The Twenty-Billion-Dollar Sacrifice

The Twenty-Billion-Dollar Sacrifice

Gavin

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I gave up my twenty-billion-dollar inheritance and cut ties with my family, all for my boyfriend of five years, Liam. But just as I was about to tell him I was pregnant with our child, he dropped a bombshell. He needed me to take the fall for his childhood sweetheart, Sophia. She'd been in a hit-and-run, and her acting career couldn't handle the scandal right before his company's IPO. When I refused and told him about our baby, his face went cold. He told me to terminate the pregnancy immediately. He didn't know the scars on my own back were from that same fire. He didn't know I was the one who pulled him out, not her. He had his assistant schedule the appointment and sent me to the clinic alone. There, the nurse told me the procedure carried a high risk of permanent infertility. He knew. And he still sent me. I walked out of that clinic, choosing to keep my child. At that exact moment, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a glowing article announcing that Liam and Sophia were expecting their first child, complete with a photo of his hand resting protectively on her stomach. My world shattered. Wiping away a tear, I found the number I hadn't called in five years. "Dad," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I was wrong. I'm ready to come home."

Chapter 1

I gave up my twenty-billion-dollar inheritance and cut ties with my family, all for my boyfriend of five years, Liam.

But just as I was about to tell him I was pregnant with our child, he dropped a bombshell.

He needed me to take the fall for his childhood sweetheart, Sophia. She'd been in a hit-and-run, and her acting career couldn't handle the scandal right before his company's IPO.

When I refused and told him about our baby, his face went cold. He told me to terminate the pregnancy immediately.

He didn't know the scars on my own back were from that same fire. He didn't know I was the one who pulled him out, not her.

He had his assistant schedule the appointment and sent me to the clinic alone. There, the nurse told me the procedure carried a high risk of permanent infertility.

He knew. And he still sent me.

I walked out of that clinic, choosing to keep my child. At that exact moment, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a glowing article announcing that Liam and Sophia were expecting their first child, complete with a photo of his hand resting protectively on her stomach.

My world shattered. Wiping away a tear, I found the number I hadn't called in five years.

"Dad," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I was wrong. I'm ready to come home."

Chapter 1

"What did you just say?"

The question hung in the air of our modern apartment. My voice was barely a whisper.

Liam Turner, the CEO of Turner Tech and my boyfriend of five years, didn't even look up from his tablet. He just repeated it, calm and matter-of-fact.

"I said Sophia needs you to take the blame. It was a hit-and-run, Elena. A minor one, nobody was seriously hurt, but her image can't handle a scandal right now. Not with my IPO launching next week."

I stared at him. "You want me to say I was driving her car? Liam, I am a Cardiac Surgeon. A felony record will revoke my medical license. I won't be able to operate. I won't be able to save lives."

"It makes sense," he said, finally lifting his eyes. They were cool, rational. "You can take a sabbatical. Sophia... she's fragile. You know she saved me from that warehouse fire when we were fifteen. She nearly died for me. I owe her everything."

My hands started to shake. A phantom itch flared across my shoulder blades, spreading down my spine-the exact path of the jagged, ugly burn scars I had hidden from him for five years.

"Fragile?" I whispered. "Liam, she broke the law."

"She has nightmares about that fire, Elena!" he snapped, standing up. "She dragged my unconscious body out of a burning building. She took the heat so I wouldn't burn. Look at the scars on her arms!"

I closed my eyes, fighting back the urge to scream. Two small, coin-sized burns from a curling iron. That's what Sophia had.

I remembered the real fire. The collapsing roof. The smell of burning timber and flesh. I remembered throwing my body over Liam's, shielding him as a burning beam crashed down on my back. I remembered dragging him, inch by agonizing inch, until my skin felt like it was melting off my bones. I had passed out the moment I got him to the grass. When I woke up in the ICU weeks later, Sophia had already claimed the credit.

"You're asking me to destroy the career I built from nothing," I said, my voice trembling.

"It's just a job, Elena," he said dismissively. "My company is about to go public. We'll have billions. You won't need to work."

I felt a cold anger rise. "Just a job? I left the Foley dynasty for you. I gave up a twenty-billion-dollar inheritance to live in a studio apartment and pay your tuition while I studied medicine. I washed dishes so you could build your app. I did that for you."

"And I appreciate that, Elena," he said, taking my hands. "That's why I know you're strong enough to do this. You're tough. You don't have trauma like Sophia."

"There's something else," I said, backing away from his touch. "I'm pregnant."

Liam froze. His charming expression vanished, replaced by cold panic. "No."

"Yes. Six weeks."

He paced the room. "This is a disaster. Sophia is already fragile. Finding out you're pregnant... it would break her heart. She thinks we are meant to be because of the fire. It's a spiritual bond."

"So I get sacrificed? Again?" I choked out. "My license, my reputation, and now... our baby?"

He looked at me with chilling pity. "We can't have this baby. Terminate it. For Sophia."

My world tilted. "It's your child, Liam."

"And Sophia saved my life!" he yelled, his face red. "I made a vow when I was fifteen that I would never let anything hurt the girl who saved me. I will not hurt her!"

I stared at him, the irony tasting like ash and blood in my mouth. I had saved him. I had taken the fire for him. And now he was killing my child for the woman who stole the glory.

"Okay," I said, my voice hollow. "Okay, Liam."

He looked relieved. His phone rang-Sophia's ringtone. "Soph? I'm coming. Don't cry."

He grabbed his keys. "My assistant will book the clinic. Do it quickly."

Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the ghosts of the fire and the ashes of my life.

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Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

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I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

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