His Trophy Wife Is A Predator
I married the CEO of the powerful Powers Corporation, and everyone saw me as the perfect trophy wife. They assumed my days were filled with nothing but shopping on Fifth Avenue.
But this prestigious family was a house of cards. My husband's siblings were spoiled, useless children threatening to bring the entire empire down with their stupidity.
His brother, Braden, was a parasite who mistook his trust fund for "freedom." His sister, Chelsea, was a brainless socialite being used as a pawn in a public scandal by a con artist.
Even the family's ruthless Chief of Staff, a man meant to be their shield, looked at me with utter contempt, viewing me as just another problem to be managed.
They all saw a fragile doll. They had no idea that their weakness was an insult to the family name, and I was not going to stand for it.
It was time to discipline the children. The first lesson began at 3,000 feet, when I kicked my brother-in-law out of a plane mid-flight. His rehabilitation—and my takeover of this family—had just begun.
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Chapter 1
The freezing wind howled into the open cabin of the aircraft, violently whipping Braden's hair across his pale face.
He gripped the metal edge of the door frame so hard his knuckles turned completely white. His chest heaved, pulling in thin, useless breaths of the high-altitude air.
"Are you out of your damn mind?!" Braden screamed.
His voice cracked, swallowed instantly by the deafening roar of the aircraft engines. He tried to mask the violent shaking of his knees by shouting louder, but the terror in his eyes was impossible to hide.
Hazel did not even blink.
She stood two feet away, her face a mask of absolute indifference. Her fingers moved over the buckles of her parachute harness with terrifying precision. It was muscle memory.
She didn't spare him a single glance. She simply walked toward the open hatch, her boots heavy against the metal floor, and stared down at the valley three thousand feet below.
Down on the ground, inside the dark interior of the mobile command center, Chandler Rhodes stared at the live feed on the monitors.
The Chief of Staff's brow furrowed into a deep, harsh line. His stomach tightened. This woman was playing with fire, and she was going to drag the entire Powers Corporation down with her.
Back in the cabin, Hazel turned her head slowly.
"The countdown begins now," she stated.
Her voice was not loud, but the icy tone cut straight through the noise of the wind.
Braden shook his head frantically. The blood drained from his face, leaving his lips a sickly shade of blue. His legs gave out slightly, and he tried to stumble backward into the safety of the plane's belly.
Hazel did not give him the chance.
Without a single shift in her facial expression, she raised her long leg and planted her heavy boot squarely into the center of Braden's chest.
A sickening thud echoed over the wind.
Braden let out a blood-curdling shriek. The force of the kick shattered his balance instantly. His hands slipped from the door frame, and his body tumbled backward into the empty sky.
The sensation of weightlessness swallowed him whole.
Braden flailed his arms and legs wildly, his mouth open in a silent scream as the freezing air rushed down his throat.
A split second later, Hazel stepped out of the aircraft.
She did not fall. She dove. Her body snapped into a flawless, aerodynamic tactical position. She cut through the air like a ruthless falcon hunting its prey.
In the command center, Chandler shot up from his leather chair.
His heart slammed against his ribs. He leaned closer to the screen, his breath catching in his throat. The tactical perfection of her freefall posture was impossible for a woman who spent her days shopping on Fifth Avenue.
Up in the sky, the wind noise was deafening.
Braden's panic was suffocating him. His chest convulsed. Black spots danced at the edges of his vision. He was hyperventilating so fast he was seconds away from passing out.
Hazel tucked her arms in and accelerated her dive.
She closed the distance between them in seconds, stopping right in front of his face.
She reached out and grabbed a fistful of his jumpsuit collar. She yanked him close, forcing his terrified, rolling eyes to lock onto hers.
"Breathe," she ordered through the radio comms.
Her voice was a sharp blade scraping against his eardrum.
Braden stared into her eyes. There was no pity there. Only the crushing, absolute authority of a predator. His body reacted before his brain could. His lungs involuntarily synced with the rhythm of her commands. He gasped, pulling in a massive gulp of air.
The ground was rushing up fast. They were hitting the absolute safety baseline.
Braden's mind went completely blank. His fingers twitched, but he forgot how to reach for his ripcord.
Hazel's eyes narrowed.
