Married to the Coldest Media King
My father was the King of Wall Street until he was branded a fraud, turning the Maxwell name into a lead weight dragging me to the bottom of the Hudson. I walked into the Brennan Media Tower with blood-red lipstick and a desperate proposal, offering myself as a "paper wife" to Garland Brennan, the coldest billionaire in Manhattan.
Garland didn’t even look at me as a human being; he tore my term sheet in half and called me "radioactive" before having security toss me out like trash. I returned to my rotting apartment in Bushwick only to find my roommate’s cousin, a debt collector named Jax, waiting to break my bones.
He pinned me against the wall, his hand heavy on my throat as he sneered about selling me to a club to pay off my father's debts. With my ribs aching and my back against the radiator, I had to leak corporate secrets on Twitter just to summon Garland’s private mercenaries to stop a predator.
The humiliation didn't stop there. At the Met Gala, the elite mocked my dress made of construction tarp, and my father’s creditors began harassing my senile grandmother in her nursing home. I was a cornered animal, and Garland Brennan was the only hunter offering a cage instead of a grave.
I realized then that in this zip code, you are either the predator or the prey, and I was tired of being hunted.
Garland offered me a marriage contract that demanded total submission—no equity, no voting rights, just an employee with a wedding ring. I signed the four-hundred-page document with a steady hand, but not before hiding a legal poison pill in the fine print. He thinks he bought a silent asset, but I just secured a front-row seat to his downfall.
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Chapter 3
The banging started at dawn. It wasn't a knock; it was a battering ram. The entire apartment frame shook with the force of it.
Dylan woke with a gasp, her hand instantly closing around the box cutter under her pillow. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
Tara's voice drifted from the living room, high-pitched and sickeningly sweet. Jax! Cousin Jax! You're early!
Heavy boots stomped on the floorboards. The smell of stale cigarette smoke and cheap cologne seeped under Dylan's door before the man even appeared.
Where is she? a voice growled. It sounded like gravel in a blender.
In there, Tara said. She's hiding. She says she doesn't have the money.
The doorknob to Dylan's room rattled violently. Then, a heavy boot kicked the wood right next to the lock. The cheap pine splintered. The door flew open, banging against the wall.
Jax Kowalski filled the doorway. He was massive, wearing a tight leather jacket that strained against his shoulders and a thick gold chain that nestled in his chest hair. His eyes were bloodshot.
Well, look at this, Jax sneered, stepping into the room. The Princess of Park Avenue.
Dylan scrambled backward on the bed, pressing her spine against the cold wall. She held the box cutter up, her thumb on the slider, extending the blade with a sharp click.
Get out, she warned, her voice trembling but loud. This is breaking and entering.
Jax laughed. He looked at the blade like it was a toothpick. You gonna cut me, sweetheart? With that?
He moved fast for a big man. He lunged forward, grabbing Dylan's wrist before she could slash. He squeezed, his grip crushing the delicate bones.
Dylan cried out, the box cutter falling from her numb fingers to the mattress.
Jax backhanded her.
The slap was thunderous. Dylan's head snapped to the side, her cheekbone colliding with the wall. Stars exploded in her vision. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears.
She slumped onto the mattress, dazed. Jax grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head back, forcing her to look at him.
You owe me two months' rent plus interest, he spat, his face inches from hers. You don't have cash? Fine. You can work it off at the club. I got customers who pay extra for a girl with a pedigree.
Tara stood in the doorway, her arms crossed. She looked nervous now, biting her lip. Jax, maybe just take her jewelry...
Shut up, Tara! Jax roared.
He let go of Dylan's hair to unbuckle his belt.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through Dylan's concussion. She kicked out, her heel connecting with Jax's knee. He grunted and stumbled back a step.
Dylan rolled off the bed and scrambled toward the bathroom.
Get back here! Jax yelled.
She threw herself into the tiny bathroom and slammed the door, turning the lock just as Jax's body slammed against it from the other side. The wood groaned.
Dylan backed away, hyperventilating. She looked around. No window. No exit. Just a toilet, a sink, and a hamper full of dirty clothes.
The door shuddered under another blow. Open up, bitch! Or I'll break your legs!
She dug frantically into the hamper, tossing clothes aside until her fingers brushed cold metal. Her backup phone. It was an old iPhone 6 with a cracked screen, no SIM card, only Wi-Fi.
She turned it on. The battery was at 8%.
