Stolen Fortune, Stolen Heart: The Caged Ward
I stood in the corner of the grand ballroom, trying to stay invisible despite the massive diamond on my finger. As the fiancée of the billionaire Arturo Watts, I was supposed to be the most envied woman in the room, but the suffocating scent of lilies felt more like a funeral than a gala.
A waiter’s elbow clipped my arm, sending my clutch crashing to the floor and spilling its contents for everyone to see. Among my lipstick and phone lay a heavy, glittering brooch—the Pink Star diamond—that had just been reported stolen from the neck of a billionaire socialite.
"Thief! Just like her father," the crowd hissed as cameras flashed like gunfire in my face. Tiffany Watts ground her heel into my bag, her eyes gleeful as she watched the "scammer's daughter" finally get caught. Just as security reached for my wrists, Arturo stepped out of the shadows, but he wasn't there to save me. He grabbed my face and kissed me with a brutal, bruising intensity, branding me in front of the news drones to turn my humiliation into a PR stunt for his company’s stock price.
I thought I was being protected, but I soon realized I was just a prisoner in a gilded cage with new locks on the windows. I discovered the truth Arturo was trying to shred: I wasn’t his fiancée, I was his "key code." He was using my name to access fifty million dollars of my father’s hidden money, and he had blocked my FBI application to ensure I’d never uncover the trail.
"I did it for you," he whispered, standing over me with the same cold, unreadable eyes he used on his business rivals. He thought he could buy my silence with designer gowns and a fake romance, but he forgot that I am my father’s daughter.
I’m done being a liability in his corporate games. I’ve found the secret account and recorded his confession. If Arturo Watts wants to treat me like a target, I’m going to make sure I’m the one who hits the mark and takes every cent he’s hiding.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 5
Cinnamon stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, her heart soaring. She had done it. She had faced the Wolf of Wall Street and walked away with a win. The clicking of her heels sounded like a victory march.
The elevator doors pinged open behind her.
"Well, look at the stray cat strutting around."
Cinnamon stopped. The joy evaporated instantly. She turned to see Tiffany stepping out of the adjacent car, clutching a Birkin bag like a shield. Her face was twisted in a sneer that distorted her heavy makeup.
"Tiffany," Cinnamon said coolly. "I'd love to chat, but I have a life."
Tiffany stepped in front of her, blocking the path to the revolving doors. "Coming from his office? Did you have to get on your knees to get your allowance this month? Just like your whore mother."
Cinnamon saw red. The calm, professional façade she had maintained upstairs shattered. She stepped forward, using her height-she was three inches taller than Tiffany without heels-to loom over her.
"Keep my mother's name out of your mouth," Cinnamon said, her voice deadly quiet. "And how's your ankle? Recovered from your little trip at the gala?"
Tiffany's face flushed a blotchy red. She raised her hand, palm open, aiming for Cinnamon's cheek.
Cinnamon caught her wrist in mid-air. It was effortless. She squeezed, just hard enough to make Tiffany gasp.
"This is Wall Street, Tiffany, not one of your tea parties," Cinnamon hissed, flinging the woman's hand away. "You want to make a scene? The security guards here work for Arturo. Who do you think they'll throw out? The fiancée or the cousin he just threatened to disinherit?"
Tiffany rubbed her wrist, her eyes wide with shock and venom. "You think he cares about you? You stupid little girl. He's using you! He's only keeping you around because of your father's mess!"
Cinnamon froze. "What mess?"
Tiffany realized she had said too much. Her eyes darted around. "Nothing. Forget it."
"Tell me," Cinnamon demanded, stepping closer.
"The hidden money!" Tiffany spat, lowering her voice. "Your father hid millions before he died, and Arturo's been cleaning it up for years. He needs you to sign off on the final transfer. That's why he pays for your clothes, your school, your life. You're not his fiancée; you're his key code."
The world seemed to tilt. Hidden money? Her father died bankrupt. That was the official story.
"You're lying," Cinnamon said, but her voice lacked conviction.
"Ask him," Tiffany sneered. She shoved past Cinnamon, knocking her shoulder hard enough to send her stumbling into a large potted fern.
A security guard hurried over. "Ms. Taylor? Is everything alright?"
Cinnamon straightened her blouse, forcing a smile. "I'm fine. Ms. Watts was just leaving. She seemed... unstable."
The guard nodded knowingly and escorted a protesting Tiffany out the side door.
But Tiffany turned back one last time, shouting over the guard's shoulder. "You'll regret this! Chase Miller is out! He's coming for you!"
The name hit Cinnamon like a physical blow to the gut.
Chase Miller.
The blood drained from her face so fast she felt dizzy. Her hands started to tremble uncontrollably. Chase. The guy from college. The one who sent her jars of his hair. The one who tried to burn down her dorm because she wouldn't go to prom with him.
