The Alpha Who Rejected His True Mate

Five years ago, I was a world-renowned concert pianist. Now, I'm an auto mechanic with a mangled right hand, hiding from a past my ex-husband, Carter, dismisses as a "tantrum." He drags me to a charity gala where his mistress, Alexandrea, puts me on the spot, demanding I play for the city's elite-a cruel, public humiliation she knows I can't perform. When I refuse, Carter shoves me to the ground in a rage. He still thinks our daughter, Lily, is alive, and he uses her as a weapon. "Behave," he hisses, "and maybe we can bring Lily back home." Bring her home? The sheer ignorance is staggering. He has no idea our daughter froze to death in the same car crash that destroyed my hand. But just before the gala, my best friend uncovered the final, devastating truth. It wasn't an accident. They sabotaged my car and left us for dead. Tonight, I'm not just attending a party. I'm orchestrating a funeral. Theirs.

I was a surgeon on the most luxurious ship in the world, scrubbing my hands until they were raw to forget the name Ye Jiuting and the past I’d left behind. But at 2:15 AM, Room 404 became my graveyard when a federal agent flatlined on my table, and the world I’d built turned into a nightmare. The nurse handed me a syringe she swore was a standard antibiotic, but the ship’s medical files had been scrubbed to hide a fatal allergy. Before the body was even cold, the widow was screaming murder, and the ship’s foreman, Huston Lyons, was at my throat with a predatory grin. "You killed him, Doctor," Huston sneered, "and on this ship, people like you tend to disappear overboard." When I tried to prove the syringe was clean, Huston’s brutal grip forced the needle into my own arm, injecting me with a lethal stimulant that sent my heart into a violent, scorching frenzy. I fled into the bowels of the ship, my vision warping and my lungs burning, while a ship-wide announcement declared a five-million-dollar bounty on my head. Every desperate gambler and debt-ridden crew member was now hunting me like an animal for a chance at a clean slate. I didn't understand how the digital records could lie or why a routine dose had been replaced with poison. Was I a target, or just a convenient scapegoat for a conspiracy much larger than a single death? Just as the mercenaries were about to drag me to a black site, Clinton Collier, the terrifying "King of the Leviathan," stepped out of the shadows and claimed my life as his own. "She is my Caretaker now," he declared, wrapping a black silk ribbon around my neck to mark me as his exclusive property. I had escaped the gallows only to be collared by a monster, but as I felt his madness recede under my touch, I realized that being his only cure was the most dangerous weapon I possessed.

Four years ago, I melted my skin into the asphalt to pull Julian Moretti from a burning wreckage. I spent years in the shadows, nursing him back to health, hiding my scars while he reclaimed his title as the Underboss of New York. But on the way to our wedding, everything shattered. Estelle Russo, the woman who caused the crash that ruined me, complained of a stomach ache in the limousine. Julian didn't hesitate. He ordered the driver to stop on the shoulder of the highway. "Get out," he barked at me, his eyes cold. He forced me out of the car in my wedding gown, leaving me stranded in the dust and exhaust fumes just so Estelle could lie down on the seat. "Take a cab to the church," he sneered before speeding away. He didn't just leave me on the road; he abandoned me at the altar to hold the hand of the woman who had once tried to kill him. He called our relationship a "debt" he was tired of paying. I stood there, the lace of my dress heavy with humiliation, realizing I was never his Queen—I was just his collateral damage. I didn't call a taxi. Instead, I pulled a burner phone from my bodice and dialed the one number that would end his reign. "The deal is live," I whispered. "He chose her." I stripped off the wedding dress, climbed over the guardrail, and stepped into the black sedan waiting to take me to his greatest enemy.

My fiancé, Dereck, told me a construction accident had shattered my dominant hand, ending my career as an architect. But drifting in a drugged haze, I overheard the truth. It wasn't an accident. He had paid the doctor to cripple me, to make me a "broken architect" so I could never leave him. I soon discovered his real reason: a secret son with his lover, Kacey. He was building their family while destroying my life. At a party celebrating the "adoption" of his own child, Kacey framed me for an attack. Dereck and his family called me a worthless disgrace in front of everyone. He thought he had broken me. He thought he had erased me. He was wrong. I faked my own fiery death, leaving him to rot in his guilt while I prepared my revenge.

For seven years, I was a prisoner in a wheelchair, and my husband, Carter, was my devoted savior. After the accident that stole my legs, he fed me, bathed me, and carried me. He was my entire world. Then I discovered his secret: he was having an affair with Jade, the daughter of the man who crippled me. My "recovery" smoothies weren't for healing; they were laced with sedatives to keep me weak and dependent. When I confronted them, Jade pushed me down the stairs. As I lay bleeding on the cold marble floor, I felt a sharp, agonizing pain. I was losing our baby. Carter looked down at me with disgust. "You're pathetic, Alayna. Stay here and rot." He walked out, leaving me to die. But I didn't die. My family found me. And as I slowly, miraculously, learned to walk again, the broken wife he knew was gone. They took my legs, my child, and my trust. Now, I would take everything from them.

Amelia Hopewell was found by her biological father and brought home. That same day, she discovered a bodyguard, Edmund Nash, barely clinging to life after being tormented by the false heiress. She used half her blood to save him. Later, when Amelia's father fell gravely ill, all the family's assets were secretly frozen by a notorious crime lord. In desperation, Amelia sought Edmund's help. Instead, she witnessed the crime lord's second-in-command standing respectfully before him. "Mr. Nash, if Miss Hopewell's father doesn't get surgery within three hours, he won't survive," the man said. "The company's success owes much to the money Miss Hopewell gave you. Are you sure you won't reveal your true identity to her?" he asked. Edmund toyed with an expensive sapphire necklace, his eyes cold and detached. "For the next three hours, ensure Amelia Hopewell doesn't borrow a single penny," he ordered. "Rosalyn said if Amelia's father gets the surgery, she won't let me step foot in her room again. What a vengeful little girl." Amelia realized the crime lord who had been crushing her family's business for three years was none other than her beloved fiancé, Edmund Nash. Upon learning the truth, Amelia dialed the number of her former subordinate, "I want Edmund ruined in three days!"