Hidden Heiress: The Maid You Betrayed
For five years, I was the invisible glue holding Damien Crawford together. I was the one who pulled him from a burning car until the skin melted off my back, and I was the one who donated bone marrow when he was on death's door. I even gave up a full-ride scholarship to MIT just to be his nurse.
Yet, he believed his mistress, Hadley, was his savior. To him, I was just the maid's daughter who changed his bedpans—a piece of furniture he could abuse while he planned his wedding to another woman.
But his cruelty didn't stop at verbal abuse. When my father suffered a massive heart attack, Damien refused to let me use the car, choosing to comfort Hadley over a fake panic attack instead.
His mother even slashed the tires to ensure I couldn't leave.
While my father died cold and alone, Damien stabbed a needle into my hand just to teach me a lesson about "respect," oblivious to the fact that the scars on my skin were the receipt for his life.
He didn't know he was torturing the only person who had ever truly loved him. But the girl who begged for crumbs of affection died along with her father that day.
I picked up my phone and dialed the number saved simply as a dot.
"He's dead," I whispered to the man on the other end—Anderson Morrison, the city's most feared Don and my sworn protector.
"I'm coming," he replied, his voice lethal. "And I'm bringing the army."
It was time to show Damien that he hadn't just mistreated a maid; he had declared war on a Queen.
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Chapter 3
Aliana POV
I went straight to my room in the attic.
Or rather, the space they allowed me to occupy. It wasn't really a room. It was a converted storage closet with a sloped ceiling that punished me if I stood up too straight.
I opened the door and stopped.
The closet was empty. My drawers were pulled out, their contents vomited onto the floor. My bed was stripped to the mattress.
My books, my few clothes, the photo of my mother—all of it gone.
I walked to the window and looked down into the courtyard. Near the service entrance, by the industrial dumpsters, lay a pile of fabric and paper.
They had thrown my life in the trash.
I didn't feel the sting of tears. Instead, I felt a strange, cold lightness. It was as if they had done the packing for me.
I turned and walked back downstairs, out the service door, and to the dumpsters. I found my old servant's uniform—the black dress with the white collar. It was stained with coffee grounds.
I put it on over my clothes. I didn't care about the filth. If they wanted a servant, I would give them a servant one last time before I burned their house down.
I walked into the staff quarters.
My father, Mr. Rodriguez, was sitting in his small armchair, wheezing. His face was gray. He had been an Associate for the family for thirty years, a glorified bookkeeper who kept his mouth shut. Now, his heart was failing, and the Crawfords refused to approve the surgery.
"Ali?" he rasped. "Why are you wearing that?"
"We're leaving, Papa," I said, kneeling beside him. "Tonight. Anderson is coming."
His eyes widened. "The Reaper? Ali, that is dangerous."
"Staying here is death," I said. "Pack your pills. I'm going to get the car."
I kissed his forehead and marched back into the main house.
I found them in the dining room. They were eating lunch. The air smelled of sherry and cream. Lobster bisque.
Cecil looked up, a piece of bread in her hand. "Finally. You look appropriate for once. Clear the table."
I didn't move. I stood at the head of the table, a stain on their perfect picture.
"I need the keys to the station wagon," I said. "My father is sick. I'm taking him to the hospital, and then we are not coming back."
Cecil laughed. It was a dry, brittle sound. "The station wagon is for staff use only. And since you just tried to walk out on my son, you are no longer staff. You are trespassing."
"Give me the keys," I said, my voice dead flat.
Cecil stood up. She walked over to me, her heels clicking on the parquet floor. She was a small woman, but she was constructed entirely of malice.
"You are trash, Aliana," she hissed. "Just like your father."
She shoved me. Hard.
I wasn't expecting it. I stumbled back, catching my heel on the edge of the rug. I fell, hitting the floor with a bone-jarring thud.
The back of my uniform dress, old and worn, tore open with a sharp *riiiip*. My shirt underneath rode up.
The room went silent.
For the first time in five years, the air touched the skin of my back.
"Oh my god," Hadley shrieked. "That's disgusting!"
I scrambled to my knees, pulling my shirt down, but it was too late. They had seen it.
The map of agony. The thick, rippled, purple and white keloid scars that covered my entire back from neck to waist. The skin that had melted off when I shielded Damien from the fire.
Damien was staring at me. His face wasn't filled with recognition. It was filled with revulsion.
