Seraphina this afternoon?"
Kaia turned her face away. "I didn't say anything. She came here on her own."
Gerrit reached down and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. "You are a liar. She was crying the entire ride back to her apartment."
He leaned down. His warm breath hit her face, but his eyes were freezing cold. It was a look of pure punishment.
Suddenly, Gerrit reached out and grabbed the collar of her black silk robe. He yanked it hard, ripping the fabric open, exposing her collarbone.
Kaia gasped loudly. She thrashed backward, her hands desperately grabbing the torn silk to cover her stomach and the bandages hidden beneath.
Gerrit scoffed. "Don't act like you don't want this. Isn't this exactly why you pulled those pathetic stunts?"
He pushed her down onto the mattress. His heavy body pressed against hers, pinning her in place. He leaned in, his face inches from hers, aiming to press his mouth against her neck to establish dominance. But as his breath brushed her skin, he froze. His movements, initially rough and angry, halted abruptly. He saw the sheer terror and physical agony twisting her pale features. Disgust-both at her and perhaps a fraction at himself-flashed in his eyes. He stopped completely, refusing to cross that final line, completely devoid of any warmth or love.
A wave of absolute humiliation crashed over Kaia. Hot tears spilled from her eyes and soaked into her hair.
And then, the cancer woke up.
A pain so sharp, so agonizing it felt like a serrated knife twisting in her intestines, exploded in the center of her abdomen.
Kaia's entire body went rigid. A choked, guttural moan ripped out of her throat.
Her hands let go of the robe. Her fingers dug into the bedsheets, twisting the fabric until her knuckles turned bone-white.
Gerrit felt her body lock up beneath him. He pulled away completely. He pushed himself up on his forearms and looked down at her.
Kaia's face was the color of a corpse. Thick beads of cold sweat instantly popped out on her forehead. She couldn't pull air into her lungs. Her breathing came in short, broken gasps.
She forced her mouth open. "Pills," she choked out, her voice barely a whisper. "Drawer... please."
Gerrit stared at her twisted, agonizing expression. For a split second, doubt flickered in his eyes. But then, the image of Seraphina falling to the floor this afternoon flashed in his mind.
His face hardened into stone. He pushed himself off the bed and stood up, adjusting the towel around his waist.
He looked down at her curled up in a tight, trembling ball. "Your acting is pathetic, Kaia. This fake illness routine makes me sick."
Kaia couldn't even form the words to defend herself. The pain was eating her alive. She stared up at him, her eyes wide with disbelief and pure despair.
Gerrit didn't show a single ounce of mercy. He turned his back on her and walked toward the door.
"Have that dead look off your face by morning," he ordered. "Don't embarrass the Downs family."
He walked out. The heavy oak door slammed shut. The sound of his footsteps faded down the hallway until there was nothing but silence.
Kaia writhed on the massive bed. The pain was blinding. She rolled too far and crashed onto the floor.
She dragged her body across the carpet using her elbows. She reached the nightstand, pulled the drawer open, and grabbed the plastic bottle. Her shaking hands spilled pills everywhere. She shoved a handful into her mouth, swallowing them dry, and lay on the floor, waiting for the darkness to take her.
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7.2
In the roaring flames of the abandoned warehouse, my skin blistered and peeled.
Through the crackling fire, my sister Elara's malicious voice echoed. She told me my husband, Damien, was dead, and it was all my fault.
For years, I had treated Damien like a monster. I fought him, threw tantrums, and desperately tried to escape our marriage, all because I blindly followed Elara's advice.
"Remember, the harder you fight, the more disgusted he'll get."
She texted me things like that, telling me to smash vases over his head and run away, claiming she was protecting me.
In reality, she was poisoning my mind, stealing my valedictorian spot at university, and plotting to crawl into my billionaire husband's bed.
My foolish rebellion cost me everything, ultimately leading to Damien's tragic death and my own fiery end.
As the massive explosion tore my consciousness to shreds, I finally understood who truly loved me and who the real monster was.
I died suffocating on my own agonizing regret, wishing I could tear Elara apart.
Then, a rush of freezing air punched into my lungs.
I opened my eyes to the crisp scent of cedar and mint. I was back seven years ago, on the very night our marriage was supposed to go to hell.
This time, looking at Damien's flawless, unscarred face, I didn't push him away.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and made a silent vow: I would make every single person who ever hurt him bleed.
9.6
Brenda Vincent thought her biggest nightmare was catching her boyfriend cheating with her roommate on her own sofa.
But her life truly derailed after a drunken night led her into the bed of Bryon Reeves, the ruthless billionaire CEO and older brother of the student she tutored.
Trying to pay off the most dangerous man in New York with a crumpled twenty-dollar bill was her first mistake.
