The Ruined Heiress's Vengeful Comeback
Three years ago, Collette was framed in a vicious drug and sex scandal by her half-sister. Her father didn't ask a single question before banishing her to the gutters of Europe.
She clawed her way back to New York for revenge, willingly becoming a disposable, cheap toy for the city's most dangerous billionaire, Hartwell Lara, just to use him as her weapon.
But Hartwell’s heart belonged entirely to his delicate future wife, Isabell. When Collette nearly died of severe pneumonia on a freezing balcony, Hartwell left her bleeding and alone to patiently peel apples for Isabell. Isabell then barged into Collette's hospital room, maliciously tore her life-saving CFDA design sketch to shreds, and brutally slapped her own face.
"Collette... why are you being so mean to me?!"
Isabell screamed, collapsing to the floor just as Hartwell violently pushed the door open. His dark eyes locked onto Collette, filled with the same absolute, chilling disgust her father had shown three years ago.
Why was she always the one thrown away like garbage? Why did her own blood family destroy her, and why did the man she surrendered her dignity to trample her last hope for a liar?
Staring at her ruined life's work beneath Isabell's designer shoes, the tiny crack of warmth Hartwell had left in Collette's heart froze completely. She didn't bother to explain or beg. She just smiled her signature empty smile, ready to burn the Norris family and the Lara Empire to the ground.
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Chapter 1
The crystal stem of the champagne flute dug so hard into Collette's palm that her knuckles turned stark white.
She stood beneath the blinding glare of the Waldorf Astoria's chandelier, forcing her facial muscles to hold a bright, empty smile.
The heavy stench of alcohol and cheap cigars rolled off the Wall Street investor standing in front of her.
His thick, sweaty hand slid unapologetically onto the bare skin of her lower back.
Collette's stomach violently rolled. Bile burned the back of her throat.
She needed the entry ticket to the CFDA design competition. She needed it to survive.
Swallowing the sour taste in her mouth, she let out a soft, practiced laugh.
She smoothly twisted her body, stepping just an inch away from his wet palm under the guise of raising her glass.
She tipped her head back and swallowed the harsh, burning champagne in one long gulp.
The investor let out a loud, booming laugh, clearly pleased by her obedience. He slapped his chest, loudly promising that her competition spot was guaranteed.
"Excuse me for a moment," Collette murmured, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness.
The second she turned her back to him, the smile dropped from her face like dead weight.
Her eyes turned flat and cold.
The alcohol hit her empty stomach fast. A heavy wave of dizziness crashed over her brain.
The heel of her stiletto caught on the thick carpet, making her stumble slightly.
She sucked in a sharp breath and pushed open the heavy mahogany door leading to the restrooms, cutting off the loud jazz music of the ballroom.
The AC in the hallway was freezing.
Collette slumped against the cold marble wall, her chest heaving as she dragged air into her lungs.
A sharp, nervous cramp twisted her stomach. She bent forward, her hands instinctively pressing hard against her abdomen to stop the pain.
Fighting the nausea, she stumbled toward the sink and twisted the brass faucet.
Ice-cold water splashed over her fingers. She splashed it onto her face and looked up.
The woman in the mirror had heavy makeup and eyes full of naked, desperate ambition.
Collette let out a dry, mocking sound.
She unclasped her clutch and pulled out a tube of Tom Ford lipstick. The color was blood red.
She carefully traced her lips, rebuilding the armor of the cheap, money-hungry woman she needed to be tonight.
She snapped the lipstick shut. Perfect. Untouchable.
She turned around and pushed the restroom door open, ready to step back into the warzone.
She took half a step forward and slammed face-first into a solid wall of muscle.
The impact sent a jolt of pain through her forehead. White spots danced in her vision.
The sharp, dominant scent of cedarwood mixed with premium tobacco instantly invaded her lungs.
Collette's heart skipped a violent beat. She snapped her head up.
Hartwell Lara stood there.
He wore a custom-tailored black suit. He stared down at her, his face an unreadable mask of cold stone.