He was supposed to be in a psychiatric facility for another two years.
Cinnamon stumbled out of the building, forgetting to call the driver. She walked blindly down the busy street, the noise of New York fading into a dull roar.
Chase is out.
She ducked into a Starbucks, her breath coming in short, panic-stricken gasps. She ordered a black coffee just to have something warm to hold. Her hands were ice.
She pulled out her phone. Her fingers shook so bad she mistyped the name twice.
Chase Miller. Search.
A Twitter profile popped up. It was new. Created three hours ago.
The profile picture was a black square. There was only one post.
It was a photo.
A photo of a woman walking down a busy street, wearing a charcoal pencil skirt and a white blouse. Her hair was in a bun.
It was Cinnamon. From behind. Taken five minutes ago.
The caption read: My Angel is back. She looks so pretty when she's scared.
Cinnamon dropped the phone on the table. She whipped her head around, staring out the window at the throngs of people rushing past. Every man in a hoodie looked like him. Every shadow looked like a threat.
He was here. He was watching her right now.
She grabbed her phone to call Arturo. Her thumb hovered over his name. Emergency contact.
But Tiffany's words echoed in her head. He's using you. You're just a key code.
If she called him, he would lock her up. He would use this as an excuse to cancel the FBI deal. He would win.
She couldn't call him.
She dialed Mia instead.
"Mia," she whispered, her voice steadying with grim purpose. "Plan B. He's here. Chase is here."
"Oh my god," Mia said. "Where are you? I'm coming."
"No. Don't come. He's watching me. I'm at the Starbucks on Wall and Water. He just posted a photo of me. I need you to do exactly as I say. Get a burner phone. Contact that freelance security guy, the ex-Mossad one we used for that auction in Dubai. I'm going to lead Chase to a location with full camera coverage. We're not running. We're building a federal case."
Cinnamon hung up. She wrapped her hands around the coffee cup, but the warmth didn't penetrate. She felt eyes on her. A thousand pairs of eyes.
Across the street, in the shadow of an alleyway, a figure in a grey hoodie lowered his phone. He smiled, a jagged, broken thing. He watched the girl in the window shiver, and he felt a rush of pure, unadulterated love.
You may also like
8.6
Seven nights with the devil to pay a debt. One truth that will burn the world down.
Sienna Blackwood was never part of the deal until her step-brother gambled with her life to save his own.
Now, she is collateral in a brutal game of revenge. The collector is Dante Moretti, a billionaire with a fifteen-year grudge and a thirst for Blackwood blood.
He doesn't want her money; he demands seven nights of her total surrender.
But in the shadows of a Manhattan penthouse, hatred turns into a lethal obsession. When a syndicate ambush forces them to flee, the contract becomes a race for survival across the Atlantic.
Hunted for the three-year-old secret heir in their arms, Sienna and Dante must navigate a world of blood oaths and forced alliances.
In a game where every kiss is a tactical error, Sienna must decide: is her step-brother's rival the monster who shattered her life, or the only man who can save it?
8.9
Adela stood outside the private room, holding the obsidian necklace she had spent three months hand-crafting for her boyfriend.
But through the cracked door, she heard Juston laughing with his friends, calling her a stupid, obedient pawn and her art "garbage."
After she shattered the necklace and walked out into the freezing rain, Juston texted her a far more horrifying truth.
Her own family didn't just hate her-they had actively tried to kill her.
Two years ago, her brother Kayden intentionally slipped deadly shellfish into her food at a gala, sending her into anaphylactic shock.
Worse, her parents had covered up the attempted murder as a simple kitchen mistake, all to protect the family name and elevate her adopted sister, Kara.
Adela collapsed on the wet pavement, suffocating under the weight of the ultimate betrayal.
She had spent her entire life begging for their love, secretly working as the anonymous designer keeping their failing company afloat, only to realize she was nothing but a disposable tool.
She had absolutely no one, and nowhere to go.
Just as the storm threatened to swallow her whole, a sleek black Maybach pulled up to the curb.
Harmon Holland, the ruthless Wall Street billionaire she was originally arranged to marry, stepped out into the rain.
He didn't offer her pity. Instead, he handed her a legal document.
"Marry me, Adela. For one year."
She took the pen. This time, she wouldn't be an obedient pawn; she would be their executioner.
9.7
I woke up with a vicious hangover in the bed of Kaelen Blackwood, the ruthless Alpha King of our city.
As a wolfless Omega, I panicked and told him I couldn't be his because I had a boyfriend, Julian.
But Kaelen just sneered, and hours later, I found out why. Julian had been cheating on me with the princess of the rival Thorne Pack, colluding with the very enemies who ruined my family.
When I tried to run, Kaelen cut off every escape route. He branded me with his suffocating scent, tracked my every move, and threw a Mate Contract on my lap.
