Went to jail for a crime she didn't commit, Elena loses love, freedom, and fortune. Now released, she finds her cheating husband engaged to another. But fate throws a lifeline: a mysterious stranger with a shocking offer. He's Luke's wronged half-brother; Atlas Grant and he needs Elena's help to bring down their ruthless family. Can Elena trust this man who also have secrets he hides? Is revenge worth the risk, especially when the price tag is ten million dollars? And who is Atlas Grant?
view moreELENA CARLSON
“Let us raise a toast to the newly engaged couple,” Mr. Grant, my husband’s father, announced and everyone raised their glasses with smiles plastered on their faces.
The clinking of glasses was the last thing I heard before my head started spinning and my eyelids became heavy with a sudden drowsiness. My legs wobbled and I slumped to the ground just as my vision went black.
I blacked out.
At my husband’s engagement party. He was getting married. To another woman that wasn't me.
A few hours later
“I love you, Elena. I will bring down the world for you. I will swim through oceans and move mountains for your sake ” The words of Braden echoed in my ear once again. Those words kept me sane.
I slowly opened my eyes, and the world around me was a blur. My head was pounding and my mouth felt dry and sticky. I tried lifting my hand to my forehead, but it felt like a wobbling leaf so it fell back onto the pillow.
What happened? I thought to myself.
I tried to remember, but my memories are foggy and unclear. I struggled to sit up, but a wave of dizziness washed over me and I fell back onto the bed. Where was I? This didn't feel like my bed. It was too soft and comfortable.
Was I back in that prison cell where I had spent the last seven years of my life?
Okay, think. What was the last thing that happened?
“Oh, you are awake,” a voice echoed in the background. A voice I knew all too well. My husband, Luke Grant. The man I had just walked in on his engagement party.
I frowned, my head was still a lightweight from the blackout. I lifted my body from the bed and that was when I was able to make out my environment. I was in a familiar room I never thought I would be in again. it was a room I knew all too familiar.
It was a holding cell.
What the actual fuck!
“What is going on Luke?” I asked, still trying to wrap my mind around the absurdity that happened to be my life.
“Sit down, Elena,” He instructed, gesturing for me to sit on the chair in front of an iron desk. His gesticulation drew my attention to the middle aged man at the far end of the room. My heart skipped at the sight of the man. He was familiar.
Mr. Sanchez, my lawyer, or rather, the legal representative of the Grant family, served as my lawyer when I was charged with second-degree murder.
I dragged my legs to the chair, staggering a few steps before I finally made it. I collapsed on the chair, breathing heavily. Luke and his Lawyer strode to the opposite chairs and settled down, his gaze stern. It was almost like I wasn't staring at the man I had known and married for the past eight years.
“Why didn't you inform me that you were getting out?” Luke asked in a cold, almost robotic tone.
I gazed at him with a blank face. I wanted to surprise him. I had been very excited when I got out but I didn’t tell him even when every part of me wanted to. I got out a few months early on good behavior and I wanted to surprise my husband.
Guess I was the one being surprised now.
I did not respond as my mind was still trying to comprehend all that was going on here. The Lawyer, Mr. Sanchez drew out a folder from the briefcase and handed it to me.
I glanced at it with a racing heart. My entire world literally crashed when my eyes caught the content of the file he handed to me. I swallowed nothing, my heart beginning to race.
DIVORCE PAPERS.
“What is this Luke?” I asked as tears began to well up in my eyes. Everything was suddenly beginning to make sense to me but I don't want them to.
“I am sure you can read, Elena. What does it look like?” he retorted, his voice very cold.
“Was this why you didn't come visiting for the past one year? Because you are engaged to another woman?” My lips wobbled as I belt out the words to him, sounding unintelligent. Luke made a mocking sound that not only broke my heart but made my fingers tremble.
This was too much. This was way too much for me to bear.
“You foolish bitch!” He began to say before I could start talking again. “Did you ever think for a second that I would stay married to an ex-convict like you? I am a fucking Grant!” He snapped, sending cold shivers down my spine.
An ex-convict. That was all I was to him.
I didn't know which hurts more; his words or what he was about to make me do. But everything hurts. My chest hurt so bad.
