Yi Yanni

I thought my life was perfect. I had a loving boyfriend of five years, Jaxon, and was getting ready to celebrate my brother Hanson' s wedding. I even picked out the perfect cream-colored dress for the rehearsal dinner. But that perfect world shattered when I found Jaxon in the parking garage, tangled up with my brother' s fiancée, Karla. They had been having an affair for three years. When I tried to expose them, they twisted the story, painting me as a jealous liar trying to ruin the wedding. My own brother, Hanson, believed them. He slapped me across the face, his eyes filled with hate. "You stay away from this wedding," he snarled. "If you try to ruin this, I swear, I will make you regret it." Jaxon just stood there, choosing his mistress over me, watching as my own family turned on me. They thought they had broken me, casting me out as the crazy, unstable sister. But as I fled that night, I made a vow. They would all pay. And I would be the one to collect.

Rogues broke into the Pack House, holding a silver knife to my throat while another captive held Brooke, the so-called "Seer." The Rogue leader gave my Alpha, Harrison, three seconds to choose who lived. Without hesitation, he commanded, "Save Brooke." I was gutted with a silver blade and left to bleed out on the carpet while he cradled her. Miraculously, I survived, only to find he had already replaced me. He claimed Brooke was pregnant with his heir—something he said I, a "defective" Omega who couldn't shift, could never give him. To protect his reputation and clear the way for his new Luna, he didn't just exile me. He drugged me with Wolfsbane and threw me onto a fishing trawler rigged with explosives. As the timer ticked down in the dark cargo hold, I finally understood the depth of his cruelty. Years ago, when I miscarried our actual child alone on the bathroom floor, begging for him through the mind-link, he hadn't just ignored me—he had blocked me to pick up his mistress. The boat exploded, turning the ocean into fire. Harrison stood on the cliff, watching me burn, satisfied that his problem was gone. But he forgot that my bloodline doesn't perish in fire. Six months later, I walked back into the Council Hall. I wasn't the weak Omega anymore. I was the legendary White Wolf. And on my arm was the Lycan King—the one man Harrison feared most. "Hello, Harrison," I smiled. "I believe you're sitting in my seat."

For ten years, I was the invisible Mrs. Perry, the woman everyone mocked for clinging to a man who openly despised her. They called me pathetic, a social climber with no self-respect. But they didn't know the truth. My devotion wasn't for Cameron; it was for his brother, Jessie, the man I truly loved, who supposedly died a decade ago. My ten-year pact to protect Cameron for Jessie was almost over. Then, Cassandra Foreman, Cameron's ex and the woman he still loved, made a comeback. She was in an accident, and Cameron was ready to risk his life to save her. I stepped in, donating my rare blood, collapsing from the effort. Cameron never came to my side. Instead, he brought Cassandra home, ordering me to care for her. She tormented me, framing me for her self-inflicted injuries, and Cameron, blind with devotion, punished me. He threw me out in the rain, accused me of trying to kill her, and even tried to drown me. Why did I endure this humiliation? Why did I stay, even when he told me he would never love me, even if I died for him? Because I had a promise to keep. But now, the promise is fulfilled. I' m going to find Jessie.

For seven years, I thought I was their cherished princess. My father had adopted seven boys to be my guardians, my "brothers," and I was happily engaged to their leader, Julian, the man I'd loved my whole life. That illusion shattered when I overheard him confessing his true plan to Lily, the girl I had treated like a sister. "Once I marry her and secure the O'Hara estate, everything will be ours," he said, his voice cold. "She's just a means to an end." Their betrayal didn't stop there. Days later, they tried to kill me. In our family's ancient wine cellar, a place of history and pride, they sabotaged a rack holding a multi-ton oak barrel. Lily gave the order, and another of my guardians, Ryan, carried it out. The barrel was meant to crush me, to make my death look like a tragic accident. They hadn't just broken my heart; they tried to break my bones. I realized they were all in on it. The seven men sworn to protect me were a pack of wolves, and I was the lamb they were fattening for the slaughter, all for the sake of their manipulative queen, Lily. They thought I was a fragile doll they could easily discard. But my father once told me, "An O'Hara is never a victim. We are the storm." At my 21st birthday party, the night they tried to humiliate me in front of the world, I decided it was time to show them all what a storm really looks like.