She reached over and yanked his main parachute cord without a second of hesitation.
The massive upward pull jerked Braden's body violently. He let out a painful groan as the harness dug into his thighs, but the canopy blossomed open above him.
Hazel immediately pulled her own cord.
She stabilized instantly, floating downward with the elegant, controlled spirals of a seasoned professional.
Braden hit the grass hard.
His knees buckled, and he rolled aggressively across the dirt, tumbling four times before finally coming to a stop.
A moment later, Hazel's boots touched the ground.
She landed perfectly on her feet. With a fluid motion, she unclipped the heavy harness and let it drop to the grass. Her breathing was completely even.
Braden ripped his helmet off. He collapsed onto his hands and knees, his stomach violently rejecting his breakfast. He vomited onto the grass, coughing and wheezing, looking utterly pathetic.
Hazel walked over to him. Her steps were slow, measured, and unbothered. She stood over him, looking down at his trembling form.
The door of the black SUV slammed shut. Chandler walked quickly across the grass.
His eyes were locked on Hazel. The tight knot in his stomach had turned into a cold block of ice. He was staring at a stranger.
Hazel did not look at Chandler. She simply extended her right hand toward him.
"Ice water," she demanded.
Chandler's body went completely rigid. Every instinct in his highly trained, ruthlessly calculating mind screamed at him to refuse this absurd, demanding request from a woman he utterly despised. He opened his mouth to put her in her place, but as his eyes met hers, the words died in his throat. Her gaze was a bottomless, crushing abyss. For three agonizing seconds of silent warfare, the heavy air between them felt like a physical weight pressing down on his chest. He found himself entirely unable to break her stare. Slowly, moving with a stiff, humiliated reluctance, he reached into the cooler. He grabbed a bottle of ice water and placed it into her waiting palm. A hot flash of profound indignity burned the back of his neck as he realized he had just been subjugated by a single look.
Hazel twisted the plastic cap off.
She tilted the bottle and poured the freezing water directly over Braden's head.
The ice-cold liquid soaked his hair and ran down his face, washing away the vomit and the last shreds of his arrogant pride. Braden gasped, shivering violently, but he didn't dare look up.
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9.6
Brenda Vincent thought her biggest nightmare was catching her boyfriend cheating with her roommate on her own sofa.
But her life truly derailed after a drunken night led her into the bed of Bryon Reeves, the ruthless billionaire CEO and older brother of the student she tutored.
Trying to pay off the most dangerous man in New York with a crumpled twenty-dollar bill was her first mistake.
Fleeing the hotel, she accidentally rear-ended his custom Maybach. Bryon used the massive repair bill to blackmail her into being his fake date, parading her at a gala just to make his sister-in-law jealous.
When Brenda finally snapped and fled the humiliation, only to be rescued by his biggest corporate rival, Bryon's twisted possessiveness turned completely destructive.
"If you feel kidnapped, call the police. But your teaching license will be permanently revoked."
He didn't just threaten her. He systematically dismantled her life, using his influence to force the university to freeze her tenure and suspend her without pay.
Brenda couldn't understand why this terrifying man was going to such extreme lengths to ruin a simple tutor who just wanted to be left alone.
Now, stripped of her career, her income, and her independence, she was forced into the sprawling Reeves Manor.
Hearing the heavy mahogany door lock from the outside in her signal-jammed bedroom, Brenda's panic slowly morphed into a cold, clinical rage.
She was trapped, but she refused to be his helpless pawn.
9.3
They say you can't have it all. I'm about to prove them wrong-or destroy myself trying.
When my struggling mother married billionaire Richard Stone, I thought I was gaining a family. Instead, I found three stepbrothers who became my obsession, my downfall, and my salvation.
Dominic, the eldest, cold and commanding, who kisses me like he's claiming his kingdom and looks at me like I'm the only thing he can't control.
Julian, the charming playboy who hides a vulnerable soul beneath his perfect smile, making me feel like I'm the only woman he's ever truly seen.
Asher, the brooding artist who paints me like I'm his muse and touches me like I'm his masterpiece, seeing parts of my soul I didn't know existed.
They're forbidden. They're dangerous. They're everything I shouldn't want.