He knew my deepest, darkest secret: I was hunting Alaric Thorne, the monster who murdered my mother.
"Sign it. It's your only ticket in."
Three years of my life with Julian had been a pathetic lie. I was betrayed by the man I loved and sold out to the pack that destroyed my mother.
My ex thought I was just a weak, discarded Omega he could trample on. He thought I was left with nothing.
He was dead wrong.
I took the billionaire Alpha's pen and signed the contract, demanding a shadow team and untraceable resources in return.
Tonight, at the elite charity gala, I stood draped in diamonds beside the most dangerous predator in Manhattan.
Seeing my cheating ex pale with absolute terror in the crowd, I looked up into Kaelen's stormy gray eyes.
"Kiss me."
I am no longer the prey. I am his Luna, and I am going to destroy them all.
8.9
Ava Kidd just wanted to escape her abusive stepmother when she got drunk at a high-end club and stumbled into the wrong hotel room.
She woke up the next morning in a luxury penthouse, lying naked next to a terrifyingly handsome man covered in her scratch marks.
Recalling rumors of the hotel's secret underground concierge, she immediately assumed she had accidentally slept with an elite male escort.
Desperate to settle the bill, she offered him her only debit card with a pathetic $1,800.
But the man, who was actually Garrison Terry, the ruthless billionaire CEO, was deeply insulted by the cheap plastic.
He trapped her against the bed, coldly demanding a half-million-dollar service fee.
When Ava frantically offered her dead mother's tarnished locket as collateral, he cruelly dismissed it as worthless junk.
Ava was humiliated, her heart pounding with absolute terror.
She didn't understand why this arrogant gigolo was acting like a deranged extortionist, demanding a fortune from a broke girl who had clearly made a mistake.
Furious and refusing to cower, she sneaked out, put on his oversized designer shirt, and aggressively ate his $800 truffle breakfast.
Having no money left, she grabbed her cheap red lipstick, wrote a defiant IOU on his expensive linen napkin, and fled the hotel.
She thought she had escaped a criminal, but upstairs, the billionaire traced her lipstick-stained name with a predatory smile.
"Ava Kidd, I will absolutely find you."
9.5
Bridget left the office early on her anniversary, her pocket heavy with a custom velvet ring box meant for her fiancé.
But when she pushed open the bedroom door, she found him tangled in their bed with her best friend, Chloe.
"Bridget! Wait, it's not what it looks like!" Jacob stammered, his eyes wide with panic.
"Evidence," Bridget stated coldly, snapping a photo of their naked bodies before fleeing into the freezing New York night.
Desperate to numb the betrayal, she got blackout drunk at an underground lounge and threw herself at a dark, terrifyingly handsome stranger.
She woke up in a penthouse suite alone, finding only a limitless black credit card left on the nightstand.
Humiliated and feeling like a cheap escort, she ran away, swearing to forget the nightmare.
But the nightmare had just begun. When she rushed into the office, she discovered the stranger was Jevon Rocha—the ruthless billionaire CEO of her company.
He didn't fire her. Instead, he trapped her in a twisted, obsessive power game, forcing her into his private life and demanding she report to his penthouse.
Bridget couldn't understand why a ruthless billionaire was so dangerously fixated on a low-level employee.
Until she stumbled upon his secret social media account and saw a crayon drawing of a little kid, captioned with a single word: "Finally."
A wave of absolute horror washed over her. He wasn't just playing games; he was hiding a secret child and a messy, high-stakes family drama.
She refused to be the naive collateral damage in a billionaire's twisted life.
Trembling, Bridget hit "Block" on his profile, determined to escape his dangerous web.
8.7
I was pregnant with the future heir of the Blackwood Pack, but my fated mate, Alpha Gavin, was nowhere to be found when sharp, tearing agony ripped through my swollen belly.
Instead of rushing to my side, he was in a luxury penthouse with his mistress, Piper.
When I desperately called his human number for help, it was Piper who answered the phone.
"I'm Piper. His future Luna."
Minutes later, I received a leaked audio file of Gavin promising to formally reject me the moment our pup was born.
Before the heartbreak could even set in, my armored SUV was violently rammed off the road by a massive truck.
It wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit paid for by Piper's pack.
I woke up in the clinic with an empty womb. My pup was dead.
Gavin didn't even show up. He just mind-linked the butler to say he was "too busy" to deal with my loss.
He let his mistress murder our child and treated me like disposable trash, assuming my grief would make me a weak, compliant victim.
He thought he could just bury my trauma and move on with his perfect new life.
He was wrong.
I faked my own death in a fiery crash, leaving him with nothing but my signed rejection papers and the bloody receipt proving his mistress hired the killers.
Now, armed with a new identity and untraceable wealth, I am stepping out of the shadows.
I am going to bankrupt their packs from the inside out and make my former Alpha watch his empire burn.