Mo Xiaoxiao

For four years, I played the perfect, naive, low-income wife to my wealthy husband Duke, completely hiding my true identity as a top-secret DARPA scientist. On our anniversary, I discovered he was having an affair with an old-money socialite named Adelia. He used our marital assets to buy her a half-million-dollar Birkin bag, but that wasn't the worst part. While hiding in a parking garage, I recorded him telling his mistress that the daily prenatal vitamins he lovingly gave me were actually high-dose contraceptives. He had secretly sterilized me to ensure I would never produce a "low-class" heir, planning to toss me aside with a tiny settlement in six months. When I confronted him, he violently attacked me, smashed my head against a marble dresser, and locked me in our bedroom. I thought of the four years I spent crying in doctors' offices, blaming my own body for my infertility, while he held my hand and comforted me with perfect, monstrous concern. I didn't wait to be punished. I climbed down the second-story balcony in the dark, leaving behind every diamond and luxury bag he had ever given me. Sitting in the back of a taxi, I wiped the blood from my forehead and opened a secure app on my phone. "Divorce fraud. Initiate sequence." It was time for him to finally meet Dr. Patterson.

The fire that melted my skin should have been the end of my story. I had been the perfect mafia wife. I obeyed my father, I married Dante Genovese, and I even birthed his daughter. But in return, he locked us in a safehouse and lit a match. He watched from behind a steel door as I burned to ash, all because his mistress, Sofia, was jealous and wanted me out of the picture. My own brother had spiked my champagne to ensure I was too weak to fight back. I died screaming, my lungs filling with smoke and the scent of my husband's betrayal. But when I gasped awake, I wasn't in hell. I was in the bridal suite at the Ritz-Carlton. My hands were smooth. My skin was unblemished. The date on the digital clock burned red in the darkness. It was three years ago. It was the night of our engagement. The night it all began. Dante was in the bathroom right now, humming contentedly as he washed off the scent of his mistress before coming to claim his "lawful prize." In my past life, I waited for him. I let him take me, thinking my submission would earn his love. Not this time. I didn't run to the lobby for help. My family had sold me out. Instead, I took the elevator to the Penthouse floor. To the territory of the Outfit. To the door of Matteo Moretti—The Butcher. The only man ruthless enough to make Dante tremble. When the door opened, revealing a man with eyes like ice and a gun in his hand, I didn't flinch. I fell to my knees and looked up at the monster who could save me. "I am Elena Vitiello," I whispered, the drug in my veins setting my blood on fire. "And I have a proposition."

I was the "crazy girl" my family sent to a survivalist commune in Utah to rot. Four years later, I returned to Manhattan with a titanium USB drive and a heart full of ice, ready to blackmail the one man who could burn my family to the ground. But I underestimated how much they hated me. My fiancé, Preston, was already laundering money through my inheritance and sleeping with my replacement. He didn't even flinch when I showed him the evidence of his crimes. Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders, smashed my phone, and shoved me out of his moving Lincoln into a midnight storm. I hit the wet pavement hard, my knees scraping against the asphalt as I watched him drive away, laughing about how I was a "dirt-poor exile" that nobody wanted. Within minutes, my credit cards were flagged as stolen and my father’s lawyers were drafting a statement calling me mentally unstable. I was left shivering in a puddle of oily sludge, wearing a ruined Chanel suit, with no money, no home, and no one to hear me scream. I couldn't understand how they could be so cruel. I was their flesh and blood, yet they treated me like a broken toy to be discarded in the trash. I was a "distressed asset" in a city that only valued gold. That’s when a black armored SUV pulled to the curb. King Wagner—the ruthless shark of Wall Street and Preston’s own uncle—looked at my muddy face with cold, calculating eyes. He didn't offer me pity; he offered me a leash. "You belong to me now," he whispered, pulling me into the dry warmth of his car. By the next morning, he had announced our engagement to the world, turning me into the very weapon that would slit my family's throat.

