The Secret Asset: Rising From The Shadows
7.8 / 10.0
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At her lavish engagement party, everyone whispered that Amberly Carson, the fallen socialite, was the luckiest woman in New York for sinking her hooks into the billionaire heir, Calvin Henry.
But right before the vows, Calvin received a phone call, his face turning pale with horror.
He pointed a trembling finger at Amberly in front of all the elite guests.
"It's you! You drove her to this!" he roared, publicly accusing her of pushing his true love to suicide before abandoning the wedding.
The polite smiles in the ballroom instantly melted into expressions of shock and delicious pity.
Calvin's reckless devotion to his manipulative sidepiece soon triggered a chain of disastrous events.
He was nearly killed in a staged car crash, and the shock gave his father a massive stroke, leaving the Henry Group completely headless and vulnerable to a hostile takeover.
Calvin's best friend cornered Amberly in the hospital, blaming her for the family's downfall.
"You're a curse! You bring nothing but trouble!"
In everyone's eyes, Amberly was just a desperate, ruined girl destined to be the scapegoat for a powerful family's destruction.
They expected her to hide in shame, weeping over her lost fiancé and shattered reputation.
But they didn't know the fragile socialite was just a disguise.
Instead of crying, Amberly knocked Calvin unconscious with a single, precise nerve strike and calmly took the stage microphone.
"I am officially announcing the cancellation of my engagement."
Walking away from the chaos, she pulled out an encrypted phone to contact a dormant shadow network.
Phase one was complete, and the real hunt was about to begin.
The Secret Asset: Rising From The Shadows Chapter 1
The crystal chandeliers of the St. Regis ballroom dripped light onto the sea of curated smiles. Amberly Carson stood beside Eleanor Henry, the woman who was supposed to become her mother-in-law in about ten minutes. The scent of white roses and quiet desperation hung in the air.
"You look stunning, dear," a guest murmured, her eyes scanning Amberly's simple white gown. "Calvin is a lucky man."
Amberly offered a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Thank you."
Eleanor squeezed her arm, a silent command to look happier. To look grateful.
Whispers followed Amberly like a shadow. They all thought she was the luckiest woman in New York. Amberly Carson, the fallen socialite, somehow clawing her way back by sinking her hooks into Calvin Henry, heir to the Henry Group fortune.
Across the room, Calvin was suffocating in his tuxedo. He adjusted his tie for the tenth time, his gaze darting to the screen of his phone. His thumb hovered over the contacts, his jaw tight with an anxiety that had nothing to do with wedding vows.
His phone lit up. The name 'Faith' glowed on the screen.
He didn't even try to be discreet. He turned and strode to a secluded corner behind a marble pillar, his back to the entire room, to his family, to her.
Amberly watched him go. Her heart didn't pound. Her stomach didn't drop. It was all just... quiet. A clinical observation of a disaster in motion.
His voice, though low, carried in the suddenly tense silence. "What? What do you mean?"
A pause. Then, a raw, strangled shout.
"Which hospital? I'm on my way!"
He hung up, his face a mask of chalky white horror. He stumbled back into the center of the room, his eyes wild, searching until they landed on Amberly. The look in them wasn't grief. It was pure, unadulterated hatred.
"Calvin, what is it? What's wrong?" his mother, Eleanor, demanded, rushing to his side.
He ignored her. He pointed a trembling finger at Amberly.
"It's you," he spat, his voice cracking. "This is all because of you! You drove her to this!"
A collective gasp rippled through the ballroom. The polite smiles froze, melting into expressions of shock, pity, and delicious, secondhand drama.
Amberly's expression remained unchanged. It was as if he were screaming at a stranger.
"I'm going to her," Calvin roared, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. "This engagement, this whole thing... it's over!"
He shoved past his own father, Forest Henry, who stood rigid with fury. He pushed through the stunned crowd, a man escaping a fire, running toward a different one.
Just as his hand reached for the grand ballroom door, a flash of white blocked his path.
It was Amberly.
"Get out of my way," he snarled, his hand coming up to push her.
Her eyes were like chips of ice. Her movement was a blur, too fast to properly see. She didn't block his shove. Instead, her hand shot out, her stiff fingers pressing hard into the side of his neck. It wasn't a strike, but a sudden, targeted pressure on a nerve cluster.
Calvin's forward momentum stopped instantly. His eyes went wide, then unfocused. The strength drained from his body like water from a broken glass. He crumpled, a dead weight.
Before his head could hit the polished floor, Amberly caught him, easing his large frame down gently, preventing any injury.
The silence in the room was absolute. It was a dead, breathless vacuum. Everyone stared, mouths agape, at the bride-to-be standing over the unconscious body of her fiancé.
Eleanor and Forest rushed forward. "Amberly! What did you do to him?" Eleanor shrieked.
Amberly rose, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle from her white gown. She looked at the two security guards who were cautiously approaching.
"He's fine," she said, her voice perfectly level. "He just fainted from the stress. He'll be fine in a moment."
Her tone was so authoritative, so clinical, that the guards instinctively stopped and nodded.
She walked to the small stage, picked up the microphone from the lectern, and turned to face the crowd. Her gaze swept across the room, calm and sharp, meeting every pair of shocked eyes.
"Thank you all for coming," she began, her voice clear and steady through the speakers. "I apologize for the... drama."
She paused, letting the weight of the moment settle.
"I, Amberly Carson, am officially announcing the cancellation of my engagement to Calvin Henry."
She placed the microphone back on its stand with a soft, final click.
