Reborn Mother: The Billionaire's Ruthless Bride
In my past life, I was the naive surrogate who fell desperately in love with Karson King, an untouchable Wall Street billionaire.
I thought my blind devotion would earn me a place in his family. Instead, his cruel mother forced me to sign away my parental rights to my three-year-old daughter.
I was locked in a dark, freezing basement. I watched helplessly as his arrogant relatives tormented my child, pushing her down a flight of marble stairs and shattering her tiny arm.
When we finally died in a horrific car crash, my face covered in blood amidst the shattered glass, Karson didn't shed a single tear. To him, my death was just the convenient erasure of a cheap mistake.
I sacrificed my dignity for his approval, but they treated us worse than stray dogs. Why did my innocent daughter have to pay the ultimate price for their ruthless arrogance?
Opening my eyes again, the harsh glare of a massive crystal chandelier pierced my vision. I was back in the grand foyer of the King estate, exactly five years ago.
"Sign it. You are nothing but a gold digger."
My soon-to-be mother-in-law slammed the thick legal contract onto the marble table, demanding I give up my daughter.
This time, the paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by absolute, icy clarity.
I didn't cower. I picked up the pen, looked right at the billionaire who despised me, and prepared to manipulate his entire empire.
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Chapter 8
Hazel carried Serena through the massive front doors of the estate. The butler immediately stepped forward, silently taking the trench coat draped over her arm.
The grand foyer was quiet, but a loud, chaotic noise spilled out from the formal dining room at the end of the hall. It sounded like a television broadcast turned up entirely too loud.
Hazel rolled her aching shoulders, shifting Serena's weight to her left hip. The little girl rubbed her sleepy eyes, burying her face back into Hazel's neck.
As Hazel stepped into the doorway of the dining room, the source of the noise became clear.
An enormous eighty-five-inch television was mounted on the wall, dominating the space. It was tuned to NY1.
On the screen, a high-definition, slow-motion replay of Hazel standing on the City Clerk's steps filled the room. The camera zoomed in on the single tear tracking down her cheek as she shielded her daughter.
"The Wall Street's most beautiful shield," the news anchor announced, his voice booming through the surround-sound speakers. "A story of sacrifice and devotion that has captured the city's heart."
Sitting at the head of the long mahogany dining table, Sterling King held a crystal glass of red wine. His face was flushed with deep satisfaction. He nodded approvingly at the screen.
To his right, Ermina sat rigidly. Her knuckles were white as she gripped a silver fork, pressing the tines so hard into her porcelain plate that it threatened to shatter.
Sloane lounged in her chair across from Ermina, swirling her wine and laughing openly at the television, clearly enjoying Ermina's misery.
Karson was already in the room. He sat in a high-backed leather chair in the corner, holding a cup of black coffee. He stared at the floor, completely ignoring the broadcast.
Sterling caught movement in his peripheral vision. He turned, his eyes lighting up when he saw Hazel in the doorway.
He set his wine glass down with a heavy thud. "Come in, good child. Come sit."
The phrase "good child" hung in the air. In the brutal hierarchy of the King family, Sterling rarely used terms of endearment. It was a massive, public validation.
Hazel adjusted her expression, smoothing away her exhaustion. She walked toward the table, offering a polite, deferential smile. "Thank you, Mr. King."
Sterling pointed his cane at the television. "Because of your little performance this afternoon, King Group stock rallied in the late-day trading. Up three full percent before the bell. You handled those vultures better than my million-dollar PR firm."
The praise was a physical blow to Ermina. Her face turned a mottled, furious purple. She slammed her fork down. The silver clattered violently against the plate.
"It was pure luck," Ermina spat, her voice trembling with rage. "Crying for the cameras is cheap theater. It won't last."
Sloane took a sip of her wine. "It's a hell of a lot better than your strategy, Ermina. Throwing money at tabloids to delete articles only makes us look guilty."
Ermina shoved her chair back, standing up abruptly. "You insolent-"
Crack.
Sterling brought his heavy wooden cane down hard against the floorboards. The sharp noise cut through the room like a gunshot.
"Sit down, Ermina," Sterling growled, his voice dropping an octave. "Do not ruin my mood tonight."
Ermina froze. Her chest he heave, but she slowly lowered herself back into her chair, her eyes burning with humiliated fury.
From his corner, Karson watched Hazel. He saw the polite, humble smile on her face, but he knew exactly what she was. She was a monster who manipulated emotions for profit.
