Escaping My Coldhearted Billionaire Husband
Ada was eight months pregnant, sitting peacefully in her husband's Manhattan estate, looking at a baby nursery catalog.
Suddenly, her husband's mistress, Jacklyn, walked in, threw an ultrasound photo on the table, and locked the door.
Before Ada could process the betrayal, Jacklyn dragged her to the top of the marble staircase and threw herself backward just as Desmond walked through the front doors.
"She pushed me, Desmond! She tried to kill our baby!"
Desmond looked at Ada with absolute hatred.
He ignored Ada's breaking water and her agonizing screams for help, leaving her to miscarry on the freezing floor while he rushed Jacklyn to the hospital.
He sent Ada to a brutal federal prison for three years, where she was tortured and left with a body covered in horrific scars, mourning the baby she was told died at birth.
When Ada was finally released, Desmond destroyed her cousin's company to force her back to his estate as a lowly maid.
But when Ada saw Jacklyn's three-year-old son, her world stopped.
Right in the center of the little boy's palm was a faint crescent moon birthmark.
It was the exact same mark Ada had kissed on her own lifeless baby's tiny hand before the doctors took his body away.
How did her dead child become Jacklyn's little prince?
Looking at the woman who stole her life and the husband who threw her in hell, Ada clenched her scarred hands and swore she would tear their world apart to get her son back.
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Chapter 3
Three years later.
The heavy iron gates of the Upstate New York Federal Women's Correctional Facility slid open with a deafening, metallic screech.
Ada walked out of the dark concrete tunnel. She wore a cheap, faded gray trench coat that hung loosely on her emaciated frame.
The bright afternoon sunlight hit her face. She flinched, raising her hand to shield her eyes. The back of her hand was covered in raised, purple scars from severe frostbite. She remembered the brutal winter when the guards, bribed by Jacklyn, had stripped her of her coat and locked her in an unheated solitary cell for three days. The agonizing burn of the ice eating into her flesh was a nightmare she would never forget.
She took a deep breath of free air, but the sudden intake of oxygen irritated her lungs, which had been damaged by three years of damp, freezing cells. A violent fit of coughing shook her fragile shoulders.
A black Ford sedan idled by the side of the road. The driver's door opened, and her cousin, Gary Fowler, hurried out.
"Ada," Gary said, his eyes filled with pity. He wrapped his arms around her thin body.
Ada leaned her forehead against his shoulder. It was the first time in three years she had felt human warmth.
Gary took the plastic bag holding her few belongings and opened the passenger door for her.
Ada slid into the seat. The car pulled away, leaving behind the concrete hell that had buried her youth and the memory of the baby they told her was stillborn.
Gary handed her a paper cup of hot coffee from the cup holder, his fingers pressing a small, cheap burner phone into her palm along with it. "Hide this," he whispered quickly, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. "Use it only when absolutely necessary."
"It's over, Ada. Everything is going to be okay now," Gary continued, his tone shifting back to a comforting pitch. "Although... do you still remember Kael? It's a pity what happened to him after you went inside. He disappeared completely."
Ada's fingers tightened around the phone, slipping it deep into her coat pocket. The mention of Kael sent a dull ache through her chest, a ghost from a past she was too broken to mourn. She held the warm cup with both hands. Her eyes were dead and hollow as she stared at the passing trees. "How is Caleb?" she asked, her voice raspy from disuse, pivoting to the only blood relative she had left.
Gary shifted in his seat, avoiding her eyes. "Your brother is still in the state prison in California. He's... stable."
Before Ada could ask more, the screech of heavy tires ripped through the air.
Three massive, black Cadillac Escalades swerved out from a dirt crossroad. They formed a solid wall of steel across the highway, forcing Gary to slam on the brakes.
The Ford jerked violently. The hot coffee spilled over Ada's hands and her gray coat.
She looked up, her heart suddenly pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird.
The door of the center Escalade opened. A polished black leather dress shoe stepped onto the dusty asphalt.
Desmond Ortiz stepped out. He wore a perfectly tailored dark suit, looking like a king descending to inspect a slaughter.
Seeing the face that had haunted her nightmares for a thousand nights, Ada's lungs forgot how to expand. Her entire body began to shake uncontrollably.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" Gary yelled, unbuckling his seatbelt and jumping out of the car.
Desmond didn't even glance at him. He gave a slight nod. Two bodyguards rushed forward, grabbed Gary by the neck, and slammed his face hard against the hood of the Ford.
