Reel Life
11 Published Stories
Reel Life's Books and Stories
The Ruthless Billionaire's Rare Captive Rose
Modern Alexa Thorne was just an eighteen-year-old girl trying to survive her wealthy friend's sweltering summer pool party.
But a violent asthma attack, triggered by heavy cigar smoke, forced her to confront the man smoking it—Armando Holmes, a ruthless Wall Street billionaire and her friend's older brother. She begged him to put it out. He complied, but his cold gaze instantly shifted into a terrifying, predatory obsession.
From that moment, her quiet life was over. Armando cornered her in a dark hallway, staking a terrifying claim. He forced her into his Bentley, practically kidnapping her to his secluded Hamptons estate, a gilded cage he called the Rose Manor. When he offered her a dark rose and declared his "enchantment," the sheer terror finally made Alexa run. But she tripped, tumbling down the hard stone steps, breaking her arm and severely gashing her face.
Waking up in the hospital, facing the horror of a permanent, ugly scar, Alexa wept in sheer despair. She didn't understand why this dangerous, powerful man had targeted her, tearing her away from her modest life just to lock her in his terrifying grip.
"I swear to you, you will not have a single scar."
Armando vowed, his eyes burning with dark possession as he effortlessly dismissed her own brother's attempts to protect her. As he personally tended to her most humiliating needs with trembling hands, Alexa realized with chilling clarity: the real nightmare wasn't the fall, but the inescapable, obsessive love of the monster who had claimed her. The Waitress Is Actually A Mafia Queen
Mafia I spent 365 days scrubbing floors as a waitress to test if my fiancé was a King.
He thought I was just Blake, a poor girl with too many bills.
He didn't know I was the daughter of the Capo dei Capi, the true owner of the East Coast.
But it took only three seconds for him to fail the test.
His mistress, Jaden, marched into the restaurant wearing a dress too tight for a place where deals were made in whispers.
She treated me like a servant, throwing her keys at my chest.
When I refused to bow to her, she slapped a tray of boiling hot tea onto my hand.
The pain was blinding. My skin blistered instantly.
I waited for Connor to defend me. I waited for him to show honor.
Instead, he looked at his investors, panicked, and turned on me.
"Apologize, Blake!" he screamed, desperate to keep the peace. "Kneel if you have to! Just make her happy!"
He wanted a Queen to kneel to a mistress just to save his fragile ego.
He had no idea I was the one holding the deed to his entire territory.
I didn't kneel.
I dropped his phone into the deep fryer and watched it sizzle.
As my father's tactical team kicked down the doors, I untied my dirty apron.
"I'm not fired, Connor," I said, watching the blood drain from his face.
"I'm the landlord." Rising From The Grave As A Queen
Modern I was tracing the gold paint on my own tombstone when a hand tapped me on the shoulder.
It was Clayton.
The same man who, five years ago, had left me bleeding out in a ditch because he didn't want to be late for my sister’s engagement party.
"Die quietly, Ivy," he had said over the phone before hanging up.
Now, standing over my grave, he dropped his cheap plastic flowers in shock.
"Ivy? You're... we buried you."
They hadn't buried me.
They had buried an empty box to save face, mourning a "troubled" daughter they had actually discarded like broken trash the moment I became a liability.
Clayton’s shock quickly turned to that familiar, arrogant anger.
He accused me of faking my death for attention.
He told me I was sick for putting the family through such pain.
He even reached out to grab my arm, intending to drag me back to my father to apologize.
"You're coming with me," he spat. "You owe us an explanation."
But he made a fatal mistake.
He thought he was talking to Ivy Dillard, the soft girl who cried when she skinned her knees.
He didn't notice the town car waiting at the curb, or the man stepping out of it.
Before Clayton’s fingers could graze my coat, a hand made of steel caught his wrist.
Collin Richardson, the most feared Capo in Chicago, stepped between us.
"Touch my wife again," Collin whispered, his voice promising violence. "And you lose the hand."
I smiled at the terror draining the color from Clayton's face.
I didn't come back from the dead to explain myself.