Then, without a backward glance at the chaos, at the whispers, at the man lying on the floor, she turned and walked toward the exit.
In the shadows of the hallway, where no one could see, the corner of her mouth lifted into a cold, sharp smile. The first move was hers.
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The Secret Asset: Rising From The Shadows of Contents
Chapter 1 Ch. 1Chapter 2 Ch. 2Chapter 3 Ch. 3Chapter 4 Ch. 4Chapter 5 Ch. 5Chapter 6 Ch. 6Chapter 7 Ch. 7
Chapter 8 Ch. 8
Chapter 9 Ch. 9
Chapter 10 Ch. 10
Chapter 11 Ch. 11
All Chapters all
New Release Novels
7.8
Alayna was working a grueling catering shift in worn-out heels to support her broke college boyfriend, Caiden, who claimed to be studying at the library.
But through the crack of a VIP suite door, she saw him wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch, sipping expensive liquor.
"It's a little poverty role-play. Keeps things interesting."
He was laughing with his rich friends, mocking her as his clueless "charity case."
To make matters worse, she was forced into a humiliating mascot costume just in time to watch him passionately kiss his wealthy ex-girlfriend.
That same night, Alayna's mother collapsed with gastric cancer, requiring a half-million-dollar surgery.
When a desperate Alayna begged Caiden for help, he refused.
"Why don't you just apply for Medicaid? That's the path for people like you."
For two years, she had starved herself to buy his textbooks, his tickets, and his shoes.
He had stolen her sweat and her sacrifices, all for a cruel game.
The sheer audacity of his betrayal made her blood run cold.
When a billionaire stranger stepped in to pay her mother's medical bills in exchange for a one-year fake marriage, Alayna didn't hesitate to sign the contract.
She slipped the flawless diamond ring onto her finger, opened a spreadsheet, and sent Caiden an invoice for every single cent.
This time, she was going to dismantle his entire life.
9.2
She loved him until she lost herself.
Now, behind locked doors and shattered glass, she must learn to breathe again.
When she first met Lloyd, he was magnetic and intoxicating. The kind of man who turned every head when he entered a room, who spoke in promises sweet enough to taste. With him, she felt chosen, cherished, and safe.
But safety was an illusion, and love became a weapon.
And slowly, piece by piece, he dismantled her until nothing of the woman she once was remained.
Now institutionalized after a breakdown, she begins to piece together the brutal truth of what really happened in the shadows of their love story. Memories sting like open wounds: the manipulation disguised as tenderness, the apologies that blurred into threats, the desperate hope that tomorrow he'd be the man she fell for again.
Yet beneath the grief and the shame, a quiet rebellion stirs, a vow to reclaim her voice, her freedom, and her life. Because this is not just a story of how she fell apart. It is a story of how she rises.
Haunting, raw, and achingly intimate, Boys like him peels back the glittering mask of a toxic love affair to reveal the kind of darkness that hides in plain sight, and the unbreakable strength it takes to escape it.
7.6
I was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history.
But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me.
He swam past me.
He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water.
When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl.
"You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home."
Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her.
I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife."
He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps.
He was wrong.
While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room.
I was packing his ring into a cardboard box.
I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead.
By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.
8.6
Today was my father's grand second wedding, but for me, it was the anniversary of my mother's death.
My new stepmother, Marley, who was only four years older than me, cornered me. To establish her dominance as the new Luna, she ordered her servants to force me to my knees and violently ripped my late mother's necklace from my neck.
It was the only memento my mother had left me. Marley sneered, threw it to the ground, and shattered the gems. When I scrambled to pick up the broken pieces, she dug her high-heeled shoe into the back of my hand, mocking me as dirty trash. No one stepped in to help. My father was too busy celebrating his new marriage under the dazzling lights, completely erasing my mother's memory and leaving me to be abused in my own pack.
My heart was full of grievance and despair. Why did my mother's lifelong devotion end with her grave desolate and her daughter humiliated? I swore I would never become a weak, discarded she-wolf whose life depended on a man.
Desperate to escape the suffocating wedding, I ran outside and stumbled right into the chest of a terrifying stranger.
"No one should ever touch what is precious to you."
His golden eyes blazed with fury as sparks instantly shot through my veins. He was Kade Blackwood, the ruthless Alpha of the feared Blood Moon Pack—and my fated mate.
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.
8.2
In our beast world, females are treated as nothing more than precious breeding stock to keep the pack strong. As the pack's best Mender, I spent all my time focusing on my healing herbs, completely ignoring my maturity ritual.
But tonight, the blind pack elder grabbed my wrist and delivered a chilling ultimatum.
If I don't choose my mates by the next Full Moon, the Council of Elders will force a match and assign them to me.
The threat is already suffocating. Arrogant, elite warriors like Caleb Quinn are pacing outside my door like starving wolves, stalking my porch and using pack business to corner me. At home, the reality of multiple mates is even worse. My mother has two mates—my father, the strongest Alpha, and my cold, intellectual step-father. Their toxic, murderous jealousy turns our house into a daily war zone. They literally unleash suffocating killing intent on innocent cubs just for hugging my mother.
I am disgusted by this sick, possessive obsession. I refuse to let my life become a battlefield of jealous males fighting over who gets to guard my door, and I absolutely refuse to be forced into a harem by the Elders.
So, I made a declaration that shocked my entire family and broke every pack tradition.
"I will only ever take one mate."
And to make sure none of those predatory warriors can touch me, I set an impossible trap.
"Whoever wants me must defeat my father first."