Desmond walked slowly to the passenger side window. He raised his hand and tapped his knuckles against the glass.
Get out.
Ada bit down on her lower lip so hard she tasted copper. She shook her head frantically, pressing her back against the seat.
Desmond's jaw tightened. He reached into his suit jacket, pulled out a thick stack of legal documents, and slapped them flat against the glass.
"Gary's company was liquidated yesterday," Desmond's voice was muffled but dangerously clear through the window. "I bought his debt. If you don't step out of this car right now, your cousin is going to federal prison for commercial fraud."
The words hit Ada like a physical blow to the stomach. Her family was already destroyed. She couldn't let Gary go down because of her.
Her psychological defenses crumbled into dust.
With trembling fingers, she pulled the door handle. The door swung open. She stepped out, immediately swallowed by Desmond's tall shadow.
Desmond reached out and pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He forced her head up, his dark eyes scanning her hollow cheeks and scarred skin.
"Look at you," he sneered, his voice dripping with disgust. "You look exactly like the trash you are."
He let go of her face. He gestured to his bodyguards.
A hand shoved Ada roughly between the shoulder blades. She stumbled forward and was thrown into the back seat of his waiting Maybach.
The heavy door slammed shut behind her, sealing her fate.
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7.0
Eight years ago, Alaina forced herself to say the most vicious, heartless things to break up with her fiercely loyal college boyfriend, protecting him from his billionaire family's wrath.
Now, she is a top maxillofacial surgeon, and Jarred Mcknight has returned as the ruthless CEO of Wall Street's most powerful corporation.
Their worlds collide in the ER, but Jarred isn't alone. He is accompanying his rumored heiress fiancée.
His eyes are pure ice. He treats Alaina with a suffocating, clinical detachment, fiercely protecting the heiress from Alaina's medical examination. The professional slap in the face shatters Alaina's heart all over again.
Later, at an exclusive restaurant, Jarred catches Alaina on a miserable, forced blind date. Still believing she left him for money and status, he publicly mocks her for working herself to the bone just to climb the ladder.
Her sleazy date, humiliated by the billionaire's sheer dominance, turns his bruised ego on Alaina. On the dark street outside, the lawyer aggressively grabs her arm, trying to force himself on her.
Alaina thought Jarred despised her. She thought he had completely moved on, leaving her to drown in the memories of the future they never had.
But why did Jarred suddenly explode from the shadows like a lethal predator, brutally snapping the lawyer's wrist just for touching her?
Pinning her trapped against the cold brick wall, Jarred's dark eyes burn with a terrifying, unhinged possessiveness.
"Is this the kind of garbage you date now?"
The eight years of separation mean nothing. The billionaire hasn't let her go, and this time, there is no escape.
7.4
Evelina Barrett was the legitimate daughter, yet she was framed for a disgusting sex scandal, expelled from the Ivy League, and locked out of her late mother's massive trust fund.
While she was thrown out to rot on the streets with a jagged, hideous red scar covering half her face, her father and step-family were throwing a lavish charity gala to celebrate her total ruin.
They laughed as they officially published her disownment notice in the Times to cut her off forever.
"Without the school halo, that ugly freak will be begging on the streets by tomorrow," her sister Aspen sneered.
Her stepmother Annabella toasted to taking out the trash, perfectly happy to steal Evelina's inheritance while ignoring the fact that Evelina knew exactly how they had murdered her mother.
For years, Evelina had been locked in a dark basement, abused by bodyguards, and treated worse than a stray dog.
Why should she, the true heir, suffer in the gutter while the leeches who destroyed her life enjoyed the wealth that rightfully belonged to her?
She refused to be their victim anymore.
Washing away her fake scar to reveal her true, breathtaking face, Evelina blackmailed New York's most lethal billionaire into marriage to secure the ultimate shield.
Then, she put on a black mourning dress, ordered a dark web ghost crew, and climbed into a heavy semi-truck.
At exactly 6:00 PM, she smashed through the iron gates of her family's elegant gala, delivering three pure black coffins directly to the lawn.
8.4
Kathern was forced out of her sister's home by her abusive brother-in-law, who violently demanded she pay half the rent or get out.
To protect her sister from his rage, Kathern agreed to a six-month paper marriage with a stranger—an old woman's grandson, Bronson—in exchange for a simple apartment.
But her new husband treated her like a scheming gold digger from the very first second.
He showed up to City Hall in a cheap suit, shoved a brutal prenup in her face, and dumped her in a completely empty, dust-filled apartment.
