From Blood Bank To Billionaire's Obsession
I was the poor girl from Appalachia the wealthy Copeland family adopted out of "charity," bringing me to a life of New York luxury I could never have imagined.
But it was all a lie. I wasn't their daughter. I was a living, breathing blood bank for their precious child, Bridgette, whose life had been secretly saved by my bone marrow.
Once I was no longer useful, they decided to throw me away. On the night of Bridgette's lavish engagement party, she and her fiancé framed me. They drugged my water, lured me to a hotel suite, and tore my designer gown to stage a scene.
Her fiancé stood over me, his face twisted in disgust. "Did you really think spreading your legs would make me forget where you came from? You're just a trashy hillbilly."
Outside on Fifth Avenue, my adoptive parents screamed at me in front of the press, calling me a disgrace. My sister wept, accusing me of trying to destroy her perfect life out of jealousy.
They expected me to crumble, to become the pathetic scandal they could discard like garbage. They thought they were dealing with a scared, helpless girl from the mountains.
But they made a fatal mistake. The soul of that poor girl was already gone. And I, the top-tier operative known as Glacier, had just woken up in her body.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 2
Two men in cheap leather jackets swaggered down the hallway.
Vince and Ray-Ray. They reeked of stale beer and cheap cigarettes, a jarring contrast to the sterile luxury of The Plaza.
Vince let out a low, sleazy whistle as his eyes dragged over Alanis's torn dress and bare shoulders.
Alanis stood perfectly still. Her brain instantly processed their physical dimensions. Vince: roughly two hundred pounds, heavy-footed, poor balance. Ray-Ray: lighter, twitchy, likely carrying a concealed weapon.
"Well, well. Look what we have here," Ray-Ray laughed. The sound was wet and disgusting. "Looks like someone had a rough night. Need some help with that dress, sweetheart?"
Alanis lowered her center of gravity. She shifted her weight evenly across both legs, her breathing slowing down to an imperceptible rhythm.
Thirty feet away, hidden in the deep shadows of an unlit alcove, Kane Miller stood motionless.
He held a crystal glass of whiskey. The amber liquid barely rippled. His cold, predatory eyes were locked onto the scene unfolding down the hall.
Dexter Vance, Kane's executive assistant, stood a step behind him in the dark.
"Ten bucks says she starts screaming for security in five seconds," Dexter whispered.
Kane didn't answer. His gaze was fixated on Alanis's stance. It was flawless. There were no openings. It was the stance of someone who killed for a living.
Vince lost his patience. He lunged forward, his tattooed hand reaching out to grab Alanis's exposed shoulder.
Alanis didn't back away.
Instead, she stepped into his space. She slipped past his grabbing hand by a fraction of an inch.
Vince's momentum carried him forward, leaving his entire left side wide open.
Alanis's right hand formed a rigid blade. She swung it upward with terrifying speed.
The strike connected perfectly with the bundle of nerves just beneath Vince's jawline.
A sharp, sickening crack echoed through the quiet hallway.
Vince's eyes rolled back into his head. His massive body went completely limp, and he crashed onto the floor like a sack of dead weight. He was out cold before his face hit the carpet.
Ray-Ray's sleazy laugh died in his throat. His facial muscles froze in absolute shock.
In the shadows, Dexter sucked in a sharp breath. His hand jerked, nearly spilling his boss's drink.
Kane's pupils contracted. A dark, dangerous thrill flared in the depths of his eyes.
Ray-Ray finally snapped out of his daze. He let out a furious roar and reached into his jacket pocket.
He pulled out a switchblade. The metal blade snapped open, catching the dim light of the wall sconces as he thrust it directly toward Alanis's stomach.
Alanis looked at the blade with the boredom of someone watching a slow-motion replay.
She pivoted on her heel, sliding her body to the side.
Her left forearm slammed against Ray-Ray's wrist, stopping the knife dead in its tracks.
In the same fluid motion, her right hand clamped down on his elbow. She applied a brutal, bone-snapping pressure in the opposite direction of the joint.
Ray-Ray screamed in agony. His fingers lost all strength, and the switchblade clattered onto the thick carpet.
Alanis used his forward momentum to deliver a devastating low sweep kick to the back of his knee.