She tried to text Sloane, her best friend, but the message failed. No signal in the bathroom. The Wi-Fi bar flickered-one bar, then nothing.
Boom. The door hinge buckled.
Dylan's hands shook so hard she almost dropped the phone. She opened Twitter. It was the only app that seemed to load on the spotty connection.
She didn't have Garland's number. She didn't have Javion's. She had nothing.
She typed furiously, her thumbs slipping on the glass.
@BrennanGroup SOS. 442 Knickerbocker Ave, Apt 4B. Hostage situation. Your competitor, Vanguard Consolidated, will love this story. Help.
She hit send. The loading circle spun. Round and round.
Please, she whispered. Please.
The circle stopped. Sent.
In the boardroom of Brennan Media, forty floors above Manhattan, a projector displayed quarterly earnings. Garland sat at the head of the table, his face unreadable.
His assistant, Carter, walked into the room. Carter never interrupted meetings. He walked straight to Garland and placed a tablet on the table.
The AI sentiment analysis flagged this, sir. High priority. It mentions Vanguard.
Garland looked down. He saw the tweet. He saw the address. He saw the name of his chief rival.
His face didn't change, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. This wasn't a damsel in distress. This was a potential information leak. A liability he was monitoring was about to become a public spectacle linked to his biggest corporate enemy. He stood up abruptly. The chair scraped loudly against the floor.
Meeting adjourned, Garland said.
But sir, the merger- a board member protested.
Garland ignored him. He looked at Carter.
"Get our private security contractor on the line. I want a team on-site in five minutes. This is an asset containment issue. No sirens, no police. Handle it quietly. And get me a live feed from the surveillance team outside."
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8.9
I was tossed into a dark alley like rotting garbage, bleeding and grieving the child I had just lost.
When I was finally brought back to my fiancé Angelo's penthouse, instead of comfort, I was met with absolute disgust.
His family declared me "unclean" after the kidnapping. Angelo coldly announced he was burying the scandal by marrying my sweet, innocent cousin, Carissa.
When we were alone, Carissa stood over my bed, her voice dripping with venomous delight.
"My father arranged the kidnapping. And now, Angelo and I can finally be together."
Before I could react, she forced a silver letter opener into my hand, deliberately stabbed her own shoulder, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Angelo stormed in, struck me across the face, and gathered a sobbing Carissa into his arms, looking at me with absolute revulsion.
The family matriarch appeared at the door, her cold eyes sweeping over the scene before she gave a chilling order to the maids.
"Clean this up."
They pinned me down and brutally drove the blade directly into my chest.
I choked on my own blood, staring at the man who had promised me the world as he turned his back, calling my murder a "mercy."
As my heart beat its final agonizing rhythm, I made a silent vow to the shadows that if there was a next life, I would have my vendetta.
When I opened my eyes again, there was no blood, only the soft silk of my nightgown.
I had returned to the day before my eighteenth birthday.
This time, I wouldn't play the desperate victim. I was going to ally with the Devil of Chicago and burn them all to the ground.
8.9
I sold myself into a loveless marriage for $500,000 just to afford my little niece's life-saving surgery.
But my new husband, Kash, despised me, completely convinced I was a shameless gold-digger after his assets.
At 2:00 AM, he called to demand I fulfill my end of our twisted bargain: giving him an heir.
He forced me to sign a supplementary agreement surrendering all custody rights before I was even pregnant, treating me like a rented womb he bought at auction.
When my niece's condition suddenly worsened and I desperately begged him for a $50,000 advance, he hurled a black credit card directly at my face, leaving a stinging red welt.
"Take the money and get out," he sneered, his eyes filled with absolute disgust.
He immediately set up real-time transaction alerts to track my every purchase, waiting to catch me on a selfish shopping spree.
He thought I was a parasite, completely unaware that every single penny went straight to the pediatric intensive care unit.
Even my abusive former guardians cornered me at the fertility clinic, loudly mocking me for selling my body while my niece was dying.
I endured the degrading contracts, the cold IVF appointments, and Kash's relentless contempt, suffocating under the weight of his cruel assumptions.
Why did he have to strip away my dignity when he already owned my life on paper?
But as I clutched the hospital receipt that finally secured my niece's surgery, the fear inside me died.
With a new career starting tomorrow and a high-powered lawyer suddenly stepping in to audit my stolen inheritance, I was done playing the helpless victim.
