Secret Wife is A Hero
I was Asset 7, a "ghost" kept in a high-security facility with no memory and paralyzed vocal cords. My only value was my silence, making me the perfect disposable tool for the world's elite.
Everything changed when I was sold to Culver Lancaster, a media billionaire drugged with a dangerous synthetic aphrodisiac. His staff needed a woman who couldn't talk, couldn't sue, and didn't exist in any official directory.
They scrubbed my skin raw like a piece of meat and threw me into a dark penthouse with a man who had lost his mind to the drug. Culver didn't treat me like a human; he choked me against a door and used my body as a shield against his own madness. When I tried to run, his security hunted me down with dogs, and Culver threw me into a freezing wine cellar. I spent days in total darkness, starving and dehydrated, lapping dirty water off the floor just to stay alive.
I lay on that cold stone, wondering why my life had become a series of cages and scars. I couldn't even scream to let the world know I was dying. How could a man claim to protect me while treating me like a disposable object?
But when Culver finally came to the cellar to feed me, I didn't surrender. I bit him hard enough to draw blood, watching the shock in his eyes as I communicated the only way I could.
Now, I wear the silk uniform and the velvet mask he bought for me, playing the role of his obedient "Shadow." Culver thinks he owns a broken girl he can lock in a velvet panic room, but I'm a weapon who just found her target. Every kiss is a reconnaissance mission, and I'm going to burn his empire to the ground.
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Chapter 3
The black spots in Arla's vision were merging into a curtain.
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, it rolled down her cheek and landed on the back of Culver's hand.
The sensation seemed to shock him, he flinched, as if the tear were acid.
His grip loosened.
Arla dropped to the floor, her throat made a terrible, wheezing sound.
Culver stood over her, swaying slightly. The drug was still pulsing through him, warping his reality, but the physical contact had grounded him momentarily.
"Speak," he commanded. "Which paper are you with? Did my father send you?"
Arla looked up, her eyes were red-rimmed, filled with terror. She opened her mouth, tried to form the words I don't know, but her vocal cords just vibrated uselessly.
Culver frowned. He crouched down, grabbing her chin roughly, tilted her head back into the moonlight.
"Open," he ordered.
She didn't resist. Even in the dim light, he saw the faint, pale lines deep in her throat-not the jagged scarring of a weapon, but the tell-tale signs of chronic inflammation, as if from a chemical agent.
"Mute," he murmured.
She wasn't an assassin.
The heat in his blood surged again. He needed release.
He grabbed her arm and hauled her up, threw her toward the bed.
Arla landed on the mattress, bouncing once. She scrambled backward, trying to get to the other side, but Culver caught her ankle. He dragged her back down the expanse of the bed.
The silk robe had come loose. It slipped off her shoulders, pooling at her waist.
Culver paused. His gaze traced the landscape of her back. The moonlight highlighted every ridge, every old wound.
"You're a mess," he said. His voice was thick. He ran a finger down a long, pale scar on her spine.
He climbed over her.
Arla flipped onto her back, pushing at his chest. She scratched him, drawing lines of blood across his shoulders.
The pain seemed to focus him, he didn't pull away. He lowered his head and bit down on the soft skin where her neck met her shoulder.
It wasn't a kiss, it was a claim.
Arla stopped fighting. She went limp, staring up at the ceiling, dissociating from the body that was being used.
Culver watched her eyes the whole time. He was looking for something-fear, judgment, recognition. He found none of it, just a vast, empty silence.
When it was over, Arla curled into a ball on the far edge of the bed, pulling the torn robe around herself.
Culver reached for the pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. The flame of the lighter flared, illuminating his sharp profile. He took a drag, exhaling a cloud of grey smoke.
He picked up the internal phone.
"Julian," he said. "Come in."
Arla squeezed her eyes shut. This was it. The disposal.
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8.4
Kloe Guthrie dragged her crystal-encrusted wedding gown down the penthouse corridor, exhausted but ready to finally be alone with her new husband, Justen.
But as she passed the presidential suite, a familiar, cloying perfume stopped her. Through the cracked door, she saw Justen brutally thrusting into her cousin, Candyce.
"Like fucking a corpse with Kloe," Justen grunted, his voice thick with lust. "Worth it for the trust fund control, though."
Candyce giggled, mocking Kloe's pathetic gratitude.
Shattered, Kloe stumbled backward in the dark, only to be caught by Julian Larsen—Justen's billionaire best man.
Instead of offering sympathy, Julian trapped her against the wall. He forced her to listen to her husband's cruel mockery, then dragged her into the opposite suite, tearing off her wedding dress and dismantling her dignity piece by piece.
Everything she had believed for four years was a meticulously calculated lie.
She was nothing but a boring prop to the man she loved, a naive fool meant to be drained of her family's immense wealth and laughed at behind closed doors. The humiliation and betrayal burned through her veins like acid.
"You could cry," Julian whispered against her neck, his eyes predatory and dark. "Or you could make him regret he was ever born."
Instead of running from the man cornering her in the dark, Kloe looked at the destroyed remains of her life, grabbed Julian's collar, and pulled him in.
This time, she would make them all pay.
8.3
Zarelle Feymere-heiress to the most powerful werewolf dynasty in the world-made one mistake: she fell for an Alpha who saw her as nothing more than a rare blood bag.
For three years, she endured the humiliation of a loveless mating, her veins tapped like a commodity to sustain the woman Calden Ashmoor truly loved, Thessaly. His fated mate, who rejected him to marry his brother.
