CHAPTER 3 — The Prince’s Perfect Lie
Evelyn sat in the hidden room beneath the morgue, wrapped in a thin hospital blanket, listening to the footsteps above her.
Every step sounded like death.
Above her, Prince Adrian’s voice was calm and smooth.
Too smooth.
“Margaret,” he said softly, “you have served this hospital for many years. I would hate for one mistake to destroy your life.”
Margaret’s face stayed still, but her hands were trembling behind her back.
“What mistake, Your Highness?”
Adrian smiled.
“The mistake of helping a dead woman breathe.”
Downstairs, Evelyn covered her mouth to stop herself from crying out.
He knew.
Adrian walked slowly around the morgue, touching the steel tables, the white sheets, the cold drawers.
Then he stopped beside Evelyn’s empty drawer.
His smile vanished.
“Open it.”
Margaret swallowed.
“She has already been moved for final preparation.”
Adrian leaned close.
“Then bring her back.”
At that moment, Evelyn noticed something on the small emergency desk beside her.
A dusty old phone.
No internet.
No signal.
Only one emergency line.
With shaking fingers, she picked it up and dialed the only number she still remembered from childhood.
Her father’s private line.
The line rang once.
Twice.
Then someone answered.
But it was not her father.
It was Adrian’s voice.
“Hello, my love.”
Evelyn’s blood turned cold.
Adrian laughed softly through the receiver.
“You really thought I would leave one door unlocked?”
Upstairs, Margaret heard the prince’s phone ring in his pocket.
Then she understood the truth.
The palace had already been taken.
Evelyn wasn’t just hiding from her fiancé.
She was hiding from an entire kingdom that had been bought, threatened, and silenced.
Adrian stepped toward the hidden storage door.
“Come out, Evelyn,” he called gently.
“I promise I’ll make your second death painless.”
Behind the door, Evelyn slowly stood.
But this time, fear disappeared from her eyes.
Because beneath the old desk, she had found something Adrian never expected.
A sealed medical recorder.
Still running.
It had captured everything.
Every threat.
Every confession.
Every word.
Evelyn pressed the red emergency broadcast button.
And upstairs, every screen in the royal hospital suddenly turned on.
Adrian’s voice echoed through the halls:
“I promise I’ll make your second death painless.”
The prince froze.
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For the first time that night...
The dead woman smiled.
