Luo Xi

I caught my husband cheating at his own club. I made him sign a post-nup: one more time, and I get everything. He didn't just cheat again; when I confronted him, he shoved me so hard I cracked my head open on a marble table. He left me bleeding and concussed at the hospital. He ran to his mistress' s side after she faked a suicide attempt for attention. His mother told me he called me "dramatic" as he abandoned me. Lying there, I saw his post on social media, calling her "my darling" while I was being treated for a head injury he caused. I finally understood. He didn't just betray me; he would have let me die for her. So I picked up the phone and called my lawyer. "Enforce the post-nup. Every single clause. And file the felony assault charges. I'm taking his entire empire, and then I'm putting him in jail."

I was once the CEO of a pharmaceutical empire, but now I was a ghost in my own kitchen, forced to serve the husband who stole my life. Bolden didn't just take my company and frame me as insane; he sat with his mistress, Kandace, and forced me to eat their table scraps like a dog. They poisoned my father to seize his legacy, gaslit the world into believing I was unstable, and made me scrub floors until my hands were raw and bleeding. Every day was a performance of submission, a calculated risk to protect my infant son, Leo, from their cruelty. They thought my silence was defeat. They believed the drugs had turned me into a hollow shell, unaware that I had been faking taking them for weeks. When they bulldozed my childhood home and desecrated my father' s grave, the last ember of my old life died-and a cold, ruthless resolve took its place. Tonight, I' m not just escaping with my son. I' m taking the evidence of their murders and fraud with me, and I won't stop until their stolen empire burns to ash.

"You could have hurt the baby," my husband snarled, shoving me onto the cold marble floor of the Met Museum. He didn't check if I was bleeding. He was too busy cradling Alya, the twenty-two-year-old intern I had hired two weeks ago. Bennett Calloway, the ruthless King of New York, was parading his mistress in front of the city's elite while treating me, his loyal wife of fifteen years, like a clumsy nuisance. He thought he was teaching me a lesson in obedience. I later overheard him telling his men, "Kelsey needs to be broken. When she hits rock bottom, she'll come crawling back. That's how you train a wife." He gave her my vintage Hermès scarf. He let her wear my family diamonds. He stood by as she mocked my infertility, claiming she carried the heir I never could. He waited for the tears. He waited for the screaming, the begging, the jealousy. But I didn't cry. I simply went to our bedroom, took the sketch of the nursery we had planned fifteen years ago, and lit a match. I watched the dream turn to ash in the wastebasket. Then, I signed the asset separation agreement, deleted my social media accounts, and threw my SIM card into a sewer grate. Bennett thought he was breaking a horse. He didn't realize he was freeing a prisoner. By the time he realized his mistake and tore the world apart looking for me, I was already in Paris, learning that love isn't supposed to hurt.

My husband unveiled a custom pink car on live TV, calling it a "tribute to our love." The internet hailed him as the perfect man. But I knew the truth. That car was the exact place he cheated on me with his VP, Keri. And the lipstick stain on the passenger seat wasn't mine. He thought I was at home, waiting to celebrate his success. Instead, I was at a clinic, signing a waiver to surgically remove my memories. I aborted the child he desperately wanted. I smashed the jade locket he claimed bound our souls together. I burned my passport, my license, and every photo of us in the kitchen sink. When he finally came home, he found nothing but an empty house and a gift box containing the remains of our unborn child. A year later, he crashed my engagement party in Charleston, falling to his knees and begging for forgiveness. I looked down at the weeping billionaire and felt absolutely nothing. "I'm sorry, sir," I said calmly. "But do I know you?"

On my wedding day, the giant screen in the ballroom was supposed to show a romantic video of my fiancé and me. Instead, it played a sordid deepfake video of me with another man. My fiancé, the celebrated tech mogul Edward Ford, pointed at me in front of New York’s high society. “Amelia Stone, you are a disgrace.” My own father then stepped forward, not to defend me, but to condemn me. He publicly disowned me, announcing he had another, kinder daughter who would take my rightful place. He gestured to the side, and my illegitimate half-sister, Dara Chase, stepped out, looking innocent and fragile. Betrayed by the two men I loved most, I fled the ballroom in shame. As I ran into the street, a car hit me with horrific force. As I died, I floated above my own broken body. I watched as Edward and Dara embraced, their mission accomplished. But then I saw him. Josiah Craft, a guest at the wedding, fell to his knees beside me, his face crumbling into raw, animalistic grief. I opened my eyes again. I was back in my penthouse, just days before the wedding that was supposed to be my end.

