The Scapegoat's Return: Watch Me Shine Now
I was the adopted daughter of the wealthy Reese family, living quietly in the shadow of their biological daughter, Asha.
After a charity gala, a drunk Asha insisted on driving her sports car, only to strike a pedestrian on a dark, wet road.
Before I could even call 911, my boyfriend Collins and the family lawyer arrived to control the scene. My adoptive father put a heavy hand on my shoulder, begging me to take the fall so their true bloodline wouldn't have a criminal record.
"I'll wait for you, Crys. I promise I'll take care of everything."
Collins whispered those words and squeezed my hand. I foolishly agreed, but in court, Collins personally submitted a fabricated statement detailing my history of severe binge drinking. The high-priced lawyer offered no defense, and I was sentenced to three years in a federal prison, completely abandoned by the family I loved.
For 1,095 days behind razor wire, I suffered the ultimate betrayal. They hadn't made a mistake; they had intentionally fed me to the wolves as a disposable sacrifice to keep their precious princess safe. I couldn't understand how the man I loved could destroy me without a single ounce of hesitation.
Upon my release, I fled to a new city with just twenty-seven dollars, deciding that surviving and living well would be my revenge. I finally found a safe haven working at a small diner. But as I drove my delivery truck downtown today, I locked eyes with Collins's best friend through the window of a luxury Bentley. The billionaires who ruined my life have found me, and the storm they tried to bury has officially arrived.
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Chapter 4
The interior of the Ford pickup smelled exactly as Crysta remembered. Cinnamon and baked flour.
Margo drove them away from the grocery store. She did not take Crysta back to the motel. She pulled into the parking lot of a discount department store.
"Come on," Margo said, turning off the engine.
"Where are we going?" Crysta asked, her hands gripping the straps of her cheap backpack. It held everything she owned.
"You cannot serve food in those clothes," Margo said. "You look like you are going to a funeral."
Inside the store, Margo grabbed two black polo shirts and two pairs of sturdy, dark denim jeans. She threw in a pack of white socks and a pair of non-slip black shoes.
Crysta stood at the register, her heart racing. "I cannot pay for this. I only have four dollars."
Margo pulled a credit card from her wallet. "I am taking it out of your first paycheck. You work for me now. My staff looks clean."
The words hit Crysta hard. My staff. She belonged somewhere. The tight knot in her stomach loosened slightly.
Ten minutes later, Margo parked the truck behind a brick building on Main Street. A faded wooden sign above the back door read: MARGO'S PLACE.
Margo pushed the door open. The blast of heat from the kitchen hit Crysta's face. It smelled of frying bacon and strong coffee.
A young man stood at the prep station, aggressively chopping onions. It was Leo.
Leo looked up. The knife stopped mid-air. His jaw clenched so hard the muscle ticked under his skin. He immediately crossed his arms tightly over his chest.
"Mom. What is she doing here?" Leo's voice was low and dangerous.
Margo walked past him, setting the grocery bags on a stainless steel counter. "She is our new waitress. Start showing her where the plates are."
Leo grabbed his mother's arm and pulled her into the dry storage pantry. The door swung shut, but it was thin.
Crysta stood frozen by the deep fryer. Her thumb found her left wrist, rubbing the skin furiously.
"Are you out of your mind?" Leo hissed through the door. "She is a felon! You picked her up outside that place!"
"She is a girl who needs a job, Leo," Margo shot back.
"She could be a thief! She could be violent! We cannot have an ex-con around the cash register!"
Crysta closed her eyes. The words felt like physical slaps. He was right. From the outside, she was a massive risk.
The pantry door flew open. Margo walked out, her face flushed. Leo followed, his arms still crossed, his eyes glaring daggers at Crysta.
"Ignore him," Margo said, wiping her hands on her apron. "Follow me."
Margo led Crysta out of the kitchen and up a narrow, creaking wooden staircase. They reached a small landing with a single door. Margo unlocked it.
It was an attic room. The ceiling slanted downward. There was a twin bed with a faded quilt, a small dresser, and a window overlooking the alley. It was tiny, but it was spotless.
"This was Ricky's room," Margo said quietly. She ran her hand over the back of the wooden chair. "You can stay here. No rent. Just do your job."
Crysta's knees went weak. She grabbed the doorframe to keep from falling. A job. Clothes. A safe room with a lock.
"I..." Crysta's voice broke. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I will not let you down."
"I know," Margo said. "Change your clothes. You start in twenty minutes."
When Crysta walked downstairs in her new black polo and jeans, the lunch rush had begun. The diner was loud. Plates clattered. People talked over each other.
