After the Best Actress Cheated, I Shorted Hollywood
Angela · Completed · 8.7k Words
Introduction
“I’m moving into Beverly Hills. A salaried office worker like you will only drag down my status. If you can’t come up with a ten-million-dollar mansion, then get out of my life.”
She thought she had latched onto a media tycoon, and eagerly signed the “fake divorce loan” agreement I had tailored just for her.
What she didn’t know was that I wasn’t just the pathetic husband she thought I was. I was also a quantitative strategist from Wall Street, a man who could turn the markets upside down.
That ten million dollars became the seed capital I used to short the tycoon backing her.
When she was ruined at her movie premiere, burdened with crushing debt, and crawled barefoot like a stray dog up to the hillside mansion, begging hysterically for me to remarry her, I was already toasting a successful acquisition with my Wall Street partner.
Then I watched coldly as the security guards threw her into the Los Angeles night like a piece of rotten industrial waste.
Chapter 1
The day my wife, Hollywood’s newly crowned Best Actress, landed an S-tier deal, she arrogantly tossed a separation agreement in my face.
“I’m moving into Beverly Hills. A salaried office worker like you will only drag down my status. If you can’t come up with a ten-million-dollar mansion, then get out of my life.”
She thought she had latched onto a media tycoon, and eagerly signed the “fake divorce loan” agreement I had tailored just for her.
What she didn’t know was that I wasn’t just the pathetic husband she thought I was. I was also a quantitative strategist from Wall Street, a man who could turn the markets upside down.
That ten million dollars became the seed capital I used to short the tycoon backing her.
When she was ruined at her movie premiere, burdened with crushing debt, and crawled barefoot like a stray dog up to the hillside mansion, begging hysterically for me to remarry her, I was already toasting a successful acquisition with my Wall Street partner.
Then I watched coldly as the security guards threw her into the Los Angeles night like a piece of rotten industrial waste.
——
The night wind on Mulholland Drive carried the Pacific’s signature salty bitterness. I stopped and looked up at the sign with its pitch-black background: Red Flame Private Club.
A red light blinked on the access panel, indicating that a diamond-studded solid gold VIP card was required. I ignored it, took half a step back, and drove my right leg forward.
Bang—crack!
The heavy nanmu wood door and its custom brass lock were destroyed in one muffled blast. I kicked open the door to Suite 888 in one strike, and the cold air from the corridor instantly flooded into the enclosed space reeking of luxury and decay.
Under the glaring crimson lights, every sound came to a dead stop.
In front of the leather sofa lay an entire handwoven Persian carpet. And now, my wife Nicole—the woman who publicly branded herself as an untouchable ice queen, the new pure and elegant darling of Hollywood—was kneeling on it in humiliation.
She was wearing a cheap black lace bunny-girl outfit, with barely enough fabric to count as clothing, and a fluffy tail pinned to the small of her back. Standing in front of her was Harvey, a top-tier producer with cloudy eyes and several shirt buttons undone.
On the armchair beside them, David, an executive at Starlight Media, sat with one leg crossed over the other, idly swirling a martini with ice cubes in his hand. His custom leather shoe rested arrogantly on the carpet, pressing down on a contract stamped with the Starlight Media logo: Lead Actress Agreement for Kiss of the Abyss.
“Pick it up with your mouth. If you fetch it like a good little dog, this S-tier role is yours.” David’s tone dripped with lofty condescension.
Nicole lowered herself without a shred of dignity.
I said nothing. I simply took out my phone, aimed it at the absurd scene, and pressed record. The click of the shutter was unnaturally sharp in the dead-silent room.
All three of them froze at once.
Harvey frowned and slowly adjusted his waistband. David’s face darkened.
And Nicole—when she turned her head and saw that it was me standing in the doorway, there was not even a trace of shame on her carefully made-up face.
After a brief flash of surprise, her features twisted with fury.
“Are you insane?” Nicole sprang to her feet, not even bothering to cover her barely dressed body, and pointed straight at my face. “You barge in at a time like this? Do you have any idea how much effort I’ve put into getting this opportunity? Are you trying to ruin my career?”
She strode toward me, glaring down at me as if I were the criminal sabotaging her sacred ambitions.
