Too Late To Want Me Back, Ex Husband!
For five years, Elara was the "peasant" wife, the woman who gave her kidney to save Shawn's life, only to be rewarded with his cold indifference and his family's verbal abuse. She was the dutiful housewife, hiding her true identity as the world's most feared cybersecurity genius, and the secret heiress to a global empire. She stayed for love. She stayed for the hope of a family.
But hope dies in a cold swimming pool.
When Shawn pushes a pregnant Elara into the water to save his mistress, he not only breaks her heart, he kills the only thing she had left to love.
Waking up in a hospital bed with an empty womb and a frozen heart, Elara is done playing nice. As Shawn prepares to discard her for his mistress, he's met not with a weeping wife, but with the arrival of five of the most powerful men in the world-Elara's brothers.
Now, the "peasant" is the predator. While Shawn's empire begins to crumble under a mysterious cyber-attack, he finds himself desperately chasing the woman he once despised. But Elara has already moved on to a man who never had to be taught her value.
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Chapter 6
SHAWN
"If anything happens to Elara, just know that you will lose your position in the company! Every single share...!"
Grandfather's voice thundered across the hospital room, heavy with an authority that usually made my blood run cold. But I didn't look at him. Instead, I rolled my eyes discreetly, tightening my grip on Miranda's hand as she lay in the bed next to mine, looking like a wilted lily.
"How can you not even go to visit your wife while she's in a hospital bed?" he snapped, his glare boring straight into the side of my head.
"Elara is strong. She's a country girl, she'll be okay," I replied flatly, forcing a calm I didn't entirely feel. My chest felt tight, but I pushed the sensation down. "Miranda here has a weak heart, Grandfather. She needs actual care. I will see Elara later when things have settled."
"I've told you what I told you... if she-"
My mother stepped in quickly, barely masking her irritation with the old man. "Father, let it go. He will see Elara after this drip is over. Priorities."
Grandfather Max didn't look convinced. His displeasure was written plainly in the deep lines of his face as he shot me one last look of pure disappointment before turning on his heel. He left the room without sparing Miranda a single glance.
"Is he gone?" Miranda whispered, her voice a fragile reed. She fluttered her lashes open, her beautiful eyes filling with tears that looked like shards of glass on the verge of shattering.
"Yes, he's gone," I murmured, brushing my thumb lightly over her knuckles. "Don't worry about him, love. His bark has always been worse than his bite."
She sniffed, managed a small, trembling smile when my mother praised her for her "strength" in the face of such a tragedy.
"Don't mind that peasant," my mother scoffed, her voice dripping with a bitter contempt she usually saved for the help. "I can't wait for my son to be done with his plans and finally get married to you, Miranda. I would kill that girl off myself if I could... why didn't she just drown?"
I pushed away the faint, irritating twist of guilt in my chest at the thought of Elara actually dying. I shrugged it off, leaning back in my chair with a nonchalant exhale. "She'll get what's coming to her soon enough. I still have those pictures I took... the ones that prove she's been unfaithful."
"Good, my son. Good," my mother nodded. "Make sure you get rid of her. Once and for all."
I would. I had to.
I was tired of tolerating Elara. Tired of the fake debt I carried for her. Every time I looked at her, I felt the phantom itch of the scar on my back, a constant reminder that I owed her my very life. It was a cage.
Watching her pretend to care for me, pretending to be the perfect, doting wife, when I knew she had been the reason for my near-death six years ago grated on me more than I cared to admit. It was a game of shadows, and I was done playing.
Maybe if her barren womb had taken pity on her, I would have stuck around longer. Maybe if she had given me something tangible-an heir to the family name, a reason to stay-I could have tolerated her boring presence.
But the fates were clearly against her. So why should I be on her side?
Since my grandfather was hellbent on denying me a marriage filled with actual passion, I would simply grab what I wanted by force. By the time the doctored images surfaced, Grandfather would be the one pleading with me, begging me to divorce Emma so that our family name wouldn't be dragged through the mud.
Just then, a sharp knock sounded on the door.
Cassius stepped in, his face an unreadable mask.
"Hey, man..." I greeted him casually, expecting the usual updates. But he ignored my greeting entirely, walking straight over to me and thrusting a thick stack of documents and a pen into my hands.
"Sign."
I frowned, releasing Miranda's hand to take the papers, the weight of them feeling strange. "What is this? What's going on?"
He didn't answer. His eyes were cold, distant.
My gaze dropped to the bold heading at the top of the first page.
PETITION FOR DIVORCE.
What?
Elara was divorcing me?
"What the hell is the meaning of this?" Rage flared instantly in my veins, making me see red as I jumped to my feet.
I told myself I was angry because my game had been stolen from me. Because I wouldn't get the satisfaction of watching her break under my terms.
"Elara wants a divorce. Grant it," Cassius said, his voice as cold as a winter morning.
"Good! The peasant finally came to her senses and realized she doesn't belong here," my mother scoffed from the corner.
But I was restless. Why now? Why so suddenly? What the hell was going on that I didn't know about?
