The Twenty-Billion-Dollar Sacrifice

The Twenty-Billion-Dollar Sacrifice

Guo Er

5.0
Comment(s)
1.8K
View
10
Chapters

I gave up my twenty-billion-dollar inheritance and cut ties with my family, all for my boyfriend of five years, Liam. But just as I was about to tell him I was pregnant with our child, he dropped a bombshell. He needed me to take the fall for his childhood sweetheart, Sophia. She'd been in a hit-and-run, and her acting career couldn't handle the scandal right before his company's IPO. When I refused and told him about our baby, his face went cold. He told me to terminate the pregnancy immediately. He didn't know the scars on my own back were from that same fire. He didn't know I was the one who pulled him out, not her. He had his assistant schedule the appointment and sent me to the clinic alone. There, the nurse told me the procedure carried a high risk of permanent infertility. He knew. And he still sent me. I walked out of that clinic, choosing to keep my child. At that exact moment, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a glowing article announcing that Liam and Sophia were expecting their first child, complete with a photo of his hand resting protectively on her stomach. My world shattered. Wiping away a tear, I found the number I hadn't called in five years. "Dad," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I was wrong. I'm ready to come home."

Chapter 1

I gave up my twenty-billion-dollar inheritance and cut ties with my family, all for my boyfriend of five years, Liam.

But just as I was about to tell him I was pregnant with our child, he dropped a bombshell.

He needed me to take the fall for his childhood sweetheart, Sophia. She'd been in a hit-and-run, and her acting career couldn't handle the scandal right before his company's IPO.

When I refused and told him about our baby, his face went cold. He told me to terminate the pregnancy immediately.

He didn't know the scars on my own back were from that same fire. He didn't know I was the one who pulled him out, not her.

He had his assistant schedule the appointment and sent me to the clinic alone. There, the nurse told me the procedure carried a high risk of permanent infertility.

He knew. And he still sent me.

I walked out of that clinic, choosing to keep my child. At that exact moment, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a glowing article announcing that Liam and Sophia were expecting their first child, complete with a photo of his hand resting protectively on her stomach.

My world shattered. Wiping away a tear, I found the number I hadn't called in five years.

"Dad," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I was wrong. I'm ready to come home."

Chapter 1

"What did you just say?"

The question hung in the air of our modern apartment. My voice was barely a whisper.

Liam Turner, the CEO of Turner Tech and my boyfriend of five years, didn't even look up from his tablet. He just repeated it, calm and matter-of-fact.

"I said Sophia needs you to take the blame. It was a hit-and-run, Elena. A minor one, nobody was seriously hurt, but her image can't handle a scandal right now. Not with my IPO launching next week."

I stared at him. "You want me to say I was driving her car? Liam, I am a Cardiac Surgeon. A felony record will revoke my medical license. I won't be able to operate. I won't be able to save lives."

"It makes sense," he said, finally lifting his eyes. They were cool, rational. "You can take a sabbatical. Sophia... she's fragile. You know she saved me from that warehouse fire when we were fifteen. She nearly died for me. I owe her everything."

My hands started to shake. A phantom itch flared across my shoulder blades, spreading down my spine-the exact path of the jagged, ugly burn scars I had hidden from him for five years.

"Fragile?" I whispered. "Liam, she broke the law."

"She has nightmares about that fire, Elena!" he snapped, standing up. "She dragged my unconscious body out of a burning building. She took the heat so I wouldn't burn. Look at the scars on her arms!"

I closed my eyes, fighting back the urge to scream. Two small, coin-sized burns from a curling iron. That's what Sophia had.

I remembered the real fire. The collapsing roof. The smell of burning timber and flesh. I remembered throwing my body over Liam's, shielding him as a burning beam crashed down on my back. I remembered dragging him, inch by agonizing inch, until my skin felt like it was melting off my bones. I had passed out the moment I got him to the grass. When I woke up in the ICU weeks later, Sophia had already claimed the credit.

"You're asking me to destroy the career I built from nothing," I said, my voice trembling.

"It's just a job, Elena," he said dismissively. "My company is about to go public. We'll have billions. You won't need to work."

I felt a cold anger rise. "Just a job? I left the Foley dynasty for you. I gave up a twenty-billion-dollar inheritance to live in a studio apartment and pay your tuition while I studied medicine. I washed dishes so you could build your app. I did that for you."

"And I appreciate that, Elena," he said, taking my hands. "That's why I know you're strong enough to do this. You're tough. You don't have trauma like Sophia."

"There's something else," I said, backing away from his touch. "I'm pregnant."

