My Unwanted Husband Is A Lethal Boss

Holden shoved the oil-stained jacket into the battered canvas duffel bag. The cheap zipper caught on the frayed fabric, offering a slight resistance before he yanked it shut with a sharp, violent pull.

On the scratched wooden table, a military-grade encrypted communicator suddenly pulsed with a harsh, crimson light. The blinding strobe shattered the dimness of the Manhattan apartment, signaling a top-tier access override.

Holden hit the receive button.

The voice of his mentor, Vesper, filtered through the voice modulator. The raspy, metallic sound filled the room, demanding he leave for Long Island immediately to fulfill the contract.

Holden's jaw locked. His muscles coiled tight in instinctual rejection of the arranged marriage.

"No."

The cold refusal left his lips, but the moment it did, the volatile Progenitor-class genes in his blood violently rebelled.

A sudden, blinding agony tore through his chest. Holden dropped to one knee, his hand clutching his sternum as if trying to hold his ribcage together. His vision blurred into a static haze of gray, and thick beads of cold sweat instantly broke out across his forehead.

Vesper's voice remained brutally flat, pointing out that only the specific radiation emitted by the Sterling family's underground vault could stabilize his collapsing genetic structure.

Holden ground his molars together, tasting copper. He swallowed the blood and forced out a single word of compliance.

The line went dead.

Holden pushed himself off the rotting floorboards, his limbs heavy and trembling. He reached into the hidden lining of his bag and pulled out a yellowed parchment scroll.

His dark eyes scanned the name written in elegant calligraphy: Cordelia Prescott-Sterling. A mocking smirk twisted his lips before he shoved the ancient contract carelessly into his back pocket.

He kicked open the rusted iron door of his apartment. The metal shrieked against the hinges, drawing a slurred string of curses from a drunk slumped in the hallway.

Holden stopped. He turned his head and locked eyes with the man.

It was the stare of a Ghost operative-a pure, suffocating wave of physical killing intent. The drunk's throat seized. The color drained from his face, and he scrambled backward on his hands and knees, practically throwing himself into his own apartment.

Holden walked down the concrete stairs and slid into the driver's seat of a beat-up, second-hand Ford sedan. He twisted the key. The engine coughed, rattling violently like a dying asthmatic.

He slammed his foot on the gas. The Ford lurched forward over the pothole-ridden street, spitting a thick cloud of black exhaust from the tailpipe that sent two pedestrians into a fit of coughing.

The car merged into the gridlocked Manhattan traffic. Without warning, a sleek black Maybach cut aggressively into his lane, forcing Holden to slam on the brakes.

The bald tires shrieked against the asphalt. Momentum threw Holden violently forward, the cheap seatbelt biting hard into his chest.

The driver of the Maybach rolled down his tinted window and flipped him off.

Holden's pupils dilated. His right hand shot down, fingers brushing the cold, textured grip of the tactical combat knife strapped to his waist.

But logic clamped down on his predatory instinct. He forced his hand away from the blade, pasting a numb, dead-eyed expression of a bottom-tier driver onto his face, and slammed the palm of his hand against the cheap, reedy horn.

The Maybach sped off with an arrogant roar. Holden let out a low, cold laugh, spinning the steering wheel toward the highway leading to Long Island.

Two hours later, the sputtering Ford idled outside the perimeter of the Sterling estate on the Gold Coast. Massive, wrought-iron gates blocked his path.

Holden kicked his door open and stepped out. The salty ocean breeze whipped through his messy hair. He narrowed his eyes. Relying on instincts honed through years of brutal battlefield survival, he quickly calculated the sweep angles and rotation cycles of the security cameras. Within seconds, his mind constructed a mental map of the overlapping fields of view, easily identifying three distinct blind spots in the grid. A confident, razor-sharp smirk touched the corner of his mouth.

Two heavily armed security guards approached, a massive Doberman straining against its leash. They glared at the rusted Ford, a glaring eyesore against the backdrop of extreme wealth.

One guard slammed his nightstick hard against the Ford's hood, barking at Holden to get his trash off private property. The Doberman bared its teeth, letting out a vicious, guttural growl.

Holden shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. He ignored the nightstick and simply shifted his gaze, locking eyes with the dog.

The highly trained attack dog froze. It was as if it had just stared into the eyes of an apex predator. The Doberman let out a pathetic whimper, tucked its tail tightly between its legs, and cowered behind the guard's boots.

The guard noticed the dog's unnatural terror. His face flushed with embarrassment and sudden anger. He unholstered his taser and leveled it directly at Holden's chest.

Holden's eyes cooled to absolute zero. His muscles tightened, calculating the exact trajectory to disarm the guard and snap his wrist in the 0.1 seconds it would take to pull the trigger.

Before the tension could snap, the roar of a high-performance engine echoed from inside the estate.

A cherry-red Ferrari pulled up to the inside of the gates. The tinted window rolled down, revealing a bodyguard in a tailored suit and sunglasses.

