The Jilted Bride's Billion Dollar Revenge
On our wedding night, celebrating a billion-dollar family merger, my new husband Coleton stepped out of the shower.
Suddenly, his phone rang. It was his dead brother's widow, Hana, crying that her five-year-old had a fever.
Without hesitation, Coleton shoved me hard into the wall to get out the door.
"Are you seriously jealous of a sick five-year-old kid?" he spat.
He abandoned me in the bridal suite. I immediately filed for divorce and leaked it to the press.
To save the merger and their stock prices, both our families rushed in to force me to back down.
My own father raised his hand to slap me for my "petty female jealousy."
Coleton's grandfather brutally beat him with a heavy wooden cane right in front of me, trying to use a twisted debt of honor to guilt-trip me into staying.
Through a hidden dumbwaiter shaft, I overheard their secret meeting. They were plotting to use Coleton's bloody photos to paint me as a cold-hearted villain to the media, trapping me in the marriage through public shame.
My own brother nodded along to this plot just to secure his CEO bonus.
Coleton only begged for my forgiveness because he was terrified of losing his trust fund to an illegitimate heir.
In their eyes, my dignity was just a cheap commodity with a price tag.
But I am a Pennington, raised in a world where trust is a liability.
I calmly saved the audio recording of their plot, packed my Hermes suitcase, and emailed the most ruthless divorce litigator in Manhattan.
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Chapter 6
Adelbert's eyes hardened. The demotion hadn't moved Katrina at all.
He turned his head slightly and locked eyes with Alistair, the head butler. "Bring me the blackwood cane."
Coleton's breath hitched. His face went completely white. He knew exactly what that meant. It was the ancient, brutal method of physical discipline reserved for the worst offenses in the Meyer family.
Coleton scrambled onto his hands and knees. He crawled toward Katrina, his bloody face twisted in panic. "Katrina, please! Tell him to stop! Please!"
Katrina took a step back. She turned her head, looking out the large window into the pitch-black night. She offered him nothing but absolute, freezing indifference.
Alistair walked back into the room. He held a heavy, dark wooden cane in both hands. The tip was capped with solid brass. He handed it to Adelbert with a solemn bow.
Adelbert gripped the cane. He looked down at Coleton. "On your knees. In the center of the room."
Coleton's legs shook violently. He shook his head, trying to back away. Rocco stepped forward, his massive frame casting a shadow over Coleton. The unspoken threat of violence was enough.
Coleton swallowed a sob and sank to his knees on the rug.
Adelbert didn't hesitate. He raised the heavy blackwood cane high above his head. The wood whistled as it cut through the air.
THWACK.
The brass tip slammed into the center of Coleton's back.
Coleton let out a blood-curdling scream. His entire upper body collapsed forward, his hands slapping the floor as he gasped for air.
Brandin stood to the side, watching. A cruel, satisfied smirk formed on his lips.
Jovani squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away, unable to watch the brutal physical punishment.
Adelbert raised the cane again. He looked directly at Katrina. "Look closely, Katrina! This is how the Meyer family answers an insult! I will keep striking him until I am satisfied that the debt of honor is paid in full!"
Katrina's pupils contracted. The trap was instantly clear to her.
This was a vicious, calculated psychological game. If she begged for mercy, she was accepting his apology and staying in the marriage. If she didn't, they would paint her as a cold-blooded monster to the press.
Katrina took a slow, deep breath. Her spine straightened. She refused to play her assigned role in this sick script.
She walked over to a plush, French velvet armchair. She smoothed the fabric of her skirt and sat down gracefully.
She crossed her legs. She folded her hands neatly in her lap. She looked up at Adelbert with a chillingly calm expression.
"Please," Katrina said softly. "Continue until you feel your honor is restored."
Adelbert's arm, still raised in the air, twitched. He stared at her, genuinely shocked by the absolute ice in her veins.
But he had made the grand declaration out loud. To lower the cane immediately after just a few strikes would make his 'debt of honor' look incredibly cheap in front of both families. He was riding a tiger and couldn't get off.
Adelbert gritted his teeth and swung the cane down again.
The second strike hit Coleton's shoulder blade. Coleton rolled onto his side, violently thrashing against the floor. Tears and snot ran down his face.
The third strike tore through the expensive fabric of Coleton's shirt. A thick, angry red welt swelled instantly against his bare skin.
Eleanor screamed. She slapped both hands over her mouth, her body trembling violently as she backed into the wall.
Delmus frowned deeply. He stared at his daughter, searching her face for a single flinch, a single tear.
Katrina didn't blink. She slowly lifted her left wrist. She glanced at the diamond-encrusted Patek Philippe watch.
She looked back up at Adelbert. "How much longer is this medieval theater going to take? I have a schedule to keep."
Coleton lay on the floor, gasping for air. He looked up at Katrina through his tears. His eyes were filled with the shock of total betrayal. He couldn't believe she was letting this happen.
Jovani couldn't take it anymore. He dropped to his knees right at Katrina's feet. "Katrina, please! Have some mercy! You're going to let him kill him!"
Katrina looked down at Jovani. Her face was a mask of stone. "Adelbert is holding the cane. I am not forcing his hand."
Adelbert's face flushed with pure, humiliated rage. He raised the cane and brought it down for a fifth, devastating strike.
