Chapter 1 - The Dark Inheritance
The screen of my phone glowed in the pitch-black room. My hands shook so violently I almost dropped it.
The message from the unknown number contained a single, high-resolution photograph.
It was a picture of a legal document—a secret clause in my late father’s will. My father, a wealthy real estate mogul who had died under mysterious circumstances six months ago, had left his entire multi-million-dollar empire to me. But there was a devastating catch, highlighted in bright yellow digital ink:
“Should my daughter, Elena, fail to marry a pre-approved suitor from the Thorne family within one year of my passing, or should she initiate a divorce within the first year of marriage, the entire estate, including all properties and offshore accounts, will immediately transfer to my stepmother, Vivian, and her secret beneficiary.”
I gasped, pressing my hand over my mouth to muffle a sob. My husband, Julian Thorne, was the pre-approved suitor.
But my eyes drifted to the bottom of the document, where the "secret beneficiary" was named.
Clara Vance.
The woman in the tight red dress. The woman Julian had just touched, kissed, and loved right in front of me on our wedding bed.
Clara was my stepmother Vivian’s secret biological daughter, born before Vivian met my father. Julian hadn't married me out of love, or even out of a cold business arrangement. He and Clara had been lovers for years. Together with Vivian, they had orchestrated this entire marriage to trap me.
If I divorced Julian, I would lose my father's legacy, and it would all go to the woman who had just desecrated my wedding bed. If I spoke out, Julian’s threat—“tomorrow everyone will know who you really are”—meant they would release forged medical records they had manufactured, claiming I was mentally unstable and unfit to manage my father's estate, locking me away in an asylum forever.
I looked at Julian, sleeping peacefully on the bed we were supposed to share. He looked like an angel, but he was a demon.
My sadness evaporated, replaced by a cold, burning rage. They thought they had broken me. They thought I was a fragile puppet who would sit in the corner and cry while they stole my life.
They underestimated me.