The Tycoon's Contract With A Vicious Beauty
My husband Hubert threw a stack of faked, compromising photos at my bleeding face.
He crushed my hand under his leather shoe and threatened our five-year-old son's life, forcing me to sign away my company shares and full custody.
Then, my younger sister Ara walked into the room, stepping carefully to avoid my blood, and kissed my husband deeply.
"You really are a stupid stepping stone, Amelie. I paid a lot of money to have those photos photoshopped."
She sneered at me, admitting she had orchestrated everything just to steal my fashion brand and my life.
Before I could fight back, Ara injected a paralytic directly into my neck.
They stuffed me into a duffel bag and dumped me in the freezing mud of a secluded hunting estate.
Ara waved a forged suicide note in my face, claiming I had drowned myself out of shame, before giving her bodyguard a sharp nod.
Three massive, starving mastiffs were released from their cages.
As the dogs tore through my flesh and crushed my bones, Hubert watched my bloody massacre live on a video call.
In my final seconds of agonizing pain, a blinding hatred locked into my dying brain.
I didn't understand why the two people I loved most would torture me so ruthlessly, but I made a venomous vow.
If I ever come back, I will make you both drown in your own blood.
Opening my eyes again, I wasn't dead in the mud.
I had awakened in the young body of a girl named Gena, and fate had just dropped the perfect weapon for my revenge right into my lap: Hubert's ruthless billionaire uncle.
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Chapter 5
Gena supported Claudio's heavy frame as they stumbled out from beneath the fire escape and onto the edge of a commercial street.
The police sirens wailed two blocks away, the red and blue lights reflecting off the wet asphalt. The tension in the air was thick enough to choke on.
Claudio's breathing grew ragged. Blood loss was making his legs give out. He leaned heavily against Gena, his weight pressing down on her thin shoulders.
Gena gritted her teeth, scanning the empty street for a cab or a place to hide.
Suddenly, a black Range Rover sped around the corner and slammed on its brakes, the tires shrieking against the wet pavement. It stopped ten feet in front of them.
The doors flew open. Mitch, with a bloody bandage wrapped around his forehead, jumped out. Two massive, muscle-bound enforcers stepped out behind him, gripping wooden baseball bats.
Mitch pointed a thick finger at Gena. "There's the little bitch! Break her legs and throw her in the trunk!"
Gena's stomach plummeted. She cursed under her breath. Her muscles instinctively tensed, preparing to run, but she knew she couldn't outrun two thugs while dragging a bleeding man.
Claudio felt her panic. He forced himself to stand straight, pulling his weight off her. His dark eyes locked onto Mitch and his men, his expression turning to pure ice.
The enforcers stepped forward, backing Gena and Claudio against the glass window of a closed coffee shop.
Gena's brain spun. She had a split second to act. She spun around and threw her arms around Claudio's waist, burying her face into his chest.
"Baby!" Gena cried out, forcing her voice to tremble with fake terror. "These are the men who tried to kidnap me!"
Claudio's body went completely rigid. He looked down at the girl clinging to him, a flash of pure shock crossing his face before he instantly understood the play.
Mitch stopped in his tracks at the word "baby." He narrowed his eyes, taking in the sight of the tall man. Despite the blood and mud, the bespoke suit and the arrogant posture screamed money.
Claudio didn't miss a beat. He lifted his right arm and wrapped it securely around Gena's shoulders, pulling her tight against his side.
His eyes turned dead and hollow. He looked at Mitch with the absolute disdain of a king looking at a cockroach. "You want to touch my woman?" he asked, his voice low and lethal.
Mitch shifted his weight uncomfortably, intimidated by the stare. But he puffed out his chest. "She owes me money. She's my property."
Claudio let out a dark, mocking laugh. He reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a solid metal Black Centurion Card bearing the Pierce family crest. He held it loosely between his index and middle finger.
Claudio's sharp eyes caught the edge of a crude falcon tattoo peeking out from beneath Mitch's bloody shirt collar. "You work for the Falcone family out of Brooklyn," Claudio said, casually dropping the name of Mitch's mob boss. "Tell Jimmy Falcone that Claudio Pierce said to back the fuck off."
Mitch's face drained of all color. The moment he heard his boss's name and the name 'Pierce,' his tough-guy act crumbled into dust. He knew exactly who the Pierce family was.
Claudio leaned forward slightly, the physical threat radiating off him. "I'm giving you ten seconds to get out of my sight, or your entire operation burns to the ground by morning."
