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 7
Arthur pressed the speaker button. The line rang. Once. Twice.
"Hightower speaking. Who's this?" The voice was greasy, impatient.
"This is Arthur Kensington," Arthur barked.
A pause. Then, a complete shift in tone. "Mr. Kensington! To what do I owe the pleasure? I assume you've seen our latest scoop?"
"I want to know who gave it to you," Arthur demanded. "Now."
"Now, now, Mr. Kensington," Hightower chuckled. "You know I can't do that. Source protection is sacred. First Amendment and all that."
"I will sue you into oblivion," Arthur threatened. "I will buy your publication just to burn it down."
"Threats won't work," Hightower said, though his voice wavered slightly. "Look, it was an anonymous tip. Encrypted email."
"From who?"
"The sender signed it 'K.K.'," Hightower said. "Said she was the only sane person in the house."
K.K. Kala Kensington.
The room gasped.
"It was you!" Archer shouted, slamming his hand on the table.
Karly let out a whimper. "Kala... why did you use your initials? You wanted to get caught? You wanted to hurt us that badly?"
Arthur stared at Kala, his face twisting into a mask of betrayal. "You signed it?"
Kala didn't answer Arthur. Her eyes flickered to Karly, whose expression was a perfect blend of sorrow and vindication. Then Kala smiled, a small, cold curve of her lips.
"K.K.?" Kala said, her voice dripping with amusement. "Interesting. In this house, I'm not the only one with those initials, am I, Karly?"
Karly's mask of grief faltered for a fraction of a second.
Kala leaned toward the phone. She closed her eyes for a second, focusing not on Hightower's voice, but on the background noise.
It was faint. Most people wouldn't hear it over the static. But Kala's ears were trained.
Clack-clack. Clack-clack.
A rhythmic metallic thud.
And then, a very distant, muffled robotic voice. "Stand clear of the closing doors."
Kala opened her eyes. She smiled.
"Mr. Hightower," Kala said, her voice projecting clearly. "This is the 'source' speaking."
"Oh," Hightower sounded confused. "Uh, hello?"
"You have terrible soundproofing in your office," Kala said.
"I... what? I'm in a meeting room," Hightower lied.
"Really?" Kala raised an eyebrow. "Because I can hear the Number 7 train. You're passing through Queensboro Plaza right now, aren't you?"
Silence on the line.
The family looked at Kala, baffled. They heard nothing.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Hightower stammered. "I'm in my office in Midtown."
"Your office is on the 42nd floor of the Hearst Tower," Kala said. "You can't hear the subway from the 42nd floor. But you can hear it if you're commuting from your apartment in Long Island City."
"I... I have the window open!"
"Windows in the Hearst Tower don't open," Kala said. "It's a climate-controlled sealed glass facade."
Dead silence.
Arthur looked at the phone. He knew the Hearst Tower. He knew the windows didn't open.
"Who are you?" Hightower whispered.
"I'm the girl you're lying about," Kala said. "Now, tell my father the truth. You didn't receive an email from K.K., did you?"
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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."