Chapter 1 - THE CHAPEL'S AWAKENINGThe heavy, suffocating silence of St. Jude’s Memorial Chapel was broken not by a sob, but by the crisp, digital chime of a high-security media interface activating.
Margaret Cole and her gold-digging accomplice, Vanessa Hart, stood towering over me as I lay sprawled on the cold marble floor where my wheelchair had been violently shoved. Margaret’s diamond-studded earrings caught the amber light of the altar candles as she laughed softly, adjusting her black mourning veil.
"Clean up this trash," Margaret snapped, gesturing to two burly private security guards by the front doors. "And wheel her out to the alley before the press arrives."
I didn't flinch. I slowly propped myself up on my good elbow, the pain in my fractured shoulder screaming through my nerves.
I raised my left wrist. My custom medical smartwatch glowed with a flashing crimson interface.
With trembling, bruised fingers, I tapped the screen three times and whispered into the built-in microphone, my voice raspy and thin: "Execute Protocol Blackout. Override local display feeds."
Suddenly, the massive stained-glass windows and the altar projection screens behind the open casket flickered violently. The peaceful photos of Ethan Cole vanished.
Instead, high-definition audio and video flooded the chapel speakers at deafening volume.
“...Fifty thousand upfront, and another fifty when the SUV goes over the cliff. Just make sure the wife goes with him, or the deal is off.”
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Margaret’s triumphant smirk vanished in a single microsecond. The voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings across two hundred horrified mourners wasn’t a stranger's.
It was Margaret Cole’s.
