Betrayed By Love: The Genius's Revenge
For three years, nineteen-year-old Ella Campbell rotted in a freezing psychiatric isolation room.
Her billionaire family didn't visit her once, only pulling her out today to force her to publicly apologize to Ashlyn, the perfect sister who had framed her.
At Ashlyn's glamorous engagement gala, Ella was treated worse than a stray dog and forced to watch her childhood sweetheart propose to her sister.
When Ella showed no jealousy, her brother Ivan dragged her onto a dark balcony and nearly choked her to death.
Her mother didn't even check if Ella was breathing, merely ordering a makeup artist to paint thick concealer over the dark purple handprints on Ella's neck so the family's stock price wouldn't drop.
Standing under the blinding stage lights in a shapeless gray dress, facing three hundred mocking Wall Street executives, Ella was supposed to be the broken, obedient psycho the Campbells needed.
"I am deeply sorry for the pain I caused."
She was supposed to end the apology there and bow to her abusers, but Ella didn't shed a single tear.
"My only regret is that I didn't insist on waiting for the police to arrive that night. I deeply regret that I didn't demand a full, legal toxicology report to prove to everyone exactly what happened."
As the ballroom erupted into suspicious whispers and her paralyzed twin brother finally saw the violent bruises hidden beneath her makeup, Ella's counterattack against the Campbell family officially began.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 7
Leland shoved Ivan hard toward the glass door. "Get him out of here," he snapped at Karen. "Lock him in a suite until he sobers up. And tell security to secure the second-floor ADA lounge. Glen is up there, and I will not have this drunken embarrassment anywhere near him."
Karen grabbed Ivan's arm and dragged the muttering man back inside.
Leland turned his attention to Ella. He looked down at her sitting on the cold concrete. There was no pity in his eyes, only intense irritation.
Karen quickly reappeared in the doorway. She marched over to Ella, her high heels clicking sharply against the floor.
"Get up," Karen ordered. Her voice was ice. "Stop lying there like a corpse."
Ella placed her hands on the ground and pushed herself up. Her legs trembled slightly, but she locked her knees.
She lifted her chin.
Against her pale skin, the dark purple and angry red fingerprints on her neck looked like a violent, abstract painting.
Karen grimaced. She didn't ask if it hurt. She just stared at the bruises with deep annoyance.
"This is going to cause questions," Karen muttered to herself. She turned toward the doorway. "Sylvia! Get out here!"
A young woman carrying a heavy black makeup case scurried onto the terrace. She was the family's private makeup artist. She kept her eyes glued to the floor, terrified of the Campbells.
"Cover that up," Karen commanded, pointing at Ella's neck. "Use the thickest theatrical concealer you have. I don't want to see a single shadow."
Sylvia nodded frantically. She popped open her case.
She scooped a thick glob of heavy, cold foundation onto a sponge. She stepped up to Ella.
As the rough sponge pressed into the swollen, damaged tissue of Ella's neck, a sharp, burning pain shot through her nerves. Ella didn't flinch. She stood perfectly still, letting the woman paint over the evidence of her brother's violence.
Karen picked up the black paper bag from the floor. She shoved it into Ella's chest.
"Put the dress on," Karen said. She leaned in, her perfectly manicured finger pointing right between Ella's eyes. "You will walk out there. You will read the apology Leland wrote. If you show one tear, one ounce of anger, I will have Leland drag you back to Pine Ridge tonight. And I will permanently cut off your trust fund."
Ella took the bag. She walked into the small staff restroom off the hallway.
She stripped off her old blue dress. She pulled the shapeless, ash-gray gown over her head. It hung on her thin frame like a potato sack.
She looked in the mirror. The makeup on her neck was thick and cakey, a slightly different shade than her face, but it hid the purple. She looked like a ghost.
She walked out.
"I know what to do," Ella said. Her voice was raspy, but the tone was terrifyingly resolute.
Karen frowned, unsettled by the dead look in Ella's eyes, but she checked her diamond watch. "We are out of time. Move."
They walked down the corridor until they reached the heavy black velvet curtains behind the main stage.
Leland was waiting. He shoved a cold, metal microphone into Ella's hand.
From the other side of the curtain, the booming voice of the host echoed through the speakers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Campbell family has a very special, very personal segment to share with you tonight..."
