FATED CHAINS

Secret Triplets: The Billionaire's Second Chance

Roderic Penn

I stood at my mother's open grave in the freezing rain, my heels sinking into the mud. The space beside me was empty. My husband, Hilliard Holloway, had promised to cherish me in bad times, but apparently, burying my mother didn't fit into his busy schedule. While the priest's voice droned on, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a livestream of the Metropolitan Charity Gala. There was Hilliard, looking impeccable in a custom tuxedo, with his ex-girlfriend Charla English draped over his arm. The headline read: "Holloway & English: A Power Couple Reunited?" When he finally returned to our penthouse at 2 AM, he didn't come alone-he brought Charla with him. He claimed she'd had a "medical emergency" at the gala and couldn't be left alone. I found a Tiffany diamond necklace on our coffee table meant for her birthday, and a smudge of her signature red lipstick on his collar. When I confronted him, he simply told me to stop being "hysterical" and "acting like a child." He had no idea I was seven months pregnant with his child. He thought so little of my grief that he didn't even bother to craft a convincing lie, laughing with his mistress in our home while I sat in the dark with a shattered heart and a secret life growing inside me. "He doesn't deserve us," I whispered to the darkness. I didn't scream or beg. I simply left a folder on his desk containing signed divorce papers and a forged medical report for a terminated pregnancy. I disappeared into the night, letting him believe he had successfully killed his own legacy through his neglect. Five years later, Hilliard walked into "The Vault," the city's most exclusive underground auction, looking for a broker to manage his estate. He didn't recognize me behind my Venetian mask, but he couldn't ignore the neon pink graffiti on his armored Maybach that read "DEADBEAT." He had no clue that the three brilliant triplets currently hacking his security system were the very children he thought had been erased years ago. This time, I wasn't just a wife in the way; I was the one holding all the cards.

Modern Crime Revenge

Download the Book on the App

Emily's POV

I woke to darkness.

Not silence - the kind of dark that breathes, whispering things you can't quite hear. My head pounded. My limbs felt like stone.

I tried to move. Heavy chains - iron ones, cold against my skin - bolted me to the wall behind me. My wrists and ankles were bound.

I wasn't in a hospital.

This wasn't the recovery room.

The last thing I remembered was the doctor's voice:

You'll sleep a little, and when you wake, the world will be waiting.

Well, it was.

But not the world I knew.

The air was thick with mold and rot. The faint flicker of firelight slipped through a grated door across the room. Stone walls bled dampness. I could smell old blood, dried, and something more primal.

My pulse kicked. "Hello?" I whispered. "Is someone there?"

No response.

Until I heard footsteps.

Heavy boots echoed against stone. The door creaked open.

A man stepped through-towering, broad, dressed in black leathers with a crimson sash and a silver emblem on his chest: a crescent moon coiled in serpents.

He didn't look like a doctor, or someone I'd recognize, or anything safe.

"You're awake," he said.

I stared, throat tight. "Where... where am I?"

He didn't answer right away. Instead, he crouched just outside my reach and studied me like I was something strange, something beneath him.

"This is the Kingdom of Opsia," he finally said, his tone flat, distant.

Opsia? I'd heard the name in whispers, in nightmares.

"There's a mistake," I croaked. "I shouldn't be here. Please - there has to be a mistake."

He tilted his head. "Everyone says that at first."

"What did I do? I didn't-"

"Enough." His voice cut sharp and final. "You'll find out what you are when the prince decides."

The prince?

Before I could ask anything else, he stood and walked out, slamming the door shut behind him.

Darkness swallowed me again.

But now, it pressed on my chest like a weight. Every creak in the stone, every flicker of shadow felt like a warning.

Why was I here?

My heart twisted. Flashes of my father's strange behavior flickered - the way he'd avoided me for days, the sudden desperation, the quiet phone calls. Was this his plan all along?

Before I could process it, the door groaned again. Another figure entered - different this time.

A woman. I think.

Read Now