The Cradle of Imposters

The Cradle of Imposters

Cosme Seidel

5.0
Comment(s)
2.3K
View
11
Chapters

My life revolved around little Samuel, my two-month-old son, in the grand Winston estate. One quiet afternoon, a faint wheeze from the nursery monitor pierced the silence, and my world shattered. I found Samuel struggling for breath, turning blue, his emergency inhaler intentionally placed just out of his tiny reach. My fourteen-year-old stepdaughter, Chloe, stood by his crib, a chilling, almost imperceptible smile playing on her lips. As I lunged for my dying son, Chloe shrieked, "Daddy, Emily's gone crazy!" My husband, James, burst in, his face a mask of annoyance, not panic, as he rushed to comfort Chloe's theatrical tears. His mother, Margaret, a formidable matriarch, surveyed the scene and coldly declared, "Some children are not meant for this world. The Winston name doesn't need weakness." They blamed me, coddled Chloe, and ignored the truth. My heart didn't just break; it calcified into a diamond of pure rage. How could my family dismiss Samuel's life so callously, side with the person who allowed him to die, and blame *me* for their indifference? The injustice burned. But in that abyss of betrayal, something primal awakened within me. A chilling, intuitive certainty bloomed: I could make them pay. I met James's cold gaze, my voice steady amidst their chaos. "I can give you sons, James. Healthy sons. Sons to carry the Winston name."

Introduction

My life revolved around little Samuel, my two-month-old son, in the grand Winston estate. One quiet afternoon, a faint wheeze from the nursery monitor pierced the silence, and my world shattered. I found Samuel struggling for breath, turning blue, his emergency inhaler intentionally placed just out of his tiny reach. My fourteen-year-old stepdaughter, Chloe, stood by his crib, a chilling, almost imperceptible smile playing on her lips.

As I lunged for my dying son, Chloe shrieked, "Daddy, Emily's gone crazy!" My husband, James, burst in, his face a mask of annoyance, not panic, as he rushed to comfort Chloe's theatrical tears. His mother, Margaret, a formidable matriarch, surveyed the scene and coldly declared, "Some children are not meant for this world. The Winston name doesn't need weakness." They blamed me, coddled Chloe, and ignored the truth.

My heart didn't just break; it calcified into a diamond of pure rage. How could my family dismiss Samuel's life so callously, side with the person who allowed him to die, and blame *me* for their indifference? The injustice burned.

But in that abyss of betrayal, something primal awakened within me. A chilling, intuitive certainty bloomed: I could make them pay. I met James's cold gaze, my voice steady amidst their chaos. "I can give you sons, James. Healthy sons. Sons to carry the Winston name."

Continue Reading

Other books by Cosme Seidel

More
The Wife He Destroyed, Reborn

The Wife He Destroyed, Reborn

Romance

5.0

On our tenth wedding anniversary, my husband Liam handed me a beautifully wrapped gift. It wasn't jewelry; it was a leather-bound notebook, a "playbook" detailing years of his affairs, each encounter meticulously logged. My world shattered as he casually demanded I "disperse" his harem, paying them off so we could "start over." For ten years, I' d been the obedient wife, the replacement bride after my twin sister Chloe supposedly died. Swallowing the humiliation, I worked my way through the list, until only one name remained: Chloe, still alive, and heavily pregnant with Liam's child. He hadn' t wanted me back; he wanted me gone, to bring her home. The cruel, elaborate lie of my marriage finally unraveled. When I confronted him, Liam' s facade dropped, his hands around my throat, whispering I was just a "pathetic replacement." Then, Chloe appeared, feigning innocence and twisting our past, painting me as obsessed, while Liam demoted me from wife to servant, ordering me to care for his pregnant mistress. Driven to despair, I called my mother, who immediately came to my rescue. But just as she arrived, Chloe, in Liam' s car, brutally ran her down, killing her before my eyes. Liam then presented me with a waiver, demanding I absolve Chloe of responsibility to protect his mistress and "his son," offering me money for my mother' s death. The callous contempt in his eyes, the utter disrespect for my grief, ignited a cold, hard fury I had never known. I tore his waiver to shreds, the act a blazing declaration of war. At my mother' s funeral, Chloe brazenly confessed the murder, gloating over her "plan" to get rid of my mother, then deliberately provoked me. Liam, in his rage, viciously kicked me in the stomach, causing the miscarriage of our child-a child he didn' t even know existed. The final betrayal came when I needed him most; in the hospital, writhing in pain, he dismissed my pleas for help, choosing Chloe, leading to another devastating miscarriage. I was losing everything, suffocating in a nightmare orchestrated by the very people who were supposed to be my family. But then, my uncle arrived, a beacon of unwavering support, pulling me from the abyss. Two years passed. Reborn as Ava Sterling, a successful design mogul, I returned, ready to make Liam pay. At a charity gala, I humiliated him publicly, then gave him a choice: send Chloe, the woman he' d loved, to prison for murder, or lose me forever. He chose to sacrifice Chloe, but his act of penance was merely the opening gambit in my game of revenge. Chloe was arrested, her frantic cries exposing Liam's complicity, destroying his reputation. His calls became desperate, demanding his "reward." He had no idea his punishment had just begun.

