The Ruined Heiress's Dark Contract Marriage
At her grand engagement party at the Plaza Hotel, Elsie Phillips thought she was the happiest woman in the world.
Until a high-definition video of her being pinned down by a strange man in a hotel bed was suddenly broadcast on the ballroom's massive screen.
Her fiancé, Kelvin, violently ripped his arm away in revulsion. His mother marched on stage, slapped Elsie across the face, and publicly canceled the wedding.
Her "sweet" cousin Belle dug her nails into Elsie's arm, whispering that she looked exactly like the cheap slut she was. It was a vicious setup.
Chased into the freezing rain by blinding tabloid cameras, Elsie hit rock bottom. But the nightmare was just beginning.
An encrypted phone left by her late father suddenly rang, revealing a terrifying truth.
Her parents' fatal car crash three years ago wasn't an accident. It was murder, bought and paid for by her uncle Fenton, who had since stolen her family's entire corporate empire.
When Elsie tried to fight back, Fenton's guards locked her in a dark room. They forced her into degrading sheer lace, planning to sell her to a sadistic Wall Street psychopath for fifty million dollars.
Standing on the edge of a second-story balcony, shivering in the freezing wind, Elsie's eyes burned with blinding hatred.
Her parents were murdered, her legacy stolen, and her reputation dragged through the mud by her own blood. Was she really going to die here, completely ruined?
Just as she let go of the railing to jump, a convoy of black armored SUVs smashed through the estate gates.
Arthur Michael, the most ruthless billionaire in the country, caught her in his arms. He wrapped his custom jacket around her trembling body and handed her a fifty-page prenuptial agreement.
"Marry me." He commanded, his eyes completely cold. "And I will help you send every single one of them to hell."
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Chapter 4
The black Maybach rolled to a smooth stop outside the towering iron gates of the Phillips estate in Long Island.
Elsie took a deep breath, her chest tight, and pushed the car door open.
The two bodyguards immediately stepped out to follow her.
Elsie held up a hand, stopping them. "This is family business. Wait for me out here."
She punched the security code into the keypad. The heavy gates clicked open.
As she walked into the grand foyer, her stomach churned. Aisha had completely gutted her mother's elegant decor, replacing it with gaudy, gold-plated monstrosities that screamed new money.
Aisha was sitting on the velvet sofa, sipping afternoon tea.
When she saw Elsie, a cruel, mocking sneer twisted her perfectly botoxed face.
She set her teacup down with a clatter. "Well, look who it is. The disgraced little slut actually has the nerve to show her face here."
Elsie's jaw clenched. She didn't look at her. She walked straight toward the spiral staircase leading to the second-floor study. She just needed the diary.
"Looking for this?"
Belle appeared at the top of the stairs, blocking the landing. She looked down at Elsie, her eyes shining with malicious triumph.
In Belle's hand was a worn, brown leather notebook. Her mother's diary.
Elsie's blood ran cold. She took a step up the stairs, her voice dropping to a lethal octave. "Give that back to me. Now."
The heavy oak doors of the study swung open.
Fenton walked out, a thick Cuban cigar clamped between his teeth. He waved a hand, and four massive estate security guards stepped out from the shadows, completely cutting off Elsie's path back to the front door.
Fenton walked to the edge of the landing, pulling the cigar from his mouth. The fake, loving uncle routine was entirely gone.
"Everything in this house belongs to the Barr family now, Elsie," Fenton sneered.
Elsie didn't back down. She stared straight into Fenton's cold eyes.
"I know about the brakes, Fenton," she spat, her voice trembling with rage. "I know you paid to have them killed."
Fenton's face instantly darkened. The smugness vanished, replaced by a flash of genuine, murderous intent. He hadn't expected the stupid girl to dig that deep.
He gave a sharp nod to the guards.
Two of the massive men lunged forward. They grabbed Elsie's arms, violently twisting them behind her back.
"Let go of me!" Elsie screamed, thrashing wildly. Her heels kicked against the hardwood floor, echoing through the house. "There are men waiting for me outside! If I don't walk out of here, you're dead!"
Fenton walked over to the window and peered out at the gates. He saw the two men in black suits.
He let out a dark chuckle and walked over to the wall panel, slamming his hand over the estate's electromagnetic jammer switch.
The signal bars on Elsie's phone instantly vanished.
Fenton marched down the stairs. He reached into Elsie's cashmere coat, ripped the phone from her pocket, and smashed it onto the marble floor, crushing it under his heel.
Aisha strutted forward. She grabbed Elsie's jaw, her long acrylic nails digging into Elsie's cheeks.
"Since you love opening your legs so much," Aisha hissed, "you can finally do something useful for this family. Did you really think you were still the untouchable heiress? You're lower than a streetwalker now. I could throw you into the darkest underground brothel in Brooklyn and no one would blink an eye."
