An overachieving Vera aspires to achieve success in Atlantic City, but her dreams hinge on marrying someone. She enters a three-year contract marriage with Ivan, who harbors a powerful secret. Unbeknownst to Vera, Ivan shields her from various threats to her life and even posing as an anonymous Angel investor to save her company from bankruptcy. When their contract expires, Ivan resumes his responsibilities to lead a secret organization, seeking vengeance for a past war that shattered the group and claimed his lover's life. Meanwhile, Vera becomes entangled in the murder of her rival, Steve Anderson, which was orchestrated by Ivan. Simultaneously, a visually impaired girl discovers her importance to the "new gods" - a treacherous faction responsible for the war. As these events unfold, the characters' destinies intertwine, leading to a compelling story of power, secrets, and retribution.
Chapter One
Somewhere in a large mansion with ornate architecture and interior design, located somewhere in the heart of the city of Atlanta, Ivan was seated in a chair, clicking a retractable pen repeatedly as he stared at the paperwork on the table for passing minutes. His eyes ran through the letters back and forth so many times in few seconds like he was hoping to getting other meanings from what he had read.
The cluster of letters plastered on the white paper read a divorce agreement, with a long line at the bottom left for him to scribble his signature on.
Opposite him sat the pretty lady whom had placed the divorce agreement in front of him and whom he was about to end things with - Vera, a lady with a bold red lipstick, which created a beautiful contrast on lips against her shining porcelain skin and her royal blue dress. Young but with wrinkles that had crept to the sides of her eyes, indicating she was getting towards the age of mid life crisis, and skin care products couldn't hide them any more.
Ivan's clueless face marked one of the stark differences between he and his about-to-be-ex-wife. With a big body wrapped about in a black suit which couldn't contain his large muscular body. The buttons of his jacket stayed tightly to his body but threatened to bust out if he flexed his muscles.
Vera's eyes hovered around his wide and bearded face, wondering what was making him take a little longer than she had expected he would. She had thought he was going to sign the papers as soon as she placed them in front of him.
Without any further hesitation, he brought his hand on the paper and scribbled his signature, much to Vera's surprise. Although she had wanted him to sign but she couldn't understand why she was beginning to feel she didn't want him to.
Three years ago, they had signed on a contractual marriage in that same room because she it had been mandated that she needed to get married to take the top position of the family company. It was a sort of trap so she wouldn't have any choice but to marry someone who they wanted her to marry.
She had thought it had been a meaningless hindrance to stop her from reaching what she wanted and she wasn't ready to back down because of that. At the same time, she detested their choice. Being an over-achiever, she devised the plan of the contract marriage.
What had been different that year was that Ivan wasn't rich-looking as he looked that moment he wanted to sign those divorce papers, totally different from what he looked like when he wanted to sign for the contract marriage.
He was to be paid three million dollars as soon as the three-year contractual marriage elapsed. He was a house husband through out the marriage, playing his character when he was needed, even as far as public display of affection. He played it really well and Vera might have felt a tincture of something towards her fake husband.
Fast forward to that moment, Vera had become what she had always wanted to be - to be the most successful woman in the city. She had gotten what she wanted Ivan to help her get, perhaps even more but at that moment she felt bad letting him go like that.
She collected the divorce papers from him and slipped the divorce agreement into the brown envelope from whence it had come out, then she gave him a wry smile which he didn't return. She brought out his cheque from her jacket and stretched it towards him. The clueless Ivan's face instantly lit up in surprise as his eyes read the content on the cheque and raised his face to look at her. She gave a reassuring smile to him like what he was seeing wasn't a dream - she had added to two million to the original agreement.
"That's for an exceptional job," Vera said to him.
Ivan stared at her for a while and turned away to look again at the slip in his hand. He muttered a thank you to her and folded it to put it in his pocket.
Vera had gotten so used to waking up and finding his bare body wrapped in white sheet in the morning that she began to feel that him leaving was going to leave a vacuum in her large house. She knew the loneliness that would follow as soon as he leaves.
