The billionaire's beautiful marionette
"Be my wife."
Lucia looked at him, questioning his sanity.
"You're out of your mind.I don't even know you ".
Lucas Mariano's voice was icy, his gaze unreadable.
"You need help.Your sister requires care.I can help you both.You have quite the image so I'm sure you'll need it.
It's transactional-nothing more."He finished.
Once the rising star in the ballet world, Lucia Moretti's life is shaken after a brutal divorce and a terrible fire that leaves her and her sister homeless.
Now, with her dreams buried,her heart is guarded and her main focus is keeping both herself and her sister alive.
Enter Lucas-Merciless, cold and sinfully compelling.He offers a contract marriage which comes with everything Lucia needs but at a cost she doesn't understand...yet.
What started as a formality quickly grows into something far more twisted when her ex-husband,Matt-lucas's best friend-returns, determined to have her again.
"You got married to Lucas?" Matt snarled,fury dripping from his voice.
"Is this your revenge?" He continued icily.
No, Lucia said without emotion.
"This is survival."
As sparks fly and secrets come to light, Lucia Finds herself torn between a past that nearly broke her and a man who might shatter her in a brand new way.
In a world of socialites, betrayal and fake love, Lucia must ask herself: Is she the puppet or the one holding the strings?
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Chapter 2
Lucia's pov
The scream pierced the silence like a knife to the chest.
"Sophia!"
I bolted upright, the wooly blanket slipping from my chest as I bolted to her room where I left her Last night, heart slamming against my rib cage.
The air was thick- too thick- and in the dim light from the hallway I saw her.
She was cringing against the floor by the window,her little frame trembling,hands hugging her chest.
"Cece..." she groaned.
"It ....hurts..."
I rushed to her side in mere seconds, anxiety filling my head as I lifted her into my lap.
"How did this happen?"
"She was fine just yesterday!"
I silenced my thoughts as I felt her skin...it was clammy and burning up but yet she shivered like she was trapped in a tundra.
"Sophia, keep your eyes on me," I whispered, cupping her face.
"What's wrong? What's hurting?".
"My chest," she gasped."I can't...breathe.."
Another wave of anxiety washed over me.This time much stronger .
"Okay. It's Okay. I've got you baby."
I grabbed my phone with unsteady hands and dialed 911.My voice came out hoarse, panicked.
"My baby sister - she CANNOT breathe properly. She's burning up - please just hurry!"
The ambulance lights dyed the world in a frantic red and white. I sat next to her, clutching her hand as they raced through traffic.
"Her heart rate's too fast," the specialist muttered. "Blood pressure dropping - let's prepare the oxygen".
"Is she going to be alright?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
"We'll do everything we can love," the woman said without looking up at me.
"Keep speaking to her. Keep her awake."
The woman continued.
I obliged.
"Soso," I murmured. " Stay here with me, okay? Remember our promise?"
Her eyes fluttered open."Always.... and forever..." she whispered with much effort.
"That's right. You're going nowhere."
I promised once more.
The emergency room was icy, sterile and loud - monitors beeping,voices yelling and machines humming in mechanical rhythm.
A nurse took her from me and I stood there for a moment, empty and shaking.
"Miss," someone said quietly.
"We need you to wait outside."
I nodded mindlessly and stumbled into the corridor.
Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes stretched into hours. I sat on a Stony chair with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees like a little girl. I couldn't cry. Not now. I had to be strong. I had to be useful.
A nurse appeared, clipboard in hand.
"Lucia Moretti?"
I scrambled to my feet."Yes.Is she -?"
"She's stable for now. But there's cause for alarm. We suspect acute respiratory distress, possibly made worse by previous smoke inhalation or trauma. We'll be running more tests."
"Whatever she needs," I answered quickly.
"Please."
The nurse hesitated for a moment.
"Do you have a health insurance file with us?"
"No, but she's just a little child. You'll still treat her right?"
She softened."She's receiving emergency care. But for long-term treatment - most especially advanced diagnoses and medication - we'll need either insurance information or an upfront payment."
