All Chapters of Betrayed, Broken, Back for Revenge: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

001 Birthday and Anniversary

(Maya)I light the candles and smooth the banner again like it matters.Twenty-two today. And a whole year of being Mrs. Cole Vance.Only one of the richest men in the world. And he married me!This is our first anniversary. We married on my 21st birthday. I got pregnant that night too.He couldn’t stop telling me how amazing I was and how amazing we were together, and then he took a whole month’s honeymoon showing me.He’s older than me by ten years, but that’s not a bad thing. It means he knows what he really wants and who he really wants.Since I had Lucy 3 months ago, well, things have been strained.But today there’s hope. This distance is all just a silly misunderstanding. I know what I felt with Cole is real, and I know he feels it too.Tonight, he will show me that my worry is not needed.He called earlier and said he’d be home for dinner. Finally. He’s remembered it’s our special day.It hasn’t been like this in so long, but I know it’s not all in my head.I know what we ha

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

002 Be The Woman I Married

(Maya)“Owen’s back in the hospital. I’m staying with him.”The bag snaps shut.“You’re leaving?” My voice cracks. “I thought tonight—”“Don’t start.” His glare kills me. “You need to take care of her better. Every time I come home, she’s screaming.”“She’s a baby, Cole. Babies cry—”“Owen never cried that much. Jade always had him calm when I went to see him.”“I’m sorry. Just give me a few minutes. I’ll settle her again.”“You make it worse. You’re so emotional. No wonder she’s always like this.” He shoves his shoes in another bag.“Maybe… if you hold her a while…”He just glares at me like I’ve suggested he hold a deadly viper.I bite my lip, swallow the sting. “I hoped… I thought we’d spend the night together. I cooked dinner. I baked a cake for us.”He straightens, face twisting. “A cake? You expect me to sit here eating cake with you while my boy is sick in a hospital bed? Are you mad?”Tears burn my eyes. “I just wanted—”“Stop being so selfish, Maya.” His voice is cold steel.

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

003 Future Fractures

(Maya)Lucy is fifteen months old now, wild curls bouncing as she tears through my wing of the mansion.Cole moved us in here so the main area isn’t always so messed up. It makes sense with his formal dinners and visiting dignitaries.I show up at every function I need to as the loving wife. Perfect in every way and Cole plays the loving husband so well.Those nights we make love. Okay, it isn’t the headiness of the honeymoon. And he never stays the whole night. But it’s something and I think I’m starting to make a difference to him.I live for that. I know that’s how he would be all the time if he didn’t have so much pressure on him.He wants to love me. I’ll help him do that again like he used to. No marriage or relationship is perfect, Jade says. And she’s right. It’s impossible to be happy all the time.Cole is still with me so that proves he loves me. He could have any of the women who hang over him at every event.He even flirts with some of them, but she said not to worry, he

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

004 Beg for Me

(Maya)My bedroom door clicks at three in the morning.He’s here?Cole doesn’t say a word as he enters, tie hanging loose, shirt half undone.His eyes are black with intent, fixed on me. My pulse spikes.I half sit up. Eyes bleary from sleep.Then he’s on me… his mouth crushing mine, his hands tearing at my thin silk lace camisole. He pushes me back into the bed.His weight pins me, his hardness pressing between my thighs.“Say you love me,” he growls.“I love you,” I gasp, clutching at him.“Again. Louder.”“I love you, Cole. I love you, I love you.”He smirks like he’s claimed a victory. His hand grips my jaw, forcing my mouth open, kissing me so deep I can barely breathe.Then his fingers are exploring, working me open, ruthless and skilled, dragging me up fast. My body arches, desperate, already trembling.But he pulls away just as the edge nears. My cry is strangled and muted so I don’t wake Lucy in her room next to mine.I clutch at his hand trying to make him keep going.“Not y

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

005 I Never Loved You

(Maya)My wing is quiet after Jade settles Lucy into her bed for her morning nap. Lucy went right off to sleep for her.My body aches in so many places after Cole came to me last night, but my heart feels light for the first time in months.Cole stayed. He made me declare my love for him. He loves me.A knock sounds at the private entrance startles me from my thoughts. Who could that be? Tessa is the only one who comes to that entrance and I doubt it’s her after the last time.When I open it, it’s Rhett. Tessa’s older brother. My childhood sweetheart, teenage dream, whatever you want to call it. That was a long time ago.I blink at him, stunned to see him at my door.He’s broader from the military, sunburnt around the edges, dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt. His ice-blue eyes are no less intense. His expression is something between anger and worry.Here we go. Another lecture from someone who thinks they know what I need better than I do.“What are you doing here?” My voice is shar

