Betrayed? I Married My Ex's Powerful Uncle

Riley Mercer stopped dead outside the private lounge when she heard her fiancé's voice behind the locked door-followed by her own half-sister's unmistakable giggle.

"Easy, Damian. Your uncle's funeral is still going on downstairs. What if someone hears us?"

Kelsey Mercer was sprawled across the velvet sofa, her blonde hair scattered over the cushions, one hand tangled in Damian Aldridge's hair. Her blouse hung open, and Damian's expensive black funeral shirt was already half-unbuttoned.

Damian leaned down and kissed her again, completely unconcerned. One hand rested possessively on her waist as he pulled her closer.

"Relax. No one's going to hear us." Damian muttered against her lips. "The only thing worth celebrating today is that the old bastard's inheritance is finally about to fall into my hands."

Kelsey giggled, then glanced at the diamond ring on her finger-a ring that surprisingly looked exactly like her sister's engagement ring.

"Tell me something, Damian. Between me and my sister, who do you really want?"

"You, obviously. You're the one I can't keep my hands off."

Rain lashed against the Gothic arched windows of the Aldridge estate, but the unmistakable sounds coming from the private lounge cut through the storm.

Downstairs, more than two hundred prominent figures from the military, politics, and business worlds had gathered to mourn Colonel Callan Aldridge, America's decorated Air Force ace and the heir to an aerospace empire worth hundreds of billions.

Upstairs, his own nephew was busy making out with his fiancée's half-sister on the very day of his funeral, neither of them able to keep their hands off each other long enough to show the dead man an ounce of respect.

For a moment, Riley thought she had misheard.

Her fiancé. Her very own half-sister. The two of them together, hiding behind a locked door and rolling in the sheets on the day of their elder's funeral.

Riley stepped closer to the crack in the door.

"Is there really no chance Uncle Callan survived?" Kelsey asked, her fingers tracing lightly over Damian's chest.

Damian Aldridge grunted, his breathing heavy and fast. "His fighter jet went down in the Atlantic. They didn't even find a single bone. Once the will is read today, all of Aldridge Aerospace belongs to my dad and me."

He lowered his head to kiss Kelsey, a smug smile spreading across his lips.

"Once I inherit everything, you and I can have whatever we want. Mansions, yachts, private jets... The whole world will be ours. No one will ever be able to tell us what to do again."

He paused, his voice turning contemptuous.

"And that hick Riley? She grew up fixing beat-up trucks in Mexico and actually thinks she's going to marry into the Aldridge family after today. What a joke. She must be dreaming!"

Riley stood in the dim shadow of the wall sconce. Her amber eyes didn't blink. Her stomach felt like a block of ice had dropped straight into it, cold and heavy, but her hands stayed steady. She didn't push the door open. Instead, she took two slow steps back and smoothed down the skirt of her faded black suit.

She turned and walked briskly back toward the main memorial hall.

Inside the grand hall, a pipe organ played a low dirge. An empty mahogany casket sat on the main dais for Colonel Callan Aldridge. Two hundred of Boston's wealthiest politicians and executives stood in silence with the Aldridge and Mercer families.

Riley slammed the side door open. Her heels clattered wildly against the marble floor as she stumbled toward the altar, her face drained of blood.

"Oh my God!" Riley's voice shook so hard it echoed off the vaulted ceiling. "There's a sound! Someone is knocking inside the west wing lounge!"

Estate butler Agnes Whitaker stepped forward immediately, her stern face tightening. "Miss Mercer, control yourself. This is Colonel Callan's solemn memorial service."

Riley bypassed the butler and grabbed the tailored sleeve of Richard Mercer, head of the Mercer family and her biological father. Her eyes were red as she pointed down the hallway.

"Dad! I swear it's Uncle Callan's voice! He's yelling that he's cold inside that room! He's banging on the door!"