"Are you not my best friend, Cassius?" I snapped, the plastic of the pen creaking under my tightening grip. "Wait... tell me the truth. Are you sleeping with my wife? Is that why you're doing her dirty work?"
Cassius's laugh was short, dripping with sarcasm.
"You think she's anything like you, Shawn?" he scoffed, shaking his head. "She is a respectable woman who has finally come to her senses. She's done being your doormat."
How the hell had that woman managed to get my best friend on her side?
"What is wrong with you, Cassius? Why are you defending her like she's some kind of saint?"
"Just sign the damn papers, Shawn. Isn't this exactly what you've spent the last five years wanting?"
He turned his gaze to my mother. "Right? You want him to be free? Get him to sign."
My mother looked momentarily confused by his intensity, but she still urged me to go ahead. "Shawn, be fast and sign before the fool changes her mind! This way, my father will have no choice but to accept it since it came from her!"
But I knew my grandfather better than anyone. He would twist this, find a way to blame me, to accuse me of pushing that "gracious" girl away until she broke.
In a fit of blind fury, I tore the papers into pieces. The sound of the ripping paper matched the violent energy inside my chest.
"Where is she?" I snarled, stepping into Cassius's space. "Where is that damn woman? How dare she try to leave me before I discard her?"
I was about to demand he take me to her when my jaw suddenly went slack. My attention was caught by the television across the room. A breaking news broadcast was flashing a "Special Report."
Elara's face filled the entire screen.
But it wasn't the Elara I knew. This was a glowing younger version, little below eighteen years old, her hair perfectly styled, her eyes sparking with a life I had never seen.
Next to her was an image of the Viking family, the richest, most powerful dynasty in the country.
My hand began to shake, the torn papers fluttering to the floor like snow.
The little girl laughing in the family portrait-surrounded by five older boys-had the same hair, the same unmistakable eyes as my wife, as Elara's picture by the side.
With trembling fingers, I grabbed the remote and turned the volume up.
"...In a shocking twist of events, the daughter of billionaire mogul Silas Viking, Elara Viking-who has been hidden from the media for over a decade-has been identified. Sources confirm she is currently at Gracefilled Hospital, where she is recovering from a near-fatal incident..."
What?
My wife... a Viking?
The room went deathly silent. My mother's glass hit the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces, but no one moved.
If Elara was a Viking... if those five men were her brothers...
My heart hammered against my ribs so hard it was painful, as my mind conjured up the current identities of these men.
Fuck.
I looked at the television again, then at the shredded divorce papers at my feet. A cold, paralyzing dread began to seep into my bones.
What have I done?
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7.2
For three years, I was imprisoned by Anderson Hopper, the monster who forced me to watch my fiancé, Kendall, plummet into a freezing river.
But when I saw the morning news, I realized Kendall wasn't dead. He had returned as Eben Gill, a ruthless tech billionaire.
I risked my life to escape and find him, only to be met with eyes full of absolute hatred.
He publicly humiliated me, dragged me to the exact bridge where he "died," and sneered at the C-section scar on my stomach.
"Anderson Hopper's bastard," he spat, completely unaware that the baby was actually his—the very child Anderson had murdered in the operating room to break me.
To make matters worse, Anderson used Kendall's dying mother as a hostage to force me back into my cage.
I knelt on the freezing asphalt, begging the man I loved to just visit his mother, while he coldly ordered his driver to run me over.
I had lost my baby, my freedom, and my dignity, all to protect him from Anderson's blackmail. Why was I the one being tortured and treated like a traitor?
"Don't think your little kneeling stunt earned you my forgiveness."
He whispered those cruel words before walking away without looking back.
Staring at his cold, retreating figure, the last shred of my love finally turned to ash.
That night, under the cover of a torrential storm, I bypassed the estate's laser grids and walked out into the dark.
8.2
Karmen lived suffocating under a tight chest binder and a grotesque silicone scar, forced to disguise herself as her degenerate twin brother, Kem. Her only job was to maintain a fake corporate engagement with the ruthless billionaire Earl Calderon.
But her abusive father suddenly escalated his demands. He ordered her to steal Earl's revolutionary AI patents, threatening to cut off her mother's life-saving medical trust and abandon the real Kem in a locked Swiss psych ward if she failed.
The task was a death sentence. Earl absolutely despised "Kem." He treated her like a repulsive parasite, constantly threatening to break her neck. When he accidentally caught her without her wig, he mistook her for a deranged cross-dresser, forcing her to glue the dirty fake scar back onto her raw, inflamed face in sheer disgust. At home, her father hurled glass ashtrays at her, violently yanking her collar.
"Do whatever you have to do in that bedroom, Kem. I don't care how disgusting it is. Just get the signature."
Trapped between a fiancé who loathed her very existence and a father ready to sacrifice their family for greed, Karmen endured the agonizing physical pain of her disguise. She was exhausted, terrified, and running out of time as her brother's life hung by a thread.
But they all underestimated her. When the Calderon matriarch forced Earl to link his ultra-secure private phone with "Kem" to fake their romance, she unwittingly handed over the master key. Karmen wasn't just a helpless victim; she was the elite hacker Nyx, and she was going to tear their empire apart from the inside.