“I went to prison because of you Luke, or don't you remember?” I asked, using my palm to wipe away the droplets of tears that were flooding down my cheeks.
“You are so dumb, Elena. Can't you see it? Even after all these years, you are still this gullible and naive. It was so easy to convince you to take the fall for me because you were so blinded by love,”
“You are my husband, and you were drunk. You would have gotten life imprisonment,” I muttered, glancing at the man who I had sacrificed my life for in the worst possible ways. Yet, he sat there and dared to make fun of me like that.
“As I said, ever so gullible. The same way you foolishly signed all the properties my brother gave to you over to me,”
My heart began to race, as it was all becoming clear; he used me.
“Just so you know, Elena. I never loved you. I was just supposed to marry you because my mom made me," he revealed.
“What do you mean?” This time, I snapped.
“My brother's inheritance, he willed it to you. I was just supposed to get it back and divorce your sorry ass. And then, the accident happened. That was a perfect avenue for me. You took the fall for me, I get to keep his property,”
I was once married to Luke's brother, Braden. He was the love of my life until cancer stole him away from me, and he willed all his property to me, the poor girl from the suburb whom he had married.
“You are wicked and cruel,” I spat, realizing I was just a pawn in Luke’s game.
“Yes, now sign the fucking divorce papers before I lose my patience,” he snapped, banging his fist hard on the table, sending a jolt of fear through my spine.
“And if I refuse to?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, as fear began to creep all over me. I didn't even know why I was hesitating after hearing everything he had done to me.
Suddenly, he yanked me by the collar of my shirt from the other side of the table towards him, strangling me and draining the air from my lungs.
“Don’t you dare me, Elena. I can easily kill you and get rid of your body, and no one will fucking know because you have no one. No one fucking cares about you, so stop being a bitch and sign the fucking paper, Elena,” he yelled in my face.
The tears wouldn't stop running. He was right, I had no one. He shoved me back to the chair and I let out a deep exhale, I stared at the papers as tears streamed down my cheeks even more. And with trembling hands, I picked up the pen and appended my signature to the file.
A devilish grin formed on Luke’s face, as he stood up from the chair, “Good girl. You can still reach out to me if you want to get fucked,”
“I will rather fuck the devil than let you ever touch me again,” I snapped back.
He grinned, “Your loss, bitch,” he turned around and made his way to the door with his Lawyer who had just sat there as a loyal spectator. He was about to pull the doorknob when he paused, swerving his face around to glance at me, “Elena, if you ever think of telling anyone…” he trailed off for a moment as if to make the words sink in. And then, he continued.
“I will kill you and bury your body in a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere,” he swore.
I swallowed, knowing fully well, that he could do all that and more. I collapsed to the floor as soon as the door clicked back in place, letting all my hurt and pain flow through my tears as I wailed at the predicament of my life.
I was so fucked.
ATLASThe elevator dinged on the ground floor, and I tried as much as I could to stride out casually, adjusting my tie and smoothening a hand over it.I couldn’t let everyone know that I was worked up. That I was enraged to my bones.Of course, I never wear my emotions on my sleeves that way. I have to act coordinated. I have to be coordinated, if I want to get anything done.And I have a whole fucking lot to get done.I didn’t even bother going in search of my asshole of a brother anymore. I was fuming about how low my father had spoken of Elena.I mean, even if he didn’t like her, how could he call her a deadweight?Oh the itch that had so begged to be scratched. The itch to make it clear to my father in a tone as stern as his, that Elena, this woman I was completely mesmerized by, was nowhere near a deadweight, and was actually a woman to die for, if they at least try to get to know her.Instead of all this bullying…The only reason I didn’t scratch that itch, however, the only rea
ELENA“Just make sure you take a look at that file, Elena.”Luke’s final words before he left my house, kept replaying in my head, time and time again.What could possibly be in the file? Or the flash drive? Why was he helping me?I found it difficult trusting Luke because he had proved to me so much already that he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A man that stabs his wife in the back for his own gain.He was never truly going to help me, or had any intentions of doing anything that would benefit me, even slightly…So why was I stalling? Why wasn’t I storming over like I should, and putting the file and flash drive where they belong? In the trash…I stared at the file and the flash drive on the table for as long as I could remember, then, with a deep resolve to satisfy my curiosity—a peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?— I strode over and picked up the file and flash drive, taking them up to my room.I slotted the drive in my laptop with shaky fingers, leaning back against the table and wai