He covered his mouth. "Jesus, Ali. Cover that up. I'm trying to eat."
He didn't know. He looked at the scars *he* caused, the scars that saved his life, and he wanted to vomit.
Cecil sneered, looking down at me like I was a cockroach. "Damaged goods. No wonder you hide in the attic. Who would want to touch *that*?"
A sound bubbled up in my throat. I thought it was a sob.
It was a laugh.
I laughed, wild and manic. I stood up, shaking.
"Does it repulse you, Damien?" I asked, stepping toward him. "Does it make you sick?"
He held up a hand, shielding his eyes. "Get away from me. You're a freak."
Keith, the security guard by the door, took a step forward. Keith was a low-level soldier, but he had kind eyes. He had been there the night of the accident. He suspected.
"Mr. Crawford," Keith said, his voice trembling. "Those scars... she got them when—"
"Silence!" I snapped. I wouldn't let him tell them. They didn't deserve to know. Not yet.
Damien looked from me to Keith. His eyes narrowed.
"You're sleeping with the guard?" Damien accused, his jealousy flaring up despite his disgust. "Is that it? You let the help touch your freak skin?"
"You're insane," I whispered.
"You're fired," Damien barked at Keith. "Get out. And you—" He pointed at me. "Go to your room. You don't leave until I decide what to do with you."
"I am leaving," I said.
"No," Damien smiled, cruel and cold. "You aren't."
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9.3
Alyssa Gregory slept with Benton Steele, a recently disgraced and bankrupt heir, just to humiliate him.
She threw a massive check at his bare chest, treating the former prince of Wall Street like a cheap escort.
But Benton didn't take the charity.
Instead, he manipulated her anger, tricking her into signing an ironclad contract that surrendered absolute control of her entire trust fund to him.
When her abusive mother found out she had funded a penniless outcast, she slapped Alyssa across the face.
Her mother froze all her bank accounts, locked her inside her bedroom, and arranged to sell her off to a degenerate politician.
Desperate to escape, Alyssa climbed down her balcony, falling fifteen feet and shattering her ankle on the stones below.
Stripped of her money and freedom, she dragged her broken body to a VIP club just to publicly declare that Benton belonged to her.
She thought she was the boss, playing a rebellious game with a broken man.
But when Benton effortlessly carried her away from the club and locked her inside his rundown apartment, the terrifying calculation in his dark eyes shattered her illusion.
How could a man stripped of his entire empire still radiate such suffocating, violent power?
"You bought me," Benton whispered, his massive frame trapping her against the sofa. "That means I have to take care of you."
Physically trapped and completely broke, Alyssa stared into his consuming eyes, her mind racing to find a way to turn the tables.
7.7
Rory stood on the witness stand, forced by her father into an impossible choice: secure her dying mother's medical funding, or save her innocent boyfriend.
She looked Corbin right in his trusting eyes and lied to the court, testifying that he was the one driving the car during the fatal hit-and-run, sending him to a maximum-security prison for ten years.
The betrayal destroyed him. Corbin's father died of a heart attack upon hearing the guilty verdict. Six years later, Corbin returned as a ruthless billionaire and systematically blacklisted Rory from every job in the city. He cornered her into singing at his private club, humiliating her by forcing her to drink scotch—knowing she was severely allergic—and making her throw away his promise ring just to earn a stack of cash.
"Remember this moment. This is only the beginning."
She endured his cruel revenge because she was hiding a desperate secret: she was raising his five-year-old daughter, Willa. But when Willa's congenital heart defect suddenly worsened, requiring an impossible one-million-dollar surgery, Rory realized Corbin's calculated blockade had left her completely trapped with no way to save their child.
Staring at the sterile hospital walls, the last shred of her guilt burned away, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. He had destroyed her career and backed her into a corner, but he was the only one with the money. Wiping her tears, Rory turned and headed straight for Vance Tower.
8.9
The mangled car teetered on the cliff's edge, my leg crushed, gasoline fumes thick in the air. My husband, Holden, stood safe on the highway, directing the rescue – but not for me. He was saving her, the woman in the passenger seat, leaving me and our unborn child to the ocean below.
I woke trapped in the crushed Maybach, leg pinned. The cliff loomed; the driver's seat was empty.
Holden, safe outside, directed paramedics past me to Giana, his "most valuable asset," ordering her rescue first.
