The Discarded Heiress: Marrying My Lethal Husband
The rain in Detroit was slick with grime when my family finally came to fetch me. They didn't want a reunion; they wanted a sacrificial lamb to marry into the Kaufman empire to save their failing business.
I thought I was just being sold off, but the limo ride ended under a dark overpass where six hired thugs were waiting with chains. My own sister had ordered them to "break my spirit" so I’d be a shaking, pathetic mess by the time I reached the altar.
They called me "Detroit trash" and sprayed air freshener when I sat on their leather seats. My stepmother wanted a video of me begging for my life, and my father was ready to trade me like a used car to a man everyone called a "vegetable." They expected a submissive country girl, unaware that I was a high-level "cleaner" who could snap a radius bone before they could even scream.
When I finally reached the Kaufman estate, I found my fiancé, Barron, slumped in a wheelchair, drooling and silent. But as soon as the doors closed, the "invalid" grabbed my wrist with a grip of iron and whispered a command that changed everything.
I didn't understand why my own blood was so desperate to see me destroyed. What had I ever done to deserve a hit squad and a forced marriage to a man they thought was a corpse?
But Barron isn't a vegetable, and I'm not a victim. We just touched down at the Moon family gala in a matte-black helicopter, and as the doors slide open, the "broken" bride is about to show them exactly what happens when you throw away the wrong daughter.
"If we're going to crash a party," Barron whispered, his eyes burning with lethal clarity, "we should make an entrance."
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Chapter 4
The private airfield was a desolate stretch of wet tarmac. The Kaufman family's Gulfstream G650 sat waiting, its engines whining a high-pitched song.
Kaela climbed out of Miller's car. She had stripped off the hoodie and mask in the back seat, stuffing them deep into her bag. She was back to being the "redneck"-flannel shirt, messy hair, eyes downcast.
Miller stayed in the car, too terrified to face the Kaufman security team.
Kaela walked up the stairs. The flight attendant, a woman with a smile so tight it looked painful, blocked the entrance to the main cabin.
"Rear seating for you, Miss Moon," she said, pointing toward the back. "Mr. Kaufman is resting in the medical bay."
Kaela nodded, clutching her canvas bag to her chest. She shuffled past the galley.
The mid-section of the plane had been converted. A hospital bed was bolted to the floor. Barron lay there, eyes closed, an IV line running into his arm. Dr. Sterling sat next to him, reading a tablet.
Sterling looked up. She didn't recognize Kaela. To her, the "masked doctor" and this "Detroit trash" were two different species.
"Don't breathe on him," Sterling snapped. "Go sit in the back."
Kaela mumbled a "yes, ma'am" and tried to squeeze past the narrow gap between the bed and the fuselage.
As she passed, the air shifted. The scent of rain and those strange, bitter herbs on her clothes drifted over the bed.
Barron's heart monitor beeped. A slight jump in rhythm.
It's her.
Barron kept his eyes shut, but his mind was reeling. The scent was identical. The voice he'd heard whisper in his ear-I know you're awake-had the same cadence as her mumble, just stripped of the command.
His fiancée. The country bumpkin. The Fixer.
He had to be sure.
As Kaela squeezed by his hip, Barron let out a low groan. His right arm flailed out, a clumsy, "involuntary" spasm. His hand struck the glass of water on his bedside table.
The glass tipped. Ice water splashed all over Kaela's jeans and the side of the bed.
"Oh my god!" Sterling shrieked, jumping up. "You clumsy idiot! Look what you did!"
Kaela froze. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping the doctor's neck. She crouched down to pick up the glass.
"Sorry," she whispered.
Barron's hand was hanging off the bed, wet from the spill. As Kaela reached for the glass, her hand brushed against his.
Skin on skin.
It was like touching a live wire.
Barron felt that same wave of silence crash over his brain. The static noise that constantly plagued him vanished. Her bio-electricity, or whatever the hell it was, grounded him.
He let his fingers go limp, resting heavily against her hand for a second longer than necessary.
Kaela paused. She felt his pulse through his fingertips. It went from agitated to dead calm in a split second.
He's doing it again, she thought. He's feeding off me.
She pulled her hand away, grabbed the glass, and stood up.
"Go," Sterling hissed. "Get out of the way."
Kaela retreated to the rear of the plane. She sat in the corner seat, buckling the belt. She pulled out a pair of noise-canceling headphones and put them on, shutting out the world.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled photograph. A woman with kind eyes and a tired smile. Her mother.
I'm going into the belly of the beast, Mom, she thought. I'll find out what they did to you.
Up in the medical bay, Barron didn't move. He didn't open his eyes. For the first time in six months, he drifted into a natural, deep sleep.
Sterling watched the monitor, baffled. "REM cycle? He's... sleeping? Without the drip?"
She looked back at the girl in the flannel shirt, then shook her head. Coincidence.
The jet roared down the runway and lifted into the grey sky. Barron slept through the turbulence, his hand still damp where she had touched him. He had found his anchor. And he wasn't going to let her go.
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8.2
William Donavan is an oil magnate, but his life of wealth and privileges couldn't prevent him from falling ill. Now, with only one year left to live, he must race to secure an heir.
That is, until he crosses paths with Sophia Davis-a young woman who works as a waitress by day and spends her nights sleeping on a park bench.
Sophia is going through the worst phase of her life since her mother passed away and she was forced to run away from home. She works hard and saves every penny, dreaming of affording a place to live.
