His Unwanted Wife, Her Vengeful Heart

Gavin

Modern | Completed

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To save my father and our family's gallery, I was forced to marry the ruthless Caleb Wiley. He treated me like a commodity, his heart belonging only to another woman, Eva. When my father needed a life-saving surgery, Caleb made me a cruel offer. To get the money, I had to drink a fatal allergen during a high-stakes poker game. I drank it and nearly died. I woke up in the hospital to learn the money was never sent. My father was dead. Caleb had abandoned me to chase after Eva, later trading me to a lecherous judge like a piece of property. My life, my father's life-it was all worth less than his obsession. But then I found the proof. His mother had orchestrated everything-my family's ruin, my father's murder. My grief turned to ice. From the shadows, I began to broadcast every one of the Wiley family's crimes to the world.

Betrayal Revenge Arranged marriage Transactional love Revenge

Chapter 18

Today 14:34

Chapter 1

To save my father and our family's gallery, I was forced to marry the ruthless Caleb Wiley. He treated me like a commodity, his heart belonging only to another woman, Eva.

When my father needed a life-saving surgery, Caleb made me a cruel offer. To get the money, I had to drink a fatal allergen during a high-stakes poker game.

I drank it and nearly died. I woke up in the hospital to learn the money was never sent. My father was dead.

Caleb had abandoned me to chase after Eva, later trading me to a lecherous judge like a piece of property. My life, my father's life-it was all worth less than his obsession.

But then I found the proof. His mother had orchestrated everything-my family's ruin, my father's murder. My grief turned to ice.

From the shadows, I began to broadcast every one of the Wiley family's crimes to the world.

Chapter 1

Isabelle Hensley POV:

The day they handed me the marriage contract, my father' s gallery, the one steeped in generations of Hensley legacy, hung by a thread, just like my own heart. I saw the sleek, black ink bleeding into the pristine paper, a dark promise of a future I hadn't chosen. It was a cold, hard trade: my freedom for his life's work.

Caleb Wiley wasn't just a man; he was a monument of ice and cutting edges, the heir to an empire built on the crushed dreams of others. He looked at me that day not with disdain, but with utter indifference, as if I were a particularly annoying fly he wished would just vanish. His true gaze, I knew, was always reserved for Eva Dillon, the ethereal socialite whose image graced every society page. She was his sun, and I was merely a shadow forced to stand in its place.

His mother, Clarence Wiley, sat across from us, a predator in designer pearls, her smile as sharp as a newly honed blade. She orchestrated this entire charade, this forced union, with the chilling precision of a master puppeteer. She wanted our family's gallery, and she wanted Caleb to solidify the Wiley name further. I was just a pawn.

Then the impossible happened, a twisted irony only fate could conjure. Eva, his supposed soulmate, ran off with another man. She eloped, married someone else, vanishing from his life as suddenly as a whisper in the wind. I saw the news headline, a cruel twist of irony that made my stomach churn.

Caleb, blind with rage and grief, chased after her. His car crashed on a rain-slicked highway, a wreck as shattered as his heart. He survived, but a part of him died that day, and he blamed me for it. He needed a scapegoat, someone to channel his fury onto, and I, his unwilling bride, was perfectly positioned.

My life became a transaction. My worth was meticulously calculated, every moment assigned a price. It wasn' t just about the money anymore; it was about the humiliation, the constant reminder that I was nothing more than a commodity.

The first year of our marriage was a blur of exhausting, thankless tasks. I was paid a pittance for scrubbing floors, polishing silver, and organizing rooms that felt utterly alien to me. One day, a shard of glass from a broken vase sliced my hand deep. Caleb saw the blood, barely glanced at it, and reminded me that clumsiness cost money. I just clenched my jaw and kept cleaning.

The second year, it escalated. He forced me to perform at his corporate events, my music reduced to background noise for his predatory business associates. My hands, once deft with a cello bow, trembled as I played for men who saw me as just another perk of the Wiley empire. Once, a drunk guest grabbed my arm, twisting it until I cried out. Caleb, from across the room, simply raised his glass, a cold, silent warning not to make a scene. My wrist ached for weeks.

Then came the third year, and the real terror began. A call from the hospital. My father. He needed a life-saving surgery, an impossible sum of money. My world narrowed to that one terrifying fact.

