Defying The Ruthless Billionaire Heir
Johana walked half a mile through a brutal blizzard just to secure a tutoring job with the elite Black family.
But the very night she was hired, she received a terrifying call from the ER—her quiet roommate, Hazelle, had been drugged and severely traumatized at a Hamptons party.
When Johana rushed to the hospital, she didn't find the police. Instead, she found a team of ruthless billionaires erasing the crime.
Leading them was Dalton Black, the cold, arrogant older brother of her new student.
Within minutes, Dalton's fixers wiped the hospital's security footage, deleted all digital evidence, and forcefully transferred Hazelle to a locked private psychiatric facility.
"We are ensuring her privacy."
Dalton's voice was devoid of emotion, treating the horrific assault like a minor PR glitch.
His friends mocked Johana's powerlessness, while Dalton authorized a blank check to pay for the private ward, effectively burying the scandal and buying their silence.
Johana stood in the sterile hallway, trembling with a mix of despair and absolute rage.
How could they destroy an innocent girl's life and simply pay to make it disappear? Why was the truth so easily erased by money?
She had no wealth, no connections, and no proof, but she refused to be a victim of their cover-up.
Staring directly into Dalton's intimidating, icy blue eyes, Johana made a vow.
"I don't want your money. I will find out what you monsters did to her."
She thought the billionaire heir would crush her on the spot, but instead, he watched her walk away and quietly ordered his assistant: "Find out everything about Johana Neal."
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Chapter 3
"Please, sit a moment longer."
Karon Black glided back into the foyer, carrying a silver tray with a steaming cup of tea. She set it down on a small table beside the velvet chair.
"I apologize again for Dalton's behavior," Karon said, her voice soothing. "He runs our venture capital arm in New York. The pressure is immense, especially with this Moody situation. It makes him short-tempered."
"I understand," Johana said. She took the cup, the heat seeping into her frozen fingers. "I won't let it affect my work with Alistair."
"I'm glad to hear that." Karon's eyes were sharp, searching. "I hope you don't have any second thoughts about the position, Miss Neal."
"None at all," Johana said firmly. She needed this job. She wasn't going to let an arrogant rich boy scare her off.
A black Cadillac Escalade pulled up to the front door. Arthur appeared with her coat-dry again-and held it open for her.
"Safe travels," Karon said, her smile back in place. "And welcome to the family."
Johana climbed into the back of the Escalade. The seats were heated leather. Classical music played softly from the speakers. The partition was up, separating her from the driver. The silence was absolute.
She leaned her head back against the rest, closing her eyes. The adrenaline was fading, leaving her exhausted. She had done it. She had gotten the job.
She watched the Georgetown streets slide past the window. The snow was still falling, but inside the car, she was untouchable. It was a strange feeling, being insulated from the world by money.
She pulled out her phone. A text from her roommate, Chloe Galloway, glowed on the screen.
How did it go? Did you slay the dragon?
Johana typed back a quick Got the job and a thumbs-up emoji. She didn't mention Dalton. She didn't want to think about him.
A picture popped up on the screen. Chloe at a restaurant, holding a martini, leaning against a guy in a suit. The background was full of people in expensive clothes, laughing.
Johana sighed. Chloe was always chasing the next rich boyfriend. It was exhausting just to watch.
The Escalade pulled up to the curb outside her dorm. "Thank you," Johana said to the driver as she got out.
The driver just nodded and pulled away, the black car disappearing into the snow.
Johana walked up the stairs to her room. It was quiet. Too quiet. Chloe's bed was empty, which wasn't surprising. But Hazelle's bed was also untouched.
Hazelle Olson was always home by now. She was the studious one, the quiet one. She didn't go to parties.
Johana pulled out her phone and sent a text.
Hey, where are you? It's nasty out. Come home.
She waited. No reply. She called. It went straight to voicemail.
"She's probably in the library," Johana muttered to herself.
She kicked off her wet boots, peeled off her socks, and soaked her feet in a basin of hot water in the small bathroom. The heat stung, then soothed.
She sat on her bed and opened her laptop. She had work to do. She pulled up her notes and started building the syllabus for Alistair Black. She spent two hours crafting a detailed, ten-page PDF. She outlined the reading schedule, the essay prompts, and the focus on political strategy during the Reconstruction era.
