The Runaway Asset: Betraying My Billionaire Father
I stood in a couture engagement dress that cost more than most people earn in a decade, playing the part of the perfect billionaire heiress. My mother adjusted my hair with cold fingers, reminding me not to slouch before the photographers arrived for the merger of the century.
But a few feet away on the balcony, I heard my father’s true voice stripping away the romantic lie. He wasn’t talking about a wedding; he was discussing a corporate acquisition.
"Elodie does what she is told," he told the Senator, his laugh dry and humorless. "She is the final asset needed to seal the port deal." To him, I wasn't a daughter or a bride; I was a bargaining chip, a piece of currency used to buy infrastructure contracts. My childhood friend, the man I was supposed to marry, was nothing more than the other side of a business transaction.
The realization shattered the glass floor beneath me. I looked at my phone for a lifeline, but Alden, the only man who ever saw the real me, was a thousand miles away, silent and indifferent. I was being sold by my father and ignored by the man I loved, trapped in a life that felt like a beautifully decorated cage.
How could they turn my entire existence into a line item on a balance sheet? The scent of expensive lilies in the suite suddenly smelled like a funeral parlor, marking the death of the girl who believed in loyalty.
The nausea of betrayal was replaced by a cold, hard clarity. If I was just an asset to be traded, then it was time to change the game.
I stepped out of the white silk, traded my diamonds for a hoodie, and vanished into the night. I didn't head for safety; I flew to the neon chaos of Las Vegas to find the man who buried my father’s darkest secrets. To win my freedom, I would have to gamble everything on a coin toss with the city’s most dangerous enforcer.
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Chapter 10
Cassius reached into his pocket and produced a coin.
It was silver, heavy. It looked old.
"Heads, I help you find the boy. Tails, you go back to New York tonight. And you never say my name again."
The stakes were her life. Her freedom.
Elodie stared at the coin.
"That's not fair. I don't want to go back," she argued.
"Then don't bet," Cassius said. He moved to put the coin away.
"Wait," Elodie cried out.
She looked at his hands. Large. Scarred knuckles. He could manipulate a coin easily.
"I'll take the bet," she said.
"But I flip it."
Cassius laughed. It was a low rumble that vibrated in her chest.
"Don't trust me?"
"Not even a little," she said.
He handed her the coin. It was warm from his touch.
Elodie positioned the coin on her thumb. Her hand was sweating.
Sofia was watching from the balcony above, her mouth open in horror.
Elodie took a deep breath.
She flicked her thumb.
The silver coin spun into the air, catching the strobe lights. It seemed to hang there for an eternity.
She caught it on the back of her left hand and slapped her right hand over it.
Her heart was pounding in her throat. She could feel the faint, tacky residue of the clear lip gloss she'd smeared on her palm in the bathroom. It wasn't enough to be seen, but it was enough to prevent the coin from bouncing, giving her the split-second purchase she needed to feel the sharp relief of Liberty's profile. The eagle was facing up. It was heads.
Cassius leaned in. His eyes were gleaming.
"Call it."
"Heads," Elodie whispered.
She slowly lifted her hand.
The coin sat on her skin, showing the profile of a Liberty head.
Elodie let out a breath, her shoulders sagging with relief.
Cassius stared at the coin. Then he looked at her.
He didn't look disappointed. He looked... entertained. He reached out, his thumb brushing across the center of her palm where the coin had been. He pulled his thumb back, holding it up between them. An almost invisible sheen clung to his skin.
He smirked, a slow, dangerous curve of his lips. He knew.
"Heads it is," he said softly. He picked up his glass and raised it to her in a mock toast.
"Welcome to the game, Elodie."
And as he stood and walked away, leaving her trembling in the booth, it was a reminder that her independence wasn't built on strength or strategy.
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9.7
Luna Elena Frost was never chosen, only assigned.
Bound to Alpha Alaric Ashbourne through a cold contractual marriage, she endures three years as a Luna in name only. He never comes home, never defends her, and never looks at her, while his heart belongs to another woman.
At his grandmother's funeral, Alaric publicly dissolves their marriage, humiliating Elena before the entire pack. In that moment, she finally understands the truth. She was never wanted.
But the Moon has not abandoned her.
A forgotten night resurfaces. Her long-silent wolf begins to awaken. And secrets buried within her bloodline start to surface, drawing danger from every direction.
Cast out by the pack that once used her, Elena must flee, survive, and uncover her true power.
Only then does the Alpha realize his mistake.
By the time he turns back in regret, the Luna he rejected may already be gone forever.
9.3
They say you can't have it all. I'm about to prove them wrong-or destroy myself trying.
When my struggling mother married billionaire Richard Stone, I thought I was gaining a family. Instead, I found three stepbrothers who became my obsession, my downfall, and my salvation.
Dominic, the eldest, cold and commanding, who kisses me like he's claiming his kingdom and looks at me like I'm the only thing he can't control.
Julian, the charming playboy who hides a vulnerable soul beneath his perfect smile, making me feel like I'm the only woman he's ever truly seen.
Asher, the brooding artist who paints me like I'm his muse and touches me like I'm his masterpiece, seeing parts of my soul I didn't know existed.
They're forbidden. They're dangerous. They're everything I shouldn't want.
