LOGINClara thought marrying billionaire Victor Draven would save her family and give her peace. But peace doesn't exist inside the Draven mansion— In fact, it has never existed. Only secrets, temptations, and danger wrapped in luxury. And when his son returned home, things took a dark turn. His gaze burned, his words without filters, and his touch felt like sin wrapped in a handsome face. She shouldn't want him. But in a house built on lies, desire might be the deadliest secret of all.
View MoreClara's POV
Dear Diary,
“I don't know why I'm writing this but maybe it's because if I don't, I'll explode. You think you've heard scandal? No, not like mine I was a wife… and this is how I got tangled in a sinful web with my husband's son.”
It started the night after our wedding our first family dinner. My hands wouldn't stop shaking as I sat my fork down. I told myself it was just nerves from being the new wife. But when he walked in… tall, a little older than I expected, the air shifted like I wasn't supposed to breathe it.
The table stretched endlessly, my own reflection clear in the polished wood. I sat, fingers trembling in my lap as I rehearsed smiles and little jokes slipping from my mind.
Tonight was the night tonight, I met Nikolai. My new husband's only son.
Victor squeezed my hand under the table, his voice soft. “Relax, sweetheart. He'll love you.”
“You're sure?” My heart pounded.
“Yeah… and you'll love him too. Although he's just a bit… Protective.”
Protective? Was this like his own way of saying difficult? Still, I smiled. I badly wanted his son's acceptance.
The door opened, followed by footsteps.
I looked up.
Nikolai. Tall, broad shoulders. His face carried the same strong jawline as his father, but sharper, younger and cold. His suit jacket draped carelessly over his arm. He didn't look like who just came from the airport, he looked like he owned the whole place already.
He didn't smile when Victor stood proudly. “Son,” Victor said, lifting his arms. “Welcome home.”
They hugged briefly, Nikolai's eyes already drifting past him… to me.
“This is Clara,” Victor introduced, his voice laced with pride. “My wife.”
Nikolai's gaze traveled over me slowly he stopped at my face. Silence followed for a moment, then:
“Wife?” his mouth curled, but it wasn't a smile. “She looks closer to my age than yours, Dad.”
The air was tense and my chest tightened.
Victor chuckled nervously. “You've always had a sharp tongue.”
I forced a smile, my voice softer than I wanted. “It's nice to finally meet you, Nikolai.”
He sat across from me, pulling his chair back with a drag. “Sure.”
The butler poured wine, steaming plates were placed before us and I reached for my glass to steady my hand.
Victor tried to lighten the air. “Clara's been looking forward to meeting you. She's been asking about you since even before the wedding.”
Nikolai cut his steak, the knife grinding harshly. “Oh, I'm sure she has. Every gold digger wants to know what kind of stepson she's inheriting.”
The words hit me like a slap.
My throat closed. “That's not—”
“Nikolai,” Victor warned lightly, “enough.”
But he kept going, stabbing a piece of meat with his fork. “Tell me, Clara. What was it? His company shares? The penthouse? Or maybe the yatch?”
My fork clattered against the plate. I bent my head, heat burning my cheeks. “I married him because I love him.”
He scoffed. “Right. You fell head over heels for the man who could be your father. That's the kind of fairytale they don't publish.”
Victor sighed, sipping his wine. “Ignore him, Clara. He'll come around.”
But Nikolai's eyes didn't stop, they locked on me, sharp and unyielding. “You'll forgive me if I don't toast to the happy couple. Some of us actually loved my mother.”
The words hit deeper than I expected with my chest squeezing and guilt clawing at my ribs.
Silence fell, forks clicked. Although my appetite was gone, I forced myself to eat each bite turning to ash in my mouth.
Victor changed the subject to business, stocks, politics things I barely understood. Nikolai answered curtly, but every so often, his gaze slid back to me. Watching. Measuring. Judging.
When the plates were cleared, Victor leaned back, satisfied. “See? That wasn't so bad, was it?”
I shook my head but felt Nikolai's stare burning into me, cold and merciless, and I knew this wasn't the end. It was the beginning of a war.
✷✷✷✷✷✷
Hours later, the house had gone quiet and Victor was fast asleep, snoring peacefully. But somehow, I just couldn't fall asleep I felt suffocated. So I decided to go outside, maybe to the pool… I want fresh air.
As I stepped closer, I found him by the pool. Nikolai. Shirt half buttoned, laptop opened, and a glass of whiskey sweating beside him. He didn't look up but from the sudden change of air, I could tell he noticed me.
I shouldn't have said anything. I should've just stayed quiet but I wanted to speak to him I knew he had something against me and I only wanted him to know I meant no harm. Not to him. Not to his father.
I cleared my throat softly. “Nikolai… Can we talk?”
His eyes flicked up, cold and unreadable. “About what? How I hurt your feelings at dinner?”
“I just…” My voice faltered. “I wanted to clear the air. I'm not here for your father's money.”
He gave a wicked laugh as he leaned back in his chair. “Of course you're not. Women like you always marry old men for love.”
“That's not true,” I said firmly. “I care about him.”
He shut his laptop almost immediately, the sound snapping through the night made me flinch. When he stood, the shift in his body felt like a storm rolling in. His height swallowed the space between us as he walked forward.
I stepped back, my spine brushing the old wall of the patio. “Nikolai, I know you don't like me, but—”
“Don't like you?” His laugh was sharp, butter. He leaned closer, his breath warm against my cheek. “You've got some nerve.”
