Neglected Wife: Hidden Heiress's Cold Revenge

I woke up in a hotel suite, still in my tuxedo, on my wedding day, October 12th, 2014. My fiancée, Sarah Jenkins, stood before me, her face pale, telling me to get out. The jarring part was that in my memory, Sarah was dead. She had died ten years later, throwing herself in front of me during a car crash, her last words a plea for me to "live well." This was our wedding day, ten years in the past, a second chance. I knew why I was here. I had spent a decade consumed by regret, forcing Sarah into a loveless marriage for a business deal. I later discovered her diary, filled with her true love for Mark Johnson, something she never had for me. After her death, I yearned to undo my mistakes. A locket, sold to me by a strange old man, promised a way to fix a great regret. Now, I was back. The voice from the locket echoed in my mind, "Her death is a fixed point. Unless her three great regrets are undone, the end will remain the same." I knew those regrets: not fighting for Mark, giving up her music, and Mark's car accident, which had happened a year into our miserable marriage. To start, I crossed my name off the marriage certificate and wrote Mark Johnson's in its place. Sarah's call came shortly after: Mark was in an accident. My blood ran cold, she accused me, "This is your fault! You did this!" She demanded I fix it because his rare blood type matched mine. Bleeding myself dry for her, I watched Sarah's rage turn to tearful accusation, "You did this, Ethan! So you're going to fix it!" I thought she understood my sacrifice for her and Mark's happiness. But as I collapsed from donating double the amount of blood, she screamed, "Cutting his brake lines... Ethan, that was monstrous!" She believed I was the one who sabotaged Mark's car. I had tried to save her, but instead, I became the villain. I chose to disappear from her life. The locket's work was done; I had erased her regrets. Now, only my own new life remained.

The gallery shimmered with color, a vibrant tribute to my son Leo's first year, his framed finger paintings and tiny plaster casts proudly displayed. My art, my life, my world. Today, I was a proud mother and a celebrated artist. Then the gallery door creaked open, and a cold draft swept in with Brenda, my husband' s sister, her eyes already searching for fault lines. "An entire party for a one-year-old? A little much, don' t you think, Sarah? Most people just do a cake and some balloons." The words cut, but the real sting came when she implied my "art" was just a desperate attempt to contribute financially. Mark, my husband, stood beside me, silent, his arm tightening in a gesture of restraint, not defense. The room grew heavy with unspoken judgment, our friends shifting in discomfort. Brenda, reveling in the awkwardness, then whispered loud enough for me to hear, insulting my post-baby body. My throat tightened, and I fought back tears. This was supposed to be a moment of joy, yet here I was, wounded again by someone who delighted in tearing me down. Later, as "Happy Birthday" filled the air, and Leo' s candle flickered, Brenda' s voice sliced through the sweetness: "I wish he grows up to look a little more like Mark. Right now, with that hair, he could be mistaken for the mailman' s kid." The insinuation was vile, stripping any innocence from the day. Something inside me snapped. "Get out," I said, my voice shaking with a rage I hadn' t known I possessed. But when Brenda feigned tears, my husband, Mark, sided with her. "Sarah, that' s enough," he said, his voice cold. "You are making a scene. Apologize to my sister right now." Apologize? His words hit me harder than any slap. He didn' t defend me; he condemned me. He chose his toxic sister over his family, over me. Was this the man I married? The father of my child? My marriage, my sense of security, crumbled into a lie. My pain didn' t matter; my dignity didn' t matter. Only keeping the peace with Brenda mattered, at my expense. As Linda, my gallery-owner friend, began politely ushering guests out, a horrifying clarity washed over me. I couldn't live a life where I always came second. I had to choose myself. I had to choose my son. The battle for my voice, my boundaries, and my future had just begun.

