Midas Protocol: Seducing My Rival's Wife
I sat in the freezing conference room, my knuckles white as I strangled a cheap plastic pen. Outside, Manhattan was weeping in the gray rain, but inside, the air was sterile and dead. I stared at the polished mahogany table, seeing the distorted reflection of a man who hadn't slept in forty-eight hours—a man about to sign his own divorce papers.
Across from me, my wife Linda wouldn't even look at me. She was too busy drumming her fingers near a diamond ring that cost more than I had made in the last five years combined. Then the door swung open, and Simon Thorne walked in. The billionaire heir didn't say a word; he just walked behind Linda and placed a heavy, possessive hand on her shoulder, marking her as his.
"Let's wrap this up," Simon said, checking his Patek Philippe with the bored tone of a man ordering a coffee he didn't want. Linda finally looked through me like I was a ghost and told me to stop dragging this out. She whispered that I couldn't even afford myself anymore, a physical punch to the gut given I’d lost my job three weeks ago. After I signed, Simon flicked a business card at me, mockingly offering me a job as a doorman for minimum wage.
I walked out into the downpour, shivering in a suit I couldn't afford to dry clean. My phone vibrated with a text from my landlord: "Pack your things. Keys by tonight or I’m calling the cops." I stood on the corner of 5th Avenue with exactly $42.18 to my name, watching Simon kiss my wife through the glass wall of the penthouse. I was thirty, homeless, and drowning in a city of lions.
I wanted to roar until my throat bled, but I just stood there, a drowned rat in a world of predators. How could I have lost everything so fast? Why was the woman who promised to stay through "for poorer" now leaning into the arms of the man who just humiliated me?
Suddenly, my phone screen exploded with a blinding golden light. An app called the Midas Protocol installed itself, declaring poverty a disease and itself the cure. With one tap, a million dollars bypassed a federal hold and hit my account, and a "Nemesis Card" appeared in my digital inventory. I didn't hesitate. I typed Simon Thorne’s name into the vengeance algorithm and hit execute. The game had officially changed.
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Chapter 8
Duke got back to Queens just as the sun was setting.
The sky was a bruised purple.
He checked the rusted mailbox in the lobby.
There was a package inside.
A sleek, black box. Heavy.
No return address.
Duke stared at it. He hadn't updated his address in the App. He hadn't told anyone he was staying with Gus.
A shiver ran down his spine. The System knew where he was. It knew exactly where he slept.
He looked up at the corner of the lobby ceiling. Was there a camera there? Was the System watching him just like Simon watched Victoria?
He swallowed the fear. He was already in too deep.
Duke took it upstairs.
Gus wasn't home.
Duke sat on the couch and opened the box.
Inside, nestled in black velvet, was a card.
It wasn't plastic.
It was metal. Brushed titanium, completely blank except for a chip and a magnetic strip.
No bank logo. No numbers.
Just his name laser-etched on the back in tiny font.
Duke Zeller.
It wasn't a Centurion card. It wasn't a Palladium card. It was something else entirely. A key to the offshore account the App had created.
The App pinged.
New Task: High Roller.
Objective: Spend $50,000 in 24 hours.
_Reward: 100% Reimbursement (One-time use)._
Duke stared at the screen.
Spend fifty grand. And get it all back.
A week ago, spending fifty dollars was a crisis.
Now, it was a chore.
He stood up.
He looked at his reflection in the hallway mirror.
He still looked like a loser.
The hoodie. The jeans. The scruffy beard. The haircut that Gus had given him three months ago with kitchen scissors.
He didn't look like the owner of this titanium card.
He looked like he stole it.
"Time for an upgrade," Duke said.
He opened the Uber app.
His thumb hovered over UberX.
Habit.
He moved it down.
Uber Black.
He requested a ride.
Driver: Mohammed. Vehicle: Cadillac Escalade.
Five minutes later, the massive black SUV pulled up to the curb in front of the rundown apartment building.
It looked like a spaceship that had landed in a junkyard.
Gus was walking up the sidewalk, carrying a six-pack of cheap beer.
He stopped, staring at the car.
Duke walked out of the building.
"Duke?" Gus asked, pointing at the SUV. "Is that... for you?"
"Yeah," Duke said.
"Where are you going? A funeral? Or a mafia meeting?"
Duke laughed. "Just going shopping, G."
The driver, a man in a suit, got out and opened the rear door for Duke.
Gus's jaw dropped.
"Dude, seriously, did you rob a bank with that crypto money?"
"I'll explain later," Duke said. "Don't wait up."
He slid into the back seat.
The leather smelled rich.
The door closed with a solid thud, shutting out the noise of the street.
"Where to, sir?" Mohammed asked.
"SoHo," Duke said. "Drop me at L'Artiste."
The car glided away.
Duke watched Gus shrinking in the rearview mirror, standing there with his mouth open.
A pang of sadness hit him.
He was leaving that life behind.
The ride into Manhattan was smooth.
Duke watched the city change through the tinted window.
From the graffiti and trash of Queens to the glittering glass towers of Midtown, and finally to the cobblestone chic of SoHo.
The car pulled up in front of L'Artiste.
It was a salon that looked more like an art gallery.
No prices in the window. Just a minimalist logo.
A bouncer stood at the door.
He was big, wearing a tight black t-shirt.
Duke got out of the car.
The bouncer looked him up and down.
He saw the hoodie. The sneakers.
He crossed his arms.
"Deliveries are in the back, pal," the bouncer grunted.
Duke didn't stop walking.
He walked right up to the man.
"I'm not a delivery," Duke said.
"We're private. Members only," the bouncer said, stepping in his way.
Duke reached into his pocket.
He pulled out the titanium card.
He held it up.
The streetlight caught the metal edge.
