THE REJECTED SON-IN-LAW IS A SECRET BILLIONAIRE

CHAPTER 9: THE WOMAN IN RED

The basement went silent after the guard spoke.

Water dripped steadily from the pipe near the ceiling.

Somewhere farther down the corridor, metal doors clanged shut.

Ethan’s face revealed nothing.

But Sophia noticed his right hand close slowly into a fist before relaxing again.

Small.

Fast.

Most people would’ve missed it.

She didn’t.

The guard swallowed under Ethan’s stare. “The transmission came through one of the dead security channels.”

“Voice or text?” Augustus asked.

“Voice distortion.” The guard hesitated. “But she left a name.”

Ethan looked at him.

The guard’s throat bobbed once.

“She called herself Scarlett.”

The assassin in the chair started laughing immediately.

Weak.

Broken.

Still laughing.

“There it is,” he wheezed. “The ghost finally has a name again.”

Sophia watched Ethan carefully.

Scarlett.

Not confusion.

Recognition.

Deep enough to hurt.

The kind people carry in their bones.

Augustus struck the concrete floor once with his cane. “Location.”

“We traced the signal to the eastern docks, but it bounced three times before disappearing.”

“Meaning?”

“She wanted us to trace it.”

The old man cursed quietly.

The assassin grinned through swollen lips. “She always loved games.”

Ethan finally moved again.

Not rushed.

Not angry.

That calmness felt worse now.

“Clear the lower floors,” he said.

The guards looked at each other briefly.

“Now.”

Boots echoed through the hallway as security teams obeyed immediately. Within seconds only Ethan, Augustus, Sophia, and the bleeding assassin remained inside the concrete room.

Rain groaned faintly through the pipes overhead.

Sophia looked at Ethan.

“Who is she?”

No answer.

Augustus gave her a colder look instead. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Sophia almost laughed at that.

Concern her?

Men had just died inside the estate.

An assassin said she was camouflage.

And now some woman named Scarlett was back in the city like a ghost crawling out of a grave.

“This concerns me a lot,” Sophia said quietly.

Augustus’ expression hardened.

But Ethan finally spoke.

“She was part of the Selection Project.”

Sophia frowned slightly. “The what?”

The assassin chuckled again. “Ah. So the poor wife really knew nothing.”

Ethan ignored him.

“When powerful families want to build empires,” he said flatly, “they don’t raise children normally.”

Sophia felt something cold slide down her spine.

“They select them.”

The basement suddenly felt smaller.

Augustus’ jaw tightened once. “That’s enough.”

“No,” Ethan replied. “It isn’t.”

The old man stared at him carefully after that but stayed silent.

Ethan looked toward Sophia again.

“The Cole family wasn’t the only one doing it. Ten families funded the program. Children were chosen young. Trained. Educated. Broken down and rebuilt into heirs powerful enough to control entire industries before turning thirty.”

The assassin smiled weakly through bloody teeth.

“Some of us turned out better than others.”

Sophia stared at Ethan.

“You’re talking like this was normal.”

“It was normal for us.”

The words landed without emotion.

That scared her more than anything else tonight.

She suddenly remembered small things.

Ethan waking up at four in the morning sometimes without explanation.

The scar across his back he never talked about.

The way he always sat facing restaurant entrances.

The way loud noises never startled him.

At the time she thought he was strange.

Now—

Now it all looked rehearsed. Conditioned.

Manufactured.

Sophia folded her arms tighter. “And Scarlett?”

The assassin answered before Ethan could.

“She was his equal.”

A quiet settled over the room after that.

Not silence.

Weight.

The assassin tilted his head toward Ethan with something almost mocking in his expression now.

“You two were supposed to inherit everything together.”

Sophia’s stomach twisted sharply.

Not jealousy this time.

Something uglier.

Because suddenly she understood why Ethan looked different when Scarlett’s name was spoken.

This woman belonged to the part of him Sophia never touched.

The real part.

Not the exhausted husband fixing heaters in cheap apartments.

Not the quiet man swallowing insults at family dinners.

Something older.

Darker.

Augustus finally stepped forward. “Scarlett Mercer was declared dead three years ago after the Marseille incident.”

The assassin snorted blood onto the floor. “Declared. Sure.”

Sophia looked between them. “What happened in Marseille?”

Nobody answered immediately.

Then Ethan spoke quietly.

“We were betrayed.”

The simplicity of the sentence made it worse.

The assassin smiled again. “You still blame yourself.”

Ethan’s eyes shifted toward him slowly.

The room temperature seemed to drop.

“She died because she came back for you,” the prisoner whispered. “And now she’s doing it again.”

Sophia noticed it then.

Not Ethan’s face.

His breathing.

Slightly slower now.

Controlled.

Like a man forcing something ugly back into a locked room inside his head.

And suddenly she understood something Augustus probably didn’t.

Scarlett wasn’t Ethan’s weakness because he loved her.

Scarlett was his weakness because she knew him before he became this version of himself.

Before the masks.

Before the fake marriage.

Before the billionaire empire buried him alive.

Sophia took a slow breath.

Then looked directly at Ethan.

“You used me to disappear.”

The words came out flatter than she expected.

Not crying now.

No shaking voice.

Just truth.

Ethan met her eyes but didn’t deny it.

Sophia nodded once slowly.

Funny.

Three hours ago she thought Ethan was weak.

Now she realized she’d spent three years sleeping beside someone dangerous enough to frighten men like Augustus Cole.

And somehow that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was realizing some pieces of Ethan had actually been real.

The quiet mornings.

The tired smiles.

The way he always checked whether she locked the apartment door before bed.

That hadn’t been fake.

Which meant somewhere along the line—

He really did get attached.

The assassin suddenly started laughing again.

“You still don’t get it,” he coughed.

Sophia looked at him coldly.

“Get what?”

The prisoner’s swollen grin widened.

“If Scarlett’s back…” He glanced toward Ethan. “You’re already dead.”

The room went still again.

Then the assassin looked directly at Sophia.

“She won’t kill him first.”

Sophia felt the cold before the words even came.

The man smiled through blood.

“She’ll kill what softened him.”