Isis Beutler

Aurora Morgan pushed the divorce papers across the desk to her billionaire husband, Julian Carlisle. Next to the papers lay his black leather journal, opened to a page that had just shattered her three-year marriage. In his crisp handwriting, the cold and untouchable CEO had written: "If I could go back, I would never let her go." Julian didn't explain or deny it. Instead, he tore the divorce papers to shreds, trapped her in her chair, and coldly reminded her that her body, her acting career, and her entire life were completely under his control. When she tried to escape, he forced her into his sports car, driving like a madman through the Manhattan night, threatening that they should just die together. But when a massive truck ran a red light and barreled toward them, Julian unbuckled his seatbelt and threw his body over hers, taking the full, fatal force of the collision. He survived, but the severe brain trauma wiped his memory clean, regressing his mind to that of an innocent sixteen-year-old boy. Looking at the man who had mentally tortured her, cheated on her in his heart, yet sacrificed his life to save hers, Aurora's heart was filled with a terrifying emptiness and bitter resentment. Why did he get to forget his betrayal while she was left to carry the agonizing weight of their broken marriage? And who on earth was the woman in the journal? A wild, vengeful plan formed in her mind. She handed the amnesiac boy a forged contract, looking down at him with a cold, beautiful smile. "Your name is Julian. You are my assistant, and you owe me a massive debt." This time, she was going to be the one in control.

Carlota was secretly carrying the child of Donavan Raymond, the most powerful man in New York. To escape his dangerous obsession and save her comatose brother, she entered a fake marriage with a disabled heir. But on her wedding day, her stepsister Harper discovered the secret ultrasound. Realizing the baby belonged to her fiancé Donavan, Harper brutally shoved Carlota into a marble table, murdering the seven-month-old unborn child. Harper and her mother bribed the doctor to lie to Donavan, claiming the dead baby was only five months old. Believing Carlota had cheated, Donavan mocked her broken, bleeding state and abandoned her in the hospital. Her stepmother then forced her to sign divorce papers by threatening to pull the plug on her brother's ventilator. They locked Carlota away, planning to sell her to human traffickers and finally murder her brother. Escaping into the freezing rain, Carlota followed them to a hidden graveyard and uncovered a terrifying, decades-old secret. Her stepmother and stepsister weren't just greedy gold-diggers. They were the family of a disgraced enemy, infiltrating her home for years to systematically poison her real mother and destroy her bloodline out of pure revenge. Kneeling in the mud, Carlota's fear vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating emptiness. She picked up her phone and faked a desperate, terrified sob. "Mom? Please, come get me. I'll do whatever you want." She hung up the phone, a chilling smile spreading across her face as she prepared to crawl back to Donavan and use his absolute power to slaughter them all.

I woke up to the screech of a megaphone and realized I had transmigrated into a YA novel called *Roses Under Thorns*. I wasn't the beloved heroine. I was Chloe Carrillo, a disposable scholarship student whose only purpose was to die in a tragic car crash to advance the plot. Desperate to survive, I tried to become invisible. But fate played a sick joke, making me the roommate of the female lead and drawing the suffocating, obsessive attention of her powerful brother, Dean Gibbs. While desperately avoiding Dean's controlling grasp, my nightmare worsened. An untraceable cyberstalker began hunting me. He called me "Little Lamb." He left a burner phone in my secret library hideout, sent photos of me taken from ceiling vents, and texted me the moment I stepped out of the dorm shower. "The water looks warm. Enjoy your shower." The police couldn't help, and asking Dean meant trading one terrifying cage for another. I didn't understand why this was happening. I was supposed to be a nobody, yet I was trapped in an invisible web, monitored every second of my life. Refusing to be a victim, I tracked down the university's legendary phantom hacker, Ashton Bridges. I handed him my devices, begging him to trace the stalker, thinking I had finally found a safe ally. I didn't know that as soon as the lab door closed behind me, he pulled up a live camera feed of my bedroom, his lips curving into a predatory smile. "Little Lamb, you walked right into my arms."

