“I went to the New York City Clerk's office to handle a simple administrative matter, but the woman behind the glass handed me a nightmare instead. It was a certified marriage license from Clark County, Nevada, filed exactly three months ago. My vision blurred as I read the name in the spouse field: Baxter Noel. I was legally married to the ruthless billionaire whose legal team was currently suing me for intellectual property theft and trying to destroy my career. I remembered the conference in Las Vegas and a drink that tasted far too sweet, followed by a twelve-hour black hole in my memory that I had chalked up to exhaustion. When I sought help at my family's estate, my stepmother and sister didn't offer comfort; they stole my passport, shredded my clothes, and framed me for academic plagiarism to strip away my university fellowship. Even Baxter himself looked me in the eye with cold indifference, claiming he didn't know me and promising to have me arrested for fraud if I ever showed him that document again. Within twenty-four hours, I was homeless, jobless, and being hunted by the most powerful man in the city. I couldn't understand why a man who "eats people for breakfast" would be caught in the same trap as a struggling scientist like me. The confusion turned to pure terror when I looked at the witness signature on the license: Gene Mcclain. My mother, who was supposed to have died in a car crash ten years ago, had signed that paper with a fresh, trembling hand only ninety days ago. "I am holding a grenade, and I have no idea when the pin was pulled." Standing in the biting November wind with nothing but a laptop and a marriage license, I realized I was just a pawn in a much deadlier game. I stopped running and began to fight back, determined to use my unwanted status as the billionaire's wife to uncover the truth about the mother who came back from the dead.”