But his dark eyes were a storm of suppressed rage and heavy mockery, slowly dragging down her messy curls and the deep V-neck of her dress.
A low, freezing scoff vibrated in his chest.
"You really have no standards," Hartwell said, his voice a low growl. "Eating out of the hands of greasy old men just to climb a little higher."
The words felt like a physical slap.
Collette's chest tightened, but she instantly stretched her lips into that careless, seductive smile.
She reached out. Her slender fingers boldly hooked the knot of his silk tie.
She stepped up on her toes, closing the distance until she could feel the heat radiating off his chest.
"Are you jealous, Mr. Lara?" she whispered, her breath brushing his jaw.
The air around them instantly dropped to freezing.
Hartwell's eyes went pitch black. The muscle in his jaw ticked violently.
His large hand shot out, clamping around her narrow waist like a steel vice.
He shoved her backward.
Collette's spine hit the marble wall hard. A sharp gasp of pain left her lips.
Panic flared in her eyes for a split second.
Before she could make a sound, Hartwell crushed his mouth against hers.
It wasn't a kiss. It was a brutal punishment.
His teeth scraped against her bottom lip, tasting the red lipstick, demanding total submission.
Collette pushed against his chest for exactly two seconds before her hands curled into his shirt, her body going soft against the cold wall.
When he finally pulled back, Collette was gasping for air. Her lips were swollen, the corners of her eyes flushed a physiological red.
Hartwell didn't say a single word.
He ripped off his suit jacket and roughly threw it over her bare shoulders, hiding her skin from the world.
His arm locked around her waist, half-carrying, half-dragging her down the hallway toward the VIP elevator.
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7.2
Genevieve woke up choking on her own blood, a fatal gash tearing through her abdomen. The memories of a primitive world crashed into her mind—she had transmigrated into the body of a sadistic beastman Mistress.
But the five powerful beastmen "mates" standing over her hadn't come to her rescue. They had come to watch their tormentor die.
"We should just leave her," Kameron sneered coldly. "The scavengers will clean up the mess."
Gilberto spat in disgust, while Angelo, a silver-scaled snake-man, trembled in pure terror at the sight of her. The original owner had whipped them, humiliated them, and driven another mate to suicide. Now, they were letting her bleed out in the mud, their eyes filled with undisguised loathing and satisfaction.
She was a top-tier apocalyptic survival expert, yet here she was, paying the ultimate price for a stranger's monstrous sins. It was a bitter, unacceptable irony to die helplessly in the dirt while her supposed protectors waited for her corpse to rot.
She refused to accept this ending.
Forcing a chaotic surge of energy through their shared Biological Link, she brought all five men to their knees in agonizing pain, commanding them to carry her back. In the dark cave, without a single scream, she plunged her bare hands into a fire and brutally cauterized her own gaping wound with searing ash. As the beastmen stared in horrified awe at the unbreakable soul now occupying the tyrant's body, Genevieve wiped the blood from her face and began to rewrite her fate.
9.1
My husband, Dante Moretti, the feared Underboss, signed the divorce papers I slipped him without a glance. Too busy texting his true love, Sofia, he was blind to the annulment decree ending everything. The Reaper couldn't see the death of his own marriage.
For three years, I was Elena, his silent wife, the "Caged Canary," cleaning his messes while meticulously planning my escape from our loveless world.
He dismissed me for Sofia's every whim, publicly shaming me after a past love letter was read, then abandoning me again for her fake crisis.
That night, he violently shoved me against a wall, leaving me bleeding and concussed, rushing instead to protect Sofia. Discarded and injured, my invisible love became a weapon against me.
His crushing blindness, the cold realization I was a mere placeholder, fueled a profound injustice. How could he be so lethal, yet oblivious to his wife, favoring the one who betrayed him?
With chilling resolve, I uploaded Sofia's confession, initiated a massive financial transfer dismantling his empire, and staged my own death. Under a new identity, I fled to San Francisco, ready to build my power, far from his bloody, deceitful world.