Liam froze. His charming expression vanished, replaced by cold panic. "No."

"Yes. Six weeks."

He paced the room. "This is a disaster. Sophia is already fragile. Finding out you're pregnant... it would break her heart. She thinks we are meant to be because of the fire. It's a spiritual bond."

"So I get sacrificed? Again?" I choked out. "My license, my reputation, and now... our baby?"

He looked at me with chilling pity. "We can't have this baby. Terminate it. For Sophia."

My world tilted. "It's your child, Liam."

"And Sophia saved my life!" he yelled, his face red. "I made a vow when I was fifteen that I would never let anything hurt the girl who saved me. I will not hurt her!"

I stared at him, the irony tasting like ash and blood in my mouth. I had saved him. I had taken the fire for him. And now he was killing my child for the woman who stole the glory.

"Okay," I said, my voice hollow. "Okay, Liam."

He looked relieved. His phone rang-Sophia's ringtone. "Soph? I'm coming. Don't cry."

He grabbed his keys. "My assistant will book the clinic. Do it quickly."

Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the ghosts of the fire and the ashes of my life.

Continue Reading

Other books by Guo Er

More
Too Late: The Innocent Traitor I Destroyed

Too Late: The Innocent Traitor I Destroyed

Mafia

5.0

I walked out of the federal penitentiary with a terminal cancer diagnosis and exactly six months to live. Desperate for money to pay for a sky burial, I returned to the Vitiello family, the people who now wanted me dead. Dante, the man I had loved since childhood, looked at me with pure hatred. He thought I was the monster who killed his mother. He didn't know I had confessed to a crime I didn't commit to hide the ugly truth—that she had taken her own life. To punish me, Dante became cruel. He forced me to work as a servant, making me stand guard outside his bedroom door while he was intimate with his fiancée, Sofia. When the estate caught fire, I didn't hesitate. I ran into the inferno. I dragged Dante to safety, my back burning as debris fell on me, scarring me forever. But when he woke up, I hid in the shadows and let Sofia take the credit. I couldn't let him feel indebted to a "murderer." I thought that was the worst of it. I was wrong. On the eve of his wedding, Sofia had an accident and needed a blood transfusion. I was the only match. Dante didn't know my body was already shutting down. He didn't know my blood was poisoned with cancer markers. "Take it all," he roared at the doctors, ignoring my frail, trembling body. "Just save my wife." I died on that table, drained dry to save the woman who stole my life. It wasn't until the monitor flatlined that his right-hand man finally threw a file onto Dante's lap. "She didn't kill your mother, Dante. And she didn't just leave town. You just executed the only person who ever truly loved you."

The Wife He Cast Aside

The Wife He Cast Aside

Romance

5.0

The two pink lines on the pregnancy test glowed back at me, a beacon of hope after two years of trying. My first thought was David, my husband, away at a tech conference. This was everything we wanted for our future. But when I video-called him, eager to share the joyous news, it wasn't his face that filled the screen. I heard his voice, cold and dismissive, telling someone, "I' ll tell her I want a divorce tomorrow." Then came the husky, triumphant voice of Emily White, his head of marketing: "You promise, David? You' ll leave her for me?" My phone slipped from my trembling hand as he promised Emily, "Tomorrow, it' ll be over. Then it' s just you and me. And our baby." The words "Divorce" and "Our baby" echoed in the silent bathroom, each a cruel twist of the knife. I stood there, stunned, the positive pregnancy test in my hand a mockery of my shattered reality. Returning home, I found David and Emily in our bed, in our perfect suburban home. Not only was he unapologetic, but he also physically shoved me, then stood there, naked and defiant, declaring our marriage over. When I, shaking, revealed my pregnancy, he snatched the test, snarled, "It doesn' t matter. I don' t want it. I don' t want you," and snapped the test in two, throwing the broken pieces at my feet. How could the man who promised me the world, the man I poured my life into, become this cruel stranger? How could he deny his own child, especially after knowing my struggles to conceive? The betrayal was compounded when I discovered, through a chilling message, that he had been with Emily, celebrating their "first big deal," on the day of my father' s funeral. The man I loved had desecrated my deepest grief. Now, a cold, hard resolve clicked into place. He would pay for every lie, every betrayal, every tear.

