Undercover Heiress: The Ruthless CEO's Trap
Eleonore was the secret apprentice of a master jeweler and the hidden heir to the Pierce family legacy.
She spent two years in brutal training, hiding her immense talent from the world.
But just as she was ready to step out of the shadows, her grandfather's final masterpiece—the lost symbol of her family—surfaced at an auction.
Before she could even place a bid, it was bought in a private sale by Keaton Kaufman, the ruthless CEO of the Carlyle Group and her mentor's greatest enemy.
Eleonore desperately tried to buy it back, offering double the price through powerful connections.
Keaton coldly refused all offers.
Instead, he went on live television and announced that the priceless Pierce family artifact would be used as a mere corporate carrot.
"This piece will be the grand prize for our internal design competition," Keaton declared to the cameras.
Eleonore's fingernails dug into her palms until they bled.
He didn't care about the craftsmanship or her family's history; he was just using her grandfather's legacy as a pawn to stress-test his own employees.
The wall between her and her family's heirloom was made of billions of dollars, and she had no way to break it down from the outside.
So, she made a reckless decision.
She deleted her elite background, stripped away her protective armor, and created a fake resume as a desperate, entry-level nobody.
She clicked send on her job application to the Carlyle Group.
If she couldn't buy her family's legacy back, she was going to infiltrate his empire and win it back herself.
Chapters
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Chapter 1
Eleonore sat perfectly still in the center of Bradley's Manhattan penthouse studio, a space her mentor generously allowed her to use after hours.
She could have worked from the empty penthouse her grandfather had left her – it was only twenty blocks north – but she preferred the clutter of this workshop. Here, no one knew she was a Pierce.
Her fingers gripped the thin silver handle of the engraving knife. The metal was warm against her skin.
Underneath her heavy protective goggles, her eyes were locked onto the rare blue sapphire clamped in the steel vise.
The stone was no larger than a thumbnail, but it held the depth of an ocean.
She held her breath. Her chest stopped moving completely.
She rotated her wrist just a fraction of a millimeter. She prepared to make the final cut. This single line would determine how the light refracted through the entire gem.
A violent, explosive pounding erupted against the heavy oak door of the apartment.
The noise was deafening in the dead silence of the room.
Eleonore's shoulders jerked upward. Her hand flinched.
The sharp tip of the engraving knife slipped off its intended path.
A faint, sickening sound, like a tiny bone snapping, broke the silence.
A jagged white scar appeared straight across the flawless surface of the sapphire. The stone was ruined.
Eleonore closed her eyes. She could have saved it – there were a dozen ways to redirect the refraction – but not after that jerk of her hand. Not without starting over. She let out a long, heavy exhale that deflated her lungs. She buried the frustration. The stone was a rare loan from Bradley, a test of her patience, and failing it because of a noise made her want to scream.
She set the knife down on the wooden desk. She pulled the goggles off her face and rubbed the corners of her eyes. The bright work lamp was burning her retinas.
The pounding on the door turned into a high-pitched scream.
"Eleonore! Open the door!" Kierra yelled from the hallway.
Eleonore pushed her chair back. She stood up and walked across the thick carpet, stepping over scattered design blueprints.
She reached out and twisted the deadbolt. She pulled the door open just a few inches.
Kierra shoved her way through the gap before the door was fully open.
She was wearing a loud, sequined dress that caught the light like a disco ball.
"Are you kidding me?" Kierra shouted, throwing her hands in the air. "You are still wearing that disgusting apron? You are covered in rock dust!"
Kierra's eyes darted past Eleonore's shoulder. They landed on the workbench. She saw the ruined sapphire clamped in the vise.
Kierra sucked in a sharp breath. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth.
"Oh my god," Kierra whispered. "Did I just ruin that?"
Eleonore shook her head slowly. She forced her facial muscles to relax.
"It is just scrap material," Eleonore said softly. "I was just practicing."
Kierra's face fell with guilt for exactly one second. Then, she grabbed Eleonore's dust‑covered wrist.
"Come on," Kierra demanded, pulling her forward.
Kierra dragged Eleonore out of the studio and down the hallway toward the massive walk‑in closet.
Kierra ripped a garment bag off the rack. She pulled out a champagne‑colored velvet haute couture gown.
She shoved the heavy fabric into Eleonore's chest.
"Put this on. Right now," Kierra ordered.
Eleonore took a step back. The velvet felt suffocating against her hands.
She bit down hard on her lower lip.
"I hate these charity galas, Kierra. They are fake. I do not want to go."
Kierra planted her hands on her hips. She narrowed her eyes.
"Bradley is going to be there tonight," Kierra said.
Eleonore froze. Her fingers tightened around the velvet dress.
Hearing her mentor's name changed the air in the room. Bradley Michael rarely attended public events.
Eleonore let out a defeated sigh. Her shoulders slumped.
"Fine," Eleonore muttered.
