CHAPTER ONE — THE WOMAN BEHIND THE PERFECT SMILE
I only wanted to surprise my mother.
She had been in Room 4012 for three weeks after another round of chemotherapy, and every morning she complained that hospitals smelled like loneliness.
So I bought white lilies.
Her favorite flowers.
I even left my driver downstairs because I wanted to walk into her room like I used to when I was a kid.
No cameras.
No assistants.
No billionaire CEO.
Just her son.
When I quietly pushed open the hospital door...
I stopped breathing.
Audrey.
My fiancée.
The woman I was supposed to marry in twenty-three days.
She was leaning over my mother's bed.
Both hands pressed firmly against a pillow.
My mother's frail fingers were clawing at the blanket beneath her.
She was fighting.
Fighting to breathe.
"Audrey..."
The word barely escaped my lips.
"What are you doing?"
She spun around.
For one split second, I saw something no one else had ever seen.
Not panic.
Not guilt.
Annoyance.
Like I had interrupted important business.
Then her entire face transformed.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"Justin!"
She rushed toward me.
"She stopped breathing! I was trying to save her!"
The performance was flawless.
It would have fooled anyone.
Anyone except the man who had spent fifteen years negotiating with liars worth billions of dollars.
I grabbed her wrist before she could touch me.
The pillow hit the floor.
My mother gasped violently, sucking air into lungs that had almost become silent forever.
Nurses burst inside.
Doctors followed seconds later.
Audrey cried.
Screamed.
Collapsed dramatically into a chair.
"I love this family!"
"I would never hurt her!"
The entire hallway watched.
Half of them looked at me as if I had misunderstood.
Because Audrey had spent months building the perfect reputation.
She volunteered at children's hospitals.
She donated to cancer foundations.
She posted smiling photos beside my mother every Sunday.
The internet adored her.
The media called us "America's favorite power couple."
But while everyone stared at Audrey...
I noticed something else.
Her handbag.
It had fallen beside the chair.
The zipper was slightly open.
Inside...
I saw several medical syringes.
None of them belonged to the hospital.
Before security escorted Audrey away, she leaned close enough that only I could hear her.
"You can't destroy me."
Her voice had become ice.
"The board trusts me."
"The media worships me."
"And when your mother dies..."
She smiled.
"...you'll still marry me."
For the first time in my life...
I wasn't angry.
I was curious.
Because murder was never the real objective.
It was only the first move.
That night, after everyone left the ICU, I quietly walked into the hospital security office.
The manager smiled.
"Mr. Carter, we've already copied today's footage."
I nodded.
"Good."
He handed me the hard drive.
Then hesitated.
"There's something strange."
"What?"
He rewound the recording.
Not today's footage.
Three months earlier.
Same room.
Same hallway.
Same woman.
Audrey had been visiting my mother...
Long before she ever met me.
And she wasn't alone.
She was talking to a doctor who had officially died six weeks ago.
I stared at the screen.
Then the doctor handed Audrey a thick brown envelope.
The timestamp froze.
My blood turned cold.
Because the dead doctor wasn't accepting money.
May you like
He was delivering something.
Something worth killing for.