“You’re just a pathetic salaried office drone who stares at a computer all day! What can you possibly give me? Red carpets? Haute couture? Or a mansion in Beverly Hills?” Her eyes were full of disgust. “Stop embarrassing me here.”
Looking at this woman completely warped by vanity, I felt no ripple in my heart.
David let out a mocking chuckle. He set his glass on the marble coffee table and pulled a thick stack of Franklins from inside his suit jacket.
Smack.
He casually slammed the cash against my chest, and the bills scattered across the floor.
“Take the money and leave. Your wife knows the rules. Stick with us and she’ll have a great future. You might even get a few leftovers yourself.” David nudged the bills on the floor with the tip of his shoe, looking at me like I was a stray dog on the street.
I didn’t lower my head to look at the money. My gaze passed calmly over all three of their faces. That suffocating level of composure made Harvey sense that something was off.
His hand moved behind his waist. Click. He pulled out a black Glock and pressed the barrel directly against my forehead.
The cold metal transmitted through my skin.
“Kid, I’m not in the mood for some cheap blackmail stunt.” Harvey’s finger rested against the trigger guard, his voice carrying the ruthlessness of a man long immersed in Hollywood’s darker underworld. “Delete that video in front of me. Clean. Or tomorrow there’ll be one more male corpse in an L.A. sewer that nobody gives a damn about.”
The temperature in the room plunged to freezing. Nicole took a frightened step back, but there was no concern in her eyes for my safety. If anything, there was a glimmer of vindictive satisfaction, as if I deserved it for provoking men with real power.
With a gun at my head, the quantitative models in my mind were already running at full speed.
When strength and information are asymmetrical, charging head-on is the move of a low-IQ brute. My goal wasn’t to win some momentary argument here. My goal was to devour them whole, skin and bone.
I looked into Harvey’s eyes, the corner of my mouth lifting into the faintest hint of a smile.
No one spoke. I maintained a chilling kind of obedience, raised my phone with one hand, and opened the video I had just recorded in front of them.
I pressed delete. Then I entered the Recently Deleted folder and permanently erased it. The entire process was smooth and immediate, without the slightest hesitation.
“Good. At least you’re not stupid. Now get out.” Harvey lowered the gun and waved me away in annoyance.
Nicole let out a breath of relief and immediately turned back to Harvey with a flattering smile.
I turned and left, pulling the half-broken door shut behind me. The air in the corridor was still filthy, but my steps were lighter than before.
Ten minutes later, underground parking garage.
I got into an unremarkable black sedan. The interior light stayed off. The Los Angeles night cast shifting shadows across my face through the window glass.
I picked up the ordinary-looking smartphone and quickly tapped a series of commands onto the screen, entering a complex string of hexadecimal code.
The normal interface instantly switched, opening a deep-level hacker terminal.
As a quantitative strategist who could turn Wall Street upside down, data security was my lifeline. I had long since rewritten the phone’s underlying code. Any signal generated by the camera would never pass through local memory. The moment footage was captured, it would be encrypted with 256-bit high-strength encryption, sliced, and uploaded directly to a private cloud server in the Cayman Islands.
A green dialog box lit up on the screen: Sync complete, size 1.4 GB.
In the video, Nicole’s degrading posture, David’s arrogant face, and the dirty lead-actress contract stamped by Starlight Media were all captured in perfect clarity—clear enough to zoom in and read even the fine print.
They thought they had forced me to delete the video? All they had made me erase was a meaningless local shell path.
I leaned back in the driver’s seat and looked at the file in the encrypted vault—a nuclear weapon powerful enough to trigger a magnitude-ten earthquake across the American entertainment industry.
Nicole, you think you’ve secured your ticket into high society.
David. Harvey. You think having power means you can judge and crush anyone you want.
I started the engine. The glow from the dashboard reflected in my eyes, calm and completely undisturbed. The data model was complete. In this predator’s game, the first domino had already been set.
Enjoy your final moment in the spotlight.
Last Chapters
You Might Like 😍
Everybody is Guilty Here
Middlesbrough's underworld is a dangerous game, and Matthew Smith finds himself right in the middle of it. A once-feared gang leader, he is now forced to be a pawn in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. Matthew's only shot at freedom is helping the police bring down Mr. K, the elusive mafia boss of the city. The only problem is that the detective he is forced to work with is the same man who arrested him years ago.