For three years, I played second fiddle to my boyfriend' s "childhood friend," Eve. When Damion finally whisked me away to Paris to rekindle our dying spark, I thought things might change. Instead, the moment we arrived, he abandoned me in the hotel lobby without my passport because Eve called with a "crisis." I spent my first night in Paris stranded and penniless while he rushed to comfort her. When he finally returned the next morning, he didn't apologize. He flew into a rage because I' d sought safety in an old college friend' s room, accusing me of cheating while he still smelled like her cheap perfume. He actually punched the only man who helped me, screaming that I was the toxic one. The gaslighting was the final straw. I didn't feel anger anymore, just a cold, liberating indifference. While he begged on his knees, quitting his job and promising to cut Eve off forever, I simply walked away. I boarded a plane to London for a promotion I' d once turned down for him, leaving him with nothing but his regrets and the "friend" he chose over me.

My husband made me ride in the freezing cargo hold because his mistress wanted peace and quiet. I died back there, clutching the "vitamins" she gave me, while they laughed in the front seat. It wasn't until my frozen body was found that Atlas realized he had just killed his own wife and unborn child. Ten years ago, I saved Atlas from a car crash that left me with the mind of a child. He hated me for it. He treated me like a burden and let his mistress, Kacie, feed me high-dose abortion pills disguised as health supplements. When the police uncovered the truth, Atlas' s world shattered. He discovered Kacie had never been pregnant-but I was. Consumed by a belated, violent rage, he executed Kacie with his own hands and demanded the death penalty for himself. He thought death would be his redemption. He thought he could find me on the other side and make amends. But when his spirit finally reached out to mine, begging for forgiveness, I didn't feel the love I had yearned for in life. I felt nothing. "Go away, Atlas," I whispered, watching his soul crumble. "I'm finally free."

My boss shoved me into a room to handle a VIP patient who was threatening suicide. She was Evelin Bennett, a famous fashion influencer, hysterical over her fiancé. But when she tearfully showed me a photo of the man she loved, my world shattered. It was my husband of two years, Ben, a kind construction worker I'd found after an accident left him with amnesia. Except in this photo, he was Bernard Logan, a ruthless tycoon standing in front of a skyscraper bearing his name. Just then, the real Bernard Logan walked in, dressed in a suit that cost more than my car. He strode past me as if I didn't exist and wrapped his arms around Evelin. "Baby, I'm here," he murmured, his voice the same deep, soothing tone he used on me after a bad day. "I'll never leave you again. I promise." He had made that exact promise to me a hundred times over. He kissed her forehead, declaring he loved only her-a performance for an audience of one: me. He was showing me that our entire marriage, our life together during his amnesia, was a secret to be buried. As he carried her from the room, his cold eyes met mine one last time. The message was clear: You are a problem to be erased.

For six years, I devoted my life to my wife, tech CEO Isabella Stone. After I saved her from a fire, I became the sole caregiver for her comatose mother, putting my own life on hold so she could build her empire. Then she went on national television and told the world our marriage was just a debt of gratitude. She never loved me. That same night, her mother died. I tried to call her, but her ex-fiancé—the man who abandoned her in that fire—answered the phone. She was with him, pregnant with his child, while her mother died alone in a hospital. At the funeral, she collapsed and lost the baby. Her lover screamed that it was my fault, and she stood by his side, letting him blame me. I divorced her. I thought it was over. But as we left the lawyer's office, her lover tried to run me over. Isabella pushed me out of the way, taking the hit herself. With her last breath, she confessed the truth. "The baby... he was yours, Izzy. He was always yours."

The hospital corridor smelled of disinfectant, quiet except for my wife Sarah's voice through the door. She' d claimed amnesia after a car accident, unable to remember me, her husband of five years. But what I heard next wasn't confusion. "It' s just for seven days. Then I'll say my memory came back. He can't blame a 'sick' person, right?" Mark Davis, a junior developer at our company, responded, "Aren't you worried he'll just cut you off? Financially, I mean." Sarah laughed, a chilling sound. "David? He loves me too much. He'll feel guilty and give me anything I want. This is the only way to get him to step down so you can take over the Alpha Corp project. Once you're in charge, everything will be ours." My world shattered. The woman was a stranger. The next day, Sarah, with a fake bandage, announced Mark as acting CTO, thrusting a temporary leave form at me. Everyone watched, expecting an explosion. They knew I co-founded the company, built its technical foundation from scratch. I signed the papers without a word. "Okay," I said, my voice even, leaving Sarah bewildered. Did they truly believe I was blind to their scheme? She had no idea. The Alpha Corp project, her intended prize for Mark, had a one-hundred-million-dollar penalty for failure. A seven-day time bomb she had just armed herself. This wasn't merely her plan anymore; it was mine too.