I watched him comfort Giana, oblivious, as the car slid. My baby barely viable. Holden offered a black card for silence; Giana gloated.
Ten years of devotion, a cruel lie. Rage fueled me: how could he abandon his wife and child?
I swore a venomous oath: never again an accessory. I flicked his card away, shielded my pregnancy, and promised my baby escape.
8.5
Amelia, an artist struggling to live a life full of dreams and hardships, finds herself caught in an unexpected vortex after a wild night at a masquerade ball. She wakes up with a hazy memory of piercing blue eyes and a powerful presence, without knowing who the man was or what happened? A few weeks later, Amelia's life changed forever when she realized she was pregnant. The baby's father? None other than the Lycan King, a powerful and dangerous creature who rules the hidden world of werewolves. Forced into a world of magic, danger, and forbidden love, Amelia must adapt to a new life. He must navigate the dangerous politics of the Lycan Kingdom, learn to control the new powers that arise within him, and face the wrath of the King's jealous couple. In the midst of this chaos, Amelia must choose: accept her fate as the Lycan King's mate, or fight for her freedom and the life she lives.
7.2
I was dying in a rusted warehouse, paralyzed in a wheelchair while the man I loved and my own stepsister watched with smiles on their faces. The air smelled of old oil and damp concrete, and my vision was fading into a milky haze.
Dillon, the man I’d sacrificed everything for, smoothed his custom suit and pulled out a syringe filled with a clear, lethal neurotoxin. Beside him, my stepsister Bianca toyed with my mother’s sapphire ring—the one they’d just pried off my hand while I was too weak to even make a fist.
She leaned in and whispered that my father’s trust fund was already offshore and that they’d sent my husband, Kade, to the wrong coordinates to ensure he’d only find my corpse. Dillon slid the needle into my vein with the chilling efficiency of a man who had done this before.
"This will stop your heart in thirty seconds," he said, sounding as bored as if he were explaining a tax form. Ice flooded my chest, and my lungs seized, fighting for oxygen that wasn't there. As the warehouse lights blurred into white streaks, an explosion echoed in the distance. Kade had come for me, but he was too late.
I died staring at the ceiling, my heart giving one last violent kick of pure, unadulterated hatred. I had been such a fool, believing Dillon’s lies and running away from the only man who actually cared for me. I died with a single thought: if I ever get another chance, I will drag you both to hell with me.
Then, there was nothing. And then, there was air.
I sat up gasping, my silk pajamas drenched in cold sweat. The rusted beams were gone, replaced by a vaulted ceiling and the glittering Manhattan skyline. I grabbed the digital clock on the nightstand—it was five years ago, the exact night I first tried to run away with Dillon.
The bedroom door slammed against the wall, and Kade Mullen stood in the doorway, looking dangerous, furious, and very much alive. I looked at my shaking hands, then at the man I had once hated. This time, I wasn't going to run. I was going to make sure Dillon and Bianca lost everything.
9.2
I died as the "Queen," an elite assassin who leveled criminal syndicates, only to wake up in a damp trailer smelling of rot and stale tobacco. My new body belonged to Arleen Brewer, a malnourished teenager with a failing heart and a life defined by systemic poverty.
A flickering blue light in my mind identified itself as a System, offering a devil's bargain: survive this life, and I could resurrect my dead brother, Dusty. To earn his return, I had to endure my alcoholic stepfather’s rage and a body so weak it struggled to even stand.
At my elite prep school, the rich kids treated me like a walking corpse, covering my desk in trash and mocking my heart condition. Even my fiancé, Shen Wenyu, publicly branded me as "unstable" and stood by while the school's golden boy tried to humiliate me.
They expected me to wither away, but they didn't realize a wolf was now wearing the sheep's skin. I shattered the bully’s nose with a metal tray and tore up my engagement contract in front of a stunned auditorium, only to be met with immediate threats of lawsuits and expulsion.
I didn't understand how the original Arleen survived this suffocating injustice without breaking, but as the Queen, I was ready to turn this school into a war zone.
Then Hale Clemons, the most dangerous man in the city, cornered me outside the principal's office. He saw through my mask, realizing his very presence was the only thing keeping my failing heart from stopping.
"I’m not buying your loyalty," he said, handing me a gold-embossed card. "I’m investing in a weapon."
I took the deal, ready to use his power to bring my brother back and bury everyone who ever looked down on Arleen Brewer.