Richard's face turned iron-gray. He yanked his arm back slightly, his voice a low snap. "Stop this nonsense! Dead men don't knock on doors."

Yet the silence in the hall was shattered. Whispers rippled through the crowd as guests craned their necks toward the hallway.

Riley backed away with tears spilling over her lashes, raising her voice so the press at the back could hear every word. "If you don't believe me, come look! His soul is still trapped in this house!"

Driven by morbid curiosity and old-money superstition, dozens of guests holding champagne flutes surged toward the narrow west wing corridor behind Riley.

As they neared the walnut door, the heavy thumping inside rang out clearly, followed by a woman's high-pitched scream. Several society matrons in the front row gasped, their faces paling.

Agnes realized something was terribly wrong and lunged to block the door, but Riley moved faster. She snatched a heavy brass candlestick from the hallway table and brought it down with full force onto the vintage brass lock.

Metal snapped. The heavy wooden door flew wide open.

On the velvet sofa in the center of the room, Damian scrambled with his half-unbuttoned dress shirt while Kelsey lay beneath him in a ripped blouse. Thirty pairs of eyes and a dozen camera flashes lit up their bare skin.

A collective gasp tore through the hallway. Society women clapped hands over their mouths while reporters shoved forward, shutters clicking like machine guns.

For one glorious second, Damian simply stared at the crowd, as if his brain had refused to accept what his eyes were seeing.

Damian grabbed his trousers from the carpet to cover his waist, his face purple with rage. "Get out! All of you, get the hell out!"

Kelsey curled into the corner of the sofa, screaming and covering her face. Beneath her messy blonde hair, the light brown beauty mark under her right eye stood out sharply as she sobbed. "It's not what it looks like! My sister set me up!"

Riley stood at the very front of the crowd, looking down at them with a cold curl of her lip. "So Uncle Callan's ghost was just watching you two animals rut in front of his coffin."

Richard Mercer trembled from head to toe. He strode into the room and swung his open palm across Damian's face with a sharp crack.

"You bastard! What do you take the Mercer family for?"

Blood trickled from the corner of Damian's mouth. He glared at Riley, his teeth grinding. "You crazy bitch! You brought everyone here on purpose!"

Riley met his gaze evenly, her voice clear over the clicking cameras. "I came to catch a ghost. Not my fault I caught two stray dogs without their clothes on."

"You think this is funny?" Damian snarled, clutching his shirt. "You have no idea what you've just done!"

"Oh, I do." Riley glanced at the cameras. "And I think Boston is about to find out, too."

Within two minutes, live streams of the scandal were already flooding Boston's elite social feeds.

The woman Damian had planned to marry had just exposed him cheating with her own half-sister-at his uncle's funeral, in front of two hundred guests and the entire press corps. There was no taking that back.

Suddenly, a deafening roar of rotor blades drowned out the shouting. A violent downdraft shattered the floral wreaths in the courtyard outside.

The massive front doors of the manor were kicked open by two fully armed United States Air Force Pararescue jumpers. Rainwater poured off their black tactical vests onto the Persian rug.

An Air Force colonel in flight gear marched into the hall, his combat boots echoing like gunshots. The entire crowd froze.

The officer pulled off his flight cap, his sharp gaze sweeping the room. "Who is the primary next of kin for the Aldridge family?"

Callan's older brother, Preston Aldridge, stepped out from the crowd, wiping sweat from his forehead. "I'm his brother. Colonel, this is a private funeral."

The officer cut him off, holding out a dispatch sealed with red Pentagon wax. "Cancel the funeral. Forty minutes ago, rescue teams pulled the prototype escape pod from the Atlantic near the Bermuda shelf."

The room went dead silent, save for the wind rattling the glass.

Preston's face drained of color. Damian stopped struggling with his shirt. Even Richard Mercer slowly turned toward the officer.

The officer took a breath and spoke into the stillness.

"Colonel Callan Aldridge is alive."