Jaclyn woke up in the sterile hospital room after falling down the stairs. The nurse delivered the devastating news: she had bled heavily and lost her baby. But before she could even cry, her trusted cousins, Katelyn and Cherri, locked the door and revealed the horrifying truth. "It wasn't an accident," Katelyn smirked, pinning Jaclyn's arm down. "The lubricant on the top step was a very deliberate choice." They needed her broken and unstable. They had forged her signature, draining her massive trust fund to save their uncle's bankrupt business. What shattered Jaclyn's world was the fresh hickey on Cherri's neck. Her lover, Bradford, had helped plan the entire murder. When Jaclyn tried to scream, they smothered her with a pillow, framing her as a lunatic having a mental breakdown. Two weeks later, when she confronted them, Bradford violently shoved her through a second-story glass window to silence her forever. As she fell to her death, the husband she had spent her life hating—the ruthless billionaire Gaines—burst through the doors. He threw himself forward, his face filled with pure terror, desperately trying to catch her. When her body hit the stone patio, Gaines fell to his knees in her blood, weeping and begging her not to close her eyes. Until her last breath, Jaclyn was consumed by suffocating regret. Why did she trust the monsters who killed her, and hate the only man who truly loved her? Opening her eyes again, she was back in the penthouse, exactly one month into her marriage with Gaines.

I was three million dollars in debt, forced by my agent to star in a reality show as the brainless gold-digger who married a decrepit billionaire. But right before the live broadcast, as I touched the tacky neon dress I was supposed to wear, a violent vision struck my brain. I realized my entire life was a script, and I was just a villainous side character designed to make America's Sweetheart look like a saint. My agent was secretly taking payouts from her PR firm to deliberately ruin my reputation with endless hate traffic. If I followed his orders today, I would be torn apart by the internet, lose every contract, and eventually die alone in a cheap motel. I couldn't accept that my every fake smile and stupid decision had been manipulated to destroy me just to elevate someone else. Why should I let them sell me out and turn my life into a complete joke? Looking at the ugly pink dress, I threw it straight into the trash. "You are fired, and my lawyers will be in touch about your offshore accounts." I poured a glass of freezing water over my head to wash away the heavy makeup and the helpless persona I had worn for years. I kicked out my backstabbing agent, put on a pair of plain black leggings, and walked out to face the live cameras. To hell with the script. Today, I was going to expose this fake PR marriage myself.

My husband, Jacob, swore to be my shield after my family's empire collapsed and I survived a fifteen-day kidnapping hell. I saw him as my savior, loving him with a desperation born from trauma. Then his intern, Ema, entered our lives. When I became pregnant, he used her lies to call me "tainted" from my past and demanded I abort our child, the shock causing me to miscarry. The final blow came during an explosion at our training grounds. He shoved me aside to shield Ema with his body. "She's carrying my child," he said, his voice like ice. "You're expendable." He left me to burn, promising a rescue team he never intended to send. But he didn't know about the secret escape route, or my brother's plan. I faked my death, letting him find my "body" in the morgue. He thought he had created a ghost. Now, he's about to find out you can't catch one when she's already free.

My husband sat at the head of the table, cutting into his medium-rare steak like a king. To the world, Brendan Wiggins was a legitimate businessman. To me, he was the Mafia Don whose empire I had built brick by digital brick. Then my burner phone vibrated against my thigh. It wasn't a threat from a rival gang. It was a photo of a positive pregnancy test sent by his mistress. I watched a video of him in her apartment—a place he visited while I thought he was working. I heard him tell her, "Ellery is functional. She handles the books. But you’re giving me the legacy. She’s just the furniture I keep to impress guests." He had taken the trauma of the car crash that left me infertile—the crash he caused—and used it to mock me with another woman. He thought I was his broken doll. He thought I was safe because I was dependent on him. He forgot that I was the Architect. I designed the encrypted channels that kept him out of prison. I controlled the offshore accounts. I didn't cry. I simply applied a coat of blood-red lipstick and tapped a dormant script on my smartwatch. While he poured me a glass of wine and called me his "sanctuary," I drained fifty million dollars from his shell companies. I wasn't just leaving. I had an appointment with a black-market neuroscientist to chemically erase my memories. By tomorrow, Brendan wouldn't just be bankrupt; to me, he wouldn't even exist.