When a web of lies and betrayal is uncovered, Zarelle does the unthinkable: she walks away.
Now, stripped of her disguise as a docile omega, the true daughter of the Missatian Pack returns to claim her birthright-and her revenge.
Calden always thought he'd married a nobody.
He never expected his discarded mate to come back as a queen.
7.8
She lost everything that day;
Her three years of marriage,
Her best friend's trust,
And her two weeks old baby.
...
"I want a divorce. I'm not in this marriage anymore." His voice dropped, as he moved closer.
'Divorce?' My world tilted.
"Yes, my lawyer will send you the papers to sign."
"No," I whispered, broken. "You can't be serious. Don't tell me you believed that lying bitch? This can't be happening. Not now. How could you bring this up today? We just buried my Papa a few hours ago, Lucian!" My voice was barely a whisper, alien even to my own ears, like my whole world was just, falling apart right there and then.
...
The price of Lyra Jones's love was everything.
She sacrificed her burgeoning career to become a devoted full-time housewife, only for her three-years marriage to Lucian White Jr. to explode in spectacular fashion.
On the very day of her father's funeral, a betrayal of shattering cruelty occurred: her childhood best friend, Aryan, delivered a fatal lie that cost Lyra her husband, her reputation, and tragically, her week-old pregnancy. Abandoned and utterly broken, Lyra fled.
Now she is back. Five years have passed, and Lyra has claimed her crown as the multibillion dollar CEO and Heiress of the Jones corporation.
She didn't return for closure; she returned for retribution. And she will not rest until Lucian is stripped of his empire and Aryan is exposed to the world.
They thought they buried the wife. Now, can they survive the CEO?
Start reading now to witness the most ruthless corporate revenge of the year.
7.2
My grandfather sold me to a man named Maverick to settle his gambling debts. I stood on the private platform at Union Station, a human payment waiting to be collected.
But he never came. An hour later, his assistant called to say the deal was off. I was told to disappear by morning or face the consequences.
My family blamed me for their ruin and threw me out onto the street. Homeless and disowned, I had no choice but to take a low-level job at Prosperity Group, the biggest investment firm in Chicago. I needed to survive.
I never understood why he rejected me. I had followed every rule, worn the red dress he demanded, and waited like a lamb for slaughter. Why would he agree to save my family only to destroy us at the last second?
On my first day, I was called into the CEO's office. The man behind the desk was Damien Maddox, the city's most ruthless billionaire. He looked at me with a chilling familiarity. He was the man who had bought me. And he was the man who had thrown me away.
9.4
Content Warning : This story contains mature themes and explicit content intended for adult audiences (18+) Reader's discretion is advised.
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An accidental act of heroism reshaped Sera's life entirely. She lost her sight saving the grandmother of a stranger. In return for her goodness, she was forced into marriage with the old woman's grandson, Lucian Vitale. He was a mysterious businessman with no interest in love, and as people whispered, colder than ice. Given her circumstances, Sera had no choice but to accept. She became his pretend wife, bound by contract. It was a kind of relationship she'd never imagined living.
Sera had never planned to fall for a man she'd never seen. But with every touch, every murmur from Lucian, she was slowly pulled under by longing and feelings that should never have taken root. In darkness, she learned to love-and to bleed.
Then came the day her vision returned. She heard a truth that shattered her world and tore at her heart. Frightened beyond reason, Sera ran and vanished. She carried a secret in her womb: the child of their passionate nights together.
Four years slipped by. A man stepped back into her life. Same voice, same scent, same way his hands found hers... but he did not know her. He had amnesia. Can Sera escape the man who once meant everything to her? Or is this fate's way of calling them back to settle what they began-in their beds, their hearts, and the secrets that still wait to be told?
Between lies, desire, and memories... will they choose each other still?
7.7
I sat in a Louis XV-style chair that cost more than my entire education, picking at the peeling leather of my thrift-store handbag. Across the mahogany table, Council Bartlett didn't even look at me; he just checked his watch, treating our marriage like a corporate merger that needed to be finalized before the market closed.
To the world, I was a gold digger hitting the lottery, but I was actually a woman with a secret I guarded more fiercely than a state secret. I had one week to show a social worker a stable home with a husband, or they would take my four-year-old nephew, Leo, and put him back into the system forever.
The ink was barely dry on our marriage certificate when my world started to fracture. My aunt called, screaming for help as her drunk husband broke into her house, forcing me to leave my new "billionaire husband" in my cramped Queens apartment to handle a domestic nightmare with a baseball bat and pepper spray. When I returned, smelling of cheap whiskey and sweat, I found Council’s mother—the ice-cold Hortense—waiting on a video call. She didn't just want a business arrangement; she wanted an heir, and she’d already sent a box of fertility drugs to my kitchen counter to prove it.
I was living a lie in a tenement building, caught between a man who treated me like a line item and a social worker who viewed my life as a "phantom." Council was sleeping on my lumpy sofa, his expensive legs dangling off the end, while I locked the bedroom door every night. I didn't want his money; I just wanted my boy. But how could I survive a war where the enemy lived in a penthouse and the casualties were measured in custody hearings?
Just as Council saw me holding Leo and the "Ice King" finally began to thaw, his phone buzzed with an anonymous threat.
"I know you're faking it. Pay me 100k or the press gets the story."
The blackmailer was someone inside the Bartlett estate, and the "shield" I had built for Leo was about to become our cage.