His Brother's Promise, My Silent Revenge

His Brother's Promise, My Silent Revenge

Noah Reed

5.0
Comment(s)
35.2K
View
30
Chapters

For one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days, I honored a deathbed promise to the man I loved. I stayed by his brother's side, acting as Grafton Mcleod's loyal assistant, his shadow, and the keeper of his secrets. When my five-year sentence was finally up, he announced his engagement to Cherrelle, the woman who took cruel pleasure in tormenting me. His celebratory gift to me? The task of planning their perfect engagement party. At the party, he publicly dismissed me as an "old obligation." Later, drunk and angry, he cornered me in a back office. He slammed me against the door, his mouth crashing down on mine in a brutal, clumsy kiss. He pinned me there, his body pressing into mine, and whispered a name against my lips. It wasn't my name. "Cherrelle." The violation wasn't the assault; it was the complete and utter erasure. I wasn't a person he hated or desired. I was just a stand-in, a warm body, a substitute for the woman he actually wanted. The last flicker of loyalty to his brother's memory died, leaving only ice in my veins. The next morning, Cherrelle screamed that I'd tried to seduce him, and he stood by and let her. My own mother called to shame me. That was it. I drove to a cliff overlooking the ocean, pulled the SIM card from my phone, and snapped it in two. It was time for Cayla Bass to die.

Chapter 1 No.1

For one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days, I honored a deathbed promise to the man I loved. I stayed by his brother's side, acting as Grafton Mcleod's loyal assistant, his shadow, and the keeper of his secrets.

When my five-year sentence was finally up, he announced his engagement to Cherrelle, the woman who took cruel pleasure in tormenting me. His celebratory gift to me? The task of planning their perfect engagement party.

At the party, he publicly dismissed me as an "old obligation." Later, drunk and angry, he cornered me in a back office. He slammed me against the door, his mouth crashing down on mine in a brutal, clumsy kiss.

He pinned me there, his body pressing into mine, and whispered a name against my lips.

It wasn't my name.

"Cherrelle."

The violation wasn't the assault; it was the complete and utter erasure. I wasn't a person he hated or desired. I was just a stand-in, a warm body, a substitute for the woman he actually wanted. The last flicker of loyalty to his brother's memory died, leaving only ice in my veins.

The next morning, Cherrelle screamed that I'd tried to seduce him, and he stood by and let her. My own mother called to shame me. That was it. I drove to a cliff overlooking the ocean, pulled the SIM card from my phone, and snapped it in two. It was time for Cayla Bass to die.

Chapter 1

The fifth year was ending.

Cayla Bass stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, her gaze fixed on the sprawling city lights below. They blurred into a meaningless smear of color.

For one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days, she had been Grafton Mcleod's shadow. His assistant. His problem solver. The person who absorbed his rage and cleaned up his messes.

And it was all because of a promise to a dying man.

A flash of memory, sharp and unwelcome. The sterile smell of the hospital, the insistent beeping of a machine, and Justen's hand, cold in hers.

"Five years, Cayla." His voice was a weak rasp. "Just watch over him for five years. He's all I have."

Justen Palmer. Grafton's older brother. The only light in Cayla's world, extinguished in a wreck of twisted metal and shattered glass.

She had agreed. She would have agreed to anything.

A door slammed open behind her.

"Cayla."

Grafton's voice was sharp, cutting through the silence. He didn't bother to look at her, his attention locked on the phone pressed to his ear.

"I don't care what it takes," he snapped into the device. "Get it done."

He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the leather sofa. His eyes, cold and dismissive, finally landed on her.

"Did you get it?"

"The acquisition proposal is on your desk," she said, her voice flat, devoid of emotion. "I've highlighted the key risk factors."

"I didn't ask for your analysis," he sneered. "I asked if you got it."

Cherrelle Hughes glided into the room, wrapping her arms around Grafton's neck from behind. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, her eyes, gleaming with triumph, meeting Cayla's over his shoulder.

"Don't be so hard on her, Gray," Cherrelle cooed, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "She tries her best. It's just... not always good enough."

