Contract Wife's Hidden Identity Revealed

Contract Wife's Hidden Identity Revealed

Gavin

5.0
Comment(s)
7.4K
View
24
Chapters

For years, I was known as Killian Emerson's only weakness, the anchor for the ruthless crime boss while he built an empire. I thought it was for us, a life he was building to protect me. But then I found out the truth. My high school bully, Dallas, was his mistress. He paraded her around at galas, bought her penthouses, and funded her multi-million-dollar cat sanctuary. He bought her a sanctuary for stray cats while my brother was dying. I begged him for money for a life-saving treatment, but he told me he was busy and hung up. My brother died alone. Killian didn't even come to the funeral. When he finally called, he sounded bored. "Sorry to hear about your brother," he said casually, while I could hear Dallas in the background asking him to go ring shopping. In that moment, the last bit of love I had for him simply died. He had forgotten every promise, even the one he made to ruin Dallas for carving "Worthless" into my wrist years ago. Now, he protects her. He even let her crush the last memento my brother ever made for me, then broke my wrist when I lunged at her. After a car crash he caused, he left me bleeding in the wreckage to save Dallas, without a single look back. But the biggest secret was yet to come. Lying in a hospital bed, a call from the county clerk revealed the truth. Killian and I were never legally married. The entire foundation of my life was a lie designed to control me. And now, I'm taking back everything he stole from me. Starting with his empire.

Chapter 1

For years, I was known as Killian Emerson's only weakness, the anchor for the ruthless crime boss while he built an empire. I thought it was for us, a life he was building to protect me.

But then I found out the truth. My high school bully, Dallas, was his mistress. He paraded her around at galas, bought her penthouses, and funded her multi-million-dollar cat sanctuary.

He bought her a sanctuary for stray cats while my brother was dying. I begged him for money for a life-saving treatment, but he told me he was busy and hung up. My brother died alone. Killian didn't even come to the funeral.

When he finally called, he sounded bored. "Sorry to hear about your brother," he said casually, while I could hear Dallas in the background asking him to go ring shopping.

In that moment, the last bit of love I had for him simply died. He had forgotten every promise, even the one he made to ruin Dallas for carving "Worthless" into my wrist years ago.

Now, he protects her. He even let her crush the last memento my brother ever made for me, then broke my wrist when I lunged at her. After a car crash he caused, he left me bleeding in the wreckage to save Dallas, without a single look back.

But the biggest secret was yet to come. Lying in a hospital bed, a call from the county clerk revealed the truth. Killian and I were never legally married. The entire foundation of my life was a lie designed to control me.

And now, I'm taking back everything he stole from me. Starting with his empire.

Chapter 1

Elena POV:

The underworld used to whisper that I was Killian Emerson's only weakness.

The truth, I now know, is far simpler: I was merely his anchor, the one thing holding him steady while he built an empire meant to protect a life I was never destined to share.

The secret wasn't even a secret anymore. Killian's affair with Dallas Lucas-the girl who had been my personal nightmare in high school-was splashed across every gossip blog and society page.

The final nail in the coffin had been the charity gala two months ago. It was supposed to be our night, a rare public appearance together. I had spent hours getting ready, choosing a dress the color of his eyes, only to watch him step out of his Maybach on the evening news, her hand on his arm.

He didn't even bother to call.

After that, the silence in our mansion became a living, breathing thing. The bed grew cold, dinners were canceled with terse texts from his assistant, and the space between us stretched into a chasm of ice.

Dallas made sure I felt every inch of it. DMs would appear on my phone, sent "accidentally" from Killian's account-selfies of her wearing my emerald necklace, the one he'd given me on our first anniversary, her lips curved into a smug, triumphant smile.

While she played dress-up with my life, my own world was ending.

My brother, Leo, was dying. A rare genetic disorder was eating him alive from the inside out.

Killian had promised me years ago, back when he had nothing but the clothes on his back and a fire in his eyes, that he would move heaven and earth for Leo.

"Any treatment, Elena," he had vowed, his hand over his heart. "No matter the cost."

I called him a week ago, my voice cracking with a desperation that bordered on begging. A new experimental treatment, off-the-books and astronomically expensive, was Leo's last chance.

Killian cut me off, his voice laced with an irritation so profound it stole my breath.

