Rising From The Ashes Of Betrayal
I spent my whole life trying to fit into the "Kensington aesthetic," dyeing my hair blonde and playing dumb just to earn a crumb of my father's approval. But when the manor went up in flames, I realized I was never a daughter to them-I was just an inconvenience.
I lay pinned under a heavy oak beam, the smell of copper and burnt sugar filling my lungs. My father, Arthur, stood in the doorway with my brothers, looking like a phalanx of saviors, but their eyes weren't on me.
They rushed past my outstretched, bloody hand to save my sister, Karly, who was huddled in a corner without a scratch on her. My brother Archer scooped her up like spun glass, stepping over my crushed leg without a second glance. Just before they crossed the threshold, Karly looked back at me and smiled-a small, victorious, terrifying smile. My father didn't offer help; he just shouted that I was an arsonist and slammed the door, sentencing me to burn alive in my own bedroom.
As the crystal chandelier melted and crashed toward me, I didn't feel fear anymore. I felt a guttural, distilled hate for the family that left me to die because of a lie. I had spent my life begging for scraps at a table that was never meant for me, and I died realizing they never loved me at all.
"If I come back," I promised into the void, "I will burn you all down."
I gasped for air and woke up in my bed, the smell of lavender replacing the smoke. It was September 14th, five years before the fire, the exact week I had started ruining myself to please them. I looked in the mirror, scrubbed off the pathetic makeup mask, and realized the old, desperate Kala was dead. If I was going to burn, I'd make sure they were the ones who felt the heat first.
"Queen is back online," I whispered.
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Chapter 5
Karly slid from the sofa. It was a graceful collapse, like a swan dying in a ballet. She landed on her knees beside Arthur's legs, grabbing the fabric of his trousers.
"Daddy, please," she sobbed, looking up at him with wide, wet eyes. "Don't fight with Kala. It's my fault. I was careless... I shouldn't have upset her."
It was a masterclass in manipulation. The "retreat to advance." By taking the blame, she implied that Kala was upset, and therefore had caused the accident, even if Karly was "covering" for her.
Arthur's posture softened instantly. The businessman vanished; the protective patriarch returned. He reached down and stroked Karly's hair.
"See?" Arthur glared at Kala. "Look at her. She has more grace in her little finger than you have in your entire body."
Kala watched the performance. It was nauseating, but impressive.
"Karly," Kala said. Her voice cut through the sobbing like a scalpel.
Karly flinched, burying her face in Arthur's leg.
"You just said, 'I was careless,'" Kala quoted. "Is that correct?"
Karly nodded against the fabric. "Yes... I..."
"And then you said, 'I shouldn't have upset her,'" Kala continued. "Help me with the logic here. If you broke the vase because you were careless, how does my emotional state cause gravity to work on the porcelain?"
Karly lifted her head. Her eyes darted left and right. "I... I just meant..."
"If it was an accident caused by your clumsiness," Kala pressed, leaning forward in the chair, "then I didn't push you. If I pushed you, then it wasn't your carelessness. Which is it?"
Doloris looked between the two girls, her brow furrowed. The rapid-fire logic was making her dizzy.
"She's just trying to protect you, Kala!" Doloris snapped. "Why can't you see that?"
"Protect me from what?" Kala asked. "From a lie she created?"
Kala stood up. She walked over to where Karly was kneeling. She looked down at her sister-the girl who had smiled while Kala burned.
"Unless," Kala said softly, "you are implying that even if you broke it yourself, the responsibility belongs to me because my mere existence upsets you?"
"Stop twisting her words!" Jules shouted. "She's crying! Can't you see she's upset?"
"Tears are not evidence, Jules," Kala said without looking at him. "They are saltwater."
She crouched down, bringing her face level with Karly's.
"Your kindness is fake, Karly," Kala whispered, low enough that only Karly and Arthur could hear. "And your lies are sloppy. If you're going to frame me, at least make the timeline work."
Karly recoiled as if Kala had slapped her. The fear in her eyes was real now. She had never seen this Kala. This Kala was cold. This Kala was dangerous.
Arthur looked down at his two daughters. He felt a flicker of unease. Kala's argument was sound. Karly's story was fluid. But admitting that meant admitting he had been wrong, and Arthur Kensington was never wrong.
"Enough!" Arthur waved his hand dismissively. "It's a vase. I'll buy another one. I don't want to hear another word about it."
Karly's jaw dropped slightly. He was letting it go? Usually, Kala would be grounded for a month for breathing too loudly.
Kala stood up, dusting off her hands. She had won. It wasn't a total victory, but she had neutralized the threat.
But she knew Karly. Karly never fought with just one weapon.
Karly wiped her eyes. She looked at Archer. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
Archer's eyes lit up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
"Fine," Archer announced, his voice booming with renewed confidence. "The vase was an accident. Whatever. But explain this, Kala!"
He thrust the phone screen toward Arthur.
"What is it?" Arthur asked, annoyed.
"It's The Daily Scandal," Archer sneered. "They just posted an exclusive. 'Kensington Empire on the Brink? Internal Debt Crisis Revealed.'"
Arthur snatched the phone. His face went gray.
"They have photos of the quarterly returns," Archer shouted, pointing a finger at Kala. "The documents that are only on the computer in your study. And guess who was the only person cleaning the study yesterday?"
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8.2
In her previous life, Eliana took the fall for her adopted sister Iris and lost everything, even being forced into a marriage where her work was stolen to build another man's empire.
