Chapter 1 - The Bitter Taste of Champagne
Three weeks earlier, Adrian Vale had pushed a glass of champagne toward me in our penthouse.
We had been married six years. To the public, he was a brilliant real-estate developer and a fiercely devoted husband. He was the man who bought me roses on Tuesdays and held my hand on red carpets.
In private, the reality was a suffocating nightmare. He called me fragile. He mocked my panic attacks, weaponizing my anxiety against me. Whenever I tried to assert myself, he softly reminded me that every room we walked in, every car we drove, and every bank account we used carried his name.
“You should rest,” he had said that night, his voice dripping with faux concern. “You look exhausted, my love.”
He smiled, a perfect, practiced curve of his lips. The champagne tasted bitter, metallic, and heavy. I drank it anyway, conditioned by years of submission to never question his offerings.
Within minutes, the world began to blur. The edges of the penthouse softened, spun, and faded into black.
I woke before dawn. The air was freezing. I was inside Adrian’s vintage sports car, slouched against the leather seat, half-conscious. The vehicle was rolling smoothly, silently, toward a jagged cliff road that loomed above the crashing sea.
He sat beside me in the driver's seat. He wasn't looking at me. He was speaking softly into his phone, his tone colder than I had ever heard it.
“Once the car burns, they’ll call it suicide,” Adrian murmured, his eyes fixed on the winding road. “Her father will be too ashamed to question it. He knows how unstable she’s been lately. I’ve laid the groundwork for months.”
From the speakerphone, a woman laughed. It was Celeste. His assistant. My supposed friend.
“And the trust?” she asked, her voice laced with greed.
“Transfers to me after death,” Adrian replied smoothly. “All fifty million of it.”
He had underestimated two crucial things. First, my tolerance for the sedative he had been secretly slipping into my tea for weeks. Second, the emergency digital recorder hidden inside the heavy silver locket I wore around my neck—a gift from my late mother.
The car slowed. Adrian put it in park and stepped out into the rain to move a heavy, fallen branch blocking the edge of the cliff.
This was my only chance. Adrenaline pierced through the heavy fog in my brain.
I kicked open the passenger door. Without a second thought, I threw my body out of the car and tumbled down the steep, rocky slope leading away from the cliff’s edge.
Agony exploded in my chest as I hit a boulder. I broke two ribs. I tore my shoulder. I tasted blood in my mouth.
Above me, I heard the screech of tires, then a horrific crash as the empty car plummeted over the edge, bursting into flames as it hit the rocks below.
Adrian shouted my name into the dark, panic finally edging into his voice. But he didn't climb down. The fire was too hot.
I didn't stop moving. I crawled through wet brush, mud, and thorns for three agonizing miles until a local fisherman found me collapsed on the shore.
The first person I asked the hospital to call was my father.
Elias Mercer had spent thirty years as a ruthless, brilliant federal prosecutor before retiring. Adrian believed we were estranged because I had allowed him to believe it. It was safer that way.
In truth, Dad and I had quietly repaired our relationship months earlier, right after I had shown him a series of highly suspicious transfers draining from my inheritance trust.
My father arrived at the hospital ward looking like a ghost. He took one look at my bruised, broken body, and the veteran prosecutor in him took over. The warmth in his eyes was replaced by cold, calculating fury.
“Do you want me to arrest him now?” Dad asked from my bedside, his voice a dangerous whisper.
“No,” I croaked, gripping his hand. “He’ll deny everything. He’ll say I jumped out in a manic state. He has the doctors in his pocket.”
May you like
My father squeezed my hand. “Then what do we do, Elena?”
“We let him finish the crime,” I whispered.