"I'm busy," he'd snapped. I could hear Dallas in the background, laughing about some Persian cat she wanted.

A few days later, I saw the headlines. Killian Emerson, the ruthless Don of the city's most powerful crime family, the man who rose from the gutter to control shipping routes and politicians with an iron fist, had just funded a multi-million-dollar stray cat sanctuary.

It was Dallas's pet project, a PR move to soften his brutal public image.

He bought her a sanctuary for stray cats while my brother slipped through my fingers.

Leo is gone now.

In the suffocating quiet of my grief, my fingers moved on their own, finding a number I hadn't contacted in eight long years.

I sent a single text: *I need help.*

A reply came back instantly. *I'm on my way.*

Tonight, the television in Leo's empty hospital room is on, the volume turned low. Killian and Dallas are on the screen, cutting a ribbon at the grand opening of the sanctuary. They look happy, powerful. A perfect couple.

My gaze falls to the small, wooden music box on the nightstand, the last thing Leo ever made for me. Its simple, hand-carved birds are a world away from the glittering life on the screen. It's a memory of our humble beginnings, of a time when Killian's promises felt real.

Now, it is nothing more than a monument to the beautiful lies he built our life upon.

Continue Reading

Other books by Gavin

More
Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

Mafia

4.3

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him—my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit—watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London—an exile disguised as a severance package—I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

The Alpha's Collared Pet: Rejected and Reborn

The Alpha's Collared Pet: Rejected and Reborn

Werewolf

5.0

For ten years, I lived for Dante Moretti. I waited for my eighteenth birthday, knowing that the Alpha of the Dark Nebula was my fated mate. But when the day finally came, he didn't claim me. He brought Isabella home instead. A warrior. A political asset. "Welcome home, my future Luna," he announced to the pack, shattering my heart in front of everyone. I was just the orphan girl who couldn't Shift. A liability. To ensure I knew my place, Isabella offered me a "gift." A collar made of pure silver. To a human, it is jewelry. To a wolf, it is acid. When she locked it around my neck, the metal sizzled. The smell of my own burning flesh filled the room. I fell to my knees, screaming, looking at Dante with tears in my eyes. I begged him to stop her. But he just looked at me, his face a mask of cold logic. "Wear it," he commanded, ignoring the smoke rising from my skin. "Consider it discipline. If you take it off, you leave the Pack." He thought he was protecting me. He thought making me look weak would save me from his enemies. He didn't realize he was killing the girl who loved him. That night, I didn't just take off the collar. I closed my eyes, found the golden thread of our Mate Bond in my mind, and snapped it in half. Dante collapsed in the hallway, clutching his chest in agony as he felt our connection die. "What did you do?" he whispered into the void. "I set you free, Alpha," I said. Then I ran into the storm. He thought I was a defenseless human. He didn't know I was the lost daughter of the Royal White Wolf bloodline. And when I returned, I wouldn't be kneeling.

You'll also like

Reborn: Contract Marriage With The Dark Alpha King

Reborn: Contract Marriage With The Dark Alpha King

Graciousbeauty
4.0

Gianna Benton, a woman who came from a great family, a family with ancient history, had always lived a life that's overshadowed by her younger sister, Quinn. After her unfair death with her unborn baby at the hands of the man she loved, Gianna got reborn. Now with the opportunity to live again, Gianna rejects her mate and gives herself to alpha Axel, falling into an unexpected contract marriage. Both plans to use each other, and falling in love isn't part of the deal for them. Gianna plans to get her revenge on her former lover, alpha Nathan, who killed her in the past because of her younger sister, but surprisingly to her, alpha Nathan wants his mate back, and Gianna is determined not to let the past repeat itself. ------------------------------------------------- "Is this hell?" "Gianna, what's wrong with you? I know that you are excited, but you need to stop acting weird." Mom said. I reach out my hands to touch her face, but she slaps my hands away. This is real, I thought. Somehow, I have gone back in time to the day I got married to Alpha Nathan. "I need to take a picture of you, but I can't do it without your sister. Wait here for me while I go get your sister." Mom left the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. My hands formed a fist in anger as I thought of Quinn and Alpha Nathan. I don't know how I have traveled back to the past, but I'm not going to let myself make the same mistake I did in my past life; I'm not getting married to alpha Nathan. No matter what, I need to put a stop to this wedding.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book