Chapter 6 - THE DEAD WIFE’S SECRETThe world spun around Michael.
Sarah didn't die of cancer?
He collapsed into his leather chair, the phone pressed hard against his ear. The line went dead with a quiet click.
For minutes, Michael couldn't breathe. The ghost of his late wife, the woman he had mourned for four agonizing years, suddenly hung over him like a terrifying specter.
He didn't care about the 450 million dollars bleeding out of his corporate accounts. Money was pixels on a screen. But his children’s lives... and Sarah’s memory...
He didn't waste a second. Michael stood up, moved the heavy mahogany bookcase in his private study, and entered the hidden keycode to his personal floor vault—a reinforced titanium safe known only to him and Sarah.
He opened the heavy steel door. Inside were standard family documents: deeds, stock certificates, Sarah’s jewelry box, and photo albums.
Michael pulled out everything, tearing through the velvet lining of the safe. Near the very back, beneath a false floor, his fingers brushed against a cold, hard object.
A heavy, leather-bound notebook with a slate-black cover. The Black File.
With trembling hands, Michael opened it.
Inside were hand-written entries by Sarah, complete with dates, photos, and chemical formulas.
As Michael read through the pages, his horror grew exponentially.
Sarah hadn't just been an art curator, as he had believed. Before they met, she had worked as a senior chemical researcher for Vanguard BioTech—a massive defense contractor linked to international intelligence networks. The notebook contained detailed evidence of an illegal biological weapon trial conducted on civilian populations in Southeast Asia, masterminded by a shadowy syndicate known as The Obsidian Group.
Sarah had discovered the truth, stolen the master data ledger, and faked her credentials to run away. She had hidden in Boston, met Michael, fallen in love, and tried to build a normal life.
When she fell ill four years ago, Michael had believed the doctors who said it was stage four lymphoma. But reading her final entries now, the truth cut through him like a blade:
“If you are reading this, Michael, it means they found me. The illness isn't natural. They’re using micro-dosed thallium isotopes. I’m dying, my love. I’m hiding this file under the vault floor. Never look for it unless they come for our children. I am so sorry for lying to you. Protect Ethan and Lily. They are everything.”
Tears streamed down Michael’s face, dripping onto the faded ink of Sarah’s handwriting. His whole marriage... her suffering... her death... it was all a hit operation.
Vanessa hadn't just been a abusive stepmother. She was a weapon deployed by Obsidian to get inside his house and find this exact file.
Suddenly, the lights in the mansion flickered and went black.
May you like
The emergency generator didn't kick in.
Outside his study door, a muffled gunshot echoed through the hall, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.
