The Disposable Bride's Deadly Secret Identity
My debt-ridden uncle sold me to the Romero mafia family to save his own skin.
I was forced to marry Emiliano Romero, a man known to the underworld as "The Ghost"—a rumored monster who supposedly tore his last two caretakers apart.
My aunt and cousin delighted in my misery. My cousin came at me with a razor, leaving a nasty bruise on my face, while my aunt bleached my hair to make me look like a cheap, disposable doll.
When the Romeros arrived, they didn't even pretend to want a daughter-in-law.
"The Family needs a nobody whose death won't start a police report."
They just wanted a clueless victim to sign a pre-nup and die quietly. They shoved me down a sterile hallway and locked me inside a fortified, padded cell with a man wrapped in heavy chains.
They all thought they were sacrificing a helpless, terrified lamb to a madman. They laughed at my tears, completely convinced I was just gutter trash waiting to be slaughtered.
But they had no idea I was a highly trained undercover operative.
Listening to their arrogant whispers, the pieces finally clicked. Emiliano wasn't a deranged killer—he was a prisoner being drugged and framed by his own blood.
I drained my uncle's bank account to buy a neurotoxin antidote, dropped my pathetic, trembling disguise, and stepped calmly into the monster's cage.
I wasn't here to be their victim. I was here to save him.
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Chapter 1
Adrienne POV
The Greyhound bus smelled of stale sweat and shattered dreams, a fitting perfume for the girl I was pretending to be.
When I stepped out into the chaotic pick-up zone of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, I spotted Harlon Holcomb immediately. He didn't bother getting out of his rented black sedan. He simply rolled down the window, his eyes raking over my frayed hoodie and scuffed canvas sneakers with undisguised disgust.
"Get in the back," he barked, his voice tight with the anxiety of a man drowning in debt. "And try not to rub your poverty stink into the leather."
I shrank into myself, hunching my shoulders as I slipped into the backseat. I kept my eyes glued to my lap, a textbook display of a cowed, indebted niece. Harlon didn't say another word as we drove out of the city, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror only to monitor me like a volatile commodity whose value might drop at any second.
The grimy city streets eventually gave way to a secluded private road. The Romero Estate loomed ahead, protected by towering wrought-iron gates and relentless security cameras. We bypassed the grand main entrance, pulling into a cold, utilitarian service driveway.
Brenda and Cammie were already waiting. The moment I stepped out of the car, Brenda grabbed my arm, her manicured nails digging painfully into my flesh. She squeezed, her face twisting in revulsion.
"Skinny as a plucked chicken," she sneered to Harlon. "The Romeros are going to think we brought them a corpse."
Cammie crossed her arms, a malicious smirk playing on her lips. "Better her than me. Let's see how long the rust-belt rat lasts before the monster tears her apart."
They marched me into a windowless, gray waiting room that felt more like an interrogation cell. The air was sterile and freezing. Harlon shoved a thick document against my chest, forcing a pen into my hand.
"Time to pay us back for keeping you alive," he ordered. "Sign it."
Brenda leaned in, her cheap perfume suffocating. "You're marrying Emiliano Romero. *The Ghost.*" She spat the name like a curse. "If you don't, the Enforcers will fit our entire family for cement shoes in the Hudson by midnight."
I forced my eyes to widen, letting my lower lip tremble violently. "A-a monster?" I stammered, letting a tear slip down my cheek.
Cammie laughed, tossing a faded, threadbare dress at my face. "Wear this to your funeral, cousin."
I took the pen with shaking fingers and signed my life away. They thought they were sacrificing a helpless lamb to a madman to save their own skins. They had no idea they had just handed me the keys to the kingdom.
An hour later, a sympathetic maid shoved a tray of cold food into my sparse servant's room and locked the door.
The moment the deadbolt clicked, the terrified girl vanished.
I rolled my shoulders, my spine snapping straight. My gaze swept the cramped room—the squeaky iron bed, the small table, the cracked window overlooking a distant Manhattan skyline. Clear.
Sitting on the edge of the mattress, I pried open the false sole of my left sneaker. I extracted a micro-SIM card, slipping it into the disposable burner phone hidden in the lining of my hoodie.
My thumbs flew across the keypad. *Package delivered. Handlers are desperate, low-level Associates. The Ghost is the target. Infiltration successful.*
I hit send, waited for the delivery confirmation, and immediately snapped the SIM card in half, burying the pieces back in the shoe.
I stood up and slowly changed into the ragged dress Cammie had thrown at me. The silence of the estate was heavy, but I knew the Holcombs too well. The night was far from over, and Cammie’s twisted jealousy wouldn't let her sleep without coming to claim one last victory over the rat.