The silence in the practice room was where my future unfolded, a shared dream with my quartet: Juilliard, then the NYC Philharmonic. Ethan, my secret love; Chloe, my stepsister; and Noah, our steady violist. But the night before my scholarship audition, the dream shattered. Hidden on the stairs, I heard them-Chloe' s sharp voice, "She gets everything. It' s my turn." Then Ethan, the boy I adored, "Avery' s good, but she holds us back with all that… emotional playing." Betrayal twisted in my gut as I watched my future, a beautiful melody, curdle into a horrifying, dissonant chord. He didn' t love me; they weren' t my friends. During my audition, my A-string was loose, buzzing horribly. I saw Chloe' s triumphant smile, Ethan staring at the floor. My dream was over, stolen by those I trusted most. My own family echoed their cruelties, my mother accepting the lie that I had "choked." Then, they tried to take the silver locket, my father' s last gift. Ethan held me, Noah pried my fingers, and Chloe snapped the chain, kicking me as I clutched the broken silver. "What did you do?" Ethan asked Chloe, but it was too late. In the shattering pain, a cold resolve formed. I would not be broken. When my mentor offered a chance at the Royal Academy of Music, I seized it, a secret spark of hope in the suffocating darkness. My escape began.

The acceptance letter for architecture school abroad felt like my escape, a tangible sign I was finally putting myself first after years of playing a role. I was Ava Green, once a vibrant art history student, who threw it all away to become the devoted caretaker for Liam Hayes, the brilliant tech mogul who lost his sight in a devastating accident. His family, grateful for my endless devotion, "helped" my grandmother with her medical bills, creating a silent, crushing obligation that bound me to them and to Liam, for years. I became his eyes, his anchor, abandoning my own dreams to stitch his shattered life back together, believing our shared trauma forged an unbreakable love. But then Chloe Davis, his ex-fiancée, a glamorous concert pianist from his "real" world, returned, and I watched his affection fracture, then shift entirely. At his company' s gala, I saw Liam laugh with Chloe, a genuine, unguarded sound I hadn' t heard in months, a brutal reminder that I was just a placeholder. Later, I overheard Chloe tell Liam that I couldn' t be his partner, "not really," and his silence was all the answer I needed. My heart shattered, the realization hitting me: I was a glorified nurse, easily discarded the moment his true equal returned. The public humiliation came swiftly at a charity gala, when Liam' s sister, Sarah, cruelly exposed me as a "charity case" and publicly shamed me, dousing me in wine, while Liam, lost in Chloe' s orbit, remained oblivious. Why didn' t he see me? Why did he let them do this to me after everything I sacrificed? That night, packing my bags, I knew I had to escape this gilded cage; I would reclaim my life, pay back every cent, and build a future where I was seen, for myself.

My name is Caleb Duncan, "The Architect" of D.C., and I built my wife, Nicole Hewitt, into a political powerhouse. We were the ultimate power couple, our lives a seamless blend of ambition and strategy, all focused on her rise to the Senate. But on my birthday, a seemingly innocent Instagram post from a young mentee, Wesley Clark-a kid Nicole and I were putting through college-showed my wife, laughing intimately with him at our old diner, with a caption hinting at stolen moments. When confronted, Nicole feigned innocence, then dismissed my concerns with cold contempt, revealing a side of her I hadn't known. Just weeks later, at her biggest campaign gala, she projected photos of me on a giant screen, then publicly branded me a "whore" who slept his way through D.C., attempting to auction me off to donors like a piece of meat. The woman I had loved, built, and trusted more than anyone had orchestrated my public humiliation, my complete professional and personal destruction. How could she do this? Why this level of calculated cruelty? Drugged and cornered, I saw no escape, until a familiar face, my wife' s fiercest rival, Gabrielle Johns, pulled me from the jaws of despair, ready to help me fight back and burn her world to the ground.

My father, the most honorable man I knew, was slipping away, but hope glimmered-a lung transplant. Sitting by his hospital bed, holding his hand, I told him we had so much time left. I stepped out for a moment, and returned to a nightmare. Masked men stood over my father. A phone blinked red, livestreaming. They slammed me against the wall, forcing me to watch as they tore at my clothes and my father, horrified, coded. The world exploded. The livestream of my humiliation was everywhere, twisted to paint me as a party girl responsible for my father' s death. Ethan, my perfect fiancé, abandoned me. The hospital sued me. Then my mother, broken and blaming me, took her own life. I was utterly alone, an outcast, haunted by a question that screamed in my mind: Why? Why us? Why me? What unimaginable darkness could orchestrate such public, brutal destruction? Five years later, a man I thought was my savior, my loving husband, delivered the chilling answer that shattered my entire reality. I was a fool, but being a fool had just become my greatest weapon.

