From Burden To Unstoppable Queen

From Burden To Unstoppable Queen

A Miao

5.0
Comment(s)
699
View
10
Chapters

My fiancé, Caleb Holder, saw me as a burden, a stain on his perfect image. In my past life, his constant cruelty and public humiliation drove me to suicide. After I died, the truth came out. His mistress, Erica, had faked her pregnancy and the miscarriage she blamed on me. While the world celebrated their "true love," I was just a tragic, forgotten fool. But then I opened my eyes. I was back on the night of the gala, moments before Erica would throw herself down the stairs. In a few minutes, Caleb would believe her lies without question, slap me until I bled, and call me a monster in front of his family. "You evil, jealous monster! You tried to kill my child!" Last time, his words destroyed me. This time, they would be my battle cry.

Chapter 1

My fiancé, Caleb Holder, saw me as a burden, a stain on his perfect image. In my past life, his constant cruelty and public humiliation drove me to suicide.

After I died, the truth came out. His mistress, Erica, had faked her pregnancy and the miscarriage she blamed on me. While the world celebrated their "true love," I was just a tragic, forgotten fool.

But then I opened my eyes.

I was back on the night of the gala, moments before Erica would throw herself down the stairs.

In a few minutes, Caleb would believe her lies without question, slap me until I bled, and call me a monster in front of his family.

"You evil, jealous monster! You tried to kill my child!"

Last time, his words destroyed me. This time, they would be my battle cry.

Chapter 1

The word, spray-painted in angry red across the elegant white banner, hit me first. 'GOLD DIGGER.' It was right there, beneath my last name, Bass. A familiar visual obstacle, something I' d seen a thousand times in my past life.

But this time, a strange, exhilarating lightness filled me. I was dead. I was alive. And I was back.

A tremor of pure, unadulterated joy ran through me, so intense it almost buckled my knees. It wasn' t the kind of happiness you felt in your chest. It was deeper, a bone-deep tremor that hummed with purpose. I was reborn. I was right here, on the night of Caleb Holder' s grand corporate gala, where his latest triumph was being celebrated just as much as his impending engagement to me.

The irony didn' t escape me. I was the Bass, a name once synonymous with old money and respected vintners. Now, it was just a punchline. Holder Inc. had swallowed my family's legacy whole, leaving me as the final, humiliating term of their deal. The arranged marriage. Everyone knew it. Everyone whispered about it.

"She doesn' t belong."

"Look at her, trying to cling to the Holders."

"Caleb deserves better than a charity case."

The whispers were a dull roar in my memory. They were the constant soundtrack to my first life. The Holders were new money, aggressive and powerful. We were old money, fading and desperate. The gap between us was a chasm. It always had been. Our bond was a childhood promise, a silly agreement between two sets of parents that had turned into a suffocating chain. Now, society felt it was their duty to be outraged on Caleb' s behalf.

He resented me. Openly. Visibly. He saw me as a burden, a stain on his perfectly manufactured image.

"Miss Bass," a stiff voice interrupted my thoughts. It was Mr. Henderson, Caleb' s personal assistant, his face a mask of polite disdain. "Mr. Holder has asked me to inform you that your presence is not required tonight."

Not required. I looked down at my dress, a shimmering sapphire that had taken hours to choose and fit. I remembered trying so hard to look perfect for him, to be worthy. It was a joke.

"He specifically asked me to ensure you understand," Henderson continued, his eyes flicking to the banner with its ugly message. He didn't need to say more. His cold, emotionless tone spoke volumes.

I looked beyond him. Two burly security guards stood by the entrance, their gazes fixed on me. They weren't there for general crowd control. They were there for me. Caleb' s message was clear: I was a threat. An unwanted intruder. He hated me enough to make a public spectacle of my rejection.

A bitter taste filled my mouth. Not from the 'GOLD DIGGER' sign, but from the memories it triggered. My first life was a long, painful echo of this moment. Countless times, I' d been sent away, dismissed, or outright humiliated. I remembered the night of the charity ball, how Caleb had ordered me to wait in the car for hours because my dress "clashed with his image." I remembered the winter gala, how he' d left me exposed to the freezing rain after an argument, my fine silk gown clinging to my shivering skin. It had always been like this.

My parents, bless their hearts, had tried. They had intervened, pleaded with Caleb' s family, reminding them of the engagement. But Caleb's parents, Armstead and Bernadine, saw the marriage as a necessary business alliance, nothing more. Their apologies were always weak, their control over Caleb nonexistent.

The formal commitment, the engagement itself, had been forced, a constant source of agony. I remembered Erica Carlson, Caleb' s true love, the ambitious actress. She had been a master at creating drama. My past self had been so naive.

One particularly vivid memory surfaced: Erica, performing a dramatic faint right before our engagement announcement, claiming I had pushed her. Caleb, furious, dragging me away, his grip bruising my arm. The accusations, the public shaming. It was a vicious cycle of emotional and physical abuse. He had always taken Erica' s side, always believed her.

I had tried to break the engagement. So many times. Each attempt met with Caleb' s icy refusal, his veiled threats about the "financial ruin" it would bring upon my family. He kept me trapped, isolated, a trophy wife in waiting, never truly seen, never truly heard. A ghost in my own life.

The last memory, the most painful one, settled fresh in my mind. The despair. The endless, suffocating despair. The bottle of pills. The final, desperate act to escape a life where I was nothing but a pawn.