A dull ache throbbed at the back of my head. I woke up in a stark white hospital room, not knowing where I was, or even who I was. Then they came-my adoptive parents, my wife Olivia, and my brother Liam. Instead of concern, their faces were etched with annoyance. They called me Ethan, but the name felt foreign. They spoke about me as if I were furniture, criticizing my "stunts" and how I always sought attention. Olivia, stunning and cold, entered, her eyes reflecting deep dislike. Liam softened instantly for her. Then Olivia spoke, revealing a devastating truth: "The CEO of Reed Tech' s husband tried to kill himself again. It' s humiliating." Worse, whispers from the hallway confirmed it: "She' s in love with his brother." I was married to a woman who despised me, living a pathetic life in a favored brother' s shadow. It was a life of begging for love that was never given. Panic started to build, but then a strange calm washed over me. The amnesia wasn' t a curse; it was a mercy. It was a blank slate, a chance to escape a prison I didn' t remember entering. They thought I was the same weak, desperate Ethan. They were wrong. I wasn't him anymore. I was no one. And I could become anyone. I made a decision, right there in that sterile room, surrounded by people who wished I didn't exist. I would grant them their wish. I reached for the phone. I didn' t call a friend. I called a lawyer. "I need to file for divorce," I said, my voice steady. "And I want to discuss severing ties with my adoptive family." A new chapter was about to begin.

The cold screen of my phone cast a harsh glow on Olivia' s smug, made-up face-my art school rival-her latest post a candid, unflattering photo of me. Then, I saw the caption: "Some people will do anything for money. Here's Scarlet, a little fuller these days. Wonder if she finally landed a big fish. Or maybe it' s just a little goldfish she' s carrying?" The comments exploded, branding me a gold-digger, a woman using a baby to trap a man. Nausea churned in my stomach, not just morning sickness, but pure panic. Just as the world narrowed to the poison spreading online, a new notification flashed: a press release from the Sterling Corporation. My heart pounded as I clicked, expecting another blow. Instead, it was an announcement from the notoriously reclusive tech mogul, Liam Sterling: he confirmed he was the father of my unborn child and vowed legal action against any defamation. The world tilted. Liam Sterling? The legendary, untouchable genius from college? It was impossible. I had never even spoken to him. How could he be the father of a child conceived in a transaction with a nameless stranger in a dimly lit hotel room-a desperate mistake made to save my dying grandmother? It made no sense. The public shaming felt insignificant now, overshadowed by a terrifying reality: my quiet, desperate life had just collided with a world of unimaginable power. I was trapped, a pawn in a game I didn' t understand. I had signed a contract for survival, and now I was paying the ultimate price.

The Boston Real Estate Awards gala was meant to be a triumph – a celebration of my hard-earned success as lead architect for a foundation rebuilding the city, a life I painstakingly built after leaving behind a toxic past. But then, across the glittering ballroom, I saw them: Matthew, my ex-fiancé, and Sabrina, my stepsister, his heavily pregnant wife, the golden couple whose lies once orchestrated my death and the loss of my unborn child. They spun their familiar, perfected tale to a reporter: my "public breakdown" in Vegas, the "male escorts," the "maxed-out credit cards" – a fabrication designed to paint me as unhinged, justifying why "our family had no choice but to cut her off." My heart pounded with a cold, familiar dread; this was the narrative that destroyed my first life, costing me everything, even before Matthew' s truck "accidentally" ran me off the road for my inheritance. But this time, when they sneered, offering me a job cleaning construction sites, mocking my presumed destitution, a calm resolve settled over me; my second chance wasn't about vengeance, but about finally living free.

