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 5
Adrian's low sigh cut through the cheering crowd.
Juliette turned her head. Adrian was looking down at the floor, his brow heavily furrowed in a mask of pure distress.
He leaned down, his shoulder brushing against hers.
"I despise people who bathe in perfume," Adrian whispered, his voice laced with genuine misery.
Juliette blinked. She inhaled instinctively. The cloying, heavy scent of Blair's custom rose perfume burned the back of her throat.
Adrian shifted closer. The heat radiating from his chest seeped through her thin shirt.
"If I have to spend three weekends with her," Adrian murmured, his voice suddenly sounding incredibly fragile, "my sinuses will swell shut. I won't be able to spell a single gene sequence for you."
That sentence hit Juliette's brain like a lightning bolt.
Her experimental data was in danger. Her eyes sharpened instantly, the fear evaporating into pure, protective rage over her research.
Adrian watched the fire ignite in her eyes. He pushed a little harder. "Besides, her stance looked sloppy to me. Pure luck."
Adrian's words cut through the thick fog of her panic. He was right. The sheer incompetence on display was an insult to the sport she once loved. She forced the violent tremors in her hands to still, taking a slow, grounding breath. She channeled the suffocating fear into a cold, analytical rage. Juliette scoffed loudly, her professional arrogance completely taking over. "Her breathing rhythm is entirely wrong. And her wrist micro-twitches right before the break."
A dark gleam flashed in Adrian's eyes. "If you see the flaws, go up there and break her ego."
Juliette's fire dimmed slightly as she looked back at the gun. She rubbed her temples. "I haven't touched a grip in years."
Blair stood ten feet away, hands on her hips. "Are you begging him to save you? Just forfeit and get out!"
Sierra laughed loudly. "If you get on your knees and apologize, maybe we'll just take the guy and let you go."
Juliette's stubborn pride flared violently. Her hands balled into tight fists. She glared at Blair.
"Are you really going to let her take your fertilizer?" Adrian whispered softly, the ultimate bait.
That did it.
Juliette marched toward the shooting stall.
She stood in front of the table. She stared down at the black metal. She took a deep breath and reached out. Her fingers were trembling so badly she could barely keep them straight.
Just as her skin was about to touch the metal, a large, warm hand covered hers completely.
Juliette gasped and spun her head around.
Adrian was standing directly behind her. There was zero space between them. His chest was pressed firmly against her back.
"Since you're a beginner," Adrian's deep voice vibrated against her neck, "let the 'theory master' show you the ropes."
The crowd gasped. Blair's face turned purple. "You can't help her! That's cheating!"
Adrian didn't even look at Blair. His eyes were fixed on Juliette's trembling hand. "I'm only adjusting her grip. I won't touch the trigger. Standard beginner rules."
The range officer, intimidated by Adrian's cold aura, nodded nervously. "Grip correction is allowed."
Blair ground her teeth. "Fine! Hold her hand all you want. A loser is still a loser."
Adrian ignored the noise. He wrapped both of his arms around Juliette's waist, caging her against the table.
Juliette's brain short-circuited.
The panic of the gun vanished, entirely replaced by the overwhelming scent of cedar and the solid wall of muscle pressed against her spine. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs.
Adrian lowered his head. His jaw rested lightly against her shoulder.
"Breathe," he commanded softly.
His long fingers slowly pried her stiff, trembling fingers open. He guided her hand down, wrapping it around the textured grip of the pistol.
His thumb intentionally brushed across the sensitive skin of her palm. A jolt of electricity shot straight up Juliette's arm.
To the crowd, it looked like a romantic, clumsy lesson.
To Juliette, it was sensory overload.
"Your shoulder is too tight," Adrian murmured, his lips brushing the shell of her ear.
Juliette sucked in a sharp breath. She forced her eyes away from his hands and stared straight down the lane at the paper target.
The noise of the crowd faded. The smell of perfume vanished.
The cold metal in her hand suddenly felt like an extension of her own arm. The fear drained out of her, replaced by a terrifying, icy calm.
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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.