Married To My Ex's Ruthless Uncle
My father was dying in the ICU, and our family company, the Martin Group, was on the verge of total collapse.
While I was desperately trying to sign the consent form for his life-saving surgery, my fiancé, Eston, sent me a text.
"I told you not to be stubborn. The company is mine by Friday. Beg me, and I might pay for the funeral."
He had been secretly looting my family's assets from the inside, waiting for me to break so he could steal everything. He thought I would crawl back to him in absolute despair, surrendering my father's legacy just to survive. The sheer weight of my helplessness crushed my chest as the heart monitor next to my father's bed let out a frantic, high-pitched scream.
The betrayal tore through me, but the despair quickly hardened into a cold, sharp stone.
Why should I let the man who ruined me dance on my family's grave? Why should I let him walk away with everything while I lost the only family I had left?
I wiped away my tears and blocked his number permanently.
Then, I stepped out into the freezing Manhattan rain and went straight to the top floor of the Maxwell building.
I threw my remaining shares onto the desk of Ellwood Maxwell—the apex predator of Wall Street, and Eston's untouchable, ruthless uncle.
"I want you to marry me," Ellwood said, pushing a marriage contract toward me. "That is the only way your company survives."
I picked up the pen. If Eston wanted to destroy my life, I would become his aunt and make him bow.
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Chapter 5
Audriana backed up until her bare heels hit the cold, wet stone of the fountain. There was nowhere left to go.
"Get away from me, Eston," she ordered, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to keep it steady.
Eston laughed. It was an ugly, wet sound. He swung one crutch out and hooked the rubber-padded curve of it around her waist, yanking her off balance. As she stumbled toward him, his free hand shot out and grabbed her bare shoulder, his fingers digging painfully into her skin. "You think you're so smart, playing hard to get? You just wanted his money!"
Bile rose in Audriana's throat. She twisted her body violently, bringing her right hand up and smashing the heel of her shoe directly into Eston's chest.
Eston grunted in pain, but the alcohol numbed him. He ripped the shoe from her hand and flung it sideways. The heel skipped across the stone and plopped into the fountain water. He grabbed both of her wrists, pinning them against her sides.
He leaned down, trying to force his mouth onto hers. Audriana snapped her head to the side. His wet lips dragged across her cheek, leaving a trail of disgusting saliva.
Audriana brought her knee up, driving it hard into his stomach.
Eston's crutches clattered to the ground. His hands let go of her wrists. He collapsed forward, his palms barely catching the edge of the fountain to keep his face from smashing into the stone. He gasped for air, but one hand still clawed up, seizing her wrist again.
Audriana opened her mouth to scream.
Before a sound could escape her lips, a massive hand shot out from the darkness. Long, thick fingers wrapped around the back of Eston's collar.
With a terrifying surge of brute strength, the hand yanked Eston backward. He was ripped off his feet. His braced leg twisted at an unnatural angle and his crutches spun away as he crashed heavily onto the manicured grass.
Ellwood stepped into the moonlight. His face was a mask of pure, murderous fury. The air around him felt thick enough to choke on.
Audriana's legs gave out. She slid down the side of the fountain, her breathing erratic.
Ellwood closed the distance in two strides. He dropped to his knees and pulled her tightly against his chest. The familiar, clean scent of cedarwood hit her senses. The tension in her body snapped. Hot tears flooded her eyes, spilling down her cheeks.
Ellwood felt her shaking. The muscles in his arms bunched. He stripped off his suit jacket and wrapped it tightly around her bare shoulders.
Eston groaned, rolling onto his side. He looked up, squinting through the pain. "Uncle… she seduced me…"
Ellwood let go of Audriana. He stood up slowly. The sound of his leather shoes crushing the grass was the only noise in the garden.
He didn't say a word. He walked over to Eston, pulled his foot back, and kicked him squarely in the face.
The sickening crunch of bone breaking echoed loudly. Eston screamed, clutching his shattered nose as blood poured through his fingers.
