My blood turned to liquid nitrogen.
This was not a crime of passion. This was not a bad temper. This was a highly coordinated, family-run extortion ring. They had hunted me at my father’s casket.
I stood over my husband, my face a mask of absolute, impenetrable stone. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t reveal my presence to his mother. I just stared at the small, flashing red light of the microscopic security camera I had embedded inside the hotel room’s smoke detector on our first day—a paranoid habit from my father that had just paid the ultimate dividend.
Every single syllable of their felony conspiracy was currently uploading to a secure cloud server.
Derek ended the call, scrambling to his feet, holding his ribs. He looked at me, a fake, desperate apology already forming on his lips, blaming his “temper,” promising he would never do it again, trying to keep the peace until the documents were signed.
He had absolutely no idea that my thumb was currently hovering over the ‘send’ button, forwarding the high-definition audio and video file directly to my late father’s ruthless, predatory estate attorney.
Chapter 2: The Forensic Evisceration
The next morning, the tropical sun baked the tarmac of the Honolulu airport, but I felt nothing but a freezing, clinical detachment.