I Am Not Your Pawn Anymore
Barrett handed me a Montblanc pen and a legal document, his voice as cold as the rain lashing against his Tribeca penthouse. He told me to sign an admission of guilt for an SEC violation I never committed.
"Eighteen months in prison, Anaya," he said, adjusting his cufflinks without looking at me. "The trust fund is set up. You'll get twenty million dollars the moment you step out."
I was being sold. The man I had loved for ten years, the man whose secrets I had kept, was trading my freedom to save his merger with Adele Townsend. He had scrubbed the digital logs of Adele’s illegal trades and pinned everything on me. When I refused, he didn't see my heartbreak; he only saw a malfunction in a business transaction.
"Do not speak her name," he hissed when I mentioned Adele’s fraud. "This merger is bigger than you."
He forced the pen into my hand, calling me dramatic while his security guards dragged me to a locked bedroom to "cool down." I spent three days parched and starving, listening to the muffled sound of champagne corks popping down the hall. They were celebrating my destruction. My heart finally gave out in that luxury cage, the darkness swallowing me as I realized I was nothing more than a disposable asset to him.
I died in that room, alone and betrayed by the person I trusted most. How could he do this? How could a decade of loyalty be worth less than a stock price? Why did I let him treat me like a sacrificial lamb for so long?
GASP. I shot up in bed, my lungs burning, but I wasn't in the penthouse. I was in my old, peeling Brooklyn apartment, and the date on my phone was May 12th—three years ago.
My phone buzzed with a text from Barrett: "Where are you? Bring the Townsend files. Now."
A cold, cruel smile touched my lips as I typed the reply that would start his nightmare.
"I quit."
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Chapter 3
The elevator doors to the executive floor of Meyers Media slid open with a soft ding.
Anaya stepped out.
The receptionist, a young girl named Sarah who usually greeted Anaya with a sympathetic smile, gasped.
Anaya wasn't wearing her usual uniform-the charcoal gray pencil skirt, the modest silk blouse, the low heels designed to make her shorter than Barrett.
Today, she wore red.
It was a dress she had bought years ago and never worn. Crimson, fitted, with a neckline that was professional but unapologetic. Her heels clicked sharply against the marble floor, a rhythm of war.
"Ms. Rowe?" Sarah stammered. "Mr. Meyers is... he's in a meeting. He said no interruptions."
"I'm not an interruption, Sarah," Anaya said, not breaking stride. "I'm a resignation."
She pushed open the double glass doors to the CEO's office without knocking.
The room was exactly as she remembered. The panoramic view of Manhattan. The modern art. And the two people who had ruined her life.
Barrett was sitting behind his desk, his face thunderous. He was staring at his phone-likely at her text message. He hadn't blocked her access yet; he probably thought it was a childish attempt to negotiate a raise. The arrogance.
Adele Townsend was perched on the edge of his desk, her legs crossed, leaning in close. She was laughing at something, her hand resting possessively on Barrett's shoulder.
The tableau was perfect.
The door slamming against the wall made them both jump.
Barrett looked up. His eyes widened when he saw her. For a second, he looked stunned-by the dress, by the intrusion, by the sheer fire radiating off her. Then, the familiar mask of irritation slammed down.
"Anaya," he barked, standing up. "What the hell is this? You turn off your phone? You send me a childish text? We have a merger to finalize."
Adele straightened up, smoothing her skirt. She gave Anaya a pitying, condescending smile. "Oh, Anaya. We were just talking about you. Barrett was just saying he thinks you might need some time off. You've been working so hard."
"A breakthrough," Anaya repeated, her voice steady and calm. "Not a breakdown."
She walked to the desk. She pulled her building access card and the key to the executive safe from her purse. She dropped them onto the glass surface. Clack. Clack.
"My resignation is effective immediately," Anaya said.
Barrett walked around the desk. He was tall, imposing. He used his physical presence to intimidate, looming over her.
"You can't quit," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "You signed a contract. You have a non-compete. And frankly, Anaya, you have nowhere else to go. This job is your life."
"Was," she corrected. She looked up at him. Really looked at him.
He was handsome, devastatingly so. But now, all she saw was the man who would lock her in a room to die. The man who would trade her for a stock price.
"I'm done, Barrett."
Adele let out a soft sigh. "Anaya, dear. I know this must be difficult. It's clear you have... strong feelings for Barrett. But we're all adults here. It would be a shame to let personal emotions derail a promising career."
Jealousy.