The bodyguard spoke rapidly into a radio, confirming Holden's license plate. He snapped at the gate guards to stand down, stating this was a special guest expected by the patriarch.

The guard scowled, reluctantly holstering his taser, and hit the gate release button. Holden got back into the Ford, pressed the gas, and drove through the opening gates, his eyes locked dead on the massive dome of the main mansion.

Holden parked the sputtering Ford in the designated visitor area. He pushed the door open and was instantly assaulted by the overwhelming, synthetic perfection of a manicured French garden and the cloying scent of blooming roses.

Instead of walking up the main paved driveway, his tactical instincts took over. He veered off the path, stepping onto a secluded gravel walkway hidden by towering, dense hedges.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a matte-black Zippo lighter-a disguised micro-tactical camera. His thumb pressed the hidden shutter, silently recording the placement of the infrared sentries hidden in the foliage.

A sharp, suppressed voice cut through the rustling leaves ahead. Holden stopped instantly. His body moved on autopilot, melting seamlessly into the dark, heavy shadow of a century-old oak tree.

Through a gap in the leaves, he saw Cordelia. She was wearing a custom haute couture gown, her back to him, her knuckles white as she gripped her phone and hissed angrily into the receiver.

She spat venom about her grandfather's absurd arranged marriage, her high heel kicking out in frustration at a smooth river stone on the path.

The stone ricocheted off a marble cherub statue with a sharp crack, perfectly masking the sound of Holden's shallow breathing.

A sudden, violent gust of ocean wind ripped through the garden. The hedges thrashed, and the wind caught the high side-slit of Cordelia's silk gown, whipping the fabric high into the air.

As the silk flew up, Holden's eyes locked onto her bare upper thigh. Strapped tightly against her pale skin was a tactical drop-leg holster, holding a custom-milled Glock.

Pure threat-assessment protocol overrode his brain. Holden's thumb flicked the lighter cap open, and the micro-lens focused directly on the firearm.

But at that exact millisecond, Holden shifted his weight slightly. The sole of his boot pressed down on a brittle, fallen oak branch. The sharp crack of the dry wood echoed loudly in the quiet garden. Cordelia's hyper-vigilant instincts flared. She spun around, her sharp eyes locking onto the shadow behind the oak tree.

She dropped the phone call instantly. Her right hand slid smoothly down her thigh, her fingers wrapping around the textured grip of the Glock.

Holden cursed internally. To maintain his cover as a normal civilian, he stepped out of the shadows, raising both hands slowly to show he was unarmed.

Cordelia's eyes swept over his cheap, oil-stained jacket and the lighter in his hand. The wariness in her eyes instantly morphed into pure, visceral disgust.

She lunged forward. Her stilettos stabbed into the gravel with aggressive, rhythmic violence. She grabbed a fistful of his collar.

A wave of expensive Chanel perfume hit Holden's face as she slammed his back hard against the rough bark of the oak tree. The jagged wood dug into his spine.

With her free hand, Cordelia snatched the lighter from his grip. Her thumb found the hidden playback button on the side and pressed it.

A micro-projection beamed onto the tree trunk right beside Holden's head. The image was a high-definition close-up of her exposed thigh and the gun holster.

Blood rushed to Cordelia's face, turning her cheeks a furious, humiliated red. She drove her knee upward, aiming a brutal strike directly at his stomach.

In the split second before her knee connected, Holden's battlefield reflexes took over. He subtly twisted his hips, shifting his stance to deflect the brunt of the impact away from his vital organs. He let the remaining force push him, letting out a loud, exaggerated grunt of pain as he stumbled backward, perfectly playing the part of a clumsy, overwhelmed civilian.

Cordelia gasped. It felt like she had just slammed her knee into a concrete pillar. A sharp ache shot up her leg, fueling her rage.

She threw the lighter onto the gravel and crushed it beneath her stiletto heel. She pointed a trembling finger at his face, screaming that he was a disgusting, perverted stalker.

Holden dusted off his jacket. He looked down at her with dead, emotionless eyes, completely unbothered by being caught.

His arrogant, towering calmness pushed Cordelia over the edge. She ripped the Glock from her holster and jammed the cold steel barrel directly under his chin.

The physical threat of death pressed against his throat, but Holden's heart rate didn't spike. It held steady at a flat sixty beats per minute.

He tilted his head down slightly, looking past the barrel, and spoke in a voice devoid of any warmth.

"The safety is still on."

Cordelia blinked. Her eyes darted down to the gun for a fraction of a second.

In that microscopic window, Holden's fingers snapped up, locking around her wrist like a steel vice.

He could snap her radius bone with a millimeter of pressure. But the heavy thud of combat boots and the shouts of two approaching patrol guards echoed from the main path.

Holden instantly released her wrist. He threw his hands back up in the air, widening his eyes in mock terror. Cordelia sneered, ordering the guards to drag the pervert into the main house.

