The Pawn Who Became The Queen
I returned to New York after four years in Paris, aiming for nothing more than my grandmother’s trust fund and the seventeen percent stake that was rightfully mine.
But the moment I stepped out of JFK, I was treated like a piece of luggage, intercepted by Jered Knox—the man I was forced to marry to secure a corporate merger I never asked for.
He didn't even look at me, instead flaunting his mistress right in my face, forcing me into the back of his neon yellow Porsche while cameras swarmed to capture the "happy couple."
Then, the real nightmare began: he tossed a prenuptial agreement over his shoulder like trash, offering me a measly sum to sign away my rights and disappear, while his family and my own stepmother whispered about how plain and ungrateful I was.
I watched as they treated my life, my inheritance, and my future as nothing more than a prop for their power games, never once considering that I might actually fight back.
They think I’m the same girl they sent away years ago, a pawn to be traded and forgotten, but they have no idea what I’ve become or who I’m really working for.
I didn't come back to be a victim in their grotesque comedy; I walked into the Imperium Group offices this morning, ready to take the design director position that will turn their entire world upside down.
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Chapter 9
Imperium Design occupied the top three floors of a building on West 57th, its windows framing Central Park like a painting that changed with the seasons. Keira arrived at 8:30, early enough to observe, late enough to seem confident.
Arthur met her in the lobby, full of welcomes and orientation packets. He led her through security, through the elevator bank, into a world of glass and steel and the particular hush of creative spaces.
"Design department," he announced, pushing through double doors. "Your new kingdom."
It wasn't a kingdom. It was a battlefield. Keira felt it immediately-the pause in conversations, the sideways glances, the temperature drop as thirty people assessed the threat she represented.
She moved through it anyway. Arthur introduced her to faces she wouldn't remember, names that blurred together, until they reached the corner office where a woman waited with her arms crossed.
"Amelia Petty," Arthur said. "Our deputy director. Amelia, this is Keira Gibson, your new-"
"I know who she is." Amelia didn't extend her hand. She was fortyish, impeccably dressed, with the kind of face that had been beautiful once and had since been hardened into something more useful. "Welcome to Imperium, Miss Gibson. We're swamped, as I'm sure Arthur mentioned, so I hope you won't need too much hand-holding."
The words were welcome. The delivery was warning.
"I'll manage," Keira said.
"I'm sure you will." Amelia's smile didn't reach her eyes. "All project files are in the system. You'll find everything there." She turned, already dismissing them. "I have a meeting. Excuse me."
She walked away. Arthur's face had gone red.
"Keira, I apologize. Amelia was-she expected to be promoted. When Mr. Hayden insisted on an external search, she took it personally."
"She's the board member's niece," Keira said. Not a question.
Arthur's silence confirmed it.
"Show me my office," Keira said.
They walked to the corner suite, the one with the park view and the director's nameplate. Or rather, they walked to where it should have been. The door now read STORAGE. Inside, boxes of paper and obsolete equipment filled the space.
Arthur stared. "This-this is impossible. I approved the office myself."
"Where's the director's office now?"
Arthur led her ten feet down the hall, to a closet. Literally a closet, former supply space, barely large enough for a desk and chair. A folding table had been installed. A folding chair waited before it.
"Amelia's 'emergency project,'" Keira said.
"She can't-this is-" Arthur was reaching for his phone.
"Don't." Keira touched his arm. "It doesn't matter."
"It matters! This is your position, your-"
"It's a room." Keira walked into the closet. She set her bag on the folding table. She opened her laptop and plugged it in. "I need project files, Arthur. All active contracts. Personnel records for the design team. Vendor lists. By end of day."
He stared at her. "You're not going to-"
"Fight for a room?" Keira smiled. "I have better uses for my energy."
She sat in the folding chair. It creaked, but held. She opened her email and began to work, her back to the open door, to the curious faces passing in the hall, to the whispered speculation she could feel like weather.
At 10:30, she emerged for coffee. The design floor had settled into its rhythms, the morning crisis passed, the afternoon deadline not yet pressing. She walked to the break room, aware of the silence that followed her, the eyes that found reasons to look away.
A young man stood before the printer, panic rising off him like steam. Paper jam. The red light blinked. A senior designer-she recognized him from Arthur's introductions, Marcus something-stood over him, voice low and vicious.
"-useless, absolutely useless, can't even-"
Keira stepped in. She opened the cartridge door, found the crumpled sheet, pulled it free with a single smooth motion. The machine hummed back to life.
"Check paper weight settings," she said to the young man. He couldn't be more than twenty-two, intern probably, drowning in an ocean he hadn't expected. "Standard load for twenty-pound bond. Heavyweight for anything else."
"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you, I-"
"You're welcome." She moved to the coffee machine, filled her cup, and returned to her closet without looking at Marcus.
She didn't need to look. She felt his embarrassment, his resentment, his sudden uncertainty. She had made an ally, however small. She had made an enemy, however careless.
The game had begun.
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7.1
*
**One night of betrayal. One night of passion. A lifetime of consequences.**
Celine was always the shadow-the reliable twin who worked while her sister, Celeste, basked in the spotlight. But when she finds her boyfriend of five months in her sister's bed, the shadow finally snaps. A reckless night at a dive bar with a hazel-eyed stranger was supposed to be her escape, a way to forget the people who saw her as a spare part.
But the stranger wasn't just a face in the crowd. He was **Idris Al-Miraj**, the billionaire Sheikh and the owner of the very hotel where Celine works.
When her parents attempt to sell her into a sacrificial marriage to save the family's reputation, Celine finds herself hunted by her past and trapped by her future. Idris doesn't just want her back in his bed; he wants to own every brick of the wall she's built around her heart.