She attached it to an email, addressed to Karon Black, and hit send.
It was past midnight. Chloe still wasn't home. And Hazelle hadn't answered.
Johana called Hazelle again. Voicemail.
A knot formed in her stomach. It wasn't like Hazelle to disappear. Not without a word.
"She's an adult," Johana told herself, turning off the lamp. "Her phone died. That's all."
She lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dalton Black's pale blue eyes, looking right through her. And the feeling of his cold, dismissive voice echoed in her ears, mixing with the worry gnawing at her insides.
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9.1
Waking up with a cold, scaly hand wrapped around my throat wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was realizing I'd transmigrated into the body of Terra Mason—the most despised woman in the entire Enclave. She drugged high-level beast-men and forced them into life-binding bio-contracts. She locked an aquatic warrior in a dry basement until his organs failed. She treated the most lethal males in the city like broken toys.
Zev, the Level 6 serpent who's currently choking me, would rather blow up his own heart than spend another day as my slave. His affection metric? Negative ninety. His trust? Zero.
Then my system activates: the Kore AI. It gives me exactly 500 credits, a medical nano-gel, and a recipe for neutralizing the radioactive poison in mutant meat. Real food. In this world, that's worth more than gold.
I save Rhys, the dying aquatic male everyone left for dead. I season a slab of purple mutant steak until Sam, a battle-scarred grizzly shifter, groans at the taste—and his trust points finally tick above zero. When my backstabbing ex-best friend tries to steal my males and destroy me, I don't scream or throw a tantrum like the old Terra. I dismantle her with the truth.
But earning their trust means more than grilling meat. A scorpion swarm ambushes us at midnight. Sam throws himself between me and a stinger the size of my arm. As he stands over the corpse, fur receding from his claws, he stares at me and whispers, "You were testing me."
Yes. I was. Because in this world, the weak don't survive. And I refuse to be weak again.
Four beast-men. Four contracts. One system. And a whole lot of steak. Let this dystopian wasteland know—I'm not the monster they remember. I'm worse. I'm the one who's going to feed them until they'd kill for me.
9.3
My father ordered me to marry into the cursed Vaughn family.
Their heirs were rumored to die young from a mysterious genetic agony. My sister Kayden laughed, saying she wasn't going to waste her youth planning a funeral. So, I became the sacrificial lamb.
When I refused, my father slammed his hand on the table and threatened to throw my dead mother's ashes into the city dump.
"You are a struggling actress with no money and no power. You have no choice," he told me coldly.
To make matters worse, my own agent drugged my drink at a business dinner, trying to sell my body to a sleazy investor just to secure project funding.
I was completely cornered, suffocating under the weight of their cruelty. I couldn't understand how my own flesh and blood could be so vicious, treating me like a worthless pawn to be traded and discarded.
But none of them knew that while escaping the drug-laced dinner, I crashed directly into the terrifying Vaughn heir, Algot.
When his glowing crimson eyes locked onto me during a violent episode of his cursed pain, we discovered an impossible truth: my physical touch was the only cure for his agony.
Looking at the dark bruises he accidentally left on my neck, I chose not to run. Instead, I pulled out the private business card he gave me and dialed his number.
"You need me," I whispered to the dangerous billionaire. "And I am going to use you to destroy them all."
9.3
Six years ago, my adoptive family framed me for commercial espionage, stripped me of my identity, and threw me out. Now, I finally returned to the Solis estate as a commercial pilot to take back what was mine.
But the first thing my adoptive mother did was threaten me with that forged evidence again. She demanded I take my sister Kiana's place in a marriage contract with a disabled man, simply because Kiana refused to marry him.
When I refused, Kiana ambushed me at the airport with a mob of reporters. She cried for the cameras, publicly accusing me of causing our father's and brother's deaths. She painted me as a ruthless monster who bankrupted the company and ruined the family. The crowd instantly turned on me, screaming that I was a murderer and a gold-digger. Kiana wanted to completely destroy my reputation so I would have no choice but to submit to her arrangement.
I looked at her fake tears, feeling a cold, absolute fury. How dare she use the tragic deaths of the only family members who actually loved me as a prop for her sick show? They had ruined my life once, and now they wanted to bury me alive.