I blinked. Twice. "uhh, I have...three hundred and fifty dollars. I can give it to you now."
She forced a tight smile. "Our payment department is just down the hall to the left. You can discuss options with them."
Options? There were few options for me to be honest. I didn't have a well paying job anymore.
"Can I see her?" I whispered.
She nodded and guided me to a small room.
Sophia looked even tinier in the hospital bed, her skin pale against the sheets. An IV snaked into her arm. Her eyes slowly opened as I sat next to her.
"Cece?" Her voice was just a whisper but I could hear her.
"I'm here,Soso." I stroked her hair back softly. "I'm right here baby."
"You were sobbing..."
I smiled, holding back brand new tears." No way,I'm too tough for that."
She gave a knowing smile,then frowned.
"It felt like the fire all over again...like I couldn't move...like I was stuck under a rock or something."
My chest tightened.
"Do you think the fire caused my sickness?"
"No," I lied calmly." it wasn't your fault. None of it was."
"But I saw a lady...from the flames..."
She whispered. " The lady was out to get me."
A chill crawled up my spine.
"She looked very threatening but somehow she was still beautiful."
"Baby," I said gently, " sometimes our brains play tricks on us when we're scared. It doesn't mean it's real."
"But it felt so real."
I couldn't say anything else. So I gently held her hand and murmured," I'll figure it all out. I swear."
After she went to sleep, I found my way into the hallway. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a warm glow on everything. I passed the billing office but refused to go in.
What was the point?
I leaned against a worn out vending machine and stared at the broken tile beneath my feet. I was running on luck - no money,a shitty job and an unclear future. And now my sister needed medical care I could barely afford.
A male nurse passed by me and paused
"Are you well,miss?"
I straightened. "Yes. I'm just...waiting."
He looked unconvinced but nodded slowly,then moved on.
I pressed my hands to my face and let out a loud sigh.
This city didn't care about little girls who hallucinated about fires or big sisters who used to dance until their feet hurt because it made them happy.
It didn't care about people like us.
But I did
And I would find a way out of this.even if it killed me.
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9.5
My boyfriend, Jefferson, convinced me to give up my Yale scholarship for him. He was my secret, my escape from the shame of my mother's past, and I threw away my future for our love.
Then, at a gala, he publicly announced his engagement to Aubrey Carroll-the girl who made my high school years a living hell.
He trapped me in his mansion, forcing me to become her personal servant. She tortured me daily, culminating in her brutally killing our dog, Charlie, with a garden trowel.
When her friends arrived, they joined in, stripping me half-naked and live-streaming my panic attack for the world to see.
The man who once promised to protect me watched as they destroyed me.
But as I lay bleeding out on the floor, it wasn't an ambulance that arrived. It was the private security of Alexzander Stevens-my estranged, billionaire grandfather.
He revealed I was his sole heiress, and now, we were going to make them pay for every last tear.
8.7
On her eighteenth birthday, Elinor thought she was finally an adult. But a single text message reminded her she was just property.
Boyd Walker, the ruthless billionaire who dictated her every breath, threw a contract onto her bed. He had bought her adoptive father's medical debt—one billion dollars. And she was the sole collateral.
The punishment for even a hint of rebellion was catastrophic.
When her disabled friend tried to check on her, Boyd had his good leg shattered in front of a live security feed just to teach her a lesson.
When she fought off an entitled frat boy at school and came back with a bleeding arm, Boyd didn't comfort her.
Driven by a twisted, suffocating jealousy, he held her under a freezing bath, then tied a red thread with a silver bell around her ankle.
"You are a pet that needs to learn its boundaries."
Every time she moved, the high-pitched ring was a humiliating reminder of her gilded cage. The billion-dollar debt was a chain she could never break, and the monster holding the leash would destroy anyone who dared to help her.
Stripped of her money, her friends, and her dignity, Elinor lay completely still in the dark room for three days, refusing all food and water.
If Boyd wouldn't give her freedom, she would take the only thing she had left to control—her own death.
