The Unwanted Husband Returns To The Top
For three years, Connor lived as a ghost. A crippled, useless Uber driver, enduring a self-imposed exile orchestrated by his dying grandfather's will to prove he was worthy of the Hoffman empire. He even married into the wealthy Barlowe family, becoming their favorite punching bag.
On the very last day of his test, his final Uber passengers slid into the backseat. It was his wife, Genevieve, and her wealthy lover.
They didn't recognize him behind his mask. Right there in his rearview mirror, they kissed hungrily, mocking her "pathetic loser" of a husband and plotting to dump him after her sister's wedding.
The next day at the wedding, they didn't just want a divorce. They wanted to publicly crucify him.
Her lover framed Connor as a violent, cheating degenerate. They rallied the city's elite, getting his Uber manager to publicly fire him and convincing the entire ballroom to blacklist him from every job, apartment, and business in Ninverton.
They even brought in an arrogant Vice President from the Hoffman Group to publicly declare Connor was a fraud, sealing his social execution.
Standing alone in that lobby, surrounded by the mocking laughter of the people who had trampled on his dignity for a thousand days, Connor felt the last shred of his patience burn away. They were so utterly, hopelessly blind.
Then, his encrypted phone rang.
"Mr. Wise, the test is officially over. You are now the Global CEO of the Hoffman Group."
Connor looked at his cheating wife and the arrogant elites laughing at his demise. He dropped the signed divorce papers on the table.
The game was over. The slaughter was about to begin.
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Chapter 3
The Von Merri Grand Hotel was a symphony of excess. Crystal chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, and the air hummed with the chatter of Ninverton's elite. Clarissa Barlowe's wedding was the social event of the season, and everyone who was anyone was there.
Genevieve, a vision in a sapphire gown, moved through the crowd with a practiced smile plastered on her face. Her hand was tucked into the arm of Jett Maddox, who wore his victory like a custom-tailored suit.
"Where's Connor?" a guest asked, her eyes scanning the room.
"Oh, he's not feeling well," Genevieve replied, her voice a perfect blend of concern and disappointment. "A terrible headache. He sends his regrets."
She repeated the lie a dozen times, each one smoother than the last.
Jett, meanwhile, had a different agenda. He spotted his target across the ballroom: Eleonora Barlowe, the family's matriarch, a formidable old woman with eyes like chips of granite and a spine of steel. She despised Connor, viewing him as a stain on the family's pristine lineage.
Jett approached her, his face a mask of grim reluctance.
"Eleonora," he began, his voice low and serious. "There's something you need to know about Connor's absence."
He proceeded to weave a masterful tale of deceit. He claimed he'd seen Connor the night before, checking into a cheap motel with another woman. A sordid, pathetic affair.
To add a touch of authenticity, he pulled out his phone and showed her a blurry, heavily pixelated photo of a man's back. It could have been anyone.
"I couldn't believe it," Jett said, shaking his head in feigned disbelief. "To betray Genevieve is one thing, but to do it on the eve of her cousin's wedding... it's an insult to the entire Barlowe family."
Eleonora's face, already a stern mask, hardened into a furious scowl. The story confirmed every one of her prejudices against her low-born son-in-law.
Just then, Genevieve drifted over, her eyes artfully reddened, playing the part of the heartbroken victim to perfection. It was the final push Eleonora needed.
"This will not stand!" the old woman's voice was a low growl, cutting through the nearby chatter. "This family will not be shamed!"
She turned to her head of security, a hulking man in a tight-fitting suit. "Find him. Use every resource we have. I don't care where he is, find that worthless parasite."
Jett casually added, "I heard he's still driving that pathetic Uber. That might be a place to start."
"Find him and bring him here," Eleonora commanded, her voice ringing with cold fury. "He will get on his knees and beg Genevieve for forgiveness in front of everyone."
Whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire. The story, embellished with each telling, painted Connor as a degenerate monster. The mood shifted from celebration to a kind of bloodthirsty anticipation.
Alistair and Preston Barlowe, the fathers of the bride and Genevieve, respectively, joined the circle, their faces grim with anger. The full weight of the Barlowe clan was now mobilized for a singular purpose: to hunt down and publicly crucify Connor.
Miles away, in a quiet downtown coffee shop, Connor sipped an espresso. He was reading the file Finchley had sent him, a detailed breakdown of Donovan Industries' every vulnerability, every dirty secret.
His phone, resting on the table, displayed a live news feed from outside the Von Merri. He knew they were coming for him. He was counting on it.
