psychological-power-play
Content Type:
1000 books with psychological-power-play
My Perfect Revenge
357
1061
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 She lived most of her life hidden behind thick, outdated glasses.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.