Rising From Hell: The Vengeful Heiress Returns
I was the Stanton family heiress, engaged to the President's son to secure a vital military alliance.
But he cornered me in the White House sitting room, slamming a thick manila folder onto the marble table.
"I said, sign the annulment agreement, Hester."
He looked at me like I was dirt, demanding I step aside so he could be with a manipulative intern named Tricia.
In my past life, I was a naive lamb. I cried and begged him not to end it. My devotion was rewarded with absolute cruelty. He ordered my bones broken and my reputation completely shredded. My trusted assistant forced poison down my throat, and I was left to die with a rope burning my neck.
Until my last breath, I didn't understand. I had done everything perfectly for the family. Why did my unwavering loyalty only bring me a gruesome death? Why did the monsters who tortured me get to live happily in the highest seats of power?
Opening my eyes again, the suffocating terror of the noose suddenly washed away. I was sixteen again, staring at the exact same annulment papers.
"Hester, please. Just let us be happy," Tricia whimpered, reaching out her trembling hand.
This time, I didn't cry. I picked up the solid gold fountain pen, stabbed it violently through the center of the contract, and prepared to drag the entire First Family straight to hell.
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Chapter 4
Vice President Kyle Harrison stepped slowly out of the shadows.
The dim glow of the colonnade wall sconces illuminated the sharp, unforgiving angles of his jaw and his deep, stormy gray eyes.
He looked toward the pool. The splashing was getting weaker. Domenic had managed to pry Nora off his neck and was now simply holding her head under the water to keep himself afloat. It was pathetic.
Kyle's earpiece crackled. His lead Secret Service agent's voice came through. "Sir, we have a disturbance at the South Pool. Should we initiate a rescue?"
Kyle raised his right hand, tapping his earpiece.
"Maintain radio silence," Kyle ordered, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "Do not intervene."
He turned his gaze back to the path where Hester had disappeared. The image of her fluid, brutal kick and the dead, cold look in her eyes replayed in his mind. The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a dark smirk.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a heavy, glittering object.
It was the antique sapphire brooch. He had picked it up off the carpet outside the East Wing sitting room ten minutes ago.
Kyle slipped the brooch into his breast pocket, right over his heart. He turned and walked casually toward the West Wing, leaving no trace that he had ever been there.
Meanwhile, Hester was running for her life.
She had kicked off her heels and was sprinting barefoot across the thick wool carpets of the interior hallways.
She needed her injuries to look worse.
As she rounded a corner, she intentionally threw her body weight to the side, dragging her bare shoulder hard against the rough edge of a marble Roman pillar.
The expensive silk of her blouse ripped completely. The skin on her shoulder tore, leaving a bright, angry red scrape that stung fiercely.
She rubbed her knuckles into her eyes until the blood vessels popped, making them look bloodshot and swollen. Tears streamed down her face, fueled by the physical pain of her scraped shoulder.
As she approached the security checkpoint outside the First Lady's Quarters, Hester deliberately broke her rhythm. She let her breathing become ragged, loud, and hyperventilating.
The two armed Secret Service agents stationed at the heavy oak doors saw the usually poised Stanton heiress stumbling toward them, barefoot, bleeding, and half-undressed.
Both agents instantly dropped their hands to their holstered weapons.
Hester threw herself at the nearest agent, grabbing his suit jacket with trembling, desperate hands.
"Help me!" she screamed, her voice cracking into a hysterical sob. "Take me to my aunt! He's crazy! He's going to kill me!"
The agent didn't hesitate. He tapped his radio, barking an emergency code directly to Alex Stone, the First Lady's Chief of Staff.
The heavy double doors burst open. Alex, a sharp-featured woman in a tailored suit, rushed out. The color drained from her face the second she saw Hester.
Alex immediately stripped off her own suit jacket and wrapped it tightly around Hester's shivering shoulders, shielding her from the agents' eyes.
Hester collapsed against Alex's chest. She gripped the woman's shirt, burying her face in her neck, playing the role of a completely shattered victim to absolute perfection.
"It's okay, you're safe," Alex whispered fiercely, half-carrying Hester through the doors. She shot a lethal glare at the agents. "Lock down this corridor. No one gets near these doors."
Inside the private quarters, First Lady Elba Stanton was sitting on a French sofa, reviewing a guest list. She frowned at the sudden commotion.
Elba looked up.
When she saw her beloved niece-the pride of the Stanton family-dragged into the room looking like a broken doll, the gold pen slipped from Elba's fingers.
It hit the floor. Elba stood up so fast her knee clipped the coffee table. The hot tea spilled across the Persian rug, but she didn't even blink.
She crossed the room in three massive strides. She grabbed Hester's face, her eyes locking onto the swollen, red eyes, the torn clothes, and the bleeding scrape on her shoulder.
The blood rushed to Elba's head.
"Hester," Elba said. Her voice was shaking, high-pitched with pure, unadulterated rage. "Who did this? Who dared to touch you in this house? !"
Hearing her aunt's fiercely protective voice triggered a real memory for Hester. She remembered how Elba had died trying to protect her in the past life. The tears that fell now were genuine.
Hester threw her arms around Elba's neck and broke down. The raw, gut-wrenching sound of her sobbing echoed in the quiet room, making Alex's stomach twist.