I was going to show my arrogant husband exactly what happens when you push a desperate woman too far.
9.3
For three years, Evelyn Harper was the perfect invisible wife, brilliant architect who anonymously poured revolutionary designs into her cold CEO husband Alexander Knight's company, building his billion-dollar empire while being dismissed as useless by him and his family.
When he hands her divorce papers expecting tears, she signs with a calm smile and walks away taking back her genius.
What Alexander never knew: every award-winning project, every stock surge, every headline praising his vision was hers.
Now, as Elara Voss, Evelyn returns stronger than ever surrounded by powerful men who truly see her, winning landmark contracts, and watching rivals tremble at her name.
Alexander wakes to regret too late: his crumbling empire, the secret twins he never knew existed, the woman he lost.
He begs for forgiveness, offers everything to start over, even kneels publicly in humiliation.
But Evelyn demands justice: full credit, billions in royalties, and control.
As old enemies scheme violently out of jealousy and his world falls, Alexander fights to prove change, while Evelyn builds an untouchable new empire on her terms.
Co-parenting begins. Old sparks flicker. Forgiveness debates rage in her heart.
Will she allow slow reconciliation for their brilliant twins?
Or close the door forever on the man who once owned her world?
9.4
Ashley gave Nicolas ten years of love and five years of loyalty as his perfect housewife, only to be repaid with betrayal, humiliation, and death at the hands of him and his mistress.
After being reborn, she vowed to make them pay.
She tore apart the mistress, kicked her useless husband aside, and returned as the heiress of a top-tier family.
Surrounded by billions, luxury, and a parade of elite bachelors, Ashley became the woman everyone wanted-including a cold, powerful tycoon.
When Nicolas came begging for forgiveness, she smiled coldly. "Fuck off! My man is worth a hundred of you."
7.5
I was tied to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, the heavy stench of gasoline suffocating me.
Ten steps away, a masked kidnapper slammed a loaded Glock onto a metal barrel and forced my husband, Alvie, to make a sick choice.
"The wife or the mistress. You only get to walk out of here with one."
Alvie didn't even blink.
He walked straight toward the dark corner where his mistress, Gail, was crying. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, shielding her, and guided her toward the exit.
He never looked back. He didn't cast a single glance over his shoulder. To him, I was already a corpse, just trash left on the pavement.
The kidnapper laughed and tossed a lighter onto the soaked concrete floor.
A wall of ghostly blue fire erupted instantly, swallowing me whole. The absolute agony of my skin blistering and melting shattered my sanity.
In my last moments, consumed by the inferno, I couldn't understand how the man I had loved and served so submissively could leave me to burn alive. My heartbreak quickly morphed into a hatred far deeper than the flames.
Then, I violently jerked awake.
I shot up from the bed, gasping for cold air, my hands frantically checking my perfectly smooth, unburned skin.
I looked at the desk clock. I had returned to exactly four years ago, the morning of the annual Gallagher family gathering.
The fragile, naive wife died in that warehouse. This time, I am going to destroy them both.
8.1
I was Asset 7, a "ghost" kept in a high-security facility with no memory and paralyzed vocal cords. My only value was my silence, making me the perfect disposable tool for the world's elite.
Everything changed when I was sold to Culver Lancaster, a media billionaire drugged with a dangerous synthetic aphrodisiac. His staff needed a woman who couldn't talk, couldn't sue, and didn't exist in any official directory.
They scrubbed my skin raw like a piece of meat and threw me into a dark penthouse with a man who had lost his mind to the drug. Culver didn't treat me like a human; he choked me against a door and used my body as a shield against his own madness. When I tried to run, his security hunted me down with dogs, and Culver threw me into a freezing wine cellar. I spent days in total darkness, starving and dehydrated, lapping dirty water off the floor just to stay alive.
I lay on that cold stone, wondering why my life had become a series of cages and scars. I couldn't even scream to let the world know I was dying. How could a man claim to protect me while treating me like a disposable object?
But when Culver finally came to the cellar to feed me, I didn't surrender. I bit him hard enough to draw blood, watching the shock in his eyes as I communicated the only way I could.
Now, I wear the silk uniform and the velvet mask he bought for me, playing the role of his obedient "Shadow." Culver thinks he owns a broken girl he can lock in a velvet panic room, but I'm a weapon who just found her target. Every kiss is a reconnaissance mission, and I'm going to burn his empire to the ground.