She turned around and walked into the changing room, pulling the door shut behind her.
Kierra leaned against the doorframe.
"Are you planning to die alone with your little knives?" Kierra teased loudly through the wood. "Your love life is a blank piece of paper, El."
Inside the small room, heat rushed to Eleonore's cheeks.
She turned her head away from the full‑length mirror, refusing to look at her own flushed face.
She pulled the dress over her head. Before zipping it up, she walked to the vanity, opened the top drawer, and slipped her custom sketching pen – the one Bradley had given her – into the inner pocket of the small clutch that lay there. Then she reached back, zipping the dress up in one swift motion.
She pushed the folding door open.
Kierra gasped loudly, her eyes wide.
"You look incredible," Kierra said, clapping her hands together.
Kierra grabbed the small clutch from the vanity and hooked her arm through Eleonore's.
"Let's go," Kierra said.
They walked out of the apartment side by side and headed straight for the elevator.
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9.7
Eighteen months ago, the man I loved shattered my heart, claiming everything between us was a mistake. Now, he's back, a ghost of his former self, a rookie tryout in my pro esports team. And I will make him regret crawling back.
Clifton, captain of a legendary esports team, was secretly battling a severe wrist injury that threatened his career, every match a fight against his own body. He pushed through the pain, ignoring doctors' warnings, desperate to maintain his god-like status.
His world was already on the edge, but nothing prepared him for seeing Justice Terry again in the team basement. Justice, pale and trembling, his eyes wide with naked terror, was now a rookie tryout.
Clifton had spent a year and a half trying to forget that rainy Chicago alley, the raw revulsion in Justice's eyes, the whispered "it wasn't real" that had left him heartbroken. Justice had vanished, and Clifton had erased every trace. Now, the boy who once looked at him like he was the sun was back, flinching at his touch, displaying a deep, primal fear. Amidst sponsor pressure and whispers of being "washed," Clifton saw Justice's return as a chance for vengeance. He publicly humiliated Justice on a live stream, forcing him into a suicide mission, then coldly benched him.
Yet, the satisfaction never came. Instead, a hollow emptiness and a torrent of questions: What had truly happened in the past? Why was Justice here, and what trauma had carved such fear into his bones?
Clifton, unwilling to be fooled again, swore to uncover every secret and every lie. He would force Justice to explain why he had returned, even if it meant tearing down everything they both had left.
8.7
I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella.
Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark.
But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved.
Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies.
When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel.
While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest.
The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella.
He ordered my father to punish me.
I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth.
That night, the love in my heart finally died.
On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape-the only proof that I was Seven.
Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney.
By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.
7.2
Allie Patterson poured fifteen years into her husband Grayson’s tech startup, living in a cramped San Jose apartment. Every penny, every late night coding session, was for their shared future, built on his constant claims the company struggled, always on the verge of its big break.
Then, a grant deed arrived: a stunning $4.2 million Atherton villa, paid in full, listing Grayson and an unknown Kacey Schmidt as joint tenants.
Her coffee mug shattered as Allie’s world imploded. Driving to the mansion, she found Kacey in silk pajamas, flaunting a massive pink diamond and, beneath it, Grayson’s grandmother’s heirloom ring – the one he’d tearfully claimed to have lost years ago.
Kacey purred, "He's in the shower. We were so tired last night."
The words were a serrated knife, twisting, confirming years of lies.
Humiliation and rage burned out, leaving a terrifying, absolute silence. All her sacrifice and trust were a cruel, elaborate joke, orchestrated by the man she loved.
Allie calmly took photos, then gave herself one minute in her beat-up car to mourn. When it passed, her tears stopped, replaced by cold, calculated murder in her eyes. She typed a text to Grayson:
"Come home early tonight. I have a surprise for you."
7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
9.6
When a global anomaly awakens dormant powers within them, a neuroscientist, a physicist, and an artist discover they are connected by a force that defies time itself. Mert sees the memories of strangers. Elena witnesses the fabric of reality crack. Kai paints symbols from a past he never knew. Thrown together by fate, they are not alone. Across the globe, others are awakening too-gifted with extraordinary abilities. But they are not the only ones. A powerful cabal-a ruthless financier, a tech mogul, and a charismatic influencer-sees the anomaly not as a warning, but as a weapon. Their ambition shatters the timeline, scattering the group across history: from the smog-choked streets of Victorian London to a transhumanist future, and into a terrifying parallel present. Broken into three teams, the group must hunt their enemies through time itself. To survive, they must master their new powers and forge bonds of love and loyalty strong enough to bend the laws of physics. Their final battle will not be fought in any single era, but at the crossroads of all realities, where the key to existence-the very heart of time-is at stake.
8.1
On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes.
She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia."
Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours.
He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity.
But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture."
I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her.
And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm.
Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite.
He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet.
He is wrong.
I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door.
And I changed the groom.
As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears.
The Reaper.