My Sacred Reckoning

My Sacred Reckoning

Romance

5.0

For years, I was Gabrielle Johns: a dedicated librarian in our sleepy Utah town, and the devout wife of Matthew Scott, a man cherished by our church. My deepest prayer was for children, and after embracing IVF and discovering I was having quadruplets, I truly believed God had answered my prayers fourfold. My brutal pregnancy was a testament to my faith, and Matthew, my "devoted" husband, orchestrated prayer circles, praising my suffering as a mother's beautiful love. Then, six months in, at a church potluck, my world shattered. Hiding in the garden, I overheard Matthew and two elders. Matthew, the man I loved, calmly explained how I was merely a "vessel," a "righteous sacrifice" carrying children for his mistress, his sister, his old friend, and his deceased fiancée's parents. He chuckled, deeming me "so trusting," "so naive," for believing these impossible pregnancies were ours. My casserole dish crashed, mirroring the implosion within me. Each kick from inside became a violation, a chilling reminder of his cold deception. I stumbled home, the truth a gaping wound, forced to play the loving wife while a cold rage hardened my core. He' d not only used my infertility, he' d caused it, poisoning me for years with "supplements" to destroy my eggs. My love incinerated, replaced by a singular, burning desire. The devout, forgiving Gabrielle died that night. The woman who remained knew one thing with absolute certainty: She wanted revenge. She would make Matthew pay, not with quick death, but with a living hell far worse.

More Than a Hillbilly Girl

More Than a Hillbilly Girl

Fantasy

5.0

My name is Gabrielle Johns, and I have a "knack" -a gut feeling that always comes true-and a secret curse: anyone who hurts me gets their comeuppance, disastrously proportional. My prediction of a 100-to-1 long shot winning the Kentucky Derby made me famous, and when Wesley Fowler, owner of a failing bourbon empire, offered life-changing money to save his family, I agreed. But the moment I stepped onto his opulent Lexington estate, his vicious daughter, Madisyn, stormed in. Mistaking me for a "homewrecker" secretly meeting her fiancé, Anthony, her eyes seared with rage. She and her friends dragged me out, throwing me onto the sharp gravel. They kicked me repeatedly, mocking my accent and clothes, until Madisyn screamed, "You think you can take what' s mine?!" and slammed my face into the stones. The final blow came when her boot shattered my mother's locket, the last thing I had of her. A silent, freezing fury consumed me. Through the pain, a cold certainty settled: the curse was awake. I looked Madisyn dead in the eye, my voice low and steady, "You' re about to lose what' s most important to you." Madisyn scoffed, but then stumbled, falling face-first onto a sharp ironwork, gashing her perfect face. Her friends watched in horror. "You witch!" she shrieked, then grabbed an antique hatpin, pinning me to the ground. "This is for my face!" she hissed, plunging it into my throat. As darkness consumed me, I heard Wesley Fowler' s voice, but it wasn't compassion. He looked at my bleeding throat, at his ruined investment, roaring at Madisyn, "You' ve destroyed our last chance!" He chose his influential but disfigured daughter' s "modern plan" over me, leaving me for dead in favor of a PR stunt. My father, with his own gut feeling, arrived just in time, scooping me up and promising a hell the Fowlers couldn' t imagine. My vocal cords were shredded, the doctors said I might never speak again. But a tiny, stubborn whisper grew inside me: I will speak again. What happened to the Fowlers after their desperate choice? Did their "modern plan" save them, or did my curse truly deliver its retribution? Find out how a hillbilly girl with a secret knack brought down an empire.

You'll also like

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Madel Cerda
5.0

I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch—a titan of industry and my best friend’s father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

The Mute Heiress's Fake Marriage Pact

The Mute Heiress's Fake Marriage Pact

Alma
5.0

I was finally brought back to the billionaire Vance estate after years in the grimy foster system, but the luxury Lincoln felt more like a funeral procession. My biological family didn't welcome me with open arms; they looked at me like a stain on a silk shirt. They thought I was a "defective" mute with cognitive delays, a spare part to be traded away. Within hours of my arrival, my father decided to sell me to Julian Thorne, a bitter, paralyzed heir, just to secure a corporate merger. My sister Tiffany treated me like trash, whispering for me to "go back to the gutter" before pouring red wine over my dress in front of Manhattan's elite. When a drunk cousin tried to lay hands on me at the engagement gala, my grandmother didn't protect me-she raised her silver-topped cane to strike my face for "embarrassing the family." They called me a sacrificial lamb, laughing as they signed the prenuptial agreement that stripped me of my freedom. They had no idea I was E-11, the underground hacker-artist the world was obsessed with, or that I had already breached their private servers. I found the hidden medical records-blood types A, A, and B-a biological impossibility that proved my "parents" were harboring a scandal that could ruin them. Why bring me back just to discard me again? And why was Julian Thorne, the man supposedly bound to a wheelchair, secretly running miles at dawn on his private estate? Standing in the middle of the ballroom, I didn't plead for mercy. I used a text-to-speech app to broadcast a cold, synthetic threat: "I have the records, Richard. Do you want me to explain genetics to the press, or should we leave quietly?" With the "paralyzed" billionaire as my unexpected accomplice, I walked out of the Vance house and into a much more dangerous game.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book