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8.0
When gifted cellist Vivienne Aurel inherits her late father's catastrophic $4.2 million debt, she expects to lose everything. She doesn't expect the debt to be bought by Caspian Vane, the most feared private equity magnate in New York. Caspian doesn't want to ruin her; he wants her to work exclusively for him as the artistic director of his new cultural foundation for eighteen months. Forced into his world under a binding agreement, Vivienne prepares to fight against a cold, transactional cage. But as the intense, quiet proximity between them begins to blur the lines of their contract, she discovers a terrifying truth: the man who now owns her future has been watching her from the shadows long before she ever knew his name.
7.9
June was an ordinary architect struggling to pay rent, completely estranged from her high-society mother.
But one night, she was kidnapped and beaten in an abandoned warehouse by Gage Becker, the city's most ruthless billionaire, who demanded payback for her mother's sins.
Gage pointed a high-definition camera at June's battered face and video-called her mother, threatening to release the footage and ruin her upcoming billion-dollar wedding.
"I will never throw away a billion-dollar marriage for a useless daughter."
Her mother's cold voice echoed through the warehouse before the line went dead.
From that moment, Gage systematically destroyed June's life. She was publicly humiliated and forced to hack off her own hair with a cigar cutter. She was blacklisted from every firm in the city, evicted by her landlord, and violently mugged in a freezing New York blizzard.
Curled up in an icy tunnel waiting to die, June felt a suffocating despair. She hadn't spoken to her mother in months. Why did she have to endure this hell for a woman who didn't even care if she lived or died? Why was a monster like Gage so obsessed with driving her to the grave?
When Gage's armored Maybach pulled up, he stepped into the snow to mock her, waiting for her to finally surrender and beg for his mercy.
But the absolute humiliation snapped the last thread of June's sanity.
Instead of crying, she lunged forward with feral energy and sank her teeth directly into the devil's flesh.
9.6
Areli was the hardest-working medic in the Blackridge Clan, but her efforts only earned her the title of a useless burden.
Her supposed lover, Eugene, and her senior mentor, Gloria, lured her to the edge of the deadly Blackwind Cliff and shoved her straight into the abyss.
She miraculously survived the freefall, only to return and find Gloria standing before the entire clan, wearing a mask of fake sorrow.
"Look! The traitor is back! She eloped with wild males!" Gloria shrieked.
Eugene stepped up, looking heartbroken, and publicly accused her of betraying his love.
The crowd erupted, raining hisses and boos upon her, completely ignoring the horrific, life-threatening bruises that covered her battered body.
They blindly believed the lies, treating her like garbage while Gloria secretly plotted to poison her water and destroy her completely.
Areli felt a chilling sense of betrayal. How could the man who claimed to love her watch her fall with such cold eyes?
To make matters worse, her modern biochemist instincts revealed a terrifying truth: she was unexpectedly pregnant with the child of a savage Warlord she had encountered in the wild.
In this brutal, primitive world, showing any weakness was an absolute death sentence.
But she wasn't going to cower or run away.
Refusing the Warlord's offer to simply rescue her, Areli calmly placed a highly toxic herb on her drying rack and left her tent flap open.
The bait was set. Now, she just had to wait for the screams.
9.5
Alina was the eldest daughter of the prestigious Padilla family, but everyone mocked her as a defective dud who couldn't cast a single spell.
The moment she woke up, her father and younger sister Karina barged into her room, demanding she sign a transfer agreement to the Aethelgard Order-the most brutal faction on the continent.
It wasn't just a transfer; it was a legal disownment. In her past life, Alina didn't realize Karina was also reborn. She had dropped to her knees and begged to stay. Her reward? Her magic was violently drained from her veins by her own family. Her fiancé drove a blade through her chest, and her sister stood over her bleeding body, smiling. She had ruined her hands making potions for them, only to be discarded like trash.
The phantom pain of her chest being ripped open still burned behind her ribs. Looking at the hypocritical family waiting for her tears, she felt nothing but exhausting disgust. Why should she ever be their stepping stone again?
"For the honor of the family, you leave today."
Her father sneered as she calmly bit her thumb and pressed her bloody fingerprint onto the contract. This time, Alina didn't cry. She packed a single bag and walked out the door, heading straight for the deadly Aethelgard Order to show them what a true monster looked like.
9.7
I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing.
During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me.
I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst.
She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side.
"Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house."
I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip.
My heart went completely dead.
So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate.
I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table.
"I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today."
8.7
I was dying in a cold hospital bed, listening to the monitor count down my final seconds.
As a ghost, I watched my own funeral. My popular friends and wealthy family soon moved on, but one person stayed.
Cas Riley. The invisible outcast from the back of my history class.
He brought a white rose to my grave every single day, withering away until he collapsed on the frozen ground, dying of a broken heart for a girl who barely knew his name.
Opening my eyes again, the hospital smell was gone. I was reborn back in my high school classroom.
I immediately tracked him down, only to witness the brutal hell he was trapped in.
He was humiliated by a cruel foreman for pennies, violently slapped by his uncle over his sick mother's medical money, and forced into bloody street fights.
He was starving, covered in bruises, and completely alone.
When I tried to buy him medicine and step into his life to protect him, he violently pushed me away in the pouring rain.
"Stay out of my life! To protect you, I have to fight, and when I fight, I lose everything!"
He wasn't rejecting me out of hate. He was terrified that his dark, violent reality would drag me down with him.
Standing soaked in the rain, my resolve hardened like steel.
Gentle kindness wasn't going to save him from this hell.
To protect the boy who died for me, I had to become ruthless enough to tear down his entire rotten world and build him a new one.