My CEO Brother Wants Me
He was supposed to be my brother. The cold CEO everyone feared. The man who controlled the entire country's business world.
But one night, he looked at me and calmly destroyed everything I thought I knew.
"We're getting married."
I laughed, but he didn't.
Now every door in my life is closing, every choice is disappearing, and the one man I'm not supposed to love refuses to let me go.
Because to Lucien Hale, this was never forbidden. It was inevitable.
And the most terrifying part? The closer I get to him, the harder it becomes to run.
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Chapter 5
AVA
The moment he left my room, my legs gave out. I didn't even realize when I sat down on the bed.
My heart was still racing and my thoughts were running faster than I could hold onto any of them.
Marry him?
Lucien?
I placed my hands on my face to try to calm my breathing. But the more I thought about what he said, the more the past started rearranging itself in my head.
Small things, things I never questioned before, like the day he told me not to call our parents Mom and Dad.
I was nine.
We were having dinner, and I remember calling Seraphina "Mom". Lucien's voice cut in immediately.
"Don't call her that."
I had looked at him, confused.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because they're not your parents," he said flatly.
I remembered how quiet the table had gone.
Seraphina had tried to smooth it over, saying I could call them whatever made me comfortable but Lucien didn't agree.
Back then, I thought he was just being rude and cold. I thought he didn't like me.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think he was drawing lines on purpose... separating me from the family label in his own mind.
My stomach twisted.
I needed to talk to someone, anyone, so I grabbed my phone and called Stella.
She picked up after a few rings, but the background was loud with music, cheering, and voices overlapping.
"Ava?" she said. "I'm at a concert right now. It's crazy loud. Can I call you later?"
My throat tightened suddenly.
I didn't realize how much I needed to hear someone's voice until that moment.
"Stella..." My voice cracked.
There was a pause on the line.
"Ava? Are you crying?"
I tried to speak, but the tears came faster than the words.
"I... I need to talk to someone," I managed. "I need to talk to you."
Stella's tone changed immediately, sounding so concerned.
"Hey, hey... it's okay," she said quickly. "Hold on, alright? Give me a few minutes. I'll step out and call you back."
"O-okay..."
"Don't hang up on me mentally," she added softly. "I'm calling you back soon."
The line ended.
I dropped the phone beside me and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
My chest still felt tight.
Everything Lucien said replayed in my head.
YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN MINE.
I covered my eyes with my arms
"This is insane," I whispered.
My phone rang again. It was Stella.
I sat up quickly and answered. This time it was quiet on her end.
"You okay?" she asked immediately. "I left the concert."
Guilt flashed through me. "You didn't have to-"
"Stop," she cut in. "What's going on?"
I swallowed.
"It's Lucien."
"What about him?" she asked. "Is he sick?"
"No." I answered.
"Did something happen? Was there an accident?" She pressed.
"No," I said quickly.
"Then what?" she pressed, losing patience. "Ava, just say it."
I took a deep breath trying to summon enough courage to talk, then I answered. "Lucien wants to marry me."
There was a beat of silence over the phone, then I heard her scream.
"WHAT?"
I winced as her voice burst through the phone.
"You heard me," I muttered weakly.
She went quiet again for two seconds.
Then she laughed, a full disbelieving laugh.
"Ava, stop joking," she said. "That's not funny."
"I'm not joking."
"Wait...you're serious?" she asked slowly.
"Yes."
"Okay. Start from the beginning."
I swallowed.
"He announced it at dinner," I said. "In front of our parents like it was already decided."
"Announced?" she repeated. "Like a proposal?"
"No," I said quickly. "Not a proposal. More like... a declaration."
"What does that even mean?" she asked, confused.
"It means he didn't ask me," I said quietly. "He told them we were getting married."
Stella inhaled sharply on the other end. "You're kidding."
"I wish I was." I muttered.
"Did he hit his head recently?"
Despite everything, I let out a weak laugh. "No."
"So he just woke up and decided to marry his adopted sister?" she said, her disbelief turning into anger. "Is he insane?"
"I told him that," I murmured.
"And?" she demanded.
"He said I'm not his sister."
"What?"
"He said he never saw me as one."
"Ava... that's not normal." She said.
"I know."
"That's not romantic either," she added quickly. "That's controlling."
I didn't answer immediately because the truth was... it didn't feel simple enough to label.
"I'm scared," I admitted. "But I'm also... confused."
"Confused how?" she asked gently.
I stared up at the ceiling again.
"It's the way he said it. He was so certain. He wasn't hoping I'd agree... he already believed I would." I explained.
"That's called arrogance," Stella muttered.
"Maybe," I said. "But it didn't feel like arrogance. It felt like..."
I struggled to find the word.
"Like inevitability," I finished softly. "Like I don't actually have a choice."