My wedding to the brilliant surgeon, Dr. Kason Ortiz, was postponed again. For the fifth time. This time, it was a car accident, a suspicious one, just like all the others. Then, I overheard Kason and his ambitious resident, Jaye Hinton, talking. The "accidents" weren't accidents at all; they were meticulously planned acts of sabotage by Kason to avoid marrying me. He was doing it to repay a debt: his father's debt to mine, who took the fall for his family's legal scandal. Kason, the man I loved, was systematically hurting me, hoping I'd break and call off the wedding myself. The betrayal cut deeper than any physical injury. My father, who sacrificed his freedom for the Ortiz family, had unknowingly bound me to my tormentor. Kason even used my father's life as leverage, leading to his death in prison. He then allowed Jaye to "accidentally" destroy my father's ashes and deliberately damage my vocal cords during surgery, leaving me voiceless and broken. Why was he so cruel? Why did he hate me so much? What kind of man would destroy everything I held dear just to escape an obligation? But I wouldn't be his victim. I would not be his debt. I would be free.

My best friend Kevin invited me to his dad' s 60th birthday, a big celebration because his dad had terminal cancer. My wife, Olivia, couldn't make it; she was on a two-week work trip in Europe, a crucial conference for her career. But when I arrived at the party, I saw Olivia, kneeling before Mr. and Mrs. Miller, performing a "daughter-in-law tea" ceremony, dressed in a way I' d never seen. Then I heard Kevin' s relative say, "Kevin is so lucky. His fiancée is just wonderful." Fiancée. The word crushed me. Olivia' s practiced smile froze when she saw me. She pulled me aside, whispering, "Ethan, what are you doing here? It's not what you think." Kevin then appeared, claiming it was a "little white lie" for his dying father, wanting to see him settled. Olivia eagerly agreed, pleading with me to keep quiet, "just for today." They stood there, my wife and my best friend, united in their deceit, asking me to participate in my own humiliation. A cold clarity washed over me. "For your dad's dying wish? Does his dying wish also include a grandchild to complete the 'four-generation' picture? Are you pregnant, too?" The air turned to ice. Olivia recoiled, then feigned outrage, calling me "cruel." Her gaslighting was instant. Later that night, I went home to retrieve belongings and found them passionately kissing on my couch. "It's... it's not what it looks like!" she gasped, but I pulled out my phone, recording, "Save it for the judge. I want a divorce. And I'm keeping the dog."

The smoky air of the private club was my weekly escape, a poker game with the only family I had left after my life fell apart. Then a sharp knock on the door, uncharacteristic and unwelcome, shattered the peace. It was my daughter, Emily, standing there, dressed in expensive clothes that screamed wealth but fit her poorly, her face a mask of impatient demand. "Are you Liam?" she asked, her tone sharp. The name "Emily" hit me like a physical blow. Not the sweet girl with pigtails I remembered, but a cold stranger who now sneered with her mother' s malicious confidence. She was getting married, she announced, but her intent wasn't sharing joy. It was a thinly veiled directive, a command for me to be present for the "family's image." The look of disgust in her eyes, a mirror of my ex-wife Sarah' s, confirmed it. She saw me as a pathetic relic, just as Sarah had poisoned her mind into believing I was an unfit father, a failed businessman, the reason for all their problems. My heart, long numbed, flickered with a bitter anger. The sheer audacity, the entitlement-it was all Sarah, channeled through the daughter I no longer knew. "I don't," I told my friends, eyes hard. "Not anymore." But as I said it, a new thought began to form. A wedding was a public affair, a stage. Maybe it was time to collect a debt.

