MARRIED TO THE MOBSTER QUEEN

The fluorescent light of the hospital room was offensively bright, assaulting my eyes the moment I woke up. A sharp, throbbing ache pulsed in my skull, demanding attention.

“Mom, are you okay?” a girl’s voice, high and laced with genuine panic, cut through the pain.

“Mom? Who is your Mom?” I asked, my voice coming out rougher than I liked. I was a professional; I didn’t get rough.

“Did you lose your memory because of the accident?” she asked again, her face a mask of worry. She was pretty, with those unnervingly large eyes that kids these days seem to possess.

Then, from the corner, a male voice chimed in. “Mom has amnesia?” I saw him—a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, glued to a mobile phone that looked impossibly expensive. He didn’t even drop his headshot streak. He held up his other phone. “Dad, come over, Mom woke up but has amnesia,” he announced, as if reporting a minor traffic delay.

“Who are you children?” I demanded, my professional training kicking in, overriding the shock. Children. It was a four-alarm security failure! My whole life was about being untraceable, a ghost. Children are essentially a paper trail written in permanent marker.

“We are your children, we’re twins,” they both said. The synchronized delivery unnerved me.

“Children? How?” I exclaimed. I was an assassin. My relationships were strictly transactional and generally ended with a clean body disposal. A family was a liability.

The door practically exploded inward. A man walked in. The man. Asher Hayes. Impeccably dressed, even for a hospital visit, and irritatingly handsome. My mind screamed Target.

“Dad, Mom can’t remember us,” the girl cried, running to him.

I tried to keep my voice level, but the panic was rising. “Why are you here?”

“I am your husband,” he stated, but the look in his eyes wasn’t concern—it was a deep, cynical suspicion.

My brain stalled. Husband. I was supposed to kill him, not sign a marriage contract! I closed my eyes and groaned, the sheer impossibility of it all triggering a fresh wave of pain from the wound wrapped tightly around my head.

“If this is one of your drama, Ana, stop it,” he said, his voice flat and exasperated, like he was canceling a lunch order.

I opened my eyes and shot him a look that could melt steel. “I just woke up, and I didn’t hear a word of concern from you, instead you accused me of being so dramatic? What kind of husband are you?”

Asher Hayes, the powerful CEO of Hayes Holdings Inc., actually paused. He looked like he was about to launch into a detailed accounting of my perceived behavioral flaws, but he stopped himself.

“Please leave me for a moment,” I said, putting everything I had left into that demand. “I want to be alone and will try to remember things. I feel confused right now.”

He nodded curtly, grabbing the children—one by the hand, the other by the ear—and steering them out.

Damn, what happened to me?

I looked at the sleek smartphone on the sidetable and picked it up. The date glowed back at me: September 2025.

My last, crystal-clear memory was 2012, inside Asher Hayes’s hotel room. I had slipped on a spilled champagne flute and hit my head against the marble fireplace, moments before I was supposed to end his life.

I didn’t kill my target. I just woke up thirteen years later, married to him, and with twins. I hadn’t lost my life; I had lost my identity to suburban espionage.

The door opened for the second act, and in walked the hospital room’s designated, comically cliché antagonist.

She was a living, breathing cliché in a power suit that looked ten times more expensive than the hospital bed I was lying in. Her hair was immaculate, her lipstick was dangerously red, and her expression was a perfect blend of smugness and homicidal pettiness.

I frowned. Who is this woman? Oh, wait. The uniform of the jealous, homewrecking corporate rival is universally recognizable. My memory might be fragmented, but my internal “Target/Threat Assessment” database was fully operational.

She leaned in, delivering her villain monologue with the theatrical flourish of a soap opera star. “So I heard, you lost your memory, you didn’t remember how I pushed you to the stairs. Why can’t you die? Asher hated you, you climbed into his bed and made yourself pregnant but no matter how he was cold towards you, you’re like a leech sticking to him and sucking his blood.”

I felt a genuine warmth bloom in my chest. Finally! A clear, recognizable objective. This wasn’t amnesia; this was a reboot!

“So, you’re the culprit,” I said, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across my face. “How many times did you try to kill me?”

She smirked, preening like a cat who’d just knocked a vase off a mantelpiece. “I lost count, maybe a dozen times, but you only ended up in the hospital thrice, and this is the third time.” She spoke of my near-death experiences with the casual boredom of someone discussing traffic.

“What about my children?” I asked, testing the waters.

“They’re like you,” she sneered, “slippery as an eel, but soon all of you will disappear, and Asher will be mine again.”

That was the cue.

My hand was bandaged, but a familiar, icy energy surged through my veins. The ache in my head was instantly forgotten, replaced by the perfect calibration of muscle memory. This wasn’t a complex assassination requiring tactical gear; this was just tacky corporate infighting, and I was overqualified.

I swung myself off the bed with effortless grace, performing a hospital gown wardrobe change mid-movement, and delivered a powerful, open-handed Double Slap (one for me, one for my missing six years of memories).

It landed with a sound like two wet fish hitting concrete. Before she could process the insult, I followed through with a quick, low Kick to the knee.

She didn’t just fall; she executed a spectacular, gravity-defying arch that propelled her straight into the institutional gray wall. (5.0 for form, 10.0 for impact).

I stalked over to her downed, bewildered form. She was clutching her face, already calling out for the nonexistent security. I calmly reached down, grabbed her arm, and executed a perfect Radial Nerve Wrist Lock.

She cried out—not in the stoic silence of a hardened criminal, but in the theatrical, piercing shriek of someone whose manicure was ruined.

“Do it again,” I whispered, leaning close so she could smell the hospital disinfectant on my breath, “and I will make sure you’ll beg for death. And trust me, I know the difference between begging and real pain.”

I released her arm, dropped her in a crumpled, designer heap on the floor, and majestically returned to my bed. My muscles were protesting—this was more exertion than I was used to after thirteen years of apparently being a trophy wife—but it was nothing compared to the truly gruesome things I’d survived.

I lay back and watched as The Mistress scrambled for her glittering phone.

“Asher! Asher, darling, she attacked me! She’s fine! She’s totally fine, and now she’s violent! Oh, my ankle! I think she broke my ankle! Send Security! Asher!" she wailed dramatically into the phone.

I simply sighed. This woman had zero class. She didn’t realize she was dealing with Ana, the ghost who specialized in turning people into cold cases, not Ana, the submissive CEO’s wife.

This domestic drama? I thought, closing my eyes. This is going to be easier than filing tax returns.