Ellwood lifted his foot and pressed the sole of his shoe down hard on Eston's chest, pinning him to the dirt.
He leaned down. His voice was a demonic whisper. "You touch what is mine, and you die."
Eston sobbed, his body convulsing in terror. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Flashlight beams cut through the darkness. Three estate security guards ran over, freezing in horror when they saw the scene.
Ellwood slowly turned his head to look at them. "Drag this garbage to Frances's room. Tell her to leash her dog."
The guards nodded frantically, grabbing Eston by the arms and dragging him away into the shadows. One of them scooped up the abandoned crutches and hurried after the others.
The garden fell silent again.
Ellwood walked back to Audriana. He crouched down. He pulled a clean white handkerchief from his pocket. With rough but controlled movements, he wiped the side of her face where Eston had touched her. He rubbed the skin until it turned pink, erasing every trace of the other man.
He stopped, his dark eyes locking onto her red, tear-filled ones.
Audriana thought he was going to yell at her for causing a scene. Instead, he slid one arm under her knees and the other behind her back. He lifted her effortlessly into his arms.
She gasped, her hands instinctively grabbing his broad shoulders.
"We are going home," he muttered against her hair.
He carried her through a side gate, avoiding the main ballroom, and walked straight to a waiting black Lincoln parked in the rear driveway.
The driver opened the door. Ellwood placed her gently on the leather seat and climbed in beside her. The privacy partition immediately rolled up, sealing them in a quiet, dark box.
Audriana pulled his jacket tighter around herself. She looked at his sharp profile in the dim light. "Thank you," she whispered.
Ellwood didn't look at her. He picked up a bottle of water, opened it, and handed it to her. "You are my wife. Protecting you is my obligation."
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8.6
In my past life, the Cerberus strain leaked, turning the world into a blood-soaked hell of rotting flesh and mutated monsters.
I thought my boyfriend Declan and my best friend Hailee would have my back as we fled the quarantine zone.
Instead, when the surging crowd of the infected cornered us, they didn't hesitate.
They shoved me backward into the horde just to buy themselves three seconds to run.
As I fell into the mud, I saw them fleeing without a single backward glance.
"She's dead weight anyway!" Hailee screamed.
"Just keep running, she'll distract them!" Declan yelled back.
I was torn apart, feeling the agonizing tear of rotting teeth sinking into my neck and the hot spray of my own blood.
Before the apocalypse, my greedy uncle had locked away my ten-million-dollar trust fund, leaving me with nothing but a fake boyfriend who only wanted me for my money.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand how the people I loved most could trade my life for a head start.
Why did I blindly trust them? Why didn't I see through their perfectly choreographed lies?
Opening my eyes again, the stench of decaying flesh vanished, replaced by the sterile smell of my college dorm room.
Hailee and Declan were standing over my bed, faking tears of concern over my meningitis fever.
I was back exactly seven days before the world ended, and my spatial vault ability had come back with me.
This time, I'm extorting my uncle for every cent, hoarding the city's supplies, and leaving them all to rot.
9.3
She sells flowers. He spills blood. And he will stop at nothing to make her his. Elena Rossi has always lived quietly among roses and lilies, dreaming of love as gentle as the petals she arranges. She thought she found it in Daniel, the man she planned to marry. Until her wedding day when a dangerous stranger walked into the church and shattered everything. Adrian Volkov is a king in the underworld, a man feared for his ruthlessness and power. But to him, Elena is not just a prize. She is an obsession. A storm he cannot live without. And he will burn the world and anyone in it, to claim her. Torn from the life she knew, Elena resists him, manipulates him, and even runs from him. But Adrian is relentless. His love is dark, his touch both punishing and tender, and his obsession inescapable. When betrayal and bloodshed close in, Elena must face the truth: She doesn't just fear him. She doesn't just hate him. She loves him. Petals and Blood is a haunting, passionate tale of obsession, betrayal, and the dangerous kind of love that blooms in shadows.
