He Broke My Spirit, I Soared
I was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history.
But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me.
He swam past me.
He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water.
When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl.
"You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home."
Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her.
I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife."
He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps.
He was wrong.
While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room.
I was packing his ring into a cardboard box.
I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead.
By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.
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Chapter 3
Eliana Carter POV
Tyler's estate party was less of a social gathering and more of a mandatory summons for the junior circle. If you were under twenty-five and your last name carried weight in the Outfit, you were there.
Technically, I shouldn't have gone. My knee was heavily wrapped in an ACE bandage, hidden beneath the fabric of my wide-leg trousers. I was limping slightly, favoring the injury with every step.
But staying home would look like defeat. And I wasn't defeated. For the first time in years, I was liberated.
I stood by the bar, nursing a club soda while the whispers followed me like a cloud of gnats. Everyone knew about the pool. Everyone knew about the stairs.
"Eliana."
Mason Riley nodded at me as he approached. He was Jax's best friend, a Consigliere in training, and right now, he looked at me with unbearable pity. "You look... good."
"I am good, Mason," I said, keeping my voice even.
Then, the room went dead quiet.
Jax walked in. Catalina was draped on his arm. She was wearing a dress that cost more than my car-a gift from him, no doubt.
He scanned the room, hunting for me. When his eyes locked onto mine, he lifted his chin. A challenge.
He expected me to run. He expected me to cry.
Instead, I took a slow sip of my soda and turned back to Mason. "So, tell me about the new shipment."
Mason blinked, surprised by my dismissal. "Uh, yeah. Well..."
Jax didn't like that. He steered Catalina toward us, carving a violent path through the crowd.
"Enjoying the night?" Jax asked, stopping right behind me. His presence was a heavy weight against my back.
I turned slowly. "It's fine. A bit crowded."
"I heard you went to the hospital," he said. His tone wasn't concerned; it was probing. He was searching for cracks, wanting to know how much damage he had done.
"Just a sprain," I said breezily. "Nothing permanent."
"Unlike some things," Catalina chimed in, snuggling closer to him.
I looked at her, letting my gaze drag over her outfit. "Enjoy the jersey, Catalina. It's polyester. It doesn't breathe."
The circle around us stifled a laugh. Jax's eyes narrowed into slits.
"Let's play a game," someone shouted from the back. "Truth or Dare!"
It was a childish tradition, but in our world, the dares were dangerous, and the truths were ammunition.
We moved to the sunken living room. Jax sat directly across from me, with Catalina perched on his lap.
The bottle spun. It landed on Catalina.
"Truth or Dare?" Tyler asked.
"Dare," she purred.
Tyler grinned. He was drunk and messy. "I dare you to kiss the King of the night."
It was obvious who he meant. Jax was the highest-ranking male there.
Catalina pretended to be shy. She looked at me through her lashes. "Oh, I couldn't. It might upset Eliana."
The room went silent. They waited for my reaction. They waited for the jealousy, the rage, the tears.
I checked my watch, feigning boredom. "Why would I care?" I asked, my voice steady. "He's not my concern."
Jax stiffened. His ego took the hit like a physical blow. He was used to my adoration, my desperate need for his approval. Indifference was a language he didn't speak.
He seized Catalina's face.
Then, he kissed her.
It wasn't romantic. It was brutal. It was a display of ownership and dominance, meant to mark her and humiliate me. He ground his mouth against hers, making a show of it, his eyes open, staring right at me.
He was daring me to look away.
I didn't. I watched with the clinical detachment of a scientist observing a lab rat.
When he finally pulled away, Catalina was breathless and smeared with lipstick. Jax looked triumphant.
"She's a better fit anyway," Jax announced to the room, his voice loud. "A real woman knows how to please her man."
The insult hung in the air. It was a direct attack on my honor, implying I was inadequate.
Mason looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight. "Jax, maybe take it easy."
"Why?" Jax sneered. "Eliana doesn't mind. Do you, Ellie?"
He used the nickname only he was allowed to use.
I stood up. My knee throbbed, but I put all my weight on it, refusing to flinch.
"You're right, Jax," I said. "I don't mind. Because to be offended, I would have to value your opinion."
I grabbed my purse.
"And frankly," I added, looking him dead in the eye, "I don't think about you at all."
I walked away.
I felt his rage burning into my back, hotter than the kiss he had just shared. He had tried to break me publicly.
Instead, he had only proven that he was already broken.
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7.7
I fled my werewolf pack five years ago to hide in a human city, all to escape a recurring nightmare.
Every full moon, a terrifying, golden-eyed Lycan slaughters everything in his path, forces me to my knees with a crushing Alpha command, and claims I am his fated mate.
The vivid dreams were destroying my inner wolf, forcing me to finally agree to return to my pack for the annual Pack Run to seek a cure.
But right before my flight home, I accidentally bumped into Rick Miller, the most arrogant, tyrannical Alpha on our college campus.
He looked down at the coffee spilled on his expensive leather jacket with pure disdain, publicly humiliating me in front of the entire airport.
"Do you have any idea what this jacket costs? Never mind. It's not like you could afford to replace it."
As he coldly insulted me, a terrifying realization suddenly froze my blood.
He smelled exactly like the ancient pine and storm from my nightmares, and his brief touch sent a mate's electric spark straight to my soul.
How could this cruel, spoiled campus bully possibly be the legendary, terrifying Lycan King who haunted my every sleeping moment?
As he turned and boarded his private jet, I looked down at my trembling hands and realized the horrifying truth.
My trip back to the pack wasn't a journey to heal my trauma.
I was walking straight into the cage of the very monster I had spent five years trying to outrun.