"You know, you can stay here for a while. I feel a little guilty for cutting this marriage so short," she said and chuckled.
Ivan looked through that chuckle and found out that she was going to feel lonely when he leaves. Even though he was hard on the outside, the mushiness inside him made him to second guess his decision to leave her. He was able to eventually overcome his emotions.
"No, thanks," he said, "you don't have to feel bad for cutting it short because it was an agreement. It was a fake marriage." He finished his statement and bit his bottom lip when Vera fell her head. She smiled and raised her head, Ivan could see through the false smile. She simply agreed with him that he was right.
She had found him as an ordinary man three years before in a bar when she was on the search for a fake husband. He was the lucky one who she had a night stand with. She told him she was looking for a man to do a theatrical performance with for a period of about three years. He had immediately jumped on it as soon as she made mention there was money in it for him if he agreed to it; he showed heightened interest when she disclosed to him how much he was going to get after it all ended.
However, there was something Vera didn't know when she found him three years ago. She had thought he was an ordinary man but didn't know he wasn't. She wasn't aware he was powerful and perhaps more wealthier than she was.
Apart from that, he was something Vera couldn't imagine he was or believed existed. If he revealed to her what he was, her mind would literally explode; and if she tried to fathom what he was, her brain would fry up and shrink. He was something strange and out of this world.
Peradventure she did come to understanding of him without any of these things happening, she would be a threat to his existence. Being with her might eventually lead him to fall in love with her, which must not happen because of what he was. He might die...
He was well aware of all these and, hence, the reason he had to leave before she found out who he was.
While she had been thinking he was a house husband all those while, he had been secretly taking care of problems that might have tried to raise their ugly heads. Ivan had been beheading these problems before Vera could catch sight of them or smell their presence. For instance, Vera wasn't aware that she had gotten some enemies as soon as she declared her intention to run for the position. She had turned some of her family members into her enemies because of her defiance.
She was aware actually but she didn't know her enemies wanted her dead.
Assassins and bounty hunters had been sent her way without anyone touching a strand of her hair because Ivan had been taking them out of her way. She had been so surprised that she had effortlessly gotten into that position. She didn't know all these had happened.
During the three-year marriage, there was a time when it occurred that her company was on the brink of going bankrupt, and at the same time, the board of directors were on her neck to get her to step down - Ivan had secretly came to her rescue and had helped the company from sinking as an anonymous angel investor.
Consequently, she was awarded for being able to pull the emergency brake right before sinking the company into the ocean of bankruptcy. Vera searched for this anonymous angel investor for months and gave up, totally oblivious that he lived under her roof.
In so many ways, he had helped her without her knowing a thing and he was prepared to keep it that way. His time with her had ended and he needed to return to where he had come from.
Vera stretched her two arms towards him to offer him a hug but immediately retracted her hands to herself before he could see it. Ivan walked away quite hesitantly away from her and slowly began to gather pace as he walked towards the door and opened it. The last thing Vera saw of him that moment was his silhouette in bright sun before he closed the door.
She walked away from the table feeling a little embarrassed of herself. She reached her hands for a bottle of rum sitting on the table and opened it, then slowly poured its content into a cup, clumsily letting a few spills pour on the table. She gulped it without pausing as she emptied it into her throat, then making a loud grunt of satisfaction with creased brows which disappeared almost immediately. She then poured herself another cup, spilling more drops of the rum on the table again and nonchalantly left without cleaning it to stare outside the window.
Ivan walked some distance from the house, he then looked back to take a last quick glance at the white painted magnificent structure and caught the figure of someone standing at window looking down to him. He knew it was her that moment.
He plastered a dry smile on his face and waved at her. She replied with a wave where her hand didn't go past the length of her shoulder. He watched as she walked away from the window, then he slowly turned his face away. As soon as he walked some steps away from the wide and large transparent gates, he took out his phone from his pocket after taking some cautionary looks left and right. He put a call through to someone.
"Hermes," he said with blank eyes, "I am out of the place."
Hermes happened to be the man who held the fort for Ivan and watched over his properties, his investments and everything of value to him while he had stooped low to act like a house husband for a rich, overachieving lonely woman woman who wanted to be the most successful woman in the city.
