Left To Burn: The Heiress's Ruthless Comeback
Trapped in a deadly fire at my own engagement party, my lungs burned as I reached a shaking hand out to my fiancé for help.
He stopped and looked right at me through the thick smoke. But instead of saving me, he wrapped his jacket tightly around my stepsister and ran, leaving me to burn.
I barely survived. But when I woke up in the hospital, my father and stepmother didn't even ask about my injuries.
They threw a stack of legal documents right onto my bed.
"Sign the papers, Avah. Step aside. Jaclyn is far better suited to be Kain's wife."
My fiancé then stormed into the room, publicly humiliating me with false rumors of an illegitimate child and threatening to bankrupt my company.
Four years of swallowing my pride to be the perfect, obedient pawn for our family business, all for nothing.
They threw me to the wolves without a single second of hesitation, expecting me to just lower my head and cry like I always did.
But the fire had burned that pathetic version of me away.
I ripped out my IV, letting the blood drip onto the sheets, and tore their contracts straight down the middle.
"The engagement is over."
I threw my million-dollar ring right at my ex's chest, then picked up the phone to call my trust lawyer. They wanted to take everything from me, so I was going to make them bleed.
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Chapter 4
Atticus's broad chest was inches from Avah's shoulder. The intense, predatory heat radiating from his body made her hold her breath.
He didn't touch Avah. Instead, his large hand accurately grasped the back of Leo's collar.
"I apologize for my son's intrusion," Atticus said. His voice was a low, magnetic rumble that vibrated in the small space between them.
He stood up straight, holding the boy. "I am a representative of the hotel where the fire occurred. I am here to handle the aftermath for the injured guests."
The moment Avah heard the word "hotel," the warmth in her eyes vanished. Her expression turned to frost. Any sympathy she felt for the man evaporated.
"I don't need your compensation," Avah said coldly, her voice flat. "I just want you both to leave my room. Now."
Atticus raised a dark eyebrow. He seemed slightly surprised by the sharp thorns she suddenly aimed at him.
Leo, dangling from his father's grip, kicked his little legs in the air. "No! Don't leave Mommy!" he cried out in protest.
Desperate to end this chaotic encounter, Avah threw off the thin hospital blanket and swung her legs over the side of the bed to show them out herself.
The moment her bare foot hit the floor, a blinding, agonizing pain shot up from her sprained ankle.
Avah lost her balance instantly. She pitched forward, a sharp gasp escaping her throat as the floor rushed up to meet her.
Atticus reacted with terrifying speed. With Leo tucked under one arm, his free hand shot out and clamped firmly around Avah's slender waist. The sudden exertion caused a violent, barely perceptible flinch in his broad shoulders. Beneath the crisp fabric of his left sleeve, the raw, blistering tissue of a severe, fresh burn pulled taut, sending a blinding spike of agony up his arm. But his grip remained absolute.
Even through the thin cotton of her hospital gown, Avah could feel the scorching heat of his large palm burning against her skin.
She looked up in panic. Her lips nearly brushed against his sharp jawline. Their breaths tangled together in the tight space.
Atticus's blue eyes darkened like a stormy sea. Without a word, he tightened his grip and effortlessly lifted her entire body off the floor.
The sudden weightlessness made Avah's stomach drop. Her hands flew up, instinctively grabbing the lapels of his dark suit jacket to steady herself.
Right at that highly intimate moment, the door to the hospital room was shoved open violently from the outside. Taking advantage of a brief shift change at the security desk, and aggressively flashing his VIP Hopkins family credentials to intimidate the floor nurses, Kain stood in the doorway. He had returned to do his superficial duty of checking on his fiancée after settling Jaclyn.
Kain's eyes immediately locked onto the sight of Atticus holding Avah tightly against his chest.
His handsome face twisted into an ugly mask of pure jealousy and rage. His skin turned a mottled red.
Kain stormed into the room, pointing a shaking finger directly at Avah's face. His voice dripped with acid.
"Did you really just get dumped and immediately spread your legs for some bottom-tier hotel employee?" Kain spat.