Elba held her niece tight. The First Lady's eyes hardened. The ruthless, military blood of the Stanton family flared in her pupils. She looked at Alex.
"Lock down the East Wing," Elba commanded.
Hester cried against Elba's shoulder for two full minutes, letting the tension build until it was unbearable. Then, she slowly pulled back. She looked at her aunt with wide, terrified eyes.
"It... it was Domenic," Hester choked out, her whole body violently flinching at the name. "He tried to kill me, Aunt Elba."
Elba's breath hitched. Her pupils contracted. She stared at Hester, her brain refusing to process the name of her own son.
Hester grabbed Elba's wrists. Her nails dug into her aunt's skin. She delivered the kill shot with absolute, desperate certainty.
"He wanted to drown me in the pool," Hester sobbed. "He said he was doing it for Tricia, that manipulative intern from his office."
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7.2
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9.5
On the day she discovers she is pregnant, Amara is handed divorce papers by the man she loved for three years. Betrayed by her husband and her best friend, she walks away with nothing-except the secret growing inside her.
But what Ethan Cole doesn't know is that the woman he abandoned is not weak... and not alone.
When Amara returns as a powerful heiress, no longer the woman he could control, Ethan begins to regret everything. But as secrets unravel and the truth about her pregnancy comes closer to light, one question remains-
When he finally finds out the child is his... will it already be too late?
8.9
At my million-dollar wedding to the Hoffman heir, the priest was interrupted by a ringing phone.
My groom, Elijah, didn't silence it. He answered it right at the altar, yanked his arm from my grasp, and walked out because his "true love" Jalyn needed him.
I was left standing alone in front of three hundred elite guests, blinded by mocking camera flashes. My own mother rolled her eyes in disgust, later threatening to freeze my trust fund and sell me to a notorious playboy to recoup her losses. Elijah even had the nerve to call me, demanding I take the blame for the canceled wedding to save his PR, while live news feeds showed him cradling a fragile Jalyn in the hospital.
I had spent two years bending over backward to be his perfect bride, only to be discarded like trash. What made it sicker was finding out that Jalyn's sudden "medical emergency" was actually a ruptured cyst caused by having vigorous sex with Elijah right before he walked down the aisle.
I refused to let them destroy me.
Kicking off my six-inch heels, I stepped down from the altar and walked straight to the back row where Cristian Lowe sat. He was the ruthless iceberg of Wall Street and Elijah's most terrifying rival.
I looked up at his sharp jawline and asked the craziest question of my life.
"Will you marry me?"
He stood up, his dark eyes locking onto mine.
"As you wish."
9.3
Elliana sat on the cold marble floor, staring at the two pink lines on the pregnancy test. Overjoyed, she went to her husband Garrett’s study to surprise him.
But the room was empty. On his iPad, she accidentally opened a muted security video from the night before. As a graphic novelist trained in facial anatomy, she easily read Garrett’s lips as he spoke to their housekeeper.
"Increase the hallucinogens and the birth control. Let her become a complete lunatic."
The truth shattered her reality. Her three years of inexplicable exhaustion and mental collapses were orchestrated to keep her away from her ex-fiancé, who was now married to Garrett’s sister, Cristina. The nightmare worsened during a horrific highway crash. As their SUV flipped and caught fire, Garrett ruthlessly abandoned a pregnant Elliana in the crushed backseat. He dragged Cristina to safety, leaving Elliana to burn. She survived, but her right hand—her drawing hand—was permanently destroyed.
Lying in the hospital with her career ruined and her intellectual property stolen by the husband who forged her signature while she was drugged, a freezing void of hatred consumed her. She was nothing but a sedated decoy to hide Garrett's twisted, incestuous obsession with his own sister.
When Garrett knelt by her hospital bed with fake tears, Elliana didn't scream or expose him. Instead, she forced a pathetic, dependent smile, playing the perfect broken wife. She was going back to his penthouse to steal his encrypted files, ready to feed him to Manhattan's most cutthroat divorce lawyer and watch his empire burn.
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.
8.8
Sold for scraps.Saved by a monster. Destined to rule them all.
Faith is a "Dud", a wolfless orphan living in the shadows of the trenches. Treated as a servant by her own family, she hides a mind more brilliant than any Alpha's instinct. But in the process of winning a life-changing scholarship, she is betrayed. Drugged and sold to traffickers by her own aunt, Faith thought her life was over -until she falls from a third-story window and lands on the hood of a car that belongs to the most dangerous man in the country.
Killian Nightshade. Billionaire. Alpha of the Blackwood Pack. A man who rules with ice in his veins and power in his hands.
Killian doesn't do favors. He makes investments. He claims Faith as his "Personal Shadow" to work off the debt of his ruined car. But as he forces her into the shark-infested waters of the North Elite Academy, he finds himself breaking his own rule: Never get attached to the help.
While Faith battles ruthless bullies and the predatory interest of Killian's rival, Silas, a twenty-year-old secret begins to stir in her blood. She isn't just a Dud. She is a legend. And when the girl who was sold for scraps finally shifts, the entire werewolf world will have to decide: Will they bow to their new Queen, or be burned by her fire?