The Unwanted Husband Returns To The Top
For three years, Connor lived as a ghost. A crippled, useless Uber driver, enduring a self-imposed exile orchestrated by his dying grandfather's will to prove he was worthy of the Hoffman empire. He even married into the wealthy Barlowe family, becoming their favorite punching bag.
On the very last day of his test, his final Uber passengers slid into the backseat. It was his wife, Genevieve, and her wealthy lover.
They didn't recognize him behind his mask. Right there in his rearview mirror, they kissed hungrily, mocking her "pathetic loser" of a husband and plotting to dump him after her sister's wedding.
The next day at the wedding, they didn't just want a divorce. They wanted to publicly crucify him.
Her lover framed Connor as a violent, cheating degenerate. They rallied the city's elite, getting his Uber manager to publicly fire him and convincing the entire ballroom to blacklist him from every job, apartment, and business in Ninverton.
They even brought in an arrogant Vice President from the Hoffman Group to publicly declare Connor was a fraud, sealing his social execution.
Standing alone in that lobby, surrounded by the mocking laughter of the people who had trampled on his dignity for a thousand days, Connor felt the last shred of his patience burn away. They were so utterly, hopelessly blind.
Then, his encrypted phone rang.
"Mr. Wise, the test is officially over. You are now the Global CEO of the Hoffman Group."
Connor looked at his cheating wife and the arrogant elites laughing at his demise. He dropped the signed divorce papers on the table.
The game was over. The slaughter was about to begin.
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Chapter 4
Jett's voice was smooth as silk, dripping with the casual authority of a man used to getting his way.
"Gregory, my friend," he said into the phone, pacing in a quiet lounge off the main ballroom. "I've got a bit of a situation. A former driver is harassing my... my fiancée. A real piece of work. I need to know where he is."
On the other end of the line, Gregory Tanner, Uber's Ninverton regional manager, didn't hesitate. A favor for Jett Maddox, a key figure in the Donovan family's local ventures, was an investment.
"Of course, Jett. Not a problem," Gregory said, already typing on his keyboard. It was a gross violation of company policy, of privacy laws, but the rules didn't apply when dealing with men like Maddox.
A few clicks later, he had it. "He's at the Bluebird Cafe on Sixth Avenue. The vehicle is stationary."
"Excellent," Jett purred. He hung up and immediately forwarded the address to Brody Barlowe.
Go get him. Make a scene.
Brody's face lit up with a brutish grin. This was better than any wedding party. He grabbed a few of his sycophantic friends, guys who got off on the reflected glory of the Barlowe name.
"Let's go, boys," he snarled. "Time to take out the trash."
But just dragging Connor back wasn't enough. The humiliation had to be public. It had to be total.
Brody pulled out a second phone. He opened a streaming app, created a private, encrypted live feed, and sent the link to a group chat filled with the younger, more debauched wedding guests.
Live broadcast: Catching the Barlowe family shame. Get your popcorn ready!
At the Von Merri, dozens of phones lit up. Jett and Genevieve both clicked the link, their faces alight with cruel anticipation. They were about to watch Connor's world end, live and in high definition.
The roar of a Porsche engine filled the air as Brody and his crew sped through downtown. The livestream camera, held by one of his lackeys, was shaky.
"Alright, folks," Brody said to the camera, his voice a low growl. "See that piece-of-shit Toyota parked up ahead? Our boy is inside that cafe."
He and his friends piled out of their sports cars, a pack of hyenas closing in.
They burst into the Bluebird Cafe, their expensive suits and loud voices turning every head. The livestream focused on a figure sitting alone by the window.
Connor.
He hadn't moved. He'd watched them arrive, his expression placid.
Brody swaggered over to the table and kicked it hard. The coffee cup rattled, spilling dark liquid across the tabletop.
"Hey, loser," Brody sneered, playing to his audience. "You're coming with us."
Connor slowly lifted his head. There was no fear in his eyes. Only a calm, unnerving stillness. At the wedding, a ripple of laughter went through the guests watching the feed.