At the words "bottom-tier employee," Atticus's sharp jawline instantly tightened. A chilling, dangerous glint flashed deep within his eyes, completely imperceptible to the hysterical man before him, but his surface expression remained an impenetrable, stoic mask.
Atticus didn't put Avah down. Instead, he pulled her closer against his chest, adopting a highly possessive, protective stance as he faced Kain.
Avah was thoroughly disgusted by Kain's shamelessness. She struggled against Atticus's chest. "Put me down," she demanded through gritted teeth.
Atticus gently lowered her onto the edge of the mattress and carefully pulled the blanket over her legs.
Kain watched this tender exchange, his blood boiling. He lunged forward, raising his hands to shove Atticus out of the way.
Atticus merely shifted his weight. His right hand shot out, grabbing Kain's wrist, deliberately keeping his injured left arm shielded. Ignoring the fierce throb radiating from beneath his sleeve, he moved with a brutal, fluid motion, and twisted it hard.
A loud crack echoed. Kain let out a pathetic scream of agony. He stumbled backward, his legs tangling, and crashed hard into the leather visitor's sofa.
Atticus stood over him, looking down with eyes as cold as a glacier. "Watch your boundaries," he warned, his voice a lethal whisper.
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9.0
My fiancé, Connor, and I had a one-year pact. I'd work undercover as a junior developer in the company we co-founded, while he, the CEO, built our empire.
The pact ended the day he ordered me to apologize to the woman who was systematically destroying my life.
It happened during his most important investor pitch. He was on video call when he demanded I publicly humiliate myself for his "special guest," Jaden. This was after she'd already scalded my hand with hot coffee and faced zero consequences.
He chose her. In front of everyone, he chose a manipulative bully over our company's integrity, our employees' dignity, and me, his fiancée.
His eyes on the screen demanded my submission.
"Apologize to Jaden. Now."
I took a step forward, held up my burned hand for the camera, and made a call of my own.
"Dad," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "It's time to dissolve the partnership."
8.6
For years, Elvera lived as the despised charity case in the cramped Wright household.
When she caught her foster sister Donita straddling her fiancé, they didn't even panic. Instead, they loudly framed Elvera for stealing a diamond necklace to justify kicking her out.
Her foster parents immediately sided with the cheaters, screaming at her to pack her trash and starve in the gutters. Only her dying foster brother tried to sneak her his medical savings, but the family violently shoved him away, mocking him as a walking corpse.
Standing in the freezing Brooklyn wind, Donita and Crockett followed her outside just to laugh. They waved a crisp twenty-dollar bill in her face, mocking her biological family as a bunch of unemployed street thugs.
They really thought she was going to freeze to death on the pavement with nothing but a faded backpack.
But then a roaring, matte-black supercar pulled up.
The man who stepped out wasn't a street thug; he was her real brother, an FBI task force commander.
He effortlessly snapped Crockett's shoulder out of its socket, put Elvera in the passenger seat, and drove her straight to a sprawling billionaire estate in the Hamptons.
Sitting by the fire in her biological parents' palace, watching them casually display an eight-million-dollar sculpture she had secretly designed, the head butler suddenly walked in.
"Sir, the fake heiress has returned from Europe."
Elvera took a slow sip of her coffee. The real game was finally about to begin.
7.5
I am the biological daughter of the wealthy Fitzpatrick family, but I spent my childhood eating out of dumpsters.
When I was finally brought back to the estate at age seven, I thought I would experience my parents' love.
Instead, my biological parents looked at my dirty clothes with raw disgust. They only cared about Hallie, the fake daughter who lived like a princess.
The moment I walked in, Hallie hurled a heavy ceramic cup at my head, slicing my hand open.
"Get out of my house!"
My father didn't even look at the blood. He raised his hand to strike me, accusing me of bringing trailer park rules into his home.
In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged for their forgiveness. I endured their abuse, hoping they would eventually love me.
But they let the maids humiliate me, let Hallie steal my identity, and eventually threw me back onto the streets to die. Even my playboy Uncle Byron, the only person who ever showed me mercy, was driven to suicide by them.
I didn't understand why my own flesh and blood hated me so much, or why a vicious liar deserved everything while I was treated like a jinx.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the exact day I first returned to the estate.