Anaya looked at Adele. The woman was beautiful, polished, and rotten to the core.
A laugh bubbled up in Anaya's chest. It started low and erupted into the room, loud and genuine. She laughed until her ribs ached. She laughed at the absurdity of it all.
Barrett and Adele exchanged a look of genuine confusion. They had expected tears. They had expected begging. They didn't know how to handle laughter.
Anaya wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Jealousy?" she said, shaking her head. "Adele, you can have him. You deserve each other. Truly. A matched set."
Adele's smile froze. Her face went rigid.
"Anaya!" Barrett shouted, slamming his hand on the desk.
Anaya turned on her heel. She walked toward the door, her red dress swishing around her legs.
"Wait," Barrett called out, stepping after her.
Adele grabbed his arm. "Darling, let her go. She's clearly unstable."
Anaya paused at the door. She didn't turn around. She spoke to the air, loud and clear.
"Barrett," she said. "Before you sign the final papers... you might want to audit the Townsend logistics subsidiary. Specifically the offshore accounts in the Caymans. Just a friendly tip."
The silence in the room was instantaneous and heavy.
It was the secret that had killed her in the last life. The embezzlement. The fraud Adele was hiding to inflate her company's value before the merger.
Anaya heard Adele's sharp intake of breath.
She opened the door and walked out.
As the elevator doors closed, she saw Barrett pulling his arm away from Adele, a look of suspicion dawning on his face.
Anaya stepped out into the lobby and out of the building. The sun hit her face. She took a deep breath. The air tasted like exhaust and hot asphalt, but to her, it tasted like freedom.
Her phone buzzed in her purse.
She glanced at it. Dad.
Earl Rowe. Calling for money. Just like clockwork.
The old panic flared for a second-the conditioned response to fix everything for everyone. Then, she remembered the plan.
She declined the call.
She raised her hand and hailed a yellow cab.
"Where to, lady?" the driver asked.
"The Hamptons," Anaya said.
She had one last stop before she disappeared. The company retreat was this weekend at Barrett's estate. Her passport and a stash of emergency cash were in the safe in the guest cottage she used to stay in.
She was going to get them. And she was going to burn the bridge so thoroughly that not even ashes would remain.
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9.5
Janice had seen Karl's affection and felt his betrayal.
On their anniversary, while she was in pain and bleeding, Karl left her on the street to see his lover.
She bore it and tricked him into signing the divorce papers. "I want you gone!"
After divorce, she reclaimed her status as a billionaire heiress, with her three brothers doting on her and making her a rich darling.
When Karl saw what he'd thrown, he regretted it. He tore up the divorce papers. "I don't agree to the divorce!"
Declan moved through high society as an untouchable man. Janice avoided him, but they kept meeting.
At a party, her ex harassed her. Declan came and saved her.
She thanked him, only for him to whisper, "Don't thank me. Marry me?"
***
9.8
Adeline's stepmother had secretly drugged her for years, turning a child genius into a drooling, mentally disabled laughingstock just so her stepsister could steal her life.
But when her greedy father sold her off to Griffin Herring—a violent, untouchable billionaire psychopath—to save his company, things took a deadly turn.
Before the wedding, Griffin attacked her in a dark alley, nearly snapping her neck before stealing her grandfather's silver necklace.
That necklace held a micro-drive with her family's deepest secrets, and without it, she had nothing.
Back at the estate, her situation only worsened. Her stepsister Damaris paraded around in the Herring family's diamond engagement gifts, trying to force-feed Adeline wet dog food on an Instagram live stream.
When Adeline's calculated "clumsiness" ruined the video, her furious father locked her in a damp, rusted basement.
"Give her to the psycho," her stepmother hissed through the door. "Let him lock her away forever."
Listening from the shadows, Adeline's fists clenched until her palms bled.
Her supposed mental fog wasn't a tragedy—it was a calculated assassination of her mind. They had destroyed her childhood and were now throwing her to a monster just to keep the billions.
The dull, empty look in Adeline's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a razor-sharp, chilling clarity.
She pulled a thin surgical needle from her messy bun and picked the heavy iron padlock in ten seconds. It was time to break into the billionaire's penthouse, take back her necklace, and tear them all apart.
7.9
Cora Foster was a brilliant archaeologist, but a jagged burn scar across her face made the world treat her like a contagious monster.
During an elite excavation of a Gilded Age crypt, touching an ancient artifact triggered a terrifying memory. She remembered being Seraphina Beaumont, a socialite brutally buried alive by her vain, cruel sister, Isolde.