Masahiro Payne is everything Matthew hates: cold, calculating, and relentless. But their only hope for survival is by pretending to be a happy couple, blending in amidst dangerous crime, deceit, and power struggles. The closer they find themselves to taking down Mr. K's empire, the more they are attracted to one another, an affair too potent to turn from.
As their undercover mission spirals into a web of lies and hidden desires, they face a growing threat from all sides. But the greatest risk is the one they can't control-their own feelings. With every touch, every stolen kiss, the line between their fake relationship and real emotions blurs.
In a world of betrayal, trust is a luxury, and falling for each other may be the deadliest mistake of all. Can they survive the deadly mafia games or will their passion be their demise?
Unwanted Mate Of The Lycan Kings
Ripped from her bed and thrown into a world of blood and treachery, Zirah’s fate is sealed, a forced marriage to one of the three Lycan Kings, each more monstrous than the last.
These kings, cursed by their sins, pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, and gluttony are at war, fighting to claim their father’s throne. But the last thing any of them want is a queen.
To them, Zirah is nothing but a pawn, an object to be used, discarded, or destroyed.
But they underestimate her.
If they think she will cower, they are wrong.
If they believe she will bow, they will bleed.
And if they want to break her, they’ll have to survive her first.
Let Them Kneel
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.
But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.
Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.
When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.
For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.
Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.
But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.
And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.
Especially him.
She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.
Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
Where The Ice Gives Way
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)
Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.
Fated to the three Alphas of MOONCREST college
Fated to the three alphas of MOONCREST college... book 1
Fated at mooncrest: Stuck with the two alphas.... book 2
A half-blooded girl. Three charismatic Alpha Wolves. And a destiny-bound bond.
Malia Reed always felt she was nothing special except for her bloodline; she only wanted to survive in the shadows.
Until she entered Mooncrest college…everything changed. A destined, inescapable bond bound her to the powerful and handsome Alpha Wolves—Aiden, Cian, and Rowan Moonfall Wolf.
The entire academy was abuzz with excitement; everyone was talking about it.
As her hidden powers awakened, the dark secrets of her parents surfaced. Enemies drew closer. And what about her three destined companions? Their feelings were subtly shifting…
But only one could truly win her heart.
Letters to a Dark Prince
Thrown into Isteros Academy—a world of old money, blood money, and cruel social games—she's an outsider by birth and an afterthought by design. Her sister Solyn is the school's untouchable queen and Mara is her favorite target.
Everyone expects Atreus to treat his fiancée’s scholarship sister like everyone else does—as if she doesn’t matter.
Instead, his dorm room sits directly across from hers, close enough that she can see his light go out at night. Some nights, he climbs the old maintenance trellis just to check on her. He teaches her chess. He shows up exactly when something's gone wrong—and never once asks to be thanked for it.
"Don't fall in love with one piece," he warns her, over a board neither of them treats like a game anymore. "It punishes the person who only sees half of it."
Mara doesn't understand why the boy who's supposed to make her life harder keeps quietly making it easier—not until she realizes the anonymous stranger she's been writing to every week already has a name.
His.
He doesn't know he's writing to her, either.
By the time they find out, it's too late to stop what's already happening. Far too dangerous for anyone to find out.
In an empty studio, in the middle of a rainstorm, she asks him: 'Am I the kind of girl who kisses a boy engaged to my sister?'
He doesn't answer.
So she asks: 'What are we?’
He told her not to fall in love with one piece.
She fell anyway.
And he was never far behind.
Faking It With My Worst Enemy On Ice
But on his birthday, everything falls apart when his girlfriend exposes Clare's most humiliating secret in front of the entire team.
Just when Clare is ready to disappear, Rhys Calloway, her worst enemy and the team's arrogant captain, pulls her into his arms and tells everyone she is his girlfriend.
She should have pushed him away, but she kissed him back instead.
Now Clare is locked into a two-month fake relationship with the most infuriating man she has ever met, trying to get over a stepbrother who never cared and survive a captain who makes her forget why she was supposed to hate him.
The problem is that Rhys kisses like he means every single second of it, and just when Clare starts to move on, Zane decides he wants her back.
One girl, two hockey players, and a heart that was never supposed to feel this much. Will she choose the stepbrother who broke her or the enemy who caught her when she fell?
