The Broken Wife's Ultimate Revenge
I endured three years of a loveless marriage with my billionaire husband, swallowing his constant insults just to afford my mother's life-saving cardiac care.
But everything shattered when Corrin, the woman who framed me with fake scandalous photos in college, returned to New York.
Adelbert immediately moved her into our estate, flaunting her as his VIP guest and taking her to family dinners while treating me like absolute dirt.
When my mother suffered a massive heart attack, I desperately begged Adelbert to use his top-tier medical connections to save her.
He completely ignored my calls, choosing to hold Corrin's hand during her pregnancy ultrasound while my mother flatlined in the ICU.
I later discovered a horrifying truth.
Corrin was the one who anonymously leaked fake financial documents about my family to the press, intentionally triggering my mother's heart failure.
I had sacrificed all my dignity for this marriage, only to be humiliated and watch my mother almost die at the hands of his pregnant mistress.
How could Adelbert be so blindly devoted to a manipulative monster while looking at his own wife with pure disgust?
I taped our torn prenuptial agreement back together, slammed the divorce papers onto his desk, and packed my bags.
"I am throwing away a piece of garbage that has disgusted me for three years."
This time, I was going to make them bleed.
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Chapter 1
Juliana Dalton sat at the edge of the velvet vanity stool in the master bedroom of her Manhattan penthouse. Her fingers trembled slightly as she fastened the final pearl button of her white silk blouse. The fabric felt like ice against her skin.
Her phone buzzed against the marble countertop. The harsh vibration rattled her makeup brushes.
She glanced at the screen. A text from her best friend, Ashly Cook.
An image loaded.
Juliana's stomach plummeted. The air vanished from her lungs.
The photo was grainy, taken from a distance at JFK's private terminal. But the woman stepping out of the black SUV was unmistakable. Corrin Henderson. She was holding a Birkin bag, her blonde hair catching the morning light.
Corrin was back.
Juliana's fingernails dug into her palms. The sharp pain grounded her.
The heavy oak door of the master bedroom swung open.
Adelbert Landry walked in. He brought the crisp autumn chill of Manhattan with him.
He didn't look at her. He never looked at her.
He walked straight toward the walk-in closet. His fingers tore at the knot of his silk tie.
Juliana inhaled. Her chest tightened.
Underneath the scent of the cold wind, she smelled it. A heavy, expensive niche perfume. Notes of vanilla and dark amber.
It wasn't hers. It was the exact scent Corrin used to wear.
Juliana stood up. Her knees felt weak.
"Where were you last night?"
Her voice shook. She hated how weak it sounded.
Adelbert stopped. He dropped the tie onto a leather chair. He turned around slowly.
His dark eyes locked onto hers. They were empty. Cold. He looked at her like she was a piece of trash on his expensive rug.
"Do you really think you have the right to question my schedule?"
He let out a harsh, humorless laugh.
Juliana bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper.
"Corrin is back in New York."
Adelbert's jaw clenched. The muscle ticked under his skin.
He closed the distance between them in three long strides. He backed her up until her spine hit the edge of the marble vanity.
He slammed both hands onto the counter, trapping her in his shadow. The scent of vanilla and amber suffocated her.
"Don't you ever say her name."
His voice was a low, dangerous whisper.
"You don't get to speak about her. Not after what you did. Not with your history."
Juliana's face drained of color. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Adelbert, those photos from college were fake. I told you. I never signed a Sugar Baby Arrangement. Corrin set me up-"
His hand shot out. His fingers gripped her chin, squeezing hard. He forced her to look up at him.
"Stop lying."
His breath fanned over her face.
"I know exactly what you are, Juliana. You sold your body to climb into my world. You have no bottom line. You are dirty."
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Her throat burned.
"If you ever try to touch Corrin, or if you don't play your part as the perfect, quiet wife," Adelbert warned, his grip tightening, "I will ruin you. I will make sure you are nothing in this city."
He let go of her chin. He stepped back.
He pulled a crisp white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his fingers. Like touching her had contaminated him.