I woke up in my luxurious bedroom at the Governor' s mansion, silk sheets, sunlit, on the eve of my debutante ball. This wasn't the cold, damp room where I' d breathed my last. But then, the memories slammed into me, a tidal wave of betrayal. My own brother, Harrison, my fiancé, Brent Astor, and Chloe, my father' s orphaned campaign manager' s daughter we' d taken in, had conspired to destroy me. Chloe, in my special gown, stealing my moment. Their public smear campaign, framed as a 'charity initiative,' was a front for an offshore nightmare that meticulously ruined my name. My father's health mysteriously deteriorated, he died, and Harrison ascended to Governor. I, Savi, died alone, my reputation in tatters, branded for 'mistreating' sweet, innocent Chloe. The phantom pain of my last breath still haunted me. How could my closest family members unleash such malevolent destruction, assassinating my character and ultimately my life, all while posing as heroes? Why was I, the victim, painted as the villain? I looked at the calendar: it was that day. The debutante ball. I was back. A fierce, cold rage extinguished the fear. This time, things would be different. Chloe wouldn' t steal anything. Harrison and Brent would pay, dearly. And my father' s honorable legacy? I would secure it, no matter the cost.

Sarah Miles, a passionate journalist, was just days away from her dream: a prestigious UN Human Rights Correspondent Fellowship in war-torn Lendu and a wedding to her devoted fiancé, Ethan. Her life, meticulously built, felt like it was finally ascending. Then, a sudden, insidious message shattered everything. Anonymous photos and videos flooded her phone, revealing Ethan, naked, with Chloe Hayes – Sarah' s own half-sister. The man who had relentlessly pursued and championed her ambitions was a brutal liar, caught in a sickening affair. His desperate excuses and attempts to manipulate the situation only deepened the agonizing wound. Adding insult to unspeakable injury, Chloe' s chillingly cruel taunts made it clear this wasn't mere infidelity; it was a calculated act of destruction. How could the man she loved betray her with her own family? Why would Chloe, whom she was just beginning to connect with, orchestrate such pain? The sheer audacity and inexplicable malice left Sarah reeling, grappling with a profound sense of injustice and a world turned utterly upside down. With her meticulously planned future in ashes and her heart irrevocably broken, Sarah made a defiant choice. The fellowship in Lendu transformed from a career ambition into a desperate, immediate escape. She systematically dismantled her entire life, prepared to plunge into the chaos of a war zone, determined to find a future free from her shattered past, even if it meant confronting unthinkable dangers alone.

Another wire transfer pinged. It was another "apology payment" from Victoria Sterling, my girlfriend of five years. This one was different: $500,000. Far more than her usual fifty thousand, a sum that had already made me secretly rich. I' d played the role of the devoted, slightly naive boyfriend perfectly for too long. But this unprecedented amount felt less like an apology and more like a severance. Then, a video message arrived from Dylan Price, from Vicky' s social circle. It showed Vicky at a party, her arms wrapped around a young man, kissing him deeply. He looked unsettlingly like me, a younger, perhaps less worn version. Dylan' s text followed: "That' s Caleb Vance. Her childhood flame. Guess who\'s back?" Suddenly, Vicky' s pet name, "My C," and her online handles like "ForeverC," made a sickening kind of sense. I was never "C" for Ethan. I was a stand-in. A sharp pang of genuine hurt hit my chest. I remembered being a scholarship kid from Appalachia, chasing her, believing she saw something in me. Her friends had called me a "charity case." I later found her hidden love letters to Caleb, recently signed, calling me "just a boy, a distraction." When I finally confronted her during our breakup, she exploded. "You don\'t break up with me, Ethan. I decide when this is over! You belong to me!" I was shocked by the raw possessiveness in her voice. Her absolute conviction that she owned me, body and soul. She saw me as nothing more than an expensive pet, a compliant placeholder. How could I have been so blind, so foolishly naive for five years? But that immediate hurt quickly turned cold, pragmatic. If I was a substitute, I was a well-paid one. That $500,000 wasn't severance; it was a bonus for a long-term performance. With millions now in my accounts, I was financially independent. It was time to leave Vicky and her gilded cage behind.

