Three days later.

Alysia pushed open the heavy oak doors of the Kent family estate in Long Island.

The warm, joyful chatter of the family dinner died the second she stepped into the dining room.

Sitting at the head of the long mahogany table, her father, Gladstone Kent, slammed his crystal wine glass down.

The red liquid sloshed over the rim, staining the white tablecloth.

Kaden shot up from his chair.

A white gauze pad was taped to his forehead, and his right arm was in a heavy cast.

"You ungrateful bitch!" Kaden roared, pointing his good hand at her.

Crystal sat next to him in her wheelchair.

She immediately started coughing, a harsh, wet sound.

Her fingers dug into Kaden's sleeve, pulling at the fabric.

"Don't fight with her, Kaden," Crystal whimpered, tears spilling over her cheeks. "It's not worth tearing the family apart for me."

An older aunt at the end of the table shook her head in disgust.

"You have no heart, Alysia. You don't deserve the Kent name."

Alysia ignored the noise.

She walked past them, her posture perfectly aligned, and pulled out an empty chair near the center of the table.

She sat down, crossing her legs, looking more like the master of the house than anyone else in the room.

Gladstone slammed his fist on the table.

"Get on your knees and apologize to Crystal right now!" he ordered. "I will call the hospital and reschedule the surgery for tomorrow morning."

Alysia picked up a glass of sparkling water from the table.

She swirled the ice cubes slowly.

"Are you aware, Father, of the felony charges associated with forced organ harvesting in the state of New York?"

Gladstone's face turned purple.

He choked on his words, his chest heaving.

"This is family sacrifice! This has nothing to do with the law!"

Kaden sneered and walked toward her.

He pulled a folded document from his jacket pocket and threw it onto the table in front of her.

"Sign the consent form, or I freeze every single credit card in your name tonight."

Alysia didn't even glance at the paper.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a handful of black titanium credit cards.

They were all cut cleanly in half.

She tossed them into the air.

The heavy plastic and metal pieces rained down, hitting Kaden in the face and chest.

Kaden flinched, his jaw twitching violently.

He raised his left fist, stepping into her space.

Alysia looked up at him.

Her gaze was so hollow, so devoid of fear, that Kaden's fist froze in mid-air.

"The money I've generated for this family's shell companies over the last three years far exceeds the limits on those cards," Alysia said flatly. "You owe me."

Crystal sobbed louder, shifting the attention back to herself.

"I have three months to live without that kidney! How can you watch me die?"

Alysia leaned forward.

She rested her elbows on the table and locked eyes with Crystal.

"Private yacht. Miami. Last month," Alysia whispered, her voice carrying just enough for Crystal to hear.

Crystal stopped crying instantly.

Her breathing hitched, and her fingers spasmed against her chest.

Alysia sat back up and looked at her father.

"Crystal's kidney failure isn't genetic. It's the result of chronic, severe abuse of illicit narcotics."

The dining room erupted in gasps.

Gladstone stared at Crystal, his eyes wide. "Explain this."

Kaden stepped in front of Crystal, shielding her.

"She's lying! She's making it up to save her own skin!"

Alysia reached into her bag one last time.

She pulled out a thick stack of papers bearing the official watermark of Johns Hopkins Hospital. "This isn't a new document. I secured this digital backup during one of my previous loops, long before she could scrub her medical history."

She slapped the printed toxicology report onto the center of the dining table.

The uncle sitting closest to the papers picked them up.

His eyes scanned the highlighted lines, and his face dropped.

He slid the report down the table to Gladstone.

Gladstone read the numbers.

His hands started to shake.

He looked up, glaring at the woman he had been ready to sacrifice his own daughter for.

Crystal slipped out of her wheelchair, collapsing onto the hardwood floor.

She wrapped her arms around Kaden's legs.

"It's fake! Kaden, you have to believe me, she forged it!"

Kaden looked down at Crystal, doubt flashing in his eyes.

But the Holloway family merger depended on this marriage.

He gritted his teeth and glared at Alysia.

"It's a forgery. And if you walk out that door today, you forfeit the Manhattan penthouse in mother's trust fund."

The temperature in Alysia's blood dropped to absolute zero.

She stood up.

Her chair scraped loudly against the floor.

"If you touch one brick of my mother's apartment," Alysia said, her voice a deadly hum, "I will burn this Long Island estate to the ground while you sleep in it."

Gladstone stood up, trying to reclaim his authority.

"Guards! Lock her in the guest room upstairs until she agrees to the surgery!"

Two massive bodyguards stepped out from the shadows of the hallway, moving toward Alysia.

Alysia didn't run.