"There's something I want you to do for me," he said with an an expression that betrayed the clueless face he had always worn through out the contract marriage. The clueless face was what Vera saw all the time and was unaware of what the owner of the clueless face was capable of doing. To her, he was muscular but couldn't hurt a fly. The other face where he had a death stare like that of an unrepentant psychopath was only seen only by those who tried to hurt Vera.
"What's that?" Hermes asked over the phone. He had said it like he knew what Ivan was about to say. Like he knew that whatever mission he was about to send him on, was going to require the shedding of blood...
He wanted to do one last thing for her. He wanted to obliterate a person whom hated her guts and wanted her dead. He knew Vera wasn't aware of what this person was capable of and needed to take him out before the person tried to make a deadly move on Vera.
He said, "I want you to kill a son of a bitch called Steve Anderson."
Irene grows up trying everything within her power to shred herself away from the supernatural world. But she never thought that a little sign of weakness from her would destroy all her years of hard work. Will she ever get over her fear of falling in love?
When Rachel found out that she is mated to her old enemy, she was asked to forgive him for the benefit of the old pack. She needs to think if the whole pack is Worthy of her forgiveness to her mate. "I think I can give you a chance". I said quietly, and he sighed in relief, he took my hands off his face and kissed my palm before placing it on his chest. " Are you sure?". He asked hopefully.
Denise,a 20 year old who just landed a modelling job is shocked to see her body change in the scariest ways. Unknown to her that it's few days to the full moon and usually it is a reminder that all new wolves would be summoned. She has plans to go back to her parents and asks questions but before then,her emotions trigger in rage when she finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her with her bestfriend. With this development,she runs out into the dark which is on the night of the full moon and turns to a werewolf and her rage results in brutal injuries to her boyfriend and the death of her neighbour's cat. As she wakes in the morning and realizes what she has done and what she has become,she goes home. In a bid for self-discovery,she realises there's more to Denise Colt as she is the link of the past and present. She meets her pack and learns of the brewing war on the day of the blood moon. A war that happened years ago which took her parents is coming again and this time it's still led by the same enemy.
This was Angela Cassiel's last year in high school. She had planned to spend the last year smoothly and welcomed her she-wolf when she turned 18. She may even find her mate. But she didn't expect her bully, Leo Miller to come back. Leo had always bullied Angela since they met in middle school. Leo kept bullying Angela, because Angela's father was the reason his mother and sister died. And he wanted Angela to pay for her father's mistake. Angela had no idea of this. She just knew Leo hated her to the guts. She tried to fight against Leo several times, but she was no match for him. Two Years ago, Leo transferred to another school because of family issues. Angela was glad to get rid of the bully bandage. And she thought they would probably never see each other. But her peaceful life was shattered, again, by Leo Miller's return. What would happen next? Would Angela fight against Leo bravely this time?
Lindsey's fiancé was the devil's first son. Not only did he lie to her but he also slept with her stepmother, conspired to take away her family fortune, and then set her up to have sex with a total stranger. To get her lick back, Lindsey decided to find a man to disrupt her engagement party and humiliate the cheating bastard. Never did she imagine that she would bump into a strikingly handsome stranger who was all that she was currently looking for. At the engagement party, he boldly declared that she was his woman. Lindsey thought he was just a broke man who wanted to leech off her. But once they began their fake relationship, she realized that good luck kept coming her way. She thought they would part ways after the engagement party, but this man kept to her side. "We gotta stick together, Lindsey. Remember, I'm now your fiancé. " "Domenic, you're with me because of my money, aren't you?" Lindsey asked, narrowing her eyes at him. Domenic was taken aback by that accusation. How could he, the heir of the Walsh family and CEO of Vitality Group, be with her for money? He controlled more than half of the city's economy. Money wasn't a problem for him! The two got closer and closer. One day, Lindsey finally realized that Domenic was actually the stranger she had slept with months ago. Would this realization change things between them? For the better or worse?
