Yi Xiaoxin

I was the Old Lady of the Iron Cross Motorcycle Club, secretly pregnant with the President's child. But before I could tell him, Bennet brought a bar girl into our clubhouse and announced she was taking my place. When she found my positive pregnancy test, she cornered me in the garage and shoved me hard into a steel engine stand. A sharp crack echoed through my spine, and a pool of dark blood quickly spread across the concrete beneath me. When Bennet rushed downstairs, my lead mechanic screamed at him to call an ambulance for his unborn child. But the bar girl clung to his arm, crying fake tears. "She's lying, Bennet! It's fake blood! She's doing this to ruin your party!" To save his pride in front of the rival clubs drinking upstairs, Bennet looked at me with disgust. "Nobody calls outside doctors into my clubhouse. Lock the doors." He ordered his men to bolt the heavy steel garage doors from the outside, leaving me to bleed out in the dark. Lying on the cold floor, feeling the life drain from my womb, my heart turned to absolute ice. How could the man I spent years building an empire for let our baby die just to protect his fragile ego? But I didn't die that night. I survived, and I quietly packed up every custom bike, engine patent, and dollar I had built for his club. It was time to show the President what happens when you cross the woman who holds the keys to your entire empire.

My sister Carmelita was the family's radiant princess, about to marry Wall Street emperor Kingsley Sterling. I was just Gretta, the mentally unstable, disgraced younger sister. But no one knew the truth behind my ruined reputation. Years ago, Carmelita meticulously crafted rumors to paint me as a shameless outcast. When my baby boy was dying of a severe fever, I knelt in our family's gravel driveway in the freezing rain, desperately begging for help. She just smiled in her custom charity gala gown, looking down at me with utter disgust. "They won't see you. You're an embarrassment." She shut the heavy oak door, leaving my son to grow cold and take his last breath in my arms. She even blamed our grandmother's fatal heart attack on the scandal she herself had created. I was entirely abandoned by my parents, left with nothing but faded scars on my wrists, while she enjoyed her flawless life. Why did my innocent child have to pay for her cruel vanity? Why did she get the perfect fairytale ending while I was forced to live as a hollow ghost? The weak woman she destroyed died on that driveway. Before my grandmother passed, I promised her I would take everything back. So, I slipped into Kingsley's penthouse, spiked his whiskey, and pressed record on a hidden camera. When the mighty CEO woke up naked next to me in a panic, I handed him a contract. "For the next month, you belong to me, and you will not touch Carmelita without my permission."

Arnetta had been married to a wealthy man for three years, but she had never even seen his face. After a wild night of drinking, she woke up in a hotel room next to a handsome, ruthless stranger. He coldly kicked her out, mocking her as just another desperate woman trying to sleep her way to the top. To her shock, she soon discovered the stranger was Brennan Kirkland—her firm's top-tier client and a legendary Wall Street billionaire. Hiding her true identity as a corporate spy, she manipulated her way into becoming his executive assistant to steal his data. During a business dinner, Arnetta received a humiliating text from her absent husband, demanding a divorce and calling her a greedy parasite. "He is a deadbeat coward who thinks money solves everything," Arnetta spat in anger. "A man who hides behind lawyers is weak," Brennan agreed coldly. He had absolutely no idea he was insulting his own actions, nor did he realize the wild, gold-digging wife he despised was sitting right across from him. The next day, her husband's legal team sent a brutal twenty-million-dollar settlement offer, threatening to ruin her if she didn't take the payoff and disappear. Staring at the degrading ultimatum, Arnetta's hands shook with blinding rage. She looked at Brennan, who was busy plotting to destroy his own wife, and a terrifyingly calm smile touched her lips. She wasn't just going to take the money; she was going to completely destroy him.