Stella swore under her breath.
"Ava, listen to me," she said firmly, "You do have a choice. He doesn't get to decide your life just because he's rich and powerful."
I didn't respond right away because Lucien's voice echoed in my head again
You're still free to say no... but you won't.
"I don't think he sees it that way," I admitted.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean... he talked like I've always been his. Like this was decided years ago."
Stella let out a frustrated breath.
"That's obsession, not love."
"He admitted that," I muttered.
"He admitted it?" she repeated.
"Yes."
"Okay, that's worse," she said immediately.
I laughed weakly.
"I don't know what to do, Stella."
Her tone softened. "First," she said, "you breathe."
I exhaled slowly.
"Second, you remember you're not trapped," she continued. "You're an adult. You can leave that house if you want to."
The thought made my chest tighten.
Leave?
I had just gotten back.
"I don't even know if I want to run," I admitted.
"Why not?" she asked.
"I just... need to think," I said instead.
Stella was quiet for a moment, then she spoke again, calmer but still protective.
"Okay. Think but don't let him pressure you into anything."
"I won't."
"I'm coming back." She announced.
I blinked. "What?"
"I'm coming back to Port Elam," she repeated. "Give me two days."
I sat up quickly. "Stella, no. You're not supposed to come back yet. You said you and Mark were waiting until his project was done."
"Forget Mark," she said instantly. "My best friend needs me. I'm not waiting around for a man."
"Girls over guys," she added firmly.
I could picture her shrugging as she said it.
"You're serious?" I asked.
"Dead serious," she replied. "You sound shaken, Ava. I'm not staying miles away while you deal with this alone."
"You don't have to do that," I said softly.
"I want to," she corrected. "Two days. I'll be there."
"Thank you." I murmured.
"Take care," she said and ended the call.
I stared at my phone for a moment, then it buzzed in my hand.
Maya calling.
My heart skipped.
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8.7
For three years, I played the perfect, submissive housewife to billionaire Julian Harrison.
But right after an intimate night together, he coldly threw a divorce agreement onto the bed.
"Scarlett landed an hour ago. I need my single status restored to welcome her back."
That same night, I ended up in the emergency room and discovered I was pregnant with twins.
When Julian found out, he didn't show a shred of joy. Instead, he stormed into my hospital room, threw a blank check directly at my face, and ordered me to get rid of them.
He accused me of using the babies as a sick game to trap his assets.
Then, his ruthless lawyer kicked me out of our penthouse, confiscating the jewelry he gifted me and tossing my worn-out notebook onto the floor like garbage.
Standing in the freezing rain, my heart completely died.
I had swallowed my pride, managed his life, and cooked his meals to his exact standards for three years, only to be thrown away the second his first love returned.
But he didn't know that the notebook his lawyer discarded contained the secret formulas of Aura Beauty, a billion-dollar empire I built in the shadows.
I tore his check into pieces, blocked his number, and left in a Maybach sent by my associate.
Logging into my global CEO database, I looked at his company's fragile stock chart with a predatory smile.
The docile Mrs. Harrison died in the rain. It was time to crush his empire.
7.0
Eleanore thought her fiancé, Johan, was her only salvation after her family went bankrupt.
But at a high-society gala, he handed her a drugged glass of water. As the unnatural heat burned through her veins, the horrific truth hit her. Johan had isolated her and controlled her finances, all while secretly getting engaged to a wealthy heiress. He drugged Eleanore to ruin her completely, planning to lock her away as his helpless, secret mistress.
Desperate and losing her mind to the drug, Eleanore fled down the hallway. With Johan and his bodyguards hunting her, she stumbled into the dark presidential suite.
But she wasn't alone. Sitting on the leather sofa was Alexander Briggs—the most feared corporate raider on Wall Street, and Johan's exiled brother.
Outside the door, Johan was screaming, ready to drag her back to hell.
"I can be your antidote. But it's going to cost you."
The ruthless billionaire looked at her trembling body with cold calculation. He offered her a staggering deal: a three-month fake marriage to destroy Johan's empire, and in return, absolute protection and her father's massive debts paid in full.
She couldn't understand why the most powerful predator in New York would use a ruined girl as his weapon, but she knew she would rather die than let Johan touch her again.
When Johan finally broke down the door to claim his prey, Alexander calmly pulled Eleanore into his arms.
"Watch your mouth. You are speaking to my future wife."
8.4
Kenzie, the former leader of the Aegis Alliance, opened her eyes to find herself reincarnated as a freezing, abandoned infant in a wet cardboard box.
She was rescued from the rain by Devin Ayers, a ruthless billionaire, and rushed to a private hospital, but a deadly threat was already waiting for her.