My brother, Ethan, was my whole world, the only light in a home cloaked in shadows, a world where my stepsister, Chloe, reigned supreme, pulling the strings of my father and the man I loved, Dr. Liam Miller. The call came on a Tuesday, pulling me from my mother' s art gallery, and dragging me into a family meeting that would shatter what little peace I had left. Chloe, with a chilling smile, revealed her plan: to marry me off to Noah Blackwood, a reclusive billionaire rumored to be monstrously disfigured, all to settle her own failed engagement and save my father' s crumbling finances. My world crumbled further when I realized Liam, my childhood friend, the man I had painted a thousand times in my dreams, sided with them, his eyes cold and judgmental, dismissing my pleas as "selfish." Then, with a terrifying suddenness, Ethan collapsed, his small body going limp in my arms; a horrifying consequence of an overdose of his heart medication that Chloe had orchestrated, and Liam, ever so blind, had enabled. My rage wasn't just cold anymore; it was a consuming fire, burning away years of fear and submission, leaving me with one clear thought: if I was to be a pawn, I would play this game to win, not just for Ethan' s life, but for my own freedom. I would marry Noah Blackwood, but not as their sacrifice; I would use his power to burn their world to the ground and finally claim justice.

The last thing I remembered was the bitter taste of the tea my daughter, Stella, had made for me. I died slowly, my body betraying me while my mind screamed, alone in a secluded D.C. apartment. Stella, the brilliant Yale graduate, the political commentator I had molded into a star, watched. Just a day before, her viral video had already shredded my reputation, painting me as a monster. The poison she gave me simply finished the job. Dying by the hand of your own child, the one you sacrificed everything for, is a special kind of hell. There was no confusion, only a chilling clarity as my life drained away, her cold, detached eyes the last thing I saw. How could the daughter I pushed to greatness pay me back with death and public humiliation? Was this truly the end of everything? Then, with a gasp, I woke up. The familiar smell of old wood and fried onions filled my lungs. My hands, strong and calloused, not the useless claws of my deathbed. And there she was: a seventeen-year-old Stella, rebellious and sharp, clutching that art school acceptance letter. I knew this moment. This was where the fatal battle of my first life began, the path leading directly to my murder. This time, everything would be different.

My marriage to Seraphina had rules: five years of waiting for full moons and "energetic alignment." During a raging wildfire, I found my wife, Seraphina, intimately huddled with another man, Julian, and a young boy, Leo, looking like a blissful family. She didn't care I'd discovered her betrayal; she just told me I was 'upsetting the harmony' and kicked me out of my own home. She even refused my divorce, claiming it would 'disrupt her karmic path' and then abandoned me bleeding in a cafe after I was injured saving her, to coddle a child who wasn't even hers. Was my love and sacrifice truly so worthless, so easily discarded for a life built on her curated lies and calculated manipulations? But then I saw the pictures and videos of her secret life, the raw, unhinged laughter broke free-the man who loved Seraphina was dead, and a new, free me was finally born.

Ten years with Ethan, my high school sweetheart, culminated in the diamond ring I' d always dreamed of. My engagement party buzzed with excitement, a celebration of our perfect love story. But the dream shattered when Ethan violently shoved me at the party, his voice ice-cold. Then, a scene I' ll never erase: Ethan, on our marital bed, with Chloe-my old friend, now my bitter enemy. And the chilling truth: his proposal wasn't for me at all. The ring I wore bore Chloe' s initials. Our apartment, my future, everything, was meticulously designed for her, a cruel charade. He ripped down our photos, denied my pain, and then, he slapped me, demanding I apologize to the very person destroying my world. My own parents, my mentors, had even distanced themselves, thanks to Chloe's past manipulations-all known to Ethan. I was a pawn, a placeholder in their twisted game of revenge and manipulation. How could the man who promised to love and protect me conspire with the woman who stole my art scholarship, the woman he knew was my deepest wound, to orchestrate such a public humiliation? But no more. On the very day he planned to discard me at the altar, I decided to reclaim my story. I canceled the wedding, booked a flight overseas, and exposed their entire deceitful plot to his horrified family. This wasn't an ending; it was my defiant beginning.

