Married To The Fake Mad Billionaire

The rain did not fall; it attacked.

Francisqui Noel's lungs burned as she sprinted down the dark alley behind the private club. Her right heel snapped with a sickening crack. She slammed into the wet brick wall, sliding down until her knees hit the pavement.

Her chest heaved. Cold water plastered her hair to her face.

Two black Escalades rolled into the alley. They made no sound. The blinding high beams pinned her against the wall like a bug under a microscope.

The doors opened. Three men in dark suits stepped out into the downpour. The man in the front, Vance, pressed two fingers to his earpiece.

"The boss wants it done now," Vance said. His voice cut through the sound of the rain. "I don't care who she is."

Francisqui pushed herself up. Her stomach dropped. She needed to explain that she was just leaving a client meeting. She opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Her throat locked. The familiar, suffocating paralysis of Selective Mutism clamped down on her vocal cords. Her jaw trembled, but her voice was dead.

Vance stepped closer. His eyes scanned her soaked, high-end clothes. He recognized the subtle tension in her posture, the way she didn't immediately scream like a normal civilian would.

Francisqui raised a shaking hand. She held up five fingers. Give me five minutes. I have five hundred dollars in my purse.

Vance stared at her hand. His eyes narrowed into slits. He tapped his earpiece, his voice dropping to a cautious, tactical murmur. "She's not afraid of us, and she's throwing up hand signals. Five fingers. Run a facial recognition scan immediately. She might be a scout from a rival firm, or an operative signaling a five-man backup team. Proceed with extreme caution."

Francisqui's eyes went wide. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She shook her head frantically, pressing her back harder against the bricks.

A second man grabbed her from behind. A cloth soaked in ether clamped over her nose and mouth. The chemical burned her sinuses. Her vision blurred, turning the headlights into long, white streaks before the world went completely black.

Her skull throbbed.

Francisqui opened her eyes. The bright lights of a penthouse suite stabbed her retinas. She was lying on a massive Italian leather sofa. Her wet clothes were gone, replaced by an oversized silk men's button-down shirt.

A loud crash made her flinch.

She pulled her knees to her chest. Across the room, Burleigh Livingston sat in a custom wheelchair facing a massive flat-screen monitor. A team of stern-faced SEC lawyers and federal trust regulators stared back at him through the live video feed. He swung a metal golf club into a Ming vase. Porcelain shattered, spraying across the hardwood floor.

"Traitors," Burleigh muttered. His eyes were hollow, manic. "The SEC thinks they can audit me? I'll bury them."

A sharp piece of porcelain flew across the room and sliced Francisqui's cheek. A drop of warm blood rolled down her jaw. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming.

Burleigh stopped. He glared at the webcam, ensuring the lawyers witnessed every second of his erratic, violent outburst before he nodded sharply. Vance stepped forward and abruptly cut the feed, plunging the screen into darkness.

He turned the wheelchair. The electric motor hummed as he rolled toward the sofa. His shadow fell over her.

He lifted the golf club. The cold metal head pressed under her chin, forcing her to look up. His eyes were not manic anymore. They were dead. He looked at her the way a man looks at a spreadsheet.

"My security team thinks you're a corporate spy demanding a five-million-dollar payout to keep quiet about what you've seen tonight," Burleigh's voice was a low rumble. "Your services better be worth it, mute."

Francisqui tried to push the club away, but the ether still pumped through her veins. Her arms felt like lead. She glared at him. Her chest rose and fell with heavy, angry breaths.

Burleigh tilted his head. He thought her anger was part of the act. A roleplay.

He dropped the club. It clattered against the floor. He pressed a button on the table next to him. The door opened instantly. Vance walked in.

"Clean her up," Burleigh said. He didn't look at her again. "Get her signature and get her out."

A man named Lewis stepped forward. He handed Francisqui a thick stack of papers and a piece of paper that made her breath catch.

It was a check. For $5,000,000.00.

She looked at the document. Non-Disclosure Agreement - Regarding the Medical Privacy of Mr. B. L.

