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 6
The room temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
Corporate espionage.
Breaking a vase was a domestic annoyance. Leaking financial data was a federal crime. It was treason against the family blood.
Arthur stared at the phone screen, his hands trembling. "Who... who did this?"
"Read the article, Dad," Archer urged, practically vibrating with malice. "It cites a 'source close to the family.' And look at the angle of the photo. It was taken from the cleaner's chair."
Arthur looked up. His eyes were no longer angry; they were dead. Cold.
"You," he whispered, looking at Kala. "You ungrateful little..."
"Oh my god," Karly gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Kala... did you do this because of the argument we had yesterday? To hurt Daddy?"
It was the nail in the coffin. Karly had supplied the motive.
Arthur lunged forward. He grabbed Kala by the shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh. He shook her, his composure shattering.
"Is it true? Did you sell us out? For what? Money? Spite?"
Kala felt the pain in her shoulders, but she didn't pull away. She needed to see the evidence.
"Let me see the phone," she said. Her voice was calm, contrasting sharply with Arthur's hysteria.
"Look at it!" Arthur shoved the phone into her chest. "Look at your handiwork!"
Kala caught the device. She scanned the article.
The Daily Scandal. Editor: Hightower.
She knew Hightower. In her future life as "Queen," she had destroyed his server twice just for sport. He was a bottom-feeder who paid for trash and didn't verify sources.
She looked at the photo of the document. It was blurry, taken in low light.
"This article was posted twenty minutes ago," Kala said.
"So?" Archer scoffed. "You probably scheduled it. Don't act like you don't know how to use email."
Kala zoomed in on the photo. She ignored Archer. She was looking for metadata, but on a screenshot, that was impossible. She had to rely on visual forensics.
"Look at the screen in the photo," Kala said, pointing to the bottom right corner of the monitor captured in the image. "The clock."
Arthur squinted. "It's blurry."
"It says 14:00," Kala said. "2:00 PM yesterday."
"So you took it yesterday afternoon!" Archer yelled.
"At 2:00 PM yesterday," Kala said, looking at Doloris, "I was with you, Mom. We were at the fitting for the gala dresses. Remember? You made me try on that green monstrosity for an hour."
Doloris blinked. She looked at the ceiling, searching her memory. "I... yes. We were at the boutique from 1:30 to 4:00."
Archer froze. "Maybe... maybe the clock on the computer is wrong!"
"Arthur keeps his clocks synced to the atomic standard for trading," Kala said dryly. "And besides, Hightower is a hack."
She looked at Arthur. "If you want the truth, call him."
"Call who?" Arthur asked.
"Hightower. The editor." Kala held out the phone. "Call him right now. Put him on speaker. If I sold the story, he'll have a record of me."
"He won't reveal his source," Jules said. "Journalistic integrity."
"Hightower has no integrity," Kala said. "He has a price. And he's a coward. Call him, Dad. Unless you're afraid of what he'll say."
Arthur hesitated. He looked at the article, then at Kala. The alibi with Doloris was strong. Doubt was creeping in.
He took the phone. He dialed the number listed on the "Contact Us" page for urgent tips.
Kala watched him. She knew exactly how Hightower operated. And she knew exactly how to break him.
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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."