The Billionaire Heir's Secret Disguised Queen
Juliette was an agriculture major desperately trying to get top-tier CRISPR potato data from Adrian Castillo, the untouchable physics genius and wealthy heir.
But to get it, she was dragged to a high-end shooting club, where Adrian suddenly lost all his legendary motor skills, shooting zeroes and acting like a helpless nerd.
His clumsy act made Juliette a target. Blair, a wealthy heiress, cornered her, mocking her mud-stained cargo pants and calling her a pathetic dirt-girl.
"If you lose, you leave this club and never speak to Adrian again."
Blair challenged her to a professional air pistol match. The crowd of elites laughed, waiting for the farm girl to humiliate herself.
Even worse, Adrian just stood behind her, pretending to be terrified of Blair and whispering that his sinuses would swell shut if Juliette didn't save him.
The mockery and judgment felt suffocating. Everyone thought she was just a desperate fangirl who didn't even know how to hold a gun.
But they didn't know the dark trauma she had buried years ago. And she didn't understand why Adrian, a man who could supposedly shoot a coin at eight hundred meters in a sandstorm, was deliberately playing weak to push her to the firing line. What was his sick endgame?
To secure her experimental fertilizer, Juliette finally stopped hiding.
She picked up the competition pistol, locked her perfect stance, and fired ten flawless shots.
108.5. Total, undeniable annihilation.
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Chapter 1
The heavy bass from the speakers vibrated through the sticky wood of the coffee table, traveling straight up Juliette's arms and rattling her teeth.
She sat in the darkest corner of the Alpha Sigma fraternity living room. Her knees were pulled up tight against her chest.
A plastic cup of untouched soda sweated onto her jeans.
She pressed her palm hard against her right ear, trying to block out the noise. Her eyes never left the glowing screen of her tablet. The third paragraph analyzing tuber mutations was blurring together.
A massive roar of laughter erupted from the center of the room.
The sound shattered her focus completely. She let out a sharp breath, dropping her hand from her ear, and looked up at the crowd gathered around the Texas Hold'em table.
Adrian Castillo leaned back in a cracked leather armchair.
He looked entirely out of place in the sweaty frat house. His crisp button-down shirt didn't have a single wrinkle. His long, calloused fingers lazily spun two hole cards face down on the felt.
His dark, piercing eyes cut right through the chaotic crowd. They landed with pinpoint accuracy on Juliette in her dark corner.
Jax slammed both hands on the table, shoving a massive pile of plastic chips into the center.
"All in, Castillo!" Jax yelled over the music. "You gonna call or what?"
The girls standing behind Jax shrieked in anticipation.
Adrian slowly pulled his gaze away from Juliette. The corner of his mouth twitched upward in a cold, barely-there smirk.
He flipped his cards over, pressing them flat against the table. A straight flush.
"Fold," Adrian said. His voice was quiet, but it somehow cut through the heavy bass.
The room went dead silent for exactly one second. Then, the crowd exploded into deafening whistles and groans.
Jax stared at the folded winning hand, his jaw practically hitting the floor. He blinked, realized he had just won by default, and immediately jumped onto his chair.
"I set the penalty rules tonight!" Jax roared, pointing a finger at the ceiling.
He scanned the room. His eyes swept past a dozen girls in tight dresses who were practically vibrating with hope.
His finger stopped. It pointed straight at the corner. Straight at Juliette's baggy cargo pants.
"Castillo," Jax shouted, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "You have to get a ten-second French kiss from the potato freak in the corner. Or you're doing my lab reports for the rest of the semester."
The crowd parted like the Red Sea.
Suddenly, there was a clear path of sticky floor between the poker table and Juliette's sofa.
Juliette blinked. She looked up from her screen. The bright diagram of a russet potato was still illuminating her confused face.
Adrian stood up. He casually adjusted his cuffs, the silver links catching the strobe lights.
He stepped over a spilled red cup and walked straight toward her. His strides were long, purposeful, and terrifyingly steady.
Juliette watched the campus god approach. Her heart kicked against her ribs. Her brain scrambled, calculating the distance to the back door. Blocked by three linebackers.
Adrian stopped right in front of her.
His tall frame entirely blocked out the spinning disco lights. He cast a heavy, warm shadow over her.
He leaned down. He placed a hand on the back of the sofa, right beside her head, trapping her.
"I need a favor," Adrian murmured. His voice was a low rumble that vibrated right into her chest.
