His Vengeful Game: The Bankrupt Heiress
Once a pampered princess, Alaina now clutched a deactivated American Express card, staring out at Central Park. Her family’s fortune was gone, her life, over.
Her family's Hamptons estate, a four-generation legacy, was seized by Dyer Capital. The name hit her: Hardin Dyer, the poor boy she’d once scorned, had returned.
Hardin marched in, serving a divorce agreement. He'd orchestrated her family's downfall for revenge, giving her 24 hours to vacate his property. Penniless, her father faced prison, needing $50 million. Her mother forced her to beg Hardin, who sneered, offering the money for her body. Alaina ripped up the contract.
Hours later, her father had a heart attack. Desperate, she became "Lexi," a club girl enduring humiliation. In the Viper Room, Hardin's lackeys demanded she lick whiskey off his shoe for $10,000. Hardin watched. Outside, her brother Ashton's hand was threatened for a $3 million debt. Spirit shattered, Alaina returned, knelt on broken glass, offering to sign. But Hardin declared her family "dead," offering $10 million for her body, commanding her to use her mouth.
In a furious act of defiance, Alaina threw whiskey in his face, snatched the check, and fled. Yet, when he finally took her, a searing, foreign pain and blood on the sheets revealed a shocking truth: he had never touched her three years ago. Why had he let her believe such a monstrous lie?
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Chapter 5
The loud crash of the cart hitting the table shattered the quiet atmosphere of the Viper Room.
The men on the leather sofas stopped talking.
The man who had spoken stood up. He walked over to the cart, his face twisted in annoyance.
Under the red spotlight, Alaina saw his face clearly. It was Tucker. He used to be a low-level lackey who followed her brother around, begging for scraps from the Gay family.
Tucker leaned in close. He squinted at Alaina's heavy makeup.
Suddenly, his eyes widened. He threw his head back and let out a loud, obnoxious bark of laughter.
"Hicks!" Tucker yelled over his shoulder. "You are not going to believe this! Come look at the mighty princess of the Gay family!"
Another man stepped out of the shadows. Hicks. Another former parasite.
Hicks walked up to Alaina. He raised his hand, his fingers stained yellow from cigar smoke, and roughly grabbed her chin.
He tilted her face from side to side, inspecting her like a piece of meat.
"Well, damn," Hicks whistled, his eyes dropping to her exposed chest. "How the mighty have fallen."
Alaina jerked her head back, tearing her chin out of his grip. Her stomach churned so violently she thought she was going to throw up.
Tucker reached out and ripped the plastic nametag off her chest.
"Lexi?" Tucker mocked, reading the tag. "That is a great stripper name, Alaina."
Alaina grabbed the handle of the cart. She turned around to run back to the door.
The two bodyguards immediately stepped forward, blocking the exit with their massive bodies.
"You do not leave the Viper Room until the guests say so," Hicks sneered.
From the deepest, darkest corner of the massive circular sofa, the sound of ice clinking against glass echoed again.
"Bring her here."
The voice was low, cold, and carried absolute, terrifying authority.
Alaina's lungs stopped working. Her blood literally froze in her veins. Her legs felt like they were made of lead.
Tucker and Hicks immediately stopped laughing. They stepped aside, bowing their heads slightly in respect.
The man in the shadows leaned forward. The red light caught the sharp, cruel angles of his jaw.
Hardin Dyer.
He was wearing a black dress shirt, the top two buttons undone. He held a glass of whiskey in one hand. His dark eyes stared at her with the cold detachment of someone looking at a dead insect.
Alaina took a step backward. Her spine hit the cold, hard wall of the room.
Hardin swirled his drink. "Well, Miss Gay? Are you not going to pour the guests their drinks?"
Tucker grabbed Alaina's shoulder. He shoved her forward, forcing her to stumble toward the low glass table.
He pushed down on her shoulder, forcing her to bend over the table.
The tight lace bodysuit stretched dangerously across her back, exposing even more of her skin to the room.
Alaina's hands shook violently as she reached for the heavy bottle of Louis XIII.
She moved toward Hardin's empty glass. Her hands were trembling so badly that the heavy crystal bottle slipped.
A splash of the amber liquid poured over the edge of the glass and landed directly onto the toe of Hardin's polished leather shoe.
The temperature in the room plummeted to zero. Tucker gasped and took a step back.
Alaina's face went completely white. Panic seized her throat. She instinctively reached for a napkin to wipe it away.
Hardin kicked her hand away.
He raised his foot. He pressed the hard leather toe of his shoe directly under Alaina's chin, forcing her head up.
He looked down at her heavy makeup and her trembling lips. A storm of violent, dark emotion raged in his eyes.
"Is this why you tore up my contract?" Hardin asked, his voice a lethal whisper. "So you could come here and sell yourself to anyone with a wallet?"
Alaina bit her bottom lip so hard she tasted her own blood. Tears burned the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
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9.2
Jacqueline Blackburn, a desperate Ivy League tutor, walked into the sleazy Veridian VIP club just to save her job.
But her billionaire client, the ruthless Christian Montgomery, mistook her for a cheap escort, blowing cigar smoke in her face and treating her like trash.
When she furiously turned to leave, a drunk former client attacked her in the hallway, tearing her white dress open and pinning her by the throat.
She fought back, stabbing the man's hand with a pen, only for Christian to emerge from the shadows and brutally crush the attacker's bleeding hand under his heel.
Instead of letting her go, Christian draped his heavy suit jacket over her exposed skin, trapped her in his dark suite, and forced her to sign a suffocating contract.
