Escaping My Vicious Billionaire Husband
Colette stepped out of the federal prison, finally breathing the air of freedom after two agonizing years.
But instead of a bus home, a black armored SUV blocked her path. Ferris Vance's men kidnapped her right at the gates. He forced her to sign a marriage certificate, threatening to completely destroy her father's legacy if she refused.
The nightmare had only just begun. She soon learned her father had been driven to suicide anyway. Dragged into the Vance estate, Colette was beaten bloody by the family of Ellie, the girl she supposedly wronged. Ferris paraded her in a pure white gown for the cameras, playing the fiercely devoted husband. But the second the lenses turned away, he forced her into a coarse maid's uniform, making her scrub the freezing marble floors on her hands and knees.
"Your life isn't even worth the dirt on my shoes."
Ferris whispered those words as he threw his muddy boots at her bruised face. She was nothing but a piece of bleeding bait, a prop meant to lure his missing lover out of hiding. She was tortured and humiliated for a crime she had absolutely nothing to do with. The sheer injustice of paying the price for another woman's disappearance tore her soul apart.
When he cornered her in the bathroom, the last thread of Colette's sanity snapped. She hurled a bucket of filthy water right into his face, broke out of his grip, and threw herself out a window into a freezing storm. This time, she chose to escape, even if it meant death.
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Chapter 3
The SUV sped down the Long Island Expressway.
Colette was curled into a tight ball on the floorboards of the backseat. She was crying so hard she was dry heaving, her body convulsing with every gasp for air.
Bishop frowned in annoyance. He reached over and hit the window switch.
The glass rolled down. Freezing, violent wind roared into the cabin, whipping against Colette's thin clothes and chilling her to the bone.
Thirty minutes later, the massive, wrought-iron gates of the Vance estate slowly parted.
The SUV crunched over the gravel driveway and rolled to a stop in front of a towering marble fountain.
The door opened. Colette tried to push herself up, but her legs were completely numb.
Two massive estate guards reached in. They grabbed her under the armpits and hauled her out of the car like a sack of garbage.
Her left sneaker fell off, hitting the pavement. Her bare foot dragged against the rough stone as they hauled her up the wide granite steps.
Alistair Pemberton, the head butler, pulled open the heavy mahogany double doors.
The guards dragged her into the center of the grand foyer. They let go.
Colette hit the hard marble floor with a sickening thud. The impact scraped the skin off her palms. She curled inward, a weak moan escaping her lips.
Mitch and Brenda Higgins were sitting on the velvet sofas in the living room. When they saw her, they shot to their feet.
Brenda's sharp heels clicked furiously against the marble. She lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of Colette's tangled hair, yanking her head back.
Smack.
The slap echoed through the massive hall. Brenda's palm struck Colette's cheek with explosive force.
Colette's head snapped to the side. Her ears rang violently. A warm drop of blood pooled in the corner of her mouth.
Mitch stood over her, his face purple with rage. "You murderer!" he screamed, pointing a shaking finger at her. "You ruined my daughter's life!"
Colette swallowed the blood in her mouth. "I didn't," she sobbed, her words slurring from the pain. "I wasn't even involved in the party planning..."
The denial pushed Brenda over the edge. She pulled back her pointed leather shoe and kicked Colette squarely in the stomach.
Colette screamed. She curled into a tight ball, clutching her abdomen. Cold sweat instantly soaked through her shirt.
A dozen maids stood in the shadows of the hallway. Not a single one moved to help.
Brenda was panting, completely unhinged. She reached over to a side table, grabbed a heavy crystal vase filled with freezing water and wilted roses, and hurled the freezing contents directly into Colette's face, before lunging forward to violently tear at her collar.
"Stop."
The single, icy word cut through the chaos.
Brenda froze. The dripping vase hovered in her shaking hands.
Ferris walked slowly down the curved grand staircase. His hands were in his pockets. He didn't look angry; he looked bored.
He stepped up to Brenda, took the heavy vase from her trembling hands, and tossed it carelessly onto the rug.
Mitch glared at him. "Why did you bring her here, Ferris? Why did you marry the bitch who destroyed Ellie?"
