His Betrayal, My Sudden Wedding Vows

For seven years, I was his property. The lover and most trusted operative of Damian Benjamin, Veridian City' s ruthless kingpin. I took bullets for him, balanced his bloody books, and foolishly mistook his possessiveness for love.

Then, he ordered me to seduce his rival, Earl Reid.

It was all a cruel scheme to win the heart of another woman. I followed his orders, luring Earl into a hotel suite at a gala, only for Damian to burst in with the press.

He publicly shamed me, leaving me naked and exposed as his true love called me trash. My seven-year devotion was shattered by the man I thought was my savior.

But as the camera flashes blinded me, Earl Reid, the man I was sent to destroy, shielded my body from the world.

He looked at me, his expression unreadable, and made an announcement that sealed my fate.

"We're getting married."

Chapter 1

"I own you," the old man from the syndicate had said, his cloudy eyes raking over my trembling body. "But that face, that body... they're not for the likes of us. They're a weapon. A gift for someone much, much more important."

That was seven years ago.

The next day, I was cleaned up, dressed in clothes worth more than my family' s entire medical debt, and delivered like a package to Damian Benjamin' s penthouse.

Veridian City' s uncrowned king.

I was terrified. The stories about him were the stuff of nightmares, whispered in the dark corners of the underworld I' d been thrown into. They said he was ruthless, cold-blooded, a predator in a bespoke suit.

My hands were clammy, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might break free. The penthouse was silent, cavernous, the floor-to-ceiling windows showing a city that glittered like a galaxy of fallen stars. A city that now felt like a cage.

He was sitting in a leather armchair, a glass of amber liquid in his hand, the ice clinking softly as he swirled it. He didn't look at me. He just stared out at the city lights.

"Please," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "Please, I can work. I can do anything. Just... not this."

My stomach churned with a sickening mix of fear and bile. The thought of his hands on me, of what was expected of me, made my skin crawl. I felt a wave of nausea so intense I had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting on the pristine marble floor.

Damian finally turned his head. His eyes, the color of dark-smoked whiskey, moved over me slowly, dismissively. There was no pity in them. No warmth. Only a chilling sort of appraisal, like a man looking at a new piece of art he' d just acquired.

He set his glass down with a soft click and rose to his feet. He was taller than I' d imagined, his presence filling the room, sucking all the air out. He walked toward me, each step deliberate, predatory.

I flinched as he reached out, his long, elegant fingers brushing a strand of hair from my face. My whole body went rigid.

"You're shaking," he observed, his voice a low, smooth baritone that held no comfort. He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. "Don't be."

The force of his grip sent a jolt of pain and terror through me. Tears welled in my eyes, blurring his impossibly handsome, terrifyingly cold face.

"Don't worry," he said, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'll take good care of you. You're mine now." His thumb stroked my lower lip, a gesture that was both intimate and utterly invasive. It felt like being marked.

He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against my ear. "Tell me, Alexa," he murmured, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that sent a fresh wave of dread through me. "Me and Earl Reid... which one of us do you think is better in bed?"

The question, so bizarre and out of place, hung in the air between us, a harbinger of a reality I couldn't yet comprehend.

That was the beginning.

It all started because I was naive. Fresh out of college, with a diploma in one hand and a stack of my mother's medical bills in the other that was high enough to choke a horse. I took a job posted on a university forum-"Executive Assistant to a Private Investor. Lucrative pay. Discretion required."

I thought it was my ticket out of crippling debt.

Instead, it was a one-way ticket into hell. The "private investor" was a front for one of Veridian City's smaller crime syndicates. They didn't care about my degree. They cared about my face, my obedience, and the fact that I was desperate.

The place they kept us was a damp, lightless basement that smelled of mildew and fear. We were commodities, girls waiting to be sold, used, or broken.

One night, a drunken client, one of the syndicate's mid-level thugs, decided he didn't want to wait his turn. He cornered me, his breath hot and stinking of cheap whiskey. He tore the thin fabric of my shirt, his rough hands grabbing at me.

"Pretty little thing," he slurred, pushing me against the cold, damp wall. "Too good for us, huh? Let's see what you've got."

A scream lodged in my throat, choked by sheer terror. My mind went blank. This was it. This was the end of what little dignity I had left. My spirit felt like it was shattering, a fine crystal cracking under immense pressure.

Then, the door to the basement crashed open.

The room fell silent. The man holding me froze.

A figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, exuding an aura of absolute authority.

"Get your hands off her," a voice commanded, low and lethally calm.

The thug scrambled away from me as if I were on fire. He fell to his knees, his head bowed. "Mr. Benjamin, I... I didn't know she was..."

"She is now," the voice cut him off. A single hand signal, and two men in black suits stepped forward, dragging the whimpering thug away. The silence that followed was more terrifying than the screams.

That was the first time I saw him. Damian Benjamin.

In Veridian City, his name was a legend. To the public, he was Damian Benjamin, the enigmatic billionaire CEO of the Benjamin Corporation, a philanthropic mogul whose face graced the covers of business magazines.