9.2
She loved him until she lost herself.
Now, behind locked doors and shattered glass, she must learn to breathe again.
When she first met Lloyd, he was magnetic and intoxicating. The kind of man who turned every head when he entered a room, who spoke in promises sweet enough to taste. With him, she felt chosen, cherished, and safe.
But safety was an illusion, and love became a weapon.
And slowly, piece by piece, he dismantled her until nothing of the woman she once was remained.
Now institutionalized after a breakdown, she begins to piece together the brutal truth of what really happened in the shadows of their love story. Memories sting like open wounds: the manipulation disguised as tenderness, the apologies that blurred into threats, the desperate hope that tomorrow he'd be the man she fell for again.
Yet beneath the grief and the shame, a quiet rebellion stirs, a vow to reclaim her voice, her freedom, and her life. Because this is not just a story of how she fell apart. It is a story of how she rises.
Haunting, raw, and achingly intimate, Boys like him peels back the glittering mask of a toxic love affair to reveal the kind of darkness that hides in plain sight, and the unbreakable strength it takes to escape it.
8.7
For seven years, I was Alpha Zane’s Chosen Mate, suppressing my warrior instincts to be the docile, supportive partner he demanded.
On our seventh anniversary, while I waited by a candlelit table, I accidentally overheard his mind-link with another woman.
"Seven years is a habit, my dear, not love. She's docile, she'll understand."
He told Seraphina, his new political ally, laughing as he dismissed my entire existence.
I didn't scream or cry. I scraped the anniversary cake into the trash, drafted a formal rejection letter, and walked out of the packhouse.
But Zane didn't even notice my departure. He was so consumed by his new lover that my rejection letter was treated as garbage and tossed into the incinerator.
He paraded Seraphina around the pack, even handing my hard-earned strategic command over to her—a woman who knew absolutely nothing about war.
When my loyal subordinates protested, he violently suppressed them, declaring my absence a "childish tantrum" and framing me as the bitter obstacle to his destined romance.
He honestly thought I was just hiding in my room, waiting to beg for his charity and accept a humiliating demotion.
He had no idea that I had already crossed the border into enemy territory.
Tonight, I am attending his grand celebration.
Not as the heartbroken mate he discarded, but as the newly appointed Gamma of his deadliest rival, the Sterling Pack.
7.4
Clara Davis was trained to seduce, deceive, and destroy.
Her mission is simple: infiltrate billionaire Jeffery Rothwell's life, gain his trust, and help seize his empire in exchange for the freedom she has always craved.
But the deeper she slips into his dangerous world, the more the lines between mission and desire begin to blur. Falling for him was never part of the plan and neither was discovering that the man she was sent to manipulate may not be the real Jeffery at all.
Now trapped in a deadly web of obsession, power, and hidden identities. Clara is caught between the organization that owns her, the monster who remade her, and a love that has turned into vengeance. Clara must survive a man who sees everything, controls everything, and may be far more dangerous than the organization that created her.
Because in this game of seduction and revenge, love might be the deadliest trap of all.
9.5
"You shouldn't be here, Fiona," his deep voice rasped against her ear, his hand still pressed against the wall behind her.
"Then tell me to leave," she whispered, her lips trembling inches from his. He didn't move. He didn't breathe. And in that moment, she knew he wanted her just as much as she wanted him.
Fiona Harry has lived her whole life in a golden cage of wealth, reputation, and suffocating rules. University was supposed to be her escape, her first taste of freedom. But nothing could prepare her for the moment she came face-to-face with Professor Jalen Hart, her father's best friend. One reckless night changes everything. A drunken mistake turns into an irresistible obsession, pulling her deeper into Jalen's forbidden world. But secrets don't stay hidden forever. Between Jude, her possessive friend who knows too much, Marian, Jalen's wicked wife, and the dangerous power of desire, Fiona is about to risk not only hers and her family's reputation but her entire future.
And what happens when the truth comes out especially to Marian?