Weaponizing the Broken Veteran

Sybilla Korvesk was busy calculating the optimal trajectory to shatter a mercenary's jaw with a brass candlestick when her reborn cousin, Cosmina, proudly announced she was stealing Sybilla's scholar fiancé. Cosmina wanted Drusian, the man destined to become Grand Chancellor. Unbothered by the interruption to her fistfight, Sybilla calmly signed a marriage writ with the disgraced, disabled war veteran Corso Fennick - mostly because his military pension included a heavily fortified bunker perfect for hiding her little brother. In Cosmina's past life, Corso drank himself to death after selling his revolutionary steam-prosthetic patents for cheap gin. In this life, Sybilla bolts the liquor cabinet shut, hands a terrified Corso a wrench, and treats his depression as a logistical inefficiency to be ruthlessly eradicated. While Cosmina's insatiable greed drives her "perfect" scholar into illegal smuggling and political ruin, Sybilla coldly marches her platonic husband toward becoming the wealthiest weapons magnate in the realm. But as Corso's monopoly grows, a chilling realization dawns: the mercenaries at the wedding weren't random, and Sybilla's sweet, protective Uncle Yvan has been orchestrating their demise all along. Will her perfectly calculated empire survive the ultimate betrayal?