The charity auction was supposed to be my triumph, a celebration of my late father' s legacy. Instead, it became the shocking public display of my fiancée, Olivia, seven months pregnant with my best friend Mark' s child, brazenly bidding against me for my father' s most prized work. This wasn' t their first betrayal, or their second. I had forgiven Olivia endlessly, only for her to smash my heart and trust into a million pieces. I proposed a separation, seeking one sliver of dignity, but Olivia brought Mark to live in our home and shredded the agreement, claiming I was still hers. Then, the inconceivable happened. Mark poisoned Olivia' s unborn child and framed me, leading to her miscarriage and my imprisonment in our wine cellar. Chained and freezing, I overheard Olivia and Mark engaging in muffled intimacy just outside my icy prison. "Ethan," Olivia whispered, "This really is… the last time." Those words, that betrayal, extinguished the last spark of my existence. I froze to death, a statue of despair in my own wine cellar. My soul watched as Olivia discovered my frozen body and unleashed a terrifying retribution, torturing Mark to his death in a hospital morgue. But even with my revenge served, her desperate pleas for me to "come back" held no sway. I had been trapped for too long. It was time to finally be free.

My phone buzzed against the polished wood of my desk, a low, insistent hum, but I didn' t need to look. I knew it was Mark, calling about Ethan. He was on the roof of The Onyx, threatening to fly. And of course, Sarah was there, his childhood sweetheart, the constant shadow to our sham of a marriage. Humiliation was a familiar fire, but tonight, it burned hotter. This public spectacle was designed to hurt me, a transaction gone wrong-my life for my family's legacy. My brilliant, tech mogul husband, the man I' d married because he looked exactly like Leo, the boy I'd loved my entire life, lay there, groaning in pain. He' d risked it all for her. The doctor said it was just a superficial burn, but my obsessive need for a full scan revealed his injuries were minor. That last flicker of desperate, projected love for a dying man, it simply vanished. He hadn't been my dying love, and I had been a fool. I walked out of that hospital, leaving him bewildered. Three days later, I handed him the "DIVORCE AGREEMENT." He thought I was bluffing, that I wanted more money. "I just want to be free," I told him, the finality in my voice unmistakable. But he refused. He told me I was stuck with him, the real him, for as long as he wanted. He thought he could break me, but he had no idea who I was. I would not hide, and I would not cower. I was Chloe Vance, and this was just the beginning of my fight.

It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. My wedding to Liam Vance, the tech mogul, a man I loved and trusted with my whole heart. Then, a text from an unknown number shattered my perfect world: a photo of a woman's hand, a massive diamond ring mirroring mine, resting on his custom wedding suit sleeve. The message: "Is this the wedding dress you designed for me? It's beautiful, Ava. Liam is a lucky man." My blood ran cold as I recognized Chloe, Liam's "terminally ill" ex-business partner, reflected in the photo. He had been spinning elaborate lies, claiming to comfort her in her final days, while he was secretly planning a wedding with her, using our venue, on our day. Every hushed phone call, every late night "crisis" at work – it all clicked into place. I was just a naive fool, part of his elaborate facade. The white roses he' d sent me that morning wilted, mirroring my dying love. A smudge of Chloe's garish pink lipstick on his suit sleeve, brought into my studio, was the final insult. Anger, cold and sharp, replaced my heartbreak. He called, spinning yet another lie about a server meltdown, postponing our wedding. But as I listened to the string quartet playing in the background of his call, a new, dangerous resolve hardened within me. He wanted a wedding that day? Fine. He was going to get one. But it wouldn't be his. I was going to rewrite the entire script, and it would be a masterpiece of public humiliation.

I was a desperate ex-Marine, my sister Lily' s life hanging by a thread, her experimental treatment demanding a quarter-million dollars I didn' t have. My solution? Kidnap tech heiress Clara Hayes, but instead of the terrified victim I expected, she calmly asked, "You're Leo Maxwell, right?" She then mocked my amateur ransom note, took over raising the demanded five million dollars, and used her own phone, completely exposing my incompetence. Then, during a storm, her bipolar disorder spiraled into a terrifying depressive episode, forcing me to call her psychiatrist, only to inadvertently attract the real fugitive, "Viper," to our cabin. Trapped between my unpredictable captive, her compassionate doctor, and a violent armed criminal, my desperate plan to save Lily had become a nightmarish, impossible situation. Just as Viper prepared to kill me, Clara shielded me, taking a bullet that, along with her emergency SOS, brought the police finally ending the chaos and unexpectedly opening a new, hopeful-and utterly insane-path for us both.