I went to Caleb. I swallowed my pride, walked into his study, and begged. My voice was a desperate whisper. His eyes, cold and empty, looked beyond me, through me.

He leaned back in his leather chair, a cruel smile playing on his lips. "You want money, Isabelle? Prove your worth. Win it."

My stomach dropped. "How?"

"Poker game tonight. High stakes. You play. You win, the money is yours."

I felt a dizzy spell, my head pounding. "Caleb, I... I don't feel well. I have allergies. I can't handle... anything tonight."

He scoffed, his gaze hardening. "Oh, allergies? Is that your excuse? Or are you just trying to avoid your duties again, like you avoided being Eva?" His words were a whip. "You're always weak, always making excuses. Your father's life hangs on this, Isabelle. Are you really that useless?"

The accusation stung, his words echoing the very lie I told myself every day to survive. I closed my eyes, a silent battle raging within me. My father. His life.

"Fine," I whispered, the single word a surrender, a death sentence.

That night, at the poker table, the air was thick with cigar smoke and the scent of expensive liquor. My allergies were already flaring, my throat tightening. Caleb watched from across the room, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. He placed a bottle of my allergen, a potent liquor, squarely in front of me. "Bottoms up, Isabelle. Big bets tonight."

I picked up the glass, my hand shaking. The amber liquid shimmered, a poisoned chalice. My father's face flashed before my eyes. I took a deep breath, and I drank.

The first sip burned. The second, a wave of heat. By the third, my throat was closing, my vision blurring. I slammed the glass down, my body seizing up, convulsing. My chest tightened, each breath a struggle. I could feel the rash erupting on my skin, my airways constricting. The cards blurred, the faces around me twisted into grotesque masks. I was drowning, choking. My body slammed against the table, sending chips scattering. Pain, sharp and searing, tore through me.

Caleb stood, a strange flicker in his eyes. Was it concern? Regret? It vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a mask of cold control. "Isabelle, what are you doing?" His voice was laced with anger, not worry. "Get yourself together. You're making a scene."

I gasped, each breath rattling in my chest, my body screaming in agony. "The money," I choked out, my voice barely a croak. "You promised... my father..."

A phone vibrated in his hand. His eyes darted to the screen, and a new expression, something akin to desperate hope, washed over his face. He looked at me, then at his phone, then back at me. "I'll handle it," he muttered, already striding away, his back to my collapsing form. "Just... handle it."

My vision tunneled. A piercing pain ripped through my abdomen. My head hit the floor with a sickening thud. Darkness consumed me.

I woke in a sterile white room, the rhythmic beeping of machines my only companion. My body ached, every muscle screaming in protest. A nurse, her face etched with exhaustion, explained the severe internal bleeding, the near-fatal allergic reaction. "You're lucky to be alive, Miss Hensley."

I forced a weak smile. At least I had the money. My father would be safe.

"The funds," I rasped. "Were they transferred? For my father?"

The nurse's eyes softened with pity. "I'm so sorry, dear. There was no transfer. Your father... he passed away last night."

The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs. No. It couldn't be. Caleb. He promised.

I clawed at the sheets, tears streaming down my face. "No! I need to call him! He has the money!"

The nurse gently restrained me. "He hasn't answered any of our calls. We tried, for hours."

My heart shattered into a million pieces. He betrayed me. He left me to die, and he let my father die too.

I finally reached his assistant, a trembling voice on the other end. "Mr. Wiley is unavailable. He's... with Miss Dillon. She returned, you see."

Then Caleb's voice, cold and distant, cut through the line. "Isabelle? Still alive? Good for you. What about it?"

"My father!" I screamed into the phone, my voice raw with grief and rage. "You never sent the money! He died!"

A long pause. Then, a sigh. "Oh, that. Right. Priorities, Isabelle. Eva needed me. Anyway, I sent you something. A token of my... appreciation. Just signed the transfer now. Pocket change, really. But enough for the funeral, perhaps."

The line went dead. The "pocket change" hit my account-a sum so insultingly small it couldn't even cover the most basic cremation. He valued Eva's fleeting presence more than my father's life, more than my agonizing near-death. My world ended that day.