I came back to bury them. My Surgeon Husband's Ultimate Betrayal
Modern My husband, a brilliant cardiac surgeon, was supposed to perform my mother's high-risk heart surgery. But just as she was being prepped, he texted me about a "major OR emergency"-a multi-car pileup he couldn't avoid.
Minutes later, I saw an Instagram story. It was a picture of his hand holding another woman's, posted by a socialite whose mother was his "pet project." The caption read: "My hero, dropping everything for my mother's health scare."
He wasn't saving lives in a catastrophic accident. He was holding hands for a photo op while my mother's life was on the line with a replacement surgeon. He chose them over us.
He abandoned my mother's surgery for a "health scare," moved his mistress and her mother into the nursery I had prepared for our future child, and then, in front of a crowd at the hospital, publicly denied ever knowing my mother to protect his new "family."
I watched him destroy our lives for their applause, for a lie. He called me dramatic, childish, and cruel for not understanding his "compassion."
But what he didn't know was that I had already hired the most ruthless divorce attorney in the city. This wasn't a cry for attention; it was a declaration of war. Oops! My Real Identity Just Destroyed My Con Artist Boyfriend
Modern On the first day of school, my childhood sweetheart boyfriend, Xander Harris, took me to school, but we met a two-faced roommate.
She flattered him, praising his exceptional maturity for his age.
Yet, she accused me of being vain, carrying a knock-off designer bag, and creating a rich persona.
As I tidied my bed, she dramatically gasped. "Wasn't that wealthy older benefactor who accompanied you yesterday supposed to rent you a place near campus? What happened? Did he change his mind?"
When she learned that my boyfriend and I planned to marry right after graduation, she shouted loud, "You can't be serious! Are there still gold diggers who want to get something for nothing and rely on men?"
Inside, I was laughing hysterically.
Wealthy older benefactor? That was my dad!
And my boyfriend? Just the son of my dad's driver. The Roommate's Cruel Game
Young Adult The first sign of trouble was a pair of dirty, lace-trimmed socks, carelessly left on my kitchen counter by my rich, entitled roommate, Tiffany Gold.
I was Chloe Miller, a scholarship student barely affording university, and she treated me like her personal maid, a role I was rapidly growing to resent.
My attempts to manage the situation peacefully shattered when her football star boyfriend, Brett, burst in, drinking my juice and then assaulting me when I tried to leave, all while Tiffany feigned tears, painting me as the villain on social media.
The university administration, influenced by Tiffany' s powerful family, sided with them, threatening my scholarship and dismissing my trauma, leaving me alone and branded a liar.
How could my life be destroyed by a pair of socks and a fake cry for help?
Mark, my boyfriend, an aspiring journalist, saw through their veneer.
"This isn' t just a bad roommate," he told me, his eyes burning with journalistic fire. "This is abuse. We' re going to document everything."
This was no longer just about survival; it was about fighting back, exposing the rot beneath the gilded surface of their privilege. His Cruel Love: The Feather's Betrayal
Fantasy For twenty years, I was the heart of Havenwood, the boy with the miraculous feather that brought life to barren fields and healed the sick.
My gift built their prosperity; I gave them everything, believing I was blessed to serve my people.
Then, the blight came, stubborn and unyielding, and suddenly, their gratitude turned to fury.
They labeled me a monster, accused me of hoarding power, and the same faces I' d known since childhood, led by Mr. Gable, dragged me through the streets and into a jail cell.
"You will remember me," I told their hateful faces as Sheriff Davis drove me away; a warning they met with mocking laughter.
Just when despair was setting in, Julian Croft, a wealthy man whose racehorse I once saved, bailed me out, but his intent was not kindness.
He wanted to buy my power, to turn my gift into a tool for his luxury resort, demanding I make his barren mountainside a paradise.
"No," I defied him, a new strength burning in me as he sneered, "I' m not your tool."
For my rebellion, his men brutalized me, leaving me battered and broken, but not defeated.
I limped back to Havenwood, seeking refuge, only to be met with accusations that the blight had worsened because of my absence, and a demand for a million dollars in damages.
"You owe us!" they screamed, their greed consuming them as they blamed me for their own suffering.
