THE FIRST WIFE

My lungs felt like they were filled with shattered glass.

I stumbled down twenty-eight flights of concrete stairs, my thighs burning, the smell of smoke clinging to my hair and clothes. I had Dorian’s blood on my hands, his stolen blueprints clutched to my chest, and a dead man’s phone in my pocket.

When I finally pushed open the heavy fire door to the ground floor, the Obsidian Tower’s lobby was absolute chaos.

Guests in silk pajamas and fur coats were screaming, huddled together in the cold night air as fire trucks painted the street in flashing red lights. No one looked at me. I was just another terrified woman covered in soot.

I slipped into the crowd, pulling my hood up, and disappeared into the Manhattan night.

I didn’t go home. Marcus would be there, or worse, Victor Krane’s men. Instead, I walked forty blocks in the freezing cold until my legs gave out, and I checked into a cheap, cash-only motel in Hell’s Kitchen.

I locked the door, shoved a chair under the handle, and finally looked in the mirror. I looked like a ghost. My face was pale, my eyes wide and shell-shocked. But there was something else in my gaze now. Something hard.

I took a scalding shower, scrubbing Dorian’s blood from under my fingernails until my skin was raw. When I got out, I dumped Dorian’s briefcase onto the bed.

Files. Dozens of them. Bank statements, offshore accounts, photographs.

And then, I found the file labeled CHEN, CATHERINE.

My hands shook as I opened it.

Inside wasn’t a file on me. It was a file on him.

Real Name: Marcus Webb.

Status: Active Asset.

Handler: Victor Krane.

I flipped the page, my blood running cold. It was a list of women. Five names. Four were crossed out with a single, brutal word written beside them: DISPOSED.

The fifth name was mine. CATHERINE ASHFORD.

Not Chen. Ashford.

I stared at the name, a buzzing static filling my brain. Ashford. Why did that name sound so familiar?

I dug through the rest of the briefcase and found a stolen photograph. It was old, frayed at the edges, showing a man with sharp features and my exact shade of brown eyes. He was standing next to a young woman, holding a little girl on his shoulders.

I flipped the photo over. In faded ink, someone had written: Richard Ashford & daughter Eleanor, 1995.

I didn’t have a sister. I didn’t have a father. I was Catherine Chen, an orphan who grew up in foster care. That was what Marcus had told me. That was what the forged documents said.

But the little girl in the photo had my face.

A sudden, terrifying realization washed over me. The name Dorian had mentioned in the hotel room. Richard Ashford. The man Victor Krane framed for murder.

My father was alive. And Marcus had married me to get to him.

I barely had time to process the bomb that had just detonated in my life before a sharp knock echoed through the motel room.

I froze, my heart leaping into my throat. I grabbed the pepper spray, crouching behind the bed.

"Room service," a muffled voice called out.

"Wrong room," I shouted back, my voice shaking. "I didn't order anything."

"It's paid for, Mrs. Chen. Courtesy of your husband."

The lock clicked. The chair I had wedged under the handle splintered like a toothpick.

I sprayed the second the door swung open, a cloud of burning capsaicin hitting a man in a black suit square in the face. He roared, clawing at his eyes. I didn’t wait. I grabbed the briefcase, smashed the window with a heavy lamp, and climbed out onto the rusty fire escape.

I jumped the last five feet to the alley below, my ankle rolling as I hit the pavement. A gunshot rang out, the bullet chipping the brick inches from my head.

I ran.

I ran until my lungs burned, taking random turns through the grid of the city until I was hopelessly lost in a residential neighborhood in the West Village. Panting, I ducked into a small, hidden coffee shop that was just opening for the morning rush.

I ordered a black coffee, sat in the back corner facing the door, and waited.

Ten minutes later, the chair across from me scraped against the floor.

I looked up, ready to bolt, and my breath caught in my throat.

The woman sitting across from me was... me.

She had my dark brown eyes, my exact bone structure, and my hair, though hers was a striking blonde. She looked at me with a cold, calculating expression, her fingers wrapped around a cup of black tea.

"You're a hard woman to track down," she said. Her voice was husky and confident.

"Who are you?" I demanded, gripping my coffee cup like a weapon.

"My name is Eleanor. But you probably know me better as the woman Marcus murdered in a boating accident five years ago." She leaned forward, her eyes boring into mine. "The First Wife."

I stared at her, the pieces of the puzzle refusing to click together. "Dorian told me about you. Why do you look like me?"

"Because we share the same father, little sister. Richard Ashford." Eleanor sighed, a flicker of sadness breaking through her hard exterior. "And because Marcus has a type. He met me fifteen years ago. I was his first real mark. I didn't die on that boat, Catherine. I faked my death to escape him. I've been in hiding, watching him, waiting for the day he tried to destroy someone else."

"You could have warned me!" I hissed, the anger boiling over. "You could have saved me from three years of—"

"I didn't know you existed!" she snapped back, her eyes flashing. "Our father hid you from everyone. He gave you a fake name to protect you from Victor Krane. I only found out about you two days ago when I saw Dorian's surveillance photos of you."

She reached into her bag and pulled out a thick manila envelope, sliding it across the table.

"What's this?"

"The truth. Dorian isn't dead, by the way. My contacts pulled him out of that building before the roof collapsed. He's in a secure facility."

Relief, so intense it made me dizzy, washed over me. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream.

"Then why are you here?" I asked, gripping the envelope. "Why not take me to him?"

"Because Dorian is buying us time. Victor Krane knows you have Dorian's files. He knows you're a loose end. He has put a ten-million-dollar bounty on your head."

Eleanor leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper.

"There is only one person in the world who can protect you now. And he's been waiting twenty years for a chance to meet you."

She tapped the envelope.

"Inside is a safe house address in upstate New York. And the location of the man who owns half of Manhattan's secrets."

"Richard Ashford," I whispered.

Eleanor nodded, a grim smile on her face. "Our father. But Catherine, listen to me. He's not the man we grew up hearing stories about. He is dangerous, paranoid, and broken. But he is the only weapon we have against Victor."

I looked down at the envelope, then back at the woman who shared my face. My life as a quiet, quiet surgeon was over.

I was a target. I was a pawn.

But I was done playing by their rules.

"Let's go meet our father," I said, grabbing the envelope and standing up.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 4: THE KING IN HIDING