I was a struggling musician in Brooklyn, barely making ends meet. Then I found Vic, an amnesiac girl with wide, scared eyes, and my world changed. We shared instant noodles and cheap wine, her laughter filling my cramped studio. She believed in my music, even when I didn't, and her gift of my grandmother' s vintage guitar pick became a symbol of our pure, impossible love. But then, Vic remembered her past. She transformed into Victoria Ashford, a cold, sharp heiress, returning to her glittering world. The woman who once fussed over my paper cuts now looked at me with polite indifference. Our profound connection was replaced by her mother' s demands and Spencer Hayes, her new, polished fiancé. I became her humiliation, a relic from a life she disavowed. At a lavish gala, she dismissed my pain when Spencer' s friends deliberately crushed my guitar hand. The hand I needed for every note, every chord, now irrevocably damaged. My music, my livelihood, my very soul, was shattered as she stood by, unmoving. How could the girl who understood my deepest dreams become this calculating stranger? How could she watch my life' s passion be destroyed without a flicker of remorse? The truth was colder than any winter: she saw my suffering as mere inconvenience. Then, her mother offered me a million dollars to disappear. A breakup fee for a love she never recognized. I took it, not as defeat, but as the only way to escape the golden cage and rebuild. I left, determined to forge a new path, far from the echoes of what we once were.

For fifteen years, my life revolved around Ethan Hayes. I sacrificed everything to follow him to New York, even changing myself because he liked "no-fuss" girls. Our marriage, he said, was just a practical arrangement for his company's IPO. I worked tirelessly as his Director of Operations, always hoping he'd truly see me, love me back. Then Chloe Vance arrived. She swiftly sabotaged my crucial investor presentation, leaking intimate photos, and Ethan publicly blamed me, his wife, to protect her. Hours later, I found Chloe wearing my robe, spraying my perfume, as Ethan laughed and still called me "buddy." The divorce papers he'd given me on our wedding night felt terrifyingly real. The final betrayal came when Chloe forced me to eat a super spicy dinner, knowing my sensitive stomach. Ethan threatened my team's funding if I refused. Doubled over in pain from acute gastritis, I called him, begging for help. He hung up to rush Chloe, who had a twisted ankle, to the ER. Later, after a horrific skiing accident I thought I wouldn't survive, I lay broken in the snow and asked him, "What am I to you?" His chilling reply: "Right now? A liability." Then the clinic confirmed the devastating truth: due to the fall, I had miscarried our child. His child. The man I had loved for fifteen years, the man who coldly abandoned me in my darkest hour, didn't even know. Didn't care. That was the turning point. The delusion shattered. The woman who clung to hope was gone. I signed the divorce papers, not with sorrow, but with profound clarity. My true friend, Liam, was there to pick up the pieces, ready to help me build a new life, finally free.

"Never in Linda‘s wildest dreams did she expect to meet a man falling from the sky. It wasn‘t his attractive face that shocked her, but rather his strange outfit. He looked similar to the actors that played in ancient historical dramas Carl was an emperor who time-traveled after almost dying from the betrayal of a woman he once trusted. When he saw Linda, he felt at ease something he had never felt around anyone before. Her voice seeped in its magic and relaxed his tensing body. Because of her agility and skills in fighting, she became his bodyguard. When she thought everything was going well, she didn’t expect herself to end up in a troubled romance."

Everyone knew Kristine loved Colton. Still, his heart clung to a woman overseas-someone he spent most days with, now pregnant with his baby-and Kristine still asked him to marry her. On their registration day, however, he never came; his "true love" had flown back. Seven years of loyalty later, Kristine walked away, blocked him, and left his city. Colton didn't blink-until he saw her at the courthouse, arm-in-arm with another man, and the proud CEO went pale. He went after her, desperation overtaking him. "I'm sorry. Please give me another chance." She snapped, "Could you stop? I'm already married."