He tossed the handkerchief into the trash can. He turned and walked out of the bedroom.
The door slammed shut. The sound echoed in the massive room.
Juliana's legs gave out. She collapsed onto the vanity stool.
She stared at her pale reflection in the mirror. She forced herself to take a deep breath. Her lungs burned.
She grabbed her concealer. She covered the red marks on his fingers left on her chin. She had to go to work.
The fluorescent lights in the top-floor boardroom of Landry Corporation blinded her.
Juliana stood at the head of the long mahogany table. The projector screen behind her displayed the quarterly financial reports.
Her head was spinning. The scent of Adelbert's clothes-the vanilla and amber-was stuck in her nose. His words echoed in her skull.
You are dirty.
Her vision blurred. The numbers on the screen turned into black, crawling ants.
"As you can see from the Q3 margins..."
Her voice cracked. Her hand shook violently.
The laser pointer slipped from her sweaty fingers. It hit the carpet with a dull thud.
The executives around the table stopped typing. They exchanged confused whispers.
Juliana tried to grab the edge of the table. Her fingers missed.
A wave of dark nausea hit her stomach. The room tilted sideways.
Her eyes rolled back. She fell forward into the empty air.
Right before her face hit the floor, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her waist. They caught her mid-fall.
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8.0
The craziest thing I've ever done was let a dangerous man touch me, and not pull away.
"Trust me."
Words like that could mess you up in this line of work. Then he did something I didn't expect, he stretched out a hand. Even I knew when not to doubt a helping hand.
I sighed. Well, roadkill it is then.
I clasped his hand and his firm grip pulled me up out of the line of fire.
***
Cake Coogan survives by her fists and her fury, spending her life fighting in underground rings to keep herself and her mother alive. But one stolen payout, one stranger's intervention, and one accidental bag switch drops her into the crosshairs of Nico Vescari.
Nico Vescari; mafia heir, feared and ruthless, a man who kills with a steady pulse-wants his money back. What he gets instead is Cake: the girl with the iron fists, mismatched eyes, and a journal he should never have read. Fascinated, furious, and threatened by how she makes him feel, he gives her a choice that isn't a choice at all-marry him for a year... or lose the only family she has left.
Thrust into a world of blood feuds, monsters, and merciless mafia politics, Cake becomes both weapon and wife. She's pulled between power plays, underground fights, and a man whose touch feels like fire even when she swears she hates him. Nico's family is dangerous, his enemies worse, and his rules suffocating, but the most lethal thing between them is the feral desire none of them want. As bodies fall and alliances burn, Cake is forced to choose between revenge and the man who has broken her, protected her, and ruined her life in equal measure.
In a story of obsession, betrayal, and savage love, only the strongest survive.
And Cake Coogan is not prey.
8.0
On the night of their third wedding anniversary, Ashley was ready to reveal a secret to her husband-
She was pregnant.
But moments after their passionate intimacy, her Alpha coldly delivered the blow-he wanted a divorce.
His fated mate had returned.
Stripped of her wolf spirit, abandoned by the pack, and carrying his child, Ashley was cast aside like a disposable Omega.
Just as she prepared to leave alone-
The boy she had once rejected had now risen as the most formidable Alpha King. The possessive hunger in his gaze sent shivers through her-did she dare face him? Was this vengeance, or something more? But did she even have a choice?
8.7
Bloodhoundhearts
8.7
Aiden is the Bloodhound the Council's most feared assassin, a vampire prince whose soul has been hollowed out by centuries of shadow and state-sanctioned slaughter. Elena is a Seer of the Vance line a woman of the mountain whose silver flame was meant to heal, not to spark a revolution. When their paths collide in the high spires of a corrupt capital, they don't just find love; they ignite a war that spans from the depths of the Sunken Vaults to the spectral currents of the Forbidden Coast.
Now, fleeing the ruins of a broken empire, they carry the ultimate secret: Caelum, a child of the Harmony. Born during a solar eclipse, he is the Third Way a hybrid heir with the power to either unite the warring forces of light and dark or become a beacon of chaos that levels the continent.
