My Perfect Revenge

Alani Rivera-Woods had always been beautiful—painfully beautiful—but the world never knew it. She was a soft blend of her parents: a Black American father with strong, warm features and a Dominican mother whose striking blue eyes were unforgettable. Alani inherited those eyes—bright, sparkling, ocean-blue—but almost no one had seen them properly. She lived most of her life hidden behind thick, outdated glasses. Her long black hair was always tied back or tucked beneath hoodies; her petite 5'2 frame was swallowed by oversized shirts and baggy trousers her father insisted she wear after her mother’s death. He had dressed her that way for years, believing that keeping her covered was protecting her from the world. And after he died—just a month before her final high school semester—Alani simply never changed. Grief made her accept invisibility as a uniform. The only person who ever truly saw her was her best friend, Kiana Matthews. But Alani’s heart had always belonged to someone who never saw her at all: Jaylen Carter. Jaylen was the kind of boy people whispered about long before he entered a room. Tall, dark brown skin with a polished glow, braids falling neatly around his face, a slim waist and sculpted body that turned heads. He had charm, beauty, a rich family… and absolutely no discipline. He drifted through high school dating cheerleaders, skipping classes, bullying people he found weak, getting involved with the wrong groups, hacking, scamming, destroying his family’s reputation with a smile. Alani loved him anyway—quietly, painfully, foolishly. Jaylen’s parents eventually grew sick of his behavior. When he refused to change, they left New York entirely and moved to Los Angeles to expand their business with Jaylen’s father’s younger brother. The uncle was richer, more successful, and divorced, raising a son who was one year older than Jaylen. Jaylen hated that cousin—Deshawn Carter, the golden boy of the entire Carter family. Jaylen’s parents still sent him money, hoping distance might fix him. But it only made him worse. In her last semester of high school, Alani accidentally overheard Jaylen bragging to his four closest friends—Malik Miller, Terrance “Terry” Brooks, Isaiah Coleman, and Ethan Whitlock—about his plan after graduation: He was going to start scamming big, serious money. He wanted financial independence not to build a life, but to silence his parents—to make sure they could never threaten to cut off his funds again. That single overheard conversation changed the course of Alani’s entire future. She had never been interested in computers. She had always dreamed of studying catering and management so she could take over her parents’ American/Spanish restaurant. But love—blind, stubborn love—pushed her into a completely different direction. She made a decision that shocked even her best friend: She enrolled in Computer Science (Security Track) and specialized in everything that would make her invaluable to someone like Jaylen. Cybersecurity. Network security. Ethical hacking. Penetration testing. Security architecture. Digital forensics. And in secret, she enrolled in a three-year advanced online hacking program—one that taught offensive hacking, self-destructive accounts, untraceable routing systems, and high-level stealth techniques. Alani became a genius. Not for herself. Not for her future. For him. She still honored her mother by taking a two-year evening program in catering and management, but her real work—the work she poured her soul into—was the kind she imagined would one day protect Jaylen. Five years passed. At twenty-two, Alani graduated as the best student in her department. But she still dressed in oversized hoodies, thick glasses, and baggy pants, hiding her stunning face and body out of habit. Jaylen was twenty-two as well, now living in a modern three-bedroom apartment with his four friends, paid for through scamming and amateur hacking. Malik, the only one who tried to hack besides Jaylen, was terrible at it; their accounts were constantly traced and destroyed. Alani began hanging around Jaylen again after graduation, still loving him with a loyalty he never earned. Jaylen tolerated her only because he enjoyed having someone to tease when he was bored, someone who looked up at him like he was the sun. He disrespected her openly—arrogant, dismissive, rude—never suspecting that the quiet girl trailing behind him was more talented than his entire group combined. Kiana begged her to stop chasing him. Alani refused to listen. A year passed like this—one year of Alani loving him and Jaylen humiliating her behind closed doors. Then one day, he humiliated her in public. In front of a crowd, he sneered at her oversized outfit, mocked her glasses, called her ugly, said no man wanted her, laughed about her virginity—louder and crueller than ever before. His friends laughed with him. Strangers joined in. Alani froze. And something inside her finally died. She walked away from Jaylen that day—and this time, she did not look back. Jaylen didn’t care at first, but later he discovered the truth: Alani was a cybersecurity specialist. A world-class hacker. Better than him. Better than Malik. Better than all of them. Suddenly, he wanted her back—not for love, but for profit. He pretended to be kinder. He invited her to his apartment. But when Alani arrived, she paused outside the door… and heard everything. Jaylen and his friends were inside laughing about how they planned to manipulate her. How they would use her skills. How they would pin everything on her if the law ever caught up with them. Then Jaylen mentioned that his cousin, Deshawn, was coming to New York to open a company branch. He warned his friends to behave because “that pretty boy is probably sent by my parents to spy on me.” Jaylen ranted about Deshawn’s success—how the twenty-four-year-old was already the vice president of his father’s company, richer, smarter, taller, tattooed, disciplined, respected. The family’s favorite. The future of the Carter name. Hearing her name spoken with contempt beside that kind of jealousy snapped whatever thread was left inside Alani. Her love evaporated instantly—like it had never existed at all. She pulled out her custom hacking device, tapped into one of Jaylen’s accounts, and drained every dollar. Then she sent a single self-destructive message to their computer: “Be grateful I didn’t take your main account.” With the money she stole back from the person who stole her dignity, Alani transformed. No more oversized outfits. No more thick glasses. No more hiding. She bought clothes that fit her beauty—crop tops, short skirts, fitted jeans, baggy streetwear, dresses that hugged her figure, heels, knee-high boots. She wore subtle makeup, replaced her glasses with lenses, styled her long curls, and pierced her belly button. For the first time in her life, she dressed like herself. And she made one final decision—her masterpiece of revenge: She would lead Deshawn Carter on. Not to love him. Not to be with him. But to provoke Jaylen, to make him furious, to make him watch as someone better than him admired the woman he dismissed as worthless. She wanted the cousins to clash, to burn, to break because of her. At the same time, she decided she will created a small online cybersecurity company—anonymous, efficient, and brilliant—where businesses hired her to redesign and upgrade their systems. She will make them unhackable. She will make them scam-proof. Every system she will touch become a fortress. And she ensured that Jaylen and his friends could never hack, scam, or exploit anyone again. With the stable income from major clients, she will reopened her parents’ restaurant, restoring it beautifully and honoring both cultures—American and Dominican. Alani Rivera-Woods, the girl once hidden behind baggy clothes and thick glasses, will become a woman with power, beauty, wealth, and the intelligence to dismantle every person who ever underestimated her. Her revenge was clean. Calculated. Perfect. And it was only the beginning.