"You have exactly ninety days, or I will personally ensure you cease to exist in my city."
She thought she could just keep her head down, teach his nephew, and survive.
But she didn't understand why this terrifying underground tyrant was suddenly so fixated on her.
Why did he use his immense power to isolate her, publicly claim her at a billionaire gala, and track her every move?
When she received a chilling midnight text demanding she pack her bags and move into his sprawling estate by 8:00 AM, the terrifying reality set in.
She hadn't escaped the wolf. She had just walked directly into his cage.
7.6
Dumped by her fiancé just days before their wedding, only to watch him marry someone else-what would you do? Cry yourself to sleep, or dress to kill for revenge?
That was Elaina's reality. She's no Cinderella, yet she lost a shoe while recklessly crashing her ex's wedding. Her revenge plan went up in flames, but fate had other ideas, throwing her into the path of Alister-a man who is handsome, charismatic, and dangerous... and ironically, the person closest to her ex-fiancé.
Amidst heartbreak and vendettas, Alister paints her world in new colors, turning Elaina into a modern-day Cinderella. But will this story end in "happily ever after," or is Alister merely leading her into a much more dangerous game?
9.6
Areli was the hardest-working medic in the Blackridge Clan, but her efforts only earned her the title of a useless burden.
Her supposed lover, Eugene, and her senior mentor, Gloria, lured her to the edge of the deadly Blackwind Cliff and shoved her straight into the abyss.
She miraculously survived the freefall, only to return and find Gloria standing before the entire clan, wearing a mask of fake sorrow.
"Look! The traitor is back! She eloped with wild males!" Gloria shrieked.
Eugene stepped up, looking heartbroken, and publicly accused her of betraying his love.
The crowd erupted, raining hisses and boos upon her, completely ignoring the horrific, life-threatening bruises that covered her battered body.
They blindly believed the lies, treating her like garbage while Gloria secretly plotted to poison her water and destroy her completely.
Areli felt a chilling sense of betrayal. How could the man who claimed to love her watch her fall with such cold eyes?
To make matters worse, her modern biochemist instincts revealed a terrifying truth: she was unexpectedly pregnant with the child of a savage Warlord she had encountered in the wild.
In this brutal, primitive world, showing any weakness was an absolute death sentence.
But she wasn't going to cower or run away.
Refusing the Warlord's offer to simply rescue her, Areli calmly placed a highly toxic herb on her drying rack and left her tent flap open.
The bait was set. Now, she just had to wait for the screams.
9.2
After catching my fiancé cheating with my adoptive sister, I broke off our engagement on the spot.
In retaliation, my abusive adoptive parents sold me to Kaelen Knight, the Lycan King, to clear our pack's debts.
He was rumored to be a ruthless, reclusive monster who had been horribly crippled in a fire centuries ago.
To ensure my absolute ruin, my sister planted fake love letters to my ex in my luggage and anonymously destroyed my university scholarship, cutting off my only escape route to the human world.
"A wolfless whore. You planned to drug me," Kaelen sneered, looking at the fake evidence with absolute disgust.
Believing I was a spy, my new husband had his guards throw me into the freezing woods with the Dire Wolves, leaving me to survive the night alone.
I was just a broken, wolfless Omega, entirely at the mercy of a cruel, powerless Lycan and a family that wanted me dead.
But I was wrong about him being powerless.
One night, I accidentally saw him rise from his wheelchair, his tall frame radiating an overwhelming, lethal aura.
He wasn't crippled at all.
The secret I thought was my shield was actually a loaded gun pointed at my head. Trapped with a terrifying predator, I had to stop playing the victim and fight for my life.
8.6
Today was my father's grand second wedding, but for me, it was the anniversary of my mother's death.
My new stepmother, Marley, who was only four years older than me, cornered me. To establish her dominance as the new Luna, she ordered her servants to force me to my knees and violently ripped my late mother's necklace from my neck.
It was the only memento my mother had left me. Marley sneered, threw it to the ground, and shattered the gems. When I scrambled to pick up the broken pieces, she dug her high-heeled shoe into the back of my hand, mocking me as dirty trash. No one stepped in to help. My father was too busy celebrating his new marriage under the dazzling lights, completely erasing my mother's memory and leaving me to be abused in my own pack.
My heart was full of grievance and despair. Why did my mother's lifelong devotion end with her grave desolate and her daughter humiliated? I swore I would never become a weak, discarded she-wolf whose life depended on a man.
Desperate to escape the suffocating wedding, I ran outside and stumbled right into the chest of a terrifying stranger.
"No one should ever touch what is precious to you."
His golden eyes blazed with fury as sparks instantly shot through my veins. He was Kade Blackwood, the ruthless Alpha of the feared Blood Moon Pack—and my fated mate.
8.9
The mangled car teetered on the cliff's edge, my leg crushed, gasoline fumes thick in the air. My husband, Holden, stood safe on the highway, directing the rescue – but not for me. He was saving her, the woman in the passenger seat, leaving me and our unborn child to the ocean below.
I woke trapped in the crushed Maybach, leg pinned. The cliff loomed; the driver's seat was empty.
Holden, safe outside, directed paramedics past me to Giana, his "most valuable asset," ordering her rescue first.
I watched him comfort Giana, oblivious, as the car slid. My baby barely viable. Holden offered a black card for silence; Giana gloated.
Ten years of devotion, a cruel lie. Rage fueled me: how could he abandon his wife and child?
I swore a venomous oath: never again an accessory. I flicked his card away, shielded my pregnancy, and promised my baby escape.