Flash Marriage To My Fake Disabled Husband

"Keep the change, convict."

The crisp hundred-dollar bill fluttered out of the tinted window of the black Lincoln Navigator. It landed straight in a filthy puddle.

Acacia Dillon stood outside the heavy iron gates of the federal penitentiary. The freezing New York winter rain soaked through her thin, faded jeans, pasting the cheap fabric to her shivering legs. She didn't look at the money. She looked at the woman inside the warm, leather-scented SUV.

Chesnee rolled the window down another inch. Her perfectly manicured fingers tapped the door frame. "You still smell like a prison cell, Acacia. Wash that off before you crawl back to the gutters. Oh, and Brodie and I are getting engaged next month. You're not invited."

Acacia stepped forward. Her worn canvas sneaker crushed the hundred-dollar bill deep into the freezing mud.

She reached out and gripped the top edge of the half-open window. Her knuckles turned bone-white. "Where is Elmira?"

Chesnee let out a sharp laugh. "Still breathing through a tube. Barely."

Acacia's fingers clamped down harder. Her fingers dug brutally into the thick rubber weather stripping of the window. The internal motor of the glass pane let out a faint, strained groan, struggling against the sheer, unyielding force of her grip.

Chesnee's smug smile vanished. Her eyes widened in raw panic as she stared at the bending metal. "Drive! Hit the gas!"

The Navigator tires spun, kicking up a spray of icy mud across Acacia's thighs before tearing down the desolate road.

Acacia didn't wipe the mud off. Her stomach twisted into a cold, hard knot. She turned and began the three-mile walk through the torrential rain.

Two hours later, Acacia kicked open the wrought-iron gate of the Dillon family townhouse on the Upper East Side. A burly security guard in a tailored suit reached for the taser at his belt.

Acacia didn't break her stride. She pivoted on her heel, dropping her center of gravity, and drove her elbow directly into the nerve cluster just below his ribs. The guard's eyes rolled back. He collapsed onto the wet marble steps without a sound.

She lifted her soaked leg and kicked the heavy mahogany front door open. It slammed against the interior wall with a sound like a gunshot.

Bulah Dillon sat on the velvet sofa in the center of the opulent living room, sipping tea from a bone-china cup. She looked up, her face twisting in disgust as Acacia dripped freezing rainwater onto the Persian rug.

"You look like a drowned rat," Bulah sneered, covering her nose with a silk handkerchief.

Acacia closed the distance in three strides. Her chest heaved, her lungs burning from the cold. "Why was Elmira's life support funding cut this morning?"

Bulah calmly set her teacup down. She picked up a thick stack of legal documents from the glass coffee table and tossed them at Acacia's feet.

"Sign it," Bulah commanded. "You forfeit your portion of the trust fund, and you agree to marry the man we've selected for you within three days. Do that, and I'll pay the hospital bill."

"And if I don't?" Acacia's voice was a low, guttural rasp.

"Then the hospital pulls Elmira's ventilator plug at midnight."

A violent surge of adrenaline flooded Acacia's veins. The muscle memory of a trained killer twitched in her fingertips. It would take exactly two seconds to snap Bulah's fragile neck. But the image of her adoptive mother, pale and hooked to machines, forced the killing intent back down her throat.

Acacia bent down and picked up the Montblanc pen resting on the table. She flipped to the signature page. She pressed the nib into the paper so hard that the gold tip snapped in half, leaving a jagged, bleeding ink stain across her name.

Bulah smiled, a cold, reptilian stretch of her lips. "Good girl. Brodie is having his bachelor party tonight at The Tempest Club. Go find him. He has the details of your... arrangement."

Acacia turned on her heel. "Wire one million dollars to the hospital account. Now."

She walked out into the storm.

The Tempest Club was a fortress of exclusivity in Manhattan. The front door bouncers took one look at Acacia's soaked, cheap clothes and shoved her away.

Acacia didn't argue. She slipped into the dark alley behind the club. Her eyes scanned the brick wall, mapping the blind spots of the security cameras. She scaled the fire escape with silent, predatory grace, prying open a ventilation grate and dropping into the service corridor on the top floor.

A waiter carrying a tray of champagne rushed past, his shoulder slamming hard into Acacia's collarbone. Her vision blurred for a fraction of a second. She blinked away the dizziness and looked at the brass numbers on the heavy wooden doors.

She needed Brodie. She needed this nightmare to end. She pushed open the heavy oak door of Suite 880.

The room was pitch black. The heavy electronic lock clicked shut behind her, sealing her in.

Instantly, a suffocating, heavy scent hit her lungs. It smelled like burning spices and raw pheromones. Her heart rate spiked. Her skin flushed with an unnatural, searing heat. Neuro-toxin incense.

Before she could reach for the door handle, a massive, scorching hot hand clamped around her wrist like a steel vice.

Acacia's combat instincts exploded. She twisted her hips, grabbing the man's forearm, attempting to throw his center of gravity over her shoulder in a textbook CQC maneuver.

The man didn't budge.

Instead, a terrifying, raw strength reversed her momentum. He spun her around and slammed her back against the velvet-lined wall. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs.

"Who sent you?" a voice growled in the darkness. It was a voice made of gravel and ice.

The incense was melting Acacia's brain. Her limbs felt heavy, her blood boiling with a drug-induced fire. She thought it was Brodie. She thought this was his sick game.

"Let go of me, you bastard," she gasped, her fingernails digging into his thick shoulders.

The man's breathing was heavy, ragged. The drug in the air was destroying his control, too. His massive hands pinned her wrists above her head.

"You want to play the spy?" he breathed against her neck, his voice dripping with dark, primal hunger. "Let's play."

His mouth crashed down on hers. It wasn't a kiss; it was a violent collision of teeth and heat. Acacia tried to bite him, tried to fight, but the neuro-toxin turned her resistance into a desperate, writhing friction. The darkness swallowed them both as they crashed onto the massive bed, logic and identity burning away in the chemical fire.