The bouncer frowned. He didn't recognize the card. But he recognized the weight of it. Cheap cards didn't reflect light like that.
Duke held his gaze. "Run it. If it declines, I'll walk."
The bouncer hesitated. Training told him to kick this bum out. Instinct told him this bum was dangerous.
"Right this way," he mumbled, stepping aside.
Duke tucked the card back into his pocket.
He walked through the door.
He didn't look back.
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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.
7.0
For three years, Breanna gave up her brilliant career as a top-tier perfumer to be the perfect housewife for her billionaire husband, Hartwell.
But when he finally returned from a three-month business trip to Paris, he didn't even glance at the dinner she had carefully prepared. Instead, he threw a divorce agreement on the table.
He gave her thirty days to move out and offered a ridiculously low settlement. When she cried and asked if there was someone else, he looked at her with absolute disgust.
"You used to smell like ambition and possibility. Now you smell like cooking oil and the desperation of a woman who has nothing outside her husband. You're a trap."
He threatened to bury her in legal fees if she didn't sign. Heartbroken and confused, Breanna forced his assistant to reveal what really happened in Paris. The truth was humiliating. Hartwell had been spending all his time with a twenty-six-year-old genius perfumer—a girl who was the exact mirror image of who Breanna used to be before she sacrificed everything for him.
He didn't just want a new woman. He wanted a younger, untainted replacement of her past self.
Wiping away her tears, Breanna's grief instantly hardened into cold, calculated rage. She tore up his insulting settlement and prepared to fight back, completely unaware that her cruel husband was currently hiding in a hotel room, coughing up blood, deliberately playing the villain to force her to survive his impending death.
7.7
Alondra spent three hours making soup for her husband, only to find him at the hospital tenderly holding another woman's hand.
"I'm four weeks pregnant, Gerard," the woman said softly.
Gerard coldly handed Alondra a divorce agreement, claiming their three-year marriage was just a placeholder because this woman had once saved his life.
Heartbroken, Alondra fled in her car, only to realize her brakes had been completely disabled.
She spun out of control and crashed head-on into a massive delivery truck.
As she lay trapped in the mangled wreckage with her ribs crushed and blood filling her mouth, Gerard's black Maybach pulled up to the curb.
He stared at her dying body through the window with a completely blank expression.
He didn't call an ambulance or even open his door.
He simply rolled up his tinted window and drove away into the rain.
A raw, suffocating hatred burned in her chest, hotter than the pain in her shattered bones.
She couldn't understand how the man she had loved and served so devotedly could just coldly watch her die like a piece of trash.
Opening her eyes again, Alondra gasped for air.
She had returned to the exact morning two years ago, right before she was supposed to deliver that pathetic soup.
When Gerard walked in and threatened her with divorce, she didn't cry or beg.
"I agree. Let's divorce," she said calmly, packing her bags to reclaim her true identity as a billionaire heiress.
8.6
For two years, I was trapped behind my own eyes, a prisoner in my own skull.
A crazed fan had hijacked my body after a brutal car crash, wearing my skin like a cheap suit.
When my soul finally locked back into my flesh in a cramped hospital room, I realized she had destroyed everything I built.
This parasitic stalker had drained my massive fortune to zero, buying luxury gifts for a mediocre actor and turning me into the internet's most hated woman.
My phone was flooded with death threats, and the hashtag demanding I go to hell was trending at number one.
Even the hospital nurses despised me. One marched into my room, raising her hand to violently slap my pale cheek.
"You psychotic bitch, you make me sick!"
Worse, my sprawling Beverly Hills estate had been foreclosed and sold to a mysterious billionaire named Kasey Dominguez.
I had absolutely nothing left. No money. No reputation. No home.
The sheer violation of watching a psychotic stranger ruin my life while I was locked in the passenger seat of my own mind made my blood boil.
I refused to let her destroy my legacy.
As the nurse's hand descended, my atrophied muscles snapped into action.
I twisted her wrist until the joint popped, grabbed the keys to my freedom, and slipped out into the cold Los Angeles night.
I was going to take my life back, starting with the billionaire who thought he owned my house.
8.9
BLURB
Lena Hale thought heartbreak couldn't get worse until she walked into a luxury restaurant with a Christmas gift in her hand and found her boyfriend on a date with another girl. Broken and humiliated, she flees home for the holidays, hoping her mother's new marriage will give her a quiet place to recover.
Instead, she walks straight into a nightmare.
Her cheating ex, Bryce Carter, is waiting at the mansion...
as the beloved nephew of her new stepfather.
And her new stepbrother, Cassian Ward, the cold, quiet son who sees too much and says too little can't seem to look away from her.
Trapped together for Christmas, Lena is forced to face the boy who broke her and the man who's slowly undoing her in ways she doesn't understand. Bryce wants her back. Cassian wants her safe. And Lena wants to forget she still feels anything at all.
But secrets run deep in the Ward family...
and desire runs deeper.
And this Christmas, falling for the wrong brother might be the most dangerous mistake she's ever made.
9.4
For three years Sarah Miller was the invisible wife of billionaire Jason Vanguard. She cooked his meals. She cleaned his home. She hid her identity as the heiress to the world's wealthiest empire just to prove her love. Jason rewarded her sacrifice with coldness and public humiliation. On their third anniversary he bought a diamond necklace for his childhood friend while Sarah waited home alone.
That was the final straw.
Sarah signed the divorce papers and walked away with nothing but her pride. When she returned to the Miller Group as its powerful new CEO. the world gasped. Jason assumed his "poor" ex-wife would beg to come back. Instead he found himself facing a cold queen in the boardroom who didn't even remember his name.
Now Jason is desperate to win back the woman he threw away. But Sarah is no longer the silent wife who waits for him. She is the rival who can destroy him.