The Billionaire's Price for My Salvation
I was a Parsons-trained designer, but with my family drowning in over half a million dollars of debt, I delivered coffee just to survive.
One clumsy mistake—spilling a latte in a corporate lobby—put me on the radar of the city's most ruthless billionaire, Christian Mercer.
A week later, I wasn't fired. I was summoned to his office on the 85th floor, where he laid out a contract.
He knew everything: my student loans, my mother's crippling medical bills, the foreclosure notices piling up on our kitchen table. He offered to wipe it all away, plus pay me five million dollars.
The price was one year of my life as his wife.
He called it a "mutually beneficial transaction," coldly stating my desperate circumstances made me the perfect, compliant candidate. I wasn't a person to him, just an asset to be acquired to solve a problem he refused to explain.
But when I found the eviction notice taped to our apartment door, my pride was a luxury I could no longer afford. I signed his contract. After a sterile City Hall ceremony, he left me alone in his cold, empty penthouse with a final, chilling instruction.
"The public part of our agreement begins now, Mrs. Mercer," he said, his voice void of any emotion. "Act accordingly."
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Chapter 3
The next evening, Adelynn fled her oppressive apartment and headed to the small dive bar she often visited with her friends, Jodie and Mitch.
Jodie slammed a shot of tequila down on the sticky bar counter. "Screw them. If they don't appreciate you, someone else will."
Adelynn forced a tired, faint smile, twisting the salt shaker between her fingers.
Mitch, always calm and practical, slid a glass of water toward her. "Easy," he said to Jodie. "Your chance might still be coming." He turned to Adelynn, his face softening with concern. "Are you okay? You've barely said a word all night."
The three of them had been inseparable since their first day at Parsons School of Design. Jodie, the wild, fearless textile designer; Mitch, the precise, brilliant architect; and Adelynn, the dreamer who sketched couture gowns in the margins of her notebooks.
But now, Mitch designed soulless office parks for a corporate firm. Jodie struggled to get by with odd freelance jobs. And Adelynn... she was just a coffee runner, working for people who would never see her worth.
"I'm fine," she lied, taking a sip of water. "Just tired."
"Tired of running around for people who don't see you?" Jodie shot back, her voice sharp with care. "You should've dumped that whole tray of coffee on his thousand-dollar shoes! Let him taste cheap coffee for once!"
Adelynn flinched instinctively. "It wasn't that dramatic. He didn't even look at me."
"That's what makes it worse!" Jodie leaned in, agitated. "It's the ultimate power move - completely erasing you. That's... cold. Sociopath cold."
"He's a CEO, Jodie. They live in a different world," Mitch tried to mediate. "They're not on the same level as ordinary people like us."
But Adelynn knew it was deeper than that. The chill radiating from Christian Mercer was not just wealth or class. It was emptiness - a quiet, unshakable coldness rooted deep in his soul.
Her phone vibrated inside her purse again.
It was Jefferson.
She quickly flipped it to silent, shoved it deeper into her bag, and clenched her jaw slightly.
Jodie's sharp eyes caught her small movement. "Still not over him?"
Adelynn nodded, afraid to speak, fearing her voice would break.
Their breakup six months earlier had been quiet, slow, and deeply painful. Jefferson, with his gentle eyes and stable family, could never understand the chasm that had opened up in her life. He had offered to help, to pay a few bills... but his kindness felt like a chain, constantly reminding her how far she had fallen. She refused to be his project, his damsel in distress, his charity case.
"You know," Mitch began carefully, "his father's company is one of the biggest developers in the city. He could probably..."
"No," Adelynn cut him off, sharper than she intended. "I'm not asking him for money, Mitch. I never will."
Her pride was all she had left - a dented, fragile shield... but she clung to it with everything she had. Accepting help from Jefferson would mean admitting total defeat, that the life she once dreamed of was gone forever.
Jodie reached across the table and squeezed her hand tightly, her palm warm and steady. "We get it, Addy. We've got your back. We'll figure it out. We always have."
Adelynn looked at her two best friends, their faces filled with genuine worry, and a warm wave of gratitude washed over her.
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8.7
For three years, Blair Guzman poured her resources into turning a broke waiter into an Oscar-winning actor, letting the world believe they were a couple just to keep him under her control.
But the night he won his Oscar, he publicly betrayed her by kissing Kiana—Blair’s estranged, rival sister.
Kiana and her mother brought the scandal right to the Glover family dinner table, trying to humiliate Blair.
"You're just mad because he dumped you for me," Kiana sneered in front of the entire family.
Instead of crying, Blair ruthlessly dismantled them, exposing how their cheap tabloid stunt tanked the family's corporate value.
Impressed by her cold logic, the family matriarch handed Blair the ultimate voting power, but it was a trap.
The matriarch immediately used Blair's elevated status to force her into an arranged marriage with a notorious, debt-ridden playboy just to secure a European shipping lane.
To her family, she was never a daughter—she was just a premium asset to be traded to the highest bidder.
What her greedy family didn't know was that Blair had already made a terrifying deal.
She was secretly married to the ruthless billionaire Butler McIntyre—a man who demanded absolute possession of her body and soul.
Now, her family's arranged parasite and her secret devil of a husband were on a collision course, and the wreckage was going to be spectacular.
9.2
I realized my husband did not love me the moment he stepped over my broken heart to answer a text from his mistress.
Caleb was the "Architect," a feared Capo in New York, but he forgot that I was the one who funded his rise from the gutter with my inheritance.
