The Tycoon's Contract With A Vicious Beauty

Amelie's fingers trembled as she tried to push her upper body off the Persian rug. Warm blood dripped from her forehead, blurring her vision and matting her eyelashes together. Her heart hammered against her ribs so violently it made her chest ache.

Hubert took a step forward. He wore a custom Armani suit, perfectly pressed. His polished Oxford shoe came down hard on Amelie's right hand.

Amelie let out a muffled groan. Her muscles contracted, instinctively trying to pull her hand back, but Hubert shifted his weight, pressing the hard leather sole deeper into her knuckles. The bones in her hand ground together.

Hubert reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a stack of high-definition photographs and threw them directly at Amelie's pale face.

The glossy papers scattered across the expensive rug. Amelie squinted through the blood. The images showed her in highly compromising, intimate positions with a man she had never seen before. Her brain flatlined. The air left her lungs.

"This is a lie," Amelie rasped, shaking her head frantically. "Hubert, someone faked these. You have to believe me."

Hubert bent down and grabbed a fistful of her dark hair. He yanked her head up, forcing her to look at him. There was no warmth in his eyes. Only cold, calculated disgust.

He pulled his phone from his pocket with his free hand and tapped the screen. He shoved it in front of her face. It was a live surveillance feed. Hubert Jr. , their five-year-old son, was running across the playground at a top-tier private kindergarten with full-day care and tight security. A large man in a black suit stood just a few feet away, watching the boy.

Amelie's pupils dilated. Her breathing turned into rapid, shallow gasps. She reached out with her free hand and grabbed the fabric of Hubert's sleeve, her knuckles turning white.

"Sign the divorce papers," Hubert said, his voice completely flat. "Give up your shares in the company and full custody of the boy. If you don't, the man on that screen will put Hubert Jr. in a car, and you will never see him again."

Amelie's stomach dropped to the floor. The psychological dam broke, and hot tears spilled over her cheeks, mixing with the blood. Her throat tightened so much she couldn't speak. She just nodded frantically.

Hubert let go of her hair. He dropped a thick stack of legal documents and a Montblanc pen onto the floor next to her bruised hand.

Amelie picked up the heavy pen. Her fingers shook so badly she could barely grip the metal. She pressed the nib to the paper and signed her name, the ink bleeding into the page.

The heavy oak double doors of the penthouse pushed open. Ara Wilkinson walked into the living room wearing a tailored Chanel suit.

Amelie looked up. A desperate spark of hope flared in her chest at the sight of her younger sister. She reached her bloody hand out toward Ara.

Ara walked right past her, stepping carefully to avoid letting Amelie's blood touch her designer heels.

Ara walked straight to Hubert and threw her arms around his neck. Hubert pulled her in, and they locked lips in a deep, hungry kiss right in front of Amelie.

Amelie's reality shattered. A violent cramp seized her stomach, making her double over. Her fingernails dug into the hardwood floor, scratching the polish.

Ara pulled back from the kiss and crouched down. She used a finger adorned with a massive pigeon-blood ruby ring to tilt Amelie's chin up.

"You really are a stupid stepping stone, Amelie," Ara sneered. "I paid a lot of money to have those photos photoshopped. They look incredibly real, don't they?"

A surge of pure, blinding rage hit Amelie's bloodstream. She lunged forward, trying to grab Ara's throat.

Hubert's foot shot out and kicked Amelie squarely in the stomach. The force sent her flying backward. Her spine slammed into the sharp edge of the glass coffee table.

The impact knocked the wind out of her. Amelie bit down on her lip to keep from screaming, tasting the sharp, metallic flavor of her own blood.

Hubert adjusted his tie, smoothing the silk. "Clean this up," he told Ara, not even looking at Amelie. He turned and walked toward the door.

"Hubert!" Amelie screamed, her vocal cords tearing. "Hubert, please!"

The heavy door clicked shut.

Ara stood up. She reached into her leather handbag and pulled out a syringe filled with a clear liquid. She walked slowly toward Amelie.

Amelie scrambled backward, her hands slipping on her own blood. She pushed herself across the floor until her back hit the cold glass of the floor-to-ceiling window. There was nowhere left to go.

Ara lunged and grabbed Amelie by the throat, pinning her against the glass. She jammed the needle into the vein on Amelie's neck and pushed the plunger down.

A freezing sensation rushed through Amelie's veins. Her limbs grew heavy, instantly losing all motor function. Dark spots danced at the edges of her vision.

"Bring the bag," Ara commanded.

