Chapter 4
Liam was born three hours later, in the middle of the night.
Six pounds, two ounces.
Ten perfect fingers, ten perfect toes.
A head full of dark hair, just like his grandma Clara.
The second they laid him on my chest, warm and soft and crying, every bit of pain I’d felt in the last month vanished.
My son.
My whole world.
He was alive.
We were both alive.
Jonathan cried when he held him for the first time.
The big, tough billionaire, founder of a company worth billions, sat in the chair by my bed and held his grandson like he was the most precious thing on earth.
Which he was.
“Hey, little man,” he whispered, kissing Liam’s forehead.
“Grandpa’s got you. No one’s ever gonna hurt you again.”
I watched them, tears streaming down my face.
This was the family I’d always wanted.
The family Ethan had tried to take from me.
The next week was a blur of feedings and diaper changes and late nights.
Liam was a good baby.
Only cried when he was hungry or wet.
Slept curled up on my chest, his little hand fisted in my shirt.
Jonathan was a natural grandpa.
Up at six every morning, making coffee, bringing me breakfast in bed.
Singing old lullabies to Liam when he was fussy.
Changing diapers like he’d been doing it his whole life.
For the first time in years, I felt like I could breathe.
Like I was home.
But I never forgot why we were there.
Never forgot Ethan and Brittany, living it up on my blood money.
Every night, after Liam fell asleep, I’d sit at the kitchen table with Jonathan and his team.
Going over every piece of evidence they’d gathered.
His IT people had hacked Ethan’s cloud storage three days after I moved into the cabin.
Found thousands of emails and texts, dating back six months.
The first one made my blood run cold.
From Ethan to Brittany, sent the day after we found out I was pregnant.
> We have a problem. The baby’s due in nine months. If I leave her now, I get half of nothing. If we wait… the insurance policy pays fifty million. Enough for us to start over. No more debts. No more hiding.
I stared at the screen, my hand over my mouth.
He’d decided to kill me the second he found out I was carrying his son.
Saw my pregnancy not as a blessing, but as a deadline.
A reason to act fast.
The next emails were worse.
Them planning the trip to the mountains.
Picking the cliff.
Checking the weather to make sure the storm would be bad enough to cover their tracks.
Calculating how long it would take for the police to find my body.
How fast they could get the insurance money.
> Make sure you’re seen at the coffee shop in town at 3 PM, Ethan wrote two days before the trip.
> Perfect alibi. I’ll say I went for help, ran into you on the road. We’ll tell the police we searched for hours. No one will doubt us.
Brittany’s reply made me sick.
> I can’t wait to be Mrs. Carter. To live in that big house, to finally have everything we deserve. She never appreciated you anyway. You’re too good for her.
Everything we deserve.
She’d been my best friend since high school.
I’d been her maid of honor at her first wedding.
Helped her through her divorce.
And she’d thought I deserved to die.
Thought my son deserved to die.
All for a big house and a fancy car.
Jonathan’s team also found Ethan’s financial records.
He owed over two million dollars to a loan shark in Las Vegas.
Had lost three million at the blackjack tables in the last year.
His business was failing, thousands of dollars in debt to suppliers.
He’d been days away from losing everything.
The insurance policy wasn’t just greed.
It was survival.
He’d killed me to save himself.
We also found proof he’d bribed the coroner.
Ten thousand dollars in cash, transferred to the coroner’s personal bank account the day before the official report was released.
The report that said I’d died of exposure, that there were no signs of foul play.
The coroner had never even seen my body.
Had signed the death certificate based on Ethan’s story alone.
By the end of the week, we had enough evidence to put Ethan and Brittany away for life.
Emails proving premeditation.
Bank records proving motive.
Proof of bribery.
Witnesses who’d seen Ethan and Brittany together at the casino, at the car dealership, at the mansion, lying about being “just friends.”
But Jonathan wanted more.
“All of this is great,” he said, leaning back in his chair, tapping the stack of papers on the table.
“It’ll put them away. But I want him to admit it. I want him on tape, saying he pushed you. Saying he did it for the money. I want the whole world to hear exactly what kind of monster he is.”
I nodded.
I wanted that too.
Wanted to hear him say it.
Wanted to see the look on his face when he realized he’d lost.
Wanted him to know that the woman he’d thrown away was the one who’d destroyed him.
“Then we give him a reason to make a mistake,” I said.
Jonathan raised an eyebrow.
“What do you have in mind?”
I smiled, cold and sharp.
May you like
The same smile Ethan had given me on the cliff.
“We make him think I’m alive.”
