Trapped by the Billionaire Villain

[You captured the wrong fucking target. He is the villain.] The system shrieked in my head, right after Christian had pinned me against every surface in our apartment. The villain.

The ruthless, obsessive, borderlinepsychopathic antagonist of this novel who eradicated anyone who dared to breathe a lie in his direction. What was I supposed to do now?

The damage was done. The next morning, I tried to slip out of bed.

His hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around my wrist with a heavy, possessive heat. "Don't go," he rasped, his voice thick with sleep as he whined like a needy child. "Stay with me a little longer." I leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "I'll be right back." Then, I vanished off the face of the earth.

He went feral searching for me. Right up until his phone lit up with a single text from an untraceable number. [You're terrible in bed.

We're done.] Chapter 1 [I understand the logic.] [But I said that exact fucking phrase to him.

You are telling me I not only transmigrated back into this world, but I have to capture the actual male lead right under his nose?] The system offered a useless, metallic sigh. [There is nothing we can do.

It already happened. Besides, that was five years ago. He has definitely forgotten by now.] Forgotten. Right. Currently, we were at an exclusive charity auction funded by Christian.

I adjusted my masquerade mask, my pulse a frantic drumbeat against my throat.

I slipped through the crowd, my eyes scanning the room against my own will, searching for that familiar silhouette. Then I saw him.

Christian wore a bespoke black suit that seemed to absorb the light around him. His collar was undone just enough to expose the sharp line of his collarbone.

He radiated an oppressive, suffocating kind of power. A circle of highnetworth elites surrounded him, hanging onto his every breath.

He existed in a completely different stratosphere now. Over the past five years, Christian had built an empire with his bare hands.

He was the kind of man who could level Manhattan with a single glance. You did not cross Christian Sinclair. Just then, his dark lashes lifted.

His gaze drifted across the room and landed squarely on me. I wore a mask. He could not possibly recognize me. Yet my lungs seized.

My throat constricted so violently I tasted copper, my fingers curling into rigid fists at my sides.

Thankfully, his eyes held mine for only a fraction of a second before sliding past. I was nothing but a piece of furniture in his periphery. My breath left me in a ragged exhale.

The first time I dropped into this universe, I was ten years old. My name was Nina Noelle Sinclair, the adopted daughter of the Sinclair family.

The system had dropped one single directive before its battery died. [The male lead is the Sinclair heir. Capture him.] Then it went dark.

I had stared at the two boys in the estate, completely paralyzed.

Christian was twelve when he was dragged back to the estate, the biological heir who had spent his childhood surviving on the streets.

Matthew Sinclair was also twelve, the fake heir who had been accidentally switched at birth and raised in absolute luxury. When Christian first stepped into the foyer, Mrs.

Sinclair had looked at him with ice in her veins. "Bloodline means nothing in this house," she had told him, her tone clipped and devoid of warmth. "Even if you are back, Matthew and Nina are the most important children here.

Do you understand?" Christian had stood there, his body covered in fading bruises and fresh defensive wounds. He said absolutely nothing.

He just stared at her with the hollow, starving eyes of a feral wolf, until she visibly shivered under his gaze. She convinced herself he was a lost cause.

A stray dog ruined by the gutter, unworthy of her affection or her time. His sudden existence gave me a massive headache. Which one was the real male lead?

Chapter 2 I had to make a choice, and fast. I was only ten, but I took it upon myself to arrange Christian's room and pick out his new clothes.

I yanked the heavy curtains open, flashing him the brightest smile I could muster. "This is your room now, Chris.

It is right next to mine, so I am going to bother you every single day." The sunlight spilled over his shadowed figure.

For the first time, a spark of life flickered in his dead eyes. Christian and Matthew shared the exact same birthday.

On that day, the entire Sinclair family flew out to Aspen to celebrate Matthew. I thought it was pathetic to leave Christian behind in that massive, empty estate.

I faked a fever and stayed back, keeping it a total secret from him.

When he walked through the door alone, his backpack slung over one shoulder and his posture utterly defeated, I flipped all the switches. "Surprise!" A custom cake sat on the dining table, his name piped in thick icing.

The room was decked out in streamers and bright balloons. He told me later it was the very first birthday he had ever celebrated.

His entire demeanor toward me shifted after that night. The system had claimed the male lead was the most exceptional person in this universe.

I watched Matthew, groomed since birth, flawlessly play the most complex piano pieces without missing a beat.

My internal compass heavily pointed toward him being the real male lead.

