/1/119741/coverbig.jpg?v=c25c8dfae1b219489a73ffd6cde4fbf0)
I woke up in a sprawling Manhattan penthouse, wearing a stranger's oversized shirt, with dark bruises blooming across my collarbone. My phone was gone, replaced by a black credit card and a note with a single word: Stay. The man who claimed me wasn't just some random billionaire. He was Clayton Rhodes, the terrifying uncle of my ex-boyfriend, Nathaniel. And Nathaniel was currently planning his engagement party to my cruel stepsister, Hillary. My stepfamily had stolen my mother's inheritance, driven me out, and orchestrated the car crash that left my mother on life support. When I was working three jobs to pay her $300,000 medical bills, Nathaniel was secretly sleeping with Hillary. "I want your presence. Your loyalty. Your time. You stay at my side, and the Murphys will answer for what they've done." Clayton offered me a deal with the devil. He paid my mother's bills and helped me destroy my stepfamily, but in exchange, he owned me completely. I signed the contract, thinking it was just a business transaction for revenge. But Clayton's protection quickly morphed into a terrifying, suffocating obsession. He tracked my every move, isolated me, and brutally crushed anyone who even looked at me. I thought I was just a helpless pawn in his twisted game of control. Until one night, I glanced at his unlocked phone and my blood ran cold. On his screen was the highly classified symbol of the Chiron Network-the elite, anonymous hacker collective. He didn't just want Chloe, the disgraced heiress. He was hunting my hidden identity, Nyx. I grabbed my clothes, opened the heavy front door, and ran into the night.
Contents
Trapped By My Ex's Ruthless Uncle Chapter 1
The first thing she registered was the silk. Cold. Heavy. Strange against her skin. A groan slipped out as a spike of pain drilled from the base of her skull to the backs of her eyes. Her stomach churned with a chemical sickness.
Fragments of last night flickered behind her lids. The thumping bass of the club. The burn of cheap tequila. Then-a different room. A man's voice, low and commanding, cutting through the fog in her head. Heat crawled up her neck as she remembered hands on her body, moving her like a doll.
Chloe Murphy's eyes snapped open.
She was in a bed. A huge one. Big enough for four people. Sunlight poured through floor-to-ceiling windows, lighting up a sprawling suite that screamed money. This wasn't her cramped Brooklyn apartment. This was the top of the world, a gilded cage looking out over the whole Manhattan skyline.
Panic hit her-cold, sharp. Her breath caught. She threw back the heavy duvet and looked down. A man's white dress shirt. The cuffs hung past her hands. Peeking out from under the starched cotton, dark bruises bloomed across her collarbone and the insides of her thighs. The evidence was right there. Her stomach dropped, heavy with violation and disgust.
She scrambled out of bed, legs unsteady. She had to get out. Now.
Her own clothes-a worn black hoodie and ripped jeans-were folded neatly on a leather armchair. Her phone was gone. The absence of it scared her more than any bruise. It meant this wasn't a careless one-night stand. This was deliberate. Someone was watching her. Containing her.
Her eyes darted around the room, searching for anything personal, anything that might tell her who the man was. Nothing. The suite was sterile, impersonal, like a high-end hotel room scrubbed clean of all life. A ghost's room.
Then she saw it. On the polished marble nightstand lay two items. A sleek black credit card with no name or number, just a simple gold chip. Beside it was a thick piece of cardstock. A single word scrawled across it in sharp, aggressive handwriting.
Stay.
The word wasn't a request. It was an order. A claim of ownership. Nausea washed over her, followed by a surge of pure, defiant rage. She would not stay. She would not be a pet.
She dressed with trembling fingers, her mind racing. The main door was a death trap. He would have people watching. She peered through the window, forty stories down to the street. A black sedan was parked across the entrance. Two men in dark suits stood beside it. They weren't looking at the sky. They were watching the door.
Her brain-sharpened by years of navigating the digital back alleys of the internet-kicked into high gear. A plan started to form. Desperate. Risky.
She found the room's internal phone and dialed housekeeping, her voice strained and hoarse. "I need my room cleaned. Immediately."
A few minutes later, a knock came. A young Latina woman, no older than Chloe, pushed a cleaning cart into the room. She looked tired. Her uniform was slightly too big for her small frame.
Chloe shut the door and locked it. The click of the bolt made the woman jump.
"I'm sorry," Chloe said, her voice low and urgent. "I need your help."
She pulled out her wallet-still in her jeans, thank God-and emptied the contents onto the bed. Three hundred dollars. Nearly everything she had. She tucked the remaining twelve dollars into her sock.
"I need your clothes," Chloe said, pushing the cash toward the woman. "Your uniform. Your ID. Everything."
The woman's eyes went wide, looking from the cash to Chloe's desperate face. She shook her head. "No, señorita. I will lose my job."
Chloe's heart hammered against her ribs. She looked down at her wrist, at the one thing she had left of her mother. A simple, delicate silver chain bracelet. Her mother had put it on her wrist the day she left for Berkeley. A lifetime ago.
With a wrench in her gut, she unclasped it. The silver felt warm in her palm. She pressed it into the cleaning woman's hand along with the cash.
