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 5
Algot caught Gianna before she hit the floor. Her body was completely limp against his chest.
He stared down at her face. Her dark lashes rested against her pale cheeks. The red dress slipped slightly off her shoulder, revealing the smooth skin of her collarbone.
He pulled his phone from his pocket with his free hand and hit a speed dial number.
"Alex," Algot said, his voice completely steady, betraying none of the chaos inside him. "Come to the second-floor east corridor. Now."
Within thirty seconds, Alex appeared at the top of the stairs. He stopped short when he saw Algot holding an unconscious woman.
"Take her out through the service elevator," Algot ordered. He carefully handed Gianna over to Alex. "Take her back to her apartment. Make sure no one sees you. Do not leave any trace."
Alex adjusted his grip on Gianna, supporting her weight. "Yes, sir. And then?"
"Find out exactly who gave her the ticket to this event," Algot said. His eyes narrowed. "I want to know every move she has made in the last forty-eight hours."
Alex nodded and carried Gianna quickly down the hall.
Algot stood alone in the quiet corridor. He looked down at his hands. The lingering warmth of her skin was still there. For the first time in his life, the first day of the month had not ended in crippling, blinding agony.
Because of her.
He turned and walked back into the shadows.
Gianna woke up with a sharp gasp.
She sat up so fast the room spun. She grabbed her head, wincing at the dull, throbbing ache at the base of her skull.
She looked around. She was in her own bedroom. The morning sun was streaming through the cheap blinds.
She looked down at herself. She was still wearing the red dress from the banquet. It was wrinkled and twisted around her legs.
Memory flooded back. The balcony. The glowing red eyes. The terrifying pain radiating from the man. His hand covering her eyes. The sudden darkness.
Gianna scrambled off the bed and ran into her small bathroom. She flicked on the harsh overhead light and stared at herself in the mirror.
Her makeup was smudged under her eyes. She reached up and unzipped the side of her dress, letting it fall to her waist.
She pulled down the collar of her dress, exposing her neck and collarbone. She turned slightly to look closer in the mirror. There, stark against the pale skin of her throat, were five distinct, dark purple bruises. They were the exact shape of a large hand gripping her tightly.
Gianna traced the bruises with trembling fingers. The skin was tender to the touch.
It was not a dream. He had grabbed her. He had knocked her out.
But more importantly, she remembered the way his body had instantly relaxed the second she touched his chest. She remembered the way he had breathed her in, like she was oxygen and he had been drowning.
She was doing something to him. She was fixing him.
Gianna walked back into her bedroom and picked up her phone from the nightstand. She opened her messages and texted Brenna.
"How did I get home last night?"
Brenna replied a minute later. "The hotel staff called me. They said you fainted near the exit. They put you in a cab. Are you okay?"
Gianna stared at the text. A lie. Algot had covered his tracks perfectly. He was powerful, and he was hiding something massive.
She walked over to her small desk. She unlocked the bottom drawer and pulled out the crisp white business card she had found slipped into her plastic belongings bag at the hospital.
There was no name on it. Just a phone number printed in sleek black ink.
Gianna ran her thumb over the raised numbers.
Desi wanted to sell her to a dying Vaughn. But the man she had met, the man whose pain she could take away, was clearly someone important. He was dangerous, but right now, he was the only weapon she had.
She was not going to run from him. She was going to use him.
Gianna looked back at the mirror. She saw the bruises on her skin. She saw the fierce, burning determination in her own eyes.
"You need me," Gianna whispered to the empty room. "And I am going to make you pay for it."
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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.