My Perfect Revenge

Alani Rivera-Woods had always been beautiful—painfully beautiful—but the world never knew it. She was a soft blend of her parents: a Black American father with strong, warm features and a Dominican mother whose striking blue eyes were unforgettable. Alani inherited those eyes—bright, sparkling, ocean-blue—but almost no one had seen them properly. She lived most of her life hidden behind thick, outdated glasses. Her long black hair was always tied back or tucked beneath hoodies; her petite 5'2 frame was swallowed by oversized shirts and baggy trousers her father insisted she wear after her mother’s death. He had dressed her that way for years, believing that keeping her covered was protecting her from the world. And after he died—just a month before her final high school semester—Alani simply never changed. Grief made her accept invisibility as a uniform. The only person who ever truly saw her was her best friend, Kiana Matthews. But Alani’s heart had always belonged to someone who never saw her at all: Jaylen Carter. Jaylen was the kind of boy people whispered about long before he entered a room. Tall, dark brown skin with a polished glow, braids falling neatly around his face, a slim waist and sculpted body that turned heads. He had charm, beauty, a rich family… and absolutely no discipline. He drifted through high school dating cheerleaders, skipping classes, bullying people he found weak, getting involved with the wrong groups, hacking, scamming, destroying his family’s reputation with a smile. Alani loved him anyway—quietly, painfully, foolishly. Jaylen’s parents eventually grew sick of his behavior. When he refused to change, they left New York entirely and moved to Los Angeles to expand their business with Jaylen’s father’s younger brother. The uncle was richer, more successful, and divorced, raising a son who was one year older than Jaylen. Jaylen hated that cousin—Deshawn Carter, the golden boy of the entire Carter family. Jaylen’s parents still sent him money, hoping distance might fix him. But it only made him worse. In her last semester of high school, Alani accidentally overheard Jaylen bragging to his four closest friends—Malik Miller, Terrance “Terry” Brooks, Isaiah Coleman, and Ethan Whitlock—about his plan after graduation: He was going to start scamming big, serious money. He wanted financial independence not to build a life, but to silence his parents—to make sure they could never threaten to cut off his funds again. That single overheard conversation changed the course of Alani’s entire future. She had never been interested in computers. She had always dreamed of studying catering and management so she could take over her parents’ American/Spanish restaurant. But love—blind, stubborn love—pushed her into a completely different direction. She made a decision that shocked even her best friend: She enrolled in Computer Science (Security Track) and specialized in everything that would make her invaluable to someone like Jaylen. Cybersecurity. Network security. Ethical hacking. Penetration testing. Security architecture. Digital forensics. And in secret, she enrolled in a three-year advanced online hacking program—one that taught offensive hacking, self-destructive accounts, untraceable routing systems, and high-level stealth techniques. Alani became a genius. Not for herself. Not for her future. For him. She still honored her mother by taking a two-year evening program in catering and management, but her real work—the work she poured her soul into—was the kind she imagined would one day protect Jaylen. Five years passed. At twenty-two, Alani graduated as the best student in her department. But she still dressed in oversized hoodies, thick glasses, and baggy pants, hiding her stunning face and body out of habit. Jaylen was twenty-two as well, now living in a modern three-bedroom apartment with his four friends, paid for through scamming and amateur hacking. Malik, the only one who tried to hack besides Jaylen, was terrible at it; their accounts