SHE MARRIED INTO POWER… BUT THEY DIDN’T KNOW SHE WAS THE SYSTEM THEY TRIED TO HACK
CHAPTER 1: THE MORNING THEY DECIDED I WAS PROPERTY
The slap came before the wedding flowers had even begun to wilt.
On the second morning of my marriage, white roses still lined the hallway, but Daniel’s hand struck my face before breakfast was even served.
My lip split instantly.
The gold wedding band on his finger caught the kitchen light as his hand stayed suspended in the air like it had never decided to come back down.
“She is my sister,” he said flatly. “You are the wife. Know your place.”
Behind him, Vanessa leaned against the marble island—smiling.
Not nervous. Not ashamed.
Patient.
Like she had been waiting for this exact moment.
Margaret sat at the breakfast table in a silk robe, sipping coffee like nothing had happened.
Richard folded his newspaper with a sigh.
“Must we do this before nine?” he muttered.
Vanessa tilted her cup and slowly poured coffee onto the marble floor.
It spread toward my bare feet.
“Clean it,” she said softly.
Forty-eight hours earlier, they had called me family.
Now I was standing in their kitchen bleeding.
I bent down—but not for the coffee.
My phone lay near the pantry.
Daniel had knocked it from my hand.
I reached for it.
His shoe pressed down.
“You don’t need that,” he said.
The glass cracked under his weight.
Something inside me went still.
“Move your foot.”
Margaret gave a quiet laugh. “She still thinks she’s in a boardroom.”
Vanessa smirked. “Her little company doesn’t matter here.”
That word—little—told me everything.
They didn’t just underestimate me.
They had already gone into my systems.
Daniel leaned down. “We moved your work items somewhere safe.”
“Where?”
“You’re my wife now,” he said. “No secrets.”
That was the mistake.
A security chime sounded from the pantry wall.
Then another.
Daniel froze.
The Cole estate security system had just flagged an unauthorized data action.
And the name on the alert…
was mine.
May you like
I looked at them.
“The frozen accounts,” I said quietly, “are only the beginning.”
