Wife Takes Down Husband's Firm

The car lurched to a stop at the edge of a property I'd never seen before—some abandoned estate with overgrown bushes concealing most of the grounds. The only illumination came from a few scattered security lights casting eerie shadows across the landscape.

Alistair yanked me from the car, his fingers digging into my arm. "Move," he ordered, pulling me down a narrow path that wound through the dense foliage.

That's when I heard it—splashing, violent and desperate, punctuated by screams that made my blood freeze. Human screams, interspersed with deep, guttural growls that didn't sound like any animal I'd ever heard.

"Teagan!" I broke free from Alistair's grip, running blindly toward the sounds, branches whipping against my face.

I burst through the tree line and found myself facing a large, fenced enclosure. The smell hit me first—fetid water and something metallic that I recognized instantly as blood. A floodlight illuminated the scene in harsh white light, revealing a pool of dark water churning with massive, scaled bodies.

Alligators. At least a dozen of them, thrashing in a feeding frenzy.

In the center of the pool, a woman flailed, her bloodied arms reaching desperately toward us. Her face, contorted in agony and terror, was illuminated for just a moment.

It wasn't Teagan.

"Raya?" Alistair's voice cracked beside me, a whisper of disbelief that quickly escalated to a scream. "RAYA!"

Raya Crawford—Alistair's sister. My friend. The woman who had once saved me and brought me into the Crawford family. Her eyes locked with mine across the water, recognition flashing in them before an alligator dragged her under again.

She resurfaced seconds later, weaker now, her blood-stained hand reaching toward her brother. "Alistair... help..." The words were barely audible over the splashing and growling.

I lunged toward the gate, but Alistair remained frozen, his face drained of all color. "That's... that's not possible," he stammered. "It was supposed to be..."

"Help me!" I screamed at him, trying to figure out how to open the locked gate. "We have to get her out!"

But it was already too late. Raya's struggles grew weaker, her screams fading to whimpers before stopping altogether. Her body floated motionless in the crimson water, pieces of her being torn away by the frenzied alligators.

"No, no, NO!" Alistair finally broke from his stupor, collapsing to his knees and screaming his sister's name over and over, the sound tearing through the night air.

Movement from the shadows caught my eye. Aurora Bell emerged, her face a mask of shock and horror—not at the brutality of the scene, but at her mistake.

"It was supposed to be the autistic sister," she whispered, her eyes wide. "I took the wrong one. Alistair, I didn't know—"

Alistair staggered to his feet and rushed to Aurora, pulling her into his arms. Not to strangle her, not to punish her for murdering his sister—but to comfort her. To protect her.

"It's okay," he murmured into her hair, while his sister's blood clouded the water behind him. "We'll fix this."

I stood paralyzed, unable to process what I was witnessing. The man I had married was comforting his sister's murderer while her body was still warm.

"We need to get rid of the body," Aurora said, her voice steadying as she pulled away from Alistair. She pulled out her phone, dialing quickly. "I know people who can help. We can harvest the organs—they're still viable if we move fast. Then burn whatever's left."

Alistair nodded, all business now. "No one can know about this. The waiver Gabriela signed will protect us legally, but we need to eliminate all evidence."

They spoke about Raya—kind, beautiful Raya who had welcomed me into her family—as if she were nothing but an inconvenience to be disposed of. As if her life meant nothing compared to Aurora's freedom.

"You can't be serious," I whispered, finding my voice at last. "That's your sister. She's dead because of this woman, and you're helping her cover it up?"

Alistair turned to me, his eyes cold and unfamiliar. "You signed the waiver. You're complicit now too."

I looked back at the water, where Raya's body continued to be desecrated, and knew with absolute certainty that nothing would ever be the same again.