They thought she was a cleaner. Someone hired to witness his breakdown and keep her mouth shut.

Her fingers shook as she took the pen. She scribbled a fake name on the signature line. She needed to get out of this room before he picked up the golf club again. But as she stared at the zeroes on the check, a cold realization washed over her. She needed resources. She needed access to the closed archives of the elite families to find out who really ordered the hit that killed her mother twenty years ago. This money, or this dangerous connection to the Livingston empire, could be the key.

Ten minutes later, Vance dragged her out the front doors of the Livingston Estate. He shoved her down the stone steps.

The rain was still pouring. Francisqui stood in the driveway. She didn't cry. She clenched her fist around the five-million-dollar check until the paper cut into her palm. The fear in her chest hardened into something cold and sharp.

The yellow cab smelled like stale smoke and wet dog.

Francisqui sat in the back seat, staring at the crumpled check in her hand. The cab pulled up to the wrought-iron gates of the Owen Estate in Long Island.

She paid the driver and stepped out into the morning drizzle. The security guard at the gate booth took one look at her oversized men's shirt and bare feet. His lip curled in disgust before he hit the button to open the gate.

Francisqui pushed open the heavy oak front doors.

"And this is the grand foyer!" Kaleigh's voice echoed off the marble walls.

Kaleigh Owen stood in the center of the room, holding her phone on a ring-light tripod. She wore a custom Chanel dress. She was live-streaming to her million followers.

Francisqui walked right into the frame.

Kaleigh shrieked. She dropped her hand from her hair and covered her mouth. The live chat on the screen exploded with comments. Who is that homeless person? Omg is she wearing a men's shirt?

Kaleigh lunged forward and hit the end broadcast button. Her face twisted into an ugly snarl.

"You stupid mute!" Kaleigh screamed. "You just ruined my engagement rate!"

Francisqui didn't blink. She walked past her, heading for the stairs.

Kaleigh sneered, turning her phone camera back on for a fleeting second. "Oh my god, look at this, guys. Did a homeless person wander in? We seriously need to upgrade the estate security." She casually tipped her glass of detox water, letting the icy liquid splash directly onto Francisqui's bare feet. "Oops. Slippery."

"Where have you been?" Kaleigh mocked, her voice dripping with venomous superiority. "Dad has been looking for you all night, you absolute embarrassment!"

Bile rose in Francisqui's throat. She stepped over the puddle of water, her cold, dead eyes locking onto Kaleigh's.

Kaleigh instinctively took a step back, intimidated by the sheer emptiness in Francisqui's gaze, but she quickly recovered and wailed at the top of her lungs. "Mom! Dad! She's attacking me!"

The doors to the study flew open. Franklin and Eleanor Owen rushed out.

Eleanor ran to Kaleigh, wrapping her arms around her daughter. "Oh my god, is she having another episode?"

Franklin stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He adjusted his expensive cuffs. He looked at Francisqui with pure hatred. "Where were you? Mr. Grossman waited at the restaurant for three hours."

Francisqui pulled her phone from her pocket. Her thumbs moved with mechanical speed. She pressed the text-to-speech button.

"I was bitten by a dog," the robotic Siri voice announced.

Kaleigh laughed from her mother's arms. "What kind of dog leaves you in a men's dress shirt? You were out with some trashy guy."

Francisqui's jaw tightened. She tapped her screen again. She pulled up a scanned photograph. She turned the phone around and shoved it in Kaleigh's face.

It was a picture from twenty years ago. Eleanor, sitting on a wealthy man's lap at a shady underground casino, wearing a cocktail waitress uniform.

Kaleigh's face went completely white. She didn't dare physically touch Francisqui, but her voice trembled with fear and venom. "Give me that!"

Francisqui stepped back, slipping the phone into her pocket.

Eleanor screamed. "Security! Get her out of here! She's insane!"

Franklin saw the photo. The veins in his neck bulged. He cared about one thing: the family stock price. A scandal would ruin him.

"Enough!" Franklin roared. "Take the mute to her room. Lock the door. She doesn't come out until I say so."

