The Surgeon's Revenge: My Ex-Husband's Regret
The view from our twenty-million-dollar penthouse was stunning, but all I could see was the cracked screen of my phone. A single message from a contact named Sienna had just appeared: "Game On." For four years, I had worn the shapeless beige cardigans and played the quiet, submissive wife the elite Rutledge family demanded.
"Dorothea is back in the city," my husband Hunter said, refusing to meet my eyes as he pushed the divorce papers toward me.
He offered a "generous" settlement, patronizingly claiming that with my felony record and "creative resume," I’d be living on the streets without his charity. He had no idea that while he was rehearsing his breakup speech, I was already zipping up a duffel bag filled with cash and a passport in a name he didn't recognize.
His sister Kamala didn't even wait for me to pack before she was in our bedroom, calling me a leech and trying to destroy the only photo I had of my mother. I didn't cry or beg; I simply dropped Hunter’s favorite three-million-dollar Ming vase, watched it shatter, and walked out the door with a cold smile.
That night, I traded my sensible flats for a crimson silk dress and lethal heels, leaving Hunter’s jaw on the floor when he saw me at an exclusive club. He watched in horror as I smashed a vodka bottle over a harasser's head, still believing I was a broken woman who needed his protection.
He didn't know the truth until his grandmother finally revealed that I was the anonymous investor who had rescued their company from bankruptcy. I had gone to prison to protect his father's reputation, wearing the shame for years so their family name wouldn't implode.
Hunter fell to his knees in the driveway, begging for a second chance and promising to dump his mistress, but the anger in my heart had already turned to ice. The man I had sacrificed my life for was now just a stranger I used to know.
"The opposite of love isn't hate, Hunter. It's indifference."
I climbed into a purple supercar as my phone buzzed with a call from Mount Sinai Hospital. My medical license was reinstated, and a high-profile trauma case was waiting for my hands. Iris the housewife was dead, and Dr. Gutierrez was finally back in play.
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Chapter 8
The next morning, Iris's head throbbed. Not from a hangover-she had only had one glass of champagne-but from the adrenaline crash.
She woke up in Sienna's guest room. Her phone had forty-two missed calls. Thirty from Hunter. Ten from Eleanor. Two from Kamala.
She ignored them all.
Then she saw a text from Gigi. Hunter's grandmother. The matriarch.
Tea at 10? I want to say goodbye properly.
Iris couldn't ignore Gigi. She was the only Rutledge who had treated her like a human being.
"I have to go back," she told Sienna over coffee.
"It's a trap," Sienna warned. "They're going to ambush you."
"I know," Iris said. "But I owe Gigi."
She borrowed a suit from Sienna. It was white, sharp, and tailored. She pulled her hair back into a sleek ponytail. She put on dark sunglasses to hide the lack of sleep.
When she went down to the garage, Sienna was leaning against the purple McLaren, dangling the keys from her finger.
"You're not taking the Porsche," she said. It wasn't a question.
"It's your car," Iris started to say.
"No," Sienna interrupted. "That place is a tomb. You need to show up looking like a resurrection. The Porsche is a scalpel. This," she said, slapping the hood of the McLaren, "is a statement. Take the statement."
Iris took the keys. The carbon fiber fob was light in her hand.
She drove the McLaren to the Rutledge estate in Greenwich. The gate guard did a double-take when he saw her in the purple supercar, but he opened the gates.
She walked into the main drawing room. They were all there. It was a tribunal.
Hunter sat on the sofa, looking haggard. Dorothea was next to him, wearing a pastel yellow dress, looking like a delicate flower. Eleanor and Kamala sat in high-backed chairs, looking like vultures.
When Iris entered, silence fell.
Dorothea stood up immediately. She picked up a teapot.
"Iris," she said, her voice trembling. "I'm so glad you came. I... I wanted to apologize for last night. I didn't mean to upset you."
She walked toward Iris, holding a cup of tea. Her hands were shaking. It was a perfect performance.
Iris didn't take the cup.
"Cut the act, Dorothea," she said.
Hunter stood up. "Iris! She's trying to be nice. She feels terrible about the misunderstanding."
"Misunderstanding?" Iris asked. "You mean the part where she called me a hooker in front of half of New York?"
Dorothea sniffled. A tear rolled down her cheek. "I just... I was confused! You looked so... different."
"I looked happy," Iris said. "I know that's confusing for you."
Eleanor slammed her hand on the armrest. "How dare you speak to her like that! You are a guest in this house now, Iris. Show some respect."
"Respect is earned, Eleanor," Iris said. "And you're overdrawn."
Before Eleanor could explode, the butler cleared his throat.
"Madam," he said. "Mr. Garth Burris is here."
The room went still. Garth Burris. The right hand of the Lindsey family. The fixers. The kings of New York.
Garth walked in. He was carrying a silver gift box. He ignored everyone and looked straight at Iris. His eyes were calculating.
"Mrs. Rutledge," he nodded to Eleanor. "Mr. Lindsey sends his regards. He heard it was... a time of transition for the family."
He placed the box on the table.
"A token," Garth said.
Hunter looked nervous. "Mr. Lindsey? Auguste Lindsey? Why would he..."
