He Chose His Secret Wife Over Me
I reached for my fiancé's phone to silence an alarm and found a hidden folder named "The Protocol."
Inside was a spreadsheet that systematically dismantled my entire existence.
Task 399: Buy blue hydrangeas. Note: Her favorite. For Denzel.
Task 400: Schedule anniversary dinner. Note: Make sure she feels special. For Denzel.
In that heartbeat, I realized the man I had loved for three years hadn't looked at me once without seeing a chore list left by his dead brother. I wasn't Elfrieda Stewart, the woman Jaxon Tate loved. I was a legacy project.
The truth turned lethal at our engagement gala. When a massive chandelier detached from the ceiling, Jaxon didn't lunge for me.
He tackled his "ex" Janice—who I later discovered was his secret wife—to safety.
He left me standing in the center of the target to be crushed by shattering glass.
But the cruelty didn't end there. On a "reconciliation" yacht trip, Janice pushed me overboard. Jaxon looked at me struggling in the freezing black water, then threw the life preserver to her.
He saved the shark and left me to drown.
I lost everything in that water, including the unborn child I hadn't even told him about.
He thought I was dead. He thought he was free to play house with Janice.
But my brother pulled me from the darkness.
And when I resurfaced in Norway, wearing the ring of a man far more dangerous than Jaxon could ever dream of being, Jaxon realized too late that he had destroyed the only thing that could have saved him.
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Chapter 4
Elfrieda Stewart POV
The Daily Grind was supposed to be neutral territory.
It was a coffee shop on the edge of the financial district, sanitized and bright, far from the dark corners of the Outfit's clubs.
Janice’s text had been explicit.
*We need to talk. Woman to woman. Come alone, or I send the wedding photos to your father.*
My father had a heart condition.
She knew that. She had done her research.
I walked in, my movements stiff.
My arm was in a sling.
Janice was sitting in a booth by the window, wearing white.
She looked pristine. She looked like the grieving bride, or perhaps, the perfect wife.
I sat down opposite her.
"What do you want?" I asked.
She slid a piece of paper across the table.
It was a copy of their marriage license.
"I want you to stop embarrassing yourself," she said, her voice smooth. "Jaxon is disgusted by you. Your innocence? It's pathetic. He comes home to me and laughs about how he has to pretend to like your violin music."
"Then why doesn't he leave?" I asked.
"Because of the money, honey." Her smile was razor-sharp. "Denzel left a trust fund. It only unlocks if Jaxon marries the girl Denzel picked. That's you. Once he gets the money, you'll have a tragic accident."
The air left my lungs.
Jaxon wasn't just using me for status.
He was planning to kill me for cash.
"You're lying," I said, though the pit in my stomach told me she wasn't.
"Am I?"
She signaled the waitress.
"More coffee," she ordered.
When the waitress placed the steaming mug on the table, Janice didn't drink it.
She looked at me, her eyes devoid of humanity.
"You need to learn your place," she said.
In one fluid motion, she grabbed the mug.
And flicked her wrist.
The liquid was scalding.
It lashed across my chest and my injured arm.
I screamed.
The pain was immediate and searing, soaking through my bandages like acid.
Janice threw the mug on the floor, shattering it.
Then she flung herself backward out of the booth.
"Help!" she shrieked. "She's crazy! Help me!"
The door to the coffee shop flew open.
Jaxon rushed in.
He had been waiting outside.
It was a choreographed setup.
He saw me, dripping with coffee, gasping for air.
He saw Janice on the floor, heaving with dry tears.
He stepped over me.
He knelt beside Janice.
"Baby, are you okay?" he asked, his voice thick with performative concern.
"She attacked me, Jaxon!" Janice cried. "I just wanted to make peace, and she threw hot coffee on me!"
Jaxon stood up.
He turned to me.
His eyes were full of hate.
"What is wrong with you?" he yelled. "Are you insane? You're harassing my wife!"
The word hung in the air.
*Wife.*
He had said it in public.
"She threw it," I whispered, my voice trembling from the shock of the burn. "Jaxon, look at me. I'm the one who's burned."
"Liar," he spat.
He grabbed a napkin and dabbed at a non-existent spot on Janice's dress.
A waitress stepped forward.
She was young, with piercings in her lip.
"Actually," the waitress said, her voice shaking. "I saw it. The lady in white threw the coffee. The other lady didn't do anything."
Jaxon froze.
He looked at the waitress.
"Shut up," he growled, his mask slipping just enough to reveal the monster beneath. "You didn't see anything unless you want your shop burned down."
The waitress went pale and stepped back.
Jaxon looked at me.
There was no apology in his eyes.
Only calculation.
"Get out of here, Elfrieda," he said. "Before I forget my brother's promise."
I stood up.
My skin was blistering.
My chest felt like it was on fire.
But the pain radiating through my body was nothing compared to the ice spreading through my soul.
