Trapped In His Cruel Six Year Contract
Essie sold herself to ruthless billionaire Kieran Cortez on a six-year contract just to pay for her paralyzed brother's staggering medical bills.
But the morning Kieran’s face was plastered on the front page announcing his engagement to a wealthy heiress, he violently refused to let Essie go. When she quietly asked if their contract was over, he trapped her against the marble counter.
"You don't have the right to call this off. It would be a shame if Charles lost his spot in the medical trial."
Trapped, Essie endured his brutal, punishing kisses in hidden corners, terrified of being discovered by his new fiancée, who worked as a doctor at her hospital. But the ultimate betrayal came from home. When her brother saw the dark, violent bruises Kieran had deliberately left on her neck, he didn't care about her sacrifices. He threw scalding coffee on her burned hand.
"You disgusting whore! I would rather die than use the dirty money you make spreading your legs!"
Even Kieran's fiancée investigated her finances, cornering her to smugly warn her to know her place as a lowly sugar baby. Essie had sacrificed her dignity, her body, and her soul to keep her brother alive, only to be treated like disposable trash by the man who owned her and despised by the family she saved.
Why did her endless sacrifices only buy her a suffocating, inescapable hell?
Staring at the phone screen flashing with Kieran’s demand to be at his penthouse by eight, a dead calmness finally washed over her. She held down the power button until the screen went black. Even if his wrath destroyed her tomorrow, tonight, she was taking her life back.
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Chapter 7
Essie tucked the heavy, moth-eaten quilt around Charles's sleeping body.
She stared at the angry purple bruises covering his face. She turned away, walked into the tiny kitchen, and dry-swallowed two ibuprofen pills to numb the pounding in her skull.
She couldn't afford to miss her afternoon double shift. She changed into a clean set of scrubs and rushed out the door.
By 8:00 PM, Essie's legs felt like they were made of lead. She clocked out, the machine beeping loudly in the quiet staff room.
She walked through the hospital's massive, brightly lit VIP lobby, heading for the subway exit.
Adelle was standing by the indoor fountain. She was wearing a flawless Chanel suit and holding a Birkin bag.
The second Adelle saw Essie's pale, exhausted face, a bright, overly enthusiastic smile stretched across her lips. She practically sprinted over on her high heels.
Adelle grabbed Essie's arm. Her grip was surprisingly tight. "Essie, you look awful! I absolutely insist on giving you a ride home."
Essie tried to yank her arm back. "No, really, Dr. Watts, I can take the train-" she stammered, terrified of Adelle seeing the slum she lived in.
Adelle didn't listen. She threw her arm around Essie's shoulders and half-dragged, half-guided her toward the VIP underground parking garage.
The motion-sensor lights flickered on as they entered the concrete garage. Adelle pressed the button on her keys, and a sleek red Porsche 911 chirped to life.
Suddenly, the deafening screech of tires echoed through the garage. A pitch-black Maybach slammed on its brakes, stopping inches from the Porsche.
The driver's door flew open. Kieran stepped out. He wore a dark grey trench coat, and his face was a mask of pure, murderous rage.
Adelle let out a delighted gasp. She let go of Essie and threw herself into Kieran's arms like a happy bird.
Kieran caught her, but his eyes-dark and venomous-shot right over Adelle's shoulder and locked onto Essie.
Essie stumbled backward in sheer terror. Her back slammed hard against a rough concrete pillar.
Suddenly, Kieran's brow furrowed. He let out a low groan, wrapping one arm tightly around his stomach, and hunched over.
Adelle panicked. She grabbed his arms. "Kieran! Oh my god, what's wrong?"
"Stomach cramps," Kieran rasped, his voice sounding incredibly strained and weak. "Go up to Dr. Evans' office on the fourth floor. Get my prescription."
Adelle bought it completely. Her eyes watered with worry. She turned and sprinted toward the elevator banks as fast as her heels would let her.
The elevator doors dinged and slid shut. The garage fell dead silent.
Kieran stood up perfectly straight. The pain on his face vanished instantly, replaced by the cold, ruthless glare of a tyrant.
He closed the distance between them in three massive strides. He grabbed the collar of Essie's turtleneck and literally lifted her off her feet.
He slammed her back against the concrete pillar. The rough stone scraped painfully through her thin scrubs.
"You ignored fifty of my calls," Kieran snarled, his face inches from hers. "Do you have a death wish?"
Essie shook violently. Tears poured down her cheeks. "My brother-he was in the ER-he was bleeding-" she sobbed, trying to explain.
Kieran didn't care. He lowered his head and smashed his mouth against hers. He forced her jaw open, kissing her with a punishing, bruising force that tasted like violence.
He pulled back, leaving Essie gasping for air. He leaned in until his lips brushed her ear. "If you ever ignore me again, I will make Charles vanish from this city."
Essie's eyes widened in absolute horror. She nodded frantically, her tears flying.
The mechanical hum of the elevator descending echoed through the garage.
Kieran instantly let go of her. He took two steps back, wrapped his arm around his stomach again, and leaned heavily against the Maybach, looking pale and sick.
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7.6
After an exhausting fourteen-hour flight, Katia returned to her Upper East Side penthouse, expecting the quiet comfort of the life she had built.
Instead, she found a pair of familiar red stilettos in the foyer and her fiancé, Caleb, tangled in their bedsheets with his twenty-two-year-old assistant.
She didn't scream or cry. She simply took off her three-carat engagement ring, threw it at his bare chest, and demanded he buy out her half of the penthouse by Friday.
Seeking to numb the sickening disgust, she got blackout drunk and crashed at a luxury hotel, accidentally stumbling into the wrong suite.
Thinking the imposing man inside was a high-end escort hired by her friend, she threw him over her shoulder and spent a wild night with him.