The forest floor was a blur of wet leaves and black soil under my bare feet, a desperate escape from a monster whose shadow felt like the end of the world. Then, nothing. I woke up in a lavish room, my body aching, my arm broken, and my mind a terrifying blank slate, with no memory of who I was or how I got there. Panic, cold and slick, wrapped around my throat. I tried to remember my name, my home, my pack – anything – but there was only a vast, terrifying emptiness where my life should have been. The Alpha, Kaelen, a man of formidable power and chilling detachment, found me and planned to send me away to a neutral shelter, a terrifying prospect of being cast out again. Yet, when I desperately craved chocolate mousse and raw venison, he secretly provided them, a strange indulgence hidden from his pack. The fragile safety shattered when agonizing pain coiled in my gut, forcing a raw scream of his name. He came, silent and rigid, guiding me through the intimate agony. In that moment of absolute vulnerability, a profound certainty bloomed: "You're my Alpha Prince." The words struck him like a physical blow. His eyes, usually cold as river stones, flashed with raw, hunted panic before the mask slammed back down. He walked away without a word, leaving me with a terrifying question: What truth had I stumbled upon, and why did my desperate devotion ignite such fear in the most powerful wolf I knew?

For ten years, I believed my long-distance relationship with my architect boyfriend, Griffith, was unbreakable. I was building a successful career, convinced our love was the one constant I could count on. That illusion shattered the day I saw his phone. A thousand-day Snapchat streak wasn't with me. It was with his intern, a girl he called Kallie Sunshine. His apology was a cold, duty-bound marriage proposal, followed by him taking the fall for her career-ending mistake at his firm. In the middle of the chaotic company lobby, as he was sacrificing everything for her, she delivered the final blow. "I'm pregnant with his baby!" she shrieked, a triumphant smirk on her face. "And you're just a bitter old hag who couldn't keep her man!" Ten years of my life, my love, my future-all reduced to a humiliating public spectacle. He chose to protect his "little muse" while I was just collateral damage. I slapped his face, threw the ring at his feet, and walked away. This time, I wasn't just going back to my apartment. I was leaving the country for good.

I used to believe my life with Liam Miller was a fairy tale, a future filled with hope and love. Then, six months into my pregnancy, at a corporate party meant to celebrate our impending engagement, a video of our most intimate moment flashed across a giant screen, broadcast to hundreds. My world didn' t just crumble; it exploded. My mother, in a frantic call after seeing an anonymous text exposing the horror, died in a car crash rushing to me. My father, seeing the shame and grief on my face, succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage. Why? All of it, a brutal revenge meticulously planned by the man I loved, fueled by a twisted lie about my mother' s past. Five years later, stripping away my dignity as a cocktail waitress, I finally found the leverage I needed. My son, the last piece of my shattered heart, needed a miracle-a bone marrow transplant I couldn' t afford. Liam was a match. He would be my unwitting savior, or so I hoped.

For five years, I was her dog. Sarah Miller, the woman I once loved, owned me, reminding me of it daily. The contract, my reason for existence, was almost over. Then, Alex Thorne, her COO, smirked, "Try again," smudging the glass I just polished. Her private office door opened; Sarah emerged, beautiful and cold. She walked past me without a glance, stopping at Alex. His hand on her waist, he boated, "I aim to please... in every department," his eyes locked on mine. She leaned into him, whispering, loud enough for me to hear, "I know I can always count on you." The office watched, a daily performance. They saw me as a joke, the guy publicly dumped by the CEO, crawling back for a demeaning job. Sarah finally looked at me, "The conference room. I want to see the new ad campaign video. You'll run the projector." And with a cruel edge, "You will watch the whole thing. Every second. Don't look away." My heart became a dead thing, beating but not feeling. I thought about the night it all began, the night I planned to propose, the night I destroyed everything to save her. I wondered, was it worth it? The contract had only a few weeks left. This time, I' d be free.

Six years. That' s how long I counted every day they left me to rot, a sacrifice made for the woman I loved. Chloe, my fiancée, the one I fought for and willingly swapped places with when gunmen burst into our engagement vacation villa. I believed her promise: "I'll pay them anything! I'll get you back!" Instead, six years later, I returned to find her a social media mogul, having built an empire on the very "tragic disappearance" she' d orchestrated with my best friend, Mark. They wanted me gone-permanently. Now, thanks to Victoria Thorne, I' m not just back, I' m wealthy, powerful. And she' s given me a choice: justice, Liam. Or retribution. My path is clear.

