His Unwanted Bride: The Secret Genius Commander
Corey Hendrix was the family's dirty secret, a forgotten stepdaughter deliberately hidden away in rural Montana for twenty years.
But today, her stepfather Isham summoned her to his study and slid a marriage contract across the desk. He was forcing her to marry Lucas Fitzgerald—a powerful billionaire rumored to be paralyzed from the waist down—simply so her favored stepsister Brandi wouldn't have to waste her life on a "cripple."
"If you refuse, you'll be on the street before dinner. Let's see how long you last."
Isham threatened her with cold disdain, treating her like a worthless commodity to be traded for a corporate alliance. Her stepsister Brandi kicked her door open just to mock her, calling her a pathetic country bumpkin. They even used Corey's tragically deceased mother as emotional blackmail, entirely confident in their control, secretly hiding the fact that Isham had embezzled the five-million-dollar trust fund her mother left behind.
The entire Copeland family looked down on her, convinced she was just a timid, helpless outcast who had no choice but to accept this deeply unfair fate.
They had no idea that the moment Corey walked out of that study, her submissive mask dissolved. Locking her bedroom door, she pulled out an encrypted, military-grade laptop and logged in under her real title: Commander "Argent" of the BTO special ops. This forced marriage wasn't a cage, but her perfect cover to infiltrate New York's elite and finally avenge her mother's murder.
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Chapter 2
The next morning, sunlight streamed into the small room, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Corey was on the floor, moving through a series of slow, controlled stretches that looked like an advanced form of yoga. In reality, it was a routine designed to maintain peak muscle memory for hand-to-hand combat.
The door flew open with a loud bang, kicked in by a designer heel.
Brandi Copeland stood there, perfectly coiffed and dressed in a silk robe that probably cost more than Corey's entire wardrobe. Her face was a mask of contempt and jealousy.
"I can't believe it," Brandi said, her voice dripping with disdain.
Corey's hand, hidden in the pocket of her worn jeans, subtly pressed the side button on her phone, activating the audio recorder. A precaution. Always a precaution.
"Some country bumpkin from Montana is marrying a Fitzgerald. It's the luckiest day of your pathetic life, even if he is a cripple."
She sauntered into the room, examining her manicure. "I, on the other hand, have a date with a real man tonight. A senior VP at Goldman. Try not to embarrass us all at the wedding."
Corey finished her stretch, her body coiling and uncoiling with a fluid grace. She rose to her feet, her heart rate not even slightly elevated.
"Get out," she said, her voice quiet and even.
Brandi's face twisted in fury. The quiet dismissal was more infuriating than any argument. "Don't you take that tone with me."
She lunged forward, her hand reaching out to shove Corey's shoulder.
It was a mistake.
The instant before Brandi's fingers made contact, Corey shifted her weight. A subtle, almost imperceptible movement. Her body pivoted, and Brandi's hand met empty air.
In the same fluid motion, Corey's hand shot out, not to strike, but to catch. Her fingers wrapped around Brandi's wrist, her grip like steel. She twisted, using Brandi's own momentum against her.
A sharp cry escaped Brandi's lips as she was pulled off balance. Corey swept her leg back, and Brandi tumbled onto the plush rug with a soft thud. Before she could even process what had happened, Corey had her pinned, a knee pressed lightly but firmly into the small of her back. The entire takedown had taken less than two seconds.
Corey leaned down, her lips close to Brandi's ear. Her voice was a whisper, colder than ice.
"I don't like to be touched."
Brandi's shriek of pain and outrage echoed through the hallway.
Seconds later, Sherry Copeland, her stepmother, burst into the room, her face a mask of horror. "What are you doing? Are you insane?"
Corey released Brandi and stood up, smoothing down her simple t-shirt as if nothing had happened. Brandi scrambled to her feet, sobbing, and ran into her mother's arms.
"She attacked me! The psycho attacked me!"
The commotion brought Isham to the door, his face dark with anger. "What the hell is going on here?"
Sherry and Brandi launched into a dramatic, embellished account of the incident, painting Corey as a violent, unhinged maniac. Corey stood by the window, silent, letting them exhaust their fury.
When they finally wound down, she spoke, her voice cutting through the lingering hysteria.