The guards shoved Holden violently through the massive double doors. He stumbled onto the imported Persian rug but caught his balance instantly, his cold eyes sweeping over the core members of the Sterling family seated on the leather sofas.

Cordelia stormed in behind him. She hurled the crushed remains of the camera onto the solid mahogany coffee table. The metal clattered loudly against the wood.

Alistair, the family patriarch, leaned heavily on a gold-lion-headed cane. His bushy eyebrows pulled together as he stared at the debris, his raspy voice demanding an explanation.

Cordelia's chest heaved. She pointed at Holden, her voice shaking with rage as she accused him of being a filthy degenerate who took up-skirt photos of her in the garden.

Her father, Warren, shot up from his armchair. His face turned purple as he screamed at the security detail, calling them useless trash for letting a rat into the estate.

Holden ignored Warren's spit-flying rant. His eyes locked onto Alistair. Even with his vision slightly blurred from the genetic backlash, his battlefield-honed observation picked up the old man's shallow, rapid breathing and the faint bluish tint spreading across his lips.

Beatrice, Cordelia's mother, pressed a silk handkerchief over her nose. She dragged her eyes over Holden's oil-stained jeans, looking at him as if his very existence was contaminating the oxygen in the room.

Alistair slammed his cane into the floor. The heavy thud silenced the room. He glared at Holden, his gaze a mix of scrutiny and a barely perceptible confusion, demanding his name and his purpose for "trespassing into my estate."

Holden let out a dry, mocking laugh. Ignoring the gun muzzle pressed against his back, his right hand reached for his back pocket and pulled out the yellowed parchment scroll.

He tossed it onto the coffee table. The scroll unrolled across the polished wood, coming to a stop to reveal a heavy, dark red wax seal at the bottom.

The moment Alistair saw the seal, his pupils contracted violently. His gnarled, trembling fingers reached out, brushing the frayed edge of the parchment.

Warren leaned over to look. The color drained from his face. He stammered, reading aloud the terms of a marriage contract forged twenty years ago.

Cordelia looked like she had been struck by lightning. Her eyes went wide with horror. She screamed that she would rather die than marry a bottom-feeding pervert.

Holden shrugged. His tone was laced with heavy sarcasm as he stated he had zero interest in a spoiled princess, offering to tear the contract up right then and there.

The instant his words hung in the air, Holden's sharp senses caught it: The rhythmic pumping of blood in the old man's chest hit a sudden, catastrophic blockage.

Alistair clutched his chest. His mouth opened in a silent scream before his eyes rolled back, and his rigid body collapsed backward onto the sofa.

The grand hall erupted into chaos. Beatrice let out a blood-curdling shriek. Warren scrambled over the table, grabbing his father's shoulders.

Cordelia dropped to her knees. Her face was as white as paper. She gripped Alistair's freezing hand, screaming for her grandfather.

The head butler sprinted for the wall phone, barking frantically for Dr. Vance, the estate's resident physician.

Holden didn't move a muscle. He stood perfectly still, fighting through the dizziness of his unstable genetics, his brain running a rapid diagnostic on the old man's fading vitals.

Warren snatched a gun from one of the guards. His hands shook violently as he aimed it at Holden's chest, screaming at him to back away from the body.

"Shoot, and he dies," Holden said. His voice was a low, terrifying rumble that carried a physical weight. The sheer, suffocating killing intent in the room froze Warren's finger on the trigger.

Taking advantage of their paralysis, Holden's hands moved with terrifying speed. He grabbed the ruined edges of Alistair's shirt and ripped it completely open.

His eyes locked onto a jagged, faded scar running across the old man's sternum. He pinpointed the exact location of the clot. His focus narrowed to a razor's edge.

Cordelia shrieked, sobbing hysterically as she called him a murderer, struggling to get up from the chair.

Holden tuned out the noise. He extended his left index and middle fingers, locking them together like a steel spike. He drove his fingers hard into three specific nerve clusters along Alistair's spine with a brutal, rhythmic pressure. It was an extreme acupressure technique utilized by desperate combat medics in the trenches, designed to forcefully shock the central nervous system and trigger a violent biological reboot.

Alistair's body convulsed. He arched off the sofa like a fish pulled from water, a horrifying, wet rattling sound tearing from his throat.

"What have you done to him?!" Warren snapped completely, his judgment obliterated by fear and rage. He pulled the trigger. The bullet whistled past Holden's ear and shattered the massive crystal chandelier above them.

A torrential rain of razor-sharp glass rained down. Holden threw his broad shoulders over Alistair, letting the heavy shards slice through his cheap jacket and bite into his back.

Alistair slumped back against the pillows. His breathing was heavy, but his eyes locked onto Holden with a burning, fanatical reverence.

The old man raised a shaking hand, signaling the butler to help him sit up. His piercing gaze swept over his family, preparing to hand down an absolute mandate.