Juliette pressed her spine hard against the sofa cushions. Her lungs felt tight.
"Absolutely not," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "Go do his lab reports."
The crowd started chanting. "Ten! Nine!"
The sheer volume made Juliette's stomach churn. She squeezed her eyes shut, her head pounding.
Adrian tilted his head. His mouth hovered inches from her ear. She could feel the heat of his breath on her skin.
"Professor Alistair Frye's latest CRISPR potato breeding data," Adrian whispered.
Juliette's eyes snapped open. Her pupils dilated.
Her body, which had been coiled tight with panic, froze completely. She turned her head, her nose almost brushing his jaw, and stared straight into his dark eyes.
Adrian watched her reaction. A flash of dark satisfaction crossed his face.
"Help me out," he said softly, his gaze dropping to her lips. "And the data is yours."
Juliette's brain ran the math. One kiss versus top-tier agricultural technology. The panic warred with her academic greed for a frantic second, and greed won. It took her less than a second.
She reached up, grabbed the collar of his expensive shirt, and yanked him down.
The crowd's chanting cut off into a collective gasp of shock.
Adrian let himself be pulled. As his face descended, Juliette quickly turned her head a fraction of an inch. She slammed her thumb flat against his lips, pressing it between his mouth and hers.
From the crowd's angle, it looked like a desperate, heated kiss.
Jax blew a loud whistle and started screaming the countdown. "Five! Four!"
Adrian felt the rough, calloused skin of her thumb against his lips. His eyes darkened.
He didn't pull away. Instead, he slid his free arm around her waist, his large hand gripping her hip firmly, pulling her flush against his chest to deepen the fake embrace.
"One!" Jax yelled.
Juliette shoved Adrian's chest like she had just touched a hot stove.
She scrambled backward, grabbing her tablet with shaking hands. Her cheeks were burning.
Adrian took a half-step back. He slipped one hand into his pocket. His face was a mask of cool indifference, completely unaffected by the physical contact.
"Your number," Juliette demanded, holding out her phone. "For the data."
Adrian let out a low chuckle. "Phone's dead."
Juliette glared at him.
"Meet me at the campus carnival shooting range tomorrow," Adrian said smoothly. "Noon."
Before she could argue, he turned around. He walked toward the front door, leaving the stunned frat house behind him.
Juliette stared at his retreating back. She ground her teeth together, shoved her tablet into her backpack, and stood up.
She was getting that data tomorrow, even if it killed her.
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7.9
June was an ordinary architect struggling to pay rent, completely estranged from her high-society mother.
But one night, she was kidnapped and beaten in an abandoned warehouse by Gage Becker, the city's most ruthless billionaire, who demanded payback for her mother's sins.
Gage pointed a high-definition camera at June's battered face and video-called her mother, threatening to release the footage and ruin her upcoming billion-dollar wedding.
"I will never throw away a billion-dollar marriage for a useless daughter."
Her mother's cold voice echoed through the warehouse before the line went dead.
From that moment, Gage systematically destroyed June's life. She was publicly humiliated and forced to hack off her own hair with a cigar cutter. She was blacklisted from every firm in the city, evicted by her landlord, and violently mugged in a freezing New York blizzard.
Curled up in an icy tunnel waiting to die, June felt a suffocating despair. She hadn't spoken to her mother in months. Why did she have to endure this hell for a woman who didn't even care if she lived or died? Why was a monster like Gage so obsessed with driving her to the grave?
When Gage's armored Maybach pulled up, he stepped into the snow to mock her, waiting for her to finally surrender and beg for his mercy.
But the absolute humiliation snapped the last thread of June's sanity.
Instead of crying, she lunged forward with feral energy and sank her teeth directly into the devil's flesh.
8.3
My husband watched as my skin melted, scalded by boiling soup, yet his hands were busy comforting my attacker. Five years of marriage, built on a foundation of my family's power, crumbled with a single, brutal act of betrayal. He bought me off with a penthouse and a trust fund, but I tore out my IV and threw his charity back in his face.
It was our fifth anniversary, but my husband, Ethan, remained distant, avoiding any talk of Chicago or the mafia protection my family once offered him. He then pushed a black velvet box across the table.
Inside was a Separation and Property Division Agreement, not a diamond. He told me to sign for Ilene's security, offering millions. When I refused, Ilene hurled boiling soup. Ethan shielded her, not me, as the scalding liquid melted my dress.
With second-degree burns, he blamed me, ordering me from our home for Ilene’s comfort. My family saved him, yet he sacrificed my body and marriage for another woman.