Just to be safe, I pulled out a brutal calculus problem and slammed it on the coffee table between them. "Whoever solves this first gets a hug!" I had even made sure to wash myself with sweet orange body wash so I smelled absolutely amazing beforehand.

Looking back, the prize was laughably stupid. Both Christian and Matthew immediately hunched over the paper.

I was dead certain Matthew, backed by a small army of expensive Ivy League tutors, would crush it. I was wrong. Christian dropped his pencil three full minutes before Matthew.

That was the moment I realized Christian's intellect operated on a terrifying, entirely different plane. He had to be the real male lead. My capture mission officially began.

I launched myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and planting a loud kiss on his cheek. "You are amazing, Chris!" Christian had never been touched with that kind of reckless affection.

He froze completely, his breath catching sharply in his throat. Then, agonizingly slowly, his arms lifted to encircle my waist.

He pulled me flush against his chest, tucking my head under his chin like I was the most precious thing he had ever held.

Matthew would sit at the Steinway grand, effortlessly playing delicate sonatas just for me, looking every bit the refined gentleman.

Christian caught me staring at Matthew like a starstruck idiot. So, he watched him, too. While I watched with pure admiration, Christian watched to dissect.

He memorized every single key, every precise movement of Matthew's hands in a single viewing. Then, he sat down and played it back to me perfectly.

He was a onceinageneration genius with a photographic memory and absolute pitch. The Sinclair family eventually woke up to Christian's terrifying potential.

They shifted their focus, desperately trying to mend the bridge they had burned. But they were too late.

They had missed the single, fragile window where Christian might have opened his heart. Would he ever forgive them? Or would he burn their world to ashes?

When he first came home, they threw him to the wolves. Chapter 3 They had missed their chance. There was no going back now. He was wildly untamable.

Defiant and cursed with a brutal temper. Yet with me, he crumbled. He tore through high school curriculums with a manic obsession just to get into the exact same university as me.

We both made it into an Ivy League. He mirrored my exact major just to sit beside me and tutor me. Then he built his own startup, an empire that easily rivaled the Sinclair legacy.

We finally made our relationship official. Who could have guessed that a man of his caliber was not the male lead. I scoured the auction floor for my actual target.

The plot demanded I take a knife for him. A traumatic physical sacrifice to trigger his affection. Finally, I spotted that familiar silhouette.

He looked every bit the perfect male lead. Gentle. Approachable. The exact polar opposite of the villain. Matthew Sinclair. The fake heir I had completely neglected.

I raised my champagne flute and took a step. A towering frame abruptly cut off my path. His shadow swallowed me whole.

I slowly lifted my chin, colliding with a pair of glacial, predatory eyes. Christian. Who else could it be? What did he want? My fingers dug nervously into the edge of my mask. "Mr.

Sinclair." Christian stared down at me. "Mr. Sinclair?" "That is what everyone calls you," I said, fighting the overwhelming urge to turn and run.

In the ambient darkness, a flicker of emotion flashed through his dark eyes, gloomy and dangerous. The night we made it official, his mouth was a brand against mine.

His arm clamped around my waist, his hot, fractured breaths searing my skin as he demanded over and over again. "What did you call me?" My thighs locked around his narrow hips.

I breathed into the sensitive shell of his ear. "I said, boyfriend." "Say it again." "Husband~" Regret hit me instantly.

He hoisted me off the floor, slamming my spine against the cold marble desk as he devoured my mouth. Things spiraled into absolute chaos.

He pinned my wrists down, angling me into total submission. He laid his hunger bare, like a starving man finally tasting a feast. Now, I was calling him Mr. Sinclair.

The title was sterile. Distant. A cold steel barrier drawing a brutal line in the sand. He let out a low, mocking scoff and demanded my name. Pure panic seized my throat.

I threw out a desperate lie. "My last name is Sutton." "Miss Sutton." His fingers clamped around my palm in a vice grip. "A pleasure to officially meet you.

I hope you enjoy your evening." He ground out the words "meet you" with an excruciating, deliberate weight. My gaze snagged on the ink etched into his inner elbow.

By the time he released me and walked away, cold sweat drenched the back of my dress. That tattoo. It looked exactly like N.N.

The socialites around me instantly erupted into a frenzy of hushed whispers. "You are the first woman he has shaken hands with in years." "Miss Montgomery tried to shake his hand once.

He told her his wife kept a tight leash on him and absolutely forbade him from touching anyone else." "Did you see his ink?

Rumor has it those are his wife's initials." But that tattoo was my exact initials. N.N. Nina Noelle. After the soulcrushing text I sent him?

