He threw money on the bed after our one-night stand.
I threw it back in his face at his own inauguration.
By sundown, we were engaged. By the week's end — married.
Franklin Flemington needed a wife to secure his empire. I needed a miracle to save my family. For two years, we played our parts flawlessly — the golden couple the whole city envied.
Behind closed doors, I was invisible to him.
When the two years were up, I handed him divorce papers without blinking.
He stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "I've given you everything a husband should. What more do you want from me, Octavia?"
I smiled, signed my name, and walked out.
I thought that was the end. I thought I'd finally won.
I forgot one thing — Franklin Flemington has never lost anything in his life. And he has no intention of starting with me.
Game on.

The rain refused to let up; if anything, it grew more violent, a relentless onslaught that hammered against the jagged, twisted metal of the cabin wreckage. It was a deafening, percussive sound, like a thousand hammers trying to finish what the crash had started. Inside the hollowed-out shell of the plane, I was frozen. Every muscle in my body was coiled tight, ignoring the white-hot agony screaming from my mangled leg, because my entire world had narrowed down to the creature sliding through the wet leaves.


It moved with a terrifying, silent precision that felt predatory and ancient. Its scales, dark and intricately patterned, caught the dim, grayish light filtering through the canopy. It didn't belong in a world of humans and machines; it belonged here, in this green hell, and it looked lethal.


My knuckles went white as I tightened my grip on the thick tree branch I'd been using as a crutch. 


Chapter 178 - ~ 178