The Billionaire's Dangerous Wife

Roxanne's POV

The smell of copper and industrial bleach is a combination that never quite washes out of your skin, no matter how many times you scrub under scalding hot water.

I adjusted the straps of my heavy-duty respirator, pressing my gloved palms against the cold marble floor of the penthouse. The Crimson Heights building catered strictly to the city's elite—people who bought silence with six-figure checks and disposed of messy problems just as easily. Tonight, my contracting agency had picked up a rush job. Premium pay, zero questions asked. Standard protocol for a high-end bio-hazard cleanup.

"Just wipe down the primary suite, Roxy," my supervisor’s voice had crackled through the comm-link earlier. "The client wants it ready by dawn."

Blood doesn't just pool; it stains. It creeps into the microscopic grooves of hardwood, splatters against imported wallpaper, and tells a violent story long after the bodies have been bagged and hauled away by the authorities. I dragged a heavy-duty sponge across a dark burgundy smear near the edge of a king-sized bed, my muscles aching from twelve hours of continuous labor.

My back screamed in protest as I straightened up, peeling off the damp latex gloves to wipe a streak of sweat from my forehead. That was when my eyes caught the framed photograph shattered on the mahogany nightstand.

The glass was cracked right down the center, spiderwebbing over a face I knew better than my own reflection.

Ethan.

My breath caught in my throat, a sharp, metallic taste flooding my mouth. I froze, my heart hammering a violent rhythm against my ribs as I dropped to my knees and picked up the heavy frame.

It was Ethan—my fiancé of three years, the man who had kissed my forehead just forty-eight hours ago before leaving for a "business trip" out of the country. Except the woman smiling brightly beside him in the shattered portrait wasn't me. It was Victoria Sterling, the untouchable heiress to the city's largest real estate empire, draped in diamonds and silk.

Married. Yesterday.

Panic and icy realization crashed over me simultaneously. I looked around the luxury suite—the overturned designer furniture, the shattered decorative lamps, the deep gouges in the wall. This wasn’t a random homicide or a botched robbery. This was an execution. Ethan had tried to run, or perhaps he had tried to demand more than his silence was worth from his new, dangerously powerful family, and they had permanently silenced him.

Think, Roxy, think.

My hands shook, the sponge slipping from my fingers and splashing into the bloody water. If Ethan died here, and I was the private cleaner brought in to sanitize the crime scene before the official forensics report was fully logged... that meant I wasn't just an accidental witness. I was the built-in alibi—or the designated scapegoat.

Before I could even stand up, a harsh, metallic click echoed from the private elevator at the end of the hall. Muffled voices cut through the quiet air. Heavy footsteps, confident and synchronized, stepped onto the hardwood floor outside the suite.

"Make sure the cleanup crew left no traces," a cold, unfamiliar male voice commanded. "The board cannot afford a leak before the acquisition goes public."

Shit.

My survival instincts kicked in with brutal efficiency. There was no time for tears, no room for grief over a man who had betrayed me. I dove behind the massive velvet drapes framing the floor-to-ceiling windows, pulling the heavy fabric tightly around my shoulders just as the bedroom doors swung open.

Through a narrow gap in the crimson fabric, I watched three men step into the room. Two of them wore expensive tailored suits, their jackets pulled back to reveal the sleek outlines of silenced handguns tucked into shoulder holsters. The third man—older, with silver-streaked hair and eyes devoid of any human warmth—walked straight to the nightstand where I had just been standing.

"The cleaner," the older man murmured, his gaze dropping to the wet sponge left beside the bed, then to the open toolbox I had abandoned near the bathroom door. "She was here. Find her. If she saw the security drive in the safe, she’s already walking dead."

My blood ran cold. The safe.

My eyes darted toward the wall safe behind the smashed painting. The heavy steel door was slightly ajar, and protruding from the internal slot was a small, blinking black USB drive.

The master CCTV backup.

My pulse roared in my ears like a freight train. Without thinking, fueled purely by raw adrenaline, my hand brushed against my utility belt. My backup pocket knife was still there, but my phone—along with my ID, my agency badge, and every shred of my legal identity—was sitting right on top of my supply cart out in the hallway.

The men split up. One of them headed straight toward the bathroom where I was hiding.

I didn't hesitate. I slipped the heavy glass window open just a fraction of an inch, ignoring the freezing rain lashing against the glass from thirty stories up. As the heavy velvet curtain shifted, the shadow of the gunman fell across the floor inches from my boots.

I slipped through the gap into the freezing night air, gripping the narrow stone ledge with fingers numb from the cold, leaving the safety of the penthouse behind and stepping straight into a nightmare.