At the wedding, Jett smirked, seeing his plan fall perfectly into place. He sent a quick text to Brody Barlowe, Genevieve's cousin and a notorious bully.
Get ready. We're about to have some fun.
Eleonora patted Genevieve's arm. "Don't you worry, my dear," she said, her voice like gravel. "We will make him pay. We will teach him his place."
Jett smirked. He had pulled a lot of strings to get Ms. Vexler, a VP from the Hoffman Group, to make a brief appearance later-a perfect power play to impress the Barlowes. Now, he had the perfect opening act. He excused himself and made a call.
"Gregory? Jett Maddox here. I need a little favor..."
He was calling Gregory Tanner, the regional manager for Uber. He was going to pinpoint Connor's exact location. There would be no escape.
Connor set his coffee cup down. He looked out the window at the bustling street, his eyes calm and deep, waiting.
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8.3
Ayleen Ramirez sat in the sterile Hope Hill Fertility Clinic, her heart shattering as Dr. Finch delivered the crushing news: her third IVF cycle had failed.
Eavesdropping outside a supply closet, she overheard her husband Don on the phone, laughing cruelly. "She's a defective incubator," he sneered to his mistress Alessandra. "I never used my sperm—just cheap bank donation. No trailer trash carries a Bradley heir."
Betrayed, Ayleen confronted him, but her adoptive family ambushed her at home. Her parents and brother sided with Alessandra, now pregnant by Don, demanding Ayleen sign divorce papers to secure family investments. "You're an embarrassment," her mother snapped, threatening to cut her trust fund. Ayleen tossed back their heirloom necklace and walked out.
She stormed the Bradley mansion, slapped divorce papers on Don, packed her bags amid his aunt's insults, and fled into the night.
Drunk in a trendy bar, she stumbled into a powerful stranger—Burdette Guerrero—spilling whiskey on his crotch, then accidentally grabbed a napkin to his trousers. He shoved her away in rage.
Worse, she mistook his penthouse suite for her hotel room, bursting in on his shower, smashing a mirror in panic. He pinned her to the wall, snarling accusations.
How did this arrogant man know her name? Why demand she sign a mysterious contract at 9 a.m.? Devastated and clueless she's actually pregnant—with his stolen heir—Ayleen sobbed alone, the world crumbling.
The next morning, she straightened her spine in the Grand Guerrero lobby, ready to face him and demand answers—no matter the cost.
8.8
Elizbeth married the wealthy heir Carlton Wilkinson to save her grandfather's life's work.
But on their wedding night, instead of a loving husband, she faced a cold tyrant. He forced her to sign a brutal prenup, stripped her of all family rights, and banished her to a dingy guest room.
He was convinced she was just a pathetic, gold-digging liar.
When a catastrophic pain attack drove Carlton to smash his own head against the wall, Elizbeth rushed in to save him using her specialized acupuncture. She risked her life to calm his spasming nerves.
But the moment he woke up, he nearly choked her to death. He threw her against the wall, bleeding and bruised, accusing her of using cheap parlor tricks to poison him.
The next morning, his greedy relatives openly mocked her cheap clothes, waiting like vultures for Carlton to drop dead so they could steal his fortune.
Elizbeth was humiliated and terrified, but she soon discovered a classified secret.
Carlton was a former Delta Force operator slowly going mad from an undetectable weaponized biotoxin. The poison made him paranoid and violent. He would rather die in agony than accept help from a woman he despised.
Begged by his desperate grandfather, Elizbeth knew she had to cure him in the shadows.
At 1:00 AM, she slipped a heavy, odorless sedative into his water and sneaked into his pitch-black bedroom to begin the detox.
But as her silver needle hovered over his skin, a massive hand shot out and pinned her violently to the mattress.
"How much did they pay you to poison me?" he hissed in the dark, his eyes wide awake and blazing with murderous fury.
9.0
I died on the cold delivery table, bleeding out while the heart monitor flatlined.
Through the blinding surgical lights, I heard my husband Damon's cold, final order to the doctors.
"The child is the priority."
He didn't care about my life. To him, I was just a vessel to produce an heir, a tool to fulfill his prenuptial clause and secure his billionaire empire.
While I took my last agonizing breath, he was already planning his future with his fragile, theatrical mistress, Jasmin.
In my past life, when he first brought her into our home claiming she was a helpless victim, I shattered.
I screamed, threw vases, and played the hysterical wife perfectly.
My desperate pleas for his affection only gave him the exact weapons he needed to ruin my reputation, isolate me, and ultimately force me onto that fatal delivery bed.