In a horrifying climax, Mr. Gable, believing my feather was a "plug" holding back power, ripped it from my neck with rusty sheep shears, convinced it would unleash my full gift upon them.
The pain was excruciating, a tearing agony, but as the feather crumbled to dust, something new awakened within me.
A power, untamed and mine alone, surged through my veins, washing away my wounds, leaving me stronger than ever before.
I turned my back on their horrified faces, leaving Havenwood to its self-made curse, knowing their prosperity would wither without me.
I rebuilt my life far away, prospering in a bustling city, while Havenwood succumbed to the very blight they blamed me for, ravaged by unnaturally aggressive insects and rats.
Their desperation grew, and the very people who had once praised me, then condemned me, then brutalized me, finally realized the truth: their savior was gone, and their damnation was their own doing.
Mr. Gable' s family died horrifically, his wife driven mad, and an ill-fated "purifier" brought even more devastation, leading to the unthinkable death of every child in Havenwood.
The town, now a biohazard, vanished from the map, its few survivors scattered and insane, while Julian Croft, too, met a swift, unceremonious end.
I was finally free, building my own life on my own terms, leaving the ghosts of Havenwood behind, a testament to the price of betrayal and unbridled greed. The Hacker's Legacy
Sci-fi The official notification arrived, its synthesized voice delivering a death sentence. My brilliant, rebellious sister, Luna, was "terminated" by OmniCorp-a corporate word for erased, dead.
My hands trembled as I gripped the datapad, rain blurring the neon city outside. They said it was a security investigation, a closed case. But I knew OmniCorp's lies. They owned this city, its air, its jobs, its very laws. They took Luna because she defied them.
My grief was a raw wound, but then I found it: a small, black data-puck hidden under her bed. Luna' s secret, even from me. This device, alien to OmniCorp's tech, held her hacker signature: a crescent moon. It contained files, data streams codenamed 'Nyx', listing names and accounts-all tied to OmniCorp' s most secret projects and its CEO, Dr. Elias Thorne. Luna wasn't just hacking; she was building a case. A weapon. And they killed her for it.
The city, veiled in acid rain, felt like a cage. My heart pounded with helpless rage. They weren't just erasing her; they were rewriting her end, calling it an "accidental death" on public screens. My compliant life, keeping my head down to survive, felt like a poison.
But then, the lie smothering my grief ignited something else: revenge. They had silenced my sister to protect their secrets. The weight in my stomach turned into cold, hard resolve. I looked at the data-puck, no longer just tech, but a promise. A weapon. And I would learn how to use it. The Janitor Who Saved a Billionaire
Romance I was Elara Vance, a humble janitor by day, a secret Legacy Keeper by night, painstakingly saving every penny for my retirement.
Then came the ludicrously generous $35 million offer from Marcus Thorne, a titan of industry.
His demand: perform a sacred lineage ritual over his "suicided" son, Julian, and then "sanitize" the scene.
It felt wrong, but it was my escape.
Stepping into Julian' s opulent, blood-soaked room, a primal chill seized me – this was no suicide.
The gruesome scene screamed violence, not despair.
Then I saw him, truly saw the "body," and my world tilted violently off its axis.
Julian Thorne wasn't just a dead rich kid; he was Jake Miller, the man I' d loved, who vanished a decade ago, leaving my heart in pieces.
And he wasn't dead.
He was alive, barely, a victim of a monstrous, unspeakable betrayal.
Marcus Thorne, the grieving father, was a cold-blooded killer who' d tried to murder his own son and wanted me, the Legacy Keeper, to clean up the mess and take the fall.
The decade of heartache over Jake' s disappearance collided with burning rage and terror.
How could the man I loved be entwined in such depravity, and I, the innocent, be the chosen scapegoat?
The weight of his family' s dark secrets threatened to crush me in that room.
With Marcus' s goons pounding at the door, demanding answers, I knew I had two choices: die here, or fight back using the very "ritual" he desperately craved.
This wasn't about money anymore; it was about survival, and exposing a powerful family's terrifying truth. The Scorned Wife's Comeback
Modern The world snapped back for Sarah Miller.