Aisha leaned in, her breath smelling of bitter tea. "But you're in luck. A very exclusive client loved your little performance on that screen last night. Mortimer Graves is willing to pay fifty million for one night with you."
The name hit Elsie like a physical blow. Mortimer Graves. The Wall Street psycho known for hospitalizing the women he hired.
Bile rose in Elsie's throat. She gathered the saliva in her mouth and spat directly into Aisha's face. "You're all sick animals!"
Aisha shrieked. She wiped her face and backhanded Elsie with all her strength.
The sharp edge of her diamond ring sliced three bloody scratches across Elsie's pale cheek.
Fenton waved his hand in disgust. "Throw her in the storage room upstairs. The one without the windows."
The guards dragged Elsie up the stairs by her arms. Her knees slammed against the wooden steps, sending sharp spikes of pain up her legs, but she bit her tongue to keep from crying out.
They threw her like a ragdoll into the dark, dusty storage room.
The heavy solid wood door slammed shut in her face. The deadbolt clicked into place.
Elsie threw herself against the wood, pounding her fists until her knuckles bled. "Let me out! Help!"
But the soundproofed walls swallowed her screams whole.
Through the thick wood, she could faintly hear Aisha barking orders at the maids. "Get the car ready for tonight. And find the sluttiest dress we have to put her in."
Elsie stumbled backward into the pitch-black room.
She felt along the cold walls. No phone. No windows. The air vent near the ceiling was too small for a cat to fit through.
Her legs gave out. She slid down the wall, pulling her knees tightly to her chest. Her entire body shook uncontrollably as the sheer, suffocating terror of what was coming settled over her.
Outside the estate gates, the two bodyguards checked their watches. Ten minutes had passed without any sign of Miss Phillips.
Sensing something was wrong, the two men exchanged a vigilant look before one of them tapped his earpiece, his voice dropping to a low, urgent murmur. "Mr. Weston. We have a situation. The target has been out of sight for ten minutes, and the property just went dark on comms. Requesting immediate instructions."
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9.4
Six years ago, Breanna was shoved into a pitch-black hotel suite by her own uncle.
She was forced to endure a brutal night with a drugged stranger just to keep her grandmother's ventilator running.
Nine months later, she gave birth in a cold underground clinic.
But her uncle immediately snatched the crying newborn from her trembling hands, coldly announcing the baby had died.
For six years, Breanna lived in agonizing grief, working as a lowly hotel cleaner just to survive.
But a cruel setup threw her directly into the path of Elliot Finch, the arrogant billionaire from that dark night.
He did not recognize the woman whose life he had completely ruined.
Instead, he looked at her like she was rotting garbage, had his guards drag her into a wet alley, and mercilessly got her fired.
"If I ever see your face again, I will make sure you cannot get a job cleaning toilets."
Breanna was suffocating from the injustice, stripped of her dignity and her family's only lifeline.
Yet, when she instinctively protected a traumatized little boy from bullies, she discovered he was Elliot's son.
The boy clung to her neck, crying and desperately begging his father to let her stay.
But Elliot just threw a massive check at her chest, violently accusing her of brainwashing a sick child for a meal ticket.
Looking at the toxic disgust in his eyes, something inside Breanna finally broke.
She picked up the check, ripped the millions into tiny shreds, and let them rain down on his expensive shoes.
"Keep your dirty money."
She turned her back on the crying boy and the stunned billionaire, deciding she would no longer be their victim.
8.8
I was the despised adopted daughter of the Sanders family, hiding behind heavy gothic makeup and enduring their daily disgust.
The day my adoptive father died in a severe car crash, my adoptive mother and stepsister didn't even bother to call me.
Instead, while his body was still warm, my mother filed a multi-million dollar life insurance claim.
"I am not feeding a useless freak for another day. Pack your trash and get out."
She kicked me out into the freezing rain, but that wasn't the worst of it.
My stepsister Cornelia stole my greatest secret. Five years ago, I saved the life of Fidel Vaughan, a ruthless billionaire heir, from a burning estate.
Cornelia claimed my identity, accepted a million-dollar reward, and secured a marriage proposal from him, burning my only proof to ashes.
They thought I was just a helpless, pathetic high schooler they could discard and replace.
But when I hacked the police files, I discovered my father's crash wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit, and the Vaughan Group had hijacked the traffic cameras to cover it up.
I washed off the ugly black makeup, shedding the disguise of a pathetic outcast.
I am Spectre, the world's most elusive hacker and underground doctor.
I intercepted the billionaire heir's heavily armed convoy in the dead of night. They thought they could steal my life and murder my father, but now, I hold the needle that controls Fidel Vaughan's sanity, and I will make them all pay.
9.3
Candice Luna thought her marriage to Julius Hansen was a lifeline to save her father's struggling company.
