Escaping Into The Dangerous Devil's Arms
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."
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Chapter 1
Gianna stopped on the third step of the grand staircase.
The thick carpet absorbed the sound of her boots, but the voices drifting from the living room were sharp enough to cut through the heavy silence of the Conrad mansion.
"Yes, of course. The Vaughn family's proposal is exactly what we need."
Kayden's voice was sickeningly sweet. She was pacing near the massive leather sofa, her phone pressed to her ear.
Gianna gripped the wooden banister. The wood was cold against her palm.
Kayden ended the call and turned around. Her eyes locked onto Gianna standing in the shadows of the staircase. A slow, mocking smile spread across Kayden's face.
Before Gianna could move, the heavy oak door of the study clicked open.
Desi Conrad walked out. His face was a hard mask of lines and authority. He did not look at Kayden. His eyes went straight to Gianna.
"Come down here," Desi ordered. His voice left no room for argument.
Gianna forced her legs to move. She walked down the remaining steps, her stomach tightening with every inch she closed between them.
"The Vaughn family has extended an offer of marriage," Desi said. He stood in the center of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. "You will accept it."
Gianna stopped breathing for a full second. The air in the room suddenly felt too thin.
"Me?" Gianna asked. Her voice shook, just slightly. "Why not Kayden? She is the one dating Asa Hogan. She is the one who wants to play the high society wife."
Kayden let out a short, cruel laugh. She crossed her arms over her chest.
"Are you crazy?" Kayden said. "The Vaughn family is cursed. I've heard their heirs don't live long. You will just be a young widow. I am not going to waste my life planning a funeral."
The words hit Gianna like a physical blow to the chest.
"You are selfish," Gianna said, her voice dropping low. "You are selfish and vicious."
Desi slammed his hand down on the glass coffee table. The loud crack made Gianna flinch.
"That is enough," Desi snapped. He took a step toward Gianna, towering over her. "You will marry into the Vaughn family. If you refuse, I will take your mother's ashes from the mausoleum and throw them into the city dump."
All the blood drained from Gianna's face.
Her hands dropped to her sides. She curled her fingers inward, digging her nails so hard into her palms that the skin broke. The sharp sting of pain was the only thing keeping her standing.
"You would not," Gianna whispered. Her throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper.
"Try me," Desi said. His eyes were dead, completely devoid of any fatherly warmth. "You are a third-tier actress struggling in Hollywood. You have no money. You have no power. You have no choice."
Kayden stepped closer, standing right behind her father's shoulder.
"You are not even fit to carry my shoes, Gianna," Kayden sneered. "Just do what you are told."
Gianna shifted her weight. Her feet planted firmly on the floor. She lunged forward, closing the distance between her and Kayden in a fraction of a second.
Kayden gasped and stumbled backward, her eyes wide with sudden fear.
"Shut your mouth," Gianna said. Her voice was a low growl.
Kayden swallowed hard, pressing her back against the wall, but her arrogant smirk quickly returned as she looked at her father for backup.
"You will accept this arrangement," Desi said, ignoring the near-physical altercation. "Or you can walk out that door and never call yourself a Conrad again."
Gianna took a deep breath. Her lungs burned. She turned her back on them and walked toward the stairs.
"If you walk out that door, do not ever come back!" Desi shouted at her back.
Gianna stopped on the first step. She turned her head slowly. She looked at the man who was supposed to be her father. There was nothing but a hollow ache in her chest.
"She will come crawling back," Kayden said loudly. "She always needs our money."
Gianna paused on the step, a flicker of cold pity flashing in her eyes. They still thought money was the only chain that could hold her. How little they knew. She did not say a single word to justify her independence. She turned around and walked up the stairs, her spine perfectly straight.
She reached her bedroom and pushed the door closed. She twisted the lock until it clicked.
Her knees gave out. She slid down the solid wood of the door until she hit the floor. The tears she had been holding back finally spilled over her eyelashes, hot and fast down her cheeks.
She reached under her bed and pulled out a small, worn wooden box. Inside was a faded photograph of her mother.
Gianna traced the edges of the photo with a trembling finger.
"I will not let him win," Gianna whispered to the empty room. "I promise you."
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. The tears stopped. A cold, hard knot formed in her stomach.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened her messages. She typed a quick text to Brenna.
"I need everything you know about the Vaughn family. Now."
Brenna replied almost instantly.
"The Vaughns? Stay away from them. I heard a rumor the heir is sick, really sick. They're trying to arrange a marriage to find a... solution. Super secretive. Military background. Why?"
Gianna stared at the screen. She needed to flip this situation. She could not just be a pawn in Desi's sick game.
She remembered what Kayden said. The Vaughn heir does not live long.
Gianna opened her browser and typed Algot Vaughn IV into the search bar. The results were sparse. No clear photos. Just articles about corporate takeovers and massive wealth.
She locked her phone screen. She needed to see Brenna in person.
Gianna stood up and walked to her bed. She lay down on top of the covers and stared at the white ceiling. Her heart beat a slow, steady rhythm against her ribs.
