Chapter 3The Dead Husband's Secret: A Widow's Vengeance

Walking out of the hospital on crutches, I mentally replayed every detail I might have missed.

Sure enough, digging deep into my digital insurance portals, I found a $3 million accidental death life insurance policy.

Insured: Chloe.

Beneficiary: Martha (Marcus's mother).

The effective date of the policy was exactly one month before Marcus's "fatal accident"!

My breathing stopped completely.

He didn't just want to fake his death for insurance money.

This was a meticulously orchestrated murder plot!

They scammed me out of my savings, stole my home, and destroyed my reputation.

The final step was for me to conveniently die in a tragic "accident."

My death was going to be the bloody poker chip they used to cash out that $3 million!

My phone screen flickered.

The mysterious number sent me another text message.

[Next Wednesday. The Grand Pearl Hotel. Marcus's wedding.]

[That is also the day you are scheduled to die in a tragic accident. Watch your back!]

I snapped my head up.

Without realizing it, I had wandered beneath a dark, concrete overpass.

A rusted van with no license plates silently rolled to a stop right next to me.

The sliding door ripped open, and three massive men dressed in black stepped out. They gripped heavy steel crowbars, advancing toward me!

RUN!

That was the only primal instinct left in my brain.

I grabbed a handful of filthy street dirt and hurled it directly into the eyes of the closest thug!

While he screamed and clawed at his face, I scrambled on my hands and knees, dragging my casted leg, and dove into a pitch-black, narrow alleyway.

"Grab that bitch! Don't let her get away!"

I dragged my broken leg through the darkness, eventually squeezing myself into a cramped, foul-smelling storm drain beneath a grate.

I bit down on my lip so hard I bled, refusing to make even the slightest sound.

I waited in agonizing silence until their heavy footsteps finally faded away.

Having narrowly escaped death, I didn't dare call the police. I wanted to see if I could gather more hard evidence first.

I opened the app connected to the micro-bug I had planted.

After a burst of static, Martha's voice came through clearly.

"Almost there, almost there! As long as that idiot Chloe has an 'accident' and dies, all our loose ends are permanently tied up."

"The second that $3 million hits the account, we're flying to Europe."

Vanessa let out a smug, triumphant laugh.

"Marcus is brilliant. He set everything up perfectly."

"But Mom, are you sure the ashes situation is airtight? I mean... that was a real person..."

Martha scoffed coldly.

"What are you afraid of?"

"That old, terminally ill drifter from the countryside had kidney failure. He only had a few days left to live anyway."

"We brought him to the city, gave him a warm bed, and fed him well for a few days."

"Getting to be Marcus's body double at the end was the greatest blessing of his pathetic life!"

"The body was burned completely beyond recognition in the crash. Who the hell is going to investigate it?"

They didn't just fake Marcus's death. They actually murdered a living, breathing human being in cold blood!

What made it even more ironic was that Vanessa, the mistress who thought she had won it all, was nothing but a pawn to Marcus.

He was using Vanessa to launder the dirty money and send his mother abroad to retire in luxury.

And then, with his hands perfectly clean and a new identity, he was going to marry the heiress of the Sterling corporate empire!

Every step was interconnected, bleeding his victims dry without leaving a single trace.

Marcus's intelligence and sheer, psychotic ruthlessness were suffocating.

I took a deep breath. I packaged the remaining ashes from the urn, along with the unwashed razor containing Marcus's DNA, and overnighted them via FedEx.

I sent them to an old college friend who worked as a senior analyst at a private forensic testing lab out of state.

This was my final, and only, trump card to flip the board.

Then, I dialed the number that had texted me the loan shark threats yesterday.

"I am Marcus's wife."

"Aren't you guys looking for the $1.2 million he owes you?"

"His mother and his mistress, Vanessa, are currently sitting on millions in cash and are preparing to flee the country."

"Next Wednesday, The Grand Pearl Hotel. If you don't catch them there, you will never see a single dime of your money again."

They wanted to use borrowed knives to kill me. Now, it was my turn.