It wasn't a blessing.
It was June 14th, the day her life first shattered.
That day, her son, David, received his prestigious ROTC scholarship acceptance.
It was a golden ticket.
Then, it was brutally snatched away.
Her husband, Sergeant Mark Jenkins, the man she' d sacrificed everything for, didn't just have an affair with Brenda Lewis.
He openly diverted David's esteemed scholarship to Brenda's entitled son, Kevin.
Overnight, Sarah was painted as the "unhinged ex-wife."
Mark and Brenda flaunted their "perfect" new family, built on disgusting lies.
She remembered the public humiliation David endured.
She remembered his spirit dimming under relentless bullying.
She remembered the unspeakable note he left behind and the awful silence in his room before his suicide.
Consumed by grief and labeled a crazy scorned woman, Sarah herself faded into a blur of despair.
Her own tragic, unspoken end followed.
How could one man be so utterly devoid of conscience?
To destroy his own son for a new life?
The injustice burned.
The raw pain was still fresh.
Why would fate curse her with such a horrifying memory, only to offer it again?
Then, the shocking realization hit her.
She was back.
It was June 14th.
A second chance.
This time, she wouldn't be a victim.
This time, David would live.
This time, she would fight.
And no one on this earth would stand in her way. Too Late, My Queen
Billionaires Ethan Miller, a gritty musician, found himself trapped in a gilded cage, bound to the ruthless music mogul Victoria Vanderbilt.
His sister Maya' s life depended on Tori' s whims and VME' s endless resources.
He endured years as Tori' s star, her lover, her prized possession, sacrificing his soul for Maya' s critical care.
But Tori' s attention, a fleeting and dangerous thing, soon shifted to Julian Vance, a brash performance artist.
Ethan's music became "dated," his loyalty dismissed, and VME' s lifeline to Maya was cruelly severed.
He watched, helpless, as Julian' s family and their goons ripped Maya' s ventilator away, causing her agonizing death.
Tori, witnessing his despair, callously shrugged it off, declaring it "resource reallocation."
How could the woman he loved, who once vowed to protect him fiercely, become a monster who facilitated his sister' s demise?
His very devotion had been a poisoned gift, leading to the ultimate, unbearable price.
In that moment of profound loss and brutal betrayal, Ethan Miller died.
He rose from the ashes, now Liam Kincaid, a ghost determined to vanish from Tori' s toxic world, seeking true freedom and peace. You might like
Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man
Maple Breeze Ashley gave Nicolas ten years of love and five years of loyalty as his perfect housewife, only to be repaid with betrayal, humiliation, and death at the hands of him and his mistress.
After being reborn, she vowed to make them pay.
She tore apart the mistress, kicked her useless husband aside, and returned as the heiress of a top-tier family.
Surrounded by billions, luxury, and a parade of elite bachelors, Ashley became the woman everyone wanted-including a cold, powerful tycoon.
When Nicolas came begging for forgiveness, she smiled coldly. "Fuck off! My man is worth a hundred of you." Flash Marriage to the Tycoon, I'm Spoiled Rotten
Hollow Echo Cast out by an "elite" family and mocked by high society, Elena shocked everyone by marrying the most powerful man in town.
They assumed it was a temporary arrangement-after all, he had said, "The agreement is for two years. After that, we're done."
Yet after the wedding, he refused to let her go. "Elena, you can't leave me."
As he doted on her, rumors shattered one by one. A renowned painter, top hacker, and tech mastermind-her true identities stunned the world.
When a luxury empire announced their lost heiress, all eyes turned to her. "Why did she look exactly like Elena?" The Unwanted Wife Is A Zillionaire
Reilly Mcardle For seven years, I played the perfect, hidden wife to billionaire August Chambers while working quietly as an ER nurse.
Three days before our marriage contract expired, he stormed into my emergency room carrying a bleeding woman. It was Allena, his cousin's fiancée.
