Faking Your Death for a Mistress? I'm Taking Everything You Built!

I stood in the center of the dimly lit penthouse, staring at the corkboard covering the living room wall.

"Are you receiving the encrypted files, Adrian?" I asked, pinning my phone between my ear and shoulder.

"They're coming through now," my lawyer replied over the line. "Eleanor, whose apartment is this?"

"Julian's."

I traced a manicured fingernail over a printed map pinned to the cork. It charted my exact daily commute from the estate to the corporate tower.

"What am I looking at?" Adrian asked, his rapid typing echoing through the speaker.

"My execution schedule," I answered flatly.

Silence stretched across the line.

I yanked a glossy photograph off the board. It showed my Mercedes, specifically highlighting the undercarriage where the brake lines connected. Next to it hung a calendar with red X marks counting down to our upcoming anniversary trip to the Alps. A steep, winding mountain road.

"He wasn't just going to run," I murmured, tearing the photo in half and dropping the pieces onto the hardwood floor. "He planned to kill me first."

"Eleanor, get out of there. Call the police right now."

"Not yet."

I moved to the sleek desktop computer glowing on the glass desk. My fingers flew across the keyboard, bypassing the rudimentary password I had watched him type a hundred times. "I just found the registration for the semi-truck that ran his Jaguar off the cliff."

"The police report said it was a stolen vehicle," Adrian argued.

"It belongs to Apex Logistics," I corrected, opening a hidden folder labeled with a string of numbers. "Apex is a subsidiary of his offshore shell company. He hired his own hitman to stage the crash."

"My God."

"I'm wiping the local server," I told him, entering the deletion commands. "He wired this place with hidden cameras. If he checks the feed from his beach house in Belize, he gets nothing but static."

The progress bar on the monitor hit one hundred percent. I yanked the hard drive from the computer tower and shoved it into my leather purse.

"I'm sending the last backup of his financial ledgers to your secure server," I said, zipping the bag shut. "Lock it down. Nobody sees this but you and me."

"We have enough to put him away for decades," Adrian urged, his voice tight with panic. "Bring this to the authorities. You are in danger."

"Jail is too good for him," I replied.

"Eleanor, be reasonable."

"I am entirely reasonable." I stepped over the torn photograph, my heels sinking slightly into the plush rug. "I am going to strip him of every dollar, every alias, and every ally. By the time I'm done, he'll wish he died in that wreckage."

I ended the call. The weeping widow was dead. The hunt had begun.

***

Two hours later, the harsh fluorescent lights of the Thorne Group boardroom washed over the dark walnut table.

"You look exhausted, Eleanor," Uncle Arthur noted. His tone carried zero sympathy.

I dabbed the corner of my eye with a monogrammed tissue, lowering my gaze. "Julian's absence is a heavy burden, Arthur."

"Which is exactly why you need help," Garrison, the chief operating officer, interjected. He adjusted his silk tie, leaning forward like a vulture eyeing a carcass. "The board proposes appointing a co-chair to relieve your stress."

"Julian trusted me to guide his legacy," I countered, keeping my posture slumped just enough to look fragile. "I won't abandon his vision."

"Your vision is destroying us!" Arthur slammed his palm against the polished wood. "This audit has frozen three international accounts. The shareholders are panicking. We are hemorrhaging investor confidence."

"It's what Julian would have wanted," I lied smoothly, offering a weak, trembling smile. "Complete transparency."

"Transparency is one thing. Paralyzing the company is another." Garrison tapped his pen against a stack of financial reports. "Step down, Eleanor. Take time to grieve. Let the men who built this company steer it through the storm."

"I am grieving, gentlemen." I stood up, smoothing the front of my black skirt. "But I still control sixty percent of the voting shares. The audit continues."

"You are making a massive mistake," Arthur warned, his face flushing a deep, angry red.

"I will bear that cross," I whispered softly. "Have a productive afternoon."

I walked out of the boardroom, leaving them to their impotent rage. Let them panic. The louder they screamed, the more mistakes they would make.

***

The sterile scent of bleach filled the VIP wing of St. Jude's Medical Center. I needed a signed copy of Julian's final autopsy report to process the estate taxes, a mundane errand that required my physical signature at the records department.

I stepped out of the elevator and froze.

"Eleanor!"

Clara Vane marched down the corridor. She held the younger twin, a pale little girl, tightly against her hip. The older boy trailed behind, coughing into his small fist.

"Arthur cut off my access to the emergency medical fund," Clara hissed, stopping directly in my path.

"Take it up with human resources," I replied, attempting to sidestep her.

She grabbed my forearm. "My daughter needs a bone marrow transplant."

I glanced at the little girl. Her cheeks were sunken, her blue eyes—Julian's eyes—dull and tired.

"That sounds like a personal tragedy, Clara." I pulled my arm free, brushing the wrinkled fabric of my sleeve.

"She has Julian's blood!" Clara's voice cracked, echoing off the linoleum walls. A passing nurse shot us a curious look. "You're hoarding millions while his heir is dying!"

"Julian left a lot of messes," I stated, my expression entirely blank. "I don't finance them."

"Please." The anger drained from Clara's face, replaced by raw, ugly desperation. "I'll sign whatever you want. I'll leave the city. I'll never speak to the press. Just pay for the surgery."

I looked at the woman who had slept in my bed, who had conspired with my husband to steal my life. Then I looked at the sickly child clinging to her neck.

Julian loved this woman enough to fake his own death for her.

Or did he?

He left her behind. He left his sick daughter behind to deal with the fallout, while he sat on a beach with eighty million dollars.

"Julian emptied his own accounts before he died," I told her, my voice turning to ice. "If you want money to save your daughter, I suggest you ask him for it."

Clara's eyes went wide. "What are you talking about? He's dead."

I offered her a polite, razor-sharp smile.

"Have a pleasant afternoon, Ms. Vane."

I turned on my heel and walked away, the click of the hospital doors shutting behind me.

But as I stepped out into the crisp autumn air, a new thought took root in my mind. Clara didn't know he was alive. She thought I was the villain starving her child.

How far would a desperate mother go if I pointed her toward Belize?