ELENAI wish there was a way I could step out of my body and give myself some pretty good beating.Enough to knock some sense into myself.How could I have opened my legs again, for the same man that betrayed me? Indirectly sold me out to the Grants?I still couldn’t understand what he meant when he said he intentionally put the Grants on my radar.Did he mean he’d intentionally put me in danger, or he’d intentionally wanted me swallowed, crushed, spat out, smeared across the streets…?Which was it?I was just disappointed I’d let my body fall for his touch again. How could I let him touch me again, after finding out he was engaged? How could I let him touch me again without any real commitment?Heaven knows I wasn’t doing shit with him again. I would stab everywhere in my body, so I could feel real pain that would wake me up from that stupid lust—of course that was it— before I let him touch me again.My new plan was to face my work, get back everything that was stolen from me, and m
ATLASBack to PresentSixteen years later, I’m certainly not the sorry-ass of a boy I was back then.I didn’t just fight without aiming. I laid out perfect strategies that would get me closer to my goal without having to do too much.To run the Grants completely dry.And to do all that, I needed Rhoda.But Elena wouldn’t understand it. All this together is the reason I can’t commit to Elena. I needed her, yeah. Wanted her. But I also didn’t want her involved in all this mess.This whole thing was just…complicated.My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I reached inside and pulled it out.Keelan’s name glowed across the screen, and I squinted my brows, a premonition settling in the pit of my stomach before my thumb swiped the screen.“Keelan.”“Where are you?” Keelan breathed into the speaker, an edge in his voice.“What’s the matter?”“You have to get to the office. Now.”The line beeped dead in my ear, and gripping the phone in my palms, I whirled on my heels and walked back to my car.I
ATLASI stomped my foot on the interlocked floor, frustration and rage coursing through my veins and tightening my muscles.Why couldn’t I just…say it?Why couldn’t I fucking tell her that yeah, we weren’t in a relationship but she was driving me insane?Every look, every touch, every defiance.It drives me fucking insane, and I like her for just that.I like that she can get a reaction out of me. I like that she challenges me. I like her…But I can’t even tell her that, can I?The thing was, I was head-over-heels crazy for Elena, but I struggle so hard to repress the feelings I very much itch to express.And I do this for her sake. To protect her from the Grants before they swallowed her up too.Like they did my mother.So no, I’m not bold enough to tell Elena how I really feel about her. Just yet, anyway. I’d risk ruining every plan I’d put in place since I was a boy. A teenager, precisely.Those days I’d watched my mom suffer for my sake.They were images and voice I saw and heard
ELENAI tore my lips away, conscious of the fact that we were out in the open and CCTV cameras were everywhere.I pushed at his chest, staggering away from the car and lifting a warning finger to him. “Stay away.”But he followed on my heels, dragging me by the arm. “Elena—““No!” I whirled around, flailing my arm. “Let me—“He caught the words from my mouth, yet again, pulling me to his chest.I couldn’t even resist him warm, demanding lips this time, his tongue burning me as it delved into my mouth and engaged in a fierce battle for dominance.He pressed me tight against him, our breaths hot and ragged with the force and heavy desire we used to devour each other up.We staggered all the way to his car, and he pinned me against it, ravaging my neck and body with his hands and kisses, his bulging erection pressing into my soaked front.I moaned into his mouth, driving my fingers into his hair and pulling feverishly.I had the hots for this man that seemed to anger me so much, and it s
Welcome to GoodNovel world of fiction. If you like this novel, or you are an idealist hoping to explore a perfect world, and also want to become an original novel author online to increase income, you can join our family to read or create various types of books, such as romance novel, epic reading, werewolf novel, fantasy novel, history novel and so on. If you are a reader, high quality novels can be selected here. If you are an author, you can obtain more inspiration from others to create more brilliant works, what's more, your works on our platform will catch more attention and win more admiration from readers.
Mga Comments