“For three years, I've played the role of the broken, mute trophy wife to the "Ice King" Heinrich Lloyd. While the world sees me as a fragile liability, I've been building a cage of silence to keep the monsters out, hiding my true identity as a high-level dark web hacker known as Ghost. The cage shattered when my mother-in-law cornered me at a private clinic and demanded I sign away my future. She didn't want my cooperation; she wanted my replacement. She introduced Aria, a ruthless socialite, as the "better vessel" who would carry my husband's child because my own womb was deemed "hostile." To ensure I wouldn't fight back, they shoved a fake psychiatric report across the table, threatening me with a permanent sanitarium stay and a forced conservatorship if I didn't relinquish my parental rights and my marriage. When I fled in a panic, Heinrich didn't offer comfort; he caught me at a bar, dragged me home like misbehaving property, and told me to stop being an embarrassment. Now, the nightmare has followed me to my secret day job. Aria walked into my office as a "consultant," leaning in to whisper that she could smell my fear through my cheap clothes and fake glasses. She thinks I'm a cornered rat, a woman so pathetic she can't even find the voice to scream for help. I stared at her, my fingers clutching the micro-recorder hidden in my pearls. They have no idea that the "mute" wife they despise has already mapped out every dirty transaction in their offshore accounts and discovered the massive gambling debts Aria is trying to hide. I felt a searing rage in my chest, a fire that had been smoldering for three years. They think they've trapped a bird, but they've actually locked themselves in with a ghost. I'm done hiding behind a tremor in my hands and a vacant stare. "Sign it," Gerri had commanded back at the clinic. "This is a notification, not a negotiation." She was right about one thing. It isn't a negotiation anymore. It's a declaration of war, and I'm going to burn their entire legacy to the ground.”