The Disgraced Heiress's Deal With The Devil

Author: Juline Walden

Chapter 1

Word Count: 901 | Released on: Today at 16:03

knuckles turning white. The reflection in the mirror was a stranger. Her cheeks were flushed a violent, unnatural red, and her pupils had swallowed her iri

ed her that glass of champagne with a smile that did

rattled the r

You know you want t

ust and entitlement. It vibrated throug

oor. She locked the stall door, her fingers fumbling and s

he main door. The lock

lation window sat high on the

metallic shock of pain to cut through the drug's haze for a precious second of clarity. She stepped onto the toilet se

freezing, a sharp contrast to the fever burning under her skin. She looked down. Cars

r splintered open. Heavy foo

you, litt

way, a stone balcony jutted out from the adjacent pr

en the stall doors one b

think. She

perately lunging, her body scraping against the rough brickw

e stone railing of the neighboring balcony. The air left her lungs in a painful wheeze. He

sliding

eyes shut, wait

mped aroun

ng. The momentum of her fall halted with

d met a pair of eyes as black as

lazily in his free hand. He looked at her not with concern, b

motion, he hauled h

race, coughing, her body shaking uncontrollably. T

e bathroom window she h

u are, yo

rame casting a shadow that completely swallowed her. He looked at Silas. The look was devoi

He pulled his head back in

k you. She needed to run. But her legs were wate

gainst the

al contact was a variable he didn't account for, a mess of bacteria an

s burn

dress shirt. She smelled like cheap soap and fear, a raw, o

ispered. Her voic

atures. He recognized her. Francisca Jennings. The daughter of the man

security. He should have her

ise that had kept him awake for months-suddenly went quiet. The abrupt silence was a physical sensation, more

her up in

and carried the trouble inside

Chapter End

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The Disgraced Heiress's Deal With The Devil

Juline Walden Modern

“I was working a catering gig under a fake name at the Pierre Hotel, desperately trying to stay invisible after my father's high-profile financial fraud ruined our lives. Everything shattered when Silas Thorne handed me a glass of drugged champagne and cornered me in a locked restroom, his slurred voice demanding I "thank him properly" as he kicked in the door. To escape a fate worse than death, I lunged across a hundred-meter drop onto the balcony of the city's most feared billionaire, Everet Adams. But the nightmare didn't end there. When I finally crawled back to my family's cramped apartment, my father wasn't relieved to see me alive; he was furious I had "ruined the deal." He held my mother's last gold locket over a flame, threatening to melt it unless I returned to Silas to finish what he started. My stepmother stood by, screaming that my body was the only currency we had left to pay the rent. I stared at the man who raised me, realizing he had orchestrated my assault just to secure bail money for my brother. To my own flesh and blood, I wasn't a daughter-I was a commodity, a piece of meat to be traded to the highest bidder. When Everet Adams tracked me down and offered me a way out, it came with a two-hundred-page marriage contract and a cold demand for an heir. I looked at the live feed of my brother being cornered in a prison yard and picked up the pen. "I'll sign," I told him, stepping out of my father's shadow and into a gilded cage. As the elevator doors opened to a wall of paparazzi cameras, I leaned into Everet's cold embrace. The world saw a fairy tale, but I knew the truth-I had just sold my soul to the only monster capable of protecting me from my own blood.”