The Unwanted Wife's Spectacular Billionaire Comeback
To the world, I was the perfect, placid wife of Giovanni Baldwin, the King of Wall Street.
But at the pinnacle of New York's social calendar, he deliberately flicked his wrist, splashing his red wine all over my white silk gown to publicly humiliate me.
When we got back to the penthouse, he shoved me to the cold marble floor in front of a life-sized portrait of his dead lover. His fingers wrapped around my throat as he ordered me to clean up the stain like a servant. To break me entirely, he froze my accounts, aggressively targeted my secret fashion company, and heavily sedated my disabled brother to maintain legal control over him.
When his dead lover's sister committed massive corporate fraud, Giovanni ruthlessly framed me for the crime, forcing me to stand before flashing cameras and take the fall just to keep her out of prison.
Looking at his triumphant smile backstage, the last ember of the girl I used to be turned to ash. I finally understood that our marriage was nothing but a hostile contract, and I was just a disposable scapegoat for his endless grief.
"This is no longer about escaping. This is about justice."
I took off my wedding ring, liquidated every cent of my hidden personal assets, and ordered my team to launch a ruthless hostile takeover of his entire empire.
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Chapter 4
Giovanni lunged.
His hand shot out, grabbing Edith's wrist in a grip so tight she felt the bones grind together. He yanked her forward, pulling her flush against his chest. His breath was hot on her face, his eyes burning with a fury that bordered on madness.
"I can find it in hours," he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. "I will burn every sketchbook, every design, and make sure you never draw another line again."
Edith didn't flinch. The fear was there, a cold knot in her stomach, but it was overshadowed by a profound, weary anger. She was tired of being afraid.
"Go ahead," she said, her voice flat. "But it won't change anything. You can't destroy an idea."
She wrenched her arm free from his grip, the sudden movement catching him off guard. She turned to her portfolio, unzipped the outer pocket, and pulled out a thick manila envelope.
She walked back to the coffee table, right past him, and slapped the envelope down on the glass surface, right next to the unfolded sketch.
Giovanni stared at the envelope, then at her. "What is this?"
Edith flipped the cover open. It wasn't a divorce petition. It was a market analysis report, detailing the projected failure of a recent Baldwin acquisition in the tech sector. A report she had commissioned through a shell company weeks ago.
The bold, black letters at the top of the first page stood out starkly against the white paper.
BALDWIN TECH - Q3 LOSS PROJECTION: $500 MILLION.
Giovanni stared at the words. For a second, total silence filled the room. Then, a harsh, barking laugh escaped his lips. He looked at her as if she had just told him a hilarious joke.
"A business report?" he scoffed, his eyes raking over her with contempt. "Is this your new hobby? Playing businesswoman? You know nothing of my world. You'll be out on the street with the clothes on your back."
Edith didn't blink. "I want nothing from you. I just want you to see that you are not infallible."
Her lack of reaction seemed to enrage him further. He was used to her tears, her pleading. This cold, detached woman was an insult to his power.
He reached down, grabbed the thick stack of papers, and tore them down the middle. He tore them again, and again, until the pages were nothing but confetti. He let them fall from his hands, fluttering down onto the marble floor like snow.
"I decide when you have an opinion," he declared, his voice echoing in the high-ceilinged room. "Not you."
Edith watched the pieces of paper settle on the floor. She felt a strange sense of calm. The paper was meaningless. The intent was what mattered.
She looked up at him, her eyes hard. "It doesn't matter what you decide, Giovanni. The illusion is already over. Because there is nothing left to hold it together."
She paused, letting the silence stretch, building the tension until it was a living thing in the room.
"Especially since you are so blinded by the past you can't see the present."
Giovanni frowned, the anger on his face shifting to confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Edith took a step closer to him, forcing him to look her in the eye. "The 'costume' I was wearing last night? The life you've forced upon me? It's a cage of your own making. You're not punishing me, Giovanni. You're punishing yourself, haunted by a ghost."
The change in him was instantaneous and violent.