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

006 What Is Happening?

(Maya)I have the coffee tray balanced and I’m about to turn the handle and go in.“Cole. Marrying her wasn’t a mistake. You needed a child and you needed to keep that child close.” Jade’s voice comes through the door loud and clear.“No. I should never have married Maya,” he says. Calm. Businesslike. “I just needed someone stupid enough to get pregnant and think I loved them.”“It isn’t your fault. She was more than willing. Just what we needed. You don’t have to feel guilty for her stupidity, Cole.”I stand in the hallway with a tray of coffee going cold in my shaking hands and I don’t breathe.My stomach heaves and I want to vomit. What? What are they saying? What am I hearing?“I could’ve just gotten a surrogate. If you hadn’t slipped me something, I would’ve been thinking straighter that night. I would not have been getting married.”“I needed to make sure you didn’t overthink it and change your mind.”“It’s a disaster, this marriage. A surrogate would have been more straightforw

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

007 Trapped By The Devil

(Maya)Days fold into each other. I can’t tell one from the next.I can’t control my mood swings. Sometimes I’m sobbing, other times I’m trying to smash the wall open with my bare hands.My brain is all over the place. No one will listen to me. No one believes me.I’m psychotic, they say. I had a mental breakdown. I tried to kill myself and my child.No one visits except Jade. The devil.She asks the nurses for privacy, says it keeps me calmer.“Cole wanted us to move in,” she says, breezy, like she’s telling me about a new paint color. “For Owen. For the kids. It makes everything easier, you know? It felt right.”In my head the last night with Cole repeats… the way he made me say I’d never leave, the way he’d made me prove it.“I want to see Cole.” If I can just see him, maybe he’ll listen. Maybe he’ll believe me about Jade.Jade’s laugh is small and bright. “See him? He doesn’t want anything to do with you.”She shows me a photo on her cell phone.It’s Lucy and Owen. Owen looks so s

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

008 A Fiery Ending

(Maya)My baby is tiny in that bed, a tangle of wires and tape and damp curls.Her skin is too pale. Her chest lifts in shallow, stubborn breaths.A doctor’s voice is soft. He says words that mean we’re out of time.I climb into the bed against every rule they have and I pull her onto my chest. “Hi, my love,” I whisper into her hair. “Mommy’s here. I’m here, I’m here.”I sing the song I sang at two a.m. feeds.I tell her I’m sorry. Over and over until the words break.She warms in my arms and then she doesn’t. Her hand curls around my finger and loosens. The world narrows to the weight of her and the silence that follows.I do not pass out. I do not scream the ceiling down. I press my mouth to her hair and I memorize it.I put my palm over her heart and feel her being gone.I swear, somehow, I will make them pay.Someone comes to take her and I say no. They try and get me to leave. I say no.I’m sobbing silent tears.The nurse with the tired eyes says, “give her a minute,” and blocks

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

009 I’m Back? How?

(Maya)I wake choking.My throat is raw, my lungs like they’ve been scrubbed empty.For a moment I don’t know where I am. Panic hits like a punch and I scramble out of bed.Am I doomed to relive my hell for eternity? How can my eyes be opening now?I burned with Lucy’s body in my arms. I know it. How can I be here, in my bedroom?I head straight for Lucy. Please, let her be okay. I held her while she took her last breath. I suffered through all those days and taunts from Jade.Did I dream that? Was that drug-induced?The crib is exactly where it should be.Lucy is up on her feet, hair in a mess, slapping the bars and laughing at nothing.I walk to her and I can barely feel my legs.When she sees me, she grins and reaches. I scoop her up and hold her so tight my arms tremble.She fusses, then settles, forehead against mine. Warm.Breathing.I pull my phone from the nightstand with hands that won’t stop shaking and check the date.It’s before Jade drugged me when Cole wanted the divorce

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

010 The Future Is Mine Again

(Maya)“Listen,” I say. “I know this is hard to believe. Pull the cards. When Rhett calls, you need to tell him you are worried about me. I need him to still come to the mansion.She stares at me and lays out a spread face down.Five cards, a clean line across the coffee table: past, present, obstacle, ally, outcome. She breathes and flips the first.Our usual layout for life advice. Although she is more invested in this stuff than me. But today this might be the difference between me succeeding or being locked up for being crazy.Tess breathes out. Centers herself and flips the first card over. She talks as she looks at it.“Past: The Moon. Secrets, emotions kept hidden. Something you can’t see for what it is.”I don’t need her to tell me. I lived the hidden. I nod.She flips the second.“Present: The Tower.”She makes a small sound. The card is a jagged picture and her lips go thin. “Sudden collapse. Something burning down. A rupture,” she says. “This is now.”“Yes, exactly.”Her ha

Last Updated : 2025-09-23

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