Grafton's expression softened as he looked at Cherrelle. He turned, pulling her into his arms. "You're too kind to her."

The scene was a familiar one. A play she had watched on repeat for five years. The doting lover, the innocent girlfriend, the useless, annoying subordinate.

Cherrelle's perfectly manicured hand reached out, picking up a glass of red wine from the bar. She took a delicate sip, her eyes never leaving Cayla.

"Oh, honey," Cherrelle said, a small gasp escaping her lips. She looked down at the front of Grafton's white shirt, where a small, dark red stain was now blooming. "Look what you did. You were standing so close, you made me jump."

The accusation hung in the air, absurd and blatant. Cayla hadn't moved a muscle.

Grafton's face darkened. He looked from the stain on his shirt to Cayla, his eyes filled with a familiar, chilling anger.

"Are you blind?" he spat. "Get out of my sight."

Cayla's hands, hidden in the pockets of her simple black dress, clenched into fists. Her fingernails dug into her palms. The small, sharp pain was a welcome distraction. It was real.

She turned without a word and walked towards the door.

"And one more thing," Grafton's voice stopped her.

She paused, her back to them.

"Cherrelle and I are getting engaged," he announced, his tone laced with a deliberate cruelty. "The party is next month. I expect you to handle the arrangements. Don't screw it up."

Each word was a hammer blow.

This was it. The final confirmation. The end of a hope she hadn't even realized she was still holding.

She had thought, foolishly, that once the five years were up, something might change. That he might see her. Not as a lover, but just as a person. As the woman his beloved brother had entrusted to his side.

But she was nothing. A piece of furniture. A tool to be used and discarded.

"Congratulations," she said, the word tasting like ash in her mouth.

She walked out of the penthouse, her steps even and controlled. She did not run. She did not cry.

Down in the sterile quiet of her own small apartment in the same building, she pulled out her laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, her movements precise and automatic.

She wasn't answering emails.

She was registering for the Rourke International Rally. An endurance race. A brutal, dangerous competition on the other side of the world.

She used a name no one had called her in five years. A name that belonged to a different life. The life before the promise.

The confirmation email popped into her inbox. It was irreversible.

She closed the laptop.

The promise was fulfilled. Her sentence was served.

It was time to disappear.

Continue Reading

Other books by Noah Reed

More
A Mission Forged in Torment

A Mission Forged in Torment

Fantasy

5.0

My mother was dying, her laughter stolen by a rare disease. A cosmic system offered me a deal: travel to another world, make a man named Ethan Stone love me, and she would be cured. It seemed easy; Ethan was sweet, attentive, and kind at first. But then, everything changed. Ethan became a monster, breaking up with me repeatedly, each time devising public, humiliating "tests" to win him back. From public apologies to standing in the pouring rain with a sign, I endured it all for my mother. The "tests" escalated - a high-stakes, uninsured motorcycle jump over a canyon that left my leg shattered, a forced tequila chugging contest that ended with me violently retching, and being forced to slap myself senseless on my knees in front of him and his new "protégé," Brittany. The ultimate humiliation came when he forced me to donate a kidney to Brittany without anesthesia, dangling the promise of marriage as incentive. I became numb, a puppet going through the motions. The love I once felt for him died, replaced by a profound emptiness. But the mission parameters were clear: get him to say he loved me, to commit, and my mother would be saved. After enduring unimaginable physical and emotional torment, I finally secured his verbal confirmation. The system announced my mission was complete, and I returned to my own world, my mother miraculously healed. I started a new life, finally free. But my hard-won peace was shattered when Ethan, having traded everything, suddenly appeared, desperate to win me back.