For seven years, I hid my identity as a billionaire heiress to build my boyfriend Derek' s career from the shadows. I designed his award-winning buildings, fixed his mistakes, and waited for the proposal he promised. But at the airport, instead of a ring, he handed me a box of pistachio macarons and ran off to comfort his "fragile" assistant. He smiled, thinking he was being romantic. He had completely forgotten that I am deathly allergic to nuts. That box wasn't a gift. It was a death sentence wrapped in a silk ribbon. Standing at the gate, I finally realized he didn't love me. He only loved the pedestal I built for him. I tossed the macarons in the trash and dialed my father. "I'm coming home," I said. Charlotte Murphy, the submissive girlfriend, died at that terminal. Charlotte Wheeler, the real estate mogul, was born. And when Derek finally tried to crawl back with a microphone and a staged proposal, I made sure his destruction was as public as his audacity.

My husband, Arthur, had a pattern. He would cheat, I would find out, and a rare book would appear on my shelf. Forty-nine betrayals, forty-nine expensive apologies. It was a transaction: my silence for a beautiful object. But the forty-ninth was the last straw. He skipped my dying father' s award ceremony-a promise he made while holding his hand-to buy a condo for his high school sweetheart, Juliet. The lie was so casual it broke me more than the affair. Then he took her to my mother' s memorial garden. He stood there while she tried to erect a monument for her dead cat next to my mother' s bench. When I confronted them, he had the nerve to ask me for compassion. "Let's show a little compassion," he said. Compassion for the woman desecrating my mother' s memory. Compassion for the woman he' d told about our miscarriage, a sacred grief he' d shared like a dirty secret. I realized then that this wasn't just about a broken heart. This was about dismantling the lie I helped him build. That night, while he slept, I installed a bug on his phone. I' m a political strategist. I' ve ruined careers with far less. The fiftieth book wouldn't be his apology. It would be my closing statement.

I was at my wedding rehearsal, standing at the altar across from my fiancé, Holden. Our marriage was meant to be the event of the season, a perfect union of two prominent families. Then, his future sister-in-law, Jaidyn, crumpled to the floor. Without a single glance my way, Holden vaulted over a row of chairs, scooped her into his arms, and sprinted out of the hall, leaving me alone and publicly humiliated. Hours later, his voicemail finally came. His voice was thick with emotion, but not for me. He told me Jaidyn has a secret heart condition and has been secretly in love with him for ten years. He said the stress of our wedding was too much for her, and then asked if I could be like a sister to her once we were married. A text followed moments later: "Postponing the wedding. Jaidyn needs me at the hospital." He expected tears. He expected me to wait patiently, to graciously accept being sidelined for his secret admirer. He mistook my love for weakness. But I am Eloise Bowers. My dignity is not something to be discarded. I scrolled past his name and called his older brother, Alphons—the man Jaidyn was supposedly engaged to. "Your brother's wedding is off," I told him, my voice steady and clear. "But the bride is still a Callahan. I'm at the city hall courthouse. You have thirty minutes."

The world came back in a blinding flash, a hospital' s sterile tang assaulting my senses. Then I heard her, my monster-in-law, shrilly wailing over "my poor Jake," oblivious to the horrifying truth. My hand, resting on the hospital sheet, wore Jake' s wedding ring. A cold dread seeped into my bones: I was in my husband' s body. As Brenda' s conspiratorial whisper cut through the fog – "That car accident… it didn' t go as planned. Chloe is still alive…" – my blood ran cold with the chilling realization. The car accident wasn' t an accident. They tried to murder me for an insurance payout. My own husband, the man I loved, had plotted with his family to kill me, his mistress Sarah, and his own mother in on it. A gut-wrenching betrayal twisted inside me, remembering how I' d used my dowry to build his company, how his family had treated me like a servant, and how Jake had dismissed it all. This wasn' t just about money; it was about destroying me. But as a sharp, burning rage ignited within, a vow formed in the depths of Jake' s hospital bed. They wanted to ruin my life? Fine. I would ruin theirs first. I would take back what was mine, using his body to dismantle every single thing he had built. Justice wasn't enough. I wanted revenge.