With his vicious, bloodthirsty nature, that was categorically impossible. I squeezed my eyes shut. It was just a morbid coincidence.

Something about this auction felt distinctly unnatural. To warm up the crowd, the very first lot was a set of restraints. A pair of diamondencrusted ankle cuffs.

The icy metal gleamed under the spotlight, each stone radiating a blinding, beautiful cruelty.

Chapter 4 The auctioneer leaned into the microphone. "These custom restraints are mastercrafted.

They are not merely tools for captivity, but exquisite works of modern art." I swallowed hard behind my mask. A paddle sliced through the air.

Christian Sinclair secured the lot at an absolutely astronomical price. Right then, whether it was just my imagination or not, his dark gaze lightly swept over me. My skin burned.

He answered all those questions the night we made our relationship official. He pinned my wrists against the cold glass.

The Manhattan traffic blurred beneath us as a suffocating, thrilling shame washed over me. He feared boring me.

So he bought a staggering array of toys, an arsenal of pleasure that left me dizzy and gasping.

That night, my wet skin slid against the porcelain as I tried to crawl out of the tub. He dragged me right back into the steaming water.

His heavy hands mapped every inch of my trembling body. I could not fathom what went through his head when he read that I thought he was terrible in bed.

The auctioneer rolled out a submission chair for the second lot. A pair of tactical handcuffs followed as the third. Christian bought every single one of them.

What exactly did he plan to do with those? The memories of his calloused hands on my skin crashed into my mind.

I could almost feel the phantom weight of cold steel locking around my wrists. After those three lots, the auction items abruptly returned to normal.

Then the final piece rolled out, and my brain shortcircuited. It was a crude crayon drawing I made when I was a child.

Christian raised his paddle again, dropping a small fortune on a piece of scrap paper.

The elite crowd immediately erupted into furious whispers. "That is his wife's childhood drawing, is it not?" "Word is she left him because he made a catastrophic mistake.

He obsessed over getting her back ever since." "He tore the world apart looking for her for five years." I stood there entirely paralyzed. What mistake?

More importantly, since when did I become his wife?! I completely humiliated the man! The system chimed in, its metallic voice dripping with grim realization. [I understand now.

He is fabricating a marriage to legally bind you to him. When he catches you, he will torture you without any interference.

What a ruthless, calculating villain!] A violent shudder ripped through my spine. Staying far away from Christian remained my only option for survival.

The auction wrapped up, and the guests flooded into the grand ballroom for champagne and a waltz. The plot kicked into gear.

The narrative dictated a deranged guest would launch a violent attack on Matthew.

The system promised that taking a knife for him would launch his affection for me into the stratosphere.

I trailed Matthew through the crowd like a shadow, terrified of blowing my cover. Christian built his empire from a dorm room.

Now he sat at the pinnacle of the Forbes list, notorious for his venomous, cutthroat tactics. Matthew's only real accomplishment remained inheriting the Lockwood estate.

The novel wrote them as equals. Now, the gap between them stretched into a bottomless chasm. I shoved the thought away. Completing the mission mattered more than anything else.

Suddenly, a brutal force slammed into my spine. I crashed onto the marble floor. A woman's piercing scream shattered the waltz.

A hulking man built like a grizzly bear charged straight at Matthew. A serrated hunting knife flashed in his fist. The crowd fractured in absolute terror.

A fleeing guest collided with me, knocking the mask completely off my face. Chapter 5 I threw myself in front of Matthew. I braced for the agonizing tear of steel through flesh.

It never came. Instead, a guttural, piglike squeal ripped through the chaos. In the suffocating darkness, a massive frame swallowed me whole.

His heavy, solid chest blocked out the absolute panic of the room. Scorching palms clamped down on my waist like a vice. But those massive, irongrip hands were trembling.

A microscopic, terrifying tremor. "Nina," a voice rasped against my hair. "You have really outdone yourself. You almost died just now.

Do you understand that?" "Five years of absolute radio silence. You finally show your face, and your first instinct is to take a hunting knife for someone else.

I let you get way too spoiled." His teeth sank viciously into the sensitive shell of my ear. It was a brutal, agonizing bite. Half desperate devotion, half merciless punishment.

Glacial fury practically bled from his irises, trapping me in a suffocating black web. "You ran for half a decade. Tell me.

Was it because I failed to satisfy you that night?" Some scientists claim humans only use ten percent of their brain capacity. I completely agreed.

Because in the span of zero point one seconds, I managed to draft a flawless, legally binding suicide note in my head