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The Villainess Stepmother's Ruthless New Life

Chapter 2 No.2

Word Count: 761 | Released on: 22/01/2026

purple that clashed with his tie. He reached out to pul

d. "Arthur is gone. The family won't su

e grabbed the document, tearing it

e paper up

y capped at fifty thousand dollars.

y dry cleaning bill is

needed to be the greedy, high-mainten

torial whisper. "We know about the casinos. We know about the sharks.

as right. The sharks were

't save her legs. It woul

or in the corner of the room. A ti

g had surveillance in every room of his empire. Even fr

d an a

She made sure her voice carried to the mi

s. "The search was c

e in a snowstorm," Gloria s

torn contract

She tore the thick paper

d never seen anyone destroy a le

. She walked around the table until sh

r, fear flickering

e confetti i

anding on his shoulders, his hair,

ut," s

office!" V

a corrected him. "And last I checked

from him and wal

. He pressed his back against the

t scent of fear on him, mixed with teenage deodorant. Hi

eache

eezed his

e undid the knot deftly and retied it,

es," she comm

They were grey, jus

enough that Vance couldn't hear. "We do

lie. He was looking for the angle, the

into the intercom now. "Send s

red polish was chipped on her t

that," she said to Vance

e tresp

for my husba

s not coming throug

d. It was a soft, melodious sound that

the marble floor outside.

inst her ribs. She knew tha

ers. He found his wife celebrating her payout and his son crying in th

hadn't

nes, crossing her legs at the ankle.

andle turn

igh of relief. "F

ipped the

te," she

Chapter End

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The Villainess Stepmother's Ruthless New Life

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“I woke up with a splitting headache and a pinstriped lawyer shoving a contract in my face, demanding I sign away my rights to the Sterling estate. My husband, the billionaire Arthur Sterling, had been missing for three months after a plane crash, and everyone assumed he was dead. The lawyer sneered, threatening to leak compromising photos of my "shopping trips" if I didn't accept a measly fifty-thousand-dollar settlement. That was when the horrifying reality hit me: I had transmigrated into the body of Gloria Peck, the gold-digging villainess of the novel *The Sterling Legacy*. In the original story, I signed the papers, abandoned Arthur's children, and ended up frozen to death on a park bench after the family's eldest son, Jones, grew up to destroy me. But my current reality was even more desperate-I discovered I had five million dollars in gambling debts and debt collectors who didn't take "no" for an answer. Signing that paper wasn't a fresh start; it was a death sentence. Jones, Arthur's fourteen-year-old son, sat in the corner of the office, watching me with a hatred so cold it felt like a physical weight on my skin. I realized that if I followed the script, I would die. If I played the victim, I would die. I was trapped between a predatory legal team, a vengeful stepson, and a mountain of debt that fifty thousand dollars couldn't even begin to touch. How could I survive in a world where I was the most hated woman in the city, with a bank account that held exactly five hundred dollars and a target on my back? I didn't pick up the pen to sign. Instead, I slammed it into the mahogany table, piercing the heart of the agreement. "This contract is garbage," I told the stunned lawyer. Just as I prepared to fight for my life, the office door swung open, and Arthur Sterling-the man the world thought was dead-walked back into his empire, his eyes locking onto mine with terrifying intensity. The script was officially broken, and I was just getting started.”