As my father raised his hand to hit me, I didn't cower.
Instead, I looked at the family patriarch and pointed directly at my notorious, alcoholic uncle.
"I want him to be my new guardian."
7.9
In my past life, I was the naive surrogate who fell desperately in love with Karson King, an untouchable Wall Street billionaire.
I thought my blind devotion would earn me a place in his family. Instead, his cruel mother forced me to sign away my parental rights to my three-year-old daughter.
I was locked in a dark, freezing basement. I watched helplessly as his arrogant relatives tormented my child, pushing her down a flight of marble stairs and shattering her tiny arm.
When we finally died in a horrific car crash, my face covered in blood amidst the shattered glass, Karson didn't shed a single tear. To him, my death was just the convenient erasure of a cheap mistake.
I sacrificed my dignity for his approval, but they treated us worse than stray dogs. Why did my innocent daughter have to pay the ultimate price for their ruthless arrogance?
Opening my eyes again, the harsh glare of a massive crystal chandelier pierced my vision. I was back in the grand foyer of the King estate, exactly five years ago.
"Sign it. You are nothing but a gold digger."
My soon-to-be mother-in-law slammed the thick legal contract onto the marble table, demanding I give up my daughter.
This time, the paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by absolute, icy clarity.
I didn't cower. I picked up the pen, looked right at the billionaire who despised me, and prepared to manipulate his entire empire.
8.6
Aubree pushed Ezra down the grand staircase, crippling the only man who silently protected her.
She thought she was finally escaping his control to be with her true love, Foster Newton.
But she had no idea it was a vicious trap meticulously set by Newton and her sweet, innocent cousin, Brandi.
Once Ezra was driven out of New York in despair, Aubree's life became a living hell. Her father completely disowned her. Brandi smoothly took over her home and her millions in inheritance.
"You were just a stepping stone for us, Aubree."
That was the last thing Newton sneered before leaving her to die.
Lying on the freezing floor, her warm blood pooling in her palms, Aubree finally saw the horrifying truth. She had destroyed her own family and ruined the one man who genuinely cared for her, all for a pair of greedy parasites.
Endless regret and suffocating hatred consumed her fading consciousness. Why was she so blind? Why did she let them manipulate her into destroying her own life?
Then, her eyes snapped open.
A violent wave of dizziness hit her. She looked down at her pale, flawless hands. There were no deep cuts. There was no sticky blood.
She was back. She had miraculously returned to the exact night she pushed Ezra, just two hours before his private jet was scheduled to leave forever.
Hearing her father's furious roar outside her bedroom door, Aubree didn't cower.
She wiped the smeared makeup from her face, her eyes turning dead cold. This time, she was going to make Ezra stay, and she was going to send those leeches straight to hell.
8.5
I was supposed to marry Aaron, the future Alpha of the Blackwood Pack, and finally have my fairy tale.
But right before our Unity Celebration, I caught him buried between my stepsister's legs in our bridal suite.
When I refused to bind my soul to his at the altar and exposed his betrayal, my world completely shattered.
My own mother called me a crazy, wolfless bitch and disowned me on the spot for ruining a political alliance.
Aaron publicly humiliated me, screaming that as a wolfless Omega, I should have been on my knees thanking him for the chance to be his breeding mare.
Driven to absolute despair by the betrayal of everyone I trusted, I tried to jump off a freezing roof.
But a pair of strong arms pulled me back from the edge.
In the dark, a stranger consumed my grief, wrapping me in a terrifyingly dominant scent of cedar and leather, making me feel an intoxicating mate bond I thought I was incapable of having.
I thought it was just a desperate, one-night mistake to make me forget.
But the next morning, when I went to the Blackwood estate to return Aaron's gifts and leave as a Rogue, a suffocating aura filled the room.
The man who stepped between me and my furious ex-fiancé, the man whose marks were currently hidden beneath my clothes, stared at me with glowing golden eyes.
"Get your hands off her."
He was Kaelon Blackwood. The supreme Alpha King.
Aaron's father.
And he had just locked the door, declaring that I belonged to him.