Ray-Ray's leg buckled. He lost his balance entirely and crashed sideways into a parked room service cart.
The impact was deafening. Silver cloches, porcelain plates, and metal cutlery shattered and clattered across the hallway floor.
Almost instantly, the sharp crackle of a security radio and the frantic thud of heavy footsteps echoed from the adjacent stairwell. "Hey! Section four, we got a massive noise complaint, move it!" a voice barked in the distance. The hotel's response time was going to be less than thirty seconds.
Alanis stood up straight. She calmly reached down and smoothed out the wrinkled fabric of her torn skirt.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
Her operative instincts screamed at her. There was a gaze on her. A gaze far more dangerous and invasive than the two thugs on the floor.
Alanis whipped her head around. Her ice-cold eyes pierced straight into the dark alcove down the hall.
She locked eyes with Kane.
You may also like
8.9
Betrayed by the people she trusted most, Ava Lin's perfect life shatters overnight. From losing her mother under mysterious circumstances to being tormented by her stepmother and stepsister, Ava learns early that love in her world comes at a price. But nothing prepares her for the ultimate betrayal,catching her fiancé in bed with her own sister just weeks before their wedding.
Humiliated and heartbroken, Ava makes a reckless decision that changes everything: a contract marriage to a stranger. What she doesn't know is that her new husband is Elias Ward,a powerful, cold-hearted billionaire with secrets of his own.
Thrown into a world of wealth, power, and hidden enemies, Ava finds herself entangled in a dangerous game of revenge, lies, and unexpected passion. As she rises from the ashes of betrayal, those who once destroyed her will stop at nothing to bring her down even if it means exposing deadly secrets buried in her past.
But when love begins to bloom in the most unexpected place, Ava must decide,will she continue fighting for revenge, or risk everything for a second chance at love?
In a story filled with scandal, heartbreak, and justice, one woman's pain becomes her greatest strength... and her ultimate weapon.
8.5
For two years, I was the perfect shadow of another woman. I wore the silk robes Brittain Austin bought, styled my hair exactly how he liked, and spoke in a voice pitched half an octave higher than my own. I was a placeholder, a living statue in a minimalist Manhattan penthouse, waiting for a man who looked at me but never actually saw me.
Everything shattered when a news alert flashed on my phone: "Caryn Newman Spotted at JFK." The original was back. The woman I was hired to mimic had returned to claim her throne, and my secret two-year contract as her stand-in was set to expire in three days.
Brittain didn't even give me the courtesy of a phone call. While he was supposed to be on a business trip, photos surfaced of him shielding Caryn from the paparazzi, his hand on her waist with a tenderness he never showed me. When I walked into his office to return his keys, he didn't look guilty; he just looked annoyed. He pulled out a checkbook and asked, "How much for the hurt feelings?" When I refused his money, he coldly ordered his assistant to freeze every one of my accounts before I even reached the elevator.
I stood on the sidewalk with zero dollars, realizing that to him, I wasn't a partner—I was just an expired lease. I had spent two years erasing my soul to fit into his world, only to be tossed out like trash the moment the real thing came home.
But Brittain forgot one thing: before I was his doll, I was an actress. I pulled my secret weapon from under the bed—a notebook and a raw film cut he never knew existed. I called my agent and launched a high-profile "showmance" with my co-star that set the internet on fire.
As I blocked Brittain's number and moved into a dusty apartment in Queens, I realized the show wasn't over. For the first time, I was the leading lady.
9.8
I married an S-class Alpha to save my family's bankrupt company.
But my husband, Braydon, treated me worse than a stray dog.
When my heat cycle triggered early, the fever was agonizing. I crawled to our master bedroom, crying and begging him for just one temporary bite to save my life.
Instead, he locked the door from the inside.
"Go back to your room. I told you I didn't want to deal with you this weekend."
Through the crack under the door, I smelled the cheap perfume of his mistress. While I was dying in the hallway, forced to inject a toxic black-market suppressant that made me vomit blood, he was sleeping with her in our bed.
Days later, a drunk Braydon pinned me to the floor, trying to violently force a permanent mark on my neck just to assert his dominance.
When I fought him off, he blamed me for provoking him and casually tossed a credit card at me to buy my silence.