The Price of Deception, A Broken Man

The Price of Deception, A Broken Man

Romance

5.0

For three years, every ache in my artist' s hands, every mile on my delivery bike, every humiliating monster costume in a haunted escape room, had a purpose: Sophia. "Her mother is sick," she' d told me, her eyes wet, "crushed by a mountain of medical debt." So, I worked, pouring every dollar and ounce of my being into a future where her worry would finally vanish. But on a Saturday night, lurking in the stale, fog-filled hall of that escape room, an emergency exit burst open, flooding the space with laughter. And out stumbled Sophia, tangled up with a man, Liam, in an expensive suit, his hand possessively on her waist. "My boyfriend is one of these poor, struggling types," she sneered, oblivious to my presence behind the flimsy foam mask. "An artist. It's almost cute, in a sad way. He thinks my mom's sick. The fool." The world tilted. My vision blurred. She wasn' t just with another man; she was mocking my every sacrifice. Then, a check for fifty thousand dollars, signed by Liam Davis, fluttered from her dropped purse. I, the "starving artist," the "toy," the "fool," had been systematically fleeced, my love twisted into a sick joke. The real Sophia – vibrant, passionate, and deeply in love with Liam – appeared on a security monitor, kissing him, shielding him from the camera, as employees whispered about their engagement. "She' s been playing him this whole time," one said, a chilling confirmation of my shattered reality. Her "mom," Evelyn Davis, Liam' s mother, appeared in a photograph on my nightstand - stark evidence of Sophia' s audacious lies. "It' s over, Sophia," I whispered, broken, walking away from the screams and lies, embracing the cold, hard choice of letting go. Now, stripped of everything, lost and collapsing on a wet street, I knew one thing: I was done waiting for her.

Called by the Token: Her True Mate

Called by the Token: Her True Mate

Xuanhuan

5.0

The fluorescent hum of the county clerk's office was the soundtrack to my defiance. I clutched the pen, ready to marry Liam Thorne, a man I' d run seven days and suppressed a blood-bound token for, all to rewrite a past that still haunted my reborn soul. Before the ink could touch the paper, Liam snatched the license. Rip. My heart stopped. "I have to marry Chloe first," he said, his words echoing the betrayal I remembered from a lifetime ago. He spoke of a week, of saving Chloe' s reputation, but I remembered years in a damp root cellar, the loss of our children. My blood-bound token throbbed as his guards abducted me, dragging me to his coastal estate. There, Chloe, the cousin whose manipulations haunted my first life, paraded in my wedding gown, her triumph chilling. With a staged cry and a splash of fake blood, she framed me. Liam, blinded by her fake tears, roared, "Take her to the old root cellar!" My nightmare was real again. The sting of his slap echoed the cruelty of a past he seemed to have forgotten, but I hadn't. Had he learned nothing? Did he truly believe a week could erase my agony, our lost children, the years in that dark cellar? The blood-bound token, suppressed for so long, now pulsed with a furious, undeniable call. As the heavy door of that dreaded root cellar slammed shut, I finally let go. No more running. No more pretending. My forced apology was a lie, a means to an end. It was time for my people to find me. It was time to go home. And this time, I wouldn't be marrying him. I was going home to Elijah.

You'll also like

The Sterling Scandal: Married To The Uncle

The Sterling Scandal: Married To The Uncle

C.D
5.0

I was at my own engagement party at the Sterling estate when the world started tilting. Victoria Sterling, my future mother-in-law, smiled coldly as she watched me struggle with a cup of tea that had been drugged to ruin me. Before I could find my fiancé, Ryan, a waiter dragged me into the forbidden West Wing and locked me in a room with Julian Sterling, the family’s "fallen titan" who had been confined to a wheelchair for years. The door burst open to a frenzy of camera flashes and theatrical screams. Victoria framed me as a seductress caught in the act, and Ryan didn't even try to listen to my pleas, calling me "cheap leftovers" before walking away with his pregnant mistress. When I turned to my own family for help, my father signed a document severing our relationship for a five-million-dollar payout from Julian. They traded me like a commodity without a second thought. I didn't understand why my own parents were so eager to sell me, or how Ryan could look at me with such disgust after promising me forever. I was a sacrifice, a pawn used to protect the family's offshore accounts, and I couldn't fathom how every person I loved had a price tag for my destruction. With nowhere left to go, I married Julian in a bleak ceremony at City Hall. He slid a heavy diamond onto my finger and whispered, "We have a war to start." That night, inside his secret penthouse, I watched the paralyzed man stand up from his wheelchair and activate a screen filled with the Sterling family's darkest secrets. The execution had officially begun.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book