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 6
Zoe stared at the phone. It vibrated aggressively, dancing across the marble countertop toward the edge.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Every vibration felt like Liam's hand shaking her shoulder, demanding attention.
She looked at Julian. He had stopped eating. He was cutting a strawberry with surgical precision, his eyes fixed on his plate, but the tension radiating off him was palpable.
Zoe reached out and swiped the green button.
"Hello?"
"Zoe! Finally!" Liam's voice was loud, frantic, and devoid of any apology. "Where are you? I had Marcus calling your dorm all night! He said you never came home."
Zoe felt a cold knot form in her stomach. "I... I couldn't get back. The storm."
"Where did you stay?" Liam demanded. The jealousy in his tone wasn't romantic; it was territorial. Like a child wondering who touched his toy.
"A hotel," Zoe lied. She glanced at Julian. He paused, his knife hovering over the plate. He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto hers.
"Whatever," Liam rushed on. "Listen, we have a problem. A big one. The press got wind of the arrest. Dad is furious. The board is freaking out."
"I paid the bail, Liam. I handled it."
"Yeah, but someone saw Jade," Liam hissed. "There are rumors. We need to kill them. The PR team has drafted a statement."
Zoe gripped the phone tighter. "A statement?"
"Yes. We need to say I was defending your honor. That the fight was about you. That we were together."
Zoe closed her eyes. "But you weren't defending me. You were defending her. You left me for her."
"Zoe, grow up," Liam snapped. "Jade can't be seen. My parents will cut me off if they find out I'm seeing her again. You know that. Do you want me to lose my trust fund?"
"So I'm just... what? Your shield?"
"You're my family, Zoe! We help each other. That's what we do." His voice shifted, becoming wheedling, manipulative. "Remember when I helped you with your dad's audit? Hmm? I need you on this."
Clang.
Julian slammed a glass of milk onto the counter. The sound was like a gunshot.
Zoe jumped. Liam stopped talking.
Julian didn't speak. He just stared at her. His eyes were cold, hard, furious. He shook his head once-a sharp, imperceptible movement. Don't do it.
Zoe looked at Julian. In his eyes, she saw a strength she didn't feel.
"I..." Zoe faltered. "I need to think about it."
"There's no time to think!" Liam shouted. "I'm sending the draft to your email. Just approve it. Do it for me, Z."
Zoe pulled the phone away from her ear. "I have to go."
"Zoe-"
She hung up.
The silence in the kitchen was heavy.
Zoe put the phone face down. She felt dirty. Used.
"You lied for him," Julian said. His voice was low, dangerous.
"I didn't lie for him. I lied to protect... everything."
"You lied about where you are," Julian corrected. "Why? Afraid he'll find out you spent the night with the 'bastard' brother?"
"No," Zoe whispered. "I just didn't want a fight."
"He's using you," Julian said, stabbing a piece of bacon. "He's using you to hide his trashy girlfriend so he can keep his Daddy's money. And you're letting him."
"It's not that simple," Zoe argued, her voice rising. "My dad's company... we have a deal pending with Sterling Corp. If I make Liam mad, if I blow this up, my dad loses the contract."
Julian looked at her, really looked at her. His expression softened from anger to something resembling pity. "The Vance family survival shouldn't be on your shoulders, Zoe."
"Well, it is."
They finished eating in silence. The food tasted like ash in Zoe's mouth.
When they were done, Julian stood up. "I'm taking you to campus."
He disappeared into the hallway and returned with a heavy coat. He opened a hall closet that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. He pulled out a heavy, dark wool coat. It was clearly a woman's cut, but the style was seasons old.
"Here," he tossed it to her. "Your coat is ruined. This was left here ages ago. It's clean."
Zoe caught it. It smelled faintly of lavender and dust. She put it on. It fit well enough. She shoved her hands into the pockets. Her fingers brushed against a small, cold metal tin. She pulled it out. Mints. Generic, strong peppermints.
She looked up at Julian. He shrugged, already turning toward the door. "Old habits. Keep them."
She popped one into her mouth. The sharp peppermint burned her tongue, grounding her.
They went down to the garage. The ride to Columbia was quiet. The city was digging itself out of the snow, the world bright and blindingly white.
When the car pulled up to the curb of her dorm, Julian didn't unlock the doors immediately.
He pulled out his phone. "QR code. Scan it."
He held the screen toward her. It was a Code for the Signal app.
"Why?"
"Signal," he said. "Encrypted. Self-destructing messages. Liam can't subpoena these logs, and your father can't audit them."
Zoe hesitated, then pulled out her phone and scanned it.
His profile popped up. A black square. Name: J.
"If you need anything," Julian said, looking straight ahead through the windshield. "If he pushes you too far. You message me. Don't call Liam. Call me."
Zoe felt a lump in her throat. "Why are you helping me?"
Julian turned his head. His eyes searched hers for a second, intense and guarded.
"Because someone has to," he said roughly.
The locks clicked open.
Zoe stepped out onto the slushy sidewalk. She watched the black Maybach merge into traffic and disappear.
She walked into her dorm room. Her roommate, Sarah, was still asleep, a lump under the covers.
Zoe sat at her desk and opened her laptop.
Ping.
A new email from "Sterling PR."
Subject: URGENT: Draft Statement for Approval.
She opened it. The headline glared at her:
STERLING HEIR DEFENDS CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART IN BAR BRAWL: A LOVE STORY.
Zoe read the first line. Liam Sterling, protecting his fiancée-to-be, Zoe Vance...
She felt sick. Physically nauseous.
He hadn't even waited for her to say yes. He had already written the script. And now, he expected her to play the part.
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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.