The Bet That Broke The Hayes

Stolen Fortune, Stolen Heart: The Caged Ward

I stood in the corner of the grand ballroom, trying to stay invisible despite the massive diamond on my finger. As the fiancée of the billionaire Arturo Watts, I was supposed to be the most envied woman in the room, but the suffocating scent of lilies felt more like a funeral than a gala. A waiter’s elbow clipped my arm, sending my clutch crashing to the floor and spilling its contents for everyone to see. Among my lipstick and phone lay a heavy, glittering brooch—the Pink Star diamond—that had just been reported stolen from the neck of a billionaire socialite. "Thief! Just like her father," the crowd hissed as cameras flashed like gunfire in my face. Tiffany Watts ground her heel into my bag, her eyes gleeful as she watched the "scammer's daughter" finally get caught. Just as security reached for my wrists, Arturo stepped out of the shadows, but he wasn't there to save me. He grabbed my face and kissed me with a brutal, bruising intensity, branding me in front of the news drones to turn my humiliation into a PR stunt for his company’s stock price. I thought I was being protected, but I soon realized I was just a prisoner in a gilded cage with new locks on the windows. I discovered the truth Arturo was trying to shred: I wasn’t his fiancée, I was his "key code." He was using my name to access fifty million dollars of my father’s hidden money, and he had blocked my FBI application to ensure I’d never uncover the trail. "I did it for you," he whispered, standing over me with the same cold, unreadable eyes he used on his business rivals. He thought he could buy my silence with designer gowns and a fake romance, but he forgot that I am my father’s daughter. I’m done being a liability in his corporate games. I’ve found the secret account and recorded his confession. If Arturo Watts wants to treat me like a target, I’m going to make sure I’m the one who hits the mark and takes every cent he’s hiding.

No Divorce, Only Widowhood: His Possession

I went to The Ivy to return a box of scripts and hoodies, hoping to finally bury my past with movie star Harrison Knox. I just wanted to be a good wife to Julian Sterling and keep my family’s business merger intact. But Harrison had other plans. He staged a paparazzi ambush, pulling me into a fake embrace just as the cameras flashed. By the time I got home to our Bel Air estate, the headline "Harrison Knox Heartbroken? Tearful Reunion with Serena Vance" was already trending worldwide. The fallout was brutal. My father called, roaring that the stock was in freefall and threatening to stop my mother’s medical payments if I didn't keep Julian happy. My movie funding was pulled, leaving me to pawn my Birkin bags just to pay my staff. Even worse, Julian’s cold indifference turned into a sharp, quiet rage. He heard me tell a friend that our marriage felt like a transaction, and his response was to toss a black Centurion card at my feet like I was something he’d bought at an auction. I was trapped between a narcissist who wanted to use my trauma for his next script and a father who saw me as nothing but a bargaining chip. Even Julian, the man who secretly bought my movie rights through a shell company to protect me, believed I was still screaming my ex's name in my sleep. When my family finally demanded I lie and accuse Julian of domestic abuse to secure a settlement, I realized I had nothing left to lose. I walked away from the Vance name, deleted every memory of Harrison, and stood at the edge of the Pacific Ocean ready to let the tide take me. But Julian didn't come for a divorce. He found me in the dark, his coat heavy on my shoulders and his eyes burning with a possessive fire. "There is no divorce in the Sterling family," he whispered against my ear. "There is only widowhood. You are mine, Serena, until one of us is in the ground."

Dying for His True Happiness

In New York, everyone knew Grady Allen lived for me, Emely Harrison. He was my shadow, my protector, my world, and our future seemed inevitable. But as I lay dying from ALS, I overheard him whisper, "Emely, my duty to you is done. If there is a next life, I pray I can be with Kandy." My world shattered. His lifelong devotion wasn't love, but guilt for Kandy Paul, a woman who had taken her own life after he' d left her. Reborn, I found Grady with amnesia, deeply in love with Kandy. To give him the happiness he truly desired, I concealed my own early-onset ALS diagnosis and broke off our engagement, telling his parents, "I won't chain him to a dying woman out of a sense of duty he doesn't even remember." Despite my efforts, Kandy' s insecurity led her to frame me, accusing me of throwing her engagement ring and setting fire to the mansion. Grady, believing her, threw me into a muddy pit and later choked me, snarling, "You're not even as good as a dog. At least a dog is loyal." During a kidnapping, I saved Kandy, nearly dying myself, only to wake in a hospital to learn Grady had spared no expense for her, while I lay abandoned. Why did he choose her, even when his body instinctively reached for me? Why did he believe her lies? I had given him everything, even my life, to set him free. Now, I would truly be free. I married my brother, Jeremiah, who had always loved me, and left Grady behind, whispering, "Be happy, Grady. We're even now. I'll never see you again."