But in the underworld, he was simply "The Boss." The apex predator. The man who owned the city's shadows. He ruled with an iron fist, his influence so vast it was said that not a single illicit dollar moved in Veridian without his silent approval. He was charismatic, ruthless, and utterly untouchable.

He had come to collect a debt and had stumbled upon me instead. A piece of distressed merchandise.

I scrambled to my feet, clutching the torn remnants of my shirt, my entire being consumed by a primal need to survive. I ran to him, falling at his feet, my fingers desperately grabbing the hem of his expensive trousers.

"Please," I begged, the word torn from my throat. "Take me with you. Please."

He looked down at me, his expression unreadable. And in that moment, he became my savior.

For seven years, I lived in his shadow. I became more than just a woman warming his bed. I became his most indispensable tool. I learned to navigate the treacherous currents of his world, to handle his illicit dealings with a cool head and an efficient hand. I balanced his books, the ones written in blood and secrets. I stood between him and the bullets of his enemies. I became his shield, his confidante, his most trusted operative.

And, fool that I was, I fell in love with him.

I mistook his possessiveness for protection, his control for care. He gave me a life of luxury, draped me in diamonds, and shielded me from the ugliness of the world he commanded. In return, I gave him my loyalty, my body, and my heart.

Everyone in his circle believed I was different. They saw the way his eyes would follow me, the way he' d let me into his private study when no one else was allowed. They whispered that I would be the one to finally become Mrs. Benjamin.

I believed it too.

Until last night.

After a night of searing passion, when he held me in his arms, his body still slick with sweat, his breathing evening out against my hair, he suddenly went cold.

He pulled away, sitting up on the edge of the bed, his back a rigid wall of muscle.

"Alexa," he said, his voice devoid of the warmth it held just moments before. "I have a job for you."

I sat up, a knot of unease tightening in my stomach. "What is it?"

He turned to face me, his handsome features cast in shadow, his eyes holding a familiar, chilling ruthlessness. "I want you to seduce Earl Reid."

My world, which I had so carefully constructed around the illusion of his love, shattered into a million pieces.

He didn't stop there. He laid out the plan with cold precision. I was to get close to Earl Reid, his arch-rival in both business and crime. I was to become Earl's lover, create a public scandal so explosive it would be on the front page of every newspaper in Veridian City.

"Why?" The word was a raw, wounded sound.

Damian' s jaw tightened. "Because Brooklyn is obsessed with him. She thinks he's some kind of romantic hero. I want to shatter that illusion. I want her to see him for what he is-just another man who can be brought down. When she's heartbroken, when her fantasy is destroyed... she'll finally come to me."

Brooklyn Mckinney. The city's premier socialite, the spoiled, naive heiress of the Mckinney empire. Damian's "white moonlight." The woman he' d been chasing for years, the one woman who consistently rejected him, her heart set on the one man Damian couldn't defeat: Earl Reid.

The world tilted on its axis. A roaring sound filled my ears, like the rush of a tidal wave about to pull me under. For seven years, I had been his. His lover, his operative, his shadow. I had taken bullets for him. I had lied for him. I had bled for him. And now, he was asking me to give my body to another man, not for power, not for territory, but to win the heart of another woman.

"Brooklyn is... sensitive," Damian continued, oblivious to the gaping wound he had just torn open in my chest. "She doesn't like the world I live in. She doesn't like men like me."

He was pacing now, a caged tiger in his own luxurious prison. "The plan is simple. You get close to Earl. You make him want you. At the Mckinney's annual charity gala, you lure him into a suite. I'll make sure the press is there. I'll make sure Brooklyn is there to see it all firsthand."

Brooklyn Mckinney. I knew her name, of course. Everyone in Veridian City did. She was the daughter of the powerful Mckinney family, a clan with old money and political influence that even Damian had to tread carefully around. She was his obsession, the one prize he couldn't seem to conquer.

And she was infatuated with Earl Reid. Utterly, foolishly infatuated.

The irony was a bitter pill. For years, Damian had been fighting a two-front war: one against Earl for control of the city's underworld, and another, more personal one, for Brooklyn's affection. Brooklyn, in her gilded naivete, saw Earl as a dashing, mysterious figure, a romantic anti-hero. She was blind to Damian's machinations, seeing him only as a crude, possessive man she wanted nothing to do with.

I remembered the night it all started, the night Damian "rescued" me. It wasn't a coincidence.

He and Brooklyn had had a vicious fight just hours earlier. He'd orchestrated a hostile takeover of a rival company, a move that had inadvertently hurt the Mckinney family's portfolio. He had done it to prove his power, to show her he was a man worthy of her. He had laid the corporate world at her feet.

She had slapped him. In public, at a restaurant.

He' d come back to the syndicate's headquarters that night, his face like a thundercloud, looking for something to break.

And he had found me.

He hadn' t saved me out of kindness. He'd saved me as an act of defiance. He'd paraded me in front of Brooklyn, a beautiful, obedient creature completely under his control, a living trophy to spite her. He was showing her what she was missing, what she could have: a powerful man who could give a woman the world.

