Signed To Be His Wife - Chapter 10: Chapter 10

The night after the trap was sprung, Amara sat quietly in her room at the villa, staring at the ocean beyond the glass doors. Waves crashed softly, but her heart still beat with the echo of adrenaline.
Clara had sent men to kill her.
And someone worse—someone far more dangerous—was watching behind the scenes.
Dominic had tightened security. The entire property was now under strict lockdown. But Amara knew that walls and guards weren’t always enough.
She still had the picture. The message. The memory of the gas seeping from the ceiling.
And now, Clara was missing.
She hadn’t shown up to her apartment. Her phone was off. Her car was abandoned in a parking lot outside the city.
“She’s on the run,” Nolan had said earlier that morning. “She knows we’re closing in.”
Amara walked into the study to find Dominic hunched over his laptop, eyes dark with focus.
He looked up. “I found something.”
Amara approached, peering at the screen. “What is it?”
“Elena’s files—there’s a hidden connection I missed. She wasn’t just investigating Hart Enterprises. She was looking into a private intelligence firm. One that had ties to offshore accounts... and a private fixer who was only ever referred to as ‘The Ghost.’”
“The Ghost?”
“Yeah. And I think he’s the scarred man Clara was working with.”
Amara’s stomach twisted. “Why would a man like that be interested in me?”
Dominic’s jaw clenched. “That’s what I intend to find out.”
Later that day, Inspector Hale arrived quietly.
“I managed to retrieve the call logs from Clara’s office line,” he told them. “There’s a burner number that appears repeatedly. Registered in no name, routed through six countries.”
“Let me guess,” Amara said, “You traced it to the city.”
“More or less,” Hale confirmed. “The last ping came from a safehouse outside Lagos. Abandoned now. But there’s something else...”
He slid a photograph across the table.
Amara stared.
It was her. Standing outside her university library. The same one from the envelope.
Only this time, she wasn’t alone.
Dominic stood beside her.
“But this was... years ago,” she whispered. “Before I met you.”
Dominic looked at it, confused. “I don’t remember this.”
“It was taken from across the street. Probably without either of us knowing.”
Amara looked at Hale. “So I was chosen even before the contract?”
“Looks like it,” Hale said grimly. “You were watched. Planted. And your meeting with Dominic? Might’ve been arranged.”
Amara backed away slowly, her breath catching. “You think I was sent to him...?”
Dominic stood quickly. “No. No one sent you to me. I believe in coincidences until I’m given proof otherwise. You came to my office for a job. Nothing more.”
“But they had this photo...”
“They’ve been trying to manipulate us both,” Dominic said. “The real question is—why?”
That evening, Clara finally resurfaced.
Or rather, someone made her resurface.
A short video appeared in Amara’s encrypted inbox. No subject. No sender.
She clicked it.
The screen flickered.
Clara was tied to a chair in a dark room, blood on her temple, her breathing shallow.
Then a voice—low, deep, and cold.
“She failed. You won. But this isn’t over.”
A scarred hand entered the frame, brushing Clara’s hair aside.
“Next time, I won’t send a warning.”
The screen went black.
Dominic, who had been standing behind her, swore under his breath.
“That’s him,” Amara said. “That’s the man. The one from the video feed. The one giving orders.”
Dominic nodded slowly. “The Ghost.”
The next morning, the entire villa was on alert.
Nolan beefed up security. Motion sensors. Backup power. Locked signal jammers.
Amara, meanwhile, couldn’t stop thinking about the photo, the message, and the realization that someone had set her on this path.
She wasn’t afraid anymore.
She was angry.
“You okay?” Dominic asked, joining her in the garden.
“I want to end this,” she said. “I want to know who’s behind it. Not just Clara. The real person. The one who knew me before I knew myself.”
Dominic looked at her, then took her hand.
“Then we find him. Together.”
That night, Amara sat with her old law school journals, searching for any moment, any name, that stood out.
She flipped through a page where she had once scribbled down a conversation with a professor who had mentored her through an internship.
Dr. Benson.
She hadn’t thought of him in years.
He was the one who encouraged her to apply for that job at Hart Enterprises.
Her eyes widened.
“Dominic!” she called out.
He appeared in seconds.
“What is it?”
She held up the journal. “This professor—he’s the one who told me to apply. But he wasn’t a career advisor. He never did that for anyone else.”
Dominic frowned. “You think he was part of it?”
“I think... he was the start of it.”
Within hours, Nolan tracked down Dr. Benson’s last known location.
The professor had vanished six months ago. No forwarding address. No family contact.
“Too convenient,” Dominic muttered.
“He was planted too,” Amara said. “Like a domino.”
The chapter ended not with a bang, but a phone call.
Dominic’s phone buzzed.
A voice—untraceable, scrambled.
“Drop the investigation. Or the next person you lose... won’t be a memory. It’ll be her.”
Amara heard it too. She reached for his hand.
And for the first time, Dominic didn’t look like the powerful CEO she first met.
He looked like a man terrified of losing the one person he never expected to care about.
“I’m not backing down,” she said.
And as the line went dead, they both knew:
The real game was only just beginning.