But even death hadn't been an escape. After I was gone, the truth had slowly unraveled. Erica Carlson, miraculously, had returned to the public eye, not pregnant, not miscarried, but very much alive and well. A few months later, she and Caleb were together, openly. The media had cheered, celebrating their "true love," their "destined reunion." Everyone had blessed them, the perfect couple.

I had been so foolish. So utterly, tragically foolish.

A slow smile spread across my face now, a genuine, terrifying smile that felt alien and wonderful. Not foolish anymore. Not a victim.

"Thank you, Mr. Henderson," I said, my voice shockingly steady, devoid of the tremor of fear he expected. "Please tell Mr. Holder I received his message. Loud and clear."

My new goal was simple, razor-sharp: Live my life. And stay as far away from Caleb Holder as humanly possible. I had a second chance. I wouldn' t waste it. This time, I would write my own story.

Continue Reading

Other books by A Miao

More
From Mafia Wife to Rival's Queen

From Mafia Wife to Rival's Queen

Mafia

5.0

After fifteen years of marriage and a brutal battle with infertility, I finally saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test. This baby was my victory, the heir that would finally secure my place as the wife of mob capo Marco Vitiello. I planned to announce it at his mother's party, a triumph over the matriarch who saw me as nothing but a barren field. But before I could celebrate, my friend sent me a video. The headline read: "MOB CAPO MARCO VITIELLO'S PASSIONATE NIGHTCLUB KISS!" It was him, my husband, devouring a woman who looked like a younger, fresher version of me. Hours later, Marco stumbled home, drunk and reeking of another woman's perfume. He complained about his mother begging him for an heir, completely unaware of the secret I held. Then my phone lit up with a text from an unknown number. "Your husband slept with my girl. We need to talk." It was signed by Dante Moretti, the ruthless Don of our rival family. The meeting with Dante was a nightmare. He showed me another video. This time, I heard my husband's voice, telling the other woman, "I love you. Elara... that's just business." My fifteen years of loyalty, of building his empire, of taking a bullet for him—all dismissed as "just business." Dante didn't just reveal the affair; he showed me proof that Marco was already stealing our shared assets to build a new life with his mistress. Then, he made me an offer. "Divorce him," he said, his eyes cold and calculating. "Join me. We'll build an empire together and destroy him."

Betrayed By The Don: Her Ultimate Escape

Betrayed By The Don: Her Ultimate Escape

Mafia

5.0

On our anniversary, I was basting the roast when my husband’s encrypted laptop lit up on the kitchen counter. Alex Bradley, the ruthless Underboss of New York, never made mistakes. But tonight, he left a chat room open. The notification shattered my world: "Is the idiot eating the dog food yet?" It was from his mistress, Charlotte. They were betting on whether I would eat the red velvet cake she had spiked with her Rottweiler’s excrement. I realized then that my marriage was a long-con. I was just a "placeholder" wife to secure his promotion to Don. To survive, I had to play the part. Alex sat on the bed, feeding me the tainted cake with a loving smile. "Eat up, Jillian," he purred. "It’s to die for." I swallowed every bite of the filth, forcing myself not to vomit until he left the room. The humiliation didn't stop there. I found out our marriage license was void. He publicly bought me a twenty-million-dollar necklace at a gala, then abandoned me to face the debt, forcing me to hand over my grandmother’s earrings as collateral. He even watched calmly as his family beat me for a prank Charlotte orchestrated. But the final blow came when I overheard him planning our "romantic" getaway. "The blizzard hits Friday," he told Charlotte. "It’ll look like a tragic accident. Hypothermia." He thought he was taking a lamb to the slaughter. He didn’t know I had been counting down the days. When we arrived at the cabin and he went to prepare my "accident," I didn't cry. I tossed one of my boots over the cliff edge to stage my death. Then I climbed into the black extraction van waiting in the snow. Alex Bradley thought he had killed his wife. He had no idea he had just set her free.

Blinded By Her Betrayal

Blinded By Her Betrayal

Romance

5.0

The scent of lilies was thick, sweet, and suffocating. It was my wedding day, a grand affair Chloe had meticulously planned, even insisting on a custom-designed lighting fixture for the venue. Then the world exploded: metal twisted, glass shattered, and a crushing impact stole my sight, leaving me in a terrifying void. Chloe stayed by my side, weeping as the doctors delivered their grim prognosis: permanent blindness. She promised to be my "eyes," to take care of me, and swore our extravagant wedding would still happen, a beacon of eternal devotion. Her words were a lifeline in the suffocating dark, and I clung to them, believing in a future where her love would guide me. But then, the flickers started, ghost images resolving into light. My sight was returning, yet an instinct deep inside told me to keep it a secret. I continued to play the blind man, observing, listening, hidden in plain sight. One evening, feigning sleep, I heard Chloe whisper to Mark Stone, her brother-in-law. "Are you sure this was the only way?" she asked. "It was the cleanest way," he murmured, "An accident. Now he's helpless. He'll never find out about us." My heart stopped as I saw Mark kiss her-long and deep-before they spoke of my "inheritance" and a future built on my ruin. They planned it all: the accident, my blindness, my slow, humiliating descent into a "charity case" to be exploited. The betrayal was a physical blow, a cold, black void far worse than any darkness they thought they' d cast me into. They thought me a sightless fool, an easy target. They had no idea who I truly was, or what I was capable of. A silent, burning rage ignited within me, hardening into an unbreakable resolve. They wanted a show? I would give them one tonight at the wedding-a spectacle they would never forget, where their carefully constructed lies would unravel.

You'll also like

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Dorine Koestler
4.5

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.

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

SHANA GRAY
4.3

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book