Until my very last moment, the suffocating pain in my chest wasn't just physical.
I couldn't understand how the man I loved could treat my death like a simple business transaction.
Why was my absolute devotion rewarded with a carefully calculated execution?
But then, my eyes snapped open.
I was sitting on the edge of my king-sized bed, exactly three years before my death.
From downstairs, I heard Damon's voice echoing in the foyer, bringing Jasmin into our home for the very first time.
This time, the scream building in my chest turned to ice.
I didn't cry or throw a fit.
Instead, I calmly swallowed a secret birth control pill, smiled at his mistress, and dialed the most ruthless divorce lawyer in Manhattan.
7.5
Julianna was drowning in a corporate warzone, fighting a massive department deficit while fending off her mother’s relentless matchmaking.
Then, a ghost from her past returned to shatter her reality.
Eight years ago, Aidan Caldwell walked out of her life without a word. Now, he was back in New York as a ruthless billionaire, and a pitch-black Maybach started stalking her in the dim underground garage.
She had no idea the driver hiding behind the obsidian-tinted glass was Aidan.
She didn't know he had just choked a confession out of an executive, discovering that her "betrayal" eight years ago was a complete lie.
"Stay away from her. The rules are mine now."
Aidan had warned his rivals, his sanity tearing at the seams as he watched from the shadows while a creepy coworker put an arm around her shoulder.
He shattered glasses and crushed her favorite white flowers in his penthouse, driven by a lethal, obsessive jealousy seeing other men touch what belonged to him.
Julianna was completely in the dark, feeling only a heavy, predatory stare pinning her to the cold concrete.
When a sudden, heartbreaking scent of cedarwood rolled out of the cracked car window, her brain short-circuited.
Why was this terrifying stranger stalking her in the shadows?
Desperate to save her career, Julianna recklessly agreed to fake an engagement with a wealthy heir this weekend.
But she had no idea Aidan had already rigged her company's crisis, and the predator was about to tear her world apart to claim her back.
8.2
Casey woke up with a throbbing skull in a glamorous dressing room, facing a public execution by an internet mob.
Her wealthy family had thrown her away. Her hypocritical sister, Coralie, forced a holographic tablet into her hands, demanding she join a deadly survival reality show on a wasteland planet.
"It's what Mommy wants. If you don't sign, you're dead to the Hendersons."
The whole world wanted her dead. On the live broadcast, billions of viewers cursed her as a toxic stalker. The golden boy idol Kayson physically attacked her to defend Coralie's honor. Even the show's staff mocked her, deliberately leaving her with nothing but a torn, broken tent and a single bottle of water for the lethal alien wilderness.
The universe was playing a cruel joke on her. She was framed as the villain of her sister's perfect story, banished to a wasteland where everyone expected her to cry, beg, and die on live television.
But they didn't know she had already survived a decade in the ruins. Casey didn't shed a single tear. Instead, she invoked a hidden contract clause, demanding a full year on the planet instead of the standard month.
"I'll survive for a year, and the planet becomes mine."
She grabbed her broken tent, stepped onto the red alien dirt, and prepared to show the universe what a real predator looked like.
9.1
Eleonora woke up in the hospital, still feeling the terrifying weightlessness of her own suicide.
She realized her chilling nightmare was actually a prophecy: she was destined to be the tragic, disposable villain, while her adopted sister Addisyn was the beloved protagonist.
On the day of her discharge, her father abandoned her to celebrate Addisyn's eighteenth birthday.
When Eleonora dragged her recovering body back to her family estate, she found her biometric access wiped and her home turned into a chaotic nightclub.
Addisyn had taken over the master bedroom and was wearing Eleonora's late mother's priceless sapphire necklace.
When Eleonora coldly demanded her property back, Addisyn squeezed out fake tears and played the pitiful victim.
Instantly, Eleonora's childhood fiancé and lifelong friends stepped up to shield Addisyn.
They scolded Eleonora for being cruel and classless, demanding she sleep in the guest room so she wouldn't ruin the party.
Downstairs, the elite guests mocked her as a crazy, jealous freak who was bullying her sweet sister.
In her nightmare, their blind devotion to this manipulative parasite had driven Eleonora to jump off a skyscraper.
She was the sole legal heir to the Carlisle estate, yet they expected her to quietly hand over her home, her mother's legacy, and her life to a thief.
But Eleonora was no longer a victim.
She pulled out the irrevocable trust documents, proving her absolute ownership, and looked at her loyal butler.
"Cut the power," she ordered coldly. "Throw every single trespasser out the gates."