"Just don't cause any trouble," he warned coldly, before leaving her alone.
When Kathern politely texted him to ask if he was coming home for dinner, he immediately blocked her number.
Kathern was furious and baffled. She didn't want a dime of his money, nor did she care about his boring middle-management job.
She had only agreed to this marriage for a place to sleep, yet this arrogant man treated her like absolute garbage.
Refusing to swallow the insult, Kathern immediately dialed his grandmother to expose his behavior.
She was going to build her own independent life, completely unaware that her "cheap corporate loser" of a husband was actually the ruthless billionaire CEO of the Vaughan empire.
8.8
Alaia Dudley spent her life playing the devoted partner, completely unaware that her fiancé Austen was sleeping with another woman.
She thought the worst he could do was break her heart, until she found herself pinned to a cold operating table.
Austen held her down with a cruel smirk while a scalpel sliced through her sternum.
They cracked her chest open while she was still fully conscious.
The agonizing pain of her heart being cut out burned into her nerve endings.
She realized then that to him, she was never a lover—just a spare organ, a boring piece of wood to be discarded the second his true love needed it.
She died in excruciating agony, choking on her own blood while the man she loved walked away with her heart.
Until her last breath, she didn't understand why she had to suffer so brutally.
Why did she waste her life begging for a monster's attention? Why did they get a happy ending while she was carved up like an animal?
But then, ice-cold water flooded her lungs, and Alaia violently broke the surface of her bathwater.
Her trembling fingers touched her smooth, flawless chest. No scars. Her heart was still beating.
The date on her phone glared back at her: it was exactly five years ago.
Tonight was the exact night Austen first took his mistress to a hotel room.
This time, she wouldn't just expose them. She would use Wall Street's most terrifying tyrant as her personal weapon to strip them of everything they had.
8.0
Aliya woke up in a dingy, freezing apartment with a throbbing headache, only to realize a horrifying truth.
She had transmigrated into the American romance novel she read just last night, becoming the ultimate vicious supporting character. The exhausted man walking through the front door was Cyrus Pace, an amnesiac billionaire currently living under the delusion that he was a broke laborer.
The original owner had trapped him with fabricated memories of being childhood sweethearts. Worse, she relentlessly abused him. Her phone was filled with toxic texts calling him a useless loser, and she had just staged a psychotic hunger strike to force him to buy a designer bag. Cyrus already looked at her with bone-deep, visceral disgust. In the original plot, the moment he regained his memory, his ruthless revenge would send her straight to a maximum-security prison for the rest of her life.
"Are you done playing your hunger strike game?"
Hearing his cold, mocking voice, the sheer terror made Aliya's blood run cold. How was she supposed to survive living with a future tyrant who already despised her? Every time his massive shadow fell over their cramped, shared mattress, her heart stopped. A single wrong move—even a microscopic mistake like accidentally crossing a physical line—would completely seal her doom.
Staring at the torn box of condoms hidden under the bed, Aliya made a desperate, life-or-death decision.
She had to completely rewrite her toxic persona, secretly hustle a high-commission real estate job, and save enough money to flee the country before the billionaire remembered exactly who he was.
7.7
Dasia's twin brother, Gerald, was an e-sports prodigy, the rising star of the Glory team.
But during a crucial moment, he was framed by his own teammates. They orchestrated a trap that completely destroyed his reputation and left his right hand brutally crushed.
Instead of getting him medical help, the club threw him out into the freezing rain, bleeding and disgraced. The manager labeled him useless trash and slapped him with a five-million-dollar termination fee to bleed him dry. Stripped of his pro status, the wealthy bullies at his prep school relentlessly targeted him, mocking his crippled hand and beating him down.
Dasia watched her twin brother cry in his room, his life and dreams shattered by the people he trusted. A violent, suffocating rage boiled in her chest. How could they smile while crushing his hand? Why should the victim be treated like a rotting piece of garbage while the perpetrators get rich and celebrated?
She didn't shed a single tear. She stood in front of the mirror, took a pair of scissors, and ruthlessly hacked off her waist-length hair. She wrapped her chest in coarse medical bandages until her ribs screamed, and pulled on his oversized black hoodie.
"Everything you took from him, I am going to take back with interest."
The girl in the mirror was gone. She was Gerald now. She secretly passed the brutal online tryouts for Glory's biggest rival, the elite Blackflame team, and signed their official contract. The revenge had officially begun.