9.2
Arla was supposed to marry Clinton Freeman, the perfect fiancé who had promised to love her and protect her five-year-old son.
But instead, the cold steel of a dagger pierced her chest.
As she collapsed onto the freezing basement floor, she watched her adoptive sister Blair laugh.
"Look at her," Blair sneered, kicking her son's small, blue, lifeless body.
Clinton stood there, calmly wiping the bloody blade on a pristine handkerchief.
In her dying moments, the horrifying truth became clear. Her fiancé and her adoptive family had been plotting all along to steal her massive trust fund.
To break her, they had secretly tortured her child. Clinton had watched Blair pierce the little boy's arms with sewing needles, rewarding him with candy to keep him silent.
Arla's lungs burned with the taste of copper and ash.
She couldn't understand why the family she trusted could be so monstrous, or why they had to brutally murder an innocent child just for money.
The darkness swallowed her whole, drowning her in suffocating hatred and absolute despair.
Then, she gasped for air.
The concrete floor was gone, replaced by the silk sheets of a hotel penthouse suite.
Arla had been reborn to the exact night six years ago—the very day Blair first dragged her son into the dark attic.
This time, she picked up a solid silver letter opener, ready to burn them all to the ground.
7.1
For six years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to billionaire Hartwell Ware, enduring his coldness because I thought my love could eventually thaw his heart.
Then, my friend sent me a photo. Hartwell was at the airport, tenderly holding the waist of his first love, Eveline Craig.
He came home smelling of her synthetic rose perfume, accused me of stalking him, and coldly demanded a divorce.
His lawyer handed me a thick settlement agreement. It offered astronomical alimony and luxury properties, but it came with a humiliating ten-page non-disclosure agreement.
He wanted to buy my silence. He wanted to strip me of my rights to our son and gag me permanently, just so he could parade his new life with Eveline without any PR backlash.
Even now, he still thought I was a gold digger who had orchestrated a media scandal to trap him into marriage.
I stared at the man I had worshipped for two thousand days. My six years of desperate devotion had been nothing but a humiliating, one-sided delusion.
Hope was finally dead, and with it, my tears had completely dried up.
He expected me to cry, to beg, to negotiate for more millions.
Instead, I snatched the pen, crossed out the massive alimony, and signed my name on the dotted line.
"I am taking the basic child support, and not a single red cent more."
Leaving my five-carat diamond ring on the marble table, I walked out the door with nothing but my old suitcase.
7.5
I spent ten years blindly devoted to my husband, Kyler, building a perfect life together.
When I went into premature labor, he held my hand and promised everything would be fine.
But the moment I woke up in the VIP delivery room, the doctor coldly declared my newborn daughter dead.
Kyler rushed in, his face a mask of grief, insisting on taking her body away immediately to handle the arrangements.
If I hadn't heard my supposedly dead baby's telepathic voice echoing in my head, I would have handed her over.
She told me Kyler had poisoned my prenatal vitamins to induce early labor.
He bribed the medical team to fake her death so he could harvest her rare stem cells to save his sick mistress.
And worse, he had pulled the security detail from our eight-year-old son's school.
He was letting cartel kidnappers take my boy just to force me to sign over my family's billionaire trust fund.
The man I kissed every morning was a monster wearing my husband's skin.
How could he smile at me while planning to murder our children and drain my family's wealth?
The sheer terror and betrayal tore my heart into a thousand jagged pieces.
But I didn't scream or confront him.
Instead, I faked a hysterical breakdown, clutched my baby tight, and quietly contacted my family's private mercenary team.
"File the injunctions. I want him destroyed by morning."
8.7
Adelia thought she was just heading upstairs to rest in the hotel suite arranged by her caring stepsister.
But her champagne had been heavily drugged. In the pitch-black room, her rational thoughts melted away as she was violently pulled into the darkness by a terrifying stranger.
The next morning, the heavy suite door was kicked open, and blinding camera flashes shattered her world.
Her fiancé stormed in, hurling their prenuptial agreement directly at her bleeding cheek.
"You make me sick! Violating our agreement like this. You are a disgusting, unfaithful whore!"
Her stepsister squeezed to the front of the crowd, crying perfectly rehearsed tears of horror for the tabloid reporters, while her eyes gleamed with pure, unadulterated triumph.
Desperate and trembling, Adelia begged her father for help, explaining she had been framed.
But her father, the family CEO, only cared about his plummeting stock prices. He coldly stripped her of her inheritance, froze her trust funds, and had massive security guards physically drag her out of Manhattan.
She hadn't just been betrayed; she had been completely slaughtered by the people she loved most. As the elevator plummeted toward the lobby, her tears dried into a bloody, silent vow.
Six years later, Adelia stepped out of JFK Airport, flanked by her terrifyingly smart six-year-old twins.
She was no longer a disgraced, pathetic victim. She had returned as a legendary, untouchable ghost surgeon, ready to rip her family's empire apart.
And her very first move involves saving the life of the ruthless Wall Street predator who ruined her that night.