Beyond His Gilded Cage

Beyond His Gilded Cage

I. HAWKINS

5.0
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The blinding flashbulbs popped as Leo Sterling' s hand dug into my back. To the world, we were a power couple-the tech mogul and his beautiful, indispensable assistant. It was a lie everyone in Silicon Valley knew and repeated. "Smile, Ava," he murmured, his voice a low command meant only for me. I was Ava Reed, a talented artist, but here, I was just Leo' s property, a commodity. Then came the new task: publicly humiliate a board member by spilling a drink on him. This was a new level of degradation. "I pay you enough to handle these simple things, don't I?" he sneered, naming an obscene sum. I did it, tears burning as he smiled, then left me to face the fury of a powerful man. This agonizing charade, every bit of my suffering, was currency. Back in my gilded cage, a digital counter glowed on my phone: "Disillusionment Value: 23%." "Target: Leo Sterling. Objective: Accumulate 100% disillusionment to trigger return protocol." Each humiliation, every piece of my soul he tried to crush, was fuel. It was my way back home, a grim bargain to save Ethan, the man I loved, sleeping in a hospital bed in another world. This wasn't just a job; it was a mission of survival.

Introduction

The blinding flashbulbs popped as Leo Sterling' s hand dug into my back. To the world, we were a power couple-the tech mogul and his beautiful, indispensable assistant.

It was a lie everyone in Silicon Valley knew and repeated.

"Smile, Ava," he murmured, his voice a low command meant only for me.

I was Ava Reed, a talented artist, but here, I was just Leo' s property, a commodity.

Then came the new task: publicly humiliate a board member by spilling a drink on him. This was a new level of degradation.

"I pay you enough to handle these simple things, don't I?" he sneered, naming an obscene sum.

I did it, tears burning as he smiled, then left me to face the fury of a powerful man. This agonizing charade, every bit of my suffering, was currency.

Back in my gilded cage, a digital counter glowed on my phone: "Disillusionment Value: 23%."

"Target: Leo Sterling. Objective: Accumulate 100% disillusionment to trigger return protocol."

Each humiliation, every piece of my soul he tried to crush, was fuel. It was my way back home, a grim bargain to save Ethan, the man I loved, sleeping in a hospital bed in another world.

This wasn't just a job; it was a mission of survival.

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Hidden Heiress: The Maid You Betrayed

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For five years, I was the invisible glue holding Damien Crawford together. I was the one who pulled him from a burning car until the skin melted off my back, and I was the one who donated bone marrow when he was on death's door. I even gave up a full-ride scholarship to MIT just to be his nurse. Yet, he believed his mistress, Hadley, was his savior. To him, I was just the maid's daughter who changed his bedpans—a piece of furniture he could abuse while he planned his wedding to another woman. But his cruelty didn't stop at verbal abuse. When my father suffered a massive heart attack, Damien refused to let me use the car, choosing to comfort Hadley over a fake panic attack instead. His mother even slashed the tires to ensure I couldn't leave. While my father died cold and alone, Damien stabbed a needle into my hand just to teach me a lesson about "respect," oblivious to the fact that the scars on my skin were the receipt for his life. He didn't know he was torturing the only person who had ever truly loved him. But the girl who begged for crumbs of affection died along with her father that day. I picked up my phone and dialed the number saved simply as a dot. "He's dead," I whispered to the man on the other end—Anderson Morrison, the city's most feared Don and my sworn protector. "I'm coming," he replied, his voice lethal. "And I'm bringing the army." It was time to show Damien that he hadn't just mistreated a maid; he had declared war on a Queen.

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