The sterile scent of rubbing alcohol was too familiar. For five years, I'd been pregnant with Ethan Vanderbilt’s child, only to lose them, each time beneath the gaze of his wife. This time, Olivia, his wife, stood over me, a cruel smile pasted on her face, a gleaming needle in her hand. Ethan watched from the doorway, just like always. After the screams and excruciating pain, I lost not only my baby but also my ability to ever have children again following a forced hysterectomy. The news broke my father, who leaped to his death because he couldn't bear my torment. At his funeral, Olivia forced me to my knees, then kicked me relentlessly until my surgical wounds burst, leaving me bleeding uncontrollably. She even took photos of my battered body, laughing as she suggested I sell myself to pay for his burial. Then, she deliberately scattered his ashes into the mud. How could Ethan, the man I once loved, stand by and watch me endure such depravity? Why was I trapped in this living hell, systematically tortured, robbed of my children, my body, and now my father, all based on some horrifying, unknown lie? As Olivia rained blows upon my head in the pouring rain, her hateful laughter echoing, I fumbled for my phone. There was one person who knew the true story behind Olivia’s venom, the real reason for her twisted revenge. With my last breath, I pressed record.

The story started on their first encounter. Something inside her urged Vanessa to offer him herself so that he could have a child. A beautiful story began but was cut short when she left right after a little girl was born. Four years later, he again found her in front of his eyes. But she was horrified when the little girl thought the diapers she had brought were a gift "I couldn't tell her that her mother abandoned her!" He explained. He would rather lie to his daughter than let her be disappointed in her mother. After all, he had always been sure that she would return one day!

I went to the City Clerk’s office for a routine copy of my marriage license to finalize a trust fund audit. I expected a simple piece of paper, but the clerk’s pitying look told me my entire life was a lie. "The license was never finalized, Ms. Oliver. In the eyes of the state, you are single." The three-hundred-guest wedding at the Plaza and the Vogue features meant nothing. My husband, Gray Cooley, had intentionally filed the documents with a "procedural defect" so he could discard me without a legal divorce. Moments later, an iCloud invite titled "Our Little Secret" popped up on my screen. It was a photo of my best friend, Brylee, holding a positive pregnancy test at our Hamptons estate. Gray’s text to her was the final blow: "Happy anniversary, babe. This baby is the best gift. Once the trust unlocks today, we’re done with the charade." I soon discovered they were even stealing my career, reassigning my architectural masterpiece to Brylee while preparing my eviction notice. Gray's mother called me a "barren mule" in a leaked recording, mocking the infertility I suffered after saving Gray’s life in a construction accident. I wasn't a wife; I was a three-year placeholder used to secure his inheritance. How could the man I bled for treat me like a disposable prop? How could my best friend carry his child while pretending to comfort me through my darkest moments? The betrayal burned until it turned into a cold, hard stone of fury. I didn't cry. Instead, I walked into the penthouse of the Barretts, the Cooleys' most powerful rivals. I signed a marriage contract with Kane Barrett, the man the tabloids called the "Beast of Wall Street." "I want a wedding," I told his father, my voice steady and lethal. "Bigger than the one I had with Gray." If they wanted me gone, they would have to watch me become the woman who owns their world.

My five-year-old daughter was dying in the ICU, her heartbeat replaced by the continuous, electronic scream of a flatline. I gripped her cold hand, my throat sealed shut by a terror so absolute I couldn't even cry out. I dialed my husband Grayson's private number, the one reserved only for me and his assistants. He declined the call instantly. A second later, a text buzzed against my palm: "In a meeting. Do not disturb. Stop calling." Five miles away, Grayson was at a luxury gala, adjusting his silk tie and laughing with Belle Escobar. He told her I was just being "dramatic" and using our daughter's "fever" as an excuse to avoid the event. He had no idea Effie's heart had already stopped. When I finally reached our penthouse, soaked from the rain and carrying Effie's small socks in a plastic bag, Grayson didn't even look at me. He snapped at me for ruining the hardwood floors and asked if I'd left Effie with the nanny just to "feel sorry for myself." Three days later, while I buried our daughter in a small, lonely ceremony, Grayson was at the Hamptons. Belle posted a photo of him golfing with the caption: "A mental health day with the boys." He didn't even attend the funeral, but he returned home demanding I clear out Effie's room to make a study for Belle's son. The injustice burned through me until there was nothing left. I swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, desperate to join my daughter. But instead of the darkness, I woke up to blinding lights and the scent of Grayson's expensive cologne. I was standing in a ballroom, wearing a blue silk dress I had already burned. Above me, a banner read: "Happy 5th Birthday Kaiden & Effie." I was back, exactly one year before the tragedy. This time, I wasn't going to be the grieving wife. I was going to be their worst nightmare.