She had suffered a ruptured corpus luteum from their violent, aggressive sex. Instead of hiding his affair, August ordered me to clear the floor and threw a massive check at my face to buy my silence. Later, his friends trapped me in a VIP club. When a waiter tripped, August violently shoved me aside just to protect Allena from a spilled cup of coffee. I crashed into a glass table, a sharp edge slicing deep into my arm.
"Apologize to her, and I'll have my driver take you to the hospital."
As my blood soaked into the white rug, he stood over me, demanding I get on my knees for his mistress. He didn't know I had faked a miscarriage five years ago to secretly raise our daughter far away from his cruelty. He also didn't know the money he flaunted was pocket change compared to my hidden AI tech empire.
I calmly tied a tourniquet around my bleeding arm with my teeth and wiped my blood directly over his heart onto his custom suit.
"I'm done with you."
The submissive nurse was dead, and it was time to let him burn in the ruins of his own lies. Abandoned Ex-Wife: Now Untouchable
Tao Yaoyao My five-year-old daughter was dying in the ICU, her heartbeat replaced by the continuous, electronic scream of a flatline. I gripped her cold hand, my throat sealed shut by a terror so absolute I couldn't even cry out.
I dialed my husband Grayson's private number, the one reserved only for me and his assistants. He declined the call instantly. A second later, a text buzzed against my palm:
"In a meeting. Do not disturb. Stop calling."
Five miles away, Grayson was at a luxury gala, adjusting his silk tie and laughing with Belle Escobar. He told her I was just being "dramatic" and using our daughter's "fever" as an excuse to avoid the event. He had no idea Effie's heart had already stopped.
When I finally reached our penthouse, soaked from the rain and carrying Effie's small socks in a plastic bag, Grayson didn't even look at me. He snapped at me for ruining the hardwood floors and asked if I'd left Effie with the nanny just to "feel sorry for myself."
Three days later, while I buried our daughter in a small, lonely ceremony, Grayson was at the Hamptons. Belle posted a photo of him golfing with the caption: "A mental health day with the boys." He didn't even attend the funeral, but he returned home demanding I clear out Effie's room to make a study for Belle's son.
The injustice burned through me until there was nothing left. I swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, desperate to join my daughter. But instead of the darkness, I woke up to blinding lights and the scent of Grayson's expensive cologne.
I was standing in a ballroom, wearing a blue silk dress I had already burned. Above me, a banner read: "Happy 5th Birthday Kaiden & Effie."
I was back, exactly one year before the tragedy. This time, I wasn't going to be the grieving wife. I was going to be their worst nightmare. Cheated On Me? I Married a Tycoon
Rum Runner I spent three years building my husband, Axel Farrell, into Silicon Valley's ultimate "family man." As his lead PR strategist, I carefully managed his public image, making sure the world saw him as a perfect, devoted husband while I worked in the shadows of our estate.
The illusion shattered when he came home one night smelling of sandalwood and roses, with three deep fingernail scratches carved into his back. When I tried to check his phone, the passcode we had used for years-our wedding anniversary-had been changed.
The betrayal got worse the next morning when his mother called me a "defective product" and tried to force me into a fertility clinic. Axel didn't defend me; instead, he shoved me against a marble bar at a public gala to protect his mistress in front of the world's elite. By the time I tried to leave, Axel had frozen my bank accounts and filed a forged legal petition to have me declared mentally incompetent.
He planned to have me legally kidnapped and locked in a private psychiatric ward just to stop me from filing for divorce. He even blocked every major law firm in the city from taking my case, leaving me with no money, no identity, and no one to turn to.
I couldn't understand how the man who "saved" me from the mud years ago could be the same monster now trying to legally erase my existence. Was our entire marriage just a grooming process to exploit my genius for his billion-dollar empire?
As the deadline for my forced commitment approached, I stopped crying and opened my laptop. I leaked the video of his affair to every tech journalist in the country, watching his stock price crash in real-time.
"Axel thinks starving me out will make me crawl back to him," I whispered as I walked into the headquarters of his biggest rival.
"But he forgot that the most valuable part of his company is in my head."
