Chapter 1 - The Boardroom Execution
The silence in the grand hallway stretched for a fraction of a second, heavy and suffocating, before Victor’s phone began to vibrate violently in his pocket. Then, the phone in his jacket. Then, the private line he used only for emergencies.
Victor’s face drained of color. The predatory arrogance that had defined his features for the last three years vanished, replaced by a hollow, sickening realization. He looked from his vibrating phone down to my bloody wrist, where the tiny green light of the smartwatch continued to blink steadily.
"What did you do?" he whispered, his voice cracking. He took his boot off my stomach, stumbling backward as if the contact now burned him. "Elena, what did you do?"
"I didn't just record you, Victor," I gasped, the pain in my abdomen radiating in agonizing waves, but the adrenaline kept me conscious. "I invited them to the meeting. The real meeting."
For months, Victor had played the role of the tragic, long-suffering husband to the Hale Foundation board. He had painted me as a hysterical, pregnant woman losing her grip on reality. Tonight, the board was supposed to vote unanimously to hand him the keys to my father’s empire.
Instead, they had a front-row seat to a horror movie.
Through the live-feed audio broadcasting directly from my watch to the corporate speakers downtown, I heard a voice break through the static. It was Arthur Vance, my father’s oldest friend and the senior chairman of the board. His voice was trembling, not with fear, but with pure, unadulterated rage.
"Victor," Arthur’s voice boomed from the device, hollow but crystal clear. "Step away from her. The police are already on their way to the estate. We saw everything. Everything."
Victor panicked. The poised, ruthless businessman disappeared, replaced by a cornered animal. He lunged at me, his hands grabbing for my wrist to smash the watch, but before he could touch me, the heavy oak front doors of the mansion burst open.
The storm roared outside as a team of paramedics and police officers poured into the foyer, guns drawn.
"Hands in the air! Don't move!"
Victor threw his hands up, his eyes darting around the room like a trapped rat. "No, you don't understand! She fell! She’s unstable, she’s hallucinating—"
"Shut up, Victor," the lead officer snapped, slamming him against the marble wall and clicking handcuffs into place.
As the paramedics rushed to my side, slipping an oxygen mask over my face, I looked past them to see Victor being dragged away. Even in the blinding pain, as they lifted me onto a stretcher, I held his gaze. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I just let him see me smile one last time.
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But as the ambulance doors slammed shut and the sirens began to wail, a cold, sharp pain tore through my lower back. The paramedic looked down, his eyes widening in alarm.
"We have a placental abruption!" he shouted to the driver. "Step on it! We’re losing the baby’s heart rate!"
