Marrying My Ex's Ruthless Uncle

For two years, I was Hillary Mitchell's trophy husband-a velvet cushion in public, a parasite in whispers. All part of a contract. The day it ended, I dropped my ring and walked away. I thought I was free. But freedom was a lie. Hillary froze my $5 million, leaving me broke and forced to protect spoiled heiress Brielle Harris. Now I'm trapped between two cages: Hillary's mansion and Brielle's campus. A "simp" by day, a pawn by night. Then Hillary saw us together. She didn't just want me back-she wanted to own me. She dug up my sealed past: the foster violence, the suicide attempt. "You belong to this family forever," she whispered, eyes hungry. That's when I snapped. I tore both contracts apart. If I'm going to be a monster... I'll be the one they never see coming.

My fiancé cheated on me with a bottle service girl on the giant screen at our own engagement party. I woke up the next morning in a strange bed, smelling of sandalwood and expensive scotch, only to realize I was in the penthouse of Julian Blackwood—the man I had cruelly humiliated ten years ago. Before I could even process the shame, my world collapsed. My father suffered a massive stroke, and my half-brother Conrad immediately moved to seize the family empire, while a swarm of illegitimate siblings emerged to strip us of every cent. "You're a stain on my floor, Vivian," Julian told me, his eyes as cold as a stormy sea. He didn't just want me gone; he wanted to watch me go bankrupt. My stepmother hissed that I needed to get on my knees and beg him to be our lawyer, or we’d end up on the street. Then, a biker with a metal bat tried to kill me on a dark Hamptons road, proving my own family had already put a price on my head. I didn't understand why the boy I once called "the gardener's son" was now the only one standing between me and a shallow grave. Julian saved my life from the wreck, but his touch felt like a threat. Was he protecting me, or just making sure he was the one who got to finish me off? Standing in the lobby of Blackwood & Partners, I looked straight into the security cameras and told the biggest lie of my life. I told the world that Julian was obsessed with me, turning a restraining order into a scandalous affair. If I had to be a villain to survive my own family, I would be the most dangerous one New York had ever seen.

I stood outside the Genovese estate in the freezing rain for two hours, waiting for the man I loved to let me in. I was Elena Russo, the brilliant forensic accountant who had just laundered forty million dollars for the family. I was the adopted daughter, the fixer, and the fiancée of the Underboss, Luca. But the moment Sofia, the "real" daughter, returned, I became nothing but a placeholder. Luca looked me in the eye, swirling his scotch, and delivered the blow. "I need you to hand your work over to Sofia. She needs the prestige to be accepted by the Commission." He demanded I give up my life’s work—a complex laundering algorithm—so his new favorite could take the credit. When I refused, the humiliation began. Sofia faked a fall into the pool, and my adoptive father kicked me into the deep end to "teach me a lesson." I nearly drowned. Luca didn't save me. He handed me a diving mask and told me to find Sofia's lost ring at the bottom of the freezing pool before I was allowed to warm up. They stole my code. They ruined my reputation at the university. They slapped me in front of the press. They thought I was a stray dog with nowhere to go. They were wrong. Lying in the hospital bed, I dialed a number I had memorized years ago. "This is Asset 724," I whispered. "I'm ready to come home." The next day, the Russo empire began to crumble. And when a convoy of black SUVs arrived to collect me, Luca finally realized his mistake. My real father wasn't a nobody. He was Don Moretti, the King of the West Coast. And he was here to burn their world to ash.

Franklin William destroyed my father, then raised me as his ward. For ten years, I loved him, not as a guardian, but as the man who held my world in his hands. On my 18th birthday, I confessed. He crushed me with five words. "Love is a liability, Eliana." His cruelty escalated. He got engaged to a ruthless socialite who publicly branded me his "pet project." He forced me to wear a cheap necklace I was allergic to, the metal burning my skin like a brand of shame. That night, he stumbled into my room, drunk, and violated me, whispering his fiancée's name. My own mother called, not to comfort me, but to scream that I had ruined her social standing before disowning me. I was nothing. A project. A disposable toy. But as I sat in the wreckage of my life, an encrypted email arrived from my long-lost godfather. The subject line was clear: "It's time, Eliana. There's a way out."

My wife, Catalina, is a billionaire CEO. To me, she’s an angel. Three years ago, her stalker, Dixon Bright, shattered my hand with a hammer, ending my career as an architect. Catalina nursed me back from the brink, her love the only thing holding me together. On our fifth anniversary, I went to the DMV. The clerk looked at me strangely. "Sir, our records show you were divorced three years ago. On October 12th." The same day I was attacked. The record also showed who Catalina married that very day: Dixon Bright. My world tilted. Her tender care—feeding me, dressing me, encouraging me to draw with my left hand—was it all a lie? I found their secret house, a glass mansion she called an "investment." Inside, she wasn't punishing him. She was kissing him. I pressed my ear to the glass and heard the words that destroyed me. "It was your idea to cripple him," she cooed to Dixon, stroking his hair. "It was the only way to make sure he'd never leave me. You did a good thing, Dixon. You earned your reward. You earned me." My loving wife hadn't just betrayed me. She had ordered my destruction to turn me into a pet she could keep in a cage. My phone buzzed. A text from Catalina. "Happy anniversary, my love. Can't wait to celebrate tonight. <3" She thinks I'm her broken treasure, safe in her grasp. She has no idea I just saw the warden with the key. She thinks she broke me. But tonight, my escape begins.

Tonight was supposed to be special. Our fifth anniversary. I' d booked our favorite restaurant, bought a new shirt Chloe loved. Then, scrolling through social media, a photo from her company' s group chat caught my eye. Chloe, laughing, her hand resting on the arm of her intern, Liam. The caption called it "burning the midnight oil." I called it a lie. I typed a reply, directly into the chat: "Looks like fun. Chloe, I\'m still waiting for our anniversary dinner. The reservation was for seven." My phone rang instantly. It was Chloe, her voice a furious hiss. "What the hell do you think you\'re doing? Are you trying to embarrass me?" "Embarrass you?" I retorted, her dismissive tone burning me. "I' m sitting here alone on our anniversary. You told me you were stuck in a meeting." She called me needy, childish, then hung up. All my sacrifices, my life savings poured into her startup, the sleepless nights coding her company' s foundation – for this? To be a ghost in her shiny, successful life? The truth was laid bare: I was just an afterthought. I looked at our wedding photo, so full of hope, then slowly, deliberately, turned it face down. Then I blocked her. The next morning, her company's lead engineer called, panicking. "It's the Genesis build. It's a complete disaster. Liam broke it." Chloe had brushed off my warnings about Liam's sloppy code. She called him a rockstar. Now, she needed me to fix her golden boy' s mess. She sent her assistant to drag me to the office. Then Chloe herself called from the assistant's phone. "Ethan Miller, you get down here right now!" She tried to smooth-talk me, sweet-talking about "us." And then I heard it. A soft, wet sound, a kiss. And Liam' s voice. "Is he giving you trouble, boss? Let me talk to him." Chloe' s hushed, affectionate whisper: "It's fine, sweetie. I've got this." My world stopped. "Sweetie?" I repeated, the word dripping with mock sweetness. "Is that what you call your interns now, Chloe?" The betrayal, concrete and undeniable, sliced through me. All that anger, all that pain, crystallized into one chilling realization: "You don't need me. You need my work. There's a difference." "Consider your contract terminated," she threatened. "Consider it terminated," I replied, and hung up. I finally felt nothing. Just a vast, empty space where five years of my life used to be. I was done.