Meanwhile, her sister's "perfect" marriage ended in tragedy-her husband turned out disabled and died young.
Reborn, the sisters swapped their fates, Iris claiming the handsome man for herself while Eliana marrying the allegedly sick billionaire.
Eliana only smiled-she knew the truth behind her marriage in the previous life. This time, she chose a different path, bringing her brilliance into the light while using marriage as a mere tool.
Yet the man she married stood firmly by her side, saying, "With me behind you, no one will dare touch you."
7.6
Sophia's life turns upside down when her husband, Donald, leaves her for his childhood love. Heartbroken and alone, she's forced to confront the harsh reality that her marriage was a sham. But as she digs deeper, she discovers a shocking truth – her entire life has been a lie.
The people she trusted, the memories she cherished, everything was a carefully constructed facade. Her biological father, a billionaire, has been searching for her, and she's forced to confront the dark secrets surrounding her mother's tragic death.
With her emotions raw and her trust shattered, Sophia must navigate this new reality and make a choice: forgive and forget or fight for what's rightfully hers. Will she find love again or will the secrets of her past destroy her future?
7.8
Alexis signed the divorce papers, leaving her with no assets, no alimony, and just the clothes on her back.
To forget her abusive husband Carlos, she got drunk and bought a high-end gigolo for the night with her last 800 dollars.
But the man she slept with wasn't an escort. He was Jarrett Hughes, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And while she was gone, her ex-husband was busy destroying her entire life.
Carlos framed her with fake photos of her cheating to justify the penniless divorce.
Then came the real nightmare.
Carlos and her own aunt secretly drained her family's corporate accounts, driving her father to jump off a building.
At the hospital, her grieving mother blamed her for the tragedy, violently attacking her in the ER.
To top it off, her cousin Josie—who was secretly sleeping with Carlos—held her father's ashes hostage.
"Crawl on your knees and pick it up, or the ashes go in the river," Josie sneered, throwing cash into the freezing slush.
Stripped of her marriage, her father, and her dignity, Alexis sat bleeding in the snow.
She couldn't understand why the people she loved most had coordinated such a brutal slaughter against her.
But Carlos and Josie made one fatal mistake.
They didn't know the "gigolo" Alexis had accidentally bought was the most powerful man in New York.
Alexis looked at the towering billionaire standing behind her, a vengeful fire burning in her eyes.
"I need you to get my father's ashes back," she said, pulling him into a kiss right in front of her ex-husband. "I don't care what it takes."
9.5
BLURB
"This...this is wrong." I whispered, shivering as Rowan's fingers traced along the lines of my slit.
"Wrong?" Ellis' lips brushed my neck, his teeth grazing my skin. "Honey, forbidden is what makes it irresistible."
Noah's lips grazed my ear, his warm breath fanning my ears as his soft voice slipped in. "And you'll learn... We take what we want."
*****
Isla North had always followed her brother's rules, until she tasted what it was like to break them. Her brother, Asher North, captain of the college hockey team, made one rule when his sister resumed freshman year:
"You can fuck with other girls for all I care, but do not go close to my sister."
They all easily agreed; after all, brotherhood came first. Until three men broke that rule-his best friends. Rowan, the teasing and sinfully hot strategist. Ellis, the calm, gorgeously hot destruction, and Noah, the reckless, untamed, and sexily wild.
Between secret locker room encounters, broken rules, and nights ending in trembling submission, Isla discovers that forbidden desire is intoxicating and dangerous.
The ice isn't the only thing Isla is playing on. Power, lust, and obsession blur the lines, and once she surrenders... there's no going back.
8.9
Three years ago, Corinna had been an orphan, taken in by an influential family to marry their comatose heir.
Then the groom woke up, and the vows curdled; he treated her like worthless, disposable trash.
After her car wreck, she lay bleeding on the asphalt while he cheated with the woman he truly wanted. Something in her snapped, and she asked for a divorce with numb, shattered calm.
After walking away from the marriage, her secrets unraveled-a top-tier heiress, a hacker beyond reach, and a once-in-a-generation healer.
Her ex came crawling back, begging, unraveling, and losing control. But it was all too late.
8.2
I spent a year in a Swiss asylum, swallowing pills to cure a madness that didn’t exist.
It turned out the medication was just sugar.
My insanity was a script written by Jaxon Francis, the Don of New York, just so he could marry a Cartel princess without his ward getting in the way.
When I finally escaped and tried to leave him, his new wife staged her own kidnapping and framed me.
Jaxon didn’t ask for proof. He didn’t look at the evidence.
Instead, he tied a rope around my ankles and dragged me behind a helicopter across the jagged rocks of the Wastelands.
He held his wife close and watched as my skin was flayed and my bones shattered, believing he was executing a traitor.
He left me for dead in the dirt, convinced he had cleansed his empire.
I took the hush money his mother threw at me and vanished, letting Alina Phillips die in that field.
Three years later, I returned to New York as "Echo," the elusive artist the world was obsessing over.
At a charity auction, Jaxon bid one hundred million dollars for a painting of a woman’s scarred back, desperate to buy redemption for the ghost he thought he killed.
He chased me into the rain, begging for a second chance, swearing he had destroyed his wife for me.
I looked at the man who once held my heart and simply smiled.
Then I turned to the man standing beside me.
"Jaxon, meet Darwin," I said, linking my arm through his.
"My husband."