Oakhaven, Vermont, lives by a chilling prophecy: my deaf-mute mother, Martha, will speak only three times, her words bearing immense, unsettling weight. For years, she was just a quiet enigma, her silence another local quirk. Then, the unwritten rule shattered. My father died mysteriously after her first whispered "utterance." Five years later, just before my wedding, Martha whispered to my fiancé, Michael, and he barely escaped death in a bizarre "sleepwalking accident." Oakhaven erupted, screaming "Silent Curse." Reporters swarmed, turning our private grief into public spectacle. My mother retreated into an impenetrable silence, leaving me isolated, my world crumbling under the supposed curse. But I knew better. Dad never sleepwalked. Michael remembered nothing. My mother, though silent, harbored no malice. The official stories felt like flimsy lies. What truly happened? What did her "prophecies" really mean? Then, her desperate voice reached me: "Sarah... Pastor Thorne... He knows... Don't trust... the water... He...!" The line went dead. I found her, a suicide note and pills. But I knew. This wasn't a curse. This was a warning. And I would uncover the killer.

For five years, I believed I was living in a perfect marriage, only to discover it was all a sham! I discovered that my husband was coveting my bone marrow for his mistress! Right in front of me, he sent her flirtatious messages. To make matters worse, he even brought her into the company to steal my work! I finally understood, he never loved me. I stopped pretending, collected evidence of his infidelity, and reclaimed the research he had stolen from me. I signed the divorce papers and left without looking back. He thought I was just throwing a tantrum and would eventually return. But when we met again, I was holding the hand of a globally renowned tycoon, draped in a wedding dress and grinning with confidence. My ex-husband's eyes were red with regret. "Come back to me!" But my new groom wrapped his arm around my waist, and chuckled dismissively, "Get the hell out of here! She's mine now."

My wealthy husband, Nathaniel, stormed in, demanding a divorce to be with his "dying" first love, Julia. He expected tears, pleas, even hysteria. Instead, I calmly reached for a pen, ready to sign away our life for a fortune. For two years, I played the devoted wife in our sterile penthouse. That night, Nathaniel shattered the facade, tossing divorce papers. "Julia's back," he stated, "she needs me." He expected me to crumble. But my calm "Okay" shocked him. I coolly demanded his penthouse, shares, and a doubled stipend, letting him believe I was a greedy gold digger. He watched, disgusted, convinced I was a monster. He couldn't fathom my indifference or ruthless demands. He saw avarice, not a carefully constructed facade. His betrayal had awakened something far more dangerous. The second the door closed, the dutiful wife vanished. I retrieved a burner phone and a Glock, ready to expose the elaborate lie he and Julia had built.

The acrid smell of smoke still clung to Evelyn in the ambulance, her lungs raw from the penthouse fire. She was alive, but the world around her felt utterly destroyed, a feeling deepened by the small TV flickering to life. On it, her husband, Julian Vance, thousands of miles away, publicly comforted his mistress, Serena Holloway, shielding her from paparazzi after *her* "panic attack." Julian's phone went straight to voicemail. Alone in the hospital with second-degree burns, Evelyn watched news replays, her heart rate spiking. He protected Serena from camera flashes while Evelyn burned. When he finally called, he demanded she handle insurance, dismissing the fire; Serena's voice faintly heard. The shallow family ties and pretense of marriage evaporated. A searing injustice and cold anger replaced pain; Evelyn knew Julian had chosen to let her burn. "Evelyn Vance died in that fire," she declared, ripping out her IV. Armed with a secret fortune as "The Architect," Hollywood's top ghostwriter, she walked out. She would divorce Julian, reclaim her name, and finally step into the spotlight as an actress.

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

I'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body. My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in. I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then- I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses. Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down- He's still hard. Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance. "You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless. "I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake. "Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat. And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm. "Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine. *** Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge. She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez. He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her. What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated. Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty? And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?

Elena, once a pampered heiress, suddenly lost everything when the real daughter framed her, her fiancé ridiculed her, and her adoptive parents threw her out. They all wanted to see her fall. But Elena unveiled her true identity: the heiress of a massive fortune, famed hacker, top jewelry designer, secret author, and gifted doctor. Horrified by her glorious comeback, her adoptive parents demanded half her newfound wealth. Elena exposed their cruelty and refused. Her ex pleaded for a second chance, but she scoffed, "Do you think you deserve it?" Then a powerful magnate gently proposed, "Marry me?"