He brought his assistant, Kimberly, into our private penthouse. She wore my silk robe, mocked my past trauma, and snapped my dead mother’s rosary right in front of my eyes.
When I lashed out in grief, Caleb didn't defend me.
He pinned me against the wall, comforting her while calling me "unstable" and "violent."
He gaslighted me, claiming I would be eaten alive without his protection. He thought I was just a fragile princess who would crumble without him.
He truly believed he was the king, forgetting that I was the one who built the castle.
I didn't cry. I simply wiped the blood from my arm and walked out the door.
He didn't know that I owned thirty percent of his laundering front and the land beneath his precious casino.
I picked up the phone and dialed the number of his deadliest rival, the Irish mob.
"The bank is closed, Caleb. I’m selling my shares to the enemy."
8.4
"You don't belong in my world," he growled, his hand tightening around my waist.
"Then why do you keep pulling me deeper into it?" I whispered.
Ten years ago, I lost everything, my parents, my innocence, my trust in fate.
I only remember his shaking hands... and the birthmark on his arm.
Now, the most feared man in the city wants me.
A billionaire who commands blood and silence.
A mafia king who kneels only in the dark, only for me.
But what happens when I discover that the man I love...
...is the same man who destroyed my life?
9.3
Grace finally decided to end her toxic, one-sided relationship with Adelbert, the arrogant heir to a global empire, by texting him to terminate their family trust.
His response was a single, freezing word: "Done."
When they accidentally bumped into each other in a law firm elevator, Adelbert looked right through her.
"I don't know her," he stated coldly to his frat brothers, treating her like invisible trash.
Humiliated and completely exhausted, Grace sought an escape in a brutal shooter game called PUBG.
But by a sick twist of fate, the random matchmaking threw her into a squad with Adelbert's frat brothers and a god-tier, toxic player named 'Ø'.
'Ø' relentlessly mocked her terrible skills, humiliating her and calling her a "pig" over the voice chat.
Yet, during the final shootout, this ruthless player suddenly threw his character in front of hers, taking a fatal barrage of bullets just to keep her alive.
Grace soon uncovered the terrifying truth: the top-ranked 'Ø' was actually Adelbert himself.
She was utterly confused and furious.
Why would the untouchable billionaire who ignored her legal texts and publicly humiliated her suddenly sacrifice himself for her in a cheap video game?
Refusing to swallow her pride in both the real and digital worlds, Grace sent a direct challenge to his gaming profile.
"I'll prove I'm not a pig."
Across the city, Adelbert stared at the notification, a dark smirk curling his lips, and clicked accept.
7.6
I was the ultimate trophy wife, a polished ornament in Francisco Zimmerman’s billionaire empire. For three years, I perfected the "Zimmerman Wife Smile," playing the role of the devoted partner while smoothing the Egyptian cotton of his shirts.
The illusion shattered when I stood outside his study and heard him laughing with his mistress, Annalise.
"She’s just a vase that only knows how to smile," Francisco’s voice was cold, devoid of any warmth. "As long as I pay the maintenance fees on time, she stays obedient."
I walked out that night with nothing but a canvas bag and the clothes on my back. But Francisco wasn't finished with his "asset." He froze my bank accounts and used his massive influence to blacklist me from every interior design firm in New York. He tracked my phone, watching me struggle from the shadows, waiting for me to starve so I would crawl back to his mansion.
He even showed up at the dive bar where I was playing piano for rent money, mocking my desperation.
"You have technique, but no heart," he sneered, tossing a silver coin into my tip jar as if I were a beggar. "You're hollow, Iris. Just like your pride."
I couldn't believe this was the same man whose life I had saved during a bloody night in Macau. To him, I wasn't a wife; I was a stock price that needed stabilizing. The more I fought for my independence, the tighter he pulled the net, determined to break my spirit until I had no choice but to return to his gilded cage.
Then, the morning sickness hit. I realized I wasn't just carrying my own life anymore—I was carrying his heir. If Francisco found out, he would never let us go; he would turn my child into another "performance bonus" for his brand.
Looking at the sonogram, I knew a divorce would never be enough to escape a man who thought he owned the world.
"I'm not going back," I whispered, staring at his yacht moored in the harbor. "To save this baby, Iris Potter has to die."
9.3
Ginny was chained to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, bleeding and betrayed by the two people she trusted most.
Her fiancé, Brant, and her adopted sister, Coretta, had just slashed her face open. Brant coldly admitted she was nothing but a disposable key to a vault, right before he tossed a lighter onto the gasoline-soaked floor.
As Ginny burned alive in the roaring inferno, the heavy iron doors were violently smashed open. Bedford Parks—the notoriously ruthless, germaphobic "monster" of Silicon Valley whom Ginny had always feared—charged straight into the flames. Ignoring the blistering heat, he shielded her charred body with his own. A massive steel beam collapsed, snapping his spine.
"I love you."
He coughed up blood, whispering his final words against her blackened skin before dying to protect her.
Hovering as a ghost, Ginny's soul screamed in agonizing realization. She had spent her life terrified of Bedford, yet he was the only one who truly loved her, while her supposed family laughed at her gruesome murder.
Suddenly, a blinding white light swallowed the warehouse.
Ginny gasped for air, opening her eyes to find herself sitting in the back of a luxury Maybach. She was eighteen again, wearing the humiliating clown makeup Coretta had tricked her into wearing on the day she was brought back to the wealthy Steele estate.
Ginny stared at her reflection, her dark eyes turning cold and sharp.
This time, she would tear her betrayers apart piece by piece, and she would protect her "monster."