One Dollar For Pity: The Surgeon Returns
For three years, I played the role of a devoted, naive wife to billionaire Conrad Whitney. I hid my true identity and foolishly believed in our fairy tale.
Then he handed me a harsh divorce agreement, ordering me to sign and walk away with absolutely nothing. He was leaving me to marry Cindy, the fragile woman he claimed had saved him from a fire.
He expected me to cry and beg. Instead, he watched coldly as Cindy and her family illegally transferred my father's trust fund. When I confronted them at the hospital, Conrad shielded her, calling me a greedy, toxic viper. He mocked me, completely blind to the fact that Cindy was a fraud. He truly believed I was just a pathetic, useless housewife who would be utterly destroyed without his money and status.
I looked at the man I had actually dragged out of that burning debris with my own soot-covered hands. My trauma, my sacrifices, and my love had all been reduced to a joke by his sheer arrogance and a few fake tears from a manipulative liar.
I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed the papers, drugged his wine, and left a crumpled one-dollar bill on his unconscious chest with a sticky note mocking his terrible service.
Then, I picked up my encrypted phone. It was time for the world's top surgeon, Dr. Hades, to return, and for Conrad to finally see the god he had just thrown away.
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Chapter 3
A few days later, Elisa sat on the edge of a cheap mattress in a standard Manhattan motel room.
She powered on her primary phone for a fleeting moment to check a saved document. It buzzed instantly.
From Cindy: Sister, Conrad is at the hospital keeping me company. Do you want to come see us?
Elisa's eyes went flat. The air in her lungs turned to ice. She locked the screen, grabbed her coat, and walked out the door.
She took a cab to the most expensive private Catholic hospital in Manhattan. She pulled her coat collar up and kept her head low, blending into the hospital’s evening rush.
Pushing through the revolving glass doors, she walked straight toward the VIP elevator bank.
At the nursing station, two large security guards stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
Elisa showed the text message, her voice muffled by her collar. "Cindy Johns. Room 402. She’s expecting me."
The head nurse checked the tablet, noting the 'special guest' clearance Cindy had logged to bypass Conrad’s general lockdown. She looked Elisa up and down with a judgmental sneer and nodded to the guards. "Let her in. Ms. Johns has been waiting for her 'entertainment'."
Elisa walked down the long corridor. The thick carpet absorbed the sound of her heels.
She reached the premium suite at the end of the hall. The heavy wooden door was cracked open about an inch.
Elisa stopped. She didn't push the door. She stood perfectly still and looked through the narrow gap.
Sunlight flooded the room. Cindy sat propped up against lace pillows, wearing a silk hospital gown. She looked fragile, pathetic.
Conrad sat in a chair pulled close to the bed. He wore a perfectly tailored charcoal suit. His large, powerful hand was wrapped gently around Cindy's pale fingers.
"I still dream about the fire," Cindy whispered, her voice trembling. "The smoke... I was so scared, Conrad."
Cindy shrank back, pulling her shoulders in, pressing herself deeper into the pillows.
Conrad reached out with his free hand. He stroked Cindy's hair. The motion was sickeningly tender.
"I've got you," Conrad said. His voice was soft, a tone Elisa had never heard directed at her. "I will always protect the woman who saved my life."
Cindy sniffled, looking up at him through wet eyelashes. "Do you think Elisa hates me? Because of the divorce?"
Conrad let out a harsh, disgusted scoff. The tenderness vanished from his face, replaced by pure venom. "Elisa is a greedy, toxic viper. Don't waste your pity on her."
He squeezed Cindy's hand. "Signing those papers the second I woke up was the best decision I’ve ever made. As soon as the cooling-off period is over, I'm marrying you."
Outside the door, Elisa's chest seized. It felt as if a giant hand had reached through her ribs and crushed her heart into a bloody pulp.
She took a half-step back. Her shoulder blades hit the cold, hard wall of the corridor.
