Su Banqing

After four years of torture in a so-called “rehabilitation center,” I was finally released. My husband, Elliot, was waiting for me. He wasn’t there to save me; he was there to serve me divorce papers. He and my adoptive family were convinced I was a liar. They believed my broken leg, my missing fingernails, and my scarred vocal cords were all part of an elaborate performance for attention. "Still playing the cripple," he sneered, looking at my ruined body with disgust. He tossed a handkerchief at my bleeding hand so I wouldn’t stain the leather seats of his car. Back home, my perfect adoptive sister, Elyse, confessed everything with a smile. She had paid the doctors to torture me, to break my bones, to destroy my voice. When I lunged at her, my own mother called me an animal. My father prepared to sign me back into that hell permanently. They saw my pain as a performance and her cruelty as innocence. When I was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and had months to live, Elliot tore up the medical report, calling it my most pathetic lie yet.

I sacrificed the wolf core to save my beloved. To avoid being overwhelmed by guilt, I chose to leave and silently wait for death in a corner of the human world. But even after he became the alpha of the wolf pack, he still went to great lengths to marry me. After we got married, he flaunted his mistress in front of me every day, trying to provoke me and get revenge. But he didn't know that I was about to die. Darling, I'm dying.

On my wedding night, I waited for the fated spark. Instead, I found a fresh tattoo on my Alpha husband's chest. Beneath the ink lay a jagged bite mark. Jameson had marked Caren, the wolf-less Omega, just hours before our ceremony. When I confronted him, he called me paranoid. But the betrayal didn't stop at infidelity. On my birthday, Caren brought me "fertility tea." I smelled the metallic tang of Wolfsbane immediately—a poison deadly to our kind. I refused to touch it, but Jameson’s eyes flashed with dominance. "Drink it. That is an order." He used the Alpha Voice to force the poison down my throat. As my throat seized and I clawed at the carpet, dying, he didn't help me. When I reached for the antidote, he shoved me into the wall to protect Caren, accusing me of trying to attack her. I woke up in the hospital to the devastating news: the poison had killed our unborn pup. Yet, Jameson still shielded his mistress, baring his fangs at his own mother to keep Caren safe. He thought he could fix it. He thought he still owned me. "Sit! I command you to stay!" He roared the Alpha Command, expecting me to kneel. But his authority shattered along with my heart. I didn't just sign the divorce papers. I walked out to the parking lot under the full moon and rejected the bond, watching him collapse in agony. Then, the "broken" wolf he despised finally shifted. I rose as the legendary White Wolf, and left him howling in the dirt.

For the seventh time, I stood at the altar, pregnant with his child, waiting to marry Justice Keith. And for the seventh time, he abandoned me. His phone rang, and just like that, he was gone-rushing to the side of his "fragile" stepsister, Kamala, who was supposedly having another panic attack. He pushed me aside in front of everyone, his family sneering that a "new-money girl" like me would never understand their loyalty. This was the man who baked her special cakes in the middle of the night while ignoring my own hunger, the man who had left me at seventeen other almost-weddings and rehearsals. But this time, as I stood there in my wedding dress, the humiliation was a physical weight. I was tired of being his second choice, the understanding fiancée he always came back to with empty promises. So I walked out. I cancelled the wedding, shattered his family's priceless heirloom, and secretly terminated the pregnancy that tied me to him. I wasn't just leaving anymore. I was going to spend the next seven years meticulously planning how to burn his entire corrupt, old-money empire to the ground.