For nine years, I lived as a ghost, tethered to Ethan Blackwood. The art world knew me as "A.N.", the mute artist madly in love with the city's most renowned and arrogant art critic, a story they all enjoyed. They didn't know the truth: nine years ago, my younger sister Lily was dying, and desperation led me to the mysterious Muse System. The price for her life? My voice and identity, transforming me into Ethan' s dedicated muse, his silent shadow. I endured his daily humiliation, his condescending words, and his blatant preference for Vivienne, his "white moonlight," while I mimicked her style, sinking into debt. Tonight was our seventh anniversary, also my 28th birthday, but he never came home, the special meal growing cold as the clock ticked past midnight. He finally stumbled in at 2 AM, reeking of alcohol, saw my absence, and woke me with a snarled command: "Draw my bath." My bare feet slipped on a stray drop of water, sending a searing pain through my leg as I fell hard on the marble floor, but he just watched with pure indifference. Then his phone chimed, his voice instantly softening, humming a happy tune as he spoke to Vivienne, admiring a sculpture he' d bought her-a fortune spent while I bled myself dry for his approval. That night, my own sister, Lily, called, shrill with accusation: "Vivienne is so upset! Ethan belongs with her! You need to divorce him and disappear!" Days later, my grandmother assaulted me at a family dinner, shoving me until my head met a sharp table corner, a flash of white pain and then darkness. I awoke in a hospital, my mother dismissing my concussion as "drama," and my grandmother asking the doctor, with strange hope, "Is she going to die?" Vivienne visited, placing lilies to trigger my allergy, then feigning a cut to get Ethan' s attention, successfully turning his rage on me. He dragged me from the bed, forcing me to my knees before her, demanding an apology I couldn' t give, leaving me there, alone and humiliated. The next blow came from Vivienne again, a "calculated" trip that sent scalding coffee all over me, leaving me crumpled on the floor with second-degree burns while Ethan checked on her, blaming me for the mess. No one helped me, not him, not the servants, as my heart, a dead, calm sea, felt nothing but resignation. The Muse System finally alerted me to the severe toll the mission had taken: a terminal diagnosis with only a month to live. Ethan, completely oblivious, brought Vivienne to an obstetrics clinic, where she brandished a sonogram: "It' s yours, Ethan. We're going to be a family." I learned then everything I had sacrificed for was a lie, and there was no longer any turning back. My one goal remained: to reclaim my identity before the end. I called Dr. Alex Carter: "I want my old face back... I want to die as myself."

I dreamed of perfect prom nights and Ivy League acceptance letters, with my ideal boyfriend, Kevin Johnson, by my side. But that dream turned into a living hell when he systematically sabotaged my SAT scores, stole my chance at my top-choice university, and sabotaged a crucial scholarship. The ultimate betrayal came when he coerced me into enduring a painful, life-altering medical procedure for his new girlfriend, Tiffany, condemning me to years of chronic pain, crushing debt, and a future that utterly derailed. My life was shattered, reduced to a hollow, suffering existence. I was nothing more than a disposable pawn in his cruel, calculating game, my body and dreams sacrificed so he could appease another girl. The bitter injustice festered, scarring me to my very core. Then, the familiar fluorescent hum of Northwood High' s hallway surrounded me, and I was seventeen again, knowing every single devastating move he was about to make. This time, I wasn't the naive girl he could break. This time, I knew everything. And this time, I would rewrite my entire destiny.

Thanksgiving rush, the usual chaos of life with my daughter, Jessica. For years, I' d been their quiet support, their free childcare, their endless ATM. My late husband' s heroism left me one asset: our fully paid-off home. Then, a towering display of canned goods began to fall, directly on my grandson, Brayden. Without a thought, I shoved him clear, and the world went dark under a crushing weight. Instead of concern when I woke in the ER, dazed and concussed, my daughter Jessica' s voice cut through the fog. She wasn' t worried about my stitches, only Brayden' s scraped knee and her "ruined Thanksgiving." Then came the demand: While I was still hurting, Jessica, backed by Kevin' s sniveling mother, insisted I sign over my house. My house, the anchor my husband provided, their latest target. When I refused, their true colors showed. They locked me in my own former room, seizing my phone, a prisoner in my own daughter's house. My own flesh and blood, willing to go to such lengths-accusing me, then holding me captive-all for a piece of property. The betrayal was a deeper concussion than any physical blow. How could the daughter I raised, the grandson I saved, become instruments in such a cruel play? But as my son Michael and his wife Emily burst through the flimsy door, a cold clarity settled over me. This wasn't pity-this was war. I was done being their victim, their dogsbody, their endless resource. This was the moment I stopped being Sarah the doormat, and started fighting back for Sarah.