I was no longer the abandoned wife; I was the one who was going to take his throne and burn it to the ground. No Longer Mrs. Cooley: The Architect's Return
Xiao Xiaosu I went to the City Clerk's office for a routine copy of my marriage license to finalize a trust fund audit. I expected a simple piece of paper, but the clerk's pitying look told me my entire life was a lie.
"The license was never finalized, Ms. Oliver. In the eyes of the state, you are single."
The three-hundred-guest wedding at the Plaza and the Vogue features meant nothing. My husband, Gray Cooley, had intentionally filed the documents with a "procedural defect" so he could discard me without a legal divorce. Moments later, an iCloud invite titled "Our Little Secret" popped up on my screen. It was a photo of my best friend, Brylee, holding a positive pregnancy test at our Hamptons estate.
Gray's text to her was the final blow:
"Happy anniversary, babe. This baby is the best gift. Once the trust unlocks today, we're done with the charade."
I soon discovered they were even stealing my career, reassigning my architectural masterpiece to Brylee while preparing my eviction notice. Gray's mother called me a "barren mule" in a leaked recording, mocking the infertility I suffered after saving Gray's life in a construction accident. I wasn't a wife; I was a three-year placeholder used to secure his inheritance.
How could the man I bled for treat me like a disposable prop? How could my best friend carry his child while pretending to comfort me through my darkest moments? The betrayal burned until it turned into a cold, hard stone of fury.
I didn't cry. Instead, I walked into the penthouse of the Barretts, the Cooleys' most powerful rivals. I signed a marriage contract with Kane Barrett, the man the tabloids called the "Beast of Wall Street."
"I want a wedding," I told his father, my voice steady and lethal. "Bigger than the one I had with Gray."
If they wanted me gone, they would have to watch me become the woman who owns their world. Seven Years A Fool, One Day A Queen
Stella Montgomery Everyone knew Kristine loved Colton. Still, his heart clung to a woman overseas-someone he spent most days with, now pregnant with his baby-and Kristine still asked him to marry her.
On their registration day, however, he never came; his "true love" had flown back.
Seven years of loyalty later, Kristine walked away, blocked him, and left his city.
Colton didn't blink-until he saw her at the courthouse, arm-in-arm with another man, and the proud CEO went pale. He went after her, desperation overtaking him.
"I'm sorry. Please give me another chance."
She snapped, "Could you stop? I'm already married." The Humble Ex-wife Is Now A Brilliant Tycoon
Flory Corkery For three quiet, patient years, Christina kept house, only to be coldly discarded by the man she once trusted.
Instead, he paraded a new lover, making her the punchline of every town joke.
Liberated, she honed her long-ignored gifts, astonishing the town with triumph after gleaming triumph.
Upon discovering she'd been a treasure all along, her ex-husband's regret drove him to pursue her. "Honey, let's get back together!"
With a cold smirk, Christina spat, "Fuck off."
A silken-suited mogul slipped an arm around her waist. "She's married to me now. Guards, get him the hell out of here!" Phoenix Rising: The Scarred Heiress's Revenge
Xiao Hong Mao I lived as the "scarred ghost" of the Stephens penthouse, a wife kept in the shadows because my facial burns offended my billionaire husband's aesthetic. For years, I endured Kason's coldness and my family's abuse, a submissive puppet who believed she had nowhere else to go.
The end came with a blue folder tossed onto my silk sheets. Kason's mistress was back, and he wanted me out by sunset, offering a five-million-dollar "silence fee" to go hide my face in the countryside.
The betrayal cut deep when I discovered my father had already traded my divorce for a corporate bailout. My step-sister mocked my "trashy" appearance at a high-end boutique, while the sales staff treated me like a common thief. At home, my father threatened to cut off my mother's life-saving medicine unless I crawled back to Kason to beg for a better deal.
I was the girl who took the blame for a fire she didn't start, the wife who worshipped a man who never looked her in the eye, and the daughter used as a human bargaining chip. I was supposed to be broken, penniless, and desperate.
But the woman who stood up wasn't the weak Elease Finch anymore; she was Phoenix, a tactical predator with a $500 million secret. I signed the divorce papers without a single tear, walked past my stunned husband, and wiped the Finch family's bank accounts clean with a few taps on my phone.
