My Husband Forced Me to Build Weapons for His Mistress

The vibration of the phone against the steel workbench felt like a warning shot. It wasn't the rhythmic pulse of my servers or the low hum of the cooling units that had become my only companions in this basement exile. It was frantic. Continuous.

I wiped the grease from my fingers—trembling, stupid fingers—and swiped the screen. The name *Arthur Penhaligon* flashed in bold white letters. My father’s lawyer. He never called. He only emailed encrypted documents.

"Olive," Arthur’s voice was a jagged shard of glass. "It’s your father. Massive hemorrhagic stroke. He’s at Harborview in Seattle. They don’t think he’ll make the night."

The air in the server room vanished. My lungs pumped, but nothing filled them. My father. The man who taught me that an circuit board was poetry, who held my hand when I soldered my first microchip. He was dying alone, three thousand miles away, while I was trapped in a cage of my own design.

"I'm coming," I whispered, the words scraping my throat. "Tell him I'm coming."

I didn't wait for the elevator. I took the service stairs two at a time, my boots slamming against the concrete, echoing the panic hammering in my chest. I burst onto the penthouse floor, gasping, sweat slicking my back.

The living area was a war room. Holographic maps of Manhattan floated above the obsidian coffee table, casting an eerie blue glow over Xander’s face. He was pacing, a phone pressed to his ear, his free hand gripping a tumbler of whiskey so hard I waited for the glass to shatter.

"Find her, Zaid," he snarled into the phone. "I don't care if you have to tear the Upper East Side apart brick by brick. If the press finds out my fiancée is missing before the gala, you’re dead."

He hung up and hurled the phone onto the sofa. It bounced, harmlessly, unlike the violence radiating from him. He didn't look at me. To him, I was just background noise, a glitch in his perfect system.

"Xander," I said. My voice was small, pathetic. I hated it. "I need the jet."

He finally turned. His eyes were bloodshot, the charismatic mask slipping to reveal the predator beneath. "You need to be in the basement, fixing the targeting algorithm for the MK-7s. Why are you up here?"

"My father," I choked out, stepping into the blue light of the map. "He had a stroke. He's dying, Xander. I need twenty-four hours. Just twenty-four. I'll come back. I'll work double shifts. I'll rewrite the entire guidance system. Please."

I was begging. The heiress to Taylor Dynamics, the architect of his empire, begging like a dog for scraps.

Xander laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. He walked over to the map, swiping his hand through the projection of Central Park. "Jasmine is gone. Ran off like a spoiled child because I raised my voice. Do you know what happens to the Senate deal if my 'political ticket' isn't on my arm tomorrow night?"

"My father is dying!" I screamed, the sound ripping out of me.

He moved instantly. One hand shot out, grabbing my jaw, his fingers digging into my cheeks, forcing my head up. His skin was hot, his breath smelling of stale alcohol and cruelty.

"People die, Olive. It's inefficient, but it happens," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Your father is a relic. His death is irrelevant to the expansion of this company. Finding Jasmine is not."

"He's your father-in-law," I whimpered, tears leaking onto his fingers. "You spent Christmas with him. He funded your first prototype."

"He funded *you*," Xander corrected, releasing my face with a shove that sent me stumbling back. "And now, you belong to me. No one leaves this building until Jasmine is found. We are on lockdown. Get back to work."

"I won't," I said. The defiance was weak, trembling, but it was there.

Xander didn't even blink. "Zaid," he called out to the shadow standing by the elevator. "Escort Mrs. Coleman back to her workspace. Lock the door from the outside. If she touches the firewall again, cut the power to the ventilation."

I was dragged away. I didn't fight; I was too numb. The heavy steel door of the server room slammed shut, the electronic lock engaging with a finality that sounded like a coffin lid.

I sat on the cold floor, my phone clutched in my hands. The signal in the bunker was weak, flickering between one bar and none. I watched the minutes tick by. Each one was a drop of blood leaving my body.

At 4:12 AM, the phone buzzed. A FaceTime request from an unknown number.

I answered. The screen was grainy, pixelated. A nurse with tired eyes looked back at me. Behind her, a rhythmic beeping slowed. Stopped. Flattened into a singular, high-pitched tone.

She turned the camera. I saw him. He looked so small beneath the hospital sheets, the brilliant mind that had revolutionized modern warfare reduced to a shell. He was grey. Still. Alone.

"I'm sorry, honey," the nurse said softly. "He waited as long as he could."

The call disconnected.

I didn't scream. I didn't throw the phone. I sat in the humming dark, the blue light of the servers washing over me. The grief didn't hit me like a wave; it hit me like a freeze. It solidified my blood. It turned the sorrow in my gut into something heavy, cold, and sharp.

I looked at my hands. These hands had built the weapons that made Xander a king. These hands had written the code that locked these doors.

Xander thought he had buried me down here. He thought grief would break me. He forgot what I was. I wasn't just a wife. I wasn't just an engineer.

I was a Taylor.

I stood up and walked to the terminal. The tears on my face were cold now. I didn't wipe them away. I wanted to feel them. I wanted to remember exactly how they felt when I burned his world to the ground.

"System Diagnostic," I told the computer, my voice steady, flat, deadly.

*Processing...*

Xander wanted a weapon? Fine. I would give him one.