LOGIN
Report
Clara Sterling was born into power—until her family's billion-dollar empire collapsed overnight. With her father facing criminal charges and the Sterling name reduced to a liability, Clara has nothing left but the remnants of a fortune she can no longer protect. Desperate to survive, she enters the Midnight Gala, an underground auction where fallen heiresses are sold to the highest bidder. She expects a stranger. Instead, the winning bid belongs to Ares Volkov, the ruthless tech titan who engineered her family's downfall. Ares binds Clara to a contract, intending to use her position, her inheritance, and her connection to the Sterling family to finish the revenge he has spent years building. To him, Clara is simply the final piece of a war that began long before she understood it. But Clara refuses to become anyone's obedient possession. The closer they grow, the harder it becomes to separate Ares's original obsession with revenge from the love he never intended to feel. Because the greatest threat to their future may not be the Sterling secrets, the Volkov enemies, or the expiration of their contract. It may be the question neither of them is prepared to answer: When the contract ends and neither of them is obligated to stay, will they choose each other anyway?
View MoreLatest chapter
BOUGHT BY THE RUTHLESS CEO CHAPTER 92: TOGETHER
CLARA'S POV My fingers trembled on the edge of the desk. Ares's mother hadn't just left a ledger behind. She had left a trigger. And according to the terminal log, the system had just recognized me as the final variable. The cursor blinked rhythmically against the crimson warning text, casting a dull, persistent shadow over my hands. The system didn't give me time to process the name. The file began to unpack itself, lines of text rendering with a rapid, mechanical precision that made it look less like an old document and more like a live transmission from the grave. My eyes flew to the first paragraph. To whoever holds the clearing key: if you are reading this, Edward has accelerated the routing deployment without my authorization. The security core has been compromised from above. Someone within the operational circle is redirecting the capital flight through the Baltic maritime channels, and they are using our structural framework to hide the footprint. My pulse, which
Last Updated : 2026-09-11BOUGHT BY THE RUTHLESS CEO CHAPTER 91: THE ASHES OF THE CLOCK
CLARA'S POV The leather portfolio lay open on the mahogany shelf, its silver zipper glinting in the pale moonlight that cut through the penthouse windows. For six months, those pages had dictated the exact perimeter of my life. Every clause had been a wall; every signature, a debt. Now, it was just dead weight. Ares didn't move immediately. He stood beside me, his thumb still resting against the small indentation just beneath my jawline, right where my pulse was finally beginning to slow its frantic rhythm. The heat of his skin was a stark contrast to the chill that usually radiated from him in the boardroom. "The timeline is gone, Clara," he murmured, his deep voice carrying that new, unshielded weight. "Which means the exit strategy is gone too." "I know," I whispered. I didn't pull away. Instead, I reached up, my fingers brushing against the cuff of his charcoal shirt, feeling the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart through the fabric. "We don't need a strategy anymore."
Last Updated : 2026-09-11BOUGHT BY THE RUTHLESS CEO CHAPTER 90 — STAY WITH ME
CLARA'S POV The data tracking code on the laptop suddenly chimed, a quiet sequence of green numbers scrolling down the terminal to signal that the Copenhagen cargo files had fully downloaded. The central mystery of Project Acer had just reached its first real breakthrough, laying out a physical paper trail we could finally follow. But as the screen settled, neither of us moved toward it. The corporate thriller, the multi-million-dollar fraud, and the ghosts of our parents' sins faded entirely into the background noise of the room. The center of gravity had shifted completely to the space between us. Ares’s hand was still warm against the side of my neck, his fingers tangling slightly in the hair at the nape of my neck. His line—*I don't know when you stopped being part of my plan and became the person I was planning around*—was still echoing in the quiet study, stripping away the last remnants of the transactional relationship we had used as a shield for six long months. We le
Last Updated : 2026-09-11BOUGHT BY THE RUTHLESS CEO CHAPTER 89 — WHAT WE CHOOSE
The question she had left hanging in the air seemed to vibrate against the glass walls of the study. Clara stood by the filing cabinet, her clear eyes holding mine with an unyielding steadiness that demanded something I had spent a lifetime avoiding: complete, unmitigated honesty. I looked down at the dark laptop screen, then back up at her. The corporate predator who could negotiate a multi-billion-dollar merger without a single micro-expression of doubt felt entirely hollowed out. For ten years, my life had been a perfectly engineered sequence of targets and outcomes. I knew exactly where every variable belonged. But as I looked at her standing there in the dim ambient light, I realized the precise moment my entire system had collapsed. "The plan was flawless when I signed that check at the auction, Clara," I said, my voice dropping into a raw, rough register that sounded unfamiliar even to my own ears. I stood up from the desk, my movements slow, intentional, as I walked aro
Last Updated : 2026-08-26BOUGHT BY THE RUTHLESS CEO PROLOGUE
~CLARA'S POV~ "Going once... going twice... Sold for fifty million dollars to the gentleman in the shadows." The strike of the mahogany gavel sounded like a gunshot in the plush, suffocating silence of the underground room. I closed my eyes, my nails digging into my palms until I broke the sk
BOUGHT BY THE RUTHLESS CEO CHAPTER 5: THE MASTER ENCRYPTION
~CLARA'S POV~The bathroom of the guest suite was as cold and sterile as the rest of Ares Volkov’s kingdom.I turned the heavy metal dial until the shower water ran near-scalding, letting the steam thick with the scent of high-altitude ozone fill the marble space. Stepping under the spray, I didn't
BOUGHT BY THE RUTHLESS CEO CHAPTER 4: WHAT HE FAILED TO SEE
~CLARA'S POV~ “Watch how low you are, little bird.” His voice came low and cold against my ear, the kind of tone that slipped beneath my skin and stayed there. My reflection stared back at me in the dim light—flushed cheeks, trembling lips, tangled hair spilling over my shoulders. I barely re
BOUGHT BY THE RUTHLESS CEO CHAPTER 3: THE PENALTY CLAUSE
CLARA'S POV When the clock on my desk finally struck eight, Ares didn't say a word. He merely stood up from his mahogany command center, shrugged into his overcoat, and walked toward the private executive elevator. I followed a step behind him like a well-trained shadow, my hands clutching the h
To Readers
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.
reviews