My Husband Planned My Death with My Sister

The emergency room doctor had wrapped my bruised ribs in tight, suffocating bandages and stitched the jagged cut along my jawline. Against his vehement medical advice, I demanded to be discharged. My flight to Paris was in less than twenty-four hours. I couldn't afford to be trapped in a hospital bed, not when the walls of my stolen life were rapidly closing in on me.

I sat in the shadowed corner of the Perkins estate's grand foyer, the marble floor radiating a bitter chill through my thin socks. The heavy oak front door stood wide open. Detective Torres stood on the threshold, the rain dripping from her trench coat, her gold badge gleaming under the crystal chandelier.

"I need to speak with Nyomi Green," Torres said, her voice a sharp blade cutting through the house's curated, suffocating silence. She held up a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside, the cracked black burner phone rested like a dead insect. "We have digital forensics linking this device—and a massive offshore wire transfer—directly to a coordinated hit on Eliana Ortiz."

Footsteps thundered down the curved mahogany staircase. Sebastian. He didn't even glance at me, huddled and battered in the corner shadows. His eyes, wild and bloodshot, were locked entirely onto the detective.

"Get out of my house," Sebastian snarled, stepping between Torres and the stairs as if shielding a queen from an assassin.

"Mr. Perkins, this is an active attempted murder investigation—"

"It's a pathetic, desperate lie!" Sebastian roared. The veins in his neck bulged against his starched collar, his face flushing a violent crimson. He whipped out his phone, his thumb jabbing the screen with frantic precision. "I'm calling Harrison & Vance right now. You want to question my fiancée? You can do it through a wall of the most ruthless defense attorneys in New York."

"Your wife was nearly beaten to death in an alley tonight," Torres countered, her jaw set in a rigid, uncompromising line.

Sebastian let out a harsh, breathless laugh. He finally turned his head, his gaze sweeping over my bruised face, my split lip, my trembling frame. There was no pity in his eyes. No remorse. Only a thick, suffocating disgust. "My *wife*," he spat the word like poison, "is a bitter, jealous woman who can't handle that I've moved on. She staged the whole damn thing just to ruin Nyomi's peace."

He slammed the door in the detective's face. The heavy thud echoed through the foyer, vibrating right into my fractured ribs.

I didn't argue. I didn't scream. I just pulled myself up by the edge of the console table and began the agonizing, slow climb up the stairs to the guest room. The Eliana who would have begged for his belief, who would have sobbed for his protection, had died in that rain-slicked alley.

Two hours later, the storm outside worsened, rain lashing violently against the guest room window. I was sitting on the edge of the mattress, clumsily trying to zip my small duffel bag with my good hand. The thick manila envelope Marcus Chen had given me was safely tucked inside the inner lining of my coat.

The door didn't just open; it violently hit the drywall with a sickening crack.

Sebastian stormed in, bringing the heavy scent of scotch and blind rage with him. His chest heaved. Before I could even stand, he crossed the room in three massive strides, his shadow swallowing me whole.

"How far were you willing to go, Eliana?" he hissed, his face inches from mine. The heat radiating off him was terrifying. "Hiring street thugs to rough you up? Planting a phone? To frame a *pregnant* woman?"

"Sebastian, don't—" I started, shrinking back against the headboard.

He lunged. His large hand clamped over my left hand—the one still wrapped in surgical tape from my recent nerve graft recovery.

"You are sick!" he screamed, his grip tightening like a vice.

A sharp, blinding agony shot up my arm. I gasped, my knees buckling as I tried to yank my arm away. But he didn't let go. He squeezed harder. The delicate, healing bones in my hand ground together under the crushing pressure of his fingers. A sickening pop echoed in the small room.

"Stop!" I shrieked, the sound tearing at my raw throat. Tears of pure, white-hot physical torment spilled over my cheeks. "You're breaking it! Sebastian, please!"

He held on for one agonizing second longer, his jaw locked, his eyes completely hollow of the man I had once loved. Then, he shoved me backward. I collapsed onto the floor, cradling my mangled hand against my chest, gasping for air as the room spun in nauseating circles.

Sebastian stood over me, adjusting his cuffs. His breathing was ragged, but his voice dropped to a terrifying, deadly calm.

"Nyomi is crying in our bedroom because of your psychotic stunts," he said, staring down at my weeping, battered body. "Tomorrow at noon, we are getting married at the Plaza. You are going to put on a dress, you are going to stand in front of our guests, and you are going to publicly apologize to her for these lies."

I looked up at him through the blur of my tears, my crushed hand throbbing in time with my racing, terrified heart.

"If you don't," Sebastian continued, his tone carrying the cold weight of a judge passing a final sentence, "I will cut off every cent of your post-op medical care. I will freeze your joint accounts. I will leave you utterly bankrupt, Eliana. You won't even be able to afford a bandage for that hand."

He turned on his heel and walked out, leaving the door wide open.

I stayed on the floor, the metallic taste of blood fresh on my tongue. I looked down at my throbbing, rapidly swelling hand. The physical pain was excruciating, but the agonizing tug-of-war in my chest had finally stopped. The icy void inside me solidified into absolute zero.

*Tomorrow at noon.*

I slowly pushed myself off the floor, my eyes fixing on the packed duffel bag in the corner. I wouldn't be at the Plaza tomorrow. By the time Sebastian realized I was gone, Mademoiselle Laurent would already be touching down in Paris.