Chapter 3

Coming home was like entering a museum of a life that was no longer mine. The house was the same, but everything in it was now an artifact of a grand deception. Sarah had arranged for a hospital bed to be installed in the living room, along with all the necessary medical equipment. I was a prisoner in my own home, a monument to her "grief" and "devotion."

The hardest part was seeing the Fortress of Solitude in the backyard. It stood there, a perfect, beautiful lie, mocking me with the memory of Leo' s laughter. I would stare at it for hours from the window, the cold rage building inside me until my hands, the only part of my lower body I could feel, ached from clenching my fists.

Sarah was the perfect nurse, the perfect grieving widow. She managed my medications, she talked with the physical therapists, she handled all the calls of condolence with a voice full of carefully crafted sorrow. She floated through the house, a specter of false love. To the outside world, she was a saint, a woman holding her shattered family together. To me, she was my son' s executioner.

I had to wait for my moments. My body was weak, and she watched me constantly. But she had an empire to run, even in her feigned mourning. There were calls she had to take in her office, video conferences that lasted for hours. Those were my windows.

One afternoon, while she was locked in a meeting, I pushed my wheelchair over to her laptop, which she' d carelessly left on the coffee table. It was open. My heart hammered against my ribs. I knew her password; it was a blend of our anniversary and Leo' s birthday, a detail that now felt like a sick joke.

Her email was open. I didn't have much time. I scrolled quickly, my eyes scanning for one name. Alex.

There it was. A short, terse thread.

Alex: Is everything stable?

Sarah: The procedure was a complete success. D is recovering well. No rejection signs.

Alex: Thank God. What about... him?

Sarah: Under control. He is a broken man. He suspects nothing.

A broken man. The words seared into my brain. I took a picture of the screen with my phone, my hand shaking so badly I almost dropped it. This was it. The first piece of concrete evidence I had in my possession.

I needed more. I knew she kept a private study upstairs, a room I was rarely allowed into. She claimed it was where she did her most sensitive work. I knew there was a spare key hidden in a hollowed-out book in the main library-a secret she thought only she knew.

The next day, when her schedule showed a three-hour off-site meeting, I put my plan into action. Getting up the stairs was an agonizing, difficult process. I had to use my arms to haul my dead legs up each step, my body screaming in protest. It took me almost an hour, sweat pouring down my face.

I found the book, retrieved the key, and wheeled myself to her study. I unlocked the door.

The room was not what I expected. It was cold, minimalist, and impersonal. It looked less like an office and more like a command center. But I wasn't interested in the decor. I started searching. Her desk drawers were locked, but I found a small crowbar in the toolkit in the hall closet. I didn't care about being neat. I pried them open.

Files. Papers. Nothing.

Then I saw it. A small, biometric safe hidden behind a false panel in the wall. My heart sank. There was no way I could open that. I was about to give up when my eyes caught a framed picture on her desk. It wasn't of me and her, or even of Leo. It was a picture of her, years younger, holding a newborn baby. She looked genuinely happy. On the back, in her handwriting, was a date.

It was a long shot. But desperation makes you try anything. I looked at the safe's keypad. It required a six-digit code. The date on the picture was month, day, year. Six digits.

I typed it in. The safe clicked open.

Inside, there was a single, thick manila envelope. My hands trembled as I pulled it out.

It was all there. A birth certificate for one Daisy Thompson. Mother: Sarah Jenkins. Father: Alex Thompson. Following it were Daisy' s complete medical records, detailing a rare congenital heart defect that would be fatal without a transplant.

And at the very bottom, there was a folder labeled "Contingency."

Inside were detailed plans. Plans for a "staged vehicular accident." A list of potential "donors," with Leo's name at the top, circled in red. Notes on how to induce specific, non-lethal injuries to a second passenger to create a diversion. A payment ledger detailing transfers to an offshore account belonging to a truck driver and a shockingly large "consulting fee" paid to a specific doctor at the hospital where I woke up.

The whole monstrous, horrifying truth, laid out in cold, hard print.

I sat there in the silence of her secret room, the papers shaking in my lap, and I felt nothing but a vast, empty cold. The grief was gone. The rage was gone. All that was left was the chilling certainty of what I had to do.