The next morning, she left five thousand dollars on his nightstand with a lipstick-stained note.
"Good Job."
For six years, she had funded Caleb's dreams and built his startup from the ground up, only to be treated like a lifeless ATM.
With ruthless precision, she spent the next two months systematically bankrupting his company, cutting off his venture capital, and erasing his life's work.
She felt no heartbreak, only a cold, calculating need to cleanse herself of his betrayal.
But when Katia finally returned to corporate headquarters to co-lead a massive merger, she literally crashed into the new Vice President.
Strong arms caught her waist, and the sharp scent of cedarwood and whiskey hit her like a freight train.
"You came back," Jackson whispered, his eyes burning as he stared at the woman who had treated him like a cheap gigolo.
9.2
Averie spent hours preparing a perfect third-anniversary dinner for her billionaire husband, Jarett Sharp.
Instead of celebrating, she received an anonymous photo of him intimately holding another woman.
When Jarett finally arrived, he didn't even look guilty.
"Candida. It's okay. Don't be scared. I'm on my way."
He simply took a call from his mistress, shoved Averie aside, and walked right back out the door.
That same night, Averie's father suffered a massive heart attack.
The hospital demanded a half-million-dollar deposit before they would operate.
But when Averie frantically tried to use the emergency medical trust card Jarett had given her, it was declined.
Jarett had deliberately frozen her access to the funds just hours earlier.
While she begged his assistant on the phone, Jarett refused to be disturbed, busy wrapping his expensive coat around his mistress in the hospital garden.
Averie collapsed in the hallway, realizing the man she loved was deliberately letting her father die.
In the end, a childhood friend stepped in to pay the bill and save her father's life, while her billionaire husband later pinned her to their bed, throwing a check at her and reminding her he had bought her for three million dollars.
Averie didn't shed a single tear.
She slowly ripped his check into pieces, left her massive diamond ring on the dresser, and walked out into the cold New York night with nothing but her old suitcase.
She pulled out her phone and dialed her old ballet professor.
She wasn't just going to leave Jarett Sharp. She was going to destroy him.
8.7
For three years, I played the perfect, submissive housewife to billionaire Julian Harrison.
But right after an intimate night together, he coldly threw a divorce agreement onto the bed.
"Scarlett landed an hour ago. I need my single status restored to welcome her back."
That same night, I ended up in the emergency room and discovered I was pregnant with twins.
When Julian found out, he didn't show a shred of joy. Instead, he stormed into my hospital room, threw a blank check directly at my face, and ordered me to get rid of them.
He accused me of using the babies as a sick game to trap his assets.
Then, his ruthless lawyer kicked me out of our penthouse, confiscating the jewelry he gifted me and tossing my worn-out notebook onto the floor like garbage.
Standing in the freezing rain, my heart completely died.
I had swallowed my pride, managed his life, and cooked his meals to his exact standards for three years, only to be thrown away the second his first love returned.
But he didn't know that the notebook his lawyer discarded contained the secret formulas of Aura Beauty, a billion-dollar empire I built in the shadows.
I tore his check into pieces, blocked his number, and left in a Maybach sent by my associate.
Logging into my global CEO database, I looked at his company's fragile stock chart with a predatory smile.
The docile Mrs. Harrison died in the rain. It was time to crush his empire.
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.
9.5
As a highborn succubus, I somehow managed to starve myself to death-thanks to my obsessive cleanliness and ridiculously picky appetite.
When I opened my eyes again, I had transmigrated into Vivian Hartwell-the long-lost "real" daughter with a tragically cursed fate.
I had barely been taken back into the Hartwell family before they forced me to attend a so-called "death matchmaking" event in Kingsford-on behalf of Natalie Hartwell, the fake heiress-to meet Damian Blackwood, the infamous "living reaper."
Rumor had it Damian was brutal and bloodthirsty-every woman who'd ever been involved with him either ended up dead or driven insane.
At the event, over a hundred socialites were trembling on their knees, silently praying they wouldn't be the one chosen.
Just as Damian let out a cold smirk and reached to pick his unlucky victim, I took a deep breath from the back of the crowd.
The scent emanating from him was a rare, potent masculine essence-something encountered perhaps once in ten millennia.
For a painfully picky succubus like me, this was nothing short of salvation.
I kicked aside the girl blocking my way, my eyes practically glowing as I threw both hands up. "Pick me! Hurry, pick me!"
7.5
To survive a lethal genetic breakdown, Holden, a legendary mercenary known as "Ghost," was forced into an arranged marriage with the wealthy heiress Julia Ramsey.
But the moment he stepped into the lavish estate wearing an oil-stained jacket, he was treated like absolute garbage.
Julia accused him of being a perverted stalker, pulling a gun on him and demanding he be thrown out. Even after Holden used a forbidden kinetic strike to save her grandfather from a fatal heart attack, the family still looked at him with pure disgust. Julia confined him to a cramped guest room, warning him to stay out of her life. To make matters worse, his other estranged fiancée, an elite military commander, barged into the penthouse just to throw an annulment in his face.
"You are a pathetic, bottom-feeding parasite! You have no ambition. You hide in this woman's apartment like a stray dog. You are entirely beneath me."
She mocked him in front of Julia, completely blind to the fact that Holden had just effortlessly incapacitated her Tier-1 operative with a single strike. They all thought he was just a greedy, low-class thug clinging to their wealth. They had no idea they were mocking an apex predator who commanded the city's underground and hunted mutant monsters for sport.
When Julia forced him to attend a high-society yacht party as part of a trap to publicly humiliate him, Holden just smirked and took a sip of his cheap beer.
He was more than happy to play along, already calculating exactly how he was going to tear their arrogant little world apart.