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 4
The word hung in the air.
The entire shooting bay went dead silent. Blair's mouth fell open in shock.
Gregory violently rubbed his ear. "Did you lose your hearing, Castillo? You just agreed to be a piece of meat."
Adrian ignored him. He pushed off the counter and walked slowly toward Juliette.
He stopped inches from her. He looked down, trapping her gaze with his dark, intense stare.
He slipped both hands into his pockets. "If we're playing," Adrian said lazily, "one dinner is an insult."
Blair practically vibrated with excitement. She took a step forward. "What do you want to add, Adrian?"
Adrian didn't even glance at Blair. His eyes remained locked on Juliette's face.
"The winner," Adrian stated clearly, "gets me for three consecutive weekends. Full days."
A collective gasp ripped through the crowd of girls. Blair's face flushed a deep, victorious red.
Juliette stared up at Adrian like he had grown a second head. Her eyebrows pulled together in deep confusion. Why was he selling himself out?
She opened her mouth to reject the ridiculous terms.
Then, her brain did the math. Three weekends. Full days. That was seventy-two hours.
Seventy-two hours of uninterrupted access to the greatest mind in the physics department to discuss the CRISPR data.
Juliette's eyes widened. A spark of pure, manic excitement ignited in her chest. The hesitation vanished completely.
Adrian watched the exact moment the realization hit her. The corner of his mouth curved into a dark, satisfied smirk. The trap was set.
Blair saw Juliette's flushed face and scoffed. She thought Juliette was just another desperate fangirl.
Blair marched to the shooting stall. She slipped on a pair of custom pink earmuffs and signaled the operator to activate the electronic target.
"Rules are simple," Sierra announced loudly. "Ten shots. Highest total score wins. Loser gets out."
Juliette stood frozen behind the line. She stared at the black air pistol resting on the table.
Her fingers curled inward. Her palms were sweating. The suffocating weight of her past pressed down on her chest.
Adrian noticed the slight tremor in her hands.
He stepped forward, smoothly positioning his large frame between Juliette and the staring crowd. He created a physical wall, giving her a moment to breathe.
He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. "If you're scared, I can shut this down right now," he whispered.
Juliette's head snapped up. She bit her bottom lip hard, tasting copper. "No. I need that fertilizer. And I need those three days."
Blair looked over her shoulder and wiggled her fingers mockingly at Juliette. "Watch and learn, dirt-girl."
Blair raised her gun. She took a deep breath, settling into a rigid, textbook stance. Her eyes narrowed.
Bang.
The electronic screen above the lane flashed. 9.8.
The crowd clapped loudly.
Blair blew a nonexistent wisp of smoke from the barrel and smirked at Juliette.
Juliette stared at the screen. Her professional instincts flared to life, overriding her panic. Her wrist is too stiff, Juliette thought automatically.
Over the next eight shots, Blair fired with mechanical consistency. The screen flashed numbers between 9.5 and 10.2. It was an incredibly high score for an amateur.
The whispers in the crowd grew louder. Everyone agreed Juliette was already dead in the water.
Blair took a long breath for her final shot. She locked her elbow, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger.
The screen blinked rapidly. 10.5.
The bay erupted. Sierra screamed in triumph. Blair lowered her gun, soaking in the admiration like a queen.
Blair walked over to the table and slammed her gun down. She pointed a manicured finger at Juliette.
"Your turn," Blair commanded. "Go embarrass yourself so you can leave."
Juliette stared at the gun. She took a shaky breath and prepared to step forward.
Right beside her, Adrian let out a heavy, dramatic sigh.
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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.