The love I felt turned to ash. What kind of debt demanded my flesh and marriage?
I ripped the IV from my arm, hurling his "charity" keys back. My diamond ring placed on the agreement, I walked away. From today on, Ethan, you and I are dead to each other.
9.1
My husband, Dante Moretti, the feared Underboss, signed the divorce papers I slipped him without a glance. Too busy texting his true love, Sofia, he was blind to the annulment decree ending everything. The Reaper couldn't see the death of his own marriage.
For three years, I was Elena, his silent wife, the "Caged Canary," cleaning his messes while meticulously planning my escape from our loveless world.
He dismissed me for Sofia's every whim, publicly shaming me after a past love letter was read, then abandoning me again for her fake crisis.
That night, he violently shoved me against a wall, leaving me bleeding and concussed, rushing instead to protect Sofia. Discarded and injured, my invisible love became a weapon against me.
His crushing blindness, the cold realization I was a mere placeholder, fueled a profound injustice. How could he be so lethal, yet oblivious to his wife, favoring the one who betrayed him?
With chilling resolve, I uploaded Sofia's confession, initiated a massive financial transfer dismantling his empire, and staged my own death. Under a new identity, I fled to San Francisco, ready to build my power, far from his bloody, deceitful world.
7.6
Top DEA agent Kaitlynn Bruce woke up to a heavy, chemical lethargy, only to realize she was trapped in the body of a weak, abused war widow.
Before she could even process her new reality, she heard her sister-in-law counting cash, selling her unconscious body to a local thug for a measly two hundred dollars.
The thug dragged her new seven-year-old son, Cason, into the bedroom.
"Mommy!"
When the boy reached out, the man brutally kicked his small body into a wooden doorframe, leaving him gasping and bleeding on the floor.
Memories flooded Kaitlynn's mind. Her predecessor was a pathetic doormat whose husband's military pension had been bled dry by these greedy in-laws, leaving her children to starve and suffer endless abuse.
But as Kaitlynn looked at the bleeding boy's dark, unnervingly alert eyes, a chilling piece of DEA intelligence clicked in her mind.
Cason Richmond.
The name, the town, the abusive aunt—it all matched the classified files of the "Director of the Hive," the most ruthless and feared cartel puppet master in the criminal underworld.
How could this battered, starving child be destined to become the ultimate monster she used to hunt?
The original widow's tragic death was supposed to be the catalyst that pushed this boy into total darkness.
But Kaitlynn Bruce was not a victim.
Adrenaline burning through the drugs, she cracked the thug's neck with a brass lamp and choked the sister-in-law against the wall.
Looking down at the boy who was supposed to become a global nightmare, she made a vow. She was going to rewrite his script, even if she had to burn the whole world down to do it.
7.6
I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me.
But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest.
The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me.
They didn't.
Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her.
They let me burn to keep her warm.
When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages.
That was the moment Elena Vitiello died.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York.
By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring.
"You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them.
"Burn for it."
8.0
Madeline slammed the prenuptial agreement onto the table, forcing Danielle to sign herself away as a "blood bag" bride.
To secure her mother's safety, Danielle was sold to the ruthless, comatose billionaire Deforest Stuart. She kept her head down, perfectly playing the role of a terrified, broken mute.
But on her wedding night, Deforest's sister set a vicious trap, dragging Danielle to a hotel to be ruined by a sleazy investor.
Danielle was prepared to escape, but the hotel door was suddenly smashed open by a massive figure.
It wasn't the investor. It was her comatose husband, Deforest, temporarily awakened by a violent, drug-induced rage.
In the pitch-black room, he pinned her down, mistaking her scent for a ghost from his past, and violently claimed her.
She fled before dawn, only to be blinded by camera flashes.
His sister dragged her back to the Stuart manor, ripping her collar open under the chandelier to expose the dark hickeys on her neck.
"Throw this shameless whore out into the street!" the matriarch ordered.
Danielle's eyes grew cold. If they kicked her out now, her years of planning to tear this rotten family apart would be completely destroyed.
No one believed that the monster who assaulted her was the very man lying perfectly still in the medical wing.
Playing the frantic mute, Danielle dragged the family to his bedroom.
Right as the guards reached for her, she launched herself onto the bed, crushing her weight directly onto Deforest's chest.
A second later, the "comatose" tyrant's eyes snapped open with murderous rage, and her real game of revenge finally began.