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.
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Chapter 6
Cinnamon paced the length of Mia's small Brooklyn apartment, her heels clicking a frantic rhythm on the hardwood floor. Mia was hunched over her laptop, typing furiously, while her friend, a lanky guy named Ben with thick glasses, monitored a second screen.
"He's bouncing his signal," Ben muttered. "Using a burner phone and a VPN. I can't pin him down."
"He was right behind me," Cinnamon said, hugging her arms around herself. "He was right there."
Her phone pinged.
The sound made all three of them jump.
Cinnamon stared at the device on the coffee table like it was a bomb. The screen lit up. A text from an unknown number.
It was a link.
"Don't open it," Mia warned.
"I have to," Cinnamon whispered. Her trembling finger tapped the glass.
A video player opened. It was a livestream.
The camera was shaky, handheld. It showed a view from a dizzying height. The wind was roaring into the microphone, creating a distorted, howling noise. The camera panned down to show feet in worn sneakers standing on the very edge of a concrete ledge. Below, tiny cars moved like ants.
Then the camera turned around.
Chase Miller's face filled the screen. He looked gaunt, his eyes wild and bloodshot, his hair matted. But his smile was the same terrifying, beatific grin from her nightmares.
"Hello, Angel," he crooned. The wind whipped his words away, but the intent was clear. "I missed you."
"Oh god," Cinnamon covered her mouth.
"I'm at the Watts Hotel," Chase said, gesturing to the giant neon 'W' sign behind him. "Your fiancé's shiny new toy. It's a long way down, Cinnamon."
The view count on the stream was climbing. 500. 1,000. 5,000. Comments were scrolling by faster than she could read. Is this real? Jump! Call the cops!
Chase pulled a box cutter from his pocket. He clicked the blade out. "You have twenty minutes. Come to the roof. Alone. If I see cops, I jump. If I see that suit-wearing prick Arturo, I jump. And I'll leave a note saying the Watts family drove me to it."
"He's insane," Mia said, grabbing Cinnamon's arm. "We're calling 911."
"No!" Cinnamon pulled away. "You heard him. If he jumps from the Watts Hotel... if he blames Arturo..." The IPO. The SEC investigation. A suicide linked to the family could destroy everything. Her leverage. Her escape.
"Who cares about Arturo's company right now?"
"I do!" Cinnamon screamed. "It's my leverage! It's my future! And... I need a confession. I need this to end, permanently."
She grabbed her coat. "I'm going. Mia, is your guy in position?"
"He's on the roof of the adjacent building with a parabolic mic and a long-lens camera," Mia confirmed, her face pale. "But Cin, this is crazy."
"Crazy is letting him control the narrative," Cinnamon retorted, her eyes hard. "He wants an audience. I'll give him one."
She was already out the door.
She hailed a cab, shouting the address of the hotel. In the back seat, she watched the stream. Chase was reciting a poem now, something about blood and wings. It was garbled and sick.
Mia was calling Carter on the other line. "Pick up, pick up, pick up," she hissed.
Cinnamon arrived at the hotel. A crowd had already gathered, necks craned upward, phones recording. A few police cruisers were just arriving, sirens wailing, but they were setting up a perimeter on the ground.
Cinnamon pushed through the crowd. A uniform cop tried to stop her.
"Ma'am, stay back!"
She ripped off her sunglasses. "I'm Cinnamon Taylor! He's asking for me! Let me through or he jumps!"
The cop hesitated, recognizing her from the gala photos. The hotel manager ran out, pale and sweating. "Ms. Taylor! Thank god. He's... he's on the penthouse roof."
"Take me up. Now."
They rushed her to the service elevator. As the doors closed, Cinnamon looked at her phone. The signal bars dropped to one, then zero. The livestream froze on Chase's laughing face.
High above the city, in the corner office of Watts Capital, Arturo's phone buzzed with a news alert.
BREAKING: Jumper on Watts Hotel Roof Demands Fiancée.
Arturo went still. The color drained from his face, leaving it a mask of pure, cold rage.
"Carter!" he roared, the sound echoing through the suite. "Get the chopper. Now!"
He dialed Cinnamon. Straight to voicemail.
He threw the phone against the wall. It shattered.
The roof door opened with a heavy groan against the wind. Cinnamon stepped out onto the gravel surface. The wind up here was ferocious, tearing at her clothes and hair.
Chase was standing on the ledge of the helipad, twenty feet away. He saw her and his face lit up.
"You came," he shouted over the wind. "I knew you loved me."
Cinnamon held up her hands, palms open. She subtly angled her body toward the adjacent building, ensuring Mia's operative had a clear line of sight. "I'm here, Chase. Just step down. Please. Let's talk."
"Talk?" Chase laughed. "We don't need to talk. We need to fly. We're going to be together forever, Angel. Just you and me."
He extended a hand toward her. The box cutter was in the other. "Come here. Take my hand."
Cinnamon took a step forward. Her legs felt like jelly. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but she forced herself to move closer. "Okay. I'm coming. Just put the knife down."
"No!" He waved the blade. "Come closer!"
She took another step. She was ten feet away. She could see the madness in his eyes.
Suddenly, a rhythmic thumping sound filled the air. It grew louder, vibrating in her chest. A shadow fell over them.
Chase looked up, screaming something inaudible.
A sleek black helicopter with the Watts logo on the tail rose up over the edge of the building, the rotor wash hitting them like a hurricane.
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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.