9.7
Eighteen months ago, the man I loved shattered my heart, claiming everything between us was a mistake. Now, he's back, a ghost of his former self, a rookie tryout in my pro esports team. And I will make him regret crawling back.
Clifton, captain of a legendary esports team, was secretly battling a severe wrist injury that threatened his career, every match a fight against his own body. He pushed through the pain, ignoring doctors' warnings, desperate to maintain his god-like status.
His world was already on the edge, but nothing prepared him for seeing Justice Terry again in the team basement. Justice, pale and trembling, his eyes wide with naked terror, was now a rookie tryout.
Clifton had spent a year and a half trying to forget that rainy Chicago alley, the raw revulsion in Justice's eyes, the whispered "it wasn't real" that had left him heartbroken. Justice had vanished, and Clifton had erased every trace. Now, the boy who once looked at him like he was the sun was back, flinching at his touch, displaying a deep, primal fear. Amidst sponsor pressure and whispers of being "washed," Clifton saw Justice's return as a chance for vengeance. He publicly humiliated Justice on a live stream, forcing him into a suicide mission, then coldly benched him.
Yet, the satisfaction never came. Instead, a hollow emptiness and a torrent of questions: What had truly happened in the past? Why was Justice here, and what trauma had carved such fear into his bones?
Clifton, unwilling to be fooled again, swore to uncover every secret and every lie. He would force Justice to explain why he had returned, even if it meant tearing down everything they both had left.
9.1
My family and fiancé begged me to donate my last remaining kidney to my twin sister, Kyleigh. They didn't know I was already dying.
My fiancé, Axel, gave me an ultimatum.
"Donate the kidney, or I'll break our engagement and marry Kyleigh. It's her dying wish."
I agreed, only for them to frame me for plagiarism with my own thesis, forcing me to confess on camera. They never knew I was the one who secretly saved our father with my other kidney five years ago-a sacrifice Kyleigh had stolen all the credit for.
As they wheeled me into the operating room, they celebrated with Kyleigh, promising her a future built on my death. I was already a ghost to them.
But I died on the table. The surgeon, seeing the old surgical scar and the poison riddling my body, walked out to face them.
"This wasn't a donation," she announced, her voice cold as steel. "This was murder."
8.8
My husband thought I was just a docile wife, easily controlled. He didn't know I'd spent five years meticulously dismantling his life. Tonight, his world would finally crumble into dust.
For five years, I endured Jackson's entitled demands and his family's greed, silently funding their lavish life in our Beverly Hills mansion.
My illusion shattered finding his mistress Amber's lingerie in his suitcase. My attorney just severed all financial ties, making Jackson's arrogant demands hollow.
I tossed my diamond ring into the trash, summoning an industrial compactor. Jackson, his mother, and mistress watched in horror as their designer luggage, bought with my money, was crushed, turning their lavish trip into garbage.
A cold, dead smile marked my cathartic release from five years of betrayal. How could they be so blind to the woman they dismissed?
Stepping into an armored Maybach, I left them in chaos. My iPad confirmed Jackson's credit cards freezing. This wasn't just divorce; it was a calculated demolition, making their pampered lives very real.
8.5
After surviving years in the Alpha King's brutal prisons, I returned to my pack only to be stripped of my family home and exiled to a rotting cabin.
I accepted the humiliation in silence, until I found a dying baby girl abandoned in a trash-filled alley.
Taking her in awoke the terrifying, protective beast I had kept chained in my mind. The pack, fueled by rumors and a jealous woman's bruised ego, viewed us as abominations. They trespassed on my land to uncover my "dirty secrets," forcing me to build a massive stone fortress with my bare hands just to keep my daughter safe from their cruelty.
We lived in isolated peace for years, until the day I took her outside the walls to visit my parents' graves.
A convoy of royal Alphas arrived, and their Luna fell to her knees at my mother's cousin's grave, weeping and calling her "sister."
I didn't understand. Why was my forgotten family connected to the royals? And why did Cassian Vargan, the most powerful Alpha in the world, freeze in absolute shock the moment he realized who I was?
"You... are you Gideon Stone's son?"
The bloody past I had buried under a mountain of stone had finally found me.
I didn't answer him. I just pulled my daughter behind me and tightly gripped my knife, ready to slaughter a king if he took one more step.
7.4
The house was a living inferno, the heat devouring the air in my lungs as I clutched my five-year-old daughter to my chest. Emily was dead weight, her skin already cooling even as the room turned into a furnace of orange and black.
Through the stinging smoke, I saw my husband, Kenney, crawling toward the door with a wet handkerchief pressed to his face. He didn't look back at the crib, and he didn't call my name; he was simply leaving us to burn.
I lunged forward and grabbed his ankle, my nightgown catching fire, but he didn't reach down to save me. He recoiled in horror at the sight of my burning hair and our dead child, kicking me back with a panicked shriek.
"Let go!" he shrieked.
I died as a massive, flaming timber snapped from the ceiling and crushed us both into silence. I couldn't believe that the man I loved would leave his family to die just to save his own skin, but the rage I felt was colder than the death that followed.
But then the burning stopped instantly, replaced by a cold so sharp it made my teeth ache. I gasped, jerking upright in my bed to find the velvet duvet cool under my palms and the nursery quiet, with Emily still breathing softly in her crib.
I had returned to the winter morning two years before the fire, the exact day Kenney finalized the deal to sell me to the King for a promotion. As Kenney stepped into the room with a practiced mask of concern, I realized I was no longer the victim of this story.
"A nightmare, my love?" he asked, reaching out to touch my shoulder.
I flinched away, my eyes burning with a hatred he couldn't yet understand. Tonight was the Winter Masquerade, the night he planned to offer me to the King as a prize, but this time, I was going to turn his social ladder into a gallows.