The last thing I saw was Maverick' s powerful hooves, descending on me. I was back, gasping, the thick scent of magnolias filling my lungs at the Claiming Ceremony – the day my life fell apart. Maverick, the champion I had raised from a foal, trotted straight to Charlotte, nuzzling her hand in a blatant act of public rejection. My father, Richard, placed a hand on my shoulder, his grip tight, announcing, "Charlotte has a special connection. You're the older sister, let her have him. It' s for the good of the family's reputation." The jockey I' d helped sneered, "A champion horse needs a champion rider." Charlotte's friends chimed in with fake sympathy, insisting I was never strong enough, that I would have held him back. The humiliation was a physical weight, but this time, in my second chance, I felt only a cold resolve. My father pushed, trying to salvage his scheme, offering me the sickly, seemingly worthless colt, Ash, in exchange. Everyone pitied the broken girl being cast aside, agreeing I was walking away empty-handed. But kneeling beside Ash, I felt a faint, familiar warmth, a deep connection confirming what I suspected: he was my mother' s true legacy, the horse she had left for me. Charlotte, arrogant in her victory, declared, "Let' s perform the bonding ritual now, so everyone can see the true bond between a rider and her horse." I stood, a slow smile spreading across my face. "I agree."

My name is Sarah Miller, and I'd just hit the lottery for millions—a life-changing sum. I had a loving husband, Mark, his family, and my sweet five-year-old son, Leo. Our Memorial Day road trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains promised a perfect getaway. But a chilling current ran beneath their forced smiles. At a breathtaking scenic overlook, the man I trusted most, my husband Mark, pulled me close. Then he pushed. The air rushed past, a brief, sharp pain, and then, nothing. My spirit, unseen, lingered. I watched my murderers—Mark, his mother Brenda, and his sister Jessica—calmly walk away, plotting to claim my lottery money. But the true horror struck days later: my beloved son, Leo, called another woman "Mom," revealing he was never mine, but Mark's and his mistress Tiffany's. My entire life had been a meticulously crafted lie. My love, a mere pawn in their cruel deception. The fiery pain of this betrayal ignited an inferno of rage and a singular desire: for them to suffer just as agonizingly as I had. Then, darkness. I woke with a gasp to sunlight. The calendar read Memorial Day, the morning of the trip. This wasn't a nightmare; it was a miraculous second chance. An icy resolve hardened my core: They would pay. Every single one of them.

Transferred to the body of a young lady from a noble family. Married a nobleman whom she did not love. The nobleman was foolish but wealthy, and she had planned to wait for him to inherit his fortune. But she did not expect the nobleman to be handsome, kind-hearted, and in love. The original owner of the body was excellent in reading, painting, and embroidery. As for me, I also enjoy reading (The Overbearing CEO Falls in Love with Me), drawing (a few things about pornographic drawings), but embroidery is not my strong suit. The nobleman's hobbies are really... I can't resist them at all!

I was the President's Old Lady - and the only reason his MC was still breathing. For three years, I ran every legal business the Serpents of Redemption owned. While Craig chased road glory across state lines, I turned a failing auto shop and a tattoo parlor into the money that kept the brothers fed, the bikes fueled, and the clubhouse lights on. Then he rode home from a two-month run with a sweetbutt on the back of his Harley - and her son. Ginger, he said, had saved his life on the road. So he put her in the main residence, in the room directly across from our bed. He handed her my ledgers and called it repayment. When her son dumped a cup of scalding coffee over my hand, Craig never checked my burns. He scooped up the boy and blamed me. His grandmother - the club's Matriarch - stood before every patched brother and accused me of hurting "family." That night, Craig told me Ginger held a place in his heart I could never reach. A debt of blood he'd honor above me. Three years. My family's fortune. My scarred hand. All of it - worthless next to his roadside savior. So I did the one thing a President never expects his Old Lady to do. I gave back his patch. Now they can keep their empty ledgers. They can play happy family in a clubhouse I built. And when this motorcycle club burns - I'll be the one holding the match.