She was going to fight back.
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9.7
For three years, I hid my identity as the sole heiress of a multi-billion dollar tech empire to live in a cramped apartment and support my boyfriend, Ben.
But the day before our engagement, I stood outside a meeting room and overheard him talking to his wealthy boss, Haylie.
"She's just a stepping stone," Ben laughed, his voice full of contempt. "A poor, ambitionless distraction while I work my way up to where I really belong."
He mocked the cheap silver ring he gave me, calling it a necessary prop to keep a naive fool happy.
He bragged about the multi-million dollar merger proposal he was presenting, planning to use it to secure his promotion and build a future with her.
He had no idea that I had secretly negotiated that entire deal using my real connections just to give him his big break.
I had sacrificed my family's comfort, my true identity, and my own career just to watch him rise.
I poured my heart and soul into our humble beginnings, only to realize he saw my love as a pathetic joke and me as disposable trash.
I calmly picked up a pen and voided the merger agreement, tearing my hard work into tiny pieces.
I went home, slid the cheap ring off my finger, and dropped it into his mug of cold coffee.
"Soon, you'll find out exactly who is nothing."
Walking out the door, I pulled out my phone and texted my billionaire father.
"I'm in. Announce the merger."
7.4
Four years ago, to protect the man I loved from losing his billionaire empire, I drugged his drink, told him I only used him for his money, and vanished.
Now, at a high-society gala, Callum Wyatt is back. He isn't just a CEO anymore; he's a ruthless predator, and the second his eyes lock onto me, I know I am his prey.
When my wealthy half-sister publicly humiliated me, calling me the cheap bastard child of a homewrecker, Callum stepped out of the shadows. He nearly snapped her wrist in half and declared to New York's elite that anyone who touched me would be dismantled.
In the back of his Maybach, he pinned my arms above my head, his eyes burning with psychotic obsession.
"If you run again, Aubrey, I will burn your entire world to the ground just to keep you."
My heart bled. I had spent four grueling years tearing myself apart to keep him out of my messy, blood-soaked revenge against the family that watched my mother die.
But his terrifying protection only made my biological father's family target me harder, using their massive capital to buy out my movie set and crush my acting career.
They thought I would cower.
But as I walked onto the soundstage, facing the heiress trying to steal my role, I took off my sunglasses. I wasn't running anymore; it was time to make them pay.
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.
9.7
I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing.
During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me.
I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst.
She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side.
"Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house."
I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip.
My heart went completely dead.
So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate.
I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table.
"I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today."
8.3
Imogen Montgomery was the perfect billionaire heiress, deeply in love and ready to marry her fiancé, Clark Ellis.
That all ended the night her cousin Kathleen ripped the sapphire pendant from her neck and pushed her into a pool of toxic chemicals to die.
Two years later, Imogen's eyes snapped open. But she didn't wake up in a hospital. She woke up tied to a stained mattress, trapped in the battered body of Briana, a teenage girl from the slums who had just been sold to a local trafficker.
After violently fighting her way out of a cheap motel, she discovered the horrifying truth. Kathleen had taken over the Montgomery Group. She had locked Imogen's grieving parents away in a psychiatric facility as prisoners.
And worst of all, Kathleen was now flaunting her stolen wealth online, preparing to marry Clark.
A wave of pure, white-hot rage boiled in her blood. Kathleen had murdered her, stolen her family, and was playing the perfect grieving cousin. How was she supposed to fight back? She was just a runaway nobody now. If she tried to expose the truth, Kathleen's security would shoot her dead in the street.
She needed a weapon. She needed a shield. She needed the one man Kathleen feared.
Covered in mud and blood, Briana intercepted Clark's car in the freezing rain. She was going to infiltrate his home as his vulgar, unhinged fake mistress, and she would drag Kathleen straight down to hell.
9.0
My father was dying in the ICU, and our family company, the Martin Group, was on the verge of total collapse.
While I was desperately trying to sign the consent form for his life-saving surgery, my fiancé, Eston, sent me a text.
"I told you not to be stubborn. The company is mine by Friday. Beg me, and I might pay for the funeral."
He had been secretly looting my family's assets from the inside, waiting for me to break so he could steal everything. He thought I would crawl back to him in absolute despair, surrendering my father's legacy just to survive. The sheer weight of my helplessness crushed my chest as the heart monitor next to my father's bed let out a frantic, high-pitched scream.
The betrayal tore through me, but the despair quickly hardened into a cold, sharp stone.
Why should I let the man who ruined me dance on my family's grave? Why should I let him walk away with everything while I lost the only family I had left?
I wiped away my tears and blocked his number permanently.
Then, I stepped out into the freezing Manhattan rain and went straight to the top floor of the Maxwell building.
I threw my remaining shares onto the desk of Ellwood Maxwell—the apex predator of Wall Street, and Eston's untouchable, ruthless uncle.
"I want you to marry me," Ellwood said, pushing a marriage contract toward me. "That is the only way your company survives."
I picked up the pen. If Eston wanted to destroy my life, I would become his aunt and make him bow.