I spent three years building my husband, Axel Farrell, into Silicon Valley's ultimate "family man." As his lead PR strategist, I carefully managed his public image, making sure the world saw him as a perfect, devoted husband while I worked in the shadows of our estate. The illusion shattered when he came home one night smelling of sandalwood and roses, with three deep fingernail scratches carved into his back. When I tried to check his phone, the passcode we had used for years-our wedding anniversary-had been changed. The betrayal got worse the next morning when his mother called me a "defective product" and tried to force me into a fertility clinic. Axel didn't defend me; instead, he shoved me against a marble bar at a public gala to protect his mistress in front of the world's elite. By the time I tried to leave, Axel had frozen my bank accounts and filed a forged legal petition to have me declared mentally incompetent. He planned to have me legally kidnapped and locked in a private psychiatric ward just to stop me from filing for divorce. He even blocked every major law firm in the city from taking my case, leaving me with no money, no identity, and no one to turn to. I couldn't understand how the man who "saved" me from the mud years ago could be the same monster now trying to legally erase my existence. Was our entire marriage just a grooming process to exploit my genius for his billion-dollar empire? As the deadline for my forced commitment approached, I stopped crying and opened my laptop. I leaked the video of his affair to every tech journalist in the country, watching his stock price crash in real-time. "Axel thinks starving me out will make me crawl back to him," I whispered as I walked into the headquarters of his biggest rival. "But he forgot that the most valuable part of his company is in my head." I was no longer the abandoned wife; I was the one who was going to take his throne and burn it to the ground.

For two years, I was the invisible force behind tech billionaire Kieran Douglas, convinced that our "private" romance was his way of protecting us from the tabloid spotlight. I managed his mergers, warmed his bed, and waited for a future that didn't exist. The illusion shattered at 6:00 AM when a Page Six alert debuted Kieran's "real" romance with socialite Aspen Schneider. Before I could even process the betrayal, Kieran sent me a cold, professional text: "Order flowers for Aspen. Pink peonies. Her favorite." When I tried to walk away, my own mother called me a disgrace and threatened to lock my inheritance forever unless I married a sixty-year-old businessman to save her failing estate. At a high-society gala that same night, Aspen intentionally crushed my burned hand in front of the cameras, while Kieran stood by and dismissed me as a "mediocre assistant" who had overstayed her welcome. I stood in the cold New York rain, drenched in champagne and humiliation, realizing that every sacrifice I made for Kieran was a joke. I was a ghost in a penthouse that was never mine, discarded the moment his "soulmate" returned. To the world, I was just a placeholder whose time had run out. But Kieran forgot one thing: my father's multi-million dollar trust fund unlocks the moment I legally marry. I didn't need love; I needed a signature and a shield. I walked into a discreet law firm and signed a marriage contract with a man I believed was the city's most notorious, scandal-ridden playboy. I thought I was marrying a degenerate "beard" to buy my freedom and secure my revenge. I didn't realize the man who signed that paper wasn't a playboy at all, but Gaston Collins-the most powerful and dangerous man on Wall Street-and he had no intention of letting our fake marriage stay fake.

"Let's get a divorce. She's pregnant and deserves a place in my life." He once promised to protect Claire forever, yet when his first love returned, he cast her aside. For three years, Claire dimmed her brilliance, living quietly as the obedient wife behind him. When he handed her divorce papers to give his pregnant mistress a place, Claire no longer hid her talents. The woman he had overlooked was a legendary healer, racing prodigy, and a genius designer. After the divorce, she reclaimed her glory. When he pleaded, "Honey, let's remarry," another man pulled her close. "She's my wife now. As for you... Someone, take him out and give him what he deserves!"