With the mechanical genius of a mad inventor, the iron will of a blacksmith's son, and the cryptic guidance of a five-hundred-year-old Oracle, Aiden and Elena must protect their son from enemies both ancient and new. From the obsidian breach-engines of the Council to the void-stained magic of Lyra, the first fallen Seer, the hunt is on.
In a realm where blood defines destiny, can a monster become a father? Can a healer survive the abyss? And when the choice comes to sacrifice half of his soul, will the Child of the Harmony have the strength to forge a new dawn?
7.4
In a world ruled by guns, secrets, and blood-soaked loyalties, love is the most dangerous currency of all.
Alessandro De Luca is the unseen king of a global cartel-ruthless, brilliant, and feared across continents. His word is law, his mercy nonexistent. Until one night, one woman, and one mistake unravel everything he has built.
Elena Hart is innocent but unbreakable, drawn into the underworld through a debt she never created. She should have been collateral-nothing more. Instead, she becomes his weakness.
As enemies close in and betrayal festers within the cartel, Alessandro must choose between the empire crowned in blood... or the woman who threatens to destroy it.
Love was never part of the plan.
Survival was.
And in this world, both demand a price.
8.9
I lay on a mildewed mattress in a run-down motel, my body trembling from withdrawal. Once the most feared "Gossip Queen" in Hollywood, I was now a forty-three-year-old ghost staring at a cracked mirror, waiting for the end.
The door clicked open, and Brittany Potts stepped in, looking immaculate in a beige trench coat that cost more than my life. She didn't come to help; she tossed a waiver of marital assets onto my bed and handed me a cup of coffee laced with something that smelled like bitter almonds.
She laughed, telling me my husband, Bennet, was already in the Bahamas celebrating my death. I froze when I saw the sapphire pendant around her neck—my mother’s necklace, which had vanished the day she died. As the poison began to burn through my chest, Brittany leaned in and whispered her final secret: she was the one who cut the brake lines on the car that killed my father when we were teenagers.
My entire life had been a lie. The pills, the scandal, the bankruptcy—it was all a masterpiece of betrayal orchestrated by the two people I trusted most. I died on that filthy floor, suffocating on my own rage and the taste of chemicals, praying for a single chance to make them pay.
But when I opened my eyes, the pain was gone. I was sitting in my old bedroom, the morning sun shining on a calendar that read September 15, 2024. My mother’s voice, warm and alive, called me for breakfast from downstairs. I was eighteen again, back in my senior year at Crestview Academy, and the monsters who destroyed me were still pretending to be my friends. This time, I’m the one who holds the shears.
8.8
Fyre
Everything I did was for love. Every drop of blood I shed was for him, but when it came to him, he turned his back on me. For what? Because I am doomed, the world's end. It wasn't that he never loved me; it was the fear that one day I'd become much more powerful and destroy everything he had built. My heart bleeds, and the only way I will ever get back at him for his betrayal is by seeking revenge.
Ronan
I've spent my life in the shadows since she died, since the life I loved was ripped from me and left only grief behind. I watched from the sidelines as my family crumbled, pretending I was safe from it when I knew I was not. I thought I had accepted silence until she came-not from my past, not from any recorded memory, but fully, dangerously alive, and entirely... unpredictable. Her power terrifies me. Her fire challenges me. She is someone I should stay away from, but somehow, against every rule I've lived by, she makes the grief in my chest feel... human again. I should stop her. No, hold her. Fear her. I should let nothing slip past my control. But every glance, every unguarded moment, reminds me that surviving her is no longer the same as staying in the shadows. But she is closed off... something I indirectly had a hand in.
Alistair
I should've been brave like my brother and fought for the woman who made me feel whole again. I should've fought the whole world for her and not been against her, but I failed. Now I want her back, but she is somewhere, protecting herself from me, from everything; it is all my fault. I should never have chosen duty over love.
BOOK 1 of The Shadowborne Series