But when I discover my father didn't die by suicide that he was murdered by the very man who now calls himself my stepfather, these three powerful men becomes my unlikely allies.
First it was a forbidden attraction, now it's an arrangement that defies every rule.
The rules are simple:
I'll give each of them a chance.
I'll take everything they offer.
And in the end, I'll have to make the hardest decision of my life:
Choose one of them. Choose all of them. Or choose myself.
7.4
What's worse than being trapped in an elevator with your gorgeous, Rich boss?
Being trapped with all three of them.
Jack, Gavin, and Harrison aren't just my bosses; they're my brother's filthy rich best friends.
After a steamy, unplanned hookup when the lights went out, I'm about to become much more than just the girl next door.
There's Jack, whose touch drives me wild.
Gavin, the cocky CEO whose dirty orders I can't wait to obey.
And Harrison, the sweet, passionate one who pours his heart into everything... including me.
I've waited years for these men to finally see me. Now, I belong to them. My body is theirs to devour, my bed is theirs to break. But giving them my heart is a terrifying risk, and I just pray they don't shatter it.
9.5
For twenty years, Krista lived as the perfect daughter of the wealthy Cain family.
But a single DNA report shattered her entire world. Her adoptive parents coldly declared she was just a mistake and immediately replaced her with the true bloodline.
Desperate, she ran through the freezing rain to find her fiancé, only to hear him laughing with his friends.
"Marry a fake? I don't collect the Cain family's second-hand trash."
She slapped him, threw her diamond ring at his chest, and stumbled into a jazz lounge to drown her pain.
Drunk and heartbroken, she accidentally crashed into a stranger, clinging to him like a lifeline, which ended in a wild night in a luxury penthouse.
When she woke up, she realized the man she had ravaged was Jasper Stone, the most ruthless, cold-blooded billionaire on Wall Street.
At the same time, her phone lit up with notifications. Her bank accounts were frozen, and the Cain family had just released a brutal public statement permanently cutting her off.
She was completely abandoned, stripped of her home, her family, and her dignity in a single night. Why was twenty years of loyalty erased so easily?
But instead of kicking her out, Jasper tossed a prenuptial agreement onto the bed.
"Pay off your debt with marriage. Stay, and you are the untouchable Mrs. Stone."
Looking at the contract, Krista wiped her tears, put on bold red lipstick, and signed her name.
9.2
I was just a placeholder, a warm body in silk sheets to keep the bed from getting cold while my billionaire "owner," Garrick Head, dreamt of another man’s wife. To the world, I was Ever Wells, the lucky girl he’d plucked from obscurity, but in reality, I was a doll on a 145-day contract, counting every second until I could disappear.
Everything shattered when a burner phone buzzed in my hand with a message that turned my blood to ice: "I know your secret, Everly."
My real name was the one thing I had buried to protect my four-year-old son, Leo, who was hidden in a cramped apartment in Queens. Just as the blackmailer closed in, Leo’s asthma flared into a life-threatening fever, and the medication he needed cost thousands I didn't have. When I tried to siphon money to save him, Garrick sensed my desperation and froze my credit cards, mocking my "poverty" and demanding I crawl back to his bed to earn his favor.
The nightmare intensified at a high-society gala when Clarence Frazier, a dangerous ghost from my past, cornered me. He mouthed my real name in front of the cameras, his eyes promising to tear my fake life apart. Garrick’s possessiveness turned violent as he broke a man’s jaw for insulting me, yet in the same breath, he reminded me I was nothing but a "rented whore" he’d bought off a shelf.
I had to smile while he kissed me and detach my mind while he touched me, all while siphoning pennies into a hidden account. He thought he could finalize my imprisonment with a twenty-million-dollar apartment on Central Park West, calling it a gift when it was really just a heavier lock on my golden cage.
"I don't want to save the world," I whispered to the empty, marble penthouse after he fell asleep. "I just want to save my son."
With a predator from my past watching my every move and a master who treated me like a pet, I realized I couldn't wait for my contract to end. I had to run tonight, or Leo and I would both die in this cage.
8.4
I was the pack's lowest Omega, scrubbing floors by day, but secretly waiting for the night my Fated Mate, the Alpha Heir Desmond, would finally claim me.
Instead, he brought home a billionaire heiress and looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"I choose power," he sneered, rejecting our soul-bond in front of everyone. "An Omega can never be my Luna."
To seal his business deal, he sold me off like cattle to Kennedy Simmons—the "Crippled Alpha" rumored to be a broken, rot-filled monster.
On my last night in the territory, his new fiancée pushed me off a yacht.
As I drowned in the freezing water, I watched Desmond dive in.
He swam right past me to save her.
That was the moment my heart finally stopped beating for him.
They thought sending me to Seattle was a punishment. They thought I would wither away and die in the hands of a beast.
But they didn't know two things.
First, Kennedy Simmons wasn't a monster; he was a King waiting to be healed.
Second, I wasn't a weak Omega. I was a White Wolf, a legend thought to be extinct, capable of miracles.
Three months later, Desmond stood outside my gates, bankrupt and desperate, begging for a second chance.
I looked down from my balcony, wrapped in the arms of my true Alpha, and smiled.
"Get off my property," I commanded, my eyes glowing white. "Or I'll finish what the ocean started."