"I was simply exercising my rights."
"Rights?" Isham bellowed. "You have no rights in this house!"
Corey turned to face him, her gaze unwavering. "As compensation for taking Brandi's place in this... unfortunate arrangement, I want five percent of Copeland Industries stock."
The room fell silent. Isham, Sherry, and Brandi stared at her as if she had just grown a second head.
Isham let out a short, incredulous laugh. "You've lost your mind. Who do you think you are?"
Corey didn't answer. Instead, she took her phone from her pocket and pressed play. Brandi's shrill voice filled the room.
"...even if he is a cripple."
"...try not to embarrass us all at the wedding."
The recording was crystal clear.
Corey stopped the playback. "Imagine if this recording, along with a photo of the 'slight' bruise on Brandi's wrist, were to be sent to a certain gossip columnist tomorrow," she said calmly. "The day before the wedding. What do you think the Fitzgeralds, a family obsessed with their public image, would do?"
The color drained from Isham's face. He knew she was right. Any scandal, no matter how small, could derail the merger-the marriage. The Fitzgeralds would drop them without a second thought.
He looked at Corey, truly looked at her for the first time, and saw not a timid girl, but a stranger with cold, calculating eyes.
He exchanged a desperate glance with Sherry. He was trapped.
Through clenched teeth, he bit out the word. "Done."
A small, triumphant smile touched Corey's lips. She deleted the recording in front of them, the digital file vanishing with a tap of her finger.
This five percent was more than just money. It was her first foothold. Her first victory on enemy soil.
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9.2
Rebirth with a Twist.
Fawn Jones doesn't get a chance to resolve the issues with her marriage. No, she gets murdered in her own bathtub. Drowned by the husband she hated after he had moved his mistress into their bed, Fawn's last lucid thought is a promise before death. "I will not stay weak. I will make you pay. If not in this life, then the next." Then she wakes up. Different room. Different body. Different life. Cassandra Huntington – rich, infamous, beautiful in a way Fawn never had been. Cassie had been in a coma for six months after a car crash. Her billionaire husband, Blake, had just signed the paperwork to turn off her life support when she suddenly started breathing on her own. Now everyone thinks Fawn is Cassandra. The media calls it a miracle. Blake calls it complicated. The woman wearing his wife's face is softer, sharper, funnier... and so tempting he hates himself for wanting her. Fawn calls it an opportunity for revenge. Her killers are still out there. Her old body is in the ground under a lie. And the only weapons she has now are Cassandra's money, Cassandra's reputation... and Cassandra's husband. So, she plays the role. Learns to walk in six-inch heels. Smiles for the cameras. Seduces a man who once couldn't stand his wife and now can't seem to stay away from her. While she quietly buys into the company that ruined her old life. While she gets close enough to the man who killed her to watch him crack. They drowned the wrong woman. Now she's awake. And she's not done.
8.3
For three years, I hid my identity as a billionaire heiress to build a life with the man I loved. I gave up everything to support Ben's career, believing we were creating a future together from the ground up.
The day before our engagement, I overheard him with his boss, Haylie. He called me a "stepping stone," a poor, simple girl he was using to climb the corporate ladder and get closer to her.
He laughed about our "humble" life and mocked the silver ring on my finger, calling it a necessary prop. He was sleeping with her, taking credit for the multi-million dollar deal I secretly engineered, and saw my love as a naive distraction.
The man I sacrificed my entire world for saw me as less than nothing. My love didn't just die; it turned into ice-cold rage.
So I walked out of his life and straight into the arms of my family's biggest rival.
He offered me a deal I couldn't refuse.
"Marry me," Jaxson Banks said with a smirk. "And together, we'll burn their world to the ground."
7.1
I was the top commander of a black-ops military program. After slaughtering my way through a hellish mission, I reached the extraction helicopter, trusting my second-in-command to watch my back.
But the moment our hands locked, he didn't pull me up. Instead, he plunged a syringe of lethal neurotoxin directly into my neck.
He aimed his gun at my chest, coldly stating that I was too dangerous to live. My lungs stopped, and I died in a pool of my own blood. But the endless blackness suddenly shattered. My consciousness violently forced its way into a new, broken shell. I woke up in a freezing alley, soaked in muddy rain.