Jobless, homeless, and backed into a corner by a family that only needs her when they can use her, Celine prepares to run again. But Idris has other plans. He doesn't want her to run. He doesn't even want her to surrender.
He wants her to fight back.
**"Use me,"** he says.
In a world where power is the only currency, Celine must decide if the man who dismantled her life is her greatest enemy-or the only weapon she has left.
9.2
Clara was drowning in student debt and barely making rent when she downloaded a fantasy mobile game to escape reality.
Inside the game, an exiled prince named Alex was freezing to death. Pitying him, she spent her last few dollars on microtransactions to fix his shelter and cure his poison.
But the game was far too real.
Every time she paid, the prince reacted. When she complained aloud about going broke, the in-game army suddenly halted, as if the prince had heard her voice.
Then, the terrifying real-world consequences hit.
Clara woke up to find her water glass and a box of Kleenex had vanished from her locked bedroom overnight.
She frantically searched the tiny apartment, her heart pounding in her chest.
She thought she was losing her mind. Had she thrown them out in her sleep? Was there a stalker hiding in her home?
How could physical objects just disappear into thin air behind a deadbolted door?
Until she looked at her nightstand.
Sitting exactly where her missing items used to be was a glowing, weightless crystal cup that defied all logic.
And on her laptop screen, the exiled prince was carefully holding her Kleenex box, offering a mountain of real gold on an altar.
She hadn't just downloaded a mobile game; she had opened a cross-dimensional trade route with a desperate future king.
7.1
I never should have let my mother hold my future hostage.
She paid my tuition with his father's money. Locked my birth certificate, my transcripts, every scrap of paper I need to survive in a safe I'll never open. And the one thing I had left of my dad, his old watch, she dangled like a noose.
Run, and I lose my education. Fight, and I lose the last piece of the man who actually loved me.
So I moved into the Hunters' mansion. Into the lair of the boy who spent years making my life hell.
Chase Hunter. Six-foot-five of pure venom wrapped in muscle and money. The senior who cornered me in empty hallways, who whispered filth in my ear just to watch me flinch, who smiled that sharp, cruel smile every time I broke a little more.
I thought graduation meant freedom from him.
I was wrong.
Now he's my stepbrother.
He hates that I'm here. Hates my mother for sinking her claws into his father. Hates me most of all, for breathing his air, for walking his halls, for daring to exist where he can reach me.
But hate isn't clean anymore.
It's tangled up in heat. In the way his grey eyes strip me bare every time they land on me. In the way his hand closes around my throat, not to hurt, but to own. In the way he punishes me over his lap, in his car, against walls, until I'm shaking and soaked and furious at myself for wanting more.
He calls me Little Lamb like it's poison on his tongue.
I call him every name I can think of under my breath.
How long until we stop fighting the deadly inferno raging between us and finally let it consume us both?
7.1
They ruined her face. Stole her child. Now she's back-and nothing will stop her.
Five years ago, Raina Carrington lost everything: her beauty, her family, and her newborn baby.
Now she's returned-unrecognizable, unbreakable, and with one goal in mind: to find her son and make them pay. But revenge is never simple, especially when it draws the attention of Leif Vexley-the most powerful and dangerous man in the city-who just might hold the key to her child's past.
Yet she's not the victim anymore.
She's the storm-and she's ready to strike.
9.2
I was sold to Damien Russo, the ruthless Don of Chicago, as collateral in a shipping route transaction. I was expected to be a silent, obedient bride in a cold, loveless marriage.
But the moment I stepped into the Russo estate, I realized my new family wanted to completely destroy me.
My mother-in-law, Eleonora, and her arrogant relatives immediately targeted me. They set traps in the solarium, mocked my late mother's heritage, and tried to force me into humiliating submission using their strict mafia traditions. They wanted to break my spirit so Damien would replace me with the bride they actually wanted—a purebred mafia princess. They expected me to cower in fear, isolated and helpless, while the whole family watched my public humiliation and waited for my downfall.
Did they really think I was just a fragile girl who would cry and run away? They completely underestimated the survival instincts of a woman who grew up in this bloody world. I learned long ago that tears are worthless.
"My rules are simple. Vendetta is a two-way street."
Instead of breaking, I smiled. I weaponized their own legendary ancestors and the sacred promise of an unborn heir to trap the Matriarch in her own rules, forcing her into a suffocating silence. If they wanted a war for the throne, I would gladly show them exactly why I am the undisputed Mafia Queen.
7.7
Kaitlynn's mother forced her to entertain Jorden, a cold, overbearing professional esports captain who she only remembered as an annoying, mud-eating brat.
She despised him in real life, saving all her admiration for "Hex," the god-tier player in her favorite MMO who constantly spoiled her with thousand-dollar rare items.
Trapped in Jorden's luxury car during a forced errand, Kaitlynn couldn't stand his arrogant attitude anymore.
She proudly bragged about Hex, claiming her online master's mechanics were vastly superior to any so-called professional player.
"He's the absolute ceiling," she declared defensively. "He's way better than you."
Jorden just smirked, his dark eyes dismissing her entirely.
"Sounds like a nerd living in his mom's basement."
Kaitlynn was furious, ready to scream at him, until his work phone suddenly rang.
Right in front of her, he casually commanded his team using an extremely rare, high-tier strategy exclusive to her game.
Kaitlynn's mind completely short-circuited.
Why would the captain of North America's biggest esports organization know Aethelgard's secret meta?
And why did his commanding, ruthless voice suddenly sound exactly like the low, comforting chuckle that echoed in her headset every night?
As Jorden's gaze dropped to the rare assassin class keychain resting on her lap, a wicked, knowing smile flashed across his face.
The untouchable esports tyrant had just realized his rebellious real-life enemy was his deeply pampered in-game student, and her peaceful double life was about to end.