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 4
Gianna pushed open the door to her apartment. The hinges squeaked loudly in the quiet hallway.
She stepped inside and stopped dead in her tracks.
Dani Haynes was sitting on her worn-out sofa. Ronan O'Neal, another agent from the firm, was standing by the window.
"Where the hell have you been?" Dani shouted, jumping to her feet. "You completely ruined the dinner! Gus is furious. He is pulling his funding from the project."
Gianna closed the door behind her. She locked the deadbolt with a loud, metallic click.
She walked slowly into the living room. Her body was exhausted, but her mind was razor-sharp.
"He drugged my drink," Gianna said. Her voice was terrifyingly calm.
Dani scoffed, waving her hand in the air. "Oh, please. You probably just drank too much on an empty stomach. Stop being so dramatic."
Ronan took a step forward. "Gianna, you really messed up this time. Dani worked hard to get you that meeting."
Gianna ignored Ronan. She kept her eyes locked on Dani. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
She tapped the screen a few times and pressed play.
A recording filled the small living room.It was Dani's voice, clear and distinct - the same conversation Gianna had secretly recorded earlier that evening when she'd left her phone on the table, set to voice memo mode, before going to the bathroom.
"Just put it in her water when she goes to the bathroom," the recording played. "She will be compliant. You can take her upstairs. Just make sure she signs the contract tomorrow."
Gianna had learned that trick from a fellow actress who'd been burned before. Always leave your phone recording when the vultures circle.
Dani's face turned the color of chalk. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She lunged forward, trying to snatch the phone from Gianna's hand.
Gianna sidestepped easily. She grabbed Dani's wrist and twisted it sharply behind Dani's back.
Dani shrieked in pain.
"Listen to me very carefully," Gianna whispered directly into Dani's ear. "If you ever try to set me up again, if you ever threaten my career again, I will send this audio file to the police, to the press, and to your husband."
Gianna shoved Dani forward. Dani stumbled and crashed into the coffee table, gasping for air.
Ronan stared at Dani in absolute horror. "You actually did that?"
"Get out of my apartment," Gianna said, pointing at the door.
Dani scrambled to her feet and ran out, Ronan following closely behind.
Gianna locked the door again. She walked into her bedroom and collapsed on the bed. She pulled out her phone and dialed Brenna's number.
"Brenna, I need a favor," Gianna said the moment the call connected. "I need a ticket to the Vaughn charity banquet this weekend."
"Are you insane?" Brenna asked. "Those tickets are impossible to get. And why do you want to go?"
"I need to get close to the Vaughn family," Gianna said, staring at the ceiling. "Desi is trying to sell me off to someone named Prescott. But I met someone else at that hospital—Algot Vaughn. He's dangerous, but he's also the only leverage I might have. I need to understand what I'm walking into."
"I will see what I can do," Brenna sighed.
Three days later, Gianna stood in the grand ballroom of the Plaza Hotel. She was wearing a sleek, blood-red dress that hugged every curve of her body.
She held a glass of champagne she had no intention of drinking. She scanned the crowd.
A man named Dwayne Riggs walked up to her, grinning slickly. He started talking, bragging about his wealth. Gianna nodded politely, tuning him out.
"Yeah, I know the Vaughn heir," Dwayne bragged loudly. "Well, the acting head, anyway. Algot Vaughn runs everything now. He is here tonight. Tall guy, always wears a black suit, never talks to anyone. He is up on the second-floor balcony right now."
Gianna's eyes snapped to the second floor. Her heart lurched. Algot. The man from the hospital. The man whose touch had sent electricity through her veins. She hadn't planned to find him here, but now that she had...
She placed her glass on a passing waiter's tray and walked toward the stairs.
The second-floor hallway was empty and quiet. The thick carpet muffled her footsteps. She walked toward the balcony.
The man was standing with his back to her. His shoulders were broad, his posture rigid.
As Gianna stepped closer, the man suddenly groaned. He doubled over, grabbing the balcony railing so hard his knuckles turned stark white.
Gianna froze.
The man spun around. It was Algot.
But his face was contorted in absolute agony. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked up at her, and Gianna gasped.
His eyes were not dark anymore. They were a glowing, unnatural shade of crimson red.
Before Gianna could scream, Algot lunged at her.
He slammed her back against the wall. His large hand wrapped around her throat. He did not squeeze enough to cut off her air, but the threat was clear.
His chest heaved. He was fighting a pain so intense it radiated off his body like heat.
"Gianna," Algot ground out through clenched teeth. His voice was a demonic rasp. He knew her name. He'd known it since the hospital. But right now, his mind was drowning in agony, and seeing her here—at his family's event, uninvited—triggered every paranoid instinct he had. "What are you doing here? Who sent you?"
Gianna was terrified. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. But she recognized the question for what it was - not confusion about her identity, but suspicion about her motives.
"No one sent me," Gianna said, her voice shaking. "I came because I needed to find out who you really are."
Algot's grip on her throat tightened for a fraction of a second, then loosened. The agony in his body was screaming for relief. He remembered what had happened in the car. He remembered her touch.
"Touch me," he commanded, the words ripping from his throat.
Survival instinct kicked in. Gianna raised both her hands and pressed them flat against his chest, right over his heart.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Algot's entire body shuddered. The rigid muscles in his arms went slack. He let go of her throat and slumped forward, resting his forehead against the wall next to her head.
He took a massive, shuddering breath. The crimson color faded from his eyes, returning to deep black.
He turned his head and looked at her. The pain was gone again. Just like in the car. The confirmation hit him like a physical blow—she was the cure. Not just a theory anymore. Fact.
But she had seen his eyes. She had witnessed the family secret. He could not let her leave with what she had seen.
"Who are you really working for?" Algot demanded, his voice low and dangerous. "The Conrads? Someone else?"
"I work for myself," Gianna stammered, her voice trembling. "Desi tried to sell me to your family. I came here to find out who I was supposed to marry. I didn't know it was you."
Algot stared at her pale lips. He believed she hadn't known about his condition. But trust was not something he gave freely. His hand moved swiftly to the back of her neck. He applied a precise, sharp pressure to a nerve.
Gianna's eyes rolled back, and she collapsed into his arms, completely unconscious.
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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.