Chloe had just given birth to twins, lying exhausted in a cramped, bustling hospital ward. When she called her husband, Julian, he was busy partying with his actress mistress. He coldly hung up on her, having already drafted a brutal divorce agreement that would leave her with a pittance. Strangers in the next bed loudly mocked her pitiful state, gossiping about how Julian was dumping her. For years, Chloe had erased her own identity to fit into his elite world, only to be thrown away like garbage. She was completely alone, clutching her helpless babies, bracing herself to sign the cruel papers just to survive. She couldn't understand why her absolute devotion was met with such chilling indifference. Why did she have to suffer this ultimate humiliation while he celebrated with the woman who ruined her life? But then, a senior doctor noticed a unique mole on her wrist and ran a secret DNA test. The results were staggering: Chloe was the long-lost daughter of the billionaire Beaumont family. With her fiercely protective parents and three powerful brothers suddenly forming an impenetrable fortress around her, Chloe picked up her phone and texted her arrogant husband. "City Hall tomorrow at 10 AM. If you don't show up, my lawyer will handle everything. And trust me, you won't like their terms."

Five years ago, I stood in the freezing rain at my mother's funeral, waiting for my husband. Blake Knight, the billionaire NHL superstar, was two hours late. When he finally showed up, he brought his rumored girlfriend, the woman he had just rented a hotel rooftop for to celebrate her birthday. Watching him defend her fake tears, my heart completely died. I took off my diamond wedding ring, placed it on my mother's headstone, and walked away from my marriage forever. I fled to London, changed my name to Ava, and secretly raised the triplets he never knew existed. I thought I was finally safe from him. But today, my kids vandalized a silver Aston Martin in our apartment's parking garage, and the owner caught my youngest daughter. My phone rang. The voice on the other end was Blake's. He had moved into my building, and he was holding my little girl in his penthouse, demanding her mother come get her immediately. Panic suffocated me. If I walked through that door, my five years of hiding would be instantly destroyed. He would recognize me, realize I didn't get rid of our child like everyone thought, and he would use all his power to take my babies away. I couldn't let him ruin my life again. "I'm just her nanny," I lied through my teeth. I frantically begged my best friend to go upstairs and rescue my daughter in my place. He bought the disguise, but now, the King of the Ice is dangerously obsessed with investigating my new identity.

My controlling mother forced me on another blind date with an arrogant lawyer, but an emergency call from my clinic saved me. I rushed back to find the waiting room filled with massive, tattooed men in leather cuts. They were the Serpents of Retribution MC, and their ruthless President, Knight, locked his ice-blue eyes on me, ordering me to be the sole nurse for his injured man. Trouble quickly followed. A fake doctor took me hostage at gunpoint, trying to get revenge on Knight. We tumbled down a concrete stairwell, and Knight used his own body as a human shield to save my life. But the aftermath destroyed my world. My boss threatened to fire me. My mother screamed at me for walking out on the lawyer, caring more about my "stable future" than the fact I almost died. I thought I had hit rock bottom, until Knight tracked me down. He didn't ask for my consent. He dragged me to his clubhouse, pinned me down, and had his club's serpent emblem permanently tattooed onto my shoulder blade. "From now on, you're my Old Lady." He marked me as his property, leaving me trapped between a suffocating family and a dangerous biker boss. Staring at the black brand in the mirror, I realized I couldn't be a passive victim anymore. I drove to my parents' house, pulled down my collar to show them the serpent, and finally severed ties with my past.

After six years away, I returned to my hometown with a single suitcase and a picture of my fiancé tangled up with my stepsister. I thought it was just a simple, disgusting betrayal, but when I planted a bug in their private suite to get a confession, I heard a truth that froze my blood. My fiancé, Leo, laughed about how my own father had already signed over my mother's legacy—The Nightingale Ranch—as collateral to his powerful family. "Once this is all done, Claire will have nothing. And the woman you marry will be me," my stepsister Jenna cheered. Leo cooed back, calling me a stray dog he'd kick to the curb once he was bored, a worthless woman who couldn't even hold onto her family's land. My family had sold me out, and the man I loved was planning to leave me with absolutely nothing. I didn't cry. The pain burned away into a cold, hard hate. How could my own father conspire with them to destroy the only thing I had left of my mother? I crashed their prestigious charity auction and played their filthy recording over the speakers for the entire town to hear. But when Leo charged at me in a murderous rage, a wall of leather and muscle stepped in front of me. Kade "Chaos" Peterson, the terrifying President of the rival motorcycle club, crushed Leo's wrist and announced to the stunned room, "She's with me now."