Confusion knotted in my chest. “What do you mean?”
His eyes burned, darker than the pool water glimmering behind him. “Two years. That's how long I wasted on you. Two fucking years. And one day you just disappeared like I never mattered.”
My breath caught this wasn't something I was prepared to talk about. “Nikolai…”
“You left me broken,” he said through clenched teeth. “I searched all over for you and then I came home and found you here in my father's house. Wearing his ring.” His jaw flexed. “Tell me, Clara. Was this your plan all along?”
Tears stung my eyes. “No. It wasn't like that. I swear—”
“Save it,” he hissed. “You ran from me straight into his arms. And now you want my approval? You want me to believe you love him?”
He stepped even closer, pinning me against the wall with nothing but the weight of his presence. My heart pounded, my hands shook at my sides.
“Nikolai, I didn't mean to hurt you…”
His smirk cut me like a blade. “Then prove it.”
“What?”
And just like that, I became my ex-boyfriend’s stepmother and no, this shit didn't end, there's more.
Clara’s POV"The brakes are engaging automatically, Marcus, so hit the emergency manual override right now," I yelled, my fingers gripping the cold steel handle of the internal wall support as the freight elevator shrieked."The terminal is completely dead, Clara," Marcus shouted back from the primary control panel, his palm slamming hard against the unresponsive touch screen. "Victor's countermeasure code just jammed the secondary circuits from the main office. We are totally frozen.""Are we dropping," Nikolai asked, his voice low and incredibly strained as he leaned his massive frame heavily against the left corner of the metal cage."No, boss, we are jammed tight," Marcus said, pulling a mechanical crowbar from his tactical pack. "The backup emergency clamps locked onto the secondary guide rails. We are hanging suspended right between the fourth and fifth floors.""We are sitting ducks in this metal box," I said, looking up toward the rectangular maintenance hatch on the ceiling.
Clara’s POV"Initiate the bypass sequence on the main grid right now," Nikolai ordered, his fingers flying across the glowing keyboard of the tactical laptop resting on his knees."I am routing the connection through the secondary proxy servers," Marcus replied from the front driver seat, keeping his eyes on the dark road ahead. "But Victor upgraded the entire mainframe after the harbor incident. The firewalls are incredibly thick.""I do not care about his new upgrades or his expensive firewalls," Nikolai said, his voice cold and completely devoid of panic. "I built the original backdoors for this corporate network ten years ago. He cannot erase my foundational code without destroying his own security system.""Are you going to shut down the entire tower," I asked, adjusting the heavy tactical vest against my chest."No," Nikolai answered, not looking away from the bright screen. "If I shut down the entire tower, the system will instantly recognize it as an external cyberattack. The
Clara’s POV"Hand me the heavy shears right now, Marcus, and do not tell me to leave it alone," I said, holding out my right hand without turning around from the small cracked mirror."Clara, you do not need to do this yourself," Marcus said, his heavy boots shifting against the cold concrete floor of the underground railway vault. "We have men who can handle the tactical disguises. You could stay behind with the secondary guard detail.""We are past the point of staying behind, Marcus," I countered, my voice completely flat as I gripped the cold steel handles of the industrial shears. "If my hair hangs down outside the rim of that tactical security helmet, Victor's advance scouts will pull me out of the line before we even clear the subterranean freight elevators. I am not letting a few inches of dead weight get me killed tonight."I raised the heavy metal blades to my shoulder. With three quick, brutal snips, long locks of dark-dyed hair fell onto the grease-stained concrete floor.
Nikolai’s POV"The hardware on these dead guards is completely locked, Nikolai," Marcus said, stepping into the dim, cold light of the generator room. He slammed three rugged tactical tablets onto the metal table right beside my keyboard. "My tech guys cannot get past the biometric handshake. Victor’s people must have updated their encryption keys before they deployed the team to the museum.""They updated the external keys, Marcus, but they did not change the core operating system," I said, my fingers already flying across my mechanical keyboard as I plugged a data cable directly into the side port of the first swiped tablet. "Victor was always too cheap to pay for custom software. He used a standard commercial security frame from a foreign supplier five years ago. He thought a complex password was enough to keep the world out.""Can you crack it?" Clara asked. She was leaning against the heavy iron support pillar behind my chair, wearing my oversized flannel shirt. Her shoulders loo
POV: Nikolai The beach at six in the morning was grey and flat, the tide pulling back from the sand in long, slow sheets.Victor walked ahead, hands behind his back, talking. Quinn kept pace beside him, nodding at the right intervals. I walked a half step behind them both, which was where Victor p
POV: Clara The Draven beach house looked like something that was built to intimidate people rather than welcome them.It had floor-to-ceiling glass walls which reflected the setting sun. Apparently Victor loved it here, so of course I hated it on sight.He parked with a satisfied sigh and turned t
POV: ClaraThe greenhouse smelled of damp earth and rot, a heavy scent that stuck to the back of my throat. It was supposed to be a sanctuary, a glass-walled escape from the marble and steel of the mansion, but even here the air felt thin.I found my mother sitting on a stone bench, her hands folde
Clara's POVThe black SUV pulled up the circular driveway, and my stomach performed a slow, agonizing flip. My parents stepped out, looking so small against the backdrop of the Draven estate.My mother looked even more slender than the last time I had seen her, her kind face was etched with that pe






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