I stood at my mother’s open grave in the freezing rain, my heels sinking into the mud. The space beside me was empty. My husband, Hilliard Holloway, had promised to cherish me in bad times, but apparently, burying my mother didn't fit into his busy schedule. While the priest’s voice droned on, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a livestream of the Metropolitan Charity Gala. There was Hilliard, looking impeccable in a custom tuxedo, with his ex-girlfriend Charla English draped over his arm. The headline read: "Holloway & English: A Power Couple Reunited?" When he finally returned to our penthouse at 2 AM, he didn't come alone—he brought Charla with him. He claimed she’d had a "medical emergency" at the gala and couldn't be left alone. I found a Tiffany diamond necklace on our coffee table meant for her birthday, and a smudge of her signature red lipstick on his collar. When I confronted him, he simply told me to stop being "hysterical" and "acting like a child." He had no idea I was seven months pregnant with his child. He thought so little of my grief that he didn't even bother to craft a convincing lie, laughing with his mistress in our home while I sat in the dark with a shattered heart and a secret life growing inside me. "He doesn't deserve us," I whispered to the darkness. I didn't scream or beg. I simply left a folder on his desk containing signed divorce papers and a forged medical report for a terminated pregnancy. I disappeared into the night, letting him believe he had successfully killed his own legacy through his neglect. Five years later, Hilliard walked into "The Vault," the city's most exclusive underground auction, looking for a broker to manage his estate. He didn't recognize me behind my Venetian mask, but he couldn't ignore the neon pink graffiti on his armored Maybach that read "DEADBEAT." He had no clue that the three brilliant triplets currently hacking his security system were the very children he thought had been erased years ago. This time, I wasn't just a wife in the way; I was the one holding all the cards.

The heavy iron gates of the Wilderness Correction Camp groaned as they released me after three years of state-sponsored hell. I stood on the dirt road, clutching a plastic bag that held my entire life, waiting for the family that claimed they sent me there for "rehab." My brother, Brady, picked me up in a luxury SUV only to throw me out onto a deserted highway in the middle of a brewing storm. He told me I was a "public relations nightmare" and that the rain might finally wash the "stink" of the camp off me. He drove away, leaving me to limp miles through the mud on a snapped ankle. When I finally dragged myself to our family estate, my mother didn't offer a hug; she gasped in horror because my muddy clothes were ruining her Italian marble. They didn't give me my old room back. Instead, they banished me to a moldy gardener’s shack and hired a "babysitter" to make sure I didn't embarrass them further. My sister, Kaleigh, stood there in white cashmere, pretending to cry while clinging to her fiancé, Ambrose—the man who had once been mine. They all treated me like a volatile junkie, refusing to acknowledge that Kaleigh was the one who planted the drugs in my bag three years ago. They wanted to believe I was broken so they wouldn't have to feel guilty about the "wellness retreat" that was actually a torture chamber. I sat in the dark of that shed, feeling the cooling gel on the cigarette burns that covered my arms, and realized they had made a fatal mistake. They thought they had erased me, but I had returned with a roadmap of scars and a hidden satellite phone. At dinner, I didn't beg for their love. I simply rolled up my sleeves and showed them the price of their silence. As the wine spilled and the lies crumbled, I sent a single text to the only person I trusted: "I'm in. Let them simmer." The hunt was finally on.

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!"

Today is October 14th, my birthday. I returned to New York after months away, dragging my suitcase through the biting wind, but the VIP pickup zone where my husband’s Maybach usually idled was empty. When I finally let myself into our Upper East Side penthouse, I didn’t find a cake or a "welcome home" banner. Instead, I found my husband, Caden, kneeling on the floor, helping our five-year-old daughter wrap a massive gift for my half-sister, Adalynn. Caden didn’t even look up when I walked in; he was too busy laughing with the girl who had already stolen my father’s legacy and was now moving in on my family. "Auntie Addie is a million times better than Mommy," my daughter Elara chirped, clutching a plush toy Caden had once forbidden me from buying for her. "Mommy is mean," she whispered loudly, while Caden just smirked, calling me a "drill sergeant" before whisking her off to Adalynn’s party without a second glance. Later that night, I saw a video Adalynn posted online where my husband and child laughed while mocking my "sensitive" nature, treating me like an inconvenient ghost in my own home. I had spent five years researching nutrition for Elara’s health and managing every detail of Caden’s empire, only to be discarded the moment I wasn't in the room. How could the man who set his safe combination to my birthday completely forget I even existed? The realization didn't break me; it turned me into ice. I didn't scream or beg for an explanation. I simply walked into the study, pulled out the divorce papers I’d drafted months ago, and took a black marker to the terms. I crossed out the alimony, the mansion, and even the custody clause—if they wanted a life without me, I would give them exactly what they asked for. I left my four-carat diamond ring on the console table and walked out into the rain with nothing but a heavily encrypted hard drive. The submissive Mrs. Holloway was gone, and "Ghost," the most lethal architect in the tech world, was finally back online to take back everything they thought I’d forgotten.