"Please," Chloe whispered, her voice cracking. "He took my phone. I think I'm in danger. Please."
The woman looked at the money, then at the bracelet shimmering in her hand. She saw the real terror in Chloe's eyes. After a long, agonizing moment, she nodded.
They exchanged clothes in a frantic rush. Chloe pulled on the drab, ill-fitting uniform, the cheap polyester scratching her skin. She instructed the woman, "Put on my hoodie. Pull the hood up, keep your head down. Walk out the front door. Don't run. Just walk like you own the place."
The woman, now dressed as Chloe, gave a shaky nod. She walked to the door, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the hallway.
Chloe waited, counting the seconds. She grabbed the handle of the cleaning cart, pulled the brim of the service cap low over her face. She pushed the cart into the hallway and headed in the opposite direction, toward the service elevator.
Miles away, in the silent, air-conditioned interior of a black Maybach, Clayton Rhodes watched two video feeds on a tablet. On the left screen, he saw a figure in a black hoodie and jeans walk out of the hotel's main entrance.
"Sir, she's out," said the man in the passenger seat.
Clayton didn't answer. He tapped the screen, zooming in on the figure's wrist. A cheap beaded bracelet dangled there. Not the simple silver chain he remembered playing with last night. His lips curved into a cold, barely visible smile.
"No," he said, his voice a low murmur. "That's not her."
He swiped to the right screen, which showed the feed from the service corridor. A woman in a cleaner's uniform, head bowed, pushed a cart hastily around a corner and into the back alley. Even in the baggy uniform, he recognized the line of her slender ankle.
Chloe burst out into the grimy alley. The stench of garbage and stale city air hit her like a slap. She leaned against the brick wall, gasping for breath, her body trembling with adrenaline. Free. The thought was intoxicating. Then a sharp pang shot through her as she looked at her bare wrist. Her mother's bracelet was gone. She choked back a sob. It was a small price for her life.
She didn't know the Maybach had already circled the block, its tinted windows gliding to a silent stop at the alley's exit.
On the tablet, Clayton watched her small, defiant figure. "Follow her," he told the driver. "Let's see where my little stray cat is running."
He picked up his phone. The screen displayed a file on Chloe Murphy. Former Berkeley music student, expelled for academic dishonesty. Current occupation: DJ. Below the text was a photo of her, smiling, with her arm around his nephew, Nathaniel Rhodes.
Clayton's eyes darkened, a dangerous glint in their depths. He stared at the photo, at the way his nephew was looking at her.
"Nathaniel's taste..." he murmured to himself. "Not entirely worthless, for once."
Chloe flagged down a yellow cab, relief flooding her as she scrambled inside. She was safe. The nightmare was over.
She didn't see the Maybach pull out from the curb, keeping a careful, predatory distance. The game had only just begun.
View More Comments on App
Other books by Xie Huan
More/1/116483/coverbig.jpg?v=a839a46a0850308d6fbd2afe6c13e4d0)
Kicked Out? Watch The True Heiress Shine
RomanceFor nineteen years, Chloe lived with the Tucker family, enduring their endless insults while acting as their quiet, grateful adopted daughter. But today, her adoptive sister Amber framed her for stealing a cheap, fake diamond necklace. Her adoptive parents didn't even bother to investigate the obvious setup. Brenda called Chloe a jealous stray from the trailer park, while Gary turned purple with rage, pointing at the door and ordering her to pack her trash and leave immediately. Even her cheating ex-boyfriend Preston joined the drama, comforting Amber in the driveway and screaming at Chloe for being a vicious woman. The household staff smirked in the shadows, openly enjoying the sight of her being scolded and thrown out. Chloe looked at these pathetic actors, feeling nothing but pure, unadulterated disgust. "Living with you for nineteen years was an insult to my intelligence." She didn't cry or beg for their forgiveness. Instead, Chloe completely wiped her phone, packed her heavy laptop, and walked out of their front gates. The Tuckers stood in stunned silence as a massive, military-grade stealth helicopter descended from the sky to pick her up. Her real grandfather, the head of the ultra-powerful Sinclair family, had finally found her. As Chloe boarded the aircraft to reclaim her true identity, she sent Gary a grand parting gift: a certified DNA report proving Amber was never his biological daughter.
/1/119768/coverbig.jpg?v=95f158b08aa895c0639d35820ff598d0)
The Jilted Ex-Wife Is A Mafia Boss
MafiaFor five long years, I hid the truth about my mother in our basement, pretending she was just locked in the safehouse. My father, a ruthless mafia Capo, thought she was just throwing a bitter tantrum. To protect his mistress's illegitimate daughter, he decided to marry me off as collateral to a rival cartel. When I refused, the mistress framed me, crying that my mother and I were doing dark magic in the basement to curse her unborn twins. My father flew into a blind rage. "Strip her and give her fifty lashes in the snow. Let's see how long her mother can hold out!" He ordered his men to beat me with a salt-soaked leather whip. I was twelve years old. My skin was shredded, my fever spiked to 104 degrees, and I was pronounced dead before the cartel's convoy even reached the hospital. Until my last breath, my father kept staring at the safehouse door, waiting for my mother to come out and save me. He didn't know the woman he was trying to punish had been forced to drink poison by his precious mistress five years ago. He didn't know I had endured his brutal abuse just to guard my mother's secret. What he never imagined was that my mother didn't die that night. She escaped. She rebuilt herself from nothing. And while my father was still screaming at a ghost, she had already conquered an empire of her own. When I opened my eyes again, the biting winter cold was gone. I was lying in a warm bed, bandaged and alive. And standing right in front of me, wearing a sharp suit and ruling the city's underworld as a Mafia Queen, was my mother.
