Escaping My Cold And Jealous CEO
For five years, I was Barron Santana's elite bodyguard and loyal shadow. I stood between him and bullets, giving him my youth and my entire heart.
But last night, the CEO announced his engagement to a flawless socialite on national television.
Heartbroken, I got blackout drunk and ended up crashing on the couch of Cassidy Gross, a billionaire tech CEO who saved me from a bar creep.
When I showed up late to work, Barron locked me in his freezing office. He pinned me against the glass, smelling Cassidy's cologne on my clothes.
"Are you already looking for your next meal ticket?"
He snarled the words, treating me like a cheap whore. When I defended myself, he pulled out a silk handkerchief and wiped his fingers, acting as if my very touch contaminated him.
Then, he coldly ordered his assistant to draft my termination papers.
Five years of risking my life for him, thrown away like garbage just because of his twisted ego.
Devastated, I ran out and collapsed in the hallway, sobbing uncontrollably until a kind coworker gently pulled me into his arms to comfort me.
I didn't know Barron had followed me out.
Seeing me clinging to another man, his legendary control completely shattered, replaced by a dark, violent possessiveness.
But it was too late. I was done playing his obedient dog, and it was time to take Cassidy up on his offer.
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Chapter 2
The Porsche tires squealed as Cassidy pulled into the underground parking garage of The Plaza Hotel.
He put the car in park and killed the engine. He unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned over to Alexandrea. She was slumped against the window, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow and uneven.
Cassidy unbuckled her belt. He stepped out of the car, walked around to her side, and scooped her into his arms.
Alexandrea didn't fight him. Her head rolled against his chest. Her hands reached up, her fingers weakly gripping the fabric of his dress shirt.
Cassidy carried her toward the private elevator reserved for the penthouse suites. He pulled a sleek black keycard from his pocket and tapped it against the sensor. The doors slid open instantly.
He stepped inside. The elevator shot upward at a dizzying speed.
The sudden loss of gravity made Alexandrea groan. Her stomach churned. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face harder into Cassidy's chest.
"Almost there," Cassidy murmured. He adjusted his grip, holding her a little tighter to keep her steady.
The doors opened to the top floor. Cassidy carried her down the wide, silent hallway. He kicked open the heavy oak door to his suite and walked straight into the massive living room.
He stopped at the center of the room and gently lowered Alexandrea onto the deep, velvet cushions of the sofa.
The second her back hit the cushions, Alexandrea let out a frustrated sound. She kicked her legs out in frustration, sending one of her heavy combat boots slipping off her foot. It landed heavily on the thick Persian rug with a dull, muted thud.
Cassidy sighed. He stepped over the discarded boot on the floor and reached up to loosen his tie.
Suddenly, Alexandrea shot up from the couch. Her eyes were wide open, completely red, and completely blind to her surroundings.
"Barron!" she screamed.
The name ripped out of her throat. It was a sound of pure, agonizing heartbreak. Tears spilled over her eyelashes and tracked rapidly down her cheeks.
Cassidy froze. His hands dropped from his tie. A sharp, ugly spike of jealousy hit his chest.
He closed the distance between them and grabbed her shoulders, trying to push her back down. "Alexandrea, lie down. You're drunk."
Alexandrea fought him. The combat instincts buried in her bones took over. She grabbed the lapels of his shirt, twisting the fabric in her fists, and yanked him downward with terrifying strength.
Cassidy lost his balance and fell forward, catching himself with his hands on either side of her head.
Their faces were inches apart. Alexandrea blinked. Her eyes tried to focus on his features.
She saw the dark hair. She saw the warm brown eyes. It wasn't the cold, ice-blue stare she wanted. It wasn't him.
A fresh wave of devastation crashed over her. She let out a broken sob.
The pain in her chest was too much. She couldn't breathe. She needed an outlet. She grabbed Cassidy's right hand, pulled it to her mouth, and sank her teeth into the thick muscle between his thumb and index finger.
She bit down hard.
Cassidy sucked in a sharp breath. The pain was instant and piercing. His muscles locked up.