were constantly traced and destroyed. Alani began hanging around Jaylen again after graduation, still loving him with a loyalty he never earned. Jaylen tolerated her only because he enjoyed having someone to tease when he was bored, someone who looked up at him like he was the sun. He disrespected her openly—arrogant, dismissive, rude—never suspecting that the quiet girl trailing behind him was more talented than his entire group combined. Kiana begged her to stop chasing him. Alani refused to listen. A year passed like this—one year of Alani loving him and Jaylen humiliating her behind closed doors. Then one day, he humiliated her in public. In front of a crowd, he sneered at her oversized outfit, mocked her glasses, called her ugly, said no man wanted her, laughed about her virginity—louder and crueller than ever before. His friends laughed with him. Strangers joined in. Alani froze. And something inside her finally died. She walked away from Jaylen that day—and this time, she did not look back. Jaylen didn’t care at first, but later he discovered the truth: Alani was a cybersecurity specialist. A world-class hacker. Better than him. Better than Malik. Better than all of them. Suddenly, he wanted her back—not for love, but for profit. He pretended to be kinder. He invited her to his apartment. But when Alani arrived, she paused outside the door… and heard everything. Jaylen and his friends were inside laughing about how they planned to manipulate her. How they would use her skills. How they would pin everything on her if the law ever caught up with them. Then Jaylen mentioned that his cousin, Deshawn, was coming to New York to open a company branch. He warned his friends to behave because “that pretty boy is probably sent by my parents to spy on me.” Jaylen ranted about Deshawn’s success—how the twenty-four-year-old was already the vice president of his father’s company, richer, smarter, taller, tattooed, disciplined, respected. The family’s favorite. The future of the Carter name. Hearing her name spoken with contempt beside that kind of jealousy snapped whatever thread was left inside Alani. Her love evaporated instantly—like it had never existed at all. She pulled out her custom hacking device, tapped into one of Jaylen’s accounts, and drained every dollar. Then she sent a single self-destructive message to their computer: “Be grateful I didn’t take your main account.” With the money she stole back from the person who stole her dignity, Alani transformed. No more oversized outfits. No more thick glasses. No more hiding. She bought clothes that fit her beauty—crop tops, short skirts, fitted jeans, baggy streetwear, dresses that hugged her figure, heels, knee-high boots. She wore subtle makeup, replaced her glasses with lenses, styled her long curls, and pierced her belly button. For the first time in her life, she dressed like herself. And she made one final decision—her masterpiece of revenge: She would lead Deshawn Carter on. Not to love him. Not to be with him. But to provoke Jaylen, to make him furious, to make him watch as someone better than him admired the woman he dismissed as worthless. She wanted the cousins to clash, to burn, to break because of her. At the same time, she decided she will created a small online cybersecurity company—anonymous, efficient, and brilliant—where businesses hired her to redesign and upgrade their systems. She will make them unhackable. She will make them scam-proof. Every system she will touch become a fortress. And she ensured that Jaylen and his friends could never hack, scam, or exploit anyone again. With the stable income from major clients, she will reopened her parents’ restaurant, restoring it beautifully and honoring both cultures—American and Dominican. Alani Rivera-Woods, the girl once hidden behind baggy clothes and thick glasses, will become a woman with power, beauty, wealth, and the intelligence to dismantle every person who ever underestimated her. Her revenge was clean. Calculated. Perfect. And it was only the beginning.

