Mated To My Ex's Ruthless Brother
At 3:12 AM, a call from the NYPD shattered the silence of my dorm. My childhood sweetheart and the city’s golden heir, Liam Sterling, was in custody and needed me to bail him out.
I rushed to the precinct, trembling as I swiped my father’s emergency credit card for five thousand dollars, only to watch Liam walk out and head straight for another woman. He had landed in a cell because he’d started a brawl to protect Jade—a girl with pink hair and a jagged attitude—while I was just the "best friend" he called to clean up his mess.
In the backseat of the cab I paid for, I watched the man I loved pull her into his lap, treating me like an invisible chauffeur. When I finally demanded the truth, he didn't apologize; he reminded me that our families were tied by a multi-million dollar merger and that I was "like a sister" to him. My own mother echoed his coldness, telling me to stop being dramatic because our family was secretly bankrupt and we needed the Sterling money to survive.
I spent years being his "good girl," even recording a fake video for the press claiming he was a hero who fought to defend my honor. But the illusion shattered when I saw the photos of him with Jade on my birthday—the same night he told me he was working late to secure our future.
"I love you, Zoe. Like I love my dog. You’re loyal, but you’re boring."
I realized then that I wasn't his partner; I was his shield. He used the trauma of the day he "saved" my life to keep me in his debt, never realizing that the chains of gratitude had finally snapped.
As the Sterling empire began to crumble under a sudden leak of scandals, I didn't run back to Liam. Instead, I looked at the encrypted message from his dangerous, outcast brother, Julian, who had been waiting in the shadows. He didn't just offer me a way out; he offered to buy my family's debt and claim me as the collateral.
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Chapter 1
The vibration of the phone against the hard wood of the desk sounded like a drill in the silence of the room.
Zoe Vance stared at the screen. 3:12 AM.
Outside the window of her dorm at Columbia, the wind was already howling, battering the glass with the first hard pellets of the predicted blizzard. But the cold that seized her chest had nothing to do with the weather.
Liam Sterling.
The name flashed on the screen, illuminating the dark room. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, uneven rhythm. Liam never called personally at this hour. Usually, it was his assistant, Marcus, handling the logistics or relaying changes in plans. He was supposed to be in London for a business trip, or at least that's what he had told her three days ago when he blew off their dinner plans. She pushed down the rising bile of suspicion. He had to be in London. He wouldn't lie about that. Maybe something was wrong with the time difference.
She swiped right, her fingers trembling slightly. "Liam?"
"Is this Ms. Vance?"
The voice was not Liam's. It was heavy, flat, and reeked of authority and exhaustion.
"Yes," Zoe whispered, sitting up straighter, clutching her cardigan around her pajamas. "Who is this?"
"Officer Miller, NYPD 19th Precinct. We have a Liam Sterling in custody. He's asking for you."
The air left Zoe's lungs. Custody. The word hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.
"Is he hurt?" Her voice cracked. "What happened?"
"Altercation at a bar downtown. Look, Ms. Vance, he needs bail posted. He refused to call his family lawyer. He gave us your number."
Of course he did.
Zoe was already moving. She pinned the phone between her ear and shoulder, grabbing her purse, her ID, and the thick wool coat hanging by the door. "I'm coming. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
She hung up and moved with the frantic efficiency of a soldier drilled for this exact scenario. Liam needed her. That was the only thought allowed to exist in her brain. Not the fact that he had lied about being in London. Not the fact that she had a final paper due at 8 AM.
He needs me.
Getting a ride was a nightmare. The Uber app showed surge prices that would make a banker weep, and wait times that stretched into infinity. Zoe ran out to Broadway, the wind biting at her exposed face, stinging her eyes. She practically threw herself in front of a yellow cab.
The ride to the Upper East Side precinct was a blur of neon lights smearing against wet glass. Zoe sat in the back, her stomach twisting into tight, painful knots. She played out scenarios in her head. Maybe someone had insulted the Sterling name. Maybe he had been mugged. Liam was impulsive, yes, but he wasn't violent. Not without cause.
The precinct smelled of stale coffee, floor wax, and misery. The fluorescent lights hummed with a headache-inducing buzz.
Zoe walked to the desk, her boots squeaking on the linoleum. She felt small here, out of place in her frantic state among the tired officers and the drunk tank regulars.