Attending my high school reunion felt like a lifetime ago. I drove my dusty Ford F-250, trying to keep a low profile – just another forgotten face in an ocean of luxury cars, maintaining the façade of a normal life for agency protocols. But some things never change. Brad Harrington Jr., still the same loudmouth, instantly targeted me and my "work truck," sneering, "Still pushing paper for the government, Carter?" My old crush, Jessica Monroe, chimed in, "Some things never change, do they, Ethan? Still aiming low." Their privileged condescension was a familiar tune, but it grated, especially with a critical national security call looming. When I tried to leave for that classified call, Brad – flanked by his private security – outright blocked my path. He escalated from insults to threats, then, with a twisted grin, ordered his goons to vandalize my truck. "Teach him some respect!" he gloated. A crowbar, a tire iron – nothing could even scratch it. Brad himself stormed out, screaming in frustration, while I watched, my urgent mission hanging by a thread. All through their pathetic display, I kept quiet. They saw a "government pencil-pusher," a "loser." They had no idea that "work truck" was classified federal property, or that their "private event" was now jeopardizing something far beyond their comprehension. Their ignorance was almost laughable, if not for the high stakes involved. That's when I calmly pulled out my satellite phone. As Brad hammered uselessly at the F-250, I pressed a single speed dial. "Blacksite Actual," I said, my voice low and clipped. "Situation Foxtrot... Hostile local interference. Requesting immediate response, Protocol Delta." The reunion was about to get a very real, very federal wake-up call.

Shirley dozed off after she finished reading a romantic novel. The last thing she had expected was for her to become a supporting character in the story. To make her escape from being held captive inside the book, she had to accomplish different missions to accumulate experience points and improve her rank. Otherwise, she would remain trapped in the book forever, where she could face her miserable end. However, as the levels intensified, she needed to bring in more experience points. The missions she came across became rougher. How would the story unravel after her arrival? Would she eventually leave behind the bitter ending?

Cara Lewis sat quietly as her boyfriend of three years pushed a plate of dessert across the table, wearing a rehearsed mask of sorrow. He claimed he had to break up with her for her own good, blaming his lack of connections on Wall Street and insisting he couldn't give her the life she deserved. He acted like a martyr making a tragic sacrifice, waiting for her desperate tears and trembling denial. Instead, Cara calmly pulled out a stack of glossy photos and an elegant engagement invitation. She exposed his secret affair with the wealthy Hailie Lewis, completely dismantling his hypocritical social climb. Leaving the cheating narcissist pale and humiliated, Cara paid the bill and walked out, thinking the trash had finally been taken out. But her newly single evening took a chaotic turn when a teenage gaming partner called in a panic. He begged her to crash his elite prep school and pose as his aunt to save him from expulsion. Cara agreed, flawlessly playing the role of the secret new wife to his uncle, a notoriously ruthless Wall Street titan. She was thoroughly dominating the snobby school board when the office doors suddenly swung open. The real billionaire uncle, Beck Greer, walked into the room. Cara's heart dropped into her stomach as his glacial eyes locked onto her, knowing her social existence in New York was about to end. Caught in a terrifying, inescapable lie, Cara made an insane calculation. She stepped forward, firmly hooked her arm through the billionaire's, and smiled sweetly. "Honey, what took you so long? Julian and I were being bullied." She waited for the executioner's axe to fall, but the untouchable tycoon simply covered her hand with his and played along.

I was in the hospital, enduring the agonizing pain of labor, while my husband, a famous hockey captain, refused to show up. When I called him for the twelfth time, begging for him, he lost his patience. "Giving birth is a woman's job, don't bother me with this stuff." Then, I heard my stepsister's sweet voice offering him a drink, and he immediately softened before hanging up on me. I gave birth to twins all by myself. The nurses treated me with cold indifference, and the family in the next bed loudly mocked me as a pathetic "Puck Bunny" who was just an adopted orphan about to be dumped. They were right. A month ago, my husband had thrown divorce papers at me, demanding I make way because my stepsister was pregnant with his child. I thought my life was a joke. I was just a discarded prop he married to satisfy his grandfather, a fake daughter my adoptive parents only used to elevate my stepsister. I was completely alone, ready to sign the papers just to protect my two babies. But then, the head of the hospital rushed in, transferred me to the top-floor VIP suite, and handed me a DNA test. It turned out I wasn't an unwanted orphan, but the long-lost daughter of the ultra-wealthy Sinclair family who had been searching for me for twenty years. Looking at my billionaire parents and three powerful brothers who just flew in on their private jets to protect me, I picked up my phone to call my arrogant husband. This time, I was going to make him leave with nothing.