It was supposed to be a normal evening.

Alani had convinced herself—again—that Jaylen inviting her over meant something. Maybe he was softening. Maybe all those years loving him weren’t a complete waste. Maybe he could treat her like a human being, for once.

So she walked toward his apartment building, heart fragile but hopeful, her oversized hoodie clutched around her body like armor. Her fingers trembled around the small goodie bag she brought—a container of her mother’s recipe of pollo guisado she had cooked earlier. His favorite.

But the moment she reached the hallway leading to his apartment, the sound of his voice—loud, cocky, amused—froze her in place.

The door was slightly cracked open.

And her name rolled out of his mouth like poison.

“Bro, I swear,” Jaylen laughed, “that girl is the easiest thing to manipulate. You just gotta look at her and she melts.”

Malik’s laughter boomed behind him. “Facts. She’s obsessed with you. And she’s too stupid to realize you’re using her.”

Alani’s breath caught.

Jaylen continued, voice dripping with arrogance, “She ain’t stupid. She’s just… desperate. Like she’s been waiting her whole life for someone to notice her.”

“Plus,” Terry added, “she ugly as hell. Who the hell still dresses like that? Those glasses? Those baggy clothes? She looks like she’s hiding from the cops.”

Jaylen laughed harder. “Nah, bro. She’s hiding that she ain’t worth looking at.”

Their voices mixed into one cruel, familiar chorus of mockery.

Alani’s heart crumbled silently in her chest.

She pressed herself against the wall, gripping the goodie bag so tightly the plastic handles cut into her palms.

Jaylen’s tone shifted—lower, scheming.

“But listen up. We’re gonna flip this for real. Alani is the key. She graduated top of her class in that nerd shit—cybersecurity, hacking, whatever. I didn’t think it mattered but now? We can use that.”

Malik exhaled sharply. “You think she’d actually help us?”

Jaylen scoffed. “If I tell her to, she will. Watch. I’ll play nice for a few days. Make her think I’m tryna treat her better. She’ll fall for it.”

Isaiah snickered. “Damn, J. Manipulating her like that?”

“She deserves it for being stupid enough to love me.”

A sharp crack echoed—Alani realized it was the sound of her own heart breaking.

Then Jaylen’s voice lowered further, colder.

“When she upgrades our systems, we hit big-time clients. Real money. And if the Feds ever track anything? She’s the hacker. She takes the fall. Not us.”

Someone whistled.

“That’s foul,” Ethan laughed. “But smart as hell.”

Jaylen smirked. “Please. She was made to be used.”

There was a pause.

“She’s pathetic.”

Alani felt something inside her shift—like the last, thin thread holding her heart together had finally snapped.

No pain.

Just numbness.

Cold, heavy numbness.

Jaylen’s voice shifted suddenly—no longer amused, no longer mocking Alani. It dropped into something irritated and sharp, the sound of a man who hated being compared to someone better.