Blood welled up around her teeth, warm and metallic. It smeared against the corner of her lips.
Cassidy didn't pull away. He didn't yell. He looked down at her face, covered in tears and twisted in agony, and the anger in his chest completely dissolved. It was replaced by a heavy, suffocating need to protect her.
He gritted his teeth against the pain. He lifted his left hand and pressed it against the back of her head, stroking her hair.
"It's okay," he whispered. "I'm here."
Slowly, the tension drained out of Alexandrea's jaw. Her teeth released his hand. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she went completely limp against the cushions, falling into a deep, alcohol-induced sleep.
Cassidy carefully pulled his bleeding hand away. He looked at the deep, crescent-shaped puncture wounds. Blood dripped onto the velvet couch.
He stared at her sleeping face. He knew, right then, that he was in deep trouble.
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9.4
Six years ago, Breanna was shoved into a pitch-black hotel suite by her own uncle.
She was forced to endure a brutal night with a drugged stranger just to keep her grandmother's ventilator running.
Nine months later, she gave birth in a cold underground clinic.
But her uncle immediately snatched the crying newborn from her trembling hands, coldly announcing the baby had died.
For six years, Breanna lived in agonizing grief, working as a lowly hotel cleaner just to survive.
But a cruel setup threw her directly into the path of Elliot Finch, the arrogant billionaire from that dark night.
He did not recognize the woman whose life he had completely ruined.
Instead, he looked at her like she was rotting garbage, had his guards drag her into a wet alley, and mercilessly got her fired.
"If I ever see your face again, I will make sure you cannot get a job cleaning toilets."
Breanna was suffocating from the injustice, stripped of her dignity and her family's only lifeline.
Yet, when she instinctively protected a traumatized little boy from bullies, she discovered he was Elliot's son.
The boy clung to her neck, crying and desperately begging his father to let her stay.
But Elliot just threw a massive check at her chest, violently accusing her of brainwashing a sick child for a meal ticket.
Looking at the toxic disgust in his eyes, something inside Breanna finally broke.
She picked up the check, ripped the millions into tiny shreds, and let them rain down on his expensive shoes.
"Keep your dirty money."
She turned her back on the crying boy and the stunned billionaire, deciding she would no longer be their victim.
9.0
To save her dying mother, Adaline walked into the Waldorf Astoria to deliver a shirt to her fiancé.
She didn't know her stepsister, June, had swapped her keycard. Adaline stumbled into a pitch-black suite and was brutally assaulted by a stranger in the dark.
The nightmare didn't end there. June paid off the only bone marrow donor for Adaline's mother to flee the city, and stole Adaline's fiancé. Bankrupt and desperate, Adaline was forced to sell herself into a loveless marriage with the ruthless billionaire Ferris Finch just to secure a medical team.
But when Ferris saw the dark, violent bruises covering her body, his eyes filled with absolute disgust.
"You make me sick. Pack up your cheap tricks."
He mocked her, calling her a filthy woman who couldn't even wash her lover's marks off before crawling into his house.
Adaline swallowed her pride and endured his cruel humiliation. When June publicly taunted her about the hotel assault, Adaline finally snapped, ending up handcuffed in a freezing police cell.
She thought she was completely out of moves, waiting to rot in prison while her new husband despised her.
But back at the estate, Ferris had just pulled the hotel's security footage.
Staring at the screen, the arrogant billionaire's face turned completely ashen.
He finally realized that the innocent woman he had destroyed in the dark that night, and the wife he was currently torturing, were the exact same person.
9.3
For years, Gabriela believed the man beside her would be the one she grew old with. They had loved each other since they were young, but in the end, all those years meant nothing beside a younger woman's smile.
Returning from a business trip, she uncovered his betrayal with brutal clarity. Still, she did not cry or beg. She took out her phone, recorded every damning second, and filed for divorce the moment she could.
Afterward, she rebuilt her life into something brighter, richer, and stronger, even marrying a powerful tycoon. As for her ex and his shameless mistress, they could rot together.