Cold sweat broke out on Mitch's upper lip. He stared at the Black Card, then at Claudio's cold eyes. He swallowed hard, took a step back, and bowed his head.
"My apologies, Mr. Pierce. We didn't know," Mitch stammered. He waved frantically at his men. The three of them scrambled back into the Range Rover and sped off into the night.
Gena watched the taillights disappear. The adrenaline left her body in a rush. She let out a long, shaky breath and stepped back from Claudio's chest.
The moment the threat was gone, Claudio's arrogant posture collapsed. He let out a sharp groan of pain and slid down the glass window, hitting the pavement hard.
Gena dropped to her knees and grabbed his shoulders to keep him from falling flat.
Claudio looked up at her, a weak smirk on his pale lips. "Nice acting. We're even now."
Gena knew he was going to bleed out if she didn't get him off the street. She pulled out the car keys she took from Mitch and pressed the unlock button. An old, beat-up Honda Civic parked at the corner flashed its lights.
Gena dragged Claudio up and shoved him into the passenger seat of the Honda. She got behind the wheel, slammed her foot on the gas, and drove toward Flushing. She let out a cold, calculating breath. The most dangerous place was the safest place. Neither Mitch's thugs nor whoever shot Claudio would ever expect them to hide out in the filthy apartment of the two parasites who had just sold her. Her adoptive parents' apartment was the only place she could think of to hide a billionaire.
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8.4
For twenty years, I lived as the adopted daughter of the wealthy Hill family.
But today, they forced me to sign a severance agreement and kicked me out so their precious biological daughter, Malia, could marry my fiancé.
To ruin me completely, they framed me for stealing Malia's engagement bracelet, threatening me with prison.
I calmly exposed the "sapphire" as cheap glass, then rolled up my sleeves to show the reporters my scarred, punctured arms.
For two decades, I wasn't a daughter. I was Malia's living blood and bone marrow bank.
They drained my health to keep her alive, even ordering doctors to ignore my failing organs just so she could attend a gala.
"Take this million dollars and shut your mouth," my adoptive father sneered, throwing a check at my feet.
My ex-fiancé looked at me with disgust, and Malia screamed that I was a crazy, vindictive liar.
They had stolen my life and my health, yet they still looked down on me like I was garbage.
I ripped the check into pieces and threw it in their faces.
Just as they ordered the butler to drag me out, a group of men in black suits shattered the chaos.
The heir of the untouchable Montgomery dynasty stepped through the door, ignoring the Hills' fawning, and handed me a DNA report.
I wasn't a disposable blood bag. I was the long-lost true heiress of old New York money.
And now, I was going to take back everything they stole from me.
9.3
Chandler was the secret wife of Avery Osborn, a powerful media heir who kept their marriage hidden to avoid the scandal of her illegitimate birth.
After catching him openly flirting with a rival at a gala, Avery mocked her low status and told her she was nothing without his money.
Instead of crying, Chandler immediately signed a zero-payout divorce agreement, left her wedding ring on his glass table, and walked out.
To numb the pain of her shattered life, she went to a notorious underground club.
Drugged by a bartender, she lost her mind and ended up having a wild night with a handsome stranger she mistook for a high-end male escort.
Panicking the next morning, Chandler transferred her entire life savings of $50,000 to the man to buy his silence, then fled to her corporate job.
But at the afternoon executive meeting, her blood ran cold.
The man she had paid off was standing at the head of the boardroom table. He wasn't a gigolo. He was Brennan George, the ruthless new COO of her company.
Cornering her in the women's restroom, Brennan held up a printed copy of her $50,000 wire transfer.
"Wiring a massive sum of cash to your direct superior after a night together is classified as commercial bribery and solicitation," he whispered dangerously.
Chandler was terrified, realizing she had handed him the exact evidence needed to destroy her career and sue her into bankruptcy.
"Marry me," Brennan demanded coldly. "It's the only way to make this HR problem disappear."
7.5
I was tied to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, the heavy stench of gasoline suffocating me.
Ten steps away, a masked kidnapper slammed a loaded Glock onto a metal barrel and forced my husband, Alvie, to make a sick choice.
"The wife or the mistress. You only get to walk out of here with one."
Alvie didn't even blink.
He walked straight toward the dark corner where his mistress, Gail, was crying. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, shielding her, and guided her toward the exit.
He never looked back. He didn't cast a single glance over his shoulder. To him, I was already a corpse, just trash left on the pavement.
The kidnapper laughed and tossed a lighter onto the soaked concrete floor.