I was Ariel Burnett, a tech mogul, a genius celebrated in Silicon Valley, with a loving husband, Damien, and a loyal best friend, Cohen. My world was perfect until a rare, aggressive liver disease threatened to take it all away. They promised to save me, and they did. Three years of fighting, a successful transplant, and I was finally healthy, ready to surprise them. But when I arrived at my penthouse, a security guard stopped me, claiming Mrs. Hobbs was already upstairs. My smile froze when he showed me a photo: Kara Gregory, my liver donor, standing on my balcony, looking just like me. The world tilted. I stumbled, hitting my head, as Damien' s voice crackled over the guard' s radio, telling him to get rid of the "crazy woman" disturbing Kara, his "wife." They were in my home, my bed, the penthouse Damien designed for me. Kara, the woman I pitied, the one who claimed she didn't take charity, was now living my life, with my husband and my brother-figure. The pain in my head was nothing compared to the agony in my chest. My husband, my brother, they were in this together. The betrayal was complete. I knew then that my perfect world was a lie, and I was nothing but an inconvenience to be managed.

The sun beat down on the flea market, where I sold my quilts. Each stitch was hours I should've spent on my art fellowship, but my handyman husband, Ethan, always said we needed money. Work was feast or famine in our Appalachian town. Then, at the upscale Bistro, I saw him: Ethan. Not in his work clothes, but a crisp linen shirt, laughing intimately with Veronica Hayes, "Aunt Ronnie" to our son. Hiding nearby, I overheard his chilling confession: "Marrying her was a mistake... I' d leave her tomorrow. Cody… he' ll adjust. He already likes you more anyway." My world shattered. My marriage, a lie. My husband, ready to abandon me and our son. My sacrifices, all for naught. He wasn't struggling; he was funding Veronica' s lavish influencer life. Later, he abandoned me in a a storm, leading to my broken ankle, only to then demand my masterpiece quilt – my 'Appalachian Sunset' – to save Veronica' s phony art show. The audacity! My own son, Cody, parroting their contempt, called my art "old rags," pushing me and screaming he wished "Aunt Ronnie was my mom!" How could they so cruelly betray everything I' d built? But in that hospital room, facing his casual cruelty and the theft of my soul' s work, something snapped. Battered but resolute, I looked at Ethan: "I want a divorce." Dr. Reed' s fellowship, my art, my path to freedom – it was all suddenly clear. I wouldn't be his convenient cover story anymore. I was taking back my life.

For five long years, my sister Meg and I lived in Ryan Sterling's opulent mansion, a "gilded cage" disguised as an act of kindness after our accident. My days were consumed by caring for his demanding son, Kyler, while my musical dreams lay dormant, my face forever marked. One morning, Kyler, with a malicious smirk, deliberately scalded my guitar hand with scorching coffee. But a far colder burn came moments later: I was six weeks pregnant with Ryan's baby. His chilling words, delivered with flat precision, demanded: "An abortion, Ellie. It's the only way." My hand blistered, a constant ache, yet it was dwarfed by his casual dismissal of our unborn child as a mere "complication." He spoke of my "damaged" and "dependent" state, his tone echoing the pervasive control that had suffocated us for five years. How could the man who once seemed captivated by my music now strip me of all humanity, reducing my life, my body, and my child to inconvenient problems? This callous disregard, this profound sense of injustice, was the final, devastating cut to my soul. But in that instant, a desperate resolve ignited within me. I would not bring my beloved child into such a cold, demeaning existence, nor would I let her witness my own subjugation. Clasping my still-blistering hand, now a symbol of their cruelty and my newfound defiance, I looked Ryan in the eye and declared, voice trembling but firm: "Meg and I are leaving."

Emily ended up being a replacement for Shirley, who was supposed to be engaged with James, a member of the royal family. However, Shirley ran off somewhere and Emily was kidnapped to play her part. That was how Emily entered the world of nobility and prestigious families. She thought she could make the most of this opportunity and just have a good time. The last thing she wanted was to lose her first kiss on her first day of school. In a fit of rage, she greeted her royal fiance, James, with a hard slap on his face. The entire school broke into gossip because of the commotion they made, But this was merely a prelude to their story.