I didn't hesitate. I slapped her hard across the face right in front of the flashing cameras.
"That was for my father and brother."
Then, my real fiancé, a decorated Delta Force commander, rolled through the crowd in his wheelchair. He tossed a classified Pentagon file to the reporters, completely clearing my name and exposing Kiana's lies. I married him to start my revenge, but as I stepped into his heavily secured penthouse that night, I realized my powerful new husband had been preparing for me for a very long time.
8.0
Scarlett Hayes thought marrying James Whitmore would finally make her family see her as more than a burden.
Instead, it destroyed her life.
Framed for crimes she didn't commit, betrayed by the people she trusted most, and sentenced to prison while pregnant, Scarlett lost everything in a single night.
Then came the cruelest blow of all.
After giving birth in chains, she was told her baby had died.
The people responsible believed she would spend the rest of her life rotting behind bars.
They were wrong.
Five years later, Scarlett returns.
No longer the discarded daughter of the Hayes family. No longer the broken woman they left behind.
Now she is Commander Scarlett Hayes-a decorated war hero, the unseen force behind a global intelligence empire, and a woman powerful enough to make governments tremble.
She comes back for one reason only: revenge.
Her ex-husband, the stepsister who stole her life, and the family who buried her alive are about to learn exactly what happens when a woman with nothing left to lose takes back everything they stole.
But as Scarlett tears through the secrets of her past, one truth threatens to change everything-
the child she mourned for years may not be dead.
And the mysterious man connected to the night that changed her life has been watching from the shadows all along.
8.8
"Fuck...please..."
He risks a nibble, sending shockwaves to my core. My back arches off the wall with a sharp moan.
His hand slides between my legs, cupping my soaking panties.
"Look how wet you are," he whispers, "...shaking, and I haven't even fucked you yet."
He strokes my clit gently first, then harder. My toes curl, hair spilling into my sweaty face.
He's breaking me, ruining me with just his tongue and fingers. I can't speak. I can't think. I just tremble in his arms.
*********
The night I caught my fiancé cheating, something in me broke.
I cried.
I screamed.
I drove - into the rain, into nowhere, into him.
Cassian Cross.
A stranger with gray eyes, a sinful mouth, and hands that made me forget my name.
One night was all it took. One reckless mistake to burn away my heartbreak.
Until he showed up at my mom's wedding...
As my new stepbrother.
Now, Cassian won't stop.
He corners me in hallways, whispers filth at the altar, and looks at me like he still owns my body.
But there's one thing he didn't tell me-
He already belongs to someone else.
A fiancée bound to him by a contract... and a secret that could destroy us both.
He's dangerous.
He's forbidden.
He's promised to another.
And God help me, I still can't stop wanting him.
7.4
I was only fifteen when my venomous family orchestrated my doom by forcing me into an arranged marriage with mafia heir Javier Velasquez.
On our wedding night, Javier paraded strippers into our suite to show his absolute contempt, turning me into the ultimate joke of the underworld overnight.
But being a joke was a luxury compared to what came next.
Three years later, Javier needed to be a widower to marry into a heavily armed family and secure their backing for a coup.
He didn't grant me the mercy of a bullet.
Instead, he dragged me to an abandoned underground safehouse, locked me in the damp, rotting dark, and told the world I had been assassinated.
For six months, I starved in that dungeon, surviving only on the desperate hope that my family was safe.
Then, on the day of his lavish new wedding, a cruel maid kicked a plate of spoiled food onto my floor and delivered the final, fatal blow.
"Annabel is dead. Pined away and died of a broken heart two weeks ago."
My gentle mother was dead, all because she actually believed his lie about my tragic murder.
Driven by pure agony and an all-consuming hatred, I shattered crates of smuggled chemical solvents and struck a match, letting the roaring inferno turn their bloody wedding into my funeral pyre.
I thought the fire was the end.
But when I opened my eyes, the suffocating smoke vanished, replaced by the biting chill of a Long Island winter.
I was standing in the snow, back on the exact day my descent into hell began.
This time, the terrified girl was dead, and I would use their own ruthless rules to tear their empire apart.