“Yo, before I forget,” he said, dragging a chair across the floor. “All of you better be on your best behavior starting next week.”

Malik groaned. “Why? We got a new plug coming?”

Terry laughed. “Please don’t say it’s another one of your dad’s motivational speakers.”

Jaylen’s answer came out clipped. “No. Worse.”

There was a long pause. Even Alani—standing frozen at the door—felt the tension shift.

Jaylen exhaled sharply. “DeShawn is coming to New York.”

A chorus of reactions hit at once.

“Damn.”

“Seriously?”

“Ain’t that the golden boy cousin?”

Jaylen’s jaw tightened. “Yeah. Him.”

Ethan snorted. “So? What he coming for? Vacation?”

Jaylen scoffed. “He’s coming to open a new branch of his dad’s company. Downtown. And guess who recommended the location?” His voice turned bitter. “My parents.”

Malik chuckled. “Bro, you acting like that’s a problem.”

“It is a problem,” Jaylen snapped. “Because they didn’t just send him here to work. They sent him to watch me.”

The room fell silent.

Terry leaned back. “Watch you? For what?”

Jaylen clicked his tongue. “Because they think I’m incapable of living without causing problems. They’re hoping DeShawn will report back like some corporate babysitter.”

He stood, pacing, agitation rolling off him.

“They think since he’s successful and disciplined and the damn vice president at twenty-four—” he spat the words out, “—that he can handle me. They think he’s the perfect Carter son.”

Isaiah raised a brow. “He kind of is, though.”

Jaylen whipped around. “Shut up.”

The room went quiet again.

Jaylen resumed pacing, fingers twisting the ends of his braids anxiously—nothing like the confident smirking boy everyone knew. This was insecurity leaking through the cracks.

“Look,” he said finally, “when DeShawn comes, he’ll be watching everything. So we need to be careful and secretive with the scams and hacking for a bit. Luckily he will rent an apartment in the building next to this building and not this very building. No slip-ups. No stupid shit. No unnecessary heat.”

Malik nodded slowly. “You think he’ll snitch to your folks?”

Jaylen scoffed. “Of course he will. That’s why he’s coming. My parents worship him. They think he’s the future of the family. They brag about him to everyone.” His voice darkened. “Even to me.”

Terry winced. “So what you want us to do?”

“Just be careful,” Jaylen said. “Talk less. Move smarter. And don’t make it obvious that we’re running anything.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then Jaylen added, low and annoyed:

“And if he asks about the business, lie. He ain’t finding out shit. I don’t care how smart they say he is.”

Malik snickered. “Damn, you really hate him, huh?”

Jaylen rolled his eyes. “He’s the trophy son. The perfect child. I’m the disappointment. That should tell you everything.”

The boys laughed

Jaylen dropped back into his chair with a frustrated sigh.

“So everybody be on guard,” he said. “The last thing we need is DeShawn catching us slipping.”

She backed away from the door, silent, unnoticed, her steps light and steady the way they only became when she was devastated beyond words.

The goodie bag slipped from her hand and fell to the hallway floor with a soft thud.

She didn’t bother to pick it up.

She walked into the elevator. Her vision blurred—not from tears, but from something sharper, more dangerous.

Clarity.

Pure clarity.

Her chest rose and fell as she reached into her hoodie pocket, pulling out her slim hacking device—a matte-black custom-built tablet no bigger than her hand. The screen lit up with a soft violet glow, her personalized interface appearing.

Her voice came out soft and steady.

“Let’s see how much your arrogance is worth.”

She lean on the elevator's wall, hoodie hood pulled over her head like a veil, and let her fingers dance across the screen—swift, precise, lethal.

Jaylen thought she was in love with him.

He never knew she was a monster he helped create.

Her system infiltrated their emails first, then their cloud storage, then their private chat group, then the shared digital vault where Jaylen kept most of his stolen money. Encrypted. Hidden behind layers of false entries and masked routing.

But Alani wrote encryption algorithms like poetry.

It took her thirty seconds.

A soft pop sounded through her device.

ACCESS GRANTED.