"Go buy whatever you want. Just tell the clinic you slipped in the shower."
Staring at the man who was supposed to protect me, my heart went completely cold. Why did I ever think this monster would change? This wasn't a marriage anymore; it was a cage, and the animal inside it was trying to kill me.
I quietly pressed the record button on my phone, capturing every single word of his twisted bribe.
Then, I pulled out a matte black business card and called the terrifying Enigma CEO who had been waiting for me in the shadows.
8.6
I spent three years being the perfect wife to tech mogul Cash Ferguson, a forensic accountant playing the role of a low-risk asset to stabilize his public image. My world shattered when I saw a live CNBC broadcast from Sundance showing Cash tenderly hoisting a two-year-old boy onto his hip—a secret son born to a socialite mistress while he was supposedly at a business roadshow.
When I confronted him with divorce papers, Cash didn't apologize; he laughed, calling me a "liability" and weaponizing my mother’s history of mental illness to claim I was genetically unfit to carry his heir. He didn't just reject the split; he locked the penthouse elevator and froze every one of my accounts, reclassifying me from a wife to a piece of disputed company property.
"You came from nothing, Isidora," he sneered, tossing a credit card at me like a leash. "Stop being dramatic. I can afford a pet, but don't think you can survive a day in the real world without my name."
The betrayal turned lethal when I discovered Cash had tracked down my mother’s stolen emerald brooch—my only connection to my past—and bought it as a gift for his mistress. He was using my trauma and my heritage to decorate the woman who had replaced me in his secret life.
I realized then that Cash had made a fatal accounting error: he forgot that I was the one who built his shadow accounts and knew exactly where the fraud was buried. He wanted to treat our marriage like a hostile takeover, so I decided to give him a market correction he would never forget.
I escaped down forty flights of stairs with nothing but a burner laptop and a plan to burn his empire to the ground. If he wanted to play dirty, I’d show him what happens when a forensic accountant initiates a liquidation protocol. I’m not just leaving; I’m going to make him crawl.
9.5
I was in a Zurich boardroom signing a contract worth fifty million dollars when I saw the photo that ended my marriage.
It was an Instagram notification from the woman I paid to scrub my toilets.
The caption read: "My little prince deserves the world."
The photo showed her son holding a custom-made porcelain doll with diamond-dust eyes. It was the only one in the world, commissioned specifically for my daughter, Lily.
I cancelled the deal and flew home immediately.
When I arrived at my daughter's school, I found the housekeeper wearing my vintage Chanel coat and driving my car.
My husband, Austyn, didn't run to greet me. He ran past our crying daughter to comfort the housekeeper's son.
"Don't you dare touch my son!" he screamed at me, protecting the boy while our daughter scraped her knees on the pavement.
He looked at me with pure hate, confident that he could take half my assets in a divorce.
He forgot that I wasn't just a wife. I was the Duchess of the Miller Syndicate, the most powerful crime family in New York.
I pulled out my phone and froze every account he had.
"You want a divorce?" I asked, signaling my security team to step forward.
"Take off the suit, Austyn. I paid for it."
"You are leaving this marriage exactly how you entered it. With nothing."
9.0
Irina Volkov has three rules: no emotions, no real names, and never meet in person. For two years she has survived on those rules alone - running romance scams on wealthy men, funneling every stolen dollar toward the crushing debt her abusive stepfather signed in her name before she escaped. She is not greedy. She is desperate. And she is very, very good.
Until she targets Nikolai Dragunov.
What Irina doesn't know is that Nikolai has known about her from the beginning. He created the perfect bait - a lonely businessman with money to burn - and waited for her to find him. Because in a world Nikolai controls down to the last detail, Irina Volkov is the only unpredictable thing left. He wanted to see how far she would go.
Now the game is over. The con is exposed. And Nikolai isn't asking for his money back. He's keeping her.
Trapped in his penthouse with nowhere to run and a Bratva boss who looks at her like she's both a puzzle and a prize, Irina has to survive the most dangerous mark she's ever made - and somehow stop herself from falling for him in the process.
She's a liar. He's a monster. And neither of them expected to fall.
"You took my money, malyshka. Now you belong to me."