Scars To Gold: A Queen's Rise
I gave up my twenty-billion-dollar inheritance and cut ties with my family, all for my boyfriend of five years, Ignatz.
But just as I was about to tell him I was pregnant with our child, he dropped a bombshell.
He needed me to take the fall for his childhood sweetheart, Everleigh. She'd been in a hit-and-run, and her career couldn't handle the scandal.
When I refused and told him about our baby, his face went cold. He told me to terminate the pregnancy immediately.
"Everleigh is the woman I love," he said. "Finding out you're pregnant with my child would destroy her."
He had his assistant schedule the appointment and sent me to the clinic alone. There, the nurse told me the procedure carried a high risk of permanent infertility.
He knew. And he still sent me.
I walked out of that clinic, choosing to keep my child. At that exact moment, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a glowing article announcing that Ignatz and Everleigh were expecting their first child, complete with a photo of his hand resting protectively on her stomach.
My world shattered. Wiping away a tear, I found the number I hadn't called in five years.
"Dad," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I'm ready to come home."
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Chapter 3
Ignatz didn't come back for two days. I spent the time in a daze, moving through the silent apartment like a zombie. I took down our pictures, packing his clothes into boxes. I even took off my wedding ring. It slid off my finger with no resistance. I had lost so much weight, I hadn't even noticed.
I dropped it into the trash can. It made a dull, final thud.
Then, a text message from him lit up my phone.
Can you do me a favor? There's a blue velvet box in my top drawer. A courier is coming to pick it up in an hour. Have it ready for him.
I went to his drawer. Inside was a small, elegant box from a famous jewelry designer. I opened it. Nestled on the black velvet was a diamond necklace, the kind of ostentatious piece I would never wear. I remembered him showing it to me online months ago.
"Isn't it beautiful?" he'd said. "I'm going to buy it for the most important person in my life."
I had thought he meant me.
Staring at the necklace, a bitter laugh escaped my lips. I closed the box.
When the courier arrived, a young man in a crisp uniform, I handed him the package without a word.
"Ma'am, the destination is the St. Regis Hotel," he said, confirming the details.
"I know," I said, pulling my purse from the hook by the door. I took out the folded divorce agreement. "I'm going with you."
The car ride was silent. The St. Regis was hosting a massive press conference for Everleigh's new movie. As we pulled up, I could hear the roar of the crowd and the frantic clicking of cameras.
I walked into the ballroom. The noise died down instantly. Every head turned. Every camera swiveled to face me. I was wearing a simple dress and no makeup. My hair was pulled back in a messy bun.
Whispers erupted around me.
"Is that her? The stalker?"
"What is she doing here? Look at how she's dressed. No class."
I ignored them all. My eyes were fixed on the stage at the front of the room, where Ignatz and Everleigh were standing, holding hands.
Ignatz saw me, and his face tightened into a knot of anger. "Genevieve? What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed as I approached.
I didn't answer. I just held out the blue velvet box.
"You forgot this," I said, my voice surprisingly steady.
Everleigh snatched the box from my hand and opened it with a gasp of delight. "Oh, Iggy! It's beautiful!"
She turned to him, pouting. "Put it on me. Right now."
Ignatz hesitated for a fraction of a second, his eyes darting between me and her. Then, his face hardened, and he took the necklace. His fingers brushed against her skin as he fastened the clasp.
Everleigh leaned in and kissed him full on the lips, her eyes locked on me the entire time. It was a declaration of victory.
I stood there, silent.
Then, she did it again. She let out a tiny gasp and staggered, pretending to lose her balance. "Oh!"
"Gen, I warned you!" Ignatz roared, lunging forward to steady Everleigh. He glared at me, his face contorted with rage. "Are you trying to hurt her?"
I said nothing. I just held out the divorce agreement I had been clutching in my hand.
He barely glanced at it. Everleigh suddenly clutched her stomach. "Iggy, I don't feel well. My stomach hurts."
"What?" His attention snapped back to her, all thoughts of me and the papers gone. "Okay, baby, okay. Let's get you to the hospital."
