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.
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Chapter 3
The air in the hallway seemed to freeze.
The approaching footsteps of the security detail grew louder, echoing off the marble walls, but Alanis didn't move. Her right hand slowly slid down her thigh, her fingers curling around the handle of a silver butter knife that had fallen from the cart.
From the shadows, a low, magnetic chuckle vibrated through the silence.
Kane Miller stepped out of the dark alcove and into the warm light of the sconces.
His tall, broad-shouldered frame instantly sucked all the oxygen out of the corridor. He radiated an overwhelming, suffocating authority.
Dexter wisely remained hidden in the shadows.
Alanis's eyes rapidly scanned the man approaching her. The bespoke charcoal suit. The handmade Italian leather shoes. The posture of a man who owned everything he looked at.
High net worth. Extreme threat level.
Kane stopped exactly three paces away from her. It was the perfect distance. Close enough to show dominance, far enough not to trigger a physical attack.
He glanced down at Ray-Ray, who was still groaning in the pile of broken plates. There was zero pity in Kane's eyes. Only mild disgust.
His gaze slowly dragged back up, landing on Alanis's torn dress and the pale, exposed skin of her shoulder.
Alanis tightened her grip on the silver knife. Her eyes flashed with a lethal warning.
Kane didn't make a single inappropriate move. Instead, he reached up and smoothly shrugged off his bespoke suit jacket.
Holding it with one hand, he extended the heavy fabric toward her.
"The wind in New York can be unforgiving at night," Kane said. His voice was calm, flat, and left absolutely no room for argument.
Alanis didn't take it immediately. Her brain ran a rapid behavioral analysis on his micro-expressions.
There was no lust in his eyes. No pity. Only a pure, burning curiosity and a deep sense of appreciation.
Alanis kept her face completely blank. She reached out and took the heavy jacket from his hand.
As she draped it over her shoulders, she was instantly enveloped by the scent of cedarwood and expensive tobacco. The residual body heat from the fabric seeped into her cold skin.
The oversized jacket perfectly concealed her torn dress and the curves of her body.
As she took the jacket, Kane's eyes dropped to her hands. He noticed the thick, hardened calluses on the webbing between her thumb and index finger. The undeniable mark of someone who spent thousands of hours firing weapons and wielding knives.
His eyes darkened with intense fascination.
Before either of them could speak, the elevator doors at the far end of the hall chimed loudly, syncing perfectly with the arrival of the guards from the stairwell.
Four hotel security guards rushed out, clutching their radios. They looked panicked.
"Hey! What the hell happened here?" the lead guard shouted, seeing the bodies on the floor.
Alanis instinctively shifted her weight backward, her eyes darting toward the heavy fire door of the emergency stairwell.
Kane didn't even look at the guards. He took one smooth step to the side, using his massive frame to completely block Alanis from their line of sight.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a matte black card bearing a very specific, embossed crest. He held it out toward the approaching security captain.
"Clean up this garbage," Kane ordered. His tone was freezing cold. "And keep your mouths shut."
The security captain looked at the black card. All the blood drained from his face. He swallowed hard and immediately bowed his head.
"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."
Taking advantage of the distraction, Alanis spun around and pushed open the heavy fire door.
By the time Kane turned his head back, the hallway was empty. The only trace of her existence was the faint scent of her cold, sterile perfume lingering in the air.
Dexter stepped out of the shadows. He looked at the faint smirk playing on his boss's lips and felt a sudden chill run down his spine.
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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."