Married To My Fiancé's Billionaire Uncle

Alethea Green knelt on one knee, the cold mud of Veridia City Cemetery seeping through her jeans. Rain plastered strands of black hair to her temples, but her face was as still and hard as the granite tombstone before her.

Dr. Eleanor Beaumont. Beloved Scientist. Loving Mother.

The words were a lie. A sanitized epitaph for a woman whose name had been dragged through filth.

From the pocket of her black trench coat, she pulled a yellowed newspaper clipping, carefully preserved in a plastic sleeve. The headline from eight years ago screamed in bold letters: Beaumont Scandal: Medical Fraud Claims Young Lives.

Her gloved finger traced the name 'Beaumont,' a tremor of pain shooting up her arm. It was a ghost limb, an ache for a life stolen. She quickly suppressed it, encasing the feeling in ice.

She took out a silver Zippo lighter. With a flick, a small, defiant flame danced in the gray downpour. She touched it to the corner of the clipping. The fire caught, greedily consuming the brittle paper, turning the word 'Fraud' to black, curling ash.

"Mom, I'm back," she whispered, her voice a low rasp swallowed by the rain. "I will make them pay. All of them."

She let the last corner of the paper burn her fingertips before dropping it. The ashes scattered over the wet grass, a dark sacrament. The ritual was complete.

A vibration in her pocket. She pulled out her phone. The screen glowed with a single name: Silas.

She answered, her voice stripped of all emotion, back to its usual flat monotone. "I'm done here."

"Thea, are you sure about this?" Silas Vance's voice was tight with worry on the other end. "Veridia City is their turf."

Alethea's gaze lifted, sweeping over the distant, rain-shrouded skyscrapers that clawed at the sky. They were monuments to the people she had come to destroy. "I am."

There was a pause, then Silas's tone shifted to business. "The cartel leader in Miami is stable. Your technique is miraculous. They're asking for 'The Surgeon' again."

"My focus is here now," she cut him off, the name 'The Surgeon' feeling like a skin she'd just shed. "Keep them occupied."

She ended the call without a goodbye and slid the phone back into her pocket. Turning her back on the grave, she walked away and didn't look back.

To avoid the main road's surveillance cameras, she took a shortcut through the skeletal remains of Redwater County's industrial sector. The rain fell harder, turning the cracked pavement into a dark, slick mirror. Rusting factories loomed like forgotten beasts on either side of the narrow service road.

As she passed a tight alleyway between two brick warehouses, her ears picked up a sound that didn't belong-frantic, uneven footsteps and the ragged gasp of someone running on empty.

Before she could even turn her head, a force slammed into her from the side. She was yanked violently into the alley, her back hitting the cold, wet brick wall with a force that knocked the air from her lungs. A tall, broad figure blotted out the gray light, completely eclipsing her. A large hand, smelling of copper and rain, clamped over her mouth.

"Scream," a low, gravelly voice rasped in her ear, a threat and a promise, "and we both die."

Outside the alley, beams from heavy-duty flashlights cut through the downpour, accompanied by rough shouts. "He's wounded! He can't have gone far!"

Alethea didn't struggle. Her eyes, startlingly bright in the gloom, remained fixed on the man pinning her to the wall. She wasn't assessing him as a threat to her, but as a patient. Her gaze dropped to his abdomen, where dark blood was steadily seeping through his soaked dress shirt, staining it a deeper shade of black. The scent of blood, gunpowder, and rain was thick in the air, a cloying perfume of violence.

The man, Carlyle Hart, swayed slightly, the loss of blood making him unsteady, but he used his body weight to keep her pinned.

Her eyes narrowed. A quick, professional assessment clicked through her mind. 9mm through-and-through, exit wound likely larger. Possible internal bleeding. He was running out of time.

The footsteps outside grew closer. Carlyle's breathing became harsher, a painful rasp against her ear.

Ignoring his threat completely, Alethea spoke, her voice muffled by his hand but perfectly calm and clear enough for only him to hear. "You've got about ten minutes before you go into hypovolemic shock."

Carlyle's body went rigid. The hand over her mouth loosened infinitesimally. He stared down at the girl in the darkness, at her unnervingly composed face. She seemed more interested in his impending death than her own safety.

The voices of the pursuers faded as they moved down the main road, their footsteps receding into the drumming of the rain. The immediate danger had passed. Carlyle's tense frame relaxed a fraction, but he didn't release her.

Alethea spoke again, her tone now clipped, authoritative, like a doctor issuing an order. "Let me go. I can help you. Or you can bleed out right here. Your choice."