"The papers, Iggy," I said, holding them out again. "Sign them."
"Just sign it so she'll leave!" Everleigh moaned, pressing herself against him.
Without even reading it, he snatched a pen from a nearby table, scribbled his name on the line, and shoved the document back at me.
Then he swept Everleigh into his arms and started pushing his way through the crowd of reporters. "Let us through! It's an emergency!"
I clutched the signed papers to my chest and turned to leave. As I walked away, someone deliberately stuck out a foot.
I went down, hard.
My head hit the marble floor with a sickening crack. The world exploded in a flash of white-hot pain.
I heard gasps from the crowd. Through a haze of pain, I saw Ignatz stop and look back. He took a half-step toward me, his face a mess of confusion.
"Iggy, let's go!" Everleigh whined, tugging on his arm. "She's just faking it for attention."
He looked from me, lying on the floor with blood starting to pool around my head, to her. He hesitated for one more second.
Then he turned and left, disappearing into the flashing lights of the paparazzi.
I lay there, the polished floor cold against my cheek. My vision was blurring. People were staring, whispering, pointing. No one moved to help.
With a groan, I pushed myself up. My head was spinning. I realized my wedding ring was gone. It must have flown off when I fell. The ring that had been so loose on my finger. A symbol of a marriage that had been hollow for a long, long time.
I didn't even look for it.
Ignoring the stares and the cameras, I stumbled to my feet, my legs shaking. I walked, one foot in front of the other, out of the ballroom and into the street.
I flagged down a taxi. The driver's eyes went wide when he saw the blood on my face.
"Hospital?" he asked, his voice full of alarm.
I wiped a smear of blood from my cheek with the back of my hand.
"Yeah," I said, a grim smile touching my lips. "But I'm not gonna die."
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8.1
Elinor's frail daughter, Cece, died in a sterile hospital room while waiting for her father to take her to Disney World.
But her billionaire husband, Derick, never showed up. At the exact moment Cece's heart monitor flatlined, the hospital TV broadcasted Derick affectionately holding the hand of his mistress and he has booked a clearance of the entire Disneyland to celebrate mistress's daughter's birthday!.
When Elinor confronted Derick with their daughter's ashes, he sneered and accused her of hiding the child just to get his attention. Elinor's heart was torn to shreds. How could a father be so blind and ruthless? Did Kamryn use his power to steal the very kidney that belonged to Cece? Why did her innocent baby have to die for their sick affair?
The suffocating grief inside Elinor finally crystallized into a sharp blade. She wiped the blood from her lips, canceled the simple divorce, and began her ruthless revenge.
9.3
Halie woke up to a sharp pain and a terrifying reality. She was in a new body, her face covered in a hideous web of scars, and her spiritual power reduced to a pathetic D-Class.
Before she could even process the memories of being framed, her bedroom doors were violently kicked open.
Her sister Seraphina sauntered in with a venomous sneer, followed closely by Halie's S-Class fiancé, Jett.
"Look at the disgrace of the Avila family. What a waste," Seraphina mocked, throwing a mirror at her bed.
"I can't be tied to a cripple. As an S-Class, I have to break our engagement," Jett added, his gaze full of disgust.
The nightmare didn't stop there. Her father called, screaming about how she had shamed the family name. He officially stripped her of her inheritance, froze all her accounts, and exiled her to the decaying Southern District to rot.
To make matters worse, a cold, mechanical voice suddenly echoed in her skull, warning her of an impending genetic collapse. Without an immediate energy infusion, she would face total organ failure in thirty days.
A ruined face, a treacherous family, a world that wanted her dead, and a literal death clock ticking in her brain. The original owner had died in absolute despair, a tragic victim of sheer cruelty.
But if they thought she would just sit there and die, they were severely mistaken.
Armed with a mysterious system and her brilliant scientist mind from her past life, Halie packed her bags. She chose the craziest survival quest: head to the slums, find the exiled, sterile S-Class "madman" Coleman, and cure him to harvest his life energy. It was time to start her counterattack.