My stepmother’s bodyguards were seconds away from dragging me back to a life that was essentially a prison cell wrapped in silk. I couldn't even scream for help because the words always died in my throat—a clinical condition called selective mutism that felt like drowning on dry land. I had just discovered the sickening truth: my father was planning to sell me to a sleazy investor named Sterling to cover his company’s bankruptcy. They were going to drug me, ship me off to a private island, and strip away the only thing I had left—my late mother’s multimillion-dollar art trust. When I arrived at the manor, my stepmother Lydia handed me a glass of wine laced with bitter sedatives, her smile sharp as a razor. "Drink up, darling. It’ll make the transition to Mr. Sterling much easier." My stepsister Harper stood in the corner, wearing a dress bought with my mother’s stolen money, mocking my inability to speak. My father didn't even look me in the eye as he calculated my price tag, treating his own daughter like a piece of damaged, mute inventory. They thought because I didn't speak, I didn't hear them laughing about the "accident" that killed my mother or how they planned to burn her final restoration work. They assumed my silence was a sign of surrender, a white flag waved by a broken girl who would never fight back. How could the people who were supposed to be my family treat me like a commodity to be traded? Did they really think my silence meant I was weak, or that I didn't know every dirty secret they were hiding in their ledgers? I didn't drink the wine. Instead, I burst into the VIP suite of Carlisle Pierce, the most cold-blooded billionaire in New York, and slammed a crumpled napkin on his table with a desperate, last-second gambit. "MARRY ME. NOW. $1 MILLION."

She married him out of desperation, becoming the perfect docile wife while he treated her like dirt beneath his shoes. But everything shattered the night she overheard him mocking her with his friends-and discovered the necklace she'd cherished, her only link to the boy who once saved her life, didn't even belong to him. It was all a lie. No longer the doormat he married, she discards her fake identity and reclaims her birthright as the hidden heiress of Salvadore City. Now she's on a mission: find the necklace's true owner among his circle of friends, no matter how many hearts she has to break along the way. But her husband isn't ready to let go. Convinced she's playing games to make him jealous, he's blindsided when divorce papers land in his hands. By the time he realizes the woman he dismissed was never who he thought she was, she's already moved on-living her truth, chasing her destiny, and leaving him choking on regret. Some cages, once opened, can never be closed again.

I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing. During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me. I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst. She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side. "Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house." I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip. My heart went completely dead. So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate. I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table. "I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today."

I was in the hospital, enduring the agonizing pain of labor, while my husband, a famous hockey captain, refused to show up. When I called him for the twelfth time, begging for him, he lost his patience. "Giving birth is a woman's job, don't bother me with this stuff." Then, I heard my stepsister's sweet voice offering him a drink, and he immediately softened before hanging up on me. I gave birth to twins all by myself. The nurses treated me with cold indifference, and the family in the next bed loudly mocked me as a pathetic "Puck Bunny" who was just an adopted orphan about to be dumped. They were right. A month ago, my husband had thrown divorce papers at me, demanding I make way because my stepsister was pregnant with his child. I thought my life was a joke. I was just a discarded prop he married to satisfy his grandfather, a fake daughter my adoptive parents only used to elevate my stepsister. I was completely alone, ready to sign the papers just to protect my two babies. But then, the head of the hospital rushed in, transferred me to the top-floor VIP suite, and handed me a DNA test. It turned out I wasn't an unwanted orphan, but the long-lost daughter of the ultra-wealthy Sinclair family who had been searching for me for twenty years. Looking at my billionaire parents and three powerful brothers who just flew in on their private jets to protect me, I picked up my phone to call my arrogant husband. This time, I was going to make him leave with nothing.

As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole. I begged him for help, my vision blurring. But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background. "Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again." He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm. I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube. Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry. Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled. "You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up." He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research. I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym. They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive. They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity. I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding. I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it. Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house. The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born.