She didn't know it was a death sentence until Julius coldly slid divorce papers across his mahogany desk.
His true love, Amina Rowe, was nestled in his arms with a triumphant, mocking smile. The "merger" Julius promised had been a brutal, hostile takeover designed to bleed the Luna Group dry from the inside. Bankrupted and utterly broken, Candice's father stepped off the roof of their corporate tower. Meanwhile, Candice was publicly humiliated, stripped of her dignity, and mocked by all of Wall Street as a discarded stepping stone.
She died in a car accident, her final moments consumed by an agonizing, feral scream. She hated herself for letting her blind devotion destroy the father who had always believed in her.
But when Candice opened her eyes to the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room, she realized she wasn't dead.
She was twenty-two again. Three years before the wedding. Three years before her father's suicide.
When Julius's assistant walked in holding a bouquet of blue roses to discuss the preliminary merger, he expected a docile, desperate heiress.
Instead, Candice grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and flung it directly into his smug face.
"Tell Julius Hansen to never, ever send his dogs to my door again."
This time, there would be no engagement. This time, the Hansen family would choke on her family's legacy.
7.6
Overnight, Ella lost her family, her home, and her entire life. Discarded by the foster system, she was left shivering in the freezing mud outside her ruined estate.
That was when Javier Shepherd appeared. The terrifyingly cold, powerful billionaire pulled her from the dirt, threw her into a massive glass penthouse, handed her an unlimited black card, and vanished overseas, leaving her in the hands of a cruel caretaker.
The caretaker treated Ella like garbage, feeding her cheap, processed meals while using the black card to buy designer bags. The toxic food triggered a severe allergic reaction. Ella collapsed in the dark hallway, her throat swelling shut, gasping for air while the caretaker locked the door and turned up the TV. She almost died on that cold hardwood floor.
When Javier found out, he ruthlessly destroyed the caretaker and sent her to prison. He guarded Ella's hospital bed with terrifying intensity and even moved into her apartment to stop her panic attacks. Yet, when Ella finally broke down crying over her dead parents, his eyes turned to ice.
"Losing emotional control over a juvenile past is an inefficient waste of energy."
He sneered, treating her grief like a bad financial investment. Ella was completely bewildered. Why did this dangerous man protect her so fiercely, yet hate her past so deeply?
It wasn't until his cousin visited the hospital that the cruel truth was revealed. Javier wasn't saving her out of kindness. He had been obsessed with Ella's mother—his family's adopted daughter who ran away years ago. To him, Ella wasn't a person to be loved. She was just a replacement asset, a ghost of the woman he never got over.
8.8
Sold for scraps.Saved by a monster. Destined to rule them all.
Faith is a "Dud", a wolfless orphan living in the shadows of the trenches. Treated as a servant by her own family, she hides a mind more brilliant than any Alpha's instinct. But in the process of winning a life-changing scholarship, she is betrayed. Drugged and sold to traffickers by her own aunt, Faith thought her life was over -until she falls from a third-story window and lands on the hood of a car that belongs to the most dangerous man in the country.
Killian Nightshade. Billionaire. Alpha of the Blackwood Pack. A man who rules with ice in his veins and power in his hands.
Killian doesn't do favors. He makes investments. He claims Faith as his "Personal Shadow" to work off the debt of his ruined car. But as he forces her into the shark-infested waters of the North Elite Academy, he finds himself breaking his own rule: Never get attached to the help.
While Faith battles ruthless bullies and the predatory interest of Killian's rival, Silas, a twenty-year-old secret begins to stir in her blood. She isn't just a Dud. She is a legend. And when the girl who was sold for scraps finally shifts, the entire werewolf world will have to decide: Will they bow to their new Queen, or be burned by her fire?
7.9
On our third wedding anniversary, my husband skipped our celebration to comfort his fragile adopted sister.
When I went to look for him in the middle of the night, I saw them intimately kissing in bed.
"She is a spoiled heiress who cannot live without me. Let her wait."
He scoffed to his sister, calling me a pathetic, clingy dog waiting for a scrap of attention.
For three years, I gave up my career as a top surgeon and managed his estate like a compliant housewife.
I swallowed my pride because my dying father desperately needed an experimental drug controlled by my husband's company.
But when my father accidentally overheard how my husband humiliated me, the guilt gave him a severe heart attack.
Waking up in the ICU, my father grabbed my hand and ordered me to divorce him.
When I finally handed my husband the divorce papers on the street, he flew into a violent rage.
"If you file these, I will cut off your father's medicine and leave you with nothing!"
He threatened me, thinking I would drop to my knees and beg for his mercy.
He didn't know that my personal trust fund was the only thing keeping his entire over-leveraged company from going bankrupt.
I smiled calmly and executed the secret clause to instantly withdraw my two hundred million dollars.
This time, I chose to burn his family's empire to the ground.