She reached up and pulled the sharp metal hairpin from her updo.

Her hair tumbled down her back.

Before the first bodyguard could grab her arm, she lunged. She didn't aim for a kill shot, but jabbed the hairpin into the nerve cluster behind his ear. The man's arm went numb and dropped, his face a mask of shocked pain. The second guard paused, stunned by the unexpected, vicious attack.

The room gasped in horror.

Alysia pushed the massive man aside with her free hand.

She didn't look back as she walked out the front door, leaving the Kent family choking on their own ruin.

The next morning.

Alysia sat in a glass-walled conference room on the sixtieth floor of a Wall Street law firm.

Across from her sat Mr. Sterling, the trust attorney.

He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, a smug, patronizing smile on his face.

"Your brother filed the injunction this morning, Alysia. He intends to freeze the transfer of the penthouse."

Alysia opened the heavy leather-bound trust document on the table.

She flipped directly to page thirty.

She tapped her manicured fingernail against a specific paragraph.

"Read the contingency clause out loud, Mr. Sterling."

Sterling sighed, annoyed.

"The beneficiary must enter into a legally binding marriage before her twenty-fourth birthday to secure absolute ownership of the property."

Alysia glanced at the digital clock on the wall.

"I turn twenty-four in exactly forty-six hours."

Sterling leaned back in his chair.

"Which means you are out of time. Take the cash settlement your father offered. It's better than walking away with nothing."

Alysia studied the way Sterling's eyes darted toward the door.

"You played golf with Kaden on Tuesday at Shinnecock Hills," she stated.

Sterling's smile vanished.

"I maintain professional relationships with all members of the Kent family."

Alysia reached into her trench coat pocket.

She pulled out a single sheet of paper and slid it across the polished mahogany table.

It was a transaction log she had pulled from the dark web at 3:00 AM.

Sterling looked down.

Sweat instantly beaded on his forehead.

The red highlighted lines detailed exactly how much client money he had embezzled into an offshore account in the Caymans.

Alysia leaned forward, invading his space.

"You will reject Kaden's injunction immediately. You will have the title transfer documents ready."

Sterling swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"Even if I stall him, Alysia, the board will seize the property if you don't produce a marriage certificate. I can't fake a legal marriage."

Alysia stood up.

She smoothed the front of her coat.

"Have the paperwork on your desk. You'll have the certificate in forty-six hours."

She walked out of the law firm and onto the freezing streets of lower Manhattan.

The wind whipped her hair across her face.

She pulled out her phone and opened an encrypted messaging app.

She typed a quick message to an underground information broker she used in her past lives.

I need a list of single men in Manhattan. Desperate for capital. Willing to sign an extreme ironclad prenup. Two hours.

Thirty minutes later, Alysia sat in a dimly lit, overpriced coffee shop in Tribeca.

She scrolled through the encrypted file on her iPad.

Candidate one: A bankrupt hedge fund manager.

She looked at his photo. His eyes were greedy. She swiped left.

Candidate two: A C-list actor looking for a PR stunt.

She grimaced, feeling bile rise in her throat at the thought of dealing with paparazzi. Swiped left.

She rejected fifteen men in ten minutes.

Frustration tightened her chest.

She picked up her black coffee and took a scalding sip.

She glanced up at the muted television mounted above the barista station.

The ticker at the bottom read: CANTRELL GROUP CEO FACES BOARD OUSTER OVER REFUSAL TO MARRY.

The screen flashed to a photograph of Jude Cantrell.

His face was a study in sharp angles and absolute cruelty.

His slate-gray eyes stared out from the screen, devoid of any warmth.

Alysia's brain immediately accessed the data from her previous simulations.

Jude Cantrell.

Ruthless. Cold. Currently fighting a massive internal war for control of his company's core AI division.

He was the ultimate shield against the Kent family.

Alysia set her coffee down.

She pulled up a terminal window on her iPad and began typing lines of code.

She bypassed the firewall of the New York City Hall appointment registry.

She searched for any activity related to the Cantrell name.

A hit popped up.

Alex Vance, Jude's chief of staff, had just canceled a lunch reservation at a restaurant two blocks from City Hall.

Jude was down there.

He was either signing compliance documents or hiding from his grandfather's arranged marriage prospects.

Alysia closed the iPad and shoved it into her bag.

She threw a hundred-dollar bill on the table and ran out the door.

She flagged down a yellow cab.

"City Hall. Step on it."

The cab jerked forward, weaving violently through the midday traffic.

Alysia stared at her watch.

The minutes bled away.

When the cab finally screeched to a halt outside City Hall, Alysia saw them.

Three black, bulletproof SUVs were parked illegally by the curb.