The Husband She Never Knew

For fifteen years, Ava Reed and Ethan Miller were Ghost and Shadow, an elite security duo woven from shared scars and unbreakable loyalty. Their world shattered the moment Chloe Davis, a client they were hired to protect, walked into their lives, and Ethan' s professional focus vanished, replaced by open infatuation. Ava watched, heartbroken, as Ethan ignored her tactical advice, prioritized Chloe' s every whim, and dismissed their shared history. The final blow came in a hotel hallway, not in a hail of gunfire, but with Ethan' s cruel dismiss al of Ava as "intense" to Chloe, followed by his public, condescending declaration that she was "nothing" without him after years of her literally taking bullets for him. Reeling, but refusing to be broken, Ava silently walked away from the wreckage of her past life, dialing a number she hadn't called in a decade to invoke an old family arrangement – a marriage to Liam Hayes, a recluse from a rival tech empire – a desperate, undeniable move to cleanse herself of Ethan' s betrayal. Yet, her escape was far from clean. Chloe, savoring her triumph, tracked Ava down and flaunted the ultimate insult: the cheap silver locket Ava and Ethan had shared, now around Chloe' s neck, a symbol of Ethan' s ultimate betrayal, as he callously dismissed its meaning. Just as Ava thought she had burned all bridges, Ethan reappeared at her wedding, a desperate, unhinged man, revealing a shocking truth about Liam. Now, Ava must unravel the true intentions of her new husband while grappling with the explosive fallout of her past.

Love, Lies, and Stolen Dreams

Chloe Davis and I built a life together, starting from broke college kids to a married couple with a future, celebrating our tenth anniversary. But that morning, a chilling phone call shattered everything: Chloe, distracted and distant, hung up on me before I could utter another word, leaving me with a familiar cold dread. Later, a colleague' s photo brought the crushing truth: Chloe, hand resting comfortably on the arm of Liam Hayes, the ruthless CEO of OmniCorp, a velvet box and expensive cufflinks on the table-gifts I could never afford. The silent, wrapped gift on her nightstand - a first-edition book carelessly torn, unopened - confirmed her indifference, leaving me with a gut-wrenching question: how could the woman I loved betray me to this extent? The next morning, the betrayal escalated as my lead designer revealed OmniCorp had stolen our flagship game, 'Aetheria,' confirming a horrifying, undeniable picture: the person sleeping next to me every night was holding the knife, and I knew how to fight back.

Revenge Served Cold, Sweet

My husband, Mark, walked in with her draped on his arm, a wide-eyed girl clutching a teddy bear, and casually announced she' d be staying with us. I watched, numb, as she ate chicken from his fork, her lips brushing the metal, her eyes locked on his-a brazen declaration made right at my dining table. The silence that followed, thick and heavy, was broken only by the wet thud of the entire roasted chicken I scraped into the garbage, his furious outburst echoing in the sudden chill of the room. He stood before me, defending her, blaming me, his eyes filled with a disappointment that screamed I was the problem, leaving me bewildered and furious at his immediate, instinctual betrayal. When I stormed out, leaving him alone with her, I thought I was simply escaping, but now I know that was the moment I stopped being his wife and started planning his downfall.