This body belonged to seventeen-year-old Eliza Wyatt. A massive wave of foreign memories crashed into my brain. Her own younger sister had just stood at the top of the stairs with a mocking smile, watching street thugs beat Eliza to death.
"Take good care of the Wyatt family's eldest daughter. Tonight is the night she finally disappears."
The endless humiliation, the cold stares of her family, and the brutal betrayal by her own blood flashed before my eyes. Why was this fragile girl treated like garbage and pushed to her death by the very people who should have protected her?
I looked down at my pale, trembling hands. The top commander was dead, but in this bleeding shell, Eliza Wyatt was very much alive. I picked up a switchblade from the bloody puddle and stood up in the storm. It was time to hunt.
9.3
My husband Hudson had kept me a medicated ghost for three years, convinced I was unstable. But a cheap pink hair clip, tangled with golden blonde hair in his car, ripped through the chemical haze. The bitter pill he forced me to take wouldn't numb the burning truth, only fuel my awakening.
I was an architect once, but now I was just Cora, a docile wife trapped in his suffocating world. When he saw my shock, his concern was sickeningly sweet as he offered another Xanax. I pretended to swallow the poison, letting it dissolve under my tongue, a constant reminder of my awakening.
Back at the mansion, his massive car deliberately blocked mine, a crude barricade confirming his control. Then, a message from an old intern confirmed my darkest fears: this was domestic abuse. He urged me to check Hudson’s closet, to record everything.
I knew then I was living with a dangerous monster, and my denial shattered. The anger burned, fueled by the bitter taste of that undissolved pill.
That night, Hudson walked in, wearing a hideous, sloppily tied red polka-dot tie. It was a clear, undeniable sign of another woman. My architect’s mind was awake, cold and calculating. "Game on, Hudson." I would make him taste this bitterness back a thousand times.
7.3
While I was pregnant, my husband held a party downstairs for another woman's son.
Through a hidden mental link, I overheard my husband, Don Dante Rossi, tell his consigliere he was going to publicly reject me tomorrow. He planned to make his mistress, Serena, his new mate.
An act forbidden by ancient law while I carried his heir.
Later, Serena cornered me, her smile venomous. When Dante appeared, she shrieked, clawing her own arm and blaming me for the attack.
Dante didn't even look at me. He snarled a command that froze my body and stole my voice, ordering me from his sight as he cradled her.
He moved her and her son into our master suite. I was demoted to the guest room at the end of the hall.
Passing her open door, I saw him rocking her baby, humming the lullaby my own mother used to sing to me.
I heard him promise her, "Soon, my love. I'll sever the bond and give you the life you deserve."
The love I felt for him, the power I'd hidden for four years to protect his fragile ego, all turned to ice.
He thought I was a weak, powerless wife he could discard. He was about to find out that the woman he betrayed was Alessia De Luca, princess of the most powerful family on the continent.
And I was finally going home.
9.0
Carli followed an anonymous text to a dark garage, only to find her fiancé of seven years tangled with another woman in his Porsche.
She smashed his window, threw her engagement ring at his face, and walked away.
But the betrayal didn't stop there. Her own family sided with the cheater. Her father slapped her across the face so hard she bled, demanding she hand over her late aunt's trust fund.
"If you don't do exactly as you're told tonight, I will freeze every credit card in your name," her father roared.
Forced to attend the exclusive Gutierrez family gala, Carli watched her ex-fiancé parade his cheap mistress to humiliate her, while her stepsister tried to publicly ruin her.
Suddenly, a violent screech echoed as the massive crystal chandelier above them snapped from the ceiling.
In a split second of pure instinct, Vaughn shoved his mistress to safety and threw himself to the ground, completely abandoning Carli to be crushed.
Staring up at the plummeting glass, Carli felt the crushing reality that her entire life had been surrounded by monsters.
But the fatal impact never came.
A massive force yanked her into a hard chest, shielding her body entirely from the explosive shrapnel.
Carli opened her eyes to find Fletcher Gutierrez—the ruthless billionaire king of Wall Street and the masked stranger from her reckless one-night stand—bleeding heavily over her.
Feeling his warm blood on her hands, Carli knew the game had just changed.