Leo shoved a laminated menu into her chest. "Memorize it. Do not mess up the orders."
Crysta took the menu. "I won't."
For the next four hours, Crysta did not stop moving. Her feet throbbed in the stiff new shoes. Sweat dripped down her neck. She carried heavy trays, wiped down sticky tables, and poured endless cups of coffee.
Every time she walked past the kitchen window, she felt Leo's eyes on her. He watched her hands. He watched her pockets.
She ignored him. She focused on the physical labor. The exhaustion was a blessing. It silenced the memories in her head.
At 3:00 PM, the diner emptied out. Margo flipped the sign on the front door to CLOSED.
Crysta leaned against the counter, her legs trembling from fatigue.
Margo walked out of the kitchen holding a heavy ceramic plate. She set it down in front of Crysta. It was a massive pile of spaghetti covered in rich meat sauce, with two slices of garlic bread.
"Staff meal," Margo said. "Eat."
Crysta stared at the food. Steam rose from the pasta. Her mouth watered so violently it hurt her jaw.
She picked up the fork. Her hand shook. She took the first bite. The hot, rich flavor exploded on her tongue. It was the best thing she had ever tasted.
Leo stood at the end of the counter, wiping down the espresso machine. He watched her eat. He didn't say a word, but his arms were no longer crossed.
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7.8
Alayna was working a grueling catering shift in worn-out heels to support her broke college boyfriend, Caiden, who claimed to be studying at the library.
But through the crack of a VIP suite door, she saw him wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch, sipping expensive liquor.
"It's a little poverty role-play. Keeps things interesting."
He was laughing with his rich friends, mocking her as his clueless "charity case."
To make matters worse, she was forced into a humiliating mascot costume just in time to watch him passionately kiss his wealthy ex-girlfriend.
That same night, Alayna's mother collapsed with gastric cancer, requiring a half-million-dollar surgery.
When a desperate Alayna begged Caiden for help, he refused.
"Why don't you just apply for Medicaid? That's the path for people like you."
For two years, she had starved herself to buy his textbooks, his tickets, and his shoes.
He had stolen her sweat and her sacrifices, all for a cruel game.
The sheer audacity of his betrayal made her blood run cold.
When a billionaire stranger stepped in to pay her mother's medical bills in exchange for a one-year fake marriage, Alayna didn't hesitate to sign the contract.
She slipped the flawless diamond ring onto her finger, opened a spreadsheet, and sent Caiden an invoice for every single cent.
This time, she was going to dismantle his entire life.
7.2
Azura Briggs was just a broke college student working freezing valet shifts to pay her adoptive mother's crushing medical debt.
Her desperate life shattered the night a bulletproof Maybach violently cornered her in an alley, and a ruthless billionaire kidnapped her by mistake.
After a harrowing escape, Azura was forced to take a humiliating "plus-one" gig at a high-end gala just to survive. But her date turned out to be the billionaire's arrogant nephew, who promptly abandoned her to the wolves. Cornered by a sleazy executive and his psychotic wife, Azura was publicly slapped, her dress torn, and left bleeding on the floor while hundreds of elites watched in disgust.
Just as she prepared to fight to the death, the crowd violently parted. Hunter Mcintosh, the terrifying man who had kidnapped her days ago, dropped to his knees in the broken glass and wrapped his bespoke jacket around her trembling shoulders.
Azura was completely paralyzed. Why was the monster who threatened her life now destroying billionaires just to protect her?
But the illusion of safety didn't last. Trapped in his Maybach hours later, Hunter threw a draconian employment contract at her feet.
"Sign it, and her care is covered. Forever."
He knew exactly how to break her. He was offering to pay off her mother's debt, but only if she signed her life away to become his personal assistant. With no other way out, Azura picked up the heavy pen.
8.5
Alexandrea woke up with a splitting headache in a strange hotel bed, terrified to find a brutally handsome, half-naked stranger beside her.
Before she could even scream, the door burst open. Her adoptive mother, Ivette, stormed in with a swarm of reporters and flashing cameras.
"How could you disgrace our family name like this?"
Ivette sobbed, putting on a theatrical performance of a heartbroken mother. It was a setup to completely ruin Alexandrea's reputation in front of New York's elite.
For ten years, Alexandrea had lived in a house of horrors. Her back and arms were covered in silvery scars and puckered cigarette burns left by Ivette's vicious abuse.
Yet to the public, Ivette had carefully crafted Alexandrea's image as a wild, ungrateful, and manipulative liar.
Trapped under the duvet, Alexandrea was drowning in shame, her voice lost in the storm of accusations.
