The Crime Lord's Deadly Fiancee

Aria's POV

The paperback novel in my hand was the only thing keeping me company on a quiet Tuesday night. It was 9:42 PM.

For five years, I had worked hard to be a normal woman named Clara. I paid cash for my groceries, kept my head down, and worked behind the counter at a quiet antique shop downtown. The blood, the fake passports, and the wet work were supposed to stay buried.

Then my burner phone buzzed against the table. Nobody called or texted this number. Ever.

A second alert flashed across the screen. I felt my pulse spike. I picked up the device and tapped the link.

The screen refreshed with an underworld forum. Right in the center was my unedited face from five years ago.

TARGET: Aria Parker

ALIAS: The Ghost

STATUS: Active

CONDITION: Wanted alive only

BOUNTY: $10,000,000 USD

CONTRACT ISSUED BY: The Sloane Empire

Ten million dollars???

That kind of number didn't just invite professional killers, it turned every dirty cop, street gang, and cutthroat in this state into bloodhounds. For ten million, people would burn down whole city blocks just to search the ashes.

And the name at the bottom made the room more chilling. The Sloane Empire.

They wanted me alive. Five years ago, I stole their offshore digital ledger. If they had finally tied my real face to The Ghost, they weren't sending executioners …they were sending extractors to tear the decryption keys out of my skin.

I smashed the burner phone under my boot, kicked the pieces into the toilet, and sprinted to the bedroom closet. I pulled back the false bottom: twenty thousand in clean bills, two forged European IDs which must have been compromised already, and my suppressed Glock 19.

I slipped down the rusted fire escape into the damp alley behind the building.

The city was already crawling.

Even from the shadows, I could hear it. Sirens blared two avenues over, running without emergency dispatch codes. A marked cruiser rolled down the main street at a crawl, its spotlight sweeping alley mouths and parked cars... dirty precinct cops looking to cash in on the underworld board. Across the intersection, two blacked-out SUVs idled at the curb, spotters with binoculars watching the foot traffic.

The hunt was already live.

Three blocks down, parked beneath a dead streetlamp, sat my old black sedan. I unlocked it, slipped behind the wheel, and fired the engine.

The moment my car rolled into the street, headlights flashed behind me. A battered cargo van.

They were tailing too close, riding my bumper with the sloppy greed of street scavengers desperate to claim the prize before the major cartels moved in. If I stayed on the road, they’d ram me into oncoming traffic or broadcast my coordinates to every gun in the district.

I yanked the wheel hard to the right, sliding the sedan into an unlit dead end alley behind an old fish packing plant. I slammed the brakes, cut off the lights, and kicked my door open.

The van roared in after me, skidding sideways across the road to block the mouth of the alley.

Three men spilled out into the rain, heavy coats unbuttoned. Two carried iron crowbars while the man in the lead held a revolver.

"Don't move, Ghost!" the leader shouted, eyes wide with greed. "Ten million says you breathe, but it doesn't say you need both kneecaps!"

I didn't answer. I didn't waste oxygen on dead weight.

I rushed out from behind my door before his arm could level. I closed the gap, caught his gun wrist, and twisted it until the tendon tore with a sharp pop.

He screamed, but the sound died when I drove my heel hard into the side of his kneecap. The bone cracked. As he folded, I ripped the revolver from his grip and slammed it into his temple. He dropped face-first into the mud, out cold.

The second man swung his crowbar at my head.

I ducked beneath the iron, stepped inside his chest, and drove a palm strike into his throat, followed by an elbow to his jaw. His head snapped back, his eyes rolling back as he slumped against the brick wall.

The third man smirked and signaled me with his palm to come on.

As I rushed toward him, steel caught the yellow spill of the distant streetlight. A hunting blade.

He didn't freeze like an amateur. He lunged low, sweeping the knife in a violent, upward arc. I twisted my torso back, but the edge ripped through my damp jacket and tore across the flesh of my ribs.

Warm, sticky blood instantly soaked through my shirt.

The bastard grinned, thinking he had me. That was his last mistake.

Pain was just information. Ignoring the searing burn in my ribs, I stepped inside his reach before he could reset his blade. My left arm locked around his knife elbow, snapping the joint backward with a dull, wet crack.

He shrieked, dropping the knife onto the floor.

Before he could pull away, I swept his legs out from under him. As he hit the wet asphalt, I drove my boot hard into the side of his skull, shutting his lights out instantly.

Three bodies in the dirt.

I leaned against the wall, pressing one hand hard against my ribs. My fingers came away slick and crimson. A deep, rough slash, painful as hell, but it hadn't hit an organ. I could still run.

I reached into the van, yanked the dashboard radio and cell phones, and threw them down a storm drain. Then I used my pocketknife to slash the front tires of both vehicles.

My safehouse was burned, and my car was compromised. My only clean fallback was locker 4B inside the transit lounge of the Grand Royce Hotel downtown…an unflagged passport and emergency escape funds.

I buttoned my jacket tight over the bleeding cut, pulled my hood low, and melted into the shadows on foot.

Twenty minutes later, I pushed through the heavy revolving doors of the Grand Royce. The lobby was warm, glowing with polished cream marble and brass trim. Rich patrons in tailored suits and silk dresses sat around the central lounge, soft piano music filtering through the air.

Every step pulled at the cut along my ribs, but I kept my spine straight and my steps smooth.

I took a secluded booth in the corner, keeping my back to the wall so I could watch the entrances.

A waiter approached my table carrying a small silver tray. He set down a glass of amber scotch, and right beneath the base of the glass was a folded white paper serving as a coaster.

"I didn't order this," I said, my hands sitting deep inside my coat pockets, one pressing the bloody cloth to my side.

"Compliments of the gentleman," the waiter murmured, giving a slight nod toward the rear corridor before slipping away.

I pulled the paper from under the glass with two fingers and unfolded it. Written in black ink was a single line:

Locker 4B was cleared ten minutes ago, Parker. Sit still.

A cold chill scraped down my spine. My fingers locked around the grip of my Glock beneath my coat.

Footsteps approached the booth, slow and measured.

A tall man slid onto the leather couch directly across from me. He wore a dark, tailored wool coat over an immaculate black suit, his shoulders wide enough to block out the view of the entire room behind him. His dark hair was damp from the rain, his jawline hard and aristocratic, marked by a faint, pale scratch along the cheekbone.

He didn't pull a weapon. He simply leaned back into the deep leather, his unblinking gray eyes pinning me to my seat with total, suffocating stillness.

"Take your hand off the trigger, Aria," he said, his voice a quiet, gravel rasp that didn't carry an inch past our table. "There are four mercenaries in the lounge watching the front doors, and two city detectives on the empire's payroll sitting by the bar with radios. You pull that gun, and half this lobby opens fire before you clear the bench."

My finger didn't budge from the gun hidden under the table. I stared at his face, calculating his facial angles, looking for a match in my memory.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

A faint smirk touched his lips.

"Richard Sloane," he said smoothly.

The name instantly clicked.

"A Sloane," I breathed, my grip tightening on the grip. "Your empire put that ten-million-dollar target on my back."

"The empire didn't issue that contract," Richard corrected, not a single flicker of hesitation in his cold eyes. He leaned forward slightly, his gaze dropping to the dark, widening stain at the waistline of my coat.

"My father did. You took something that belongs to him so he wants you dragged into his basement in chains. I want you alive. And right now, walking past those doors at my side is the only reason you leave this building alive.”