A wall of ghostly blue fire erupted instantly, swallowing me whole. The absolute agony of my skin blistering and melting shattered my sanity.
In my last moments, consumed by the inferno, I couldn't understand how the man I had loved and served so submissively could leave me to burn alive. My heartbreak quickly morphed into a hatred far deeper than the flames.
Then, I violently jerked awake.
I shot up from the bed, gasping for cold air, my hands frantically checking my perfectly smooth, unburned skin.
I looked at the desk clock. I had returned to exactly four years ago, the morning of the annual Gallagher family gathering.
The fragile, naive wife died in that warehouse. This time, I am going to destroy them both.
8.9
For fifteen years, I thought my mother had died in a tragic fire.
Then the wealthy Ross family's butler knocked on my door, revealing she was alive—locked away in the psychiatric annex of their massive estate.
I rushed into the lion's den to save her, only to run straight into Graydon Ross, the ruthless billionaire CEO.
He looked at my cheap clothes with pure disgust, convinced I was a bottom-feeding scammer trying to extort his family.
"Throw this bitch out into the snow."
He ordered his armed guards to drag me away, completely cutting off my only chance to see my mentally broken mother.
But as he violently grabbed my collar to throw me out, I saw a custom eagle-head cufflink hanging from his coat pocket.
My blood turned to ice, and a wave of paralyzing terror crashed over me.
Eight months ago, I accidentally slept with a masked stranger in a pitch-black hotel room and fled before dawn.
That cufflink belonged to him.
The man who took my virginity—the Wall Street tyrant I had been hiding from—was Graydon Ross.
If he ever found out I was that woman, he would literally destroy my life.
But to save my mother, I couldn't be thrown out.
When his grandmother suddenly appeared, I dropped to the floor, exposed the dark bruises Graydon had just left on my wrists, and sobbed.
I framed the billionaire for assault to secure my place in the mansion, forcing myself to live right next door to the monster whose bed I had fled.
8.7
"Sign the papers and leave. My true love is coming home, and this house no longer has room for a placeholder like you."
For three years, Lia Leighton was the perfect, invisible wife to Julian Cohen-the cold-blooded titan of the Port Harcourt business world. She was the one who nursed his wounds, managed his scandals, and endured his family's cruelty, all while he treated her like a piece of furniture he'd forgotten he bought.
But on their third anniversary, instead of a celebration, Julian hands her a cold ultimatum. His "White Moonlight"-the woman who broke his heart years ago-has returned, and Lia is being discarded like yesterday's news.
Julian expects Lia to beg. He expects her to cry for the meager settlement he's tossed at her feet. After all, she's just a penniless orphan he rescued from the gutter... right?
He couldn't be more wrong.
Without a single tear, Lia signs the papers, leaves her wedding ring in the dust, and vanishes.
When she resurfaces, she isn't the quiet wallflower Julian threw away. She is the glamorous, untouchable CEO of the Leighton Global Empire-the very woman who now holds Julian's entire financial future in her hands.
As Julian's world begins to crumble, he realizes too late that he didn't just lose a wife; he lost the most powerful woman in the city. But when he finally falls to his knees to beg for mercy, Lia only offers a cold, devastating smile.
"Mr. Cohen, I don't negotiate with exes. Stay in your lane."
9.4
For three years, I was nothing but a ghost in my marriage, a pathetic stand-in forced to dress exactly like my billionaire husband's dead fiancée.
On our third anniversary, he left me to face armed intruders in our remote estate alone.
When I called him begging for help, he mocked me for faking a home invasion for attention and hung up to comfort his mistress.
The nightmare only got worse. The next night, my stepmother and half-sister drugged me at a family gala, trying to ruin me by handing me over to a sleazy producer.
I escaped into a pitch-black hotel suite, only to be overpowered by a drugged stranger in the dark.
Traumatized and covered in bruises, I secretly took an emergency contraceptive pill.
When my husband found the crumpled receipt on the floor, he didn't ask if I was hurt or where the violent marks on my neck came from.
"You cheap whore. You broke the loyalty contract."
He drafted the divorce papers immediately, stripping me of every penny, and ordered me thrown onto the street.
He thought without his wealth, I wouldn't survive a day in New York and would come crawling back to him like a dog.
I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed the papers, dropped my diamond ring on his glass table, and walked out.
What my arrogant ex-husband didn't know was that before I became his obedient shadow, I was "Lan"—the legendary, anonymous fashion designer the entire world was desperately looking for.
Now, I was taking back my empire.