Adrienne POV

Twelve minutes. That was exactly how long I had before the Romero family's Soldiers arrived to collect their collateral.

"Sign it." Harlon slammed the thick stack of legal documents onto the mahogany table, sending a Montblanc pen rolling across the wood. The guest suite living room reeked of Brenda's cheap perfume and Harlon's nervous sweat, a stark contrast to the expensive Persian rug beneath our feet.

I clutched my cheap, sequined purse, widening my eyes beneath the fried platinum bangs. I shrank back, playing the perfect, terrified idiot. "No. Not until I get my two million."

Brenda's face twisted in ugly fury. "You little spy!"

Harlon kicked a dining chair. It crashed violently to the floor. "You ungrateful trailer-park trash! You'll sign it, or I'll let the loan sharks carve you up!"

I let out a flawless, hysterical sob, letting my shoulders shake. "You're selling me to a monster who kills people! If I'm going to be fed to 'The Ghost,' I want to die rich!" I grabbed the pre-nup and shoved it hard into Cammie's chest. "You marry him then!"

Cammie shrieked and scrambled backward, her face pale with genuine terror at the mere mention of Emiliano Romero.

Checkmate.

Harlon glanced at his Rolex, a vein pulsing in his forehead. If the Romero Soldiers knocked and the deal wasn't done, he would face a mafia Vendetta and the loan sharks simultaneously. Sweating profusely, he yanked out his phone. "Fine. Give me the account."

I rattled off a Swiss routing number, my voice still trembling for effect. As he hit transfer, I blinked twice. The micro-device embedded in my contact lens synced with the transaction, encrypting the routing and locking the funds instantly. Harlon thought he could cancel the wire the second I was out the door. He was wrong. *Cipher* always secured the bag.

The transfer confirmation pinged. I picked up the pen and scrawled a completely forged, legally void signature on the dotted line.

Right on cue, the heavy, ominous chime of the estate doorbell echoed through the suite.

Harlon lunged. His thick fingers dug brutally into my bruised arm, his face inches from mine. "If you screw this up, Adrienne," he snarled, spit flying from his lips, "I will find you and make you beg for death."

I looked down at his hand, then up into his bloodshot eyes. The trembling, terrified girl vanished in a fraction of a second. I yanked my arm free with a sharp, calculated twist that left him stumbling back in shock.

"Goodbye, Uncle Harlon," I said, my voice dropping to a dead, icy calm. "Thanks for the tip."

I grabbed my cheap duffel bag stuffed with newspaper and walked out the door, leaving their pathetic gasps behind.

Outside the grand entrance, a black armored Romero sedan idled like a hearse. A massive man in a tailored suit stood like a gargoyle by the open rear door. Thomas. The Ghost's personal gatekeeper.

He didn't spare me a single glance as I slid into the cavernous, black leather interior. The heavy door shut with a vault-like thud, sealing me inside.

As the car pulled away, leaving the Holcombs behind the iron gates, the thick bulletproof glass partition between the front and back seats began to glide up.

I needed intel. I slumped against the leather, loudly popping a bubble with the cheap gum I was chewing. "So," I chirped, injecting pure naive dread into my voice. "All those rumors about Mr. Ghost... is he really crazy?"

Thomas met my eyes in the rearview mirror just before the glass sealed completely. His voice crackled through the intercom, cold and abrasive as crushed glass.

"In the Romero family, what you hear is what we let you hear. The truth is always worse."

The intercom clicked off. The partition locked into place, plunging the back seat into absolute silence.

Adrienne POV

The armored sedan glided to a halt, the engine purring into silence. The vault-like door was pulled open by Thomas, the cold morning air rushing into the cabin. I kept my shoulders hunched, clutching my cheap sequined purse to my chest as I stepped out onto the gravel driveway.

We weren't at the grand main entrance anymore. Looming before me was the Fortified Annex—a brutalist structure of gray granite and reinforced glass that looked more like a high-tech black site than a part of a mafia estate.

Standing at the top of the stone steps was Blanche Romero.

She wore an immaculate, tailored white suit, her blonde hair pulled back into a severe chignon. She looked down at me with the absolute disdain of a queen inspecting a cockroach that had crawled onto her pristine marble floors.

"M-Mrs. Romero," I stammered, forcing my voice to tremble as I took a hesitant step forward. "I'm Adrienne—"

She didn't let me finish. Blanche descended the steps, her leather-gloved hand snapping out to grip my jaw in a vice. Her perfectly manicured nails dug into my skin as she wrenched my face from side to side, her cold eyes lingering on the dark purple bruise Cammie had left on my cheekbone.

"Her skin is barely passable," Blanche sneered, not to me, but to a maid hovering nervously in the shadows. "But this straw hair... it's a disgrace. Strip it. Dye it back to black. I won't have cheap chemicals shedding on my rugs."

She released me with a shove that nearly sent me stumbling backward.

I let my lower lip quiver, widening my eyes in perfectly orchestrated panic. "W-what about the wedding? Uncle Harlon said—"

Blanche let out a sharp, mocking laugh that echoed off the granite walls. She snapped her fingers. From the shadows behind her, a man in a sharp suit—Mr. Davies, the Family's Advisor—stepped forward, holding a sleek leather folder.

"Wedding?" Blanche mocked, her lips curling into a cruel smile. "The papers were signed by proxy twenty minutes ago. Thomas was the witness. Legally, you are already Emiliano's wife."

She leaned in close, her expensive floral perfume suffocating me. "There is no wedding cake, little thing. Only you, and your duty."

*Your duty.* The words locked perfectly into the puzzle of the murder plot I had overheard in the restroom. She wasn't welcoming a daughter-in-law; she was installing a disposable executioner.

Without another word, Blanche turned on her heel and glided back toward the main house, Mr. Davies trailing behind her like a shadow.

Thomas gestured for me to move. We walked down a long, enclosed glass walkway connecting the main house to the Annex. Outside the reinforced panes, the manicured gardens bloomed in the morning sun—a cruel, mocking contrast to the sterile, echoing marble beneath my cheap sneakers. It felt like a march to the gallows.

At the end of the walkway stood a massive titanium door. Thomas stepped up to the panel, aligning his eye with a retina scanner before punching in a rapid code. The heavy bolts hissed, and the door glided open.

The smell hit me instantly—a clinical, suffocating blend of antiseptic and ozone.

I stepped inside. The walls were lined with seamless white padding. The floor was a dull, gray linoleum. In every upper corner, the red LED lights of high-end security cameras blinked rhythmically, recording every breath I took.

Thomas stopped and pulled a blank white keycard from his jacket, holding it out to me. He pointed down the narrow, blindingly bright corridor to a single, heavy door at the very end.

"Don't go in before he's restrained," Thomas said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. "Don't turn your back on him. Don't give him anything he can use as a weapon."

I took the card with a shaking hand, looking up at the massive Soldier.

Thomas paused, his dark, dead eyes locking onto mine. "The last nurse, her fingers were broken one by one."

He didn't wait for a response. He turned and walked back through the titanium door. The heavy steel slammed shut behind me, the locking mechanism engaging with a deafening, final thud that sounded like a tomb being sealed.

I stood completely alone in the sterile white corridor. The terrified trembling in my hands vanished instantly, replaced by the ice-cold calm of my training.

From behind the door at the end of the hall, the heavy, metallic drag of chains scraped across the floor, followed by a low, suppressed growl.