"Your money is dirty," I told Kason with a cold smile. "I prefer clean hands."
The cage is open, the hunt has begun, and I'm starting with the people who thought a scar made me weak. Secret Triplets: The Billionaire's Second Chance
Roderic Penn I stood at my mother's open grave in the freezing rain, my heels sinking into the mud. The space beside me was empty. My husband, Hilliard Holloway, had promised to cherish me in bad times, but apparently, burying my mother didn't fit into his busy schedule.
While the priest's voice droned on, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a livestream of the Metropolitan Charity Gala. There was Hilliard, looking impeccable in a custom tuxedo, with his ex-girlfriend Charla English draped over his arm. The headline read: "Holloway & English: A Power Couple Reunited?"
When he finally returned to our penthouse at 2 AM, he didn't come alone-he brought Charla with him. He claimed she'd had a "medical emergency" at the gala and couldn't be left alone. I found a Tiffany diamond necklace on our coffee table meant for her birthday, and a smudge of her signature red lipstick on his collar. When I confronted him, he simply told me to stop being "hysterical" and "acting like a child."
He had no idea I was seven months pregnant with his child. He thought so little of my grief that he didn't even bother to craft a convincing lie, laughing with his mistress in our home while I sat in the dark with a shattered heart and a secret life growing inside me.
"He doesn't deserve us," I whispered to the darkness. I didn't scream or beg. I simply left a folder on his desk containing signed divorce papers and a forged medical report for a terminated pregnancy. I disappeared into the night, letting him believe he had successfully killed his own legacy through his neglect.
Five years later, Hilliard walked into "The Vault," the city's most exclusive underground auction, looking for a broker to manage his estate. He didn't recognize me behind my Venetian mask, but he couldn't ignore the neon pink graffiti on his armored Maybach that read "DEADBEAT." He had no clue that the three brilliant triplets currently hacking his security system were the very children he thought had been erased years ago. This time, I wasn't just a wife in the way; I was the one holding all the cards. 
/1/114321/coverorgin.jpg?v=210d6d35fbfd379e8fb3480249a5bc4a&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/103629/coverorgin.jpg?v=a320b61e739dade5560a7db1ca1514e9&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/101982/coverorgin.jpg?v=418f00c93cc3f3887a5fb2d852f23b6b&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/98784/coverorgin.jpg?v=22b9cab38ded11159d2b3be40def0b1e&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/89062/coverorgin.jpg?v=a79fa856458c2d9bf4fbf8a50cccfe05&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/86625/coverorgin.jpg?v=665cb24e5db69cbac5a32f9e210d5067&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/85432/coverorgin.jpg?v=5af327a7c2b3c53a82fbbe69aa2f2211&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/84548/coverorgin.jpg?v=7b3f0951556b0fa77660a984ef65b60f&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/82927/coverorgin.jpg?v=f881e736e77881049fd94c99404a9056&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/82788/coverorgin.jpg?v=4c7451c860212fb9789bb3c946322259&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/82335/coverorgin.jpg?v=f57e4700ce62b733119dad4ef2a1b05d&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/110901/coverorgin.jpg?v=ef824f8e74525d02a808de96a1088564&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/112008/coverorgin.jpg?v=2b0abcab944971bf058c4d3da02bb538&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/113362/coverorgin.jpg?v=f0ed4594a511c9676a69af419fb96978&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/107720/coverorgin.jpg?v=6d6583f21b392ea7c76b778b0308381b&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/110343/coverorgin.jpg?v=cd4e8269a7b208ebe8c7a769a0d2faaa&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/107820/coverorgin.jpg?v=6e86399a40b4939055e49bc447825466&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/106447/coverorgin.jpg?v=3f3287a2d4b0f0bdd81f9c491b55fa4b&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/78663/coverorgin.jpg?v=b705411c5144e51405caa1dd738aa5d2&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/106644/coverorgin.jpg?v=3f787171070b7af5eaf9c58a1495a6bd&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/1/106649/coverorgin.jpg?v=b55ff3a1bf4d7bb198689613bf191b01&imageMogr2/format/webp)