The Fortune of Betrayal

Aliyah Pollard POV: For six years, my husband, Chase, refused to divorce me, gaslighting me while he built a new family with his mistress, Faye. After 99 failed attempts, I was ready for my 100th try. But the man I met in the park wasn't my cold, cheating husband. It was Chase from ten years ago-eighteen, idealistic, and still madly in love with me. He didn't understand why I looked so sad, why I flinched from his touch. He didn't know about the affair, the miscarriage Faye caused, or the child they now had together. He saw the divorce papers and his world shattered. "I would never hurt you, Aliyah," he cried, his young eyes filled with genuine anguish. "I love you." His pain was a stark contrast to the cruelty of the man he would become. The older Chase had sneered, "You're mine, Aliyah. Who would want you?" But this boy, this pure version of my husband, saw my suffering and didn't hesitate. He took the pen, his hand shaking, and signed the papers his future self had refused for years. "If this is what you need," he whispered, "I'll do it."

I was heading into senior year, my ROTC scholarship practically a guarantee, my future stretching out bright and limitless. Then, my childhood friend and first love, Mike, fueled by jealousy and his new girlfriend Jessica' s petty spite, drugged my drink. It was right before my crucial ROTC physical, and I failed, watching my dreams and entire future evaporate. My life spiraled into dead-end jobs, a miserable existence far from what I' d planned. Years later, at a party, Jessica, still simmering with a twisted hatred, set her friends on me. I remembered the rough hands, the tearing, the cold, hard floor against my cheek as their cruel laughter filled the air. They stripped away everything, then they killed me. The searing pain, the utter betrayal, the image of their faces twisting with delight as I lay dying - it was an agonizing, incomprehensible end. Why? How could they commit such an unspeakable act, then simply walk away? But then, I woke up, gasping, in my own bed, three years in the past, my body miraculously whole and untouched. Reborn. A terrifying realization struck me with the force of a physical blow: what if they were back too? At the first school assembly, Mike' s arrogant smirk and Jessica' s cold, knowing eyes confirmed my worst fears. They remembered. But this time, I wouldn't just survive; I would ensure they paid for every last bit of what they did. The game was on, and this time, I was ready to win.

For seven years, I gave up my life as a genius engineer to be the perfect wife for my husband, Jonathan, a U.S. Senator. But when our five-year-old son drowned, he didn't comfort me. He comforted his adopted sister, Hailey, and blamed me for our son's death. At the wake, he stood by as his family beat me, calling me a murderer. He watched them shove my head into a freezing pond, forcing me to feel the same terror our son felt in his last moments. His protection was always for Hailey, never for me. Then I learned the horrifying truth. Jonathan was there when our son fell in the water. He saw him struggling, but he chose to comfort a panicking Hailey first. He let our son die. So I filed for divorce in secret and vanished into a classified research project. But when he tracked me down, begging for a second chance in front of his new colleagues, I played a recording for everyone to hear. It was Hailey's voice, gleefully admitting that Jonathan had chosen her over his own dying child.

I was the "little bird" of the Carlson empire, living a comfortable but caged life under the thumb of my guardian, Francis. To the world, Christ Carlson was the cold, untouchable machine who ran the family business, a man I called "Uncle" but who treated me like a ghost in the hallway. One drunken night in Las Vegas, desperate to finally "poke the bear" and feel alive, I leaned into his shadows and whispered a dare that would ruin me. I asked the most terrifying man I knew if he dared to marry me right then and there. He didn't laugh. He stood up, dragged me to a tacky chapel, and forced a massive diamond onto my finger with a grip like iron. The "asexual" machine everyone feared turned into a predator the moment we reached his penthouse, claiming me with a bruising intensity that left me breathless and broken. By morning, I was trapped in a living nightmare. Christ forced me to hide the marriage, demanding I play the part of the dutiful niece while he owned me in the shadows. He replaced my ripped clothes with thousands of dollars in designer silk, essentially buying my silence and my body in one cold transaction. Now, I’m back at the family estate, hiding a five-carat ring on a chain under my shirt and praying Francis doesn't see the marks on my neck. I thought I was being rebellious, but I didn't realize Christ Carlson had been waiting for me to walk into his trap for years. I am legally his, physically his, and he has no intention of ever letting me go. Every time he looks at me, I feel the cage door slamming shut, realizing I’ve traded a guardian who ignores me for a husband who wants to dismantle me piece by piece. At breakfast, Christ pressed his shoe firmly against my inner thigh under the table, his gaze locked on mine while he discussed my future with Francis. "I think it's time we found her a match," Christ said, his voice a lethal, calm purr. "I was thinking of keeping her in the family."

My little brother’s heart monitor was screaming its final warning. I called my husband, Dante Volkov, the ruthless underworld king whose life I’d saved years ago. He had promised to send his elite medical team. “I’m handling an emergency,” he snapped, then hung up. An hour later, my brother was dead. I found out what Dante’s “emergency” was from his mistress’s social media. He had sent his team of world-class surgeons to deliver her cat’s kittens. My brother died for a litter of cats. When Dante finally called, he didn't even apologize. I could hear her voice in the background, asking him to come back to bed. He even forgot my brother was dead, offering to buy him a new toy to replace the one his mistress deliberately crushed. This was the man who had promised to protect me, to make my high school tormentors pay. Now, he was holding that very tormentor, Seraphina, in his arms. Then came the final blow: a call from the clerk's office revealed our seven-year marriage was a sham. The certificate was a forgery. I was never his wife. I was just a possession he was tired of. After he left me to die in a car crash for Seraphina, I made one call. I texted a rival mob heir I hadn't spoken to in years: "I need to disappear. I'm calling it in."

"I'm sure about this. I want to volunteer." Ava Williams looked the program director in the eye, her voice steady, determined to commit two years in a conflict zone. Inside, her heart was a mess, but she had to do this. Then, a fire truck screamed past, its siren wailing, and suddenly, she was a child again, trapped in a burning home. Her parents were gone, but a young man, Liam, scooped her into his arms, whispering, "It's okay. I've got you. I'll always have you." That promise became the foundation of her world. She grew up, and her gratitude for Liam, her legal guardian, transformed into love. On her eighteenth birthday, she confessed, "I love you. Not like a sister." He froze, his expression cold. "I am your brother. Your guardian. Don't ever say that again." After that night, a wall went up between them. She didn't give up. Every time she came home, she would tell him again, "I still love you, Liam." And every time, without hesitation, he would shut her down. "Ava, stop. It's never going to happen." His rejection was a constant, painful beat in the rhythm of her life. Then he brought Sophia Miller home. "She's my fiancée," he announced. The word hit Ava with the force of a physical impact. She watched them together, saw the open affection he had never given her. That night, she listened to sounds of intimacy from his bedroom, a thousand tiny cuts on her soul. Why was the man who saved her, who promised to always have her, now rejecting her, denying her love, and choosing someone else? How could the gratitude and dependence she carried for him turn into such a bitter and painful burden? An eerie calm settled over her. The hope she had clung to for so long was finally, completely dead. She had to leave.