Ferris let out a dark chuckle. He didn't even glance down at Colette, who was bleeding at his feet.
"It's a media trap," Ferris said, keeping his voice low. "Ellie is out there hiding. She's watching. If she sees me parading this trash around as my beloved new wife, it will trigger an emotional response. It will force her out of hiding."
Mitch and Brenda stared at him. Slowly, the rage in their eyes morphed into a desperate, twisted hope.
Lying on the freezing marble, Colette heard every single word.
The last fragile piece of her soul shattered into dust. She wasn't even a person to him. She was just a piece of bait on a hook.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Hot, humiliating tears ran down her bruised face and dripped onto the cold stone.
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7.1
For seven years, I hid my identity as a wealthy heiress to be with my boyfriend, Ewing. I followed him across the country and made myself small so he could feel big.
On Thanksgiving, he ditched our celebration for his first love, Bree, who supposedly had a "burst pipe."
Later, she posted an intimate selfie with him, calling him her "hero."
Then she sent me a video of him at a bar, laughing with his friends.
"She's just being dramatic," he slurred, smirking at the camera. "A new necklace and she'll forget all about it. She's easy."
Easy. Seven years of my life, my love, my sacrifice-all reduced to that one word. I realized I was never his partner. I was just a placeholder.
I didn't cry. I packed my bags, booked a one-way flight to New York, and sent him one final text before blocking his number.
"Don't bother coming home. I'm getting married."
9.3
Elliana sat on the cold marble floor, staring at the two pink lines on the pregnancy test. Overjoyed, she went to her husband Garrett’s study to surprise him.
But the room was empty. On his iPad, she accidentally opened a muted security video from the night before. As a graphic novelist trained in facial anatomy, she easily read Garrett’s lips as he spoke to their housekeeper.
"Increase the hallucinogens and the birth control. Let her become a complete lunatic."
The truth shattered her reality. Her three years of inexplicable exhaustion and mental collapses were orchestrated to keep her away from her ex-fiancé, who was now married to Garrett’s sister, Cristina. The nightmare worsened during a horrific highway crash. As their SUV flipped and caught fire, Garrett ruthlessly abandoned a pregnant Elliana in the crushed backseat. He dragged Cristina to safety, leaving Elliana to burn. She survived, but her right hand—her drawing hand—was permanently destroyed.
Lying in the hospital with her career ruined and her intellectual property stolen by the husband who forged her signature while she was drugged, a freezing void of hatred consumed her. She was nothing but a sedated decoy to hide Garrett's twisted, incestuous obsession with his own sister.
When Garrett knelt by her hospital bed with fake tears, Elliana didn't scream or expose him. Instead, she forced a pathetic, dependent smile, playing the perfect broken wife. She was going back to his penthouse to steal his encrypted files, ready to feed him to Manhattan's most cutthroat divorce lawyer and watch his empire burn.
7.6
Elliana Lewis lay dying on the freezing concrete of a federal penitentiary, her ribs shattered by a guard's heavy boot.
She had been flawlessly framed for murder by the one person she trusted with her life: her sweet, innocent stepsister, Jovita.
During her final prison visit, Jovita wore their mother's diamonds and smiled cruelly behind the glass. She revealed she had liquidated the family company, caused their father's stroke, and paid the guards to ensure Elliana suffered a grueling, agonizing death.
"Your marriage was a joke from day one, Ellie. You have nothing left."
As her lungs stopped, the tragic truth finally dawned on Elliana. She had spent months screaming for a divorce and publicly humiliating her billionaire husband, Damon Stirling, believing his silence was weakness. She didn't realize until it was too late that his endless tolerance was the deepest form of protection. She had pushed away the only man who would have burned the world down to keep her safe.
Why had she been so incredibly stupid? Why did she blindly trust a monster and destroy the only person who truly loved her?
Then, a blinding light pierced her retinas. Elliana bolted upright, gasping for air on a massive, king-sized bed.
There was no pain. No broken bones. The digital clock on the nightstand flashed a date from exactly ten years ago.
It was the morning after her disastrous wedding night.