"Stella once savored Marc's devotion, yet his covert cruelty cut deep. She torched their wedding portrait at his feet while he sent flirty messages to his mistress. With her chest tight and eyes blazing, Stella delivered a sharp slap. Then she deleted her identity, signed onto a classified research mission, vanished without a trace, and left him a hidden bombshell. On launch day she vanished; that same dawn Marc's empire crumbled. All he unearthed was her death certificate, and he shattered. When they met again, a gala spotlighted Stella beside a tycoon. Marc begged. With a smirk, she said, ""Out of your league, darling."

For three quiet, patient years, Christina kept house, only to be coldly discarded by the man she once trusted. Instead, he paraded a new lover, making her the punchline of every town joke. Liberated, she honed her long-ignored gifts, astonishing the town with triumph after gleaming triumph. Upon discovering she'd been a treasure all along, her ex-husband's regret drove him to pursue her. "Honey, let's get back together!" With a cold smirk, Christina spat, "Fuck off." A silken-suited mogul slipped an arm around her waist. "She's married to me now. Guards, get him the hell out of here!"

My husband of three years, Arthur Vanderbilt, came home smelling of his mistress's perfume and threw divorce papers on our marble kitchen island. He demanded I sign away all rights to our assets for a five-million-dollar "severance," calling me a leech his family picked up from the suburbs to solve a temporary PR crisis. When I refused and demanded my four percent equity in the Vanderbilt Group, he and his mistress, Serena, launched a vicious smear campaign. They planted false stories on Wall Street forums, accusing me of laundering money for an Eastern European crime syndicate. They tried to force my hand with a check for five hundred million, which I tore up and threw in his face. To them, I was just a trophy wife they could easily discard. They had no idea that the "leech" they so despised was the anonymous investor who had secretly bailed out their entire company three years ago, saving them from bankruptcy. Their final move was to hire an actress to publicly accuse me of fraud in the lobby of the most powerful law firm in Manhattan. They didn't realize I was there to retain the firm's most ruthless lawyer. After security threw them out, I looked my replacement in the eye and made her a promise. "Prepare for an FBI probe into perjury and corporate defamation."

Ashley gave Nicolas ten years of love and five years of loyalty as his perfect housewife, only to be repaid with betrayal, humiliation, and death at the hands of him and his mistress. After being reborn, she vowed to make them pay. She tore apart the mistress, kicked her useless husband aside, and returned as the heiress of a top-tier family. Surrounded by billions, luxury, and a parade of elite bachelors, Ashley became the woman everyone wanted-including a cold, powerful tycoon. When Nicolas came begging for forgiveness, she smiled coldly. "Fuck off! My man is worth a hundred of you."

I stood in the darkest corner of the Pierre Hotel’s ballroom, my cheap polyester dress itching against my skin while my wristband buzzed with a DARPA Priority Red alert. In front of the city’s elite, my fiancé Bryce Calloway took the stage, not to toast our future, but to publicly end our engagement and announce he was with my sister, Chloe. The room turned on me instantly, a hundred pairs of eyes pinning me down with pity and disgust as they physically backed away like I was contagious. When I returned home, my mother shattered a crystal vase at my feet, screaming that I was a humiliation and a "dropout" who didn't deserve a cent of the family fortune. Chloe and Bryce mocked me, laughing when I told them I had a mission with the National Security Agency, convinced I was either a pathological liar or a low-level criminal. They watched in horror as a black, unmarked military helicopter descended on our backyard to extract me, yet they still chose to believe I was being arrested for drug trafficking. They saw a pathetic girl who couldn't even parallel park, never realizing I was Dr. Nova Vance, the lead physicist behind the world's first successful fusion reactor. To secure funding for my research and gain a "fortress" of a name, I signed a thirty-day marriage contract with the arrogant billionaire Roman Knight. He treats me like a fraud, convinced I’m a gold-digger who failed out of college, while I quietly run global energy simulations from his guest bedroom. He has no idea that the "loser" he’s forced to live with is the same anonymous grandmaster who has been ruthlessly crushing him in online strategy games for months. "The contract is active," I told him, looking past his expensive suit. "But don't expect me to be your maid."