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9.3
I woke up in a freezing, desolate wasteland, my body weak and covered in sores. A mechanical voice in my head informed me that I was a defective rabbit-mutant, and if I didn't conceive within twenty-four hours, I would die permanently.
The terror was suffocating, but the system left me no choice. To survive the brutal cold and the decay of my own heartbeat, I had to force a pregnancy with a stranger.
I stumbled through the snow, my fingers turning blue, until I found a massive, wounded Arctic Fox-mutant in a dark cave. He was a Tier-9 predator, dying and radiating the exact heat I needed to stay alive. I threw away my dignity, crawling into his fur to merge our energies, desperate to trigger the life-reset protocol before my time ran out.
I felt like a monster, forcing myself onto a man who didn't even know I existed, just to keep my own heart beating. How could I ever face him if he woke up? Why did I have to be the one to pay the price for this twisted, mechanical ultimatum?
The fusion was a success, but when I woke up the next morning, the apex predator had me pinned under his massive claws, his fangs inches from my throat. I didn't beg for mercy. I stared into his feral, ice-blue eyes and made a deal that would change everything: I would be his anchor, and he would be my protector. But then I dropped the final, terrifying truth: I was pregnant, and he was the only one who could save us.
7.9
He is cursed. She is a slave.
Their forbidden bond will either save their world or set it ablaze.
Caeser Varyn, the formidable Alpha King, is a figure of fear, his very blood tainted by a curse that has claimed every mate the Moon Goddess has given him. His existence is a lonely burden of twisted power, until a single, accidental touch changes everything.
Ava is a ghost in the royal palace-an unseen slave girl with a quiet grace and a hidden power. When the Moon Goddess's mating mark appears on her wrist, Caeser shatters ancient laws and claims her as his own.
Their forbidden union ignites a firestorm, forcing them to flee the burning palace and the outrage of the pack.
Turned out she's gifted by the Moon Goddess and to survive, Ava must master the power she never knew she possessed, expose the traitors who surround them, and find a way to break the ancestral curse.
If she fails, her love will be consumed, and their world will fall to the dark power of a corrupted god.
7.8
Anna Williams never imagined her life would collide with Alexander Knight-the cold, ruthless CEO feared across industries. When fate pushes her into his path, she discovers that power and wealth come with dangerous chains. Bound by a contract she can't escape, Anna must navigate his world of secrets, betrayal, and a passion that burns hotter than she ever dreamed. But behind his icy exterior lies a man scarred by trust and haunted by loss.
Will she be able to melt the billionaire's heart, or will she remain just another possession... claimed by the CEO?
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.
7.6
For seventeen years, I was the pride of the Carlisle family, the perfect daughter destined to inherit an empire. But that life ended the moment a DNA report slid across my father’s mahogany desk.
The paper proved I was a stranger. Vanessa, the girl sobbing in the corner, was the real biological daughter they had been searching for.
"You need to leave. Tonight. Before the press gets wind of this. Before the stock prices dip."
My father’s voice was as cold as flint. My mother wouldn't even look at me, staring out the window at the gardens as if I were already a ghost. Just like that, I was erased. I left behind the Birkin bags and the diamonds, throwing my Centurion Card into a crystal bowl with a clatter that echoed like a gunshot. I walked out into the cold night and climbed into a rusted Ford Taurus driven by a man I had never met—my biological father.
I went from a mansion to a fourth-floor walk-up in Queens that smelled of laundry detergent and struggle. My new siblings looked at me with a mix of fear and disgust, waiting for the "fallen princess" to break. They expected me to beg for my old life back, to crumble without the luxury I’d known since birth.
But they didn't know the truth. I had spent years training in a shark tank, honing survival skills they couldn't imagine. While Richard Carlisle froze my trust funds to starve me out, my net worth was climbing by millions on an encrypted trading app.
They thought they were throwing me to the wolves. They didn't realize they were just letting me off my leash. As the Carlisles prepared to debut Vanessa at the Manhattan Arts Gala, I was already making my move.
"Get dressed. We're going to a party."
8.4
I died on a filthy bed in a back-alley clinic.
I willingly sacrificed my own corneas so the Mafia man I loved could see the light of day again.
But my soul was forced to stay behind, watching another woman claim my sacrifice as her own.
Dante reclaimed his throne as the Mafia boss. Believing the lie that I had abandoned him, he unleashed his vengeance upon my family.
"Where the hell is she hiding?"
He shattered my brother's hands and drove my mother to her death. He absolutely refused to believe the fact that I was already dead, convinced instead that I was just cowering from his wrath.
It wasn't until my medical records were thrown right in his face that Dante finally realized whose eyes he was using to look at the world.
The truth drove him completely insane.
He burned the whole world down just to beg for my forgiveness.
"Gianna, please wait for me!"