I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing. During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me. I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst. She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side. "Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house." I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip. My heart went completely dead. So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate. I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table. "I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today."

All I wanted was to find a computer genius to process the non-linear dynamic equations for my ecological model. Instead, I found myself cornered by Julian Andrews, the university's hockey prince, trading a public, staged kiss for his academic support. To finalize our "deal," I was dragged to the campus ice rink. The cheerleaders and puck bunnies immediately swarmed him, mocking my plain clothes and treating me like a pathetic joke. Brooke, the head cheerleader, even set up a figure skating competition with a date with Julian as the grand prize. She performed a basic spin, blew him a kiss, and smugly waited for me to fall flat on my face and humiliate myself. His hockey teammates laughed from the sidelines, watching me try to support Julian as he stumbled around the ice like a newborn giraffe. But as I held his warm hand to keep him from falling, I couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong. Why was a top-tier athlete faking such awful balance? And why did his ice-blue eyes stare at me with such knowing anticipation, as if he already knew about the professional figure skating past I had spent years trying to bury? "Just let go and skate." He whispered, slowly releasing my hand. I took a deep breath, glided to the center of the rink, and landed a flawless double Axel. As the entire rink fell into a dead, shocked silence, I realized I had just exposed not only my own hidden past, but also the biggest secret of the campus god.

Chloe had just given birth to twins, lying exhausted in a cramped, bustling hospital ward. When she called her husband, Julian, he was busy partying with his actress mistress. He coldly hung up on her, having already drafted a brutal divorce agreement that would leave her with a pittance. Strangers in the next bed loudly mocked her pitiful state, gossiping about how Julian was dumping her. For years, Chloe had erased her own identity to fit into his elite world, only to be thrown away like garbage. She was completely alone, clutching her helpless babies, bracing herself to sign the cruel papers just to survive. She couldn't understand why her absolute devotion was met with such chilling indifference. Why did she have to suffer this ultimate humiliation while he celebrated with the woman who ruined her life? But then, a senior doctor noticed a unique mole on her wrist and ran a secret DNA test. The results were staggering: Chloe was the long-lost daughter of the billionaire Beaumont family. With her fiercely protective parents and three powerful brothers suddenly forming an impenetrable fortress around her, Chloe picked up her phone and texted her arrogant husband. "City Hall tomorrow at 10 AM. If you don't show up, my lawyer will handle everything. And trust me, you won't like their terms."

"From tonight on, Farrah is my one and only Old Lady! As for you, Sloane... you're just my personal bed-warmer." In the deafening roar of the crowded motorcycle club, my boyfriend of five years hauled another woman against his chest, publicly stripping me of my title. The entire room erupted in laughter, waiting for the "helpless orphan" to break down and cry. His bloodsucking mother and sister smirked in the crowd. For five years, I had served their family like an unpaid maid, secretly bleeding my dead father's legacy dry just to pay off their debts. Now, they were thrilled to see me thrown into the dirt. Beau pinched my chin, offering his mercy like a king to a beggar. "As long as you know your place and stay in the basement to do the chores, I'll generously let you be my secret baby mama. It's the greatest mercy a cursed orphan with a dead bloodline will ever get." They thought they had stripped me of everything. They expected me to crawl on my knees and beg for their scraps. The very next morning, I broke into their safe, took back my stolen inheritance and the keys to my father's legendary motorcycle, and rode straight to the National President-the man who held the absolute power of life and death over the entire outlaw world. When Beau smugly swaggered into the President's office, fully expecting to find me begging on my knees for him to take me back, he was instead slapped in the face with a wax-sealed document of formal severance. "She is a free agent now. Anyone who touches her answers to my gavel." I straddled my father's roaring heavy chopper, looking down at my ex's humiliated, panicked face. "This is just the beginning, Beau. I'm going to make your family bleed out everything you stole." But what I didn't realize was that the moment I took my first step toward revenge, the dangerously wild man I collided with in the dark the night before-the one wearing the forbidden insignia of the absolute royal bloodline-had already locked his sights on me like a predator claiming his prey...