She squeezed her eyes shut. A sudden, violent flash of heat and orange flames ripped through her brain. She saw her own hands, covered in soot, dragging a heavy, unconscious body through burning debris.
A sharp, agonizing pain spiked behind her temples. The trauma-induced headache hit her hard.
Elisa snapped her eyes open. The pain vanished. The lingering ache in her chest evaporated, leaving behind a hollow, freezing void.
Any remaining trace of vulnerability died in that second.
She reached up and adjusted the collar of her coat. Her movements were precise, mechanical.
She gripped the handle of her black leather tote bag. Inside rested a thick stack of legal documents regarding her father's trust fund.
She lifted her right leg, aiming her pointed heel directly at the center of the heavy wooden door.
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7.8
Alayna was working a grueling catering shift in worn-out heels to support her broke college boyfriend, Caiden, who claimed to be studying at the library.
But through the crack of a VIP suite door, she saw him wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch, sipping expensive liquor.
"It's a little poverty role-play. Keeps things interesting."
He was laughing with his rich friends, mocking her as his clueless "charity case."
To make matters worse, she was forced into a humiliating mascot costume just in time to watch him passionately kiss his wealthy ex-girlfriend.
That same night, Alayna's mother collapsed with gastric cancer, requiring a half-million-dollar surgery.
When a desperate Alayna begged Caiden for help, he refused.
"Why don't you just apply for Medicaid? That's the path for people like you."
For two years, she had starved herself to buy his textbooks, his tickets, and his shoes.
He had stolen her sweat and her sacrifices, all for a cruel game.
The sheer audacity of his betrayal made her blood run cold.
When a billionaire stranger stepped in to pay her mother's medical bills in exchange for a one-year fake marriage, Alayna didn't hesitate to sign the contract.
She slipped the flawless diamond ring onto her finger, opened a spreadsheet, and sent Caiden an invoice for every single cent.
This time, she was going to dismantle his entire life.
7.2
Blaire woke up in a Manhattan penthouse, her body covered in bruises and her innocence stolen.
Before she could process the terror, her adoptive sister Danita burst in, acting heartbroken and accusing Blaire of shamelessly seducing the powerful Kamryn Lane. Kamryn threw a one-million-dollar check at Blaire's bleeding face, calling her a calculating gold digger.
That night, Blaire overheard a conversation in the family study that shattered her entire reality.
"Once she gives birth to the Lane family's seed, we'll stage an accident, drain her blood, and transplant her healthy heart into your chest."
Her adoptive mother and Danita were celebrating the success of their trap. She wasn't an adopted daughter; she was a living organ bank and a disposable surrogate. Even her adoptive brother, Calhoun, knew everything, trapping her in the dark hallways with a sick, possessive obsession to ensure she never escaped.
The horrific truth suffocated her. The family that had taken her in had raised her like livestock for slaughter. How could they smile at her every day while planning to carve out her heart?
Terrified but burning with a desperate will to survive, Blaire swallowed a Plan B pill to ruin their surrogate plot and fled the estate. To get the money and power she needed to crush her adoptive family, she pulled out Kamryn Lane's business card. This time, she would make a deal with the devil.
7.2
Two years ago, Amaya Bennett witnessed a murder.
A powerful man was killed in cold blood, right in front of her. She should have died that night too.
Instead, she woke up in a hospital with no memory of what happened. No faces, no names and no clues. Just fragments, blurred images that slip through her fingers every time she tries to hold on.
Now, Amaya lives a quiet life, piecing herself back together. She works part-time, avoids trouble, and stays invisible. Until she lands a job at Twilight Global.
A company owned by Jake Anderson, the cold and untouchable CEO whose father was murdered the same night Aria lost her memory. Jake spent years searching for the only witness. But she vanished without any trace. Or so he thought.
But somehow, they cross path again, working under his roof, completely unaware of the truth she carries.
The killer is still out there.