Suddenly, a loud, rumbling growl echoed from Hazel's side.
Serena gasped, her hands flying down to cover her stomach. She hid her face against Hazel's leg, deeply embarrassed.
Sterling let out a booming laugh. The tension in the room instantly evaporated. "The child is hungry. Brenda! Have the kitchen bring out the food, and prepare a child's nutritional plate."
Ermina watched Sterling dote on the child. A dark, venomous shadow passed over her eyes. She forced her facial muscles to relax, stretching her lips into a terrifyingly sweet smile.
"Of course," Ermina said smoothly. "And since you are officially family now, Hazel, I've had Brenda prepare a room for you. The most appropriate suite for your needs. Brenda can take you there now to settle in before dinner."
Hazel saw the malicious glint in Ermina's eyes. The trap was set.
She knew exactly what room Ermina was talking about.
Hazel didn't flinch. She smiled back, a perfectly polite mask. "Thank you, Ermina. That is very thoughtful."
She took Serena's hand and turned to follow the head maid, walking willingly into the darkness.
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9.7
I ran through the freezing rain, desperate to escape the Pennington estate. My adoptive family had raised me for one purpose: to be sold off as a bargaining chip in a wealthy arranged marriage.
But before I could reach the highway, I was cornered. Not just by my family's cruel guards, but by Hollis Wall—a terrifying, ruthless billionaire who snapped my tormentor's wrist and dragged me into his car. He didn't want a ransom. He threw a prenuptial agreement in my lap.
I thought he was insane until he took a scalpel to his own arm, and a burning agony ripped across my flawless skin. Because of a near-drowning accident three years ago, our nervous systems were linked. Every time I bled, he felt the agony. He locked me in his fortress to keep me safe, but when I finally escaped back to my adoptive parents, they didn't protect me. Instead, my adoptive father smiled and showed me a live video of my biological father on life support, a guard's hand hovering over the plug.
"You will marry Douglas Cherry tomorrow, or your father dies," he sneered.
My own family was willing to murder my only real flesh and blood just to secure their wealth. I collapsed onto the cold marble floor, my heart crushed in a vice of absolute, suffocating despair.
"I'll marry him," I sobbed, surrendering to the darkness.
But miles away, in his dark study, the ruthless Hollis Wall violently collapsed to the floor, gasping for air as my severe panic attack bled directly into his chest. Our twisted bond was killing him, and I knew he would tear the city apart to find me.
7.8
Elie Joyce’s entire life was controlled by Ebert Ewing, a ruthless billionaire who held her sick grandmother's survival and her family's freedom in his hands.
But on a freezing, stormy night, he forced her into a scandalous scrap of red silk and handed her over to a notorious, disgusting predator.
"You aren't an escort. You're just a free gift."
Ebert mocked her, using her as a disposable bargaining chip to secure a corporate funding round.
When the predator humiliated her, forced high-proof vodka down her throat, and violently pinned her to the floor, Ebert simply watched with dead eyes.
And when Ebert finally intervened to brutally beat the man, it wasn't out of mercy.
"She is my property. Even if she is trash that I threw away, a filthy pig like you doesn't get to touch her."
Afterward, he dragged her battered, barefoot body into his car, only to kick her out into the torrential rain, leaving her on the dark streets to die.
Standing in the storm, shivering and bleeding from broken glass, the last shred of Elie's hope shattered.
She had sacrificed her dignity and soul, enduring his violent bites and cruel control, just to keep her family alive.
Why did she have to suffer this endless, twisted humiliation for a psychopath who only saw her as trash?
But she didn't break.
Tearing a strip of his expensive shirt to bandage her bleeding foot, Elie gripped her broken stiletto like a knife.
With her eyes turning cold and calculating, she limped out of the shadows.
She was going to survive, and Ebert Ewing would soon realize she was no longer his obedient prey.
9.3
My father ordered me to marry into the cursed Vaughn family.
Their heirs were rumored to die young from a mysterious genetic agony. My sister Kayden laughed, saying she wasn't going to waste her youth planning a funeral. So, I became the sacrificial lamb.
When I refused, my father slammed his hand on the table and threatened to throw my dead mother's ashes into the city dump.
"You are a struggling actress with no money and no power. You have no choice," he told me coldly.
To make matters worse, my own agent drugged my drink at a business dinner, trying to sell my body to a sleazy investor just to secure project funding.
