Reborn Heiress: The Wall Street Titan's Bride
Alaia Dudley spent her life playing the devoted partner, completely unaware that her fiancé Austen was sleeping with another woman.
She thought the worst he could do was break her heart, until she found herself pinned to a cold operating table.
Austen held her down with a cruel smirk while a scalpel sliced through her sternum.
They cracked her chest open while she was still fully conscious.
The agonizing pain of her heart being cut out burned into her nerve endings.
She realized then that to him, she was never a lover—just a spare organ, a boring piece of wood to be discarded the second his true love needed it.
She died in excruciating agony, choking on her own blood while the man she loved walked away with her heart.
Until her last breath, she didn't understand why she had to suffer so brutally.
Why did she waste her life begging for a monster's attention? Why did they get a happy ending while she was carved up like an animal?
But then, ice-cold water flooded her lungs, and Alaia violently broke the surface of her bathwater.
Her trembling fingers touched her smooth, flawless chest. No scars. Her heart was still beating.
The date on her phone glared back at her: it was exactly five years ago.
Tonight was the exact night Austen first took his mistress to a hotel room.
This time, she wouldn't just expose them. She would use Wall Street's most terrifying tyrant as her personal weapon to strip them of everything they had.
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Chapter 3
Alaia shoved the phone back into the actress's chest. She covered her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking violently. To everyone watching, she looked like a woman whose entire world had just collapsed.
Suddenly, the side doors of the banquet hall were violently thrown open.
Austen stormed into the room. His hair was a mess, his tie hung loose around his neck, and a sheen of sweat coated his forehead. He looked feral.
His wild eyes scanned the room and instantly locked onto Alaia standing in the center of the crowd. A flash of panic and pure rage crossed his face. He marched toward her, his heavy footsteps echoing over the whispers.
The crowd parted for him like the Red Sea. Camera flashes erupted from the dark corners of the room as hidden paparazzi documented the meltdown.
Austen reached Alaia and grabbed her wrist. His fingers dug into her delicate skin with bruising force, feeling like a steel vice trying to snap her bones. He yanked her forward, trying to drag her away from the audience.
Alaia let out a sharp gasp of pain, her brow furrowing. She let her body stumble weakly against his pull, playing the fragile victim perfectly.
"Did you do this?" Austen hissed in her ear, his breath hot and ragged. "Did you set me up, you crazy bitch?"
Evelyn jogged into the hall right behind him. Her eyes were red and puffy. She looked like a terrified deer, desperately trying to garner sympathy from the staring elites.
Austen dragged Alaia out through the side doors and onto a secluded, private balcony. He slammed the heavy glass door shut behind them, cutting off the noise and the prying eyes of the banquet hall.
He shoved Alaia backward. Her lower back slammed hard against the cold marble balustrade. A sharp, piercing pain shot up her spine.
Alaia dropped her hands from her face. The tears were gone. She lifted her chin and stared at the man who had ordered her heart cut out in her past life. Her eyes were as cold and dead as a graveyard.
Austen froze for a fraction of a second, unsettled by the sheer emptiness in her gaze. But his panic quickly morphed back into rage.
"Who did you hire to film that?" he roared, stepping into her space.
Evelyn rushed forward, grabbing Alaia's arm. "Alaia, please," she sobbed, her voice trembling. "We didn't mean to hurt you. We're in love. Please, you have to tell the press it's a misunderstanding."
Alaia looked down at Evelyn's tear-stained, hypocritical face. The memory of her chest being sliced open flared in her mind. Her blood boiled.
She didn't say a word. She just raised her right hand.
Smack.
The sound cracked like a whip in the night air. Alaia put her entire body weight into the slap, striking Evelyn across the left cheek. The force threw Evelyn's head to the side.
Evelyn let out a high-pitched scream and stumbled back, clutching her rapidly swelling cheek. She stared at Alaia in pure shock, a flash of genuine malice breaking through her innocent facade.
Austen's eyes bulged. "You bitch!" he bellowed. He shielded Evelyn with his body, pulled his arm back, and aimed a closed fist straight at Alaia's face.
Alaia didn't flinch. She didn't blink. She stared right at his incoming fist, already calculating how much she could sue him for the assault.
The fist was one inch from her nose.
Suddenly, a large, masculine hand shot out from the shadows. Long, elegant fingers wrapped around Austen's wrist, stopping the punch dead in its tracks. The glint of a Patek Philippe watch caught the moonlight.