Fleeing the hotel, she accidentally rear-ended his custom Maybach. Bryon used the massive repair bill to blackmail her into being his fake date, parading her at a gala just to make his sister-in-law jealous.
When Brenda finally snapped and fled the humiliation, only to be rescued by his biggest corporate rival, Bryon's twisted possessiveness turned completely destructive.
"If you feel kidnapped, call the police. But your teaching license will be permanently revoked."
He didn't just threaten her. He systematically dismantled her life, using his influence to force the university to freeze her tenure and suspend her without pay.
Brenda couldn't understand why this terrifying man was going to such extreme lengths to ruin a simple tutor who just wanted to be left alone.
Now, stripped of her career, her income, and her independence, she was forced into the sprawling Reeves Manor.
Hearing the heavy mahogany door lock from the outside in her signal-jammed bedroom, Brenda's panic slowly morphed into a cold, clinical rage.
She was trapped, but she refused to be his helpless pawn.
9.2
Averie spent hours preparing a perfect third-anniversary dinner for her billionaire husband, Jarett Sharp.
Instead of celebrating, she received an anonymous photo of him intimately holding another woman.
When Jarett finally arrived, he didn't even look guilty.
"Candida. It's okay. Don't be scared. I'm on my way."
He simply took a call from his mistress, shoved Averie aside, and walked right back out the door.
That same night, Averie's father suffered a massive heart attack.
The hospital demanded a half-million-dollar deposit before they would operate.
But when Averie frantically tried to use the emergency medical trust card Jarett had given her, it was declined.
Jarett had deliberately frozen her access to the funds just hours earlier.
While she begged his assistant on the phone, Jarett refused to be disturbed, busy wrapping his expensive coat around his mistress in the hospital garden.
Averie collapsed in the hallway, realizing the man she loved was deliberately letting her father die.
In the end, a childhood friend stepped in to pay the bill and save her father's life, while her billionaire husband later pinned her to their bed, throwing a check at her and reminding her he had bought her for three million dollars.
Averie didn't shed a single tear.
She slowly ripped his check into pieces, left her massive diamond ring on the dresser, and walked out into the cold New York night with nothing but her old suitcase.
She pulled out her phone and dialed her old ballet professor.
She wasn't just going to leave Jarett Sharp. She was going to destroy him.
8.5
After four years of marriage, my wealthy husband Brad handed me a $50,000 severance check outside the Manhattan Family Court.
He linked arms with his mistress, Jenna, who flaunted the diamond ring that used to be mine.
"Just take it, Hayley. Take the money and get out of our lives," he sneered, looking at me with absolute disgust.
I tore the check into pieces, but my nightmare was just beginning.
To access my grandfather's trust fund, I had exactly seventy-two hours to get legally married, so I desperately proposed a one-year contract marriage to a poor insurance salesman I met in a dive bar.
When Brad found out, he and his arrogant family cornered me at their estate.
Brad mocked my new husband for being a penniless, money-grubbing parasite, while my former mother-in-law slapped me hard across the face, knocking me to the ground.
"You are trash, just like your mother," she spat, watching my knee bleed onto the sharp gravel.
Jenna gleefully kicked my phone away, shattering the screen and cutting off my only lifeline.
Lying there in the dirt, I stared at the broken glass in absolute despair.
I didn't understand why four years of quiet devotion had earned me nothing but cruel betrayal and endless humiliation from the people I once called family.
Just as I thought I had completely lost, a black Lincoln Navigator slammed to a halt at the gates.
My "penniless" new husband stepped out, radiating a terrifying, righteous fury that made the entire Patton family freeze in horror.
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?
9.7
Charity woke up in a hellish, acid-rain-soaked slum, trapped inside a bloated body covered in festering, toxic sores. She was the exiled Grand Princess of the Empire.
But the real nightmare wasn't her ruined body. It was the fact that the original owner had used her royal authority to force genetic marriage contracts onto four top-tier, powerful men.
Now, she was bound to them, and they absolutely loathed her.
Hjalmar, chained to a bed in her filthy room, smiled like a feral beast and promised to rip her head off the second his chains snapped.
Braden, a ruthless military officer, saved her from a mutated rat only to look at her with pure disgust.
"If you want to die, go die somewhere else. Don't dirty my patrol sector."
Even the locals mocked her fallen status, and a wealthy heiress publicly framed her for stealing a hundred-thousand-coin energy core just to see her rot in a dark cell.
She was universally despised, physically repulsive, and a lethal biological toxin gave her exactly 59 days left to live. How was she supposed to survive this absolute hell when her starting affection with her partners was at negative 100?
Then, a mechanical voice echoed in her skull, activating a survival system. To purge the poison, she had to harvest emotional energy by making these four men fall for her. Charity accepted the mandate, unlocked a top-tier culinary skill, and grabbed a rusted meat cleaver to start her counterattack.