Days before my wedding, my father tore my bridal gown and smashed a hammer into my face so my sister could steal my billionaire fiancé.

While I lay beneath the sterile surgical lights at St. Jude’s, eight miles away in the corporate district of Torrey Pines, Harold Mercer was holding an emergency meeting in the executive boardroom of Mercer Global Logistics.

He had changed out of his blood-speckled vest into a fresh charcoal suit, but he hadn't managed to stop his hands from shaking. He sat at the head of the twenty-seat mahogany table, downing a double shot of bourbon from a crystal tumbler, while Eleanor paced back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, her phone glued to her ear.

Chloe sat in the corner, clutching a leather folder containing her high-fashion modeling portfolio, her face pale beneath heavy layers of foundation.

"The hospital registrar won't release any medical updates," Eleanor hissed, slamming her phone down on the table with an angry clatter. "They said Evelyn is under a private security protocol authorized by the Chief of Staff! Who the hell authorized a security hold on our own daughter?!"

"It doesn't matter," Harold barked, slamming his empty glass down so hard the bourbon sloshed onto the polished wood. "The wedding is in seventy-two hours. Adrian's family has already invested twelve million dollars into the pre-merger escrow account. He cannot back out without triggering a breach-of-contract penalty that would bankrupt his West Coast subsidiary!"

He turned his bloodshot, manic eyes toward Chloe.

"You know what you have to do, Chloe," Harold said, pointing a trembling finger at her. "When Adrian arrives at the estate tonight, you meet him at the front door. You tell him Evelyn suffered a psychotic episode, that she attacked you, that she destroyed her own gown in a fit of hysterical rage, and that we had no choice but to place her under medical observation."

"And if he asks about the police?" Chloe whispered, her lower lip trembling. "Rosa called the sheriff, Dad! The deputies took your hammer!"

"The Sheriff of San Diego County is a personal friend of mine!" Harold roared, slamming both fists onto the table. "I donated two hundred thousand dollars to his re-election campaign last year! That report will be classified as a confidential domestic disturbance, buried in the municipal archives until after the ceremony is finalized!"

The heavy double doors of the boardroom swung open with a concussive, explosive bang.

Two armed private security guards in dark tactical suits stepped through the entrance, their sidearms secured in retention holsters, flanking an elderly man carrying a heavy leather briefcase.

It was Julian Vale—Adrian’s uncle and the chief legal counsel for the Vale Maritime Syndicate.

Beside him walked Nathan, wearing a clean suit, his eyes cold as flint.

Harold scrambled to his feet, trying to force an expression of smooth, executive warmth onto his haggard face. "Julian! Welcome! I was just about to call Adrian’s office—we’ve had a terrible, tragic domestic accident at the house—"

Julian Vale did not take Harold’s outstretched hand.

He didn't even look at Harold’s face.

He walked to the head of the table, pulled out a thick, blue-backed legal portfolio stamped with the gold seal of the Superior Court of California, and dropped it squarely onto Harold’s open corporate ledger.

The heavy document hit the wood with a dull, sickening thud.

"Harold Mercer," Julian Vale announced, his voice carrying the dry, unhurried weight of an executioner reading a royal warrant. "You are hereby served with an emergency writ of immediate corporate receivership, issued forty minutes ago by Judge Robert Martinez of the Chancery Division."

Harold blinked, the color draining from his face in a sickening, grayish wave. "Receivership? On what grounds?! This is a private family corporation!"

"Under Section Fourteen of the California Corporations Code, gross fiduciary malfeasance and documented felony assault against a controlling voting shareholder constitutes grounds for immediate administrative forfeiture," Nathan Mercer spoke up from the doorway, stepping forward into the light.

Harold rounded on his nephew, his face twisting with venomous fury. "Nathan! You ungrateful little bastard! I paid your law school tuition!"

"My tuition was paid by Grandmother Beatrice’s educational trust, Uncle Harold," Nathan replied smoothly, pulling a secondary document from his briefcase and sliding it across the mahogany table.

"The exact same trust that contains the 1998 Testamentary Codicil."

Eleanor froze in mid-stride. Her breath caught in her throat, her hands clawing at her emerald dress.

"The... the codicil?" Eleanor whispered, her voice cracking into a high, terrified whine. "That document was shredded twenty years ago! We destroyed all the copies!"

"You destroyed the copies in Harold's office safe, Aunt Eleanor," Nathan said, a cold, razor-thin smile touching his mouth. "You forgot that Grandmother Beatrice kept the master original inside the cedar chest in the foundation vault beneath the wine cellar."

He tapped the second page of the document with the tip of his silver pen.

"As of 1:15 PM today, pursuant to the terms of Beatrice Mercer's unencumbered estate decree, fifty-one percent of the voting shares of Mercer Global Logistics have officially, irrevocably transferred to the sole ownership of Evelyn Mercer."