From that day on, I became his constant companion.

He never hid me. He took me everywhere, adorning me with jewels and designer clothes. He bought me a penthouse, a sports car, anything I could possibly want.

He was showing Brooklyn, "See? This is how I treat my women. This could be you."

I remembered a party, early on. A drunk business associate had made a crude joke at my expense, his hand lingering too long on my lower back. Damian hadn't said a word. He' d simply smiled, led the man outside, and methodically broken every finger on his right hand.

He'd come back inside, wiping his knuckles with a silk handkerchief, and announced to the terrified room, "No one touches what's mine."

The city learned quickly. I was Damian Benjamin's woman. To touch me was to invite his wrath. I was safe. I was protected.

I was a possession.

And I, blinded by gratitude and the intoxicating illusion of love, told myself it was more. I told myself his jealousy was passion. I told myself his possessiveness was a sign of his deep feelings for me. I collected every small moment of perceived tenderness, every rare, unguarded smile, and built a fantasy fortress around my heart.

Now, standing in the cold light of his bedroom, that fortress crumbled to dust.

I looked at him, really looked at him, past the handsome mask and the carefully constructed facade. For the first time, I saw the ice in the depths of his eyes. The same cold, calculating look he gave his enemies before he destroyed them.

There was no love there. There never had been.

A single, silent tear tracked a path down my cheek. My seven-year dream, my entire world, had been a lie. A cruel, elaborate joke.

The hope I had clung to for so long died a quiet, painful death.

"I'll do it," I heard myself say, my voice a hollow echo of what it once was.

Damian's relentless pacing stopped. He turned to me, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. Surprise? I had expected him to be pleased, to see my quick agreement as the obedience he'd cultivated for seven years. But his jaw was tight, his lips pressed into a thin line.

"You could say no," he said, his voice strangely tight.

For a wild, insane moment, I almost did. The word was on the tip of my tongue, a rebellion born of heartbreak. But what would happen then? He would find another way. He would find another girl. And I... I would be cast out, back into the darkness he'd plucked me from, but this time with no hope and a target on my back. I was his possession. A possession that had outlived its primary usefulness.

He took a step towards me, his hand reaching out as if to touch my face. It was a familiar gesture, one that used to make my heart flutter.

This time, I took a step back.

His hand froze in mid-air.

"I am your executive assistant, Mr. Benjamin," I said, my voice flat and professional, a tone I usually reserved for his business dealings. "You give an order, I execute it. That is the arrangement."

His eyes narrowed, studying me as if he were seeing me for the first time. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken words. I could feel his gaze on me, analytical and cold, stripping away the years of shared history, of shared beds, leaving only the raw, transactional nature of our relationship.

Finally, he let out a slow breath. "Fine."

He walked over to me, his movements once again fluid and confident. He stood behind me, his hands settling on my shoulders. I felt the warmth of his palms through the thin silk of my robe, a phantom of an intimacy that was now dead.

I flinched, my muscles tensing involuntarily. His grip tightened for a second, a silent command to be still.

"It's just a role, Alexa," he murmured, his voice now smooth and persuasive, the voice he used to close deals and bend people to his will. "Think of it as acting. Earl is just a mark. This doesn't change anything between us."

A bitter laugh threatened to bubble up my throat. Doesn't change anything? It had changed everything.

"Once this is done," he continued, his fingers tracing the line of my collarbone, "you can have anything you want. That villa in Santorini you liked? It's yours. The new collection from Van Cleef? I'll buy it all for you."

I lifted my head, meeting his gaze in the reflection of the dark window. "Thank you, Mr. Benjamin," I said, my voice empty. "I will perform my duties to the best of my ability."

The warmth of his body behind me, a comfort I had sought for years, now felt like a cage. The familiar scent of his cologne, sandalwood and something uniquely him, was suffocating.

I pulled away and walked towards the door, needing to escape the cloying intimacy of the room.

"Alexa."

His voice stopped me at the threshold. It was the way he said my name, the same low, intimate tone he used in the dark, right before he would pull me against him.

I turned. He was standing by the bed, a dark silhouette against the glittering cityscape. The shadows hid his expression, but I could feel his gaze, intense and heavy.

"I hope... when this is over," he said slowly, "you find someone who makes you happy." His voice was soft, almost gentle. "We can part on good terms. A clean break."

A clean break. After seven years of being his, of having my life entwined with his so completely that I didn't know where he ended and I began.

I thought of the day he'd found me, a broken thing in a dirty basement. He had been my savior, my god. From the very beginning, I knew we were from different worlds. He was the sun, and I was a shadow, lucky to even exist in his light. Every day I had spent with him, every touch, every shared meal, had felt like a stolen gift. Something I didn't deserve but was greedy enough to take.

I had always known this day might come. I just never thought it would hurt this much.

I forced my lips into a smile, a brittle, cracking thing. "Of course, Damian. Thank you."