When the team pried open the crypt's pristine mahogany casket, they cheered, believing the mummified corpse inside was Seraphina. But Cora recognized the onyx hairpin and the angular jawline. It was Isolde. The sister who had stolen her life, mocked her agony, and left her to suffocate in the dark. Her colleagues scoffed at her forensic proof, dismissing her as a scarred, delusional liability.
Worse, the ruthless billionaire funding the expedition, Julian Montgomery, was the spitting image of Alistair—the man Seraphina had deeply loved. Why was Julian staring at her ruined face with such intense, inexplicable recognition? And why did Isolde take Seraphina's most precious silver ring to the grave?
Driven by a century of agonizing grief, Cora secretly pried the tarnished ring from the mummy's stiff, dead fingers and dropped it into her pocket.
"What are you looking at, Foster?"
Julian's deep voice vibrated inches from her ear, his cold, predatory eyes locked directly onto her half-open pocket.
7.4
In my past life, I swallowed a handful of pills because my billionaire husband, Holt, treated me like invisible decoration, and my ex-lover, Cary, promised me a way out.
But as I lay choking on my own vomit in a burning Brooklyn warehouse, the brutal truth was finally revealed.
Cary was just using me to drain Holt's assets, and the mastermind behind my tragic downfall was my best friend of ten years, Lilith.
She had spent years feeding my insecurities, convincing me that suicide was my only escape, just so she could use my death to humiliate my husband and steal his empire.
When Holt rushed into the flames to save me, they shot him dead. His blood soaked my dress as Cary and Lilith walked away with everything we owned.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand it.
Why did my best friend want me dead? Who were the shadowy backers funding their betrayal, and why did they hate my husband so much?
Opening my eyes again, I was back in my bedroom, the lethal pills still sitting on my nightstand.
The pathetic, weeping socialite died in that fire.
I calmly flushed the pills down the toilet, opened my laptop to awaken my hidden intelligence network, and prepared to destroy them all.
7.1
I worked eighty-hour weeks on Wall Street just to keep my sick brother alive, enduring endless humiliation from the wealthy family that adopted us.
But when I went to surprise my boyfriend of three years, I found him kissing my spoiled adoptive sister, Tatum.
They were celebrating their engagement to merge their powerful families.
To keep me quiet, my adoptive mother, Eleanor, threatened to freeze my brother's medical trust fund unless I attended the party to play the supportive sister.
Instead, I discovered Eleanor had been embezzling from my brother's life-saving fund to cover her own bad investments.
The nightmare worsened when a drunken Ryder cornered me in my apartment stairwell.
"Once I marry Tatum, Eleanor is giving me control of Liam's trust fund to buy out my father's board members."
He planned to drain my brother's medical money, dump Tatum, and keep me as his mistress.
For a decade, I suffered their abuse hoping for a shred of decency, only to realize they were plotting to leave my brother to die on the streets for corporate greed.
Calling the police wouldn't stop these billionaires. I needed absolute power.
Remembering the dark, predatory gaze of Jaren Jarvis—the ruthless billionaire who had watched me fight back at the party—I canceled my call to 911.
If they wanted to destroy my only family, I was going to use the devil himself to crush theirs.
7.4
For five years, I abandoned my status as the heiress of the powerful Montgomery family to play the role of a poor, submissive housewife for Barrett.
Then, a bank notification popped up on my phone. Barrett had forged my digital signature and transferred our entire $50 million joint trust fund to a woman named Crista Reid.
When I called his boardroom to confront him, he humiliated me in front of a dozen Wall Street executives.
"Stop acting like a hysterical housewife. You're living in a penthouse I pay for, so don't embarrass yourself."
I broke into his encrypted laptop and uncovered the sickening truth. Crista was his mistress, and they had a five-year-old son together.
Barrett hadn't just stolen my money; he had spent years painting me as a helpless charity case he rescued, completely erasing the fact that my financial models built his entire company.
He thought I was just a discarded peasant he could manipulate, cheat on, and replace. He truly believed he held absolute power over my life.
He had no idea that I still possessed the highest security clearance of the Montgomery empire.
I pulled an old BlackBerry from a hidden wall compartment, plugged it in, and dialed my family's lawyer.
"Draft the prenup for Commodore Clayton IV," I ordered, choosing to marry Wall Street's most ruthless predator. "I'm done playing the peasant."