The Hockey God in My Bed

For five years, I endured the mockery of the Finley Pack as their future Alpha's "wolfless Omega" fated mate. But my loyalty was rewarded with the sight of Bryton tangled with his mistress, Chantal, in the backseat of his car. When I calmly handed him the signed rejection papers, he flew into a rage and tore them to shreds. He refused to let me go out of sick possessiveness, yet publicly humiliated me at the Pack banquet to protect Chantal's tears. The ultimate betrayal came when I found a fresh Claiming Mark on his collar—he had given our sacred, goddess-decreed bond to another woman. Yet he still locked me in his penthouse, pinning me down and demanding my total submission while he reeked of her perfume. "You will stay here until you learn how to be a submissive mate!" They sneered at my lack of an inner wolf, treating me like a defective, disposable outcast. They had no idea that I was deliberately suppressing the most powerful, ancient bloodline in the entire werewolf world. After surviving a deadly car crash and catching the eye of a terrifyingly dominant, mysterious Alpha who saved me, my heart completely turned to ice. I gave Bryton the soft, obedient smile he always wanted. "Okay, Bryton. Whatever you say." The moment the door clicked shut behind him, the smile vanished from my face. I finalized my 1.5 billion dollar exit deal with his mother, packed my bags, and prepared to vanish from his world completely. It was time to shatter this gilded cage and let my true wolf out to play.

For two years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to wealthy heir Grady Maddox. Then I found a hidden compartment in his study desk. Inside were dozens of explicit polaroids of his adopted sister, Jasmine, and a worn leather diary. The diary revealed the sickening truth. "Kaya is the perfect shield. As long as I have a wife, no one will ever look too closely at me and my little Yue." When Jasmine deliberately knocked a bowl of boiling soup onto my hand, Grady didn't even glance at my blistering skin. He frantically checked Jasmine for nonexistent scratches and yelled at me. "Why weren't you paying attention? Look at the mess you've made! You scared her." He then kicked me out to our empty penthouse as punishment, only to move Jasmine in the very next day, letting her parade around in his dress shirts and giving her my favorite custom furniture. Looking at the husband I had devoted my life to fawning over the sister he was secretly sleeping with, I didn't feel heartbroken. I just felt a deep, suffocating disgust. I was nothing but a paper wall meant to hide their twisted affair. I didn't cry, and I didn't beg for his love. I simply locked him out of the bedroom, gathered my financial records, and called Manhattan's most ruthless divorce attorney. I was securing my escape, completely unaware that Grady's estranged, terrifyingly powerful older brother had been waiting ten years for this exact moment.

I went to my fiancé's hotel suite to surprise him with a Patek Philippe watch the day before our engagement party. Instead, I found him in bed with my best friend. Through the crack in the door, I heard them plotting to steal my family's priceless data before breaking the engagement. I recorded their betrayal, threw the expensive watch in the trash, and went to a dark lounge to drink away the agony. In a reckless impulse born of whiskey and pain, I pulled a domineering stranger down for a kiss and took him to bed. But waking up the next morning, I realized the catastrophic mistake I had made. The man emerging from the bathroom wasn't just anyone. He was Garnet Crawford, my fiancé's ruthless, billionaire older brother. "Hello, future sister-in-law." He smiled coldly, revealing he had used my fingerprint while I slept to steal my blackmail video. He trapped me, forcing me to play the role of his fiancée to publicly humiliate my cheating best friend and destroy his own brother. He moved into my apartment, blocked the exits with his bodyguards, and claimed me as his property. I thought I was just using his power to get revenge on the two people who broke my heart. But the next morning, the news reported my fiancé had been brutally assaulted, his legs broken in a sudden mugging. Looking at the cold, possessive monster who had orchestrated it all, a terrifying realization hit me. I hadn't just struck back at my betrayers-I had sold my soul to the devil.

For twenty years, I obeyed my adoptive family, enduring my stepsister's mockery and my parents' cold neglect. But at a lavish hotel party, my stepsister forced a glass of spiked champagne into my hands. As my vision blurred and a strange, creeping heat consumed my body, my adoptive mother looked at me with ice-cold eyes. "We raised you for twenty years. It's time you paid us back." They had sold me to a sweaty, middle-aged businessman to save their failing company. I watched the man approach with a triumphant smirk, his oily hand reaching out to claim me. A wave of sheer nausea and profound betrayal hit me. I couldn't believe the people I called family were treating me like livestock to be traded. Using my last ounce of strength, I shoved him away and fled down the maze-like hallway. Terrified, dizzy, and desperate to hide from my pursuers, I stumbled into a random unlocked suite. I crashed into a tall stranger with sharp gray eyes before the world went completely black. When I woke up, I was in a presidential suite, wearing a man's oversized silk shirt. Sitting across from me was Damian Blackwood, the ruthless billionaire CEO and uncrowned king of Wall Street. I thought he would hand me a check to buy my silence or throw me back to my abusers. Instead, he looked at me calmly and offered me a deal. "Marry me, and the Foster family will never dare to touch you again." I looked at the marriage contract, took a deep breath, and chose to survive.

For four years, Isolde Navarro played the part of a broken, mindless doll, trapped in a severe trauma-induced haze after being brutally framed. The charade reached its climax the night she caught her perfect sister, Angele, and her fiancé, Julian, having sex in the estate's guest room. Instead of showing guilt, Angele violently shoved Isolde into a marble wall, laughing as blood poured down her face. "Get her out of my sight and clean her up," Angele sneered, disgusted by her own sister. Worse, Isolde overheard their ultimate plan through a hidden microphone: once the trust's protection clause expired tomorrow, they would declare her permanently incompetent and steal the massive fortune her mother had left her. Her own father was fully on board, eager to lock his "embarrassing" daughter in a padded cell and freeze every cent she owned. How could her own flesh and blood be so utterly ruthless? They thought she was just a drooling idiot, completely defenseless against their greed and cruelty. But they didn't know the lethal operative known as 'The Rose' had never been asleep; she was just waiting in the shadows. With a micro-camera recording their every dirty secret, Isolde calmly wiped the blood from her face and walked out the door. She had twenty-four hours to hijack a billionaire into marriage, trigger the trust's emergency clause, and burn her family's entire world to the ground.

I returned to New York for my welcome-home party, expecting a warm embrace from Edwin, my devoted fiancé of twenty years. Instead, his first words to me were a cold, public warning to stay away from his new girlfriend, Kacy. He stood in my family's hotel, shielding a girl I had never even met, and painted me as a vicious, jealous bully. "She is very sensitive, Kaitlyn. Her background is tough. Please, be gentle with her. Don't upset her." He humiliated me in front of our entire elite circle, allowing them to mock me as the aggressive, discarded ex while he carried her away like a fragile princess. For twenty years, I had been his loyal shadow, fixing his mistakes and loving him unconditionally. I couldn't understand how decades of deep devotion could be instantly erased by a few crocodile tears and a manipulative damsel act. He was absolutely certain I would throw a tantrum, cry, and eventually crawl back to beg for his attention. But he was wrong. He didn't know that Everett Rowe, a billionaire tech mogul, had been patiently waiting five years to marry me. He also didn't know that during my three years abroad, I wasn't just studying art—I became "K.B.", the ruthless Wall Street predator who could swallow his family's empire whole. I calmly pulled out my phone, ignored the mocking whispers around me, and typed a single message to Everett. "Yes. I'll marry you."