I was completely cornered, suffocating under the weight of their cruelty. I couldn't understand how my own flesh and blood could be so vicious, treating me like a worthless pawn to be traded and discarded.
But none of them knew that while escaping the drug-laced dinner, I crashed directly into the terrifying Vaughn heir, Algot.
When his glowing crimson eyes locked onto me during a violent episode of his cursed pain, we discovered an impossible truth: my physical touch was the only cure for his agony.
Looking at the dark bruises he accidentally left on my neck, I chose not to run. Instead, I pulled out the private business card he gave me and dialed his number.
"You need me," I whispered to the dangerous billionaire. "And I am going to use you to destroy them all."
8.2
Justine abandoned her career as a top trauma surgeon to marry Congressman Carl McConnell. She did it to fulfill her dying sister's last wish: to protect her son, Leo, from this ruthless political family.
But the seven-year-old boy she swore to protect shoved her into a freezing koi pond, then cried to his father that Justine tried to drown him.
Carl didn't even check the security cameras. He hugged his precious heir and looked at his freezing wife with pure disgust.
"Are you out of your mind? Trying to hurt the heir to the McConnell family!"
He locked Justine in a 55-degree wine cellar while she was burning with a 102-degree fever. When she finally told him the truth, Carl flew into a rage and hurled a heavy brass-cornered book at her face, slicing her cheekbone wide open.
His mother even ordered the staff to starve her for seven days to reflect on her sins.
Justine stood in the dark, blood dripping down her face, her heart completely dead. She had sacrificed her brilliant future and her pride for this family, only to be tortured and discarded like garbage. How could they be so utterly devoid of humanity?
She pulled out her old medical kit and stitched up her own face.
Then, she signed the legal documents to permanently relinquish her stepparent rights, threw them at the housekeeper, and calmly looked at her abusive husband.
"I am divorcing you, Carl."
9.7
I was a top cardiac surgeon, trapped in a dead marriage with a ruthless billionaire.
One afternoon, he brought his mistress to my hospital, ordering me to perform her high-risk heart surgery.
When I refused and handed him our divorce papers, he violently tore them up and threatened to erase my name from the medical community.
Worse, I discovered they had a five-year-old surrogate son—bought and born the exact same year I bled out on an operating table, losing our baby.
The mistress mocked my trauma, calling me a barren piece of trash who couldn't give him an heir.
I slapped her across the face.
The next morning, the NYPD publicly handcuffed me in my own hospital.
She had framed me for attempted murder, claiming I injected her IV with a lethal dose of potassium.
My husband cornered me in the interrogation room.
"Just confess to me. I will throw enough money at the DA to make this entirely disappear."
I looked into his dark eyes and saw nothing but raw, unfiltered suspicion.
He actually believed I was a jealous murderer.
I swore I would rather rot in a concrete cell for the rest of my life than bow down to them.
Just as my childhood savior miraculously appeared to bail me out, my phone rang.
The mistress had gone into full cardiac arrest.
Only I had the surgical skill to save her.
I turned around, deciding whether to let the woman who ruined my life die, or pick up my scalpel.
7.6
Elliana Lewis lay dying on the freezing concrete of a federal penitentiary, her ribs shattered by a guard's heavy boot.
She had been flawlessly framed for murder by the one person she trusted with her life: her sweet, innocent stepsister, Jovita.
During her final prison visit, Jovita wore their mother's diamonds and smiled cruelly behind the glass. She revealed she had liquidated the family company, caused their father's stroke, and paid the guards to ensure Elliana suffered a grueling, agonizing death.
"Your marriage was a joke from day one, Ellie. You have nothing left."
As her lungs stopped, the tragic truth finally dawned on Elliana. She had spent months screaming for a divorce and publicly humiliating her billionaire husband, Damon Stirling, believing his silence was weakness. She didn't realize until it was too late that his endless tolerance was the deepest form of protection. She had pushed away the only man who would have burned the world down to keep her safe.
Why had she been so incredibly stupid? Why did she blindly trust a monster and destroy the only person who truly loved her?
Then, a blinding light pierced her retinas. Elliana bolted upright, gasping for air on a massive, king-sized bed.
There was no pain. No broken bones. The digital clock on the nightstand flashed a date from exactly ten years ago.
It was the morning after her disastrous wedding night.
This time, she would tear Jovita's life apart piece by piece. And she would hold onto Damon so tightly that nothing could ever pry them apart.