The ER doctor, Desiree Dillon, approached her with a syringe. Through a sudden burst of telepathy, Kenzie read the doctor's dark thoughts. Desiree wasn't trying to cure her fever. She deliberately ignored the safe dosage, drawing a lethal amount of Diazepam to permanently silence the crying baby and disguise it as sudden infant death.
"This will make it all go away," Desiree smiled gently, the needle glinting as it moved inches from Kenzie's arm.
Trapped in a weak, paralyzed three-month-old body, Kenzie couldn't run, fight, or even speak. She could only watch the poison inch closer.
How could she survive death only to be assassinated in a hospital bed by a corrupt doctor? She used to command armies. The sheer injustice and terror of dying completely helpless in this tiny body ignited a blinding rage inside her.
Refusing to be a victim again, Kenzie pushed her newborn brain to its absolute limit and unleashed a desperate telepathic scream directly into the billionaire's mind.
"Poison! She's trying to kill me!"
Devin, who had been looking away, suddenly froze, his icy gray eyes locking onto the doctor's wrist.
8.9
Aubree Hamilton was the top-tier executive assistant to Wall Street's most ruthless titan, Beck Franco. A month ago, she made a catastrophic mistake and spent the night in his bed.
Thinking she had erased the mistake with a morning-after pill, she panicked upon his return and lied about being engaged to push him away.
But Beck, a man who despised disloyalty above all else, immediately suspended her and ordered her escorted out of the building. Her nightmare only escalated when her toxic ex-boyfriend attacked her on the street, tearing her purse open and exposing the empty morning-after pill box to the public—and to Beck, who was watching from his penthouse. After having his security rescue her, Beck trapped her in his car, ruthlessly tearing apart her fake engagement. Later in her apartment, the suffocating tension between them almost ignited into a kiss, but a violent wave of nausea suddenly hit Aubree.
She shoved him away with all her strength and violently threw up in the bathroom.
Beck took it as the ultimate physical disgust. He walked out, deeply humiliated and dangerously obsessed, unleashing his resources to investigate her every move.
Left alone and trembling, Aubree finally checked the crushed white box. The pill she took had expired a month ago.
Staring at the two bright pink lines on the pregnancy test, she made a desperate vow: Beck Franco could never know she was carrying his child, and she had to disappear before he found out.
8.9
For fifteen years, I thought my mother had died in a tragic fire.
Then the wealthy Ross family's butler knocked on my door, revealing she was alive—locked away in the psychiatric annex of their massive estate.
I rushed into the lion's den to save her, only to run straight into Graydon Ross, the ruthless billionaire CEO.
He looked at my cheap clothes with pure disgust, convinced I was a bottom-feeding scammer trying to extort his family.
"Throw this bitch out into the snow."
He ordered his armed guards to drag me away, completely cutting off my only chance to see my mentally broken mother.
But as he violently grabbed my collar to throw me out, I saw a custom eagle-head cufflink hanging from his coat pocket.
My blood turned to ice, and a wave of paralyzing terror crashed over me.
Eight months ago, I accidentally slept with a masked stranger in a pitch-black hotel room and fled before dawn.
That cufflink belonged to him.
The man who took my virginity—the Wall Street tyrant I had been hiding from—was Graydon Ross.
If he ever found out I was that woman, he would literally destroy my life.
But to save my mother, I couldn't be thrown out.
When his grandmother suddenly appeared, I dropped to the floor, exposed the dark bruises Graydon had just left on my wrists, and sobbed.
I framed the billionaire for assault to secure my place in the mansion, forcing myself to live right next door to the monster whose bed I had fled.
7.7
Dasia's twin brother, Gerald, was an e-sports prodigy, the rising star of the Glory team.
But during a crucial moment, he was framed by his own teammates. They orchestrated a trap that completely destroyed his reputation and left his right hand brutally crushed.
Instead of getting him medical help, the club threw him out into the freezing rain, bleeding and disgraced. The manager labeled him useless trash and slapped him with a five-million-dollar termination fee to bleed him dry. Stripped of his pro status, the wealthy bullies at his prep school relentlessly targeted him, mocking his crippled hand and beating him down.
Dasia watched her twin brother cry in his room, his life and dreams shattered by the people he trusted. A violent, suffocating rage boiled in her chest. How could they smile while crushing his hand? Why should the victim be treated like a rotting piece of garbage while the perpetrators get rich and celebrated?
She didn't shed a single tear. She stood in front of the mirror, took a pair of scissors, and ruthlessly hacked off her waist-length hair. She wrapped her chest in coarse medical bandages until her ribs screamed, and pulled on his oversized black hoodie.
"Everything you took from him, I am going to take back with interest."
The girl in the mirror was gone. She was Gerald now. She secretly passed the brutal online tryouts for Glory's biggest rival, the elite Blackflame team, and signed their official contract. The revenge had officially begun.