Two estate guards grabbed Francisqui by the shoulders. She didn't fight them. She let them drag her up the stairs.

She looked down at Kaleigh. Francisqui mouthed three words.

Social. Climber. Trash.

Kaleigh let out a piercing, theatrical shriek, collapsing onto the marble floor in a fake swoon to draw her mother's attention away from the humiliation and play the ultimate victim.

The guards shoved Francisqui into the tiny attic bedroom and locked the deadbolt from the outside.

Francisqui stood in the center of the dusty room. She reached into the pocket of the damp silk shirt and pulled out the five-million-dollar check.

Her lips curved into a cold smile. She walked over to the loose floorboard under her bed. She pulled out her dead mother's diary. She placed the check flat between the yellowed pages and closed it.

Franklin paced the length of his mahogany study. Thick cigar smoke hung in the air, burning Eleanor's eyes.

"She's a liability, Franklin," Eleanor snapped, rubbing her temples. "Elvis Barron is coming to dinner next week. If he sees that freak, he'll call off the engagement with Kaleigh."

Franklin stopped pacing. He adjusted his tie. "The Livingston merger hasn't closed yet. We need every asset we have."

"She's not an asset!"

"Grossman called me this morning," Franklin said, his voice low. "He said her not showing up made her seem... untamed. He offered to double his investment in the media division if I give her to him."

Upstairs in the attic, Francisqui pressed her ear against the floorboards. She couldn't hear their words, but she knew the rhythm of her father's anger.

She stood up and checked the window. Nailed shut from the outside. A shadow moved under the crack of her door. A guard was posted outside.

The lock clicked. A young maid pushed the door open, carrying a tray with a cold turkey sandwich.

The maid wouldn't meet her eyes. She set the tray on the bed. As she pulled her hand back, she left a small folded piece of paper on the mattress.

Francisqui waited until the door locked again. She opened the note.

I heard the master in the study. He mentioned your name and Mr. Grossman. There is a very important dinner tomorrow night. Please be careful, miss.

Francisqui's stomach twisted into a hard knot. Grossman was a known predator. If she stayed in this room, she was dead.

She walked to the diary and pulled out the check. Five million dollars. If she cashed it, Franklin's bankers would flag it instantly.

She needed to use it as a weapon.

She grabbed a black eyeliner pencil from her vanity. She tore a sticky note from her desk and wrote in sharp, jagged letters:

Medical fees for your psychotic break. I don't accept garbage.

She stuck the note directly onto the center of the five-million-dollar check. She placed both inside a blank envelope.

Francisqui opened her laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. As an underground auditor, breaking into the Owen Estate's basic ADT security system took her exactly forty seconds.

She disabled the backdoor alarm. She set a timer for five minutes.

She knocked on the bedroom door. The maid opened it, looking terrified.

Francisqui shoved the envelope into the maid's hands. Then, she pulled a diamond Cartier watch from her pocket-she had stolen it from Kaleigh's bathroom that morning. She pressed the watch into the maid's palm.

Francisqui typed on her phone. Same-day courier. To Burleigh Livingston. Do it now, the backdoor alarm is off.

The maid looked at the watch. Greed flashed in her eyes. She nodded and ran down the hall.

Francisqui closed the door. She sat on the edge of her bed and opened a new browser tab. She typed in Burleigh Livingston.

Articles flooded the screen. Tragic Car Crash. Heir Confined to Wheelchair. Mental Decline.

Francisqui stared at a photo of Burleigh sitting in his chair. She remembered the way he swung that golf club. The sheer kinetic force. The muscle control in his core.

A paralyzed man could not swing a club like that.

She stared deeper into the screen, her mind calculating the odds. If she could get inside the Livingston empire, she would have unrestricted access to their private intelligence network. The exact network that held the buried police reports from the night her mother's car was run off the road.

"You're faking," she mouthed to the empty room.

Her pulse pounded in her ears. He was faking his madness. He was faking his paralysis. He was hiding something massive.

She didn't need to run from Grossman. She needed to sell herself to the devil next door.