The color drained from his face. The sneer, the contempt, the anger-all of it vanished, replaced by a raw, unfiltered shock. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His eyes widened, staring at her as if she had just shot him.
He hadn't expected her to name it. To call out his obsession with Dakota so plainly. He had wanted to hurt her, to control her, but she had just turned his own grief into a weapon against him.
Edith watched the realization hit him. She felt no satisfaction. Only a vast, empty wasteland where her heart used to be. She thought his shock was guilt, but she didn't care anymore. It just proved how broken they were.
"You're lying," Giovanni finally choked out, his voice cracking. "It's a trick. You're trying to get away."
"Look in a mirror," Edith said coldly. "You'll see."
Giovanni took a step back, his hand reaching out to grip the back of the sofa. His knuckles were white. She could see the gears turning in his head, the frantic calculations. The face of his beloved Dakota flashed in his mind, followed by the stern, unforgiving face of his father, Harold.
He couldn't divorce her. Not now. Not when their marriage was a strategic alliance between their families, a deal brokered long before Dakota's death. And he had just been exposed by her.
The shock morphed into something else. A desperate, cornered rage. A rage born of panic.
He moved like a striking snake. He grabbed Edith by the shoulders and slammed her back against the wall. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs.
"You are not going anywhere," he hissed, his face inches from hers, his eyes bloodshot and wild. "This isn't over."
He pressed his body against hers, pinning her to the wall. His hands were rough, bruising. Edith didn't fight him. She just closed her eyes, turning her face away. The physical pain was nothing compared to the deadness inside her.
Then, the shrill ringtone of Giovanni's phone shattered the silence.
He froze, his breathing ragged in her ear. He pulled the phone from his pocket and looked at the screen.
The caller ID read: Harold Baldwin.
Giovanni stared at the phone, the color completely gone from his face. The ultimate authority was calling. The man who demanded results.
He released Edith, stepping back as if she had burned him. He answered the phone, his voice a hoarse rasp.
"Father."
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9.0
Adaline Poole thought she had escaped her family's toxic corporate grip by moving to London and adopting a stray cat named Monty.
But when she returns to her empty apartment, her father delivers a chilling ultimatum: he has kidnapped the cat and will euthanize it by morning unless she accepts an arranged marriage with Barron Cooke, a notoriously elusive billionaire.
Her entire family becomes complicit in her sale. Her mother demands she secure their elite status, and her brother secretly spies on her social media to feed Barron her every move. Horrified to discover Barron is a thirty-three-year-old "fossil" twelve years her senior, Adaline resorts to sabotage. She goes to a Soho club, takes a scandalous photo with a frat boy, and sends it to the old billionaire to disgust him into canceling their upcoming dinner.
But her rebellion backfires horribly when the frat boy spikes her drink with a powerful narcotic. As her body burns with a terrifying, feverish heat, she collapses in a dark corridor. Stripped of her phone and betrayed by her bloodline, she is left utterly defenseless as a predator approaches to drag her away.
Suddenly, the heavy fire door is kicked open by a towering, terrifyingly handsome stranger who effortlessly neutralizes her attacker.
"Please... help me," Adaline begs, deliriously throwing her burning body into his arms.
She has absolutely no idea that the handsome savior she is clinging to is Barron Cooke himself.
9.5
My husband, Colton, the Wall Street mogul, slid annulment papers across the table, coldly discarding me and our unborn child. He thought he was getting rid of a useless wife, but he was actually throwing away the secret architect of his entire empire. Now, I'm ready to make him pay for every insult, every lie, and every single secret I've kept.
For three years, eight months pregnant, I secretly saved Colton's ten-billion-dollar company from collapse, enduring a cold, transactional marriage.
One night, he shattered that illusion, serving annulment papers and callously discarding me and our unborn child.
I signed, leaving luxury behind. Exposing his butler's fraud, I escaped. Colton later found his wedding ring gone and, on his desk, my SEC compliance fixes—proof I was his hidden genius.