This time, she would tear Jovita's life apart piece by piece. And she would hold onto Damon so tightly that nothing could ever pry them apart.
9.4
Dorene survived a terrifying night with a bleeding, dangerous intruder in her hotel penthouse, only to receive a far more devastating blow the next morning.
A black and gold envelope arrived. It was an engagement invitation. Her boyfriend of seven years, Kadyn, was marrying her sweet, innocent best friend, Dolly.
Refusing to hide, Dorene crashed the gala in a blood-red gown. But Dolly was ready. Grabbing Dorene's wrists, Dolly purposely threw herself backward into a tower of champagne glasses, shrieking about her stomach and her unborn baby.
"If anything happens to Dolly or my child, I swear to God, I will destroy you!"
Kadyn roared, holding the weeping Dolly in the broken glass. He didn't ask a single question. He branded Dorene a jealous monster. To completely break her dignity, he publicly handed her over to the city's most notorious, sleazy playboy just to appease Dolly's fake tears.
"Give him a shot," Kadyn told her coldly.
Seven years of love were ground into the marble floor. She was framed, publicly humiliated, and discarded like trash by the two people she trusted most.
Dorene didn't shed a single tear. She gave them a smile of pure, freezing mockery and walked out of the gilded cage into the freezing Manhattan night. She didn't know that as she left, the lethal, blood-stained man from her penthouse was watching from the shadows, ready to help her burn their world to the ground.
9.2
Celestia woke up heavily sedated, her wrists bound tightly to the legs of a grand piano in a cold, opulent room.
Before she could even process the panic, a towering billionaire named Sterling Sinclair IV stepped in, looking at her like a possessed piece of art.
The head maid then handed Celestia a thick surrogacy contract with her perfectly forged signature.
"You are here to bear an heir for Mr. Sinclair," the maid stated flatly.
Celestia screamed that they had the wrong person, but her desperate cries bounced uselessly off the soundproof walls.
Stripped of her clothes, phone, and identity, she was trapped on an isolated island surrounded by high-voltage electric fences and armed guards.
When she furiously fought back, Sterling physically overpowered her, punishing her resistance with brutal, terrifying dominance until she lost consciousness on the marble floor.
She didn't understand who had kidnapped her from her normal life.
Why was her biometric data perfectly faked in a classified dossier?
Who had framed her as a willing, ten-million-dollar premium product for a ruthless billionaire?
Driven by pure survival, Celestia began aggressively consuming raw garlic and bathing in harsh white vinegar to destroy her fertility and repel his touch.
And when Sterling finally reviewed her bizarre, self-sabotaging dietary logs, the terrifying truth hit his calculating mind like a physical blow.
The broken, innocent woman he had been brutally tormenting all week was never his hired surrogate.
8.1
Chantal Lewis's family legacy was twenty-four hours away from a fifty-million-dollar foreclosure.
Desperate to save her parents, she sold her soul, offering herself as a paper wife to Dell Valdez, a ruthless Wall Street billionaire needing a quick PR fix.
But Dell didn't just buy her; he trapped her in a living nightmare.
He forced her into a brutal three-year repayment plan she could never afford, treated her like a disposable prop, and deliberately leaked a scandalous paparazzi photo to destroy her hard-earned professional credibility.
Worst of all, the first time his calloused hand touched hers, a violent, terrifying flashback assaulted her brain.
The scorching heat of his palms and the distinct, dark scent of his cedarwood cologne perfectly matched the repressed memory of a pitch-black room where she was pinned to a mattress against her will.
Chantal didn't understand why her cold-blooded fake husband felt exactly like the monster from her unspoken trauma.
She understood even less why, after months of ignoring her, he was suddenly acting violently jealous and possessive when she merely smiled at another man!
Why did his scent match her attacker, and what was he truly planning?
Furious, she called him to threaten a divorce, only for his voice to drop into a lethal whisper.
"Try it. See what happens."
Before she could process his deadly threat, her office phone rang.
"Ms. Lewis," her receptionist trembled. "Your brother is in the lobby. He owes money to some very bad people, and they are coming here right now."