Austen grunted, trying to pull his arm back, but the grip was like iron. He couldn't move an inch. He snapped his head around, ready to curse out whoever was interfering.
His eyes met a pair of deep, icy blue eyes.
The man stepping out of the shadows wore a perfectly tailored, bespoke black suit. His aura was suffocating, radiating a terrifying, predatory coldness. It was Gabriel Alvarado, the most feared corporate raider on Wall Street.
The air on the balcony instantly froze. Austen's aggressive posture crumbled the second he recognized the man holding his wrist.
"M-Mr. Alvarado," Austen stuttered, the color draining from his face.
Gabriel looked at Austen's wrist with utter disgust. He released his grip, shoving Austen's arm away as if he were discarding a piece of trash. He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a silk handkerchief, and slowly wiped his fingers.
Alaia leaned against the marble railing. Her heart skipped a beat as she stared at the Wall Street titan. She had only ever seen him in financial magazines in her past life.
Gabriel didn't even look at Austen. His piercing gaze dropped to Evelyn, who was still cowering on the floor, holding her cheek.
Evelyn was trembling violently. She wouldn't meet his eyes. She forgot to cry, looking up at Austen in sheer panic.
Gabriel's lips parted. His voice was low, smooth, and completely devoid of warmth.
"Well," Gabriel said, the word slicing through the tension. "If it isn't my shameless fiancée."
The words hit the balcony like a bomb. Austen's jaw dropped. He whipped his head toward Evelyn, his eyes wide with absolute betrayal. He clearly had no idea.
Alaia's eyes widened slightly. Evelyn had hidden her tracks perfectly in the past life. Alaia had never known Evelyn was engaged to the Alvarado empire.
Gabriel finally turned his head. His icy blue eyes locked onto Alaia. For a split second, a flicker of dark amusement and intense calculation flashed in his gaze.
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7.9
I woke up in a sterile hospital room, my head split open from a horrific car crash.
But the pain in my skull was nothing compared to the memory burned into my retinas just before the impact: my billionaire husband, Dawson, walking into a luxury hotel with a woman who looked exactly like his dead first love.
When Dawson finally arrived at the ward, there was no panic or relief in his eyes. He just coldly looked at my bloody bandages.
"Your reckless driving just forced me to postpone the quarterly board meeting."
Even our seven-year-old son, who I almost died giving birth to, didn't spare me a single glance. He kicked my hospital bed in annoyance.
"The Wi-Fi here is garbage. You're a bad mom! Dad said Aunt Angelita should be the one living with us!"
My blood turned to ice. For five years, I had bent over backward, wearing the hideous pale dresses he picked, starving myself to maintain a fragile figure, all to be a perfect, obedient substitute for a ghost.
And this was what I got. An unfaithful husband who would rather bury me in debt than grant me a divorce, and a son who wished I was dead.
The weak, subservient Charlene died on that wet asphalt.
When the doctor pointed to Dawson and asked for his name, I looked at my husband with a hollow, defensive stare.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
Using retrograde amnesia as my shield, I was going to tear their perfect world apart.
8.3
Ayleen Ramirez sat in the sterile Hope Hill Fertility Clinic, her heart shattering as Dr. Finch delivered the crushing news: her third IVF cycle had failed.
Eavesdropping outside a supply closet, she overheard her husband Don on the phone, laughing cruelly. "She's a defective incubator," he sneered to his mistress Alessandra. "I never used my sperm—just cheap bank donation. No trailer trash carries a Bradley heir."
Betrayed, Ayleen confronted him, but her adoptive family ambushed her at home. Her parents and brother sided with Alessandra, now pregnant by Don, demanding Ayleen sign divorce papers to secure family investments. "You're an embarrassment," her mother snapped, threatening to cut her trust fund. Ayleen tossed back their heirloom necklace and walked out.
She stormed the Bradley mansion, slapped divorce papers on Don, packed her bags amid his aunt's insults, and fled into the night.
Drunk in a trendy bar, she stumbled into a powerful stranger—Burdette Guerrero—spilling whiskey on his crotch, then accidentally grabbed a napkin to his trousers. He shoved her away in rage.
Worse, she mistook his penthouse suite for her hotel room, bursting in on his shower, smashing a mirror in panic. He pinned her to the wall, snarling accusations.
How did this arrogant man know her name? Why demand she sign a mysterious contract at 9 a.m.? Devastated and clueless she's actually pregnant—with his stolen heir—Ayleen sobbed alone, the world crumbling.