Blindsided, he realized he’d destroyed his own empire. His mother then called, gloating. The injustice ignited a fierce resolve within me.
The next morning, I launched Kidd Legal Consulting. I'd use forty-seven folders of Farmer Capital's un-patched loopholes to force a fair settlement, securing my daughter's future.
8.6
As the eldest daughter of the Sharp family, I was treated worse than a stray dog, while my younger sister Seraphina was their precious princess.
When the family needed someone to marry a dying billionaire heir, they naturally chose me to take her place.
To force my consent, my brothers held a peanut butter sandwich to my face—knowing it was a lethal allergy—while dangling my EpiPen just out of reach.
On speakerphone, my own mother sighed in annoyance.
"Let her die. It might be for the best."
I choked out an agreement just as my throat closed up. But the forced engagement broke my sacred mystical vow, causing me to violently cough up my own lifeblood.
Seeing the blood, Seraphina dramatically fainted. My brothers instantly carried her to the hospital, stepping over my dying body and leaving me to bleed out on the cold marble floor.
I had to use a forbidden blood rune, draining my last ounce of strength, just to survive the night.
Even the mystical Order I served offered no comfort, calling only to demand I secure ten billion dollars for them or forfeit my soul for eternity.
Abandoned by my blood family and my spiritual master, I was completely alone, left with nothing but a broken body and a ticking clock.
But they made one fatal mistake: they let me live.
I turned to the dying heir they forced me to marry, a man plagued by a dark curse only I could cure.
"I will be your wife, and I will save your life," I told him.
In exchange, I would use his unimaginable wealth and power to make everyone who threw me away pay the ultimate price.
7.8
On the day she married, Alina unknowingly took the place of the Hayes family's daughter and became Kellan's wife, the richest man in town who was rumored to be disfigured.
Everyone mocked their doomed marriage, expecting misery and disgrace.
Instead, Alina revealed brilliance no one expected-a renowned jewelry master, financial genius, and medical prodigy.
The woman the Hayes family ignored was actually the heiress they should have treasured.
As regret consumed them and her ex begged for another chance, Kellan stood beside her, now devastatingly handsome.
"Alina and I are perfect together. Stay away from my wife."
9.2
Lainey spent her last life destroying herself for Larry, only to become the woman he discarded most cruelly. He never loved her, never wanted her, and made no secret that his first love still owned his heart.
On their wedding day, he abandoned Lainey at the altar for that woman, then later used Lainey as nothing more than a stepping stone for his company's rise. In the end, he even had her kidney ripped from her.
Reborn at the very moment everything began, Lainey called off the wedding without hesitation. But after losing her, Larry begged desperately.
Lainey shot him a cold look, then turned and walked straight into the arms of a powerful, aloof man, who stared down at Larry with pure contempt. "She's my wife now."
7.7
Dasia's twin brother, Gerald, was an e-sports prodigy, the rising star of the Glory team.
But during a crucial moment, he was framed by his own teammates. They orchestrated a trap that completely destroyed his reputation and left his right hand brutally crushed.
Instead of getting him medical help, the club threw him out into the freezing rain, bleeding and disgraced. The manager labeled him useless trash and slapped him with a five-million-dollar termination fee to bleed him dry. Stripped of his pro status, the wealthy bullies at his prep school relentlessly targeted him, mocking his crippled hand and beating him down.
Dasia watched her twin brother cry in his room, his life and dreams shattered by the people he trusted. A violent, suffocating rage boiled in her chest. How could they smile while crushing his hand? Why should the victim be treated like a rotting piece of garbage while the perpetrators get rich and celebrated?
She didn't shed a single tear. She stood in front of the mirror, took a pair of scissors, and ruthlessly hacked off her waist-length hair. She wrapped her chest in coarse medical bandages until her ribs screamed, and pulled on his oversized black hoodie.
"Everything you took from him, I am going to take back with interest."
The girl in the mirror was gone. She was Gerald now. She secretly passed the brutal online tryouts for Glory's biggest rival, the elite Blackflame team, and signed their official contract. The revenge had officially begun.