Ex-Wife, Current Wife
For three years, she lived in the shadow of a loveless marriage. She was the woman everyone loved to hate, the one who supposedly "stole" him from his first love. She endured his cold indifference, raised their son—who struggles with a speech impediment—in silence, and traded her own brilliant career for the thankless role of a trophy wife.
But when his long-lost love returns, she is unceremoniously pushed aside to make room for the "real" family.
Enough was enough.
After he publicly humiliates her and chooses the mistress’s daughter over his own son during a birthday party, something inside her finally snaps. She doesn't just want out of the marriage; she wants her life back. With a secret talent for design and a newfound resolve, she walks away from the gilded cage of his estate.
But as she rises from the ashes of her failed marriage to reclaim her status as a top-tier designer, he realizes the woman he treated as a disposable pawn was the only one who truly held his world together.
Now, the woman who once begged for his attention is no longer looking back. Will he be able to earn her forgiveness, or is he finally too late?
Tempted By The Enemy
She escapes to Preston Island to attend the wedding without informing him only to collide with Lucas’s hot, fiery and arrogant brother, the twenty-three-year-old, Nicholas Donnelly. Sparks immediately fly between them but Alyssa refuses to acknowledge them fearing her brother's wrath.
The wedding is over and Alyssa tries hard to forget the mysterious Nicholas Donnelly but can he forget her? Can he ignore the attraction he feels for her, feelings that have resurfaced after ten years?
What will Allyssa do when she is stalked by the man who has been invading her dreams since the day she met him? What will she do when she is whisked away to a deserted island by the unpredictable Nicholas Donnelly? Can she tame her heart or surrender to sinful temptations? Read to find out!
Part of the Temptation Series. Can be read as a standalone.
My Billionaire Husband's Secret
He was the CEO of the Blackwood Group — a man whose wealth and power eclipsed ninety-nine percent of the world.
He was gentle. Romantic. Attentive. I fell for him fast.
But a year into our marriage, I began to notice something — a pattern.
Lucas's sexual appetite was intense — he wanted me almost every night. Yet every single month, he arranged a solo trip to send me away. I told myself it was his way of spoiling me.
Then a message arrived from someone called Sweet An.
Do you really know your husband?
From that day on, my life filled with shadows.
I suspected my husband of having an affair.
When Lucas and I made love, something felt wrong — his body too large, too much, like something I couldn't explain.
I heard sounds during sex — animal sounds, like something feral had crawled into bed with us.
My best friend Mia said: "There are men sick enough to let dogs fuck their wives."
The family doctor, Daisy, told me: "You could never stay by Lucas's side forever. Your background doesn't make you worthy of being his wife. Do you understand?"
I went looking for whoever had been tearing my marriage apart. I fought to win my husband back.
But the deeper I searched, the larger the secret grew — something far darker hiding beneath this supposed betrayal.
Does Lucas truly love me?
And why, out of everyone in the world, did he choose to marry me?
Luna On The Run- I stole The Alpha's Sons
But Axton is more than just a rival, he's her fated mate. And he's been searching for her not for love, but for revenge and a chance to destroy her father's pack. The next morning, Elena rejects him, walking away before he can trap her in his ruthless schemes.
But Axton does not take rejection lightly, and his retaliation is brutal: a leaked video, a ruined reputation, and a family that turns their backs on her drive her to flee the city in disgrace.
But when Elena disappears, she takes something Alpha Axton never planned to lose - his sons. Now, he'll stop at nothing to get them back. He wants his heirs, he wants his mate, and Elena will learn that no one runs from the Alpha.
BROKEN TRUST
Neither of them knew she was carrying his child.
Emily’s affair didn’t just end her marriage—it erased the life she thought was guaranteed. Ryan left without looking back, carrying his anger like armor and leaving Emily alone with regret she would never outrun. Three years later, fate drags them back into each other’s world, along with a little girl who has Ryan’s eyes and a truth that shatters everything he thought he knew.
Old wounds reopen, grief masquerades as rage, and love refuses to stay buried. As parenthood binds them together and the past demands accountability, Emily and Ryan must face the question neither of them is ready to answer: is broken trust the end of their story… or the beginning of a love forged through loss, forgiveness, and brutal honesty?