For five years, I abandoned my status as the heiress of the powerful Montgomery family to play the role of a poor, submissive housewife for Barrett. Then, a bank notification popped up on my phone. Barrett had forged my digital signature and transferred our entire $50 million joint trust fund to a woman named Crista Reid. When I called his boardroom to confront him, he humiliated me in front of a dozen Wall Street executives. "Stop acting like a hysterical housewife. You're living in a penthouse I pay for, so don't embarrass yourself." I broke into his encrypted laptop and uncovered the sickening truth. Crista was his mistress, and they had a five-year-old son together. Barrett hadn't just stolen my money; he had spent years painting me as a helpless charity case he rescued, completely erasing the fact that my financial models built his entire company. He thought I was just a discarded peasant he could manipulate, cheat on, and replace. He truly believed he held absolute power over my life. He had no idea that I still possessed the highest security clearance of the Montgomery empire. I pulled an old BlackBerry from a hidden wall compartment, plugged it in, and dialed my family's lawyer. "Draft the prenup for Commodore Clayton IV," I ordered, choosing to marry Wall Street's most ruthless predator. "I'm done playing the peasant."

For ten years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to my wealthy husband, managing his severe OCD and hosting flawless high-society parties. But on our tenth anniversary, when I brought him his special hangover soup, I caught him sleeping with my younger sister in our master bedroom. Instead of panicking, he coldly handed me divorce papers with zero assets. He told me I was just a "placeholder" until my sister finished her degree and was ready to take my spot. Desperate, I called my mother for help, only to find out she had known about their affair for years. "You don't have Jana's drive or her looks. You clean house and you cook. That's not a wife, that's a domestic." My own mother sneered at me, telling me to walk away quietly because our family needed his financial support. They kicked me out of the penthouse with nothing but a suitcase, laughing that a woman who hadn't worked in a decade would end up begging on the streets. I bled for this family for ten years, only to be thrown away like garbage when my sister wanted my life. But they didn't know that while I was playing the boring housewife, I had secretly earned a Cordon Bleu diploma, a Cornell nutrition certification, and a Columbia master's degree. Using a hidden photo to blackmail a property out of him, I packed my elite credentials and landed a $300,000-a-year job managing a billionaire's estate. When my ex-husband drunkenly called days later demanding I come back to serve him, I calmly hit block.

I was Landon Mercer's secret girlfriend and loyal assistant for four years. I thought my absolute devotion would eventually win his heart. But he casually announced his engagement to a wealthy heiress, reminding me I was just a convenient nobody from an orphanage. When I got trapped in a horrific car crash and begged him to call an ambulance, he just hung up on me, annoyed that my bleeding was ruining his romantic getaway. He even blackmailed me with my orphanage's land lease, forcing me to attend his engagement party as a prop. At the party, his elite family and friends brutally humiliated me. They deliberately crushed my broken arm, poured red wine over my head, and kicked me into a freezing pond. When Landon finally pulled me out, he didn't care that I was suffocating and turning blue. "Are you out of your mind? You come out here and cause a scene during my engagement party?" He threw a stack of cash at my shivering body, furious that I had embarrassed him in front of his wealthy guests. Looking at the hundred-dollar bills floating in the muddy water, my four years of foolish love completely died. To him, I wasn't even human; I was just a cheap toy he could abuse and pass around. I didn't cry, and I didn't beg. I dragged my soaked, battered body into a car and headed straight to the penthouse of his biggest billionaire rival. It was time to burn Landon Mercer's world to the ground.

To revenge herself on her unfaithful fiancé Kevin, Isidora hides her striking beauty behind a plain disguise, and targets his uncle - the most formidable man Kevin fears. After one reckless night, Isidora leaves cash as payment and says lightly, "You were good last night." She tries to leave quietly, but is pulled into his arms. "You think you can walk away after this?" he says, his tone low and possessive. Cedrick is a feared, untouchable titan on Wall Street - elegant, aloof, and completely uninterested in women. Not even the most beautiful socialites in the city can catch his eye. When gossip spreads that he was seen pressing a woman against a wall and kissing her fiercely, no one believes it. When the rumors name Isidora, the crowd scoffs. He rejects even the most beautiful women, so why would he notice a plain girl like her? All doubt disappears when they see the dignified Cedrick drop to one knee to help Isidora with her shoe, pleading softly for just one kiss. When Kevin finally sees Isidora's true beauty and begs for forgiveness. But Cedrick kicks him out at once, slams a marriage certificate on the table, and says sharply. "Call her Aunt."