And when Amaya starts getting flashes of blood, a voice, a ring glinting under the dim light, the hunt begins again.
But this time, she's not alone. Because even before he realizes who she is... Jake has already started protecting her. In the most relentless and dangerous way.
7.6
I am the illegitimate, mute daughter of the wealthy Owen family, kept hidden in the attic like a shameful secret.
To save his failing company, my father decided to sell me off to a repulsive, predatory investor named Grossman.
At the family dinner, Grossman's sweaty hands roamed my bare legs while my half-sister Kaleigh intentionally spilled red wine on my dress, laughing as she watched me suffer.
When I grabbed a steak knife to defend myself, my father slammed his fist on the table.
"Sit down, or I will cut off the maintenance payments for your mother's grave."
My stepmother and sister sneered, treating me like a piece of meat meant to be sacrificed for their luxury. I was starved, locked away, and treated worse than a stray dog, all while my family paraded their high-society status to the world.
I couldn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or who really ordered the hit that killed my mother twenty years ago. The police reports were buried, and I was entirely powerless, trapped in a house of monsters.
But they didn't know that the night before, I had accidentally stumbled into the secret life of Burleigh Livingston—the ruthless, supposedly paralyzed billionaire who was faking his madness.
When Burleigh suddenly crashed our family dinner and threw a limitless Black Card on the table to outbid Grossman and buy me for the night, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, accepted his twisted deal, and prepared to use the devil himself to tear my family apart.
9.3
To escape my abusive adoptive mother selling me to a loan shark for $50,000, I rushed to City Hall to marry a blind date.
In a blind panic, I grabbed the wrong man.
He was Julian Cardenas IV, a billionaire CEO who desperately needed a fake wife to dodge a corporate arranged marriage. We signed the papers on the spot.
He became my legal shield. He moved me into his pristine penthouse and secretly protected me from my family's violent threats. When I broke down crying in the freezing cold, he quietly left me hot cocoa. For the first time in my life, I felt safe.
But then, Julian overheard me complaining to my sister about my constantly breaking-down car, groaning that I had to "get rid of this baby four times."
He thought I meant abortions.
The man who was slowly melting my frozen heart instantly turned to ice. He threw away the dinner he had specially bought for me, his eyes filled with absolute disgust and blinding rage.
I was left entirely confused and terrified. Why did my savior suddenly look at me like I was the most repulsive thing in the world? What had I done to deserve this sudden cruelty?
I thought this fake marriage was my ticket out of hell. I didn't realize I had just locked myself in a cage with a furious, ruthless CEO who now wanted to destroy me.
7.7
Jaclyn woke up in the sterile hospital room after falling down the stairs. The nurse delivered the devastating news: she had bled heavily and lost her baby.
But before she could even cry, her trusted cousins, Katelyn and Cherri, locked the door and revealed the horrifying truth.
"It wasn't an accident," Katelyn smirked, pinning Jaclyn's arm down. "The lubricant on the top step was a very deliberate choice."
They needed her broken and unstable. They had forged her signature, draining her massive trust fund to save their uncle's bankrupt business.
What shattered Jaclyn's world was the fresh hickey on Cherri's neck. Her lover, Bradford, had helped plan the entire murder.
When Jaclyn tried to scream, they smothered her with a pillow, framing her as a lunatic having a mental breakdown.
Two weeks later, when she confronted them, Bradford violently shoved her through a second-story glass window to silence her forever.
As she fell to her death, the husband she had spent her life hating—the ruthless billionaire Gaines—burst through the doors.
He threw himself forward, his face filled with pure terror, desperately trying to catch her.
When her body hit the stone patio, Gaines fell to his knees in her blood, weeping and begging her not to close her eyes.
Until her last breath, Jaclyn was consumed by suffocating regret. Why did she trust the monsters who killed her, and hate the only man who truly loved her?
Opening her eyes again, she was back in the penthouse, exactly one month into her marriage with Gaines.