Love's Ashes, A Bitter Return

Love's Ashes, A Bitter Return

Sci-fi

5.0

The world was broken, but Ava and Chloe had carved out a sanctuary, a humming city built on their code and trust. Then Jake and Noah arrived, charming visionaries promising to restore everything, and swept them into a future where love and sacrifice felt like the ultimate currency. Ava gave her heart, her expertise, and even her unborn child to Jake' s grand project, believing in a quiet life for them both after the chaos. But the day she nearly died saving Jake, and Chloe was brutally violated on Noah' s mission, Ava began to sense a discordant note in their heroic narrative. "We can restore everything," Jake had said, "Not just this city. The whole system." The truth, whispered in a dark hallway, ripped Ava's reality to shreds. "It's all for Olivia." Her love, her lost child, Chloe' s suffering-all meticulously planned sacrifices for Olivia Reed, a socialite they were installing on a new throne. The betrayal was an icy hand around her heart. The rage that replaced her grief was too raw, too dangerous to show. She had been a loyal soldier, Chloe a lab rat, and their every pain a strategic chess move. Now, with her children gone and Chloe dying in her arms, sacrificed again, one last time, to protect her, Ava heard the final, chilling whisper from Chloe's lips: "Go... home... Ava." There was no home left for Ava in this fake world. Not unless she burned it all down. And the monster who orchestrated it all was about to see just how alone he really was.

You'll also like

Revealing My Secret Identities! My Bros Are Speechless!

Revealing My Secret Identities! My Bros Are Speechless!

Zhen Xiang
5.0

For seventeen years, I was the crown jewel of the Kensington empire, the perfect daughter groomed for a royal future. Then, a cream-colored envelope landed in my lap, bearing a gold crest and a truth that turned my world into ice. The DNA test result was a cold, hard zero percent-I wasn't a Kensington. Before the ink could even dry, my parents invited my replacement, a girl named Alleen, into the drawing room and treated me like a trespasser in my own home. My mother, who once hosted galas in my honor, wouldn't even look me in the eye as she stroked Alleen's arm, whispering that she was finally "safe." My father handed me a one-million-dollar check-a mere tip for a billionaire-and told me to leave immediately to avoid tanking the company's stock price. "You're a thief! You lived my life, you spent my money, and you don't get to keep the loot!" Alleen shrieked, trying to claw the designer jacket off my shoulders while my "parents" watched with clinical detachment. I was dumped on a gritty sidewalk in Queens with nothing but three trunks and the address of a struggling laborer I was now supposed to call "Dad." I traded a marble mansion for a crumbling walk-up where the air smelled of exhaust and my new bedroom was a literal storage closet. My biological family thought I was a broken princess, and the Kensingtons thought they had successfully erased me with a payoff and a non-disclosure agreement. They had no idea that while I was hauling trunks up four flights of stairs, my secret media empire was already preparing to move against them. As I sat on a thin mattress in the dark, I opened my encrypted laptop and sent a single command that would cost my former father ten million dollars by breakfast. They thought they were throwing me to the wolves, but they forgot one thing: I'm the one who leads the pack.

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Dorine Koestler
4.1

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

The 5-time Rejected Gamma & the Lycan King

The 5-time Rejected Gamma & the Lycan King

Stina's Pen
4.9

COALESCENCE OF THE FIVE SERIES BOOK ONE: THE 5-TIME REJECTED GAMMA & THE LYCAN KING BOOK TWO: THE ROGUES WHO WENT ROGUE BOOK THREE: THE INDOMITABLE HUNTRESS & THE HARDENED DUKE *** BOOK ONE: After being rejected by 5 mates, Gamma Lucianne pleaded with the Moon Goddess to spare her from any further mate-bonds. To her dismay, she is being bonded for the sixth time. What's worse is that her sixth-chance mate is the most powerful creature ruling over all werewolves and Lycans - the Lycan King himself. She is certain, dead certain, that a rejection would come sooner or later, though she hopes for it to be sooner. King Alexandar was ecstatic to meet his bonded mate, and couldn't thank their Goddess enough for gifting him someone so perfect. However, he soon realizes that this gift is reluctant to accept him, and more than willing to sever their bond. He tries to connect with her but she seems so far away. He is desperate to get intimate with her but she seems reluctant to open up to him. He tries to tell her that he is willing to commit to her for the rest of his life but she doesn't seem to believe him. He is pleading for a chance: a chance to get to know her; a chance to show her that he's different; and a chance to love her. But when not-so-subtle crushes, jealous suitors, self-entitled Queen-wannabes, an old flame, a silent protector and a past wedding engagement threaten to jeopardize their relationship, will Lucianne and Xandar still choose to be together? Is their love strong enough to overcome everything and everyone? Or will Lucianne resort to enduring a sixth rejection from the one person she thought she could entrust her heart with?

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book