His Unwanted Wife Is Madame Lan

The sudden, violent shatter of glass from the downstairs foyer sounded like a bomb detonating in the dead of night.

Andrea Villarreal's eyes snapped open. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a violent, erratic rhythm that sent a rush of cold adrenaline straight to her fingertips. Two a.m. She lay frozen in the pitch-black master bedroom of the sprawling Morse estate, listening to the heavy, unfamiliar boots echoing on the hardwood floor below.

She didn't groan. She didn't rub her eyes. She simply reached out, her fingers stiff, and grabbed her phone off the nightstand. She dialed the only number she was supposed to rely on.

"What?" Gregory Morse's voice came through the speaker, the icy irritation in his voice thick enough to choke on. "I am in the middle of a summit in London. Make it fast."

Andrea's stomach twisted into a tight, hard knot. The acid burned the back of her throat. Him. Gregory Morse. The man who looked at her only as a ghost. Her tormentor. Her husband.

"Gregory, someone broke into the house," Andrea whispered, her tone turning to absolute ice out of pure terror. "I hear them on the stairs. Please, call the estate security. I can't reach them."

"Stop playing these pathetic games, Andrea," Gregory sighed, the sound dripping with disgust. "Genevra never resorted to such cheap, attention-seeking stunts. If you want my attention, this is the worst way to get it."

"Gregory, I swear-"

The line went dead. He hung up.

Andrea threw off the heavy duvet. The cold air of the bedroom hit her bare skin, but she barely felt it. She walked to the walk-in closet, bypassing the rows of designer clothes he had forced her to wear to mimic his dead fiancée, and knelt before the hidden wall safe. She punched in the code. The heavy metal door clicked open.

She didn't reach for a weapon. She reached for something far more vital for her survival: a heavy encrypted hard drive and a stack of confidential sketchbooks.

Ten minutes later, Andrea slipped out of the second-story window, scaling down the trellis. She wore a tailored black trench coat over a high-necked sweater, buttoned to the top. It was her armor. She kept her head down, bypassing the shadows of the intruders ransacking the ground floor, and slipped into the dense woods lining the property.

The run through the freezing night was silent. The sharp branches tore at her clothes, each one adding a layer of frost to her demeanor.

When she finally reached the safety of a 24-hour diner miles away, the smell of stale coffee and grease hit her like a physical blow. The linoleum floor was littered with napkins. A bottle of ketchup lay on its side, red liquid soaking into the table.

Andrea sat on the edge of the vinyl booth, wrapped in a coat that barely covered her shivering frame. She was holding her phone up, adjusting her messy dark hair, talking to the local police dispatcher.

"They broke in through the patio," Andrea whispered into the receiver, her eyes glassy. "Yes, I'm safe now. My husband? No. He... he couldn't be reached."

She slowly lowered the phone, her hand trembling. A cold, hollow realization settled in her chest. Gregory didn't care if she lived or died. To him, she was just a cheap substitute, a body occupying space in his grand, tragic narrative of losing Genevra.

Andrea didn't blink. She tapped the screen, ended the call, and dropped the phone onto the sticky table with a sharp clack.

She reached into her trench coat, pulled out the encrypted hard drive, and stared at it. This was her true life. Her secret.

"You think I'm just a useless shadow, Gregory?" Andrea said, her voice dangerously quiet. "You have no idea who you married."

The arrogant flush of fear vanished from her face, replaced by a sickly, chalky white resolve. Her arms dropped to her sides.

She opened her laptop. The screen illuminated her tired face. It wasn't displaying PR analytics or stock trends. It was a heavily encrypted portal for Dreamscape Atelier.

Andrea typed in a string of complex passwords. She needed to track the launch schedule for her new fashion line. The exact project that would resurrect her from this living death.

The screen loaded for three agonizing seconds. Her pulse pounded in her ears.

A red box flashed on the screen. WELCOME BACK, MADAME LAN.

Andrea closed her eyes, letting out a shaky breath. She looked down at the Cartier ring on her finger. The diamond caught the passing streetlights, flashing like a warning.

Tomorrow, she had to face the entire Morse family at the Hamptons estate. The real battlefield was just opening.