Traveling to ancient tribes to build infrastructure

For six years, Anastasia lived as the obedient, traumatized fiancée of Juston Cross, relying on his wealthy family after a fire destroyed her own. But during a high-society gathering, Juston publicly humiliated her just to make his mistress, Chanel, smile. Then, he dragged Anastasia away and made an absurd demand. He ordered her to marry another man. "Chanel's family is forcing her to marry Ennis Sharpe, and it would destroy her. You marry him instead. It's a fake marriage so Chanel can be free." Juston commanded her coldly, reminding her that she would be dead in the gutter if his family hadn't taken her in. He expected her to obediently act as a human shield for his true love, arrogantly promising he would take her back once the dust settled. Looking at the man she had devoted herself to, Anastasia finally saw the grotesque truth. Six years of enduring his emotional abuse were a joke. She was just a pathetic charity case to be used and discarded. Instead of crying or begging, Anastasia calmly agreed to his plan. She walked straight to Ennis Sharpe-the dangerous, powerful heir, and the only man whose mere touch miraculously cured her crippling panic attacks. "I need a legal husband, and you need a wife. It's a fair trade." She didn't just want an escape. She was going to become Mrs. Sharpe, partner with the enemy, and make the Cross family pay for everything they stole.

I hid my terminal stomach cancer diagnosis, hoping to spend my last six months with my husband, Gerard. But the moment I stepped into our penthouse, he threw a divorce agreement at my feet. "We are ending this marriage. Kena is waiting for me." He said his first love had returned, and he had no time to play games with me anymore. Over the next few days, he watched me vomit violently, coldly accusing me of faking a pregnancy to secure a massive payout. When his own grandfather suffered a massive heart attack upon discovering his public affair, we rushed the old man to the emergency room. But Gerard didn't stay for the surgery. Kena showed up in a wheelchair, crying about a mild chest pain, and he immediately turned his back on his dying grandfather and me to comfort her. I had loved this man in secret for thirteen years. I even saved him from a rival's drug trap just nights ago, giving my failing body to him in a dark hotel room to protect his reputation. Yet, to him, I was nothing but a greedy, calculating transaction standing in the way of his true love. Watching him walk away to hold another woman while the surgery light flashed red, the thirteen years of desperate love inside me finally shattered. I calmly wiped his grandfather's blood from my hands and turned around. This time, I will sign the papers and disappear from his life forever.

For three years, I was the unpaid maid, cook, and accountant for my boyfriend Kieran's family. His mother, Jeanie, never let me forget my place. "You're not legally family," she'd say, whenever I asked for basic respect. Then I found the messages on his phone. He and Jeanie were arranging his engagement to Carolina Farley, a wealthy heiress. They called me a placeholder—someone who was just "around" until a better option came along. Jeanie sat me down and told me it was time to leave, confident I had nowhere else to go. She was wrong. While they slept, I earned my CPA license. While they spent, I saved every dollar. While they dismissed me as "just the girlfriend," I bought my own condo. When Kieran finally came crawling back, begging for another chance, I had one thing to say: "I'm already married. To a man who didn't need three years to know my worth." He thought I'd wait forever. He thought wrong.

I thought I was waking up in the arms of Arthur, the man I loved. But as the morning light hit the Hamptons estate, the man buttoning his cuffs by the window turned around with eyes like chips of ice. It was Augustus Riddle, Arthur’s cruel younger brother, and I had just spent the night whispering confessions of love into the wrong man's ear. The night I thought was a beautiful beginning turned into a devastating nightmare. Instead of comfort, Gus treated me like a stain on his expensive carpet, scribbling a check for "services rendered" before shoving me into a dark service corridor to hide my existence from his brother. "How much does it cost to buy your silence?" He sneered, before leaving me barefoot in a torrential downpour while he drove away in a luxury Cadillac. Four years later, I am a struggling actress in Los Angeles, working double shifts as a barista just to keep the lights on. My life was finally stable until my roommate dragged me to a high-end dinner to meet her new "influential" boyfriend. The man sitting at the table, looking more arrogant and lethal than ever, was Augustus. He spent the entire night humiliating me, calling me a pathetic amateur and a social climber in front of my only friends. When I fled into the rain and collapsed on the sidewalk, skinning my knee until I bled, he watched from his car. He saw me clutching a plastic baggie containing the taped-together pieces of that four-year-old check—the only proof of my shame. He looked at me like roadkill, rolled up his window, and drove off into the dark. I couldn't understand why he was doing this. Why did he hate me enough to crush me, yet remember that I couldn't handle the smell of cigarette smoke? Why did he leave me bleeding in the street, only to send expensive medical supplies and coffee to my door the very next morning? "I'm moving out." I told my roommates, realizing that Gus Riddle didn't just want to destroy me; he wanted to haunt me. I grabbed my suitcase and walked out with eighty dollars to my name, finally ready to disappear into the city before he could burn the rest of my life to the ground.

I stood on the tarmac clutching white magnolias, watching the man I loved hand his loyalty to the woman born to destroy me. Dante Cavallaro, the Ruthless Underboss, didn't just leave me for Sofia Moretti. He revealed that for two years, I wasn't his lover. I was a human shield. The heavy iron bangle he forced me to wear wasn't a gift for my protection. "It's a Malocchio anchor," he sneered as I lay paralyzed on the floor. "It drains the wearer's luck to keep Sofia healthy. You are just the filter." My body began to rot from the inside out, my nerves dying one by one. When I was finally on my deathbed, unable to move or speak, Dante didn't cry for me. He cried because his tool was broken. He forced the cursed bangle onto his own wrist, begging the universe to keep me alive so I could continue to suffer in Sofia's place. "Please," he sobbed into my sheets. "Don't leave me alone with the bad luck." I used my last breath to make a wish—not for him, but for my freedom. I closed my eyes and died. Exactly one hour later, Dante's phone rang. It was his father. "Sofia just collapsed," he said. "Her heart just stopped." I was the vessel. And now that I was gone, the poison had come home to the King.

I was smoothing the red silk of my dress over a baby bump only I knew existed, preparing to tell my husband, the ruthless King of Chicago, that he was finally going to be a father. But before I could share the news, the ballroom fell silent. A woman walked in wearing a gold dress that was barely legal. It was Serena, the woman from the photos I had received just hours ago. She walked right up to us and handed Michael a silver tie clip. "You left this in the suite, Michael," she purred in front of the entire city's elite. When I demanded she leave, she smirked and threw her glass of red wine all over me. The liquid soaked into my dress, looking like a gunshot wound right over my womb. I waited for Michael to defend me. To throw her out. Instead, he looked at the crowd, terrified of a scandal. "Don't make a scene, Liv," he hissed, his eyes cold. "Go upstairs and change. I'll handle this." He turned his back on me and walked away with his mistress, leaving me dripping in crimson and humiliation. My mother found me sobbing in the bedroom and slapped me sober. "Tears are for the weak," she said. "Tonight, Michael Thorne loses everything." We froze his assets. We destroyed his reputation. But that wasn't enough. I wanted to break his soul. I looked down at my stomach. I would protect this child, but his father would never know he existed. "Tell him I lost the baby," I whispered to the butler, my voice trembling with rage. "Tell him the stress caused a miscarriage. Tell him he killed his heir." Tonight, the golden cage opens. And Michael Thorne is about to find out that even a canary has claws.