The air around the vehicles felt heavy, dangerous.

Alysia took a deep breath, aligning her spine.

She pushed through the revolving doors, walking straight into the fire.

The main hall of the Marriage Bureau was loud, packed with couples holding cheap bouquets.

Alysia ignored them all.

Her eyes scanned the room and locked onto the VIP waiting area in the far corner.

Jude Cantrell sat on a leather bench.

He wore a bespoke charcoal suit that looked like armor.

His long legs were crossed, and he was staring down at a tablet, his thumb swiping aggressively across the screen.

He radiated a freezing, untouchable energy.

His chief of staff, Alex Vance, stood beside him.

Two massive bodyguards flanked the perimeter, their eyes scanning the crowd for threats.

Alysia walked over to a vending machine near the wall.

She bought a cup of scalding hot black coffee.

She held the flimsy paper cup in her left hand and walked casually toward the VIP area.

As she approached the invisible perimeter set by the bodyguards, she let her right ankle roll.

She pitched forward.

The hot coffee flew from her hand, splashing directly onto the chest of the bodyguard on the left.

The man hissed in pain, instinctively stepping backward and swatting at his ruined suit jacket.

The defensive line broke for exactly one second.

Alysia didn't apologize.

She slipped through the gap like a ghost.

Alex reacted instantly.

He lunged forward, his hand reaching for Alysia's shoulder to physically throw her back.

"Step back, miss!" Alex barked.

Alysia dropped her shoulder, letting Alex's hand slide off her coat.

With her right hand, she shoved a thick, matte-black business card directly into Alex's palm.

Alex looked down, ready to crush the card.

He froze.

Printed on the card wasn't code, but a single, elegant equation that redefined the project's core problem-the exact solution to the fatal flaw in the Cantrell Group's core AI project-the flaw that was currently tearing the company apart.

In the half-second Alex stopped breathing, Alysia stepped past him.

She stopped exactly two feet in front of Jude Cantrell.

Jude finally looked up from his tablet.

His slate-gray eyes met hers.

There was no surprise in his gaze, only a violent, calculating stillness.

The bodyguards recovered.

They drew their tasers, aiming the red laser dots directly at Alysia's chest.

The air in the hall turned to ice.

Jude raised his right hand.

He didn't speak, but the bodyguards instantly froze, lowering their weapons an inch.

Jude adjusted his left cufflink with his thumb-a slow, deliberate motion.

"Do you have any idea how stupid you are?" Jude's voice was a low, gravelly threat.

Alysia stared down at him.

Her heart beat in a slow, controlled rhythm.

"Stupider than getting ousted from your own board in ten minutes because you refuse to marry a socialite?"

Jude's eyes darkened. The news was public—every financial channel had been running the ticker for hours—but hearing it thrown in his face by a stranger still grated on his nerves.

Alysia pulled a plastic chair from a nearby desk and dragged it over.

She sat down directly across from him, crossing her legs, mirroring his dominant posture.

"One year," Alysia said, her voice completely devoid of emotion. "A contract marriage. I act as your shield against your grandfather's arranged marriages. You act as my shield to secure my trust fund."

Jude let out a harsh, mocking laugh.

"Why the hell would I partner with a stray off the street when I have a line of heiresses waiting outside?"

Alysia leaned forward.

She could smell the sharp scent of cedar and expensive scotch on him.

"Because an heiress comes with a board seat and a father who wants to control you," Alysia whispered. "I come with nothing. I am clean. And I am easy to control."

She paused, letting the silence stretch.

"More importantly," she added, nodding toward Alex's hand. "I can fix the AI code on that card. You walk into your board meeting today with a working prototype, and you own the room."

Jude's eyes darkened.

He stared at her face, searching for the lie.

He found nothing but a terrifying, empty confidence.

Alex checked his watch, his face pale.

"Sir. Your grandfather's motorcade is fifteen minutes away. They are coming to pull you out of here."

Jude sat in silence for ten agonizing seconds.

The tension between them was physical, a heavy pressure pushing against Alysia's ribs.

Suddenly, Jude tossed his tablet to Alex.

He stood up, towering over Alysia.

"Where is the contract?" he demanded, his voice devoid of any warmth.

Alysia unzipped her bag.

She pulled out a thirty-page, legally binding prenuptial agreement.

Jude didn't read a single word.

He flipped to the last page, pulled a silver fountain pen from his breast pocket, and slashed his signature across the bottom line.

He threw the packet back at her.

His large hand shot out, wrapping around her wrist like a vice.

The heat of his skin burned through her sleeve.

"Let's go take the damn picture," he ordered, dragging her toward the registration window.