"I'm here for Liam Sterling," she told the desk sergeant.
The man looked up, his eyes scanning her face, then her coat. He smirked, a small, unpleasant curling of his lip. "Ah. The girlfriend."
Zoe didn't correct him. She never did. "What's the bail?"
"Five grand. Cash or certified check. Or credit, with a fee."
Zoe pulled out the black Amex her father had given her for 'emergencies.' A cold sweat broke out on her neck. She knew the Vance family accounts were currently overleveraged, teetering on the brink. If this card declined here, in front of these officers, the humiliation would be absolute. She held her breath as she swiped the chip.
The machine whirred for an agonizing ten seconds before spitting out a receipt. Approved. Zoe let out a shaky exhale.
"Here are his personal effects." The officer slid a clear plastic bag across the counter.
Zoe took it. Inside, she saw Liam's platinum watch, his wallet, his phone.
And a tube of lipstick.
Zoe froze. It was wedged between his wallet and the watch face. A dark, vampy shade of red. Chanel. Not her shade. Never her shade. Why was this in his personal effects bag? Unless it had been in his pocket when they patted him down.
She stared at the object, her mind racing to find a logical explanation. Maybe he picked it up by mistake. Maybe it belonged to a cousin. Maybe...
The heavy metal door buzzes, interrupting her spiral.
Liam walked out.
He looked like a fallen angel who had landed face-first. His lip was split, a jagged line of red against his pale skin. His white dress shirt was torn at the collar, buttons missing. His hair, usually gelled to perfection, was a chaotic mess.
"Liam!" Zoe stepped forward, her hands reaching out instinctively to steady him.
He flinched.
He didn't look at her. His eyes darted right past her shoulder, focused intensely on the door he had just exited.
"Is she coming?" Liam barked at the officer, ignoring Zoe's outstretched hands.
Zoe's hands dropped to her sides. "She?"
Before the officer could answer, a girl stepped out from the holding area.
She was everything Zoe was not.
She had pink hair that looked like cotton candy dipped in acid. She wore a leather jacket that had seen better decades, ripped fishnets, and combat boots. Her eyeliner was smeared, and she was nursing her left wrist, cradling it against her chest.
"Jade," Liam breathed.
He rushed past Zoe. He didn't just walk past her; he moved as if she were a piece of furniture, an obstacle to be navigated. He went straight to the girl.
"Let me see," Liam said, his voice dropping to a tender, frantic whisper that Zoe had never heard directed at herself. He took the girl's hand, inspecting the wrist with the care of a surgeon. "Does it hurt? Did those bastards hurt you?"
Jade looked up. Her eyes were dark, rimmed with defiance and pain. She looked at Liam, then her gaze slid over his shoulder and locked onto Zoe.
There was no gratitude in that look. Only a sharp, predatory amusement.
"I'm fine, Lee," Jade said, her voice raspy, like she'd been screaming. "Who's the prep school princess?"
Zoe felt the blood drain from her face. She stood there, clutching the bag of Liam's belongings, feeling the cold plastic bite into her palm.
The desk sergeant chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "Mr. Sterling here put two guys in the hospital because they spilled a drink on his lady friend. True romance, huh?"
Zoe looked at Liam, waiting. Waiting for him to laugh it off. To say, No, Zoe is my girl. This is just a friend.
Liam didn't even look up. He was too busy wrapping his own suit jacket around Jade's shoulders.
"We need to get you ice," Liam muttered to Jade. Then, finally, he seemed to remember Zoe existed.
He turned his head. His eyes were glazed, adrenaline and alcohol still swimming in them. He didn't look sorry. He looked annoyed.
"Do you have a car?" he asked.
Not Thank you. Not Are you okay? Just a demand for resources.
Zoe felt a stinging sensation behind her eyes. She swallowed the lump in her throat, tasting bile. "I... I took a cab. It's waiting outside."
"Good." Liam wrapped his arm around Jade's waist, supporting her weight. "Let's go."
He guided Jade toward the exit, the two of them moving as a single unit. Zoe stood alone in the middle of the precinct, the fluorescent lights buzzing louder than ever.
She forced her legs to move. She followed them out into the biting cold, the wind whipping her hair across her face.
Liam opened the back door of the taxi. He ushered Jade inside, tucking the hem of her skirt in so it wouldn't get caught. He climbed in after her.
