Chapter 1 - DO YOU REMEMBER THIS DOCUMENT?
Margaret’s bare foot was pressed against my cheek when the front door opened.
I was kneeling on wet marble.
Eight months pregnant.
Barefoot.
My hands were still inside the metal basin she had ordered me to use to wash her feet.
“Wash them clean!” she sneered. “You only deserve to kneel at my feet!”
Then Ryan stepped inside.
His briefcase hit the floor.
“Emma?”
Margaret turned.
And before I could even get up, she kicked me.
Hard.
Right across my belly.
Pain tore through me.
I screamed and collapsed sideways into the water.
“Don’t—please, don’t touch my baby!”
Ryan crossed the room in seconds.
He knelt beside me.
His face changed when he saw the red shoe mark across the cream fabric covering my stomach.
“Emma, look at me.”
“I’m okay.”
I wasn’t.
The baby moved.
Thank God.
Then Ryan stood.
He walked straight toward his mother.
Margaret lifted her chin.
“Ryan, she—”
His palm cracked across her face.
She staggered backward into the leather armchair.
“How dare you touch my wife!”
Margaret stared at him.
Then screamed:
“How dare you slap your own mother?!”
Ryan didn’t answer.
He grabbed the two suitcases beside the open front door and threw them at her feet.
One struck the marble and tipped sideways.
Margaret froze.
I saw it.
Not anger.
Fear.
Ryan knelt.
Unzipped the larger suitcase.
Reached beneath folded silk dresses.
Then pulled out a thick file.
Dark gray.
No label visible from where I stood.
He held it up.
Margaret went completely pale.
Ryan’s voice dropped.
“Do you remember this document?”
She took one step back.
“Where did you get that?”
Ryan laughed once.
“Wrong question.”
I pushed myself against the chair.
“Ryan…”
He looked at me immediately.
“Sit down.”
“What is it?”
His face hardened again.
“My mother’s insurance policy.”
Margaret snapped:
“Shut your mouth!”
Ryan opened the file.
Not toward me.
Toward himself.
Then read one page.
His jaw tightened.
“What insurance?”
Margaret stepped forward.
“Ryan, I can explain.”
“You had eight years.”
My stomach tightened.
Eight years?
Ryan turned one sheet.
Then another.
“This policy was taken out two months after Emma and I got married.”
My hands became cold.
“On who?”
He looked at me.
“You.”
Silence.
I didn’t understand.
Margaret suddenly said:
“It was financial planning.”
Ryan’s head turned.
“For twenty million dollars?”
I stopped breathing.
Margaret lunged toward the file.
Ryan pulled it away.
“You named yourself contingent beneficiary.”
“That’s not what it looks like.”
“Then what does it look like?”
“Ryan!”
“Answer me!”
She shook.
I had never seen Margaret shake.
Then Ryan said:
“The primary beneficiary was me.”
I stared at him.
He looked sick.
“I didn’t know.”
Margaret said:
“You were her husband.”
“Exactly.”
Ryan turned another page.
“And if I predeceased Emma…”
His eyes met hers.
“You got everything.”
I covered my mouth.
Margaret tried to recover.
“That’s standard.”
“No.”
Ryan held up another document.
“This isn’t.”
I couldn’t see the page.
He could.
His face changed.
“What?” I whispered.
Ryan looked at me.
Then at the shoe print still visible across my pregnant belly.
He said:
“Three weeks ago, someone increased the policy.”
Margaret stopped moving.
“From twenty million…”
He swallowed.
“To thirty-five.”
The room became silent.
Then he looked at her.
“And the request was submitted using Emma’s forged signature.”
I stared at Margaret.
She stared back.
For the first time, I understood something terrifying.
May you like
The kick might not have been planned to kill me.
But Margaret had already spent years arranging a world in which my death could make her very rich.