The next morning, she straightened her spine in the Grand Guerrero lobby, ready to face him and demand answers—no matter the cost.
9.3
Alyssa Gregory slept with Benton Steele, a recently disgraced and bankrupt heir, just to humiliate him.
She threw a massive check at his bare chest, treating the former prince of Wall Street like a cheap escort.
But Benton didn't take the charity.
Instead, he manipulated her anger, tricking her into signing an ironclad contract that surrendered absolute control of her entire trust fund to him.
When her abusive mother found out she had funded a penniless outcast, she slapped Alyssa across the face.
Her mother froze all her bank accounts, locked her inside her bedroom, and arranged to sell her off to a degenerate politician.
Desperate to escape, Alyssa climbed down her balcony, falling fifteen feet and shattering her ankle on the stones below.
Stripped of her money and freedom, she dragged her broken body to a VIP club just to publicly declare that Benton belonged to her.
She thought she was the boss, playing a rebellious game with a broken man.
But when Benton effortlessly carried her away from the club and locked her inside his rundown apartment, the terrifying calculation in his dark eyes shattered her illusion.
How could a man stripped of his entire empire still radiate such suffocating, violent power?
"You bought me," Benton whispered, his massive frame trapping her against the sofa. "That means I have to take care of you."
Physically trapped and completely broke, Alyssa stared into his consuming eyes, her mind racing to find a way to turn the tables.
8.0
I sat at a table for two in the center of Le Coucou, clutching a gift box that had cost me two months of savings. It was our three-year anniversary, and I was waiting for Gavin to finally ask the big question.
But when the heavy oak doors opened, Gavin didn't walk toward me with a ring. He walked in with a polished blonde heiress tucked under his arm, her hand resting protectively over a small baby bump.
"This is Tiffany Stone. My fiancée," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. He didn't apologize for being late or for the three years we'd spent together. Instead, he pulled out a checkbook, scribbled a number, and slid a ten-thousand-dollar check across the white tablecloth.
"Consider it severance for your time," he added, as Tiffany mocked my cheap drugstore dress. "Don't contact me again. Tiffany doesn't need the stress." I was the entertainment for the entire restaurant—the pathetic girl dumped for a better model. By the time I walked out into the rain, I had lost my boyfriend, my home, and the funding for my secret medical research project.
I was an orphan with no safety net, facing an eviction notice and a ruined career. I had given Gavin everything, and he had discarded me like a broken tool. The injustice burned in my chest, a hot, sharp rage that replaced my tears.
Desperate and freezing, I ducked into a coffee shop where I met Colton Bentley, a reclusive billionaire in a wheelchair. After I defended him from a cruel date, he offered me a contract: a marriage of convenience and a seven-figure payment to act as his shield. I signed the papers that night, ready to use his wealth to rebuild my life. But as I watched my new husband navigate his penthouse, I noticed his "paralyzed" legs tense with a strength that shouldn't exist.
7.6
My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Damien Paul, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through.
That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Eve—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister.
But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Fellows talking in the library.
They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Damien.
Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Eve.
I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen.
This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Damien over.
"No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Hunter Beach."
8.7
I woke up from a coma in the hospital, universally condemned as the vicious daughter who pushed the beloved fake heiress, Georgina, down the stairs.
My ruthless billionaire brother, Angelo, stood over my bed with cold eyes, ready to destroy me for hurting his precious sister.
But as I looked at him, a terrifying prophecy from my coma flooded my brain. Our entire family was doomed.
In the original timeline, Georgina would team up with corporate rivals to bankrupt the company, frame Angelo, and send him to federal prison, while our parents would abandon me to die miserably.
Lying there, I didn't dare speak. I just desperately cursed my idiot brother in my head.
"This stupid brother is still yelling at me for that fake heiress. He doesn't even know he's going to be framed and sent to prison next month!"
I just wanted to stay quiet, let them ruin themselves, and run away from this toxic family.
But strangely, Angelo didn't strangle me. Instead, his attitude took a shocking turn.
He abruptly fired the driver plotting to kill him, destroyed the abusive fiancé of a family ally, and publicly humiliated Georgina at a high-society gala.
He even shielded me from our abusive parents, declaring to the world that I was the only sister he would ever protect.
I was completely terrified and confused. Why was the tyrant brother suddenly acting like a protective beast?
It wasn't until he flawlessly crushed a massive corporate attack using the exact financial secrets I had just complained about in my mind that a horrifying realization hit me.
He could hear my inner thoughts!