Sarah Miller always felt like an outsider among her Omega Alpha Chi sorority sisters, yearning for a place at the heart of their tight circle. One fateful night, after a typical bonding party, she woke to an unspeakable horror: all five of her friends lay dead, victims of acute poisoning. Sarah was the sole survivor. Instantly, the spotlight of suspicion turned to her. The police presented a chilling web of evidence: a panicked audio recording from Chloe' s phone, capturing her sisters' dying pleas, "Sarah, wake up!"; records showing Sarah's key fob used when she claimed to be sound asleep; and a disturbing handwritten note in her own script, confessing a desire for peace if "they were gone." Sarah vehemently denied everything, desperate to believe she was asleep, but her memories were a terrifying blur. How could she be involved in such a monstrous act? The pieces didn't fit, adding to her dread: a pre-death text about a "prank" targeting her, and Danielle's chilling journal entry stating, "That wasn't Sarah." Then came the devastating truth: a forgotten psychiatric history, revealing Dissociative Identity Disorder. And the final, grainy footage – "another Sarah," calmly exiting the room after the murders, a faint, chilling smile on her face. Now confined, Sarah lives in an inescapable nightmare, realizing the horrifying killer is not outside, but an integral, malevolent part of herself, waiting to re-emerge.

I was nineteen, trapped in a nightmare, living in a house where my mother' s fists were a constant presence, leaving me bruised and broken. My father was my only hope, a beacon of normal in the chaos, though often conveniently absent. One day, my boyfriend Ethan, witnessing another brutal attack, finally called 911, but a mysterious video my mother showed him twisted his concern into chilling disgust in an instant. He walked out, abandoning me, branding me "sick" and "dangerous." Before him, my own grandparents, the very people who once hugged me tight, had turned their backs after seeing that same hidden footage. My father, who promised to protect me, also saw the video and joined the silent chorus of condemnation, leaving me utterly alone. The beatings continued, escalating, my world shrinking to a painful, isolated cell. What was on that damned video that could turn everyone I loved, every single person, against me, twisting their affection into hatred and judgment? The injustice burned, the confusion was a constant ache, an unbearable mystery that defined my monstrous new reality. Pushed to the brink of death in a final, savage assault, the truth finally surfaced: the horrifying secret the video held wasn't about me at all, but my own father' s unspeakable abuse of my sisters, and my mother' s twisted, monstrous attempt at protection. I was just a pawn in their dark game, but now, finally, I knew their secret, and this time, everything would change.

I stood on the polished stage of "Startup Goldrush," a triple-major Ivy League prodigy, ready to pitch myself and make my working-class family proud. Then, Victoria Sterling, the lead judge, unleashed her attack: dismissing my credentials as "just paper," demanding I decode her vague tech jargon, and insinuating my degrees were fake. A 'technical glitch' conveniently wiped my digital proof, and then, in a staged "accident," she soaked my physical diplomas with sticky kombucha, smirking as they disintegrated into an illegible mess. The lowest blow came when my own brother, manipulated backstage, walked out and publicly told me to apologize, demanding I stop embarrassing our family. Betrayed and humiliated, my world crashed, and I crumpled to the floor in a panic attack on live television, branded an "Ivy League Imposter." How could years of relentless hard work, incredible sacrifice, and genuine achievement be twisted into such a horrifying, public destruction? They tried to bury me, but as I lay in the darkness, remembering my brother's calloused hands and unwavering belief, a furious resolve ignited – I wouldn't just survive this, I would fight back. I opened my laptop, my fingers trembling but firm, and began drafting an email to Dean Thompson, Harvard University, ready to expose their lies.

Eighteen years. That's how long Marcus had spoiled Cindy. Ever since she could remember, only one man had a special place in her heart. Whatever she wanted, Marcus spared no effort to give it to her. But it didn't matter how much she loved him. He announced his engagement to another woman, and she was devastated. When Marcus' fiancee died under mysterious circumstances, Cindy was charged with her murder. Then, tragedy struck—she herself died in an explosion. Five years passed. Marcus moved on and found someone else to love. In fact, he proposed to her. But Cindy suddenly walked back into his life. She was supposed to be dead! Is someone else impersonating her? Or are there other forces at work here?

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.

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.

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!"

"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.