7.7
Rory stood on the witness stand, forced by her father into an impossible choice: secure her dying mother's medical funding, or save her innocent boyfriend.
She looked Corbin right in his trusting eyes and lied to the court, testifying that he was the one driving the car during the fatal hit-and-run, sending him to a maximum-security prison for ten years.
The betrayal destroyed him. Corbin's father died of a heart attack upon hearing the guilty verdict. Six years later, Corbin returned as a ruthless billionaire and systematically blacklisted Rory from every job in the city. He cornered her into singing at his private club, humiliating her by forcing her to drink scotch—knowing she was severely allergic—and making her throw away his promise ring just to earn a stack of cash.
"Remember this moment. This is only the beginning."
She endured his cruel revenge because she was hiding a desperate secret: she was raising his five-year-old daughter, Willa. But when Willa's congenital heart defect suddenly worsened, requiring an impossible one-million-dollar surgery, Rory realized Corbin's calculated blockade had left her completely trapped with no way to save their child.
Staring at the sterile hospital walls, the last shred of her guilt burned away, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. He had destroyed her career and backed her into a corner, but he was the only one with the money. Wiping her tears, Rory turned and headed straight for Vance Tower.
9.0
The biopsy report slid across the cold metal desk, stamped with a brutal death sentence: advanced gastric cancer. Aretha had exactly ninety days left to live.
It was her twenty-sixth birthday, but her phone only rang with a furious call from her husband, Anders.
"Do you have any idea how much of a joke you made this family look like today? Post a public apology to Kelli right now."
He had completely forgotten her birthday, only caring that she skipped her adopted sister's yacht party.
When Aretha dragged her failing body back to the family estate, her biological mother slapped her across the face just for looking pale and embarrassing them in front of guests.
Seeing Aretha wasn't submitting to the usual abuse, Kelli deliberately threw herself down the stairs, playing the innocent, depressed victim.
Anders rushed in and shoved Aretha brutally against the wall to protect Kelli, while her biological father delivered his ultimate threat.
"I am freezing your trust fund. Get on your knees and apologize to Kelli right now, or you won't see another dime."
A massive, suffocating sense of absurdity washed over Aretha. She had spent six years lowering her head and begging for their approval, only to be treated like a disposable placeholder. Why should she spend her final days enduring this agonizing torture for people who didn't even care if she breathed?
Aretha wiped the blood from her chin and laughed. She publicly severed all ties with her family, whipped the signed divorce papers directly at Anders's face, and walked out into the freezing storm—ready to fight for her own life.
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.
8.6
Book Two of the Betrayed Luna to Alpha Queen Series
Can be read as a standalone or after Book One
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"They were supposed to hate me. All four of them. But the Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes, she just has a twisted sense of humor."
-----
"Let me die free rather than live as his possession."
Those were Lyralei Ravenwood's last words before she jumped off Widow's Cliff, choosing death over marriage to a monster hiding behind a charming smile.
She should have died.
Instead, she wakes in the camp of the Four Great Alphas..the most powerful, dangerous men in the ancient werewolf world. Men who look at her with resentment. Men who make it clear she's not welcome.
The Moon Goddess sent her to unite them against a rising darkness.
But they don't want unity. They don't want her.
Lyra didn't ask to be sent anywhere. She just wanted to escape a cage.
Now she's trapped with four hostile Alphas who see her as an obligation rather than a person. Who resent every breath she takes. Who make it clear that prophecy or not, she will never command their loyalty.
But something is awakening between them. Something ancient and undeniable.
The Primordial Mate Bond-a force that links one soul to multiple Alphas, pulling them together whether they want it or not.
As shadow wolves attack and an ancient evil rises, Lyra must navigate not just war, but the far more dangerous battlefield of four hearts that were determined to hate her.
Because feelings without trust are torture.
CONTENT WARNING: This book contains mature themes including explicit sexual content, violence, death of major characters, psychological trauma, and morally complex situations. Recommended for readers 18+