She didn't understand why her adoptive family hated her so much, treating her worse than a stray dog while using her brother's future to keep her chained.
But what she understood even less was the stranger beside her.
Instead of panicking, the man slowly sat up, his presence alone silencing the frantic room. He was Ace Griffith, the billionaire heir who owned half of Manhattan.
He wrapped his suit jacket around her trembling shoulders, looked Ivette dead in the eye, and dropped a bomb.
"I will be marrying her."
Then, he carried Alexandrea away from her ten-year prison, ordering his men to dig up the Terry family's darkest secrets and her true identity.
8.2
My ex-boyfriend of three years, Axel, married a perfect wealthy heiress.
I attended his wedding, not to mourn our relationship, but because he had spent the last three years bleeding me dry.
He left me with absolutely nothing but a final notice from the hospital for my dying brother's life support.
Instead of feeling guilty, Axel cornered me in the church hallway, crushing my wrist.
"I'll set you up with an apartment. You won't have to work another day in your life."
He thought he could buy my silence with spare change, while leaving my seventeen-year-old brother, Julian, to die when his treatments were cut off the very next day.
When I refused to be his dirty little secret, Axel used his power to utterly destroy my acting career.
He had my talent agency terminate my contract under a fake morals clause, publicly humiliated me on set, and blacklisted me across the entire industry.
I was shoved out into the freezing rain, left with a torn dress and absolutely no way to pay the five hundred thousand dollar medical bill.
He actually believed he could step on my brother's dying body to build his own fake empire.
He thought I was just a weak, pathetic victim who would eventually crawl back to him on my knees.
But he forgot about the one monster he was absolutely terrified of: his legitimate, ruthless billionaire half-brother, Jace Bauer.
Looking at the three positive pregnancy tests hidden in my drawer, I stepped right in front of Jace's armored Maybach.
"Marry me, and I'll give you the heir you need to secure your empire."
7.9
Fiona spent three years in a concrete cell, taking the fall for a hit-and-run accident caused by her billionaire husband's mistress.
When she finally got out and returned home, she found him throwing a lavish party, with the mistress on his arm wearing a gown Fiona had designed. Even worse, her own seven-year-old son pointed at her in disgust.
"Go away, bad woman!"
Her husband Cecil threw her out like a stray dog. To force her into submission, he trashed her belongings and cut off the life-saving medical funding for her mentor. Driven to desperation, Fiona snuck back into the mansion to retrieve her late mother's sapphire necklace. But the mistress caught her, ripped her own clothes, and screamed that Fiona was trying to kill her. Cecil didn't even hesitate. He violently shoved Fiona backward. Her head smashed against the sharp edge of a mahogany desk, and blood immediately poured into her eyes.
Lying in a pool of her own blood, Fiona watched the man she had sacrificed her freedom for wrap his arms protectively around the woman who ruined her life. He looked at her with pure, murderous disgust, as if she were the monster.
But Fiona didn't cry. Instead, a cold smile crept onto her face as her bloody thumb secretly pressed the emergency SOS button on her phone, snapping a clear photo of him standing over her shattered body.
"My husband just violently attacked me. I am bleeding from the head. I need help."
The police were already on their way. It was time to burn his empire to the ground.
7.5
Julianna was drowning in a corporate warzone, fighting a massive department deficit while fending off her mother’s relentless matchmaking.
Then, a ghost from her past returned to shatter her reality.
Eight years ago, Aidan Caldwell walked out of her life without a word. Now, he was back in New York as a ruthless billionaire, and a pitch-black Maybach started stalking her in the dim underground garage.
She had no idea the driver hiding behind the obsidian-tinted glass was Aidan.
She didn't know he had just choked a confession out of an executive, discovering that her "betrayal" eight years ago was a complete lie.
"Stay away from her. The rules are mine now."
Aidan had warned his rivals, his sanity tearing at the seams as he watched from the shadows while a creepy coworker put an arm around her shoulder.
He shattered glasses and crushed her favorite white flowers in his penthouse, driven by a lethal, obsessive jealousy seeing other men touch what belonged to him.
Julianna was completely in the dark, feeling only a heavy, predatory stare pinning her to the cold concrete.
When a sudden, heartbreaking scent of cedarwood rolled out of the cracked car window, her brain short-circuited.
Why was this terrifying stranger stalking her in the shadows?
Desperate to save her career, Julianna recklessly agreed to fake an engagement with a wealthy heir this weekend.
But she had no idea Aidan had already rigged her company's crisis, and the predator was about to tear her world apart to claim her back.