"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."

Elliana, the unfavored "ugly duckling" of her family, was humiliated by her stepsister, Paige, who everyone admired. Paige, engaged to the CEO Cole, was the perfect woman-until Cole married Elliana on the day of the wedding. Shocked, everyone wondered why he chose the "ugly" woman. As they waited for her to be cast aside, Elliana stunned everyone by revealing her true identity: a miracle healer, financial mogul, appraisal prodigy, and AI genius. When her mistreatment became known, Cole revealed Elliana's stunning, makeup-free photo, sending shockwaves through the media. "My wife doesn't need anyone's approval."

Rain hammered against the asphalt as my sedan spun violently into the guardrail on the I-95. Blood trickled down my temple, stinging my eyes, while the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers mocked my panic. Trembling, I dialed my husband, Clive. His executive assistant answered instead, his voice professional and utterly cold. "Mr. Wilson says to stop the theatrics. He said, and I quote, 'Hang up. Tell her I don’t have time for her emotional blackmail tonight.'" The line went dead while I was still trapped in the wreckage. At the hospital, I watched the news footage of Clive wrapping his jacket around his "fragile" ex-girlfriend, Angelena, shielding her from the storm I was currently bleeding in. When I returned to our penthouse, I found a prenatal ultrasound in his suit pocket, dated the day he claimed to be on a business trip. Instead of an apology, Clive met me with a sneer. He told me I was nothing but an "expensive decoration" his father bought to make him look stable. He froze my bank accounts and cut off my cards, waiting for the hunger to drive me back to his feet. I stared at the man I had loved for four years, realizing he didn't just want a wife; he wanted a prop he could switch off. He thought he could starve me into submission while he played father to another woman's child. But Clive forgot one thing. Before I was his trophy wife, I was Starfall—the legendary voice actress who vanished at the height of her fame. "I'm not jealous, Clive. I'm done." I grabbed my old microphone and walked out. I’m not just leaving him; I’m taking the lead role in the biggest saga in Hollywood—the one Angelena is desperate for. This time, the "decoration" is going to burn his world down.

The heavy thud of the release stamp was the only goodbye I got from the warden after five years in federal prison. I stepped out into the blinding sun, expecting the same flash of paparazzi bulbs that had seen me dragged away in handcuffs, but there was only a single black limousine idling on the shoulder of the road. Inside sat my mother and sister, clutching champagne and looking at my frayed coat with pure disgust. They didn't offer a welcome home; instead, they tossed a thick legal document onto the table and told me I was dead to the city. "Gavin and I are getting engaged," my sister Mia sneered, flicking a credit card at me like I was a stray dog. "He doesn't need a convict ex-fiancée hanging around." Even after I saved their lives from an armed kidnapping attempt by ramming the attackers off the road, they rewarded me by leaving me stranded in the dirt. When I finally ran into Gavin, the man who had framed me, he pinned me against a wall and threatened to send me back to a cell if I ever dared to show my face at their wedding. They had stolen my biotech research, ruined my name, and let me rot for half a decade while they lived off my brilliance. They thought they had broken me, leaving me with nothing but an expired chapstick and a few old photos in a plastic bag. What they didn't know was that I had spent those five years becoming "Dr. X," a shadow consultant with five hundred million dollars in crypto and a secret that would bring the city to its knees. I wasn't just a victim anymore; I was a weapon, and I was pregnant with the heir they thought they had erased. I walked into the Melton estate and made an offer to the most powerful man in New York. "I'll save your grandfather's life," I told Horatio Melton, staring him down. "But the price is your last name. I'm taking back what's mine, and I'm starting with the man who thinks he's marrying my sister."

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.