8.2
When our family empire crumbled, my sister and I were sold off as collateral to the Chicago Outfit.
My fierce sister Frankie was forced to marry Damien Moretti, the terrifying Don. I was shackled to his brother Leo, a notorious, degenerate playboy.
I thought my life was over, but the real nightmare began on our wedding night. A terrified maid handed me the wrong room key. Exhausted and numb, I crawled into a dark honeymoon suite, praying my new husband would be too drunk to find me.
Instead, the heavy door opened, and a man fueled by a drug-laced drink stepped in. He was ruthless, punishing, and entirely stripped away my dignity in the pitch black.
When the morning light finally broke, I turned my head, expecting to see Leo's boyish face. Instead, I saw a profile carved from ice.
Damien Moretti. The Don. My sister's husband.
The very man who had previously called me a "liability" and ruined my life. When he realized who I was, his eyes filled with absolute, chilling disgust. He dragged me out of the ruined sheets, threw me onto the floor of a freezing shower, and demanded to know why I had sneaked into his suite.
"You ruined me. How am I supposed to look at Frankie? You should have just killed me. Kill me now, Damien. It would be a mercy compared to this."
I sobbed, the freezing water mingling with my tears. He just stared down at me with cold, unreadable intent. I was now trapped in a house of monsters, carrying the Don's darkest secret, and I had to figure out how to survive without destroying my sister.
8.7
My new boss is gorgeous, arrogant, and filthy rich.
The only problem?
He doesn't know he's also the father of my baby.
Six years ago, I was supposed to get married.
But the night before the wedding, my groom-to-be showed me sides of himself I'd never seen before.
I might've died in that hotel room...
If Mikhail Novikov hadn't burst in to save me.
Handsome, strong, capable knight in shining armor-sign me up, right?
WRONG.
Because Mikhail wasn't just the hero I never knew I needed...
He was also way more dangerous than I ever could've known.
But for one night, I let myself do something I never should've done.
It was worth it-several times over, if you catch my drift.
In the morning, though, I did the reasonable
I RAN.
For six years, I keep running.
Until I walk into work one day, and find my new boss waiting in my office.
Guess who?
And guess what he does when finds out about our baby?
8.4
My love. My ruin.
Ashton Hampton saved me from my mother's scandal. I gave him my whole heart.
Then he told me he was marrying another woman for business. My role? His hidden mistress.
At our engagement party, his new fiancée accused me of ruining her brooch. Ashton didn't question it. He demanded I apologize.
The crowd attacked. He watched.
I climbed onto a helicopter and disappeared.
Eighteen years later, I saw him on a park bench—broken, hollow, begging for one more word.
I gave him two: “No comment.”
7.4
I was Z, the world's most lethal hacker. But after I died, I woke up gasping for air in a massive, freezing bathtub.
Memories that didn't belong to me slammed into my brain. I was trapped in the body of Zero Vance, a notorious "trashy young master" of a wealthy family, who was actually a girl hiding in plain sight.
The original owner of this body was a pathetic, lovesick stalker obsessed with an esports god named Maverick Thorne.
She wore ridiculous rainbow hair and cheap makeup, sending him thousands of desperate, unread texts every single day.
When he completely ignored her, she became the ultimate laughingstock.
Bullies at her elite academy spray-painted "freak" on her locker, shoved her around, and her own family looked at her with exhausted disappointment.
Unable to take the endless humiliation and his cold rejection, she swallowed a bottle of pills and slipped into the icy water.
Looking at the ruined, tear-stained reflection in the mirror, physiological disgust washed over me.
Why would anyone throw their life away for an arrogant, frozen block of ice?
I grabbed the grooming scissors and sheared off the neon hair until only a sharp, silver-blonde crop remained.
I deleted his contact, blocked his number, and put on a perfectly tailored black suit.
When the school's head cheerleader pointed a finger at my nose, warning me to stay away from Maverick, I snapped it backward.
"I have zero interest in Maverick Thorne."
I am alive. And as the new Zero, I am going to take everything back.