Seattle’s Most Ruthless Don Locked Me in His Penthouse—Until I Read Page 14 of Our Marriage License!

Aiden didn't look back at me, but his broad shoulders squared into an unyielding wall.

"Speak, Marcus," Aiden commanded. "You know the rule about this floor."

"I wouldn't be here if it could wait until morning," Marcus said, stepping three paces onto the carpet and dropping the crimson binder onto the console. "The Vance cartel just filed an emergency petition with the probate surrogate."

My breath caught in my throat.

The Vance family was the rival syndicate that controlled the Port of Seattle and half the shipping corridors on the coast.

"On what grounds?" Aiden asked, his tone level, dangerous, and completely stripped of the vulnerability he had shown moments earlier.

"Marital invalidity," Marcus answered, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses. "Under Section 9 of the Chambers Syndicate Charter, any sovereign succession requires a legally certified, consummate domestic union. Julian Vance claims your marriage to an indigent nurse is a fraudulent front to shield the port assets from board liquidation."

"Julian Vance is an idiot with a dead father's trust fund," Aiden said coldly.

"He's an idiot backed by three presiding municipal judges," Marcus countered, pulling a high-resolution printout from the binder. "At 8:00 p.m., while you were exchanging rings at the cathedral, Vance's forensic accountants filed a preliminary asset freeze against all forty-eight holding entities under the Chambers maritime banner."

I stepped past the foot of the bed, keeping my distance from Aiden while looking at the documents.

"They can't freeze sovereign trust accounts on an unverified rumor," I spoke up, my voice steady.

Marcus’s head snapped toward me, his eyebrows lifting in mild shock that the quiet hospital aide was speaking at all.

"Mrs. Chambers," Marcus said carefully, "Julian Vance doesn't rely on rumors. He submitted time-stamped medical manifests from Northlake Medical Center."

My stomach plummeted.

"What manifests?" Aiden demanded, his voice dropping an octave into pure menace.

Marcus didn't blink.

"The psychological intake forms from your emergency room visit four months ago," Marcus said, looking directly at Aiden's hands. "The ones detailing severe tactile aversion and acute post-traumatic trauma response."

The room went tomb-silent, the rain outside sounding like a hail of bullets against the glass.

Marcus pointed at the legal brief.

"Julian is arguing that you are clinically incapable of fulfilling the physical requirements of the charter. He's demanding a court-appointed conservator take control of the waterfront assets by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow."

Aiden didn't move. He stood like a statue carved of northern granite, but the pulse at the base of his throat hammered violently.

"They audited my medical records," Aiden rasped.

"They bought them," Marcus corrected. "From your chief of medicine."

Before Aiden could respond, my personal phone buzzed sharply on the nightstand with an encrypted text from an unlisted hospital extension.