Too Late, Mr. Golden Boy

For three years, my Alpha husband forced me to take inhibitors, claiming my bloodline was too "weak" to bear his heir without dying. I believed him, swallowing the pills and the lies to be his perfect, submissive Luna. But during the rogue attack at the Victory Gala, the truth finally shattered me. A feral wolf lunged for my throat. I screamed Bennett's name, frozen in fear without my wolf to protect me. He looked at me. Then he looked at his mistress, Aria, who was cowering behind a table with her wolf fully accessible. He turned his back on me. He tackled the rogue attacking her, leaving me exposed to be torn apart. If his Beta hadn't stepped in at the last second, I would have died right there on the ballroom floor. When the fighting stopped, Bennett didn't even look my way. He was too busy cooing over Aria’s minor scratch, ignoring his wife who had nearly been slaughtered. I realized then that the pills weren't for my safety. He was keeping me sterile and docile until he could replace me with her. I walked upstairs, past the wreckage of my marriage, and flushed the inhibitors down the toilet. Then, I took out a piece of pack stationery and wrote the words that would destroy his world. "I, Kelsey Jensen, reject you, Bennett Randolph, as my mate." I left the note on the nightstand, packed my passport, and walked out into the night, never looking back.

I spent six years as a "shadow asset" for the Holmes family, a brilliant scholar living in a cramped Queens apartment on a secret scholarship. I was their silent investment, a ghost in their machine, until the day a fluorescent orange eviction notice appeared on my door. The legal documents from Holmes Holdings were brutal. They were terminating my sponsorship and demanding immediate repayment of every cent of my tuition. The reason was buried in the fine print: a moral turpitude clause. I was pregnant with a Holmes heir, and in their world, that made me a liability that needed to be erased. Ingram Holmes, the family’s cold-blooded CEO, didn't see a woman; he saw a line item on a balance sheet. He offered me a million dollars to disappear, abort the child, and sign away my existence. He had me escorted to a private clinic like a criminal, ready to finalize my erasure. But the plan shattered when his grandmother, the matriarch of the family, collapsed in a sudden cardiac arrest. As the doctors failed, I stepped out of the shadows. I diagnosed the toxicity they couldn't see and brought her back from the brink of death. I wasn't the helpless charity case they expected. I was a genius who knew their medical secrets better than their own surgeons. "Who are you?" Ingram growled, pinning me against a desk in his frozen office. I didn't blink. I had just secured the family's ancient signet ring and a seat at their table. Now, I’m living in his manor, sharing his bed, and holding the keys to the vault that contains their darkest sins. "I'm the problem you can't afford to solve," I whispered. The game has changed. I’m no longer the asset—I’m the hunter.

I was a celebrated architect engaged to Carter Hart, the city' s golden boy politician. I designed our perfect life, and he was on the verge of becoming mayor. Then I found a video on a shared cloud drive. It was of him marrying his pregnant campaign manager three months ago. I was just a prop for his image, a "fake girlfriend" he planned to discard after the election. To keep me compliant, he secretly drugged my daily smoothies, making me feel foggy and unstable. He staged a fire at my award-winning building to ruin my reputation, then tried to have me locked away in a mental institution, claiming I' d had a breakdown. But the final blow came from my godfather. He discovered Carter' s manipulation began seven years ago, when he paid someone to sabotage my college thesis, shattering my confidence just so he could swoop in and be my savior. My entire relationship wasn't just a lie; it was a cage he had designed from the very beginning. So I flew to London and spent six months with my godfather' s production team. We created a ninety-minute documentary to expose every crime, every lie. And we planned to air it live, hijacking the broadcast of his final election night rally. We called it "The Architect of Lies."

I was Lot 734. A living, breathing mermaid, displayed in a massive tank, waiting to be sold to the highest bidder. In the front row, watching it all, was Dr. Aris Thorne, the man who had promised me forever on a hidden beach, the man I had loved with my whole being. His colleagues had surrounded my secret cove with nets the day after he discovered my tail; he stood by, silently allowing my capture. He called me a "scientific anomaly," a "new species," transforming me from his beloved Lyra into a specimen for his research facility, where I was poked, prodded, and drained. His fiancée, Isabelle, delighted in tormenting me, kicking away my food, tapping on my tank, her laughter echoing his betrayal as he stood by, silent and complicit. I tried to tell him that she had sabotaged my tank, almost suffocating me, but he simply believed her tears over my frantic gasps. When he ripped my precious scales from my bleeding palm, claiming it was to "prevent contamination," I knew the man I loved was truly gone. My pain was just data points on his tablet as he watched Isabelle douse me in burning sterilization agents. He then sedated me, turning me into a docile object for auction, a car ready to be sold. I tried to fight back, unleashing a burst of raw power, shattering Isabelle's glass. He reacted by electrocuting me, then draining my tank, letting me suffocate on the dry concrete. Loathing in his eyes, he hissed, "If you try anything like that again, I will make sure you arrive at your new owner's home in pieces." Then, through my pain, a sharp voice cut through the haze: "Let's see the merchandise." The buyer's representative dismissed my "damaged" scales, demanding one more spectacle: "He wants to see her cry pearls. Make it happen." My last flicker of hope died when Aris, his voice flat, agreed.

My life as Jocelyn Fuller, the oil heiress, ended the day my father went to prison and my sister Molly fell gravely ill, leaving me desperate. My ex-fiancé, Ethan Scott, a DC power player, promised Molly the best medical care money could buy if I agreed to a "deal." That deal turned into a nightmare: I was sold to Caleb Duncan, a ruthless West Texas rancher, becoming his captive and plaything, suffering unimaginable abuse and even a miscarriage. After three years, Ethan reappeared, claiming Molly was alive and well, offering me freedom and a new life. But I knew his game. I was done being a pawn in their brutal power struggles. So, I jumped off a cliff, faked my death, and became Stella, a ghost hidden away in a small Colorado mountain town, vowing to live free. Then, one by one, they showed up; first Caleb, then Ethan, both determined to drag me back into their twisted worlds. But I wasn't Jocelyn anymore. I was Stella, and this time, I was fighting back.

The Thanksgiving call from my adoptive mother was laced with a forced cheerfulness that immediately put me on guard. Maria and Anthony never just wanted me home; it was always a preamble to a demand, a lecture, or a guilt trip. This time, it was worse. I arrived to find our small, worn-out house packed with church members, their eyes filled with pious expectation. My adoptive parents, Maria and Anthony, proudly presented a newborn baby, Caleb, demanding I shoulder his entire upbringing and hand over my paramedic salary as my "Christian duty." My refusal unleashed a nightmare. They disowned me, threw out my belongings, and publicly shamed me at my workplace, jeopardizing my hard-earned career. But the lowest blow came when they tried to marry me off to my violent cousin, Rufus, hoping to gain legal control over my life and income. When Rufus used a spare key to break into my apartment, trying to force himself on me, my boyfriend Ethan saved me. Yet, at the police station, my adoptive parents' theatrics and lies allowed them to walk free, while I was left reeling from their venomous threat: a civil lawsuit for "elder abandonment" and demanding every penny I had. How could these people, who claimed to be my family, relentlessly try to destroy me, all in the name of God? Was there no end to their depravity, no escape from their manipulative grasp? But as their twisted words echoed in my mind, a forgotten memory-a snatch of a phrase about a "fire"-ignited a terrifying new question.