Katie was forced to marry Dillan, a notorious ruffian. Her younger sister mocked her, "You're just an adopted daughter. Count your blessings for marrying him!" The world anticipated Katie's tribulations, but her married life unfurled with unexpected serenity. She even snagged a lavish mansion in a raffle! Katie jumped into Dillan's arms, credited him as her lucky charm. "No, Katie, it's you who brings me all this luck," Dillan replied. Then, one fateful day, Dillan's childhood friend came to her. "You're not worthy of him. Take this 50 million and leave him!" Katie finally grasped Dillan's true stature—the wealthiest man on the planet. That night, trembling with trepidation, she broached the subject of divorce with Dillan. However, with a domineering embrace, he told her, "I'd give you everything I have. Divorce is off the table!"
For two years, Ashton had poured his heart into his marriage, yet Emalee's heart remained cold. Despite his dedication, Emalee presented him with divorce papers. She bluntly stated she could not remain married to a man whose net worth was less than a million dollars. Ashton signed the papers, closing one chapter of his life and stepping into a new beginning. Then, Ashton revealed his secret identities: a music mogul, a medical expert, and a martial arts master—each persona impressive enough to stun the world. As Ashton’s true capabilities came to light, Emalee was overwhelmed with deep regret.
Loraine was a dutiful wife to Marco since they got married three years ago. However, he treated her like trash. Nothing she did softened his heart. One day, Loraine got fed up with it all. She asked him for a divorce and left him to enjoy with his mistress. The elites looked at her like she was deranged. "Are you out of your mind? Why are you so willing to divorce him?" "It's because I need to return home to get a billion-dollar fortune. Besides, I don't love him anymore," Loraine replied with a smile. They all laughed at her. Some believed that the divorce affected her mentally. It wasn't until the next day that they realized she wasn't fibbing. A woman was suddenly declared the world's youngest female billionaire. It turned out to be Loraine! Marco was shocked to the bone. When he met his ex-wife again, she was a changed person. A group of handsome young men surrounded her. She was smiling at them all. The sight made Marco's heart ache severely. Putting his pride aside, he tried to win her back. "Hello, love. I see that you are a billionaire now. You shouldn't be with suckers who just want your money. How about you come back to me? I'm a billionaire too. Together, we can build a strong empire. What do you say?" Loraine squinted at her ex-husband with her lips curled in disgust.
"Sign the divorce papers and get out!" Leanna got married to pay a debt, but she was betrayed by her husband and shunned by her in-laws. Seeing that her efforts were in vain, she agreed to divorce and claimed her half of the properties. With her purse plump from the settlement, Leanna enjoyed her newfound freedom. The constant harassment from her ex's mistress never fazed her. She took back her identities as top hacker, champion racer, medical professor, and renowned jewelry designer. Then someone discovered her secret. Matthew smiled. "Will you have me as your next husband?"
18+, strong mature, and sexual content. Sneak peek: "W-what are you doing?" I asked, my breathing getting heavier as his warm fingers inched towards my bikini bottom. "You called me a coward earlier, remember?" He asked, his other hand wrapped around my throat and lips torturingly brushing over mine "So let's see how much you can handle if I break the boundaries." "I haven't said anything wrong," I breathed out, the collision of the heat of our bodies made the wetness between my thighs build more "Oh really?" He hooked my legs around his waist leaving me surprised I opened my mouth to say something but before any sentence could leave my mouth, sliding past my bikini bottom his fingers were there on my bare clit and the next second they thrust inside the very tight hole of mine leaving me to scream. But everything went silent as he pressed his hot lips upon mine just as I had been wanting since the first day I had ever seen him. **** I always knew the things I felt for Jacob Adriano were wrong in so many ways. He was my dad's best friend, totally out of bounds but I couldn't stop wanting him. And once in the event of my dad's destination wedding, I came across him after years...I lost every one of the boundaries I had and surely I planned to make him lose his ones too. After all Jacob Adriano, the sinfully attractive Italian was not unaware of my obsession with him. But little did know that forbidden relationships always bring havoc and demolition.....