Her screen flashed the number:

$5,000,000.00

She blinked once.

Then transferred every last dollar into a clean, untraceable storage account she built years ago—one Jaylen could never dream of accessing.

The moment the funds completed transfer, she created a self-destruct timer for their vault access.

Then typed a simple message into their system:

“Be grateful I didn’t take your main account.”

She hit SEND.

The message vanished from her screen—designed to appear on theirs for exactly five seconds before deleting itself from existence, leaving no trace of its origin.

Her legs finally moved.

She pressed and elevator the elevator's door closed

She walked away from the building, the echo of Jaylen’s laughter in head fading behind her until the world was silent again.

When she reached home—she closed her door, locked it, and leaned against it.

Her chest tightened… then released.

Not in grief.

In decision.

She walked to her mirror.

Removed her glasses.

Pulled down her hair.

Stared at the woman she could become if she stopped hiding.

If she stopped loving someone who hated her.

If she let herself rise.

Her reflection didn’t look weak.

It looked dangerous.

“I’m done,” she whispered. “No more loving you. No more saving you. No more hiding.”

Her voice hardened, a quiet vow forming in her chest.

“You’re going to regret everything you said.”

She opened her laptop, the screen lighting her determined face in cold blue.

Plans began forming—beautiful, calculated, merciless.

Revenge wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t chaotic.

It was clean.

Silent.

Precise.

Like her.

And Jaylen Carter had no idea he had just created his worst nightmare.

She stood up and carried her diary to write her plans.

She sets it on her vanity table, opens it to a blank page, uncaps her pen, and breathes in.

Then she begins to write.

---

🖋️ Diary Entry — The Night Everything Changes

I finally saw him. Truly saw him. Jaylen. The man I trusted, loved, and endured his arrogance and disrespect. I overheard him laughing with his friends tonight. Laughing about how easy I was. How he only kept me around because I was “useful.” How his parents wanted DeShawn to spy on him. How he plans to scam every investor around him because he thinks nobody is smart enough to catch him.

Nobody but me.

He should have never underestimated me.

Today marks the beginning of everything. The end of fear. The end of silence. The end of letting people take from me.

Tonight, I took back five million dollars—his pride, his power, his upper hand. And that was only the first step.

Now I plan the rest.

---

1. My Makeover

Not to impress him. Not to attract attention. But to become the version of myself I buried to survive.

New hair

New wardrobe

New posture

New presence

A woman who walks into a room and never gets dismissed again.

---

2. Wooing DeShawn

Not romantically—strategically. DeShawn is smart, observant, and loyal to the truth. Jaylen fears him for a reason.

I will lie to him. I will manipulate him. I’ll make him fall for me—I will pretend to love him and make Jaylen jealous, furious and fight with his cousin. And together, we’ll make Jaylen crawl even if i have to pretend or fake love for DeShawn.

---

3. My Online Security Company

The name is already forming in my mind: Aegis Systems. A digital shield. An unbreakable wall.

I will build systems that:

upgrade corporate security

secure banks

protect private businesses

shield families

track intrusions

identify hackers instantly

permanently shut down unauthorized access

It will be the exact kind of protection Jaylen will never be able to break through. The kind that destroys everything he built his ego on.

And the world will pay me for it.

---

4. Reopening My Parents’ Restaurant

It’s time. The building still smells like them—garlic, sweet peppers, cinnamon, and laughter. I will renovate it. Modernize it. Honor them. Make it the most loved Spanish-American restaurant in the district.

The world will finally see what they created. And their legacy will begin again through me.

---

5. Upgrading the House They Left Me

No more living like I’m afraid to touch anything inside it. This house will become:

smart

secure

beautiful

alive again

I’ll remodel the kitchen, fix the patio, repaint the rooms, build a garden out back.

This is my new life now. My new beginning. My revenge, but also my rebirth.

I will destroy Jaylen and every he build.

I rise high, so high that he realizes he never should have treated me like a placeholder in his life.

He will watch me become everything he never believed I could be. And he will regret the day he thought he could play me.

Signed, Alani Reyes —The girl he underestimated. —The woman who will end him.