"Grandma Eleonora wants you back at the party," Brody continued, reaching out to grab Connor's collar. "To get on your knees and apologize."
Connor leaned back, a fluid, almost lazy movement that caused Brody's hand to grasp at empty air.
He stood up. He was taller than Brody, his frame lean but solid. Despite the slight favoring of his left leg, he seemed to fill the space, his presence suddenly immense.
"And if I don't want to go?" Connor's voice was quiet, yet it carried a weight that made the cafe fall silent.
Brody, enraged by the defiance, turned to the camera. "You all seeing this? The little cripple thinks he has a choice!"
He cracked his knuckles, a theatrical gesture of violence. "I guess we'll just have to break your other leg and drag you there."
At the hotel, Jett leaned closer to the screen, a predator's smile on his face. "Here we go," he whispered to Genevieve. "Showtime."
In the livestream, Brody's fist swung through the air, aimed directly at Connor's face.
The camera zoomed in.
The world held its breath.
And in Connor's eyes, a cold light flickered to life. The man who had endured for three years was gone. The king had returned.
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7.6
After an exhausting fourteen-hour flight, Katia returned to her Upper East Side penthouse, expecting the quiet comfort of the life she had built.
Instead, she found a pair of familiar red stilettos in the foyer and her fiancé, Caleb, tangled in their bedsheets with his twenty-two-year-old assistant.
She didn't scream or cry. She simply took off her three-carat engagement ring, threw it at his bare chest, and demanded he buy out her half of the penthouse by Friday.
Seeking to numb the sickening disgust, she got blackout drunk and crashed at a luxury hotel, accidentally stumbling into the wrong suite.
Thinking the imposing man inside was a high-end escort hired by her friend, she threw him over her shoulder and spent a wild night with him.
The next morning, she left five thousand dollars on his nightstand with a lipstick-stained note.
"Good Job."
For six years, she had funded Caleb's dreams and built his startup from the ground up, only to be treated like a lifeless ATM.
With ruthless precision, she spent the next two months systematically bankrupting his company, cutting off his venture capital, and erasing his life's work.
She felt no heartbreak, only a cold, calculating need to cleanse herself of his betrayal.
But when Katia finally returned to corporate headquarters to co-lead a massive merger, she literally crashed into the new Vice President.
Strong arms caught her waist, and the sharp scent of cedarwood and whiskey hit her like a freight train.
"You came back," Jackson whispered, his eyes burning as he stared at the woman who had treated him like a cheap gigolo.
8.0
Abigayle was the proud heir to the Pena Group, living a perfect life and engaged to Jeffery Sullivan.
But the morning after a charity gala, she woke up drugged in a hotel room, blinded by paparazzi cameras. Her fiancé and her best friend stood at the foot of the bed, throwing a forged pregnancy report at her face to publicly frame her for cheating.
The betrayal was only the beginning of the slaughter. Before she could even clear her name, the Sullivan family ruthlessly bankrupted her family's company overnight. Her father was rushed to the ICU with a heart attack, her brother was run off the road into a coma, and violent repo men raided her penthouse. Just as she was thrown out into the freezing rain, Jeffery's terrifying uncle, Donovan Sullivan—the very mastermind who engineered her family's ruin—stepped in. He offered to cover the life-saving medical bills, but only if she agreed to become his personal plaything.
Abigayle's blood turned to ice. She couldn't understand how the people she trusted most could plot such a vicious, coordinated destruction just to break an engagement. How dared the man who destroyed her entire family stand there playing the savior, trying to buy her body with her own stolen wealth?
Facing a $100,000 hospital deadline and abandoned by everyone she knew, she didn't shed another tear.
"I will never beg him."
Clutching her last diamond bracelet, she hailed a cab straight to the biggest pawnshop in the Diamond District. The Sullivans thought they had buried her, but her counterattack was just beginning.
9.3
Chandler was the secret wife of Avery Osborn, a powerful media heir who kept their marriage hidden to avoid the scandal of her illegitimate birth.
After catching him openly flirting with a rival at a gala, Avery mocked her low status and told her she was nothing without his money.