/1/119440/coverbig.jpg?v=07cab37607af86c87da1db83dc992044)
The Mute Wife's Silent Escape
RomanceAurora stood in the freezing New York wind, clutching a late-stage liver cancer diagnosis in her trembling hands. She had rushed to her son's school seeking comfort, only to find her husband, Julian, and his adopted sister, Seraphina, playing the roles of the perfect parents. Seraphina had even signed the school register as the "Mother." When Aurora appeared, Julian looked at her with cold disgust. "Don't show up today, Aurora. It will just embarrass Leo." Her own son, the boy she had carried for nine months, shoved her hard against a table. "All my friends have normal moms! You're a mute! I hate you! I wish Dad would marry Aunt Seraphina!" Instead of stopping him, Julian coldly told her to face reality, while the family patriarch called to threaten her with immediate replacement if she dared to be jealous. Six years of silent devotion and swallowing her trauma for this family meant absolutely nothing. In their eyes, she was just a defective stain on their perfect, wealthy lives, easily discarded and already replaced. She didn't shed another tear. She took off her diamond wedding ring, cut off the long hair Julian loved, and left the luxury penthouse with nothing but her old sketchbooks. When Julian arrogantly transferred four million dollars to buy her submission, she ignored it, picked up her drawing pencil, and prepared to spend her final days living entirely for herself.
/1/116602/coverbig.jpg?v=a0d97c69f24b2de965952c5d4c058c7a)
Bound To The Masked Comatose Billionaire
ModernI was an orphan bought by the wealthy White family, but they never treated me as their own. To save their real daughter from marrying a heavily burned, comatose man, my adoptive mother threatened to pull the plug on my grandmother's ventilator. I was forced to take her place and marry the brain-dead heir of the Sterling family. My adoptive family locked me up and mocked me. My ex-boyfriend dumped me to get engaged to their real daughter, who proudly admitted she had framed me to ruin my graduation and my life. At the terrifying Sterling estate, my new step-mother-in-law humiliated me with a brutal prenup, warning me I would leave with absolutely nothing. I was treated like disposable trash by everyone I ever trusted, suffocating in a nightmare I couldn't escape. To secure my grandmother's medical fees and buy my ultimate freedom, I was forced by the terrifying family patriarch to sign a degrading contract. "Produce a legal heir with Axel within one year, and you get one hundred million dollars." How was I supposed to get pregnant by a man who had been a vegetable for two years? Driven by sheer desperation and the heavy, sweet aphrodisiac burning in the dim bedroom, I tremblingly reached out and unbuttoned my comatose husband's pajamas. But the moment my fingers brushed his scorching skin, the "brain-dead" man's dark, dangerous eyes suddenly snapped open.
/1/113913/coverbig.jpg?v=43f20a7fc5067703b5ae6cda0c06ffd5)
The Broken Luna's Ruthless Silver Revenge
WerewolfI am the Luna of the Blackwood Pack, bound to Alpha Ryker in a marriage meant to secure a powerful alliance. But my world shattered the day I caught him in my garden, intimately holding a new she-wolf. He was using the vast wealth of my dowry to fund his strength, only to spend it on his mistress. When I cut off his resources and handed him the Rite of Rejection, he tore the papers to shreds and trapped me in a dead marriage. He isolated me, turned the entire pack against me, and publicly paraded his mistress as the true Luna. He even weaponized my most trusted maid, Annie, using her sick child as leverage to make her spy on me and steal my mother’s heirloom for his new lover. Years ago, I took a silver blade meant for him, a sacrifice that left me barren. Yet he forgot my blood, humiliating me for a fertile replacement and destroying my loyal friends just to force me into submission. How could the mate I sacrificed everything for become this cruel, calculating monster? Looking at my weeping, traitorous maid and my furious husband, the last embers of my love turned to ice. "She is exiled, and your mistress will be confined." I declared it calmly, using my absolute authority to strip away his control. He thought he could cage me until I broke, but he didn't realize he had just started a civil war that would tear his reign apart.
/0/94295/coverbig.jpg?v=567127e8ab870289e99328ecca0f241b)
Wife's Fury, Dynasty To Ashes
BillionairesOn the anniversary of our son's death, I found my husband in our sacred cabin with his pregnant mistress. He sent me their wedding invitation, along with a recording of him calling me "tainted" from the trauma that killed our son, confessing he'd secretly sterilized me to get a "pure" heir. He thought he was starting a new dynasty; I decided to attend the wedding and burn his to the ground.