Zoe stood on the curb, the snow beginning to fall harder now, dusting her shoulders in white.
"Zoe!" Liam called out from the back seat, impatient. "Get in the front. It's freezing."
Zoe opened the passenger door and slid onto the cracked vinyl seat. The heat in the car was blasted too high, suffocatingly hot.
She glanced in the rearview mirror.
Liam was pulling Jade into his lap. He brushed a strand of pink hair away from her forehead and pressed his lips there. It wasn't a quick peck. It was a lingering, desperate kiss, full of a hunger that made Zoe want to vomit.
Zoe looked away, staring out at the blurred city streets. She pressed her hand against her chest, trying to manually force her heart to slow down.
She was the one who answered the phone. She was the one who paid the money.
But in the backseat of this cab, she was nothing more than a ghost.
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7.7
For two years, I played the role of the "Midwestern mistake," the mousey wife Julian Ford-Sterling IV kept hidden like a shameful secret. I hid my true self behind thick glasses and ashen foundation, acting as the perfect, cowed charity case while he lived a life of marble and indifference.
The day our marriage contract ended, the headlines were already screaming about his affair with Hollywood’s sweetheart, Lana Vane. Julian didn't even grant me a final conversation; he simply sent his legal team to hand me divorce papers that gave me nothing—no alimony, no shares, just a non-disclosure agreement and a one-way ticket out of his life.
I signed the papers and walked away, but a drugged encounter in a dark club that same night led me back into his arms. We collided in the shadows, two strangers stripped of their titles, but I fled before dawn, accidentally leaving behind my vintage silver locket. By the time I reached my secret design studio the next morning, I discovered Julian had executed a hostile takeover of my entire life’s work.
To my horror, Lana Vane was already there, clutching my stolen locket and shamelessly claiming she was the woman Julian had spent the night with. Julian stood before me in his charcoal suit, looking at me with total lack of recognition. To him, I was just a "gold-digging" architect he had bought along with the furniture.
I watched them together, the man who had discarded me and the woman who had stolen my identity, realizing that Julian was obsessed with the genius of "Rose" while despising the woman who stood right in front of him. He had no idea that the wife he’d just divorced was the very person he was now desperate to control.
I straightened my spine, my violet-blue eyes cold and lethal behind my new designer frames.
"Mr. Ford-Sterling, you wanted the best designer in the city? You’ve got her. But you should know—I don't just build empires. I know exactly how to tear them down."
7.4
I was only fifteen when my venomous family orchestrated my doom by forcing me into an arranged marriage with mafia heir Javier Velasquez.
On our wedding night, Javier paraded strippers into our suite to show his absolute contempt, turning me into the ultimate joke of the underworld overnight.
But being a joke was a luxury compared to what came next.
Three years later, Javier needed to be a widower to marry into a heavily armed family and secure their backing for a coup.
He didn't grant me the mercy of a bullet.
Instead, he dragged me to an abandoned underground safehouse, locked me in the damp, rotting dark, and told the world I had been assassinated.
For six months, I starved in that dungeon, surviving only on the desperate hope that my family was safe.
Then, on the day of his lavish new wedding, a cruel maid kicked a plate of spoiled food onto my floor and delivered the final, fatal blow.
"Annabel is dead. Pined away and died of a broken heart two weeks ago."
My gentle mother was dead, all because she actually believed his lie about my tragic murder.
Driven by pure agony and an all-consuming hatred, I shattered crates of smuggled chemical solvents and struck a match, letting the roaring inferno turn their bloody wedding into my funeral pyre.
I thought the fire was the end.
But when I opened my eyes, the suffocating smoke vanished, replaced by the biting chill of a Long Island winter.
I was standing in the snow, back on the exact day my descent into hell began.
This time, the terrified girl was dead, and I would use their own ruthless rules to tear their empire apart.
9.5
My husband told me I was a contractual obligation, an irritant he was forced to endure after a car crash stole his memory of our love five years ago. He replaced me with a social media influencer, a woman whose lies were as polished as her feed.
But when her baby was found with a small cut on her lip, she tearfully accused me of being a jealous monster who attacked an innocent child.
My husband, the man I had stood by through everything, didn't hesitate. In a blind rage, he ordered a guard to take a needle and thread and sew my lips shut.