When she's approached by a man offering her a marriage contract that includes having a child-all she has to do is sign, and her life would change forever.
8.7
"I hate you, Aiden! I hate you! And trust me... you'll never find anyone who'll love you the way I did."
Tears streamed down Charlotte Parker's face as she stormed into her room, packing the last pieces of her broken heart. This time, I knew I'd messed up. And there was no going back.
Charlotte Parker is a kind, beautiful, and well-mannered 22-year-old with dreams of becoming a popular writer. But life has other plans. With her family struggling, she's forced to step up... whether she's ready or not.
Aiden Kingston, on the other hand, is everything she can't stand. Arrogant. Rude. A notorious playboy. And the cold-hearted CEO of a million-dollar company. For Aiden, keeping his inheritance means one thing: marriage. Fast.
Both blindsided by an arranged marriage neither of them asked for, their worlds collide in the most chaotic way. Charlotte is water, soft but strong. Aiden is fire, uncontrolled and burning through everything in his path.
But Aiden has a secret. One that could destroy whatever fragile peace they're trying to build.
Will he let his walls down for her?
Can Charlotte see past his mistakes and frozen heart?
Or will the hatred between them grow so deep it consumes them both... for good?
9.7
Clarissa rushed into a crowded nightclub for one simple reason: to save her wildly drunk best friend.
But her ruthless billionaire husband, Giovanny, was watching from the VIP room. After effortlessly ruining a man just for grabbing her wrist, Giovanny punished Clarissa for breaching their public image contract with an impossible curfew.
When she inevitably arrived back at his penthouse late, he didn't just yell. He forced her to her knees by his bathtub to wash his back, making her watch an explicit, humiliating video as punishment.
A sudden family medical emergency dragged them to his parents' estate. Still in her soaked, transparent dress and his misbuttoned shirt, Giovanny's mother caught them. She joyfully assumed they had been passionately intimate.
Instead of clearing her name, Giovanny pulled Clarissa close and lied to his mother's face.
"We are working very hard on the family's future, Mother."
He locked her in the guest suite, tossed a sheer silk nightgown on the bed, and literally shattered the tablet holding their "no-contact" prenuptial agreement. He then slapped a file against the window—he had secretly bought all her father's toxic debt.
Clarissa was terrified. They were supposed to be business allies bound by a strict contract. Why was he suddenly acting like a predator determined to own her body and soul?
"Give me an heir, or your father goes to federal prison," he whispered.
Stripped of all choices, Clarissa picked up the white silk. She would surrender tonight to save her family, but as his shadow swallowed her, she made a silent vow to survive this monster, and one day, tear his empire to the ground.
7.6
I spent three years as the hidden mistress of Wall Street tyrant Damon Vaughn. Our no-strings arrangement meant I was his to command, a secret he kept locked away in the dark.
Then I saw the Instagram post. It was Damon, raising a champagne glass with his perfect high-society fiancée, the caption hinting that wedding bells were just around the corner.
I ended it that night, leaving his black card on his nightstand and blocking his number for good. But a man like Damon doesn't accept being told no. He retaliated by buying the entire building my tech startup was in. He cornered me on the street, slamming his fist into my car's hood, his face a mask of terrifying rage.
He was a possessive monster, planning his perfect marriage while refusing to release me from my cage. The humiliation of being his disposable secret burned hotter than my anger.
To finally break him, I lied about having a blind date. But the lie became a terrifying reality when my mother forced me into that exact date. Now, Damon has kidnapped me, and as he shoves me out of his car in front of the restaurant, his voice is a low, dangerous whisper meant only for me.
"Remember who you belong to."
9.7
Five years ago, I took ten million dollars from my fiancé's grandmother and abandoned him to save my father from dying in federal prison.
Today, working three jobs just to survive, I ran into him while substituting as a music therapist at a VIP clinic.
He is now a powerful Wall Street billionaire, standing beside his beautiful fiancée and their little girl.
He trapped me, threw a stack of hundred-dollar bills at my face, and mocked me for being a pathetic gold digger who blew through his family's money.
Bound by a strict non-disclosure agreement, I couldn't defend myself and fled in absolute humiliation.
But fate wasn't done torturing me. That same afternoon, my four-year-old daughter—his secret child—was suspected of having severe leukemia.
At the hospital, exhausted and terrified, I briefly leaned on a kind doctor friend's shoulder to cry.
I had no idea my ex-fiancé was inspecting the new medical wing and watching us from the shadows.
Seeing the child's bouncy curls, he mistakenly thought I had jumped into another man's bed and built a perfect family using the money I stole from him.
Driven by insane jealousy and blind rage, he ordered his assistant to completely destroy the innocent doctor.
"I want him to know what happens when you take what belongs to me."
Watching my daughter's pale face, I knew my peaceful life was over. To save her life, I had to walk right back into the devil's den.
7.5
After her father's gambling debts put a target on her back, Elara Vance is sold at a private auction to the most feared man in the city: Julian Blackwood, the ruthless heir to a dark empire. But Julian doesn't want a maid or a lover-he wants a "pet." Stripped of her autonomy and forced into a gilded cage, Elara must survive Julian's cruel games and shifting moods. As a dark attraction ignites, she realizes she is a piece in a much deadlier game of revenge. To survive, she must play the pet-while secretly planning to bring the Young Master to his knees.