Two large bodyguards stepped into the room. They unfolded a massive black canvas duffel bag. Amelie's eyes rolled back as the men grabbed her limp arms and legs, shoving her body into the dark canvas.

Ara turned on her heel and walked toward the private elevator leading to the garage. The bodyguards zipped the bag shut, plunging Amelie into total darkness, and carried her out.

The bodyguard threw the heavy duffel bag into the trunk of the black Cadillac SUV. The canvas hit the metal floorboard with a loud, sickening thud.

Ara slid into the passenger seat. She pulled a slim More cigarette from her purse, lit it, and blew a stream of smoke against the windshield.

"Drive to the Hamptons estate," Ara ordered the driver. "Don't stop."

The SUV sped down Interstate 495 in the dead of night. Inside the trunk, the constant bouncing and swerving jolted a tiny fraction of consciousness back into Amelie's brain.

The air inside the bag was thick and suffocating. Amelie tried to thrash her legs, but the sedative kept her muscles paralyzed. The only sound she could make was a wet, ragged wheeze pushing through her teeth.

Two hours later, the tires crunched over gravel. The SUV pulled through the hidden back gates of the Pierce family's Hamptons estate, stopping far away from the main house, right next to the hunting dog kennels.

The trunk popped open. The bodyguard grabbed the handles of the duffel bag and dragged it out. The heavy canvas scraped violently against the sharp gravel driveway.

Ara stepped out of the car. The cold ocean wind whipped her hair across her face. She pinched her nose, disgusted by the foul, metallic stench of wet fur and raw meat coming from the kennels.

The bodyguard grabbed the zipper of the bag and yanked it open. The freezing night air hit Amelie's face. She gasped, her lungs expanding painfully as she fully woke up to the agony in her broken ribs.

The bodyguard reached in, grabbed her by the collar of her silk nightgown, and threw her onto the freezing mud in front of the cages. The filthy water soaked instantly into her clothes.

Inside the chain-link enclosures, three massive Presa Canario mastiffs began to bark. The sound was deafening. They threw their heavy bodies against the metal gates, making the steel rattle wildly.

Amelie blinked through the dim light of the wall sconce. She saw the dogs. Their eyes were wild, their jaws snapping at the air. Pure, primal terror shot through her nervous system, making her teeth chatter uncontrollably.

Ara walked up and stood over her, a cruel smile stretching across her face.

She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and waved it in front of Amelie's face. "Your suicide note," Ara said. "You couldn't live with the shame of your affairs, so you threw yourself into the ocean. Tragic."

Amelie spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto Ara's designer shoe. "You are a fake," Amelie croaked, her voice raw. "You steal everything because you are nothing."

The words hit a nerve. Ara's face twisted in fury. She reeled back and slapped Amelie across the face so hard it snapped Amelie's head to the side.

"Starting tomorrow, every single design sketch you ever drew belongs to me," Ara hissed, her face inches from Amelie's. "The entire 'Aura' brand will have my name on it."

Amelie closed her eyes. Hot tears mixed with the cold mud on her face. A hatred so deep and violent it felt like a physical weight settled into her chest.

Ara stepped backward, moving safely behind the secondary iron fence. She gave the bodyguard a sharp nod.

The bodyguard walked over to a plastic bucket. He pulled out a massive chunk of raw, bloody meat and threw it directly onto Amelie's chest.

The smell of fresh blood hit the dogs. Their barking turned into a frenzied, high-pitched shrieking.

Amelie dug her fingers into the mud, trying to drag her broken body away, but the sedative made her arms useless.

The bodyguard walked to the control panel on the wall. He grabbed the heavy metal lever and pulled it down.

The metal gates shrieked as they slid open. Three black blurs of muscle and teeth shot out of the cages.

Amelie's eyes widened in absolute horror as the massive jaws filled her vision.

The first dog slammed into her chest, the physical impact crushing the remaining air from her lungs.

Thick, razor-sharp teeth sank deep into the flesh of her arm, tearing through muscle and scraping against the bone. A pain so absolute it felt like a lightning strike exploded in her brain.

Amelie let out a blood-curdling scream, but the sound was instantly drowned out by the vicious snarling and tearing of the pack.

Ara stood safely behind the fence. She pulled out her phone, initiated a secure, untraceable live video call to Hubert, and turned the screen so he could watch the bloody massacre in real-time without leaving a recorded file.

Amelie's vision went completely red. As the physical agony peaked, her consciousness began to rip apart. In her final second of life, a dark, venomous vow locked into her dying brain: If I ever come back, I will make you drown in your own blood.