Garth didn't answer Hunter. He looked at Iris again.
"Ms. Gutierrez," he said. "Good to see you again."
Iris frowned. "Have we met?"
"Briefly," Garth said. "Last night. At Velvet."
Hunter stiffened. "You saw that?"
"We saw everything," Garth said. His tone implied that 'everything' included Hunter's cowardice.
Garth bowed slightly and left.
The silence he left behind was heavy. Hunter looked at Iris with new suspicion.
"Why does Auguste Lindsey know who you are?" he demanded.
"I don't know," Iris said honestly.
"Did you sleep with him?" Kamala shrieked. "Is that where you got the money?"
"Enough!"
A cane struck the hardwood floor.
Gigi stood at the top of the stairs. She looked frail, but her eyes were burning.
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9.0
He drew her before he ever met her.
She dreams of him every night... without knowing who he is.
Nora is a brilliant editor in a prestigious journalism company - confident, successful... and completely unaware of her past. But night after night, she dreams of a mysterious warrior prince in a realm that feels far too real. When Edward, the enigmatic new CEO of her branch, walks into her life, her world starts to unravel. He's the son of the company's owner, and though they've never met, he's been drawing her face for years.
As their connection deepens, strange events begin to blur the line between reality and fantasy. What neither of them knows is that their souls are bound - not just in this life, but in another.
In a parallel world, Leela is a fearless warrior and spy, sworn to protect her people. Jing, the prince of a war-torn kingdom, trusts her with his life... but must never love her. Their bond is dangerous. Forbidden. And yet, undeniable.
Two women. Two men.
Two worlds on the brink of war... and love that defies fate.
When destiny calls across dimensions, will they choose duty - or the one their soul remembers?
8.6
In my past life, the Cerberus strain leaked, turning the world into a blood-soaked hell of rotting flesh and mutated monsters.
I thought my boyfriend Declan and my best friend Hailee would have my back as we fled the quarantine zone.
Instead, when the surging crowd of the infected cornered us, they didn't hesitate.
They shoved me backward into the horde just to buy themselves three seconds to run.
As I fell into the mud, I saw them fleeing without a single backward glance.
"She's dead weight anyway!" Hailee screamed.
"Just keep running, she'll distract them!" Declan yelled back.
I was torn apart, feeling the agonizing tear of rotting teeth sinking into my neck and the hot spray of my own blood.
Before the apocalypse, my greedy uncle had locked away my ten-million-dollar trust fund, leaving me with nothing but a fake boyfriend who only wanted me for my money.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand how the people I loved most could trade my life for a head start.
Why did I blindly trust them? Why didn't I see through their perfectly choreographed lies?
Opening my eyes again, the stench of decaying flesh vanished, replaced by the sterile smell of my college dorm room.
Hailee and Declan were standing over my bed, faking tears of concern over my meningitis fever.
I was back exactly seven days before the world ended, and my spatial vault ability had come back with me.
This time, I'm extorting my uncle for every cent, hoarding the city's supplies, and leaving them all to rot.
8.5
Tyla thought Miami was her fresh start. She didn't expect to become the obsession of the city's most dangerous "Golden Boy," Daniel Thorne. He's untouchable, wealthy beyond measure, and used to getting what he wants. And right now? He wants Tyla-body, soul, and everything in between.
But the heat in Miami isn't just from the sun. While Daniel's magnetic pull draws Tyla into a world of high-stakes parties and whispered promises, a blade is being sharpened in the shadows. Summer, the "best friend" who has lived in Tyla's shadow for years, has finally reached her breaking point.
Summer doesn't just want Daniel; she wants Tyla's life. And she's willing to burn both of them to the ground to get it.
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.
9.0
I had been a wife for exactly six hours when I woke up to the sound of my husband’s heavy breathing. In the dim moonlight of our bridal suite, I watched Hardin, the man I had adored for years, intertwined with my sister Carissa on the chaise lounge.
The betrayal didn't come with an apology. Hardin stood up, unashamed, and sneered at me. "You're awake? Get out, you frumpy mute." Carissa huddled under a throw, her fake tears already welling up as she played the victim. They didn't just want me gone; they wanted me erased to protect their reputations.
When I refused to move, my world collapsed. My father didn't offer a shoulder to cry on; he threatened to have me committed to a mental asylum to save his business merger. "You're a disgrace," he bellowed, while the guards stood ready to drag me away. They had spent my life treating me like a stuttering, submissive pawn, and now they were done with me.
I felt a blinding pain in my skull, a fracture that should have broken me. But instead of tears, something dormant and lethal flickered to life. The terrified girl who walked down the aisle earlier that day simply ceased to exist. In her place, a clinical system—the Valkyrie Protocol—booted up.
My racing heart plummeted to a steady sixty beats per minute. I didn't scream. I stood up, my spine straightening for the first time in twenty years, and looked at Hardin with the detachment of a surgeon looking at a tumor.
"Correction," I said, my voice stripped of its stutter. "You're in my light."
By dawn, I had drained my father's accounts, vanished into a storm, and found a bleeding Crown Prince in a hidden safehouse. They thought they had broken a mute girl. They didn't realize they had just activated their own destruction.
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.