I didn't argue.
I didn't cry.
I walked out of the coffee shop, past the staring customers, into the cold Chicago wind.
I was done being the victim.
I was done being the task.
If they wanted a villain, then I would give them one.
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7.7
In their first year of marriage, Melinda's husband never shared her bed, and the loneliness became a craving.
She understood why after catching him kissing her sister-she was just a stand-in.
When that restless craving finally sharpened into an ailment, she went to the hospital and met a doctor whose steady hands almost unraveled her.
The next day, he showed up as the company's new CEO and made her his assistant.
"Sir, I have a husband. Stop hitting on me." She had tried to resist, but eventually, she still became his girlfriend.
Her ex begged tearfully, "Melinda, let's start over. Don't leave me."
Melinda huffed, "Sorry. I'm not interested in a man who couldn't perform in bed."
8.0
Elena never planned on marrying a stranger, especially not someone engaged to her sister. But when her sister disappears days before the wedding, Elena is forced into an arrangement she never agreed to, with a man she knew nothing about.
Nathaniel Sinclair, billionaire heir with his dreamy looks and charming attitude is just as unenthusiastic about the situation as she is. Their marriage begins with distance, awkward silences and the quiet understanding that neither of them asked for this.
But as days turn into weeks and forced proximity becomes a regular thing, Elena starts to wonder: what happens when two people trapped in an arrangement begin to fall for each other?
It was never meant to be love. But love has a way of rewriting the rules.
8.3
I was the "crazy girl" my family sent to a survivalist commune in Utah to rot. Four years later, I returned to Manhattan with a titanium USB drive and a heart full of ice, ready to blackmail the one man who could burn my family to the ground.
But I underestimated how much they hated me. My fiancé, Preston, was already laundering money through my inheritance and sleeping with my replacement. He didn't even flinch when I showed him the evidence of his crimes.
Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders, smashed my phone, and shoved me out of his moving Lincoln into a midnight storm. I hit the wet pavement hard, my knees scraping against the asphalt as I watched him drive away, laughing about how I was a "dirt-poor exile" that nobody wanted.
Within minutes, my credit cards were flagged as stolen and my father’s lawyers were drafting a statement calling me mentally unstable. I was left shivering in a puddle of oily sludge, wearing a ruined Chanel suit, with no money, no home, and no one to hear me scream.
I couldn't understand how they could be so cruel. I was their flesh and blood, yet they treated me like a broken toy to be discarded in the trash. I was a "distressed asset" in a city that only valued gold.
That’s when a black armored SUV pulled to the curb. King Wagner—the ruthless shark of Wall Street and Preston’s own uncle—looked at my muddy face with cold, calculating eyes. He didn't offer me pity; he offered me a leash.
"You belong to me now," he whispered, pulling me into the dry warmth of his car. By the next morning, he had announced our engagement to the world, turning me into the very weapon that would slit my family's throat.
7.8
After eight years in a cold marriage, I watched my husband, Damian, run past me during a raging fire. He ignored my screams, his only focus on saving another woman.
That night, he coldly admitted he never loved me. Our entire marriage was just a business deal he was forced into.
But his betrayal didn't end there. His mistress, Aida, framed my innocent younger brother for a crime he didn't commit. Damian believed her lies without question.
He stood by as she had my brother murdered in his hospital bed. He even forced me to crawl over broken glass to apologize for "upsetting" her.
The final blow came when he threatened me with my mother' s heirloom box, not knowing it held my brother' s ashes. He had taken everything from me-my love, my family, my dignity.
He thought he had broken me. But he only forged me into a weapon.
Now, I'm back. And as the new majority shareholder of his company, I'm here to make him pay for every last sin.
9.3
One night, all they shared was one night, but it led to the single lie that destroyed her life.
Sarina Dawson was nothing more than a forgotten half-breed until the night she was framed, drugged, and thrown into the bed of the most powerful Alpha alive, Alpha Leonard Kane.
He believed she had schemed to trap him so he cast her aside without a second glance and by morning, she had lost everything.
Banished, broken and alone.
But Sarina didn't leave empty-handed, she carried a secret.
A child with silver-grey eyes... the heir of the Alpha who despised her.
Two years later, she's built a quiet life far from the pack, hiding among humans, determined to protect her son at all costs until fate drags him back into her world.
Alpha Kane arrives closer than ever, more dangerous than ever and this time, he's searching for a wife... and an heir, and she is determined to keep her child away from him.
But secrets don't stay buried forever. And before he can lose her for eternity, will he claim her as his mate, or destroy her all over again?
9.0
Prologue
Some stories begin with love.
Some begin with war.
But theirs began with a promise, one whispered under the fading glow of a streetlamp, sealed with youthful dreams and a future full of light. Neither of them knew how quickly love could twist into something darker... or how far a wounded heart could go just to feel whole again.
This is not a tale