It's finished ahead of time by heartless lady, obviously (7)
I believe the answer is:
overtly
'obviously' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'it's finished ahead of time by heartless lady' is the wordplay.
'it's finished' becomes 'over' (over can mean finished or ended).
'ahead of' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (some letters go in front of others).
'time' becomes 't' (abbreviation).
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'heartless' suggests removing the centre.
'lady' with its centre taken out is 'ly'.
'over'+'t'+'ly'='OVERTLY'
(Other definitions for overtly that I've seen before include "So that anyone can see" , "In an open manner" , "openly on view" , "public fashion" , "in the public eye" .)