7.8
Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire.
I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper.
I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he’d dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family’s land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock.
I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim.
"If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned.
So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell—the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months.
Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I’ve suspended Hugh’s executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I’m just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout.
But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back.
7.6
I am the illegitimate, mute daughter of the wealthy Owen family, kept hidden in the attic like a shameful secret.
To save his failing company, my father decided to sell me off to a repulsive, predatory investor named Grossman.
At the family dinner, Grossman's sweaty hands roamed my bare legs while my half-sister Kaleigh intentionally spilled red wine on my dress, laughing as she watched me suffer.
When I grabbed a steak knife to defend myself, my father slammed his fist on the table.
"Sit down, or I will cut off the maintenance payments for your mother's grave."
My stepmother and sister sneered, treating me like a piece of meat meant to be sacrificed for their luxury. I was starved, locked away, and treated worse than a stray dog, all while my family paraded their high-society status to the world.
I couldn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or who really ordered the hit that killed my mother twenty years ago. The police reports were buried, and I was entirely powerless, trapped in a house of monsters.
But they didn't know that the night before, I had accidentally stumbled into the secret life of Burleigh Livingston—the ruthless, supposedly paralyzed billionaire who was faking his madness.
When Burleigh suddenly crashed our family dinner and threw a limitless Black Card on the table to outbid Grossman and buy me for the night, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, accepted his twisted deal, and prepared to use the devil himself to tear my family apart.
8.0
They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, mine didn't.
I came back with a marriage certificate bearing a stranger's name, a ring worth more than my parents' love ever was, and a son whose father I've never seen, never known, never remembered.
I went to Vegas for a racing competition. I won. I celebrated. And somewhere between the victory and the sunrise, my life changed forever.
For six years, I've lived with the consequences of one reckless night. I built an empire. I raised my son. And I searched for the man who changed my life without even knowing it.
Then fate laughed in my face.
My sister married my ex-fiancé-the man I was promised to since childhood. The man I was supposed to become Mrs. Windsor for. The man who now wears my family name... and looks far too much like my child.
Every time I'm near him, the past presses closer. Every glance feels like a question I'm terrified to ask. I shouldn't notice him. I shouldn't feel anything. He is my sister's husband.
But some secrets refuse to stay buried.
Because the truth about Vegas isn't just in the ring on my finger or the child in my arms.
It's standing right in front of me.
And when it finally comes out, it won't just destroy a marriage, it will burn an empire to the ground.
7.1
I lay paralyzed on stiff white sheets, a prisoner in my own skin, listening to the rain lash against the window like nails on a coffin. My father, Elmore Franco, didn't even look at my face as he checked his clipboard. He just listened to the steady, monotonous beep of the heart monitor-the only thing proving I was still alive.
Without a hint of remorse, he pulled a pen from his pocket and signed the Do Not Resuscitate order. My stepmother, Ophelia, stepped out from behind him, wearing my favorite pearl necklace and smelling of cloying perfume. She leaned close to my ear to whisper the truth that turned my blood to ice.
"It was the tea, darling. Just like your mother. A slow, tasteless poison."
She chuckled as she revealed that my fiancé, Bryce, had a two-year-old son with my sister, Daniela. My inheritance had been funding their secret life for years, and now that the money was secure, I was an inconvenience they were finally scrubbing away. As my father yanked the power cord from the wall, the beeping died, and the darkness swallowed me whole.
I was being murdered by my own flesh and blood, used as a bank account until I was no longer needed. I died in that sterile room, drowning in the realization that every person I ever loved was a monster who had been waiting for me to take my last breath.
Then, I gasped. I woke up in a luxury hotel suite surrounded by silk sheets, five years in the past-the very morning of my wedding. Next to me lay Basile Delgado, the "Wolf of Wall Street" and my family's most dangerous enemy. In my first life, I ran from this room in a panic and lost everything. This time, I looked at the man who would eventually destroy my father's empire and decided to join him.
"I'm not leaving, Basile. Marry me. Right now. Today."