But when I discover my father didn't die by suicide that he was murdered by the very man who now calls himself my stepfather, these three powerful men becomes my unlikely allies.
First it was a forbidden attraction, now it's an arrangement that defies every rule.
The rules are simple:
I'll give each of them a chance.
I'll take everything they offer.
And in the end, I'll have to make the hardest decision of my life:
Choose one of them. Choose all of them. Or choose myself.
9.6
For five years, I was Barron Santana's elite bodyguard and loyal shadow. I stood between him and bullets, giving him my youth and my entire heart.
But last night, the CEO announced his engagement to a flawless socialite on national television.
Heartbroken, I got blackout drunk and ended up crashing on the couch of Cassidy Gross, a billionaire tech CEO who saved me from a bar creep.
When I showed up late to work, Barron locked me in his freezing office. He pinned me against the glass, smelling Cassidy's cologne on my clothes.
"Are you already looking for your next meal ticket?"
He snarled the words, treating me like a cheap whore. When I defended myself, he pulled out a silk handkerchief and wiped his fingers, acting as if my very touch contaminated him.
Then, he coldly ordered his assistant to draft my termination papers.
Five years of risking my life for him, thrown away like garbage just because of his twisted ego.
Devastated, I ran out and collapsed in the hallway, sobbing uncontrollably until a kind coworker gently pulled me into his arms to comfort me.
I didn't know Barron had followed me out.
Seeing me clinging to another man, his legendary control completely shattered, replaced by a dark, violent possessiveness.
But it was too late. I was done playing his obedient dog, and it was time to take Cassidy up on his offer.
8.4
I had just been brutally fired from my corporate firm, stripped of my career and dignity in a matter of minutes.
Before I could even process the loss, I was handed a brown envelope that shattered my reality. My billionaire sister, who had ruthlessly cut me out of her life fifteen years ago, had committed suicide.
She left behind a fifteen-year-old son I never knew existed, a $300 million trust, and a $3 million stipend for me to act as his guardian. But her suicide note contained a terrifying, desperate warning scrawled in tearing ink.
"DO NOT INVESTIGATE MY DEATH. Accept what I've given you. Protect my son. Forget I existed."
I met the boy, Elon. He crashed his bike into me on the street, bleeding and crying, begging me not to abandon him. Pity and fifteen years of guilt overwhelmed me. I sat in the sprawling office of her elite estate lawyer and signed my life away to protect this innocent, grieving child.
Why did my sister suddenly reach out after a decade and a half of cold silence? What kind of monster was she running from that drove her to such a desperate end? I thought I was honoring her final wish by taking the boy in.
But as the elevator doors were closing, I caught their reflection in the polished steel.
My terrified, weeping nephew stopped crying instantly. He turned and exchanged a chilling, imperceptible nod with the lawyer.
That silent look said everything. The first move was complete.
I hadn't just inherited a child. I had walked straight into a meticulously planned trap.
7.9
On my eighteenth birthday, the celestial pact hiding my aura finally expired. I stood on the rotting steps of the trailer, watching my foster family celebrate my eviction like they’d won the lottery. Brenda threw a liability waiver at me to sign, ensuring I’d never ask for a dime of their welfare checks again. Worse, her daughter Regina stood there smirking, flaunting the heirloom emerald bracelet she’d stolen from my secret stash—unaware it was a spiritual artifact soaked in fifty years of blood magic. "Consider it payment for room and board, freak," Regina sneered, forcing the silver band over her wrist. They thought they were discarding a burden. They didn't realize I was the only dam holding back a tidal wave of their own bad karma. As I signed the papers, voluntarily severing our ties, the air pressure plummeted. The bracelet began to constrict like a snake, turning Regina’s flesh a necrotic purple as the protection I offered vanished. Before they could scream, a matte black helicopter bearing the Sterling Industries crest descended onto the muddy lawn, blowing their plastic lawn chairs into the neighbor's yard. A man in a bespoke charcoal suit stepped out, ignoring the filth to bow before me. He looked at my terrified foster family and announced, "We are here to retrieve the Sterling heiress." I smiled at Regina, whose arm was already beginning to rot, and whispered, "Keep the bracelet. You'll need it to pay for the amputation."
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.