Keep Reading
The story is getting intense! Switch to App to
Unlock All Chapters
You may also like
8.0
When gifted cellist Vivienne Aurel inherits her late father's catastrophic $4.2 million debt, she expects to lose everything. She doesn't expect the debt to be bought by Caspian Vane, the most feared private equity magnate in New York. Caspian doesn't want to ruin her; he wants her to work exclusively for him as the artistic director of his new cultural foundation for eighteen months. Forced into his world under a binding agreement, Vivienne prepares to fight against a cold, transactional cage. But as the intense, quiet proximity between them begins to blur the lines of their contract, she discovers a terrifying truth: the man who now owns her future has been watching her from the shadows long before she ever knew his name.
9.1
My husband, Dante Moretti, the feared Underboss, signed the divorce papers I slipped him without a glance. Too busy texting his true love, Sofia, he was blind to the annulment decree ending everything. The Reaper couldn't see the death of his own marriage.
For three years, I was Elena, his silent wife, the "Caged Canary," cleaning his messes while meticulously planning my escape from our loveless world.
He dismissed me for Sofia's every whim, publicly shaming me after a past love letter was read, then abandoning me again for her fake crisis.
That night, he violently shoved me against a wall, leaving me bleeding and concussed, rushing instead to protect Sofia. Discarded and injured, my invisible love became a weapon against me.
His crushing blindness, the cold realization I was a mere placeholder, fueled a profound injustice. How could he be so lethal, yet oblivious to his wife, favoring the one who betrayed him?
With chilling resolve, I uploaded Sofia's confession, initiated a massive financial transfer dismantling his empire, and staged my own death. Under a new identity, I fled to San Francisco, ready to build my power, far from his bloody, deceitful world.
8.3
EDEN
8.3
Elianila, an AI Architect, is part of an elite team tasked with designing a global system meant to prevent threats, manage disasters, and distribute resources to vulnerable regions. After five years of tireless work with her colleagues, she uncovers disturbing anomalies, code-named, X-variables, that flag individuals according to criteria she never programmed.
As Elianila digs deeper to understand what the X-variables measure and where their origin, she finds herself in direct conflict with the authorities. Soon, the System marks her and her daughter as threats - targets to be eliminated.
With a small band of colleagues and dissidents, Elianila goes on the run, hiding in places beyond the Systems reach. As they evade surveillance, they race against time to warn others, expose the truth, and fight back against the omnipresent authority of the System.
9.5
The first clue my life was a lie was a moan from the guest room. My husband of seven years wasn't in our bed. He was with my intern.
I discovered my husband, Brendan, was having a four-year affair with Kiya-the talented girl I was mentoring and personally paying tuition for.
The next morning, she sat at our breakfast table in his shirt while he made us pancakes. He lied to my face, promising he'd never love another, just before I learned she was pregnant with his child-a child he'd always refused to have with me.
The two people I trusted most in the world had conspired to destroy me. The pain wasn't something I could live with; it was an annihilation of my entire world.
So I made a call to a neuroscientist about his experimental, irreversible procedure. I didn't want revenge. I wanted to erase every memory of my husband and become his first test subject.
8.4
On the night before her wedding, Navia Harrison discovers her fiancé in bed with her step-sister-and worse, the two of them are already planning how to get rid of her after the marriage.
Humiliated and consumed by hatred, Navia exposes their affair during the wedding ceremony itself, destroying both families' reputations in a single move.
Then, she meets him.
Leonel Crawford - the cold and dangerously powerful head of the Crawford family. Untouchable. Ruthless. A man no woman has ever been able to keep close.
He's also her ex-fiancé's uncle.
One impulsive proposal changes everything.
"If you need a wife... marry me instead."
"Honestly... we'd make a pretty good match."
9.5
Carin survived a horrific escape pod crash only to wake up in the mud of an uncharted, barbaric alien planet.
Before she could even process the pain of her fractured ribs, she was captured by towering, wolf-headed warriors who stripped her of her protective gear and threw her into a filthy slave pen.
Because she lacked animal ears and a tail, the clan's arrogant elites mocked her as a repulsive deformity, beating her with spears and forcing her to shovel toxic dung in the deadly Blade Beast pens.
The other female laborers violently bullied her and stole her only scraps of food, leaving her starving and defenseless in a brutal society where the strong preyed on the weak.
"If you're unclaimed at the mating ceremony, they force you into the breeding program, and you'll be nothing but a vessel until you die."
She was terrified, exhausted, and completely unequipped to survive this nightmare, but after a miraculous farming system suddenly awakened in her mind, she knew she desperately needed a powerful shield to protect her secret from the greedy tribe.
During the chaotic mating ceremony, amidst the cruel laughter of the entire clan, she stepped directly in front of Brannon—a terrifying, sterile, mutant outcast despised by everyone—and boldly claimed the deadly warrior as her mate.