Instead of crying, Chandler immediately signed a zero-payout divorce agreement, left her wedding ring on his glass table, and walked out.
To numb the pain of her shattered life, she went to a notorious underground club.
Drugged by a bartender, she lost her mind and ended up having a wild night with a handsome stranger she mistook for a high-end male escort.
Panicking the next morning, Chandler transferred her entire life savings of $50,000 to the man to buy his silence, then fled to her corporate job.
But at the afternoon executive meeting, her blood ran cold.
The man she had paid off was standing at the head of the boardroom table. He wasn't a gigolo. He was Brennan George, the ruthless new COO of her company.
Cornering her in the women's restroom, Brennan held up a printed copy of her $50,000 wire transfer.
"Wiring a massive sum of cash to your direct superior after a night together is classified as commercial bribery and solicitation," he whispered dangerously.
Chandler was terrified, realizing she had handed him the exact evidence needed to destroy her career and sue her into bankruptcy.
"Marry me," Brennan demanded coldly. "It's the only way to make this HR problem disappear."
7.9
Justice was dragged back from the slums by her biological father, only to be sold off to the billionaire Aguirre family. Her purpose was simple: marry their comatose heir to secure a three-hundred-million-dollar lifeline for his company.
Her stepmother and stepsister sneered at her cheap canvas shoes, treating her like a contagious disease.
"A high school dropout from the slums marrying a billionaire? It's a miracle your trashy bloodline is getting anywhere near the estate," her stepsister Emery mocked.
At the sprawling estate, the "comatose" heir, Auguste, was secretly conscious. Disgusted by his new bride, he orchestrated her enrollment at an elite prep school, hoping the ruthless rich kids would break her. On her very first day, Emery ambushed her, loudly broadcasting Justice's "dropout" status to the entire classroom and turning her into an instant social pariah. The teachers tried to humiliate her with impossible calculus, and the students treated her like garbage.
They all thought she was just a pathetic, uneducated pawn they could easily crush and discard. They had no idea that her "dropout" file was a manufactured ghost, or that the Aguirre family's top intelligence network had just hit a military-grade firewall trying to look into her past.
Justice didn't panic. She flawlessly solved the university-level equation on the board, then walked into the cafeteria and looked right at Emery.
"She has no Barnes blood. She is a squatter living in my father's house."
With three casual sentences, Justice completely incinerated her stepsister's elite life. The billionaire heir wanted to play games? She was about to show them all what a real monster looked like.
7.6
I am the illegitimate, mute daughter of the wealthy Owen family, kept hidden in the attic like a shameful secret.
To save his failing company, my father decided to sell me off to a repulsive, predatory investor named Grossman.
At the family dinner, Grossman's sweaty hands roamed my bare legs while my half-sister Kaleigh intentionally spilled red wine on my dress, laughing as she watched me suffer.
When I grabbed a steak knife to defend myself, my father slammed his fist on the table.
"Sit down, or I will cut off the maintenance payments for your mother's grave."
My stepmother and sister sneered, treating me like a piece of meat meant to be sacrificed for their luxury. I was starved, locked away, and treated worse than a stray dog, all while my family paraded their high-society status to the world.
I couldn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or who really ordered the hit that killed my mother twenty years ago. The police reports were buried, and I was entirely powerless, trapped in a house of monsters.
But they didn't know that the night before, I had accidentally stumbled into the secret life of Burleigh Livingston—the ruthless, supposedly paralyzed billionaire who was faking his madness.
When Burleigh suddenly crashed our family dinner and threw a limitless Black Card on the table to outbid Grossman and buy me for the night, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, accepted his twisted deal, and prepared to use the devil himself to tear my family apart.
8.6
To save my father's failing workshop from ruthless loan sharks, I sold one year of my life.
I signed a fake marriage contract with Cameron Fox, an icy billionaire who needed a wife to pacify his sick grandmother. The rules were strict: it was purely a commercial transaction, with absolutely no physical contact and no emotional attachments.
Soon after, that cold hearted man seemed different to me. Wait, is he pursuing me?