The billionaire revenge marriage

chapter 3:The someone

The SUV didn’t move.

Ares stared at his phone like it might grow teeth. Then he shoved it in his pocket and looked at me. Really looked. Not at the dress. Not at the ring. At my face.

“Out,” he said.

“What?”

“Now.” He opened my door from the inside and grabbed my wrist. Not hard. Not gentle. Just absolute.

My heels hit pavement. Courthouse steps behind me. Cameras still flashing. Security forming a wall between us and the street.

A black sedan idled at the curb. Tinted. Engine running.

Ares pulled me behind his body. One hand flat on my lower back, pushing me toward his SUV. The other went inside his jacket.

The sedan’s back door opened.

A man stepped out. Six-two. Shaved head. Suit too cheap for this zip code. His right hand stayed in his pocket.

Richard’s man. Had to be.

“Dr. Callahan,” the man said. Smile didn’t touch his eyes. “Mr. Callahan sends congratulations. And a wedding gift.”

He tossed something. Small. Black.

Ares caught it one-handed without looking. Didn’t drop his eyes from the man.

It was a velvet box. Same size as the one my ring came in.

“Open it,” the man said.

Ares flipped it open with his thumb.

Inside: a bullet. Brass. Engraved.

I couldn’t read it from here, but Ares could. His jaw ticked once.

“Message received,” Ares said. Voice flat. Surgical. “Tell my father his gift is noted. And declined.”

The man’s smile widened. “Mr. Callahan said you’d say that. He also said to tell the bride—” His eyes cut to me. “—that her sister’s hospital room is on the third floor. Very accessible.”

Ice. Straight down my spine.

Ares moved.

No warning. No sound. One second he was beside me, the next he had the man by the throat, slammed against the sedan. Gun pressed under the man’s jaw. When did he pull it?

“You go near her sister,” Ares said, quiet, “and I will perform surgery on you without anesthesia. Do you understand me?”

The man choked. Nodded.

Ares let go. Stepped back. Adjusted his cuff like he’d just shaken a hand. “Leave.”

The man scrambled into the sedan. It peeled off.

Ares exhaled once. Then turned to me. Held out the bullet.

_MIA TORRES_

_04/20/2026_

Today’s date.

He closed my fingers around it. Cold. Heavy.

“Clause six,” he said. “Welcome to the family, Mrs. Callahan.”

He opened the SUV door.

“Get in. We’re going home.”