Chapter 2 Condoms !

When life burned her world to ashes, she chose to bloom. After a childhood tragedy and years of abuse under her aunt's control, Kiera Sinclair never imagined her freedom would come disguised as another prison; a forced marriage to the cold and powerful billionaire, Ryan Montenegro in place of her cousin. Their union, born from deceit and desperation, begins as a battlefield. Ryan believes Kiera is part of a plot against him, while she silently carries scars from a past he cannot begin to understand. But as walls crumble and truth peeks through the cracks, their hatred gives way to something dangerously tender. Through the trials, Kiera grows stronger, learning to navigate the world of wealth, manipulation, and love with courage and self-assurance. Just as love dares to grow, Luciana Salvador; Ryan's actual lover and the unstable daughter of Sandra Montenegro's late friend burns with a vengeance when she realises Ryan's closeness with Keira yet she only let him marry Keira so she could bore him a child through surrogacy and then divorce her and come back to her. Her obsession turns deadly, her lies spark chaos, and her darkness threatens to consume them all. Luciana secretly aligns with Alex, forming a dangerous partnership where Alex manipulates situations to pressure Kiera, while Luciana fuels Ryan's emotional turmoil and spreads deception, making them a formidable, intertwined threat. Caught between revenge, heartbreak, and buried family secrets, Kiera must decide: will she rise from the ruins or let the past destroy what's left of her heart?

"We'll release one woman. Your choice, Mr. Shannon." Facing the kidnappers, my husband didn't hesitate. He pointed at his sobbing high school sweetheart, Flora. "Release Flora," he commanded, his voice steady. "She's fragile. Adrianne is tough enough to handle this." I tried to tell him I was bleeding, that I was pregnant with our first child, but he pushed me toward the knife without a backward glance. "Don't be dramatic, Adrianne," were his last words to me. I died alone in that cold, dark basement. But my soul didn't leave. I hovered invisibly, watching as my husband ignored calls from my phone for two days. He told his friends I was just "playing games" to punish him for saving Flora. He didn't know those calls were from my killers, laughing at his stupidity while his wife lay dead. It wasn't until my brother dragged him to the morgue and ripped the sheet off my body that his arrogance finally shattered. "She was carrying your child, you idiot!" Staring at my pale, lifeless face, the crisis manager who thought he could fix everything fell to his knees, a broken man. But tears won't bring me back. And now, he has to pay.

I faked my death to escape a husband who despised me. I gave his dying mistress my kidney and my life force just to ensure he' d be safe. I thought I was finally free, until he showed up at my animal shelter five years later. Hudson Holland spent a decade making me feel small, culminating in a public humiliation on our tenth anniversary. He didn't know I had uncovered a plot against his life that only my complete disappearance could stop. So I vanished. I left behind a suicide note, a burnt wedding ring in a fiery bus crash, and a healed Adaline by his side. He was supposed to be happy. Instead, he spent years hunting for ghosts, consumed by a regret I no longer cared about. When he finally tracked me down to the coast, I looked him in the eye and told him I' d rather be dead than be his wife again. I told him to leave and never come back. But when a violent gang broke into my sanctuary to hurt my animals, Hudson didn't hesitate. He threw himself in front of a knife to save a scruffy terrier I loved. Now, the man I swore to hate is bleeding out in my arms. And I have to decide if I' m going to let him die.

My fiancé thought he was manipulating a naive heiress, unaware I had video proof of him plotting to commit me to an asylum. He planned to steal my inheritance with my cousin, but tonight, I' m not signing a marriage license. I' m signing his death warrant. For years, I played the role of the docile, grateful orphan while Holden and Dianne mocked me behind my back. They called me mentally incompetent, laughing as they planned to strip me of my father' s legacy and lock me away. I watched them parade around my birthday gala, smug in their victory, treating me like a fragile doll on the verge of a breakdown. They expected tears. They expected submission. Instead, they got a cold-blooded execution. In front of the entire New York elite, I didn't hand my voting rights to the golden boy who promised to love me. I walked past him and handed the charter to the one man the entire family feared. Hazen Ingram. The scarred, silent "monster" of the dynasty. As Holden screamed and was dragged away by security, I realized something terrifyingly beautiful. I didn't just choose revenge. I chose the only man who ever truly protected me.

My parents left me to freeze to death on a mountain just to save their adopted daughter. When I dragged my broken body back home days later, my father didn't hug me. Instead, he frowned and asked why I was making such a scene over a "simple accident." For eighteen years, I was the Corbett family's dirty secret. Despite being their biological child, I slept in a pantry and scrubbed their floors while Angelique, their "chosen" one, lived like a princess. They erased my existence, starved me, and when I finally packed my bags to leave forever, they accused me of being an ungrateful gold-digger. Even my childhood protector, Asher, looked at me with disgust, claiming my survival was hurting "delicate" Angelique. I severed all ties, but they wouldn't let me go. When they cornered me at my new school to save their plummeting stock prices, I didn't cower. I exposed every scar, every unpaid bill, and every crime to the principal, getting them banned from campus. Now, as I head to MIT on a full ride, the Corbett empire is burning to the ground. And I' m the one holding the match.

"Do you feel that, Wren? That pull between us?" His eyes darken, flicking to my mouth. "It's wrong. Your brother would slit my throat for even standing this close. But tell me, little bird-" his breath ghosts against my skin, "-are you trembling because you hate me... or because you've wanted this as much as I have?" >>> Wren thought she'd left the chaos of New Orleans behind; the club life, the blood-soaked loyalty, the men who lived and died by their kuttes. Seattle gave her everything she could ever want-freedom, love, a future. But one betrayal sends it all crashing down. Dragged back home by tragedy, Wren finds herself under the watchful eye of Ezra Jax, the vice president of the Raven Reapers MC, and her brother's best friend. He's infuriating, dangerous, and far too tempting. But the deeper she's pulled into his world, the more she realizes that nothing about her past or Ezra, is what she thought. Yet in the chaos of gang wars, debts, and betrayals, he's the one who never leaves her side. The more she fights him, the harder she falls. And the more he pushes her away, the more dangerous his pull becomes. Because in this world, love isn't sweet. It's brutal, bloody, and bound to break them both. When loyalty is everything and love can cost your life, will Wren risk her heart on the one man she was never meant to love?