Married Off to a Savage, I Returned with Billions to Crush hiChapter 1

To plug a three-billion-dollar hole in the company accounts, my biological brother and my fiancé conspired to sell me off to the "Barbarian" of the Northwestern mines.

The entire capital waited with bated breath, assuming I was rotting in purgatory, eager to laugh at my misery.

But they didn't know the truth. They didn't know that the rough, savage man they mocked would tuck my freezing feet against his chest on snowy, wind-battered nights to warm them. They didn't know he would run hundreds of kilometers just to find me fresh strawberries.

I still remember his voice, rough as gravel but tender as a prayer. "Aria, you are the moon in my sky. I would dig out my own heart before I let you suffer a single grievance."

But then, the moon shattered.

He died in a carefully orchestrated "accident." No body. No bones. Nothing left to bury.

Five years later, heavy with his child and dressed in rags, I barged into the Henson Group's celebration banquet.

I watched my former family cover their noses in disgust. I listened as they plotted to force me to abort the "Barbarian's bastard" in my womb.

And I laughed.

They thought I came back to beg?

Wrong.

I came back to drag them down to hell with me.

——

It was the fifth year since I had been sold to the Great Northwest.

Because my husband, Sebastian James, was dead, I returned to the capital.

The Henson Group's 50th Anniversary Gala was being held at the ultra-luxurious Bulgari Hotel. The city's elite—the powerful, the famous, the filthy rich—had all gathered in one glittering hall.

And then there was me.

Wearing a severely worn tactical jacket and hiking boots caked in yellow mud, I appeared like a spectre at the entrance.

"Where did this lunatic come from? Do you know where you are? Get lost, now!"

Several security guards brandished electric batons, moving to shove me out.

I didn't flinch. I simply raised my head.

"Move."

My voice was hoarse from disuse, but it carried a piercing chill that cut through the noise.

The orchestral music screeched to a halt.

Every pair of eyes in the room locked onto me.

"Why does that crazy woman look a bit like Mr. Henson?"

"Wait... is that the Henson family's eldest daughter? Aria Henson? The one who vanished five years ago?"

"Look at her clothes... and her stomach. Is she pregnant with the Barbarian's spawn?"