Chapter 9
Arthur died on the way to the hospital.
The doctors tried everything. They worked on him for two hours. But the bullets had hit his heart. There was nothing they could do.
I identified his body in the morgue.
I held his cold hand. I told him how sorry I was. How much I loved him. How I would make sure his death wasn’t for nothing.
The police said it was a mob hit.
The three families Helen was supposed to testify against had found out about the recording. They’d killed Arthur to keep him from turning it over to the DA. To send a message to Helen that she’d better keep her end of the deal.
But I knew the truth.
Helen had ordered the hit.
She’d known Arthur had the recording. She’d known he was going to the DA. She’d had him killed to silence him. To keep her plea deal intact. To keep herself out of prison.
And she’d gotten away with it.
There was no proof.
No witnesses. No forensics. Nothing to tie her to the murder.
The DA threw out Arthur’s recording the next day. He said it was “inadmissible hearsay” because Arthur was dead and couldn’t testify to its authenticity. The plea deal stood. Helen was a free woman.
The judge ruled in Helen’s favor on the visitation case two days later.
He said there was “no credible evidence” that Helen was a danger to Lily. He granted her one weekend a month, every Wednesday afternoon, and two weeks every summer. Supervised, at first. But after six months, if there were no incidents, the supervision would be lifted.
I screamed at the judge. I cried. I begged him. I showed him every piece of evidence I had.
He didn’t care.
He told me if I didn’t comply with the order, he’d hold me in contempt of court and give full custody to Helen.
I had no choice.
The first visitation was the next Wednesday.
Helen showed up at the penthouse at two p.m. sharp. She was wearing a pink dress, her hair in soft curls, holding a giant teddy bear and a bag of toys. She smiled like she was the sweetest grandmother in the world.
“Hello, Elara,” she said, walking past me like she owned the place. “Where’s my Lily? Grandma’s here!”
Lily ran into the living room. She stopped when she saw Helen. She hid behind my leg, staring at her with big, scared eyes.
“Who’s that, Mommy?” she said.
Helen’s smile faltered for a split second. Then it came back, bigger and brighter than before.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, kneeling down and opening her arms. “I’m your grandma. Don’t you remember me? I’ve missed you so much!”
Lily shook her head. She clung tighter to my leg. “No. Go away. I want Mommy.”
Helen stood up. She looked at me. Her eyes were cold. Dead.
“Give her time,” she said, her voice low so only I could hear. “She’ll learn to love me. And one day, she’ll forget all about you.”
The court-appointed supervisor arrived a minute later. A middle-aged woman with a clipboard and a no-nonsense attitude.
I knelt down and hugged Lily tight.
“Mommy will be right here, baby,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere. If you get scared, you just yell for me, okay? I’ll come running.”
Lily nodded, tears in her eyes. “Okay, Mommy.”
I watched them take her into the playroom. I sat on the couch outside, my hands clenched into fists, listening to every sound. Every laugh. Every word.
Helen tried everything. She played with Lily’s toys. She sang her songs. She gave her cookies.
Lily didn’t say a word to her. She just sat in the corner, playing by herself, glancing at the door every two minutes to make sure I was still there.
When the two hours were up, Helen walked out of the playroom, her face tight with anger.
“This is your fault,” she said to me as she left. “You’ve poisoned her against me. But don’t worry. I have all the time in the world. I’ll wear you down, Elara. I’ll take everything from you. Your company. Your reputation. Your daughter. And when I’m done, you’ll have nothing left. Just like I had nothing when your father stole my first fiancé from me forty years ago.”
I froze.
“What did you say?” I said.
Helen smiled. A cold, bitter smile.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” she said. “Your father, Thomas Voss? He was engaged to me first. We were in love. We were going to get married. Then he met your mother. That little gold digger. She stole him from me. She ruined my life. So I ruined hers. I was the one who paid the drunk driver to crash into their car twenty years ago. I was the one who killed your parents, Elara. And I would have gotten away with it too… if you hadn’t come along and married my son. It was supposed to be the perfect revenge. Marry my son, steal my company… and I’d get to watch you suffer just like I suffered. But you ruined that too. You just had to be stronger than me. Smarter than me. Well, it’s not over yet. I’m going to finish what I started twenty years ago. I’m going to kill you. And I’m going to raise Lily as my own. She’ll be the daughter I never had. And she’ll never even know you existed.”
She winked.
Then she walked out the door.
I stood frozen in the hallway.
She’d killed my parents.
She’d admitted it.
And the supervisor had heard every word.
I turned around.
The supervisor was standing in the doorway of the playroom, her face white, her clipboard shaking in her hand.
“Did you hear that?” I said, my voice breaking.
She nodded slowly.
“Every word,” she said.
I pulled out my phone. I called Clara.
“Clara,” I said. “Get over here now. Bring the police. Bring the DA. Helen just confessed to murdering my parents. We have a witness. It’s over. Finally.”
Helen was arrested that night.
The supervisor testified to the grand jury. They indicted Helen on two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of my parents. The DA threw out the plea deal immediately. All the old charges were reinstated. Bail was denied.
This time, there was no getting out.
The trial lasted six weeks.
The prosecution presented everything. The supervisor’s testimony. The old police officer’s testimony about the planted poison. The proof that Helen had paid the drunk driver. The embezzlement. The kidnapping. the drugging of Lily. The deepfakes. The murder of Arthur.
Helen’s lawyer tried to argue that the supervisor was lying. That I’d paid her. That Helen had been provoked. That she was mentally ill.
No one believed her.
The jury deliberated for four hours.
They found Helen guilty on all counts.
The judge sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Plus an additional fifty years for all the other charges.
She would die in prison.
As the guards led her out of the courtroom, she turned and looked at me. Her face was twisted with rage. She screamed curses at me. She threatened to kill Lily. To kill me. To burn everything I loved to the ground.
I didn’t flinch.
I just looked at her. And I smiled.
It was over.
Finally.
Truly over.
We walked out of the courthouse into the bright sunshine. Daniel was holding Lily on his shoulders. She was waving a small American flag, laughing, unaware of how much had just changed for all of us. Clara and Marcus were beside me, smiling through their tears.
I took a deep breath of fresh air.
For the first time in two years, I felt free.
I felt safe.
That night, we went back to the penthouse. We ordered pizza. We watched a movie. Lily fell asleep on the couch between Daniel and me, her head on my lap, her hand in Daniel’s.
I carried her to her crib. I kissed her forehead. I tucked her in.
I stood there for a long time, watching her sleep.
Then I walked back into the living room. Daniel was waiting for me. He held out a glass of champagne.
“To us,” he said. “To new beginnings.”
I clinked my glass against his.
“To us,” I said.
We sat down on the couch. We talked for hours. About the future. About the merged Voss-Langford Group. About Lily’s first day of school. About all the trips we wanted to take. All the memories we wanted to make.
Then the doorbell rang.
I frowned.
It was almost midnight.
Marcus was gone for the night. It was just Daniel and Lily and me.
I stood up.
“I’ll get it,” I said.
I walked to the door. I looked through the peephole.
No one was there.
I opened the door.
Sitting on the welcome mat was a small envelope.
No stamp. No address. Just my name written in black ink.
I picked it up. I opened it.
Inside was a single piece of paper.
Written in Helen’s handwriting.
I know you put me in prison, Elara. But I have friends on the outside. Friends who owe me favors. And one day soon… they’re going to bring me my granddaughter.
Sleep tight.
I dropped the letter.
I ran to Lily’s room.
May you like
The window was wide open.
The crib was empty.