Jilted Bride's Revenge: The Valkyrie Awakens

I had been a wife for exactly six hours when I woke up to the sound of my husband’s heavy breathing. In the dim moonlight of our bridal suite, I watched Hardin, the man I had adored for years, intertwined with my sister Carissa on the chaise lounge. The betrayal didn't come with an apology. Hardin stood up, unashamed, and sneered at me. "You're awake? Get out, you frumpy mute." Carissa huddled under a throw, her fake tears already welling up as she played the victim. They didn't just want me gone; they wanted me erased to protect their reputations. When I refused to move, my world collapsed. My father didn't offer a shoulder to cry on; he threatened to have me committed to a mental asylum to save his business merger. "You're a disgrace," he bellowed, while the guards stood ready to drag me away. They had spent my life treating me like a stuttering, submissive pawn, and now they were done with me. I felt a blinding pain in my skull, a fracture that should have broken me. But instead of tears, something dormant and lethal flickered to life. The terrified girl who walked down the aisle earlier that day simply ceased to exist. In her place, a clinical system—the Valkyrie Protocol—booted up. My racing heart plummeted to a steady sixty beats per minute. I didn't scream. I stood up, my spine straightening for the first time in twenty years, and looked at Hardin with the detachment of a surgeon looking at a tumor. "Correction," I said, my voice stripped of its stutter. "You're in my light." By dawn, I had drained my father's accounts, vanished into a storm, and found a bleeding Crown Prince in a hidden safehouse. They thought they had broken a mute girl. They didn't realize they had just activated their own destruction.

Marrying Her Was Easy, Losing Her Was Hell

"Stella once savored Marc's devotion, yet his covert cruelty cut deep. She torched their wedding portrait at his feet while he sent flirty messages to his mistress. With her chest tight and eyes blazing, Stella delivered a sharp slap. Then she deleted her identity, signed onto a classified research mission, vanished without a trace, and left him a hidden bombshell. On launch day she vanished; that same dawn Marc's empire crumbled. All he unearthed was her death certificate, and he shattered. When they met again, a gala spotlighted Stella beside a tycoon. Marc begged. With a smirk, she said, ""Out of your league, darling."

Rejected Luna, Claimed by the King

As a wolfless charity case at the Hyde Pack's celebration, my world shattered when Braydon, my supposed protector, publicly announced Katherine Parrish as his Luna, erasing me. Heartbroken, I fled into a terrifying contract marriage with Alpha King Dallas Marshall for protection. Braydon's public assault and threats forced me to reveal my secret marriage, challenging the King. My "protection" felt like a prison. Braydon revealed I was a "key" to power, not a mate, confirming my fears. Enraged by my attempt to take a morning-after pill, Dallas forced me to swallow it, then branded my lips with a furious kiss. His chilling silence hardened my resolve. I immediately drafted an addendum to our contract, setting strict boundaries to reclaim control.

Between Ruin And Resolve: My Ex-Husband's Regret

After two years of marriage, Sadie was finally pregnant. Filled with hope and joy, she was blindsided when Noah asked for a divorce. During a failed attempt on her life, Sadie found herself lying in a pool of blood, desperately calling Noah to ask him to save her and the baby. But her calls went unanswered. Shattered by his betrayal, she left the country. Time passed, and Sadie was about to be wed for a second time. Noah appeared in a frenzy and fell to his knees. "How dare you marry someone else after bearing my child?"

Phoenix Rising: The Scarred Heiress's Revenge

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.

The Almighty Alpha Wins Back His Rejected Mate

Life was a bed of roses for Debra, the daughter of Alpha. That was until she had a one-night stand with Caleb. She was sure he was her mate as determined by Moon Goddess. But this hateful man refused to accept her. Weeks passed before Debra discovered that she was pregnant. Her pregnancy brought shame to her and everyone she loved. Not only was she driven out, but her father was also hunted down by usurpers. Fortunately, she survived with the help of the mysterious Thorn Edge Pack. Five years passed and Debra didn't hear anything from Caleb. One day, their paths crossed again. They were both on the same mission-carrying out secret investigations in the dangerous Roz Town for the safety and posterity of their respective packs. Caleb was still cold toward her. But as time went on, he fell head over heels in love with her. He tried to make up for abandoning her, but Debra wasn't having any of it. She was hell-bent on hiding her daughter from him and also making a clean break. What did the future hold for the two as they journeyed in Roz Town? What kind of secrets would they find? Would Caleb win Debra's heart and get to know his lovely daughter? Find out!