9.0
Eileen woke up in a trashed hotel room, her head pounding with the pathetic memories of a despised Hollywood actress.
Outside the window, paparazzi were already screaming about her manufactured cheating scandal, but the real nightmare was waiting at her door.
Her paralyzed, billionaire husband, Carlisle Vinson, looked at her with pure disgust while his butler shoved a divorce settlement at her chest.
"Mr. Vinson is offering a severance package of fifty million dollars, provided you sign immediately and vacate the premises."
The original owner had left her an absolute mess.
Her trusted assistant had sold her room number to the press to frame her, and a playboy had scammed her out of her entire two million dollar life savings.
If she signed those papers and lost the Vinson family's protection, the breach of contract fees and her enemies in the industry would swallow her alive in days.
Eileen felt a cold fury override the original owner's lingering panic.
Why should she take the fall and be thrown out on the streets while the parasites who set her up lived out their wealthy fantasies?
She had died once, and she wasn't about to waste her second chance playing the victim.
Eileen slammed the heavy divorce folder shut right against the butler's chest.
"I'm not signing," she said with a terrifying, absolute calm.
She stepped behind her husband's wheelchair, ready to shield him from the cameras, secretly cure his dead legs, and make everyone who betrayed her bleed.
9.0
Carli followed an anonymous text to a dark garage, only to find her fiancé of seven years tangled with another woman in his Porsche.
She smashed his window, threw her engagement ring at his face, and walked away.
But the betrayal didn't stop there. Her own family sided with the cheater. Her father slapped her across the face so hard she bled, demanding she hand over her late aunt's trust fund.
"If you don't do exactly as you're told tonight, I will freeze every credit card in your name," her father roared.
Forced to attend the exclusive Gutierrez family gala, Carli watched her ex-fiancé parade his cheap mistress to humiliate her, while her stepsister tried to publicly ruin her.
Suddenly, a violent screech echoed as the massive crystal chandelier above them snapped from the ceiling.
In a split second of pure instinct, Vaughn shoved his mistress to safety and threw himself to the ground, completely abandoning Carli to be crushed.
Staring up at the plummeting glass, Carli felt the crushing reality that her entire life had been surrounded by monsters.
But the fatal impact never came.
A massive force yanked her into a hard chest, shielding her body entirely from the explosive shrapnel.
Carli opened her eyes to find Fletcher Gutierrez—the ruthless billionaire king of Wall Street and the masked stranger from her reckless one-night stand—bleeding heavily over her.
Feeling his warm blood on her hands, Carli knew the game had just changed.
7.8
At her lavish engagement party, everyone whispered that Amberly Carson, the fallen socialite, was the luckiest woman in New York for sinking her hooks into the billionaire heir, Calvin Henry.
But right before the vows, Calvin received a phone call, his face turning pale with horror.
He pointed a trembling finger at Amberly in front of all the elite guests.
"It's you! You drove her to this!" he roared, publicly accusing her of pushing his true love to suicide before abandoning the wedding.
The polite smiles in the ballroom instantly melted into expressions of shock and delicious pity.
Calvin's reckless devotion to his manipulative sidepiece soon triggered a chain of disastrous events.
He was nearly killed in a staged car crash, and the shock gave his father a massive stroke, leaving the Henry Group completely headless and vulnerable to a hostile takeover.
Calvin's best friend cornered Amberly in the hospital, blaming her for the family's downfall.
"You're a curse! You bring nothing but trouble!"
In everyone's eyes, Amberly was just a desperate, ruined girl destined to be the scapegoat for a powerful family's destruction.
They expected her to hide in shame, weeping over her lost fiancé and shattered reputation.
But they didn't know the fragile socialite was just a disguise.
Instead of crying, Amberly knocked Calvin unconscious with a single, precise nerve strike and calmly took the stage microphone.
"I am officially announcing the cancellation of my engagement."
Walking away from the chaos, she pulled out an encrypted phone to contact a dormant shadow network.
Phase one was complete, and the real hunt was about to begin.