“I am her husband,” Ethan stated, his voice dropping an octave into a subtle threat.
“And right now,” Rachel replied, “you are an active threat to her recovery. Out.”
The uniformed officer gestured to the hallway. As Ethan was escorted out, he looked over his shoulder. He locked eyes with me. He mouthed three words. You are dead.
The curtain ripped shut. I sagged into the mattress, a choked sob tearing out of my throat. Rachel immediately leaned over me, her hands trembling as she adjusted my IV.
“Rachel,” I cried quietly. “The blue folder. He’ll go home. He’ll destroy it.”
“He can’t,” Rachel said firmly. “Police have secured the penthouse.”
An hour passed. The pain medication pulled me into a heavy, narcotic haze. Rachel was paged to an emergency trauma down the hall. She promised to be back in exactly five minutes, leaving a hospital security guard stationed outside my door.
I closed my eyes, trying to breathe through the burning sensation spreading across my chest.
Then, I heard the faint squeak of rubber-soled shoes. Not a nurse’s clogs. Dress shoes.
I opened my eyes.
Ethan was standing right beside my bed.
The security guard was nowhere to be seen. Ethan smiled, a cold, empty stretching of his lips. He reached into his tailored jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper—a medical power of attorney form.
“Did you really think a rent-a-cop could keep me out, Clara?” he whispered, leaning over me.
My heart rate monitor began to beep faster. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Ethan’s eyes flicked to the monitor. Slowly, deliberately, his right hand reached out. He didn’t touch my burned skin. Instead, his fingers clamped down hard around the clear plastic tubing of my oxygen cannula. His other hand found the IV line delivering my pain medication and pinched it shut.
My lungs immediately strained for air. The fire in my shoulder roared back to life as the morphine flow stopped.
“Listen to me very carefully,” Ethan hissed, his face inches from mine, his breath smelling of expensive scotch and peppermint. “You are going to sign this medical proxy. It gives me full authorization over your care and your estate. If you don’t, I will simply tell Dr. Carter that you had a panic attack and ripped out your own lines.”
He squeezed the oxygen tube tighter. I gasped, my chest heaving, the friction tearing at my blistered skin.
“Sign it,” he whispered, pressing a pen into my unburned left hand. “Or I stay here and watch you suffocate.”
Tears streamed down my face. I nodded frantically, playing the broken, terrified wife perfectly. He loosened his grip just enough for me to drag in a ragged breath. My hand shook violently as I scribbled a messy, barely legible signature on the bottom line.
Ethan smiled, snatching the paper back. He smoothed my hair affectionately. “Good girl. I’ll take care of everything now.”
He slipped out of the room just seconds before Rachel hurried back in.
“Clara? Your heart rate spiked, what happened?” she asked, rushing to my side.
I waited until the door clicked shut. I looked at the security camera mounted in the corner of the hospital room—the one Ethan, in his arrogance, had ignored.
“He was just here,” I rasped, my voice thick. “He choked my oxygen line. He forced me to sign a proxy.”
Rachel went pale. “I’ll call Hale right now. We have it on tape. That’s witness intimidation and attempted murder.”
“Call Hale,” I agreed, a grim, dark satisfaction settling over me. “But tell him to ignore the Hamptons house. That was a decoy. If we want the real evidence—the offshore accounts, the embezzlement ledgers—tell Hale to get a warrant for Ethan’s office at the architectural firm.”
Rachel paused, her phone halfway to her ear. “His office? But how did you hide it there?”
“Behind the abstract painting on his west wall,” I whispered. “There’s a biometric safe. He thinks only his thumbprint opens it.” I offered a small, vicious smile. “He forgot I sleep next to him. Taking a silicone mold of his thumb while he was passed out on Ambien was the easiest part of my week.”
Rachel stared at me, awe and horror warring in her eyes. But before she could dial, the lights in the hospital room flickered ominously.
Once. Twice.
And then, every screen, every light, and every machine in the wing went dead black.
The absolute darkness lasted for five terrifying seconds before the backup generators kicked in, bathing the room in a sinister, blood-red emergency glow. The rhythmic hum of the hospital had been replaced by the frantic shouting of nurses in the corridor.
“Stay here,” Rachel commanded, moving toward the door.
“Don’t open it!” I hissed, but it was too late.
The heavy door swung inward. Standing in the doorway was not a nurse, and it wasn’t Ethan.
It was a tall, broad-shouldered man in an NYPD uniform. But something was wrong. His badge number was obscured, and his hand rested casually on the grip of his service weapon.
Behind him, stepping smoothly out of the shadows of the red-lit hallway, was a man in a tailored cashmere overcoat. His silver hair was perfectly coiffed. His face was the picture of serene, patrician calm.
My heart turned to lead.
It was my family’s wealth manager. The man my father had trusted with our empire. My trustee, Arthur Bell.
“Arthur,” I choked out, nausea rolling through me.
“Hello, Clara,” Arthur said, his voice as smooth as a cup of poisoned tea. He looked at the fake cop. “Secure the doctor.”
The officer moved with brutal efficiency, drawing a taser and pressing it to Rachel’s side. She gasped, freezing in place. He zip-tied her hands to the heavy metal radiator bracket beneath the window.
Arthur stepped into the room, letting the door click shut. He pulled a pristine white envelope from his pocket.
“You’ve been a very busy girl, Clara,” Arthur sighed, shaking his head. “I must admit, when Ethan called me in a panic to say Margaret had lost her temper, I thought our timeline was simply accelerated. But then, my security detail at your Hamptons estate called me.”
He tossed the envelope onto my bed. It landed heavily.
