CHAPTER 6 – The Woman Everyone Thought Was Dead
The detective carefully opened the dusty evidence box.
Inside was a faded wedding ring...
A diary...
And a sealed DNA report dated eight years earlier.
Emily's hands shook as she opened the diary.
The first page read:
If you're reading this... Ryan finally found another victim.
Every page described the same nightmare.
The lies.
The fake love.
The mysterious illnesses.
The attempts to isolate her from family and friends.
Emily felt sick.
Her own marriage had followed the exact same pattern.
Then the detective revealed something no one expected.
"We reopened the case because of today's recording."
He looked directly at Ryan.
"Your first wife didn't die."
The room fell silent.
Ryan's face turned ghost white.
The hospital doors slowly opened.
A woman stepped inside, walking with a cane.
A long scar crossed the side of her face, but her eyes were filled with determination.
Ryan stumbled backward.
"No..."
"It can't be..."
The woman stopped in front of Emily.
"My name is Olivia."
"I escaped him eight years ago."
"I've been hiding ever since... waiting for the day someone else survived."
Emily burst into tears.
She wasn't the first.
She wasn't even the second.
Ryan had spent years hunting wealthy women, marrying them, poisoning them slowly, and making every death look like a tragic medical accident.
But this time...
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His newest victim had awakened in the middle of the perfect crime.
And the woman he thought was dead had returned to make sure he never walked free again.