"She needs to see nothing. Hear nothing. Say nothing," he commanded, his voice devoid of mercy.
He then had me hung upside down in the lobby of my own wellness retreat, a public spectacle for the world to condemn.
As I dangled there, bleeding and broken, I finally understood. My blind love and foolish hope had been my downfall. I had loved the wrong man, and he had utterly destroyed me.
But they made one fatal mistake. They didn't know about the hidden camera I' d planted in the baby's room. And they had no idea that my family could crush his entire empire with a single phone call.
8.9
I was the lead architect for the Pack's billion-dollar tech company, and I was secretly carrying the Alpha's heir.
I thought the merger would finally make Caleb Mark me.
Instead, I walked into my office to find a mistress sitting in my chair.
Caleb didn't just fire me. When I refused to hand over the encryption keys to the system I built, he locked me in a reinforced closet lined with silver mesh.
For a pregnant wolf, silver is poison.
I pounded on the door until my knuckles bled.
"Caleb! Please! It burns! I'm losing the baby!"
I screamed until my voice broke, feeling the life drain from my womb.
But outside the door, his mistress laughed. "Don't listen to her, Caleb. She's just a weak Omega faking it for attention."
And my Fated Mate believed her.
He left me in that dark box while our son died in a pool of my own blood.
He thought he had broken me. He thought I would die a silent death so he could parade his fake heir around.
He forgot one thing: I wrote the code that runs his entire life.
Three days later, I didn't show up to the hospital morgue.
I rolled my wheelchair onto the stage of his global press conference, flanked by the rival Alpha he feared most.
I held up the remote to the main server.
"You killed my son for a lie, Caleb," I smiled into the microphone as the screens behind him broadcast the footage of his crime. "Now, say goodbye to your empire."
9.3
Are you tired of every hockey romance turning into pure erotica by chapter ten?
We are going back to basics.
This is about the tension. The secrets. The stolen glances across a crowded campus, the brush of a bare hand in a freezing ice rink, and the dangerous boy who would burn the world down just to keep her safe.
Caroline Reed is invisible by choice. As a pre-law student fighting to maintain a flawless 4.50 GPA, she hides in the shadows of the university athletics department. She analyzes sports compliance data just to keep her scholarship intact. Her life is perfectly ordered and perfectly safe.
Leo Kincaid is the untouchable hockey captain. He is ruthless on the ice and completely guarded off it. Everyone thinks he is just another arrogant, golden boy athlete.
But the numbers do not lie. When Caroline reviews the latest game footage, she finds a terrifying statistical pattern. Leo is intentionally taking penalties and throwing specific plays.
When she confronts him in the dead of night at the empty arena, she expects a confession of greed. Instead, she uncovers a dangerous underground betting ring that is blackmailing him. By speaking up, Caroline has just put a massive target on her own back.
Now, the only way Leo can protect her is to pull her directly into his spotlight. He forces her into his daily life under the guise of needing a personal academic manager. Suddenly, the invisible girl is everywhere he is. He watches her constantly. He fiercely dictates who she talks to. And in the quiet, frozen moments between the chaos, Caroline begins to realize that the brutal captain is the safest place she could ever be.
7.1
"You broke the first rule, Princess. That means I get to take something from you. I'll start with this," he said, tugging at my panties and a needy throb ran straight through my core.
"Kyren, don't," I tried but it was to no avail.
He roughly pulled at the flimsy material, covering my most intimate part. The sound of lace ripping, filled the room. And the cool air from the AC bit into my exposed skin.
His hands slid up my back. He unclasped my bra with ease and it soundlessly dropped to the floor. His gaze raked over my trembling form with a satisfied hunger.
"You're not a cheerleader tonight. You're just mine. And I'm going to spend the next few hours showing you exactly what happens when you break my rules," he stated, before pushing my legs wide open with his knee.
××
Hailey thought she could handle the "Ice King." She thought she could seduce him, win the bet, and walk away with her heart intact. But Kyren sees right through her games. He doesn't want her seduction, he wants her submission.
As the lines between a dare and reality blur, Hailey finds herself trapped between her father's expectations and a man who wants to claim every inch of her. In a game where the rules keep changing, Hailey is about to learn that the Ice King doesn't just freeze people out... he burns them down.