Olivia grew up in a small Florida town, happy despite dreaming of something bigger-until a car accident took her entire family and left her alone. She was forced by her cold, strict grandmother into a life working at a convenience store, but her uncle stepped in. She left with him for New York City. Olivia began rebuilding her life alongside her loving uncles. Then one day, she met Alex-her uncle's boss. Strong, sexy, controlling, obsessive. A perfectionist who discarded anyone he deemed incompetent, a womanizer who never tied himself down. Until Olivia. She was younger than his usual type, but the moment he saw her, he was captivated. Olivia was drawn to him too-but she avoided him at every turn, refusing to give in so easily. Alex pursued her with every trick he had. What he never expected was that, in the battle to win her, his own heart would surrender first.

For ten years, Kinsley played the perfect, invisible wife to billionaire Christian Decker. She lived on a meager allowance, secretly pouring her heart into earning first place for a prestigious Hollywood directing fellowship. But on the day her gold-stamped acceptance letter arrived, she stood outside his study and heard him give her hard-earned spot to Blair, his live-in mistress. Christian casually dismissed Kinsley's months of grueling work, claiming a mere housewife didn't need industry resources. He threw an unlimited black credit card on the desk, telling her to go buy some jewelry and stop throwing a tantrum. That same night, he paraded Blair at a Wall Street gala wearing the Decker family's heirloom sapphire, letting Manhattan's elite look at Kinsley with pity and mockery. When Blair boldly moved into their master bedroom, Christian fiercely defended the mistress, warning Kinsley not to cause a scene over nothing. Ten years of quiet devotion were trampled for a fake heiress's vanity. Kinsley looked at the man she had loved, her heart turning completely to ash. She finally understood that in this massive estate, there was never any room for her. She took off her platinum wedding ring, left all his luxury gifts behind, and walked out of the mansion empty-handed. Then, she calmly dialed a private number to her production team. "Scrap the fellowship transition. I'm taking the director's chair directly." She was going to make Blair audition for her on a global live stream, and let Christian watch his precious investment burn.

I was the President's Old Lady - and the only reason his MC was still breathing. For three years, I ran every legal business the Serpents of Redemption owned. While Craig chased road glory across state lines, I turned a failing auto shop and a tattoo parlor into the money that kept the brothers fed, the bikes fueled, and the clubhouse lights on. Then he rode home from a two-month run with a sweetbutt on the back of his Harley - and her son. Ginger, he said, had saved his life on the road. So he put her in the main residence, in the room directly across from our bed. He handed her my ledgers and called it repayment. When her son dumped a cup of scalding coffee over my hand, Craig never checked my burns. He scooped up the boy and blamed me. His grandmother - the club's Matriarch - stood before every patched brother and accused me of hurting "family." That night, Craig told me Ginger held a place in his heart I could never reach. A debt of blood he'd honor above me. Three years. My family's fortune. My scarred hand. All of it - worthless next to his roadside savior. So I did the one thing a President never expects his Old Lady to do. I gave back his patch. Now they can keep their empty ledgers. They can play happy family in a clubhouse I built. And when this motorcycle club burns - I'll be the one holding the match.

Five years ago, I stood in the freezing rain at my mother's funeral, waiting for my husband. Blake Knight, the billionaire NHL superstar, was two hours late. When he finally showed up, he brought his rumored girlfriend, the woman he had just rented a hotel rooftop for to celebrate her birthday. Watching him defend her fake tears, my heart completely died. I took off my diamond wedding ring, placed it on my mother's headstone, and walked away from my marriage forever. I fled to London, changed my name to Ava, and secretly raised the triplets he never knew existed. I thought I was finally safe from him. But today, my kids vandalized a silver Aston Martin in our apartment's parking garage, and the owner caught my youngest daughter. My phone rang. The voice on the other end was Blake's. He had moved into my building, and he was holding my little girl in his penthouse, demanding her mother come get her immediately. Panic suffocated me. If I walked through that door, my five years of hiding would be instantly destroyed. He would recognize me, realize I didn't get rid of our child like everyone thought, and he would use all his power to take my babies away. I couldn't let him ruin my life again. "I'm just her nanny," I lied through my teeth. I frantically begged my best friend to go upstairs and rescue my daughter in my place. He bought the disguise, but now, the King of the Ice is dangerously obsessed with investigating my new identity.