Her heart stopped. The darkness swallowed her whole, leaving only the sound of the dogs tearing through the night.

Amelie was falling through a void of absolute blackness. Suddenly, a violent sensation of suffocation grabbed her by the throat and yanked her upward.

She snapped her eyes open and sucked in a massive breath of air, her chest heaving as if she had just broken the surface of a frozen lake.

She instinctively grabbed her stomach and her arm, expecting to feel shredded flesh and exposed bone. Her hands met smooth skin, covered only by a few tender bruises.

Her vision slowly focused. She wasn't in the mud of the Hamptons. She was lying on a lumpy spring mattress that smelled heavily of mildew and cheap bleach.

A flickering fluorescent bulb buzzed above her head. Peeling floral wallpaper covered the walls. The heavy rumble of a New York subway train shook the floorboards.

Amelie rolled off the bed. Her legs wobbled, but she forced herself to stand. She stumbled into the cramped, filthy bathroom and gripped the edges of the cracked porcelain sink.

She looked up into the shattered mirror. The face staring back at her was young, pale, and strikingly beautiful, but it was not hers. Her pupils dilated in absolute shock.

A sudden, sharp spike of pain drove into her temples. Memories that didn't belong to her flooded her brain like an electric shock. She gripped her head and dropped to her knees on the cold tile.

She was in the body of a twenty-two-year-old girl named Gena Corbett.

The memories settled. Gena's adoptive parents had drugged her tonight. They sold her to a loan shark named Mitch Kowalski to pay off their gambling debts.

The cheap lock on the motel room door clicked loudly. A heavy, balding man in a cheap suit pushed the door open, reeking of stale whiskey and sweat. It was Mitch.

Mitch yanked at his tight tie, loosening it. His greasy eyes scanned the room and landed on Gena kneeling by the bathroom door. He licked his lips.

Amelie-now Gena-stood up slowly. The timid, terrified girl Mitch expected was gone. The eyes looking back at him were dead, cold, and filled with the absolute violence of a woman who had just been eaten alive.

Mitch laughed, a wet, ugly sound. He lunged forward, reaching out with thick hands to shove her onto the mattress.

Amelie's memories flashed-the expensive Krav Maga instructor she had secretly hired after Hubert's first violent outburst years ago. Muscle memory took over. Gena shifted her weight and sidestepped with desperate but practiced precision. Mitch's momentum carried him forward, and he crashed face-first into the dusty mattress.

He grunted, pushing himself up, his face red with sudden anger. He swung his arm backward, backhanding Gena across the face.

Gena's new body was still sluggish from the drugs her parents had given her. She couldn't duck in time. The heavy ring on Mitch's finger caught her cheek, splitting her lip. The taste of copper filled her mouth.

That single drop of blood ignited the dormant, raging hellfire inside her. Gena reached out and grabbed the heavy, thick glass ashtray sitting on the nightstand.

Mitch turned around and lunged at her again. Gena didn't step back. She swung the heavy glass ashtray with every ounce of strength in her body, smashing it directly into the center of Mitch's forehead.

The glass shattered. Mitch screamed, a high-pitched wail of pain. He stumbled backward, clutching his bleeding face, and crashed into the floor lamp, sending it toppling over.

Gena didn't hesitate. She stepped forward, grabbed his shoulders, and drove her knee upward, burying it deep into his groin.

Mitch collapsed to the floor like a sack of wet cement. He curled into a tight ball, wheezing and groaning, completely incapacitated.

Gena stepped over his twitching body. She reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of twenty-dollar bills and a set of car keys.

She grabbed Gena's canvas tote bag from the chair, shoved the door open, and ran out into the pouring rain of Queens.

The freezing rain hit her face like tiny needles. Gena tilted her head back, opened her arms, and let the water wash over her. The physical sensation of the freezing rain proved she was alive. She had a body. She had a second chance.

She ran down the sidewalk for three blocks, her lungs burning. She ducked into a dark, narrow alleyway overflowing with garbage cans and pressed her back against the wet brick wall to catch her breath.

She repeated her new name in her head. Gena. She would use this body to tear the Pierce family down to the studs.

A sharp, rapid series of footsteps echoed from the deep end of the alley. Then, the distinct, muffled thwip-thwip of a silenced pistol firing.

Gena's muscles locked. She dropped into a crouch and scrambled behind the shadow of a massive green dumpster.

A tall, broad-shouldered silhouette stumbled around the corner of the alley. The man took two uneven steps and collapsed, splashing heavily into a deep puddle of dirty water less than six feet away from where Gena hid.