After five years in a maximum-security women's prison, Abbey Dudley was finally released. Her billionaire brother came to pick her up in a luxury SUV, but it wasn't to welcome her home. Five years ago, her adopted sister Emmie pushed a girl down a flight of concrete stairs. To protect their precious golden child, Abbey's biological parents forced her to take the bloody trophy and the blame, locking her in a cage at seventeen. While they took Emmie to Paris Fashion Week, Abbey was gagged with bleach-soaked towels and her leg was shattered by an iron pipe. They froze her eighteen-million-dollar trust fund and secretly transferred every cent to Emmie. On the day of her release, they dragged her to a grand ballroom filled with New York's elite. They forced her to wear her yellowed, frayed high school uniform, intending to publicly humiliate her as a degenerate gambling addict and an academic failure to highlight Emmie's perfection. Abbey stood there with a ruined leg and a hollowed-out soul. How could her own flesh and blood strip a Stanford-bound genius of her perfect grades, hand them to an adopted stranger, and throw their biological daughter to the wolves without a second thought? "Since you surgically removed the facts that make you monsters, I invite everyone here to verify the truth." Under the horrified gasps of the crowd, Abbey exposed their forged evidence and shattered their perfect facade. Leaving her terrified parents and screaming brother in the ruins of their reputation, she walked out into the cold night, gripping a single silver embroidery needle. She was going to carve out every drop of blood they took from her, with interest.

For two years, Clementine played the perfectly obedient wife to billionaire Donovan Bray, wearing his heavy diamonds and enduring his cold indifference. Until she accidentally saw his tablet and discovered she was just a "collateral asset"—a cheap lookalike prop hired to make his ex-girlfriend, Gisela, jealous. When Gisela returned to New York, Donovan's mask completely slipped. During a vicious argument where he mocked Clementine as a pathetic shadow, he grabbed her, causing her to fall down a flight of marble stairs. Waking up in the hospital, Clementine learned she had miscarried a six-week-old baby she didn't even know she had. But what truly shattered her was hearing Donovan's voice through the cracked hospital door. "It changes nothing." He coldly lied to his friend that the fall had caused permanent infertility. "It was probably for the best." He had killed her unborn child and casually dismissed her worth, truly believing she was a penniless nobody who would suffer his abuse in silence. He thought he held all the power, leaving her broken and discarded for his true love. What Donovan didn't know was that his fragile, dependent wife was secretly "C.", the billionaire genius behind Aurelian, the world's most exclusive luxury jewelry empire. Lying in the sterile room, Clementine dried her tears, filed for a ruthless divorce, and permanently froze his supplementary black card. It was time to show him who really held the strings.

For six years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to billionaire Hartwell Ware, enduring his coldness because I thought my love could eventually thaw his heart. Then, my friend sent me a photo. Hartwell was at the airport, tenderly holding the waist of his first love, Eveline Craig. He came home smelling of her synthetic rose perfume, accused me of stalking him, and coldly demanded a divorce. His lawyer handed me a thick settlement agreement. It offered astronomical alimony and luxury properties, but it came with a humiliating ten-page non-disclosure agreement. He wanted to buy my silence. He wanted to strip me of my rights to our son and gag me permanently, just so he could parade his new life with Eveline without any PR backlash. Even now, he still thought I was a gold digger who had orchestrated a media scandal to trap him into marriage. I stared at the man I had worshipped for two thousand days. My six years of desperate devotion had been nothing but a humiliating, one-sided delusion. Hope was finally dead, and with it, my tears had completely dried up. He expected me to cry, to beg, to negotiate for more millions. Instead, I snatched the pen, crossed out the massive alimony, and signed my name on the dotted line. "I am taking the basic child support, and not a single red cent more." Leaving my five-carat diamond ring on the marble table, I walked out the door with nothing but my old suitcase.

I never expected to be branded a 'fake heiress' and a 'scheming bitch' on my own wedding anniversary. "Did you really think we'd never find out you faked the DNA test?" My mother's voice cut like a blade. "You've been impersonating our real daughter all along." The irony was suffocating. They were the ones who stormed into my peaceful life, insisting that I was their long-lost child-no proof needed. And now they dared to call me the fraud. "Since Camille has finally returned to where she belongs," my father declared coldly, "it's time for you to crawl back into whatever shadow you came from." Then came the final blow. My husband of five years didn't even hesitate. "I'll have the divorce papers drawn up immediately. Don't make this difficult, Mirena. You were never meant to be my wife." Overnight, I was discarded. The scandal of the city. The woman who stole a life that was never hers. But they forgot one thing: I never needed them. Before I was George Ashton's wife, I was Mirena Sterling-the Investment Queen. The woman who broke Wall Street records before she turned twenty-five. A racing champion. A tech prodigy. I walked away from all of it. Gave up my empire. My crown. My name. All for a man who threw me away like garbage the moment someone "better" came along. Big mistake. On the night they cast me out, soaking wet and humiliated, I ran into the last person I ever wanted to see. "Look at you now, Mirena," Alexander Pierce murmured, watching me with those piercing eyes. "The woman who once ruled the financial world. Reduced to this." He tilted his head. "And for what? Love?" A dark laugh. "Pathetic." My former rival. The man who spent years trying to beat me-and never once succeeded. Now he stood before me, a Wall Street titan, watching my downfall with hungry satisfaction. He thought he'd seen the last of me. He was wrong. The game was simple now: drop the dead weight, reclaim what's mine, and remind everyone why they feared my name. Within months, I was back. Every market moved when I breathed. Every headline screamed my return. The Sterlings came crawling, begging for mercy they'd never shown me. And George? He watched in horror as I bought his most prized company without blinking. The divorce he'd so eagerly signed? His greatest regret. "Mirena, please," he begged, groveling at my feet. "Give me another chance." I didn't even look at him. "Sorry, darling. I don't recycle trash." But what I didn't expect was him. Alexander Pierce dropped to one knee in front of me-the man who had once mocked my fall, now looking up with something raw and undisguised in his crimson gaze. "I knew you'd take back everything they stole," he said, voice low. "Now..." A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. "Take me too."

Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé. Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now-billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn't mind. I'd crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one? Wrong. One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That's when it hit me-he didn't love me. He didn't even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn't even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup. So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster-my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise. Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol. Enter him. Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I'd met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised. But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life. And, as it turned out, the best decision I'd ever made. Because my one-night stand isn't just some random guy. He's richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with. And now, he's not letting me go.

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, mine didn't. I came back with a marriage certificate bearing a stranger's name, a ring worth more than my parents' love ever was, and a son whose father I've never seen, never known, never remembered. I went to Vegas for a racing competition. I won. I celebrated. And somewhere between the victory and the sunrise, my life changed forever. For six years, I've lived with the consequences of one reckless night. I built an empire. I raised my son. And I searched for the man who changed my life without even knowing it. Then fate laughed in my face. My sister married my ex-fiancé-the man I was promised to since childhood. The man I was supposed to become Mrs. Windsor for. The man who now wears my family name... and looks far too much like my child. Every time I'm near him, the past presses closer. Every glance feels like a question I'm terrified to ask. I shouldn't notice him. I shouldn't feel anything. He is my sister's husband. But some secrets refuse to stay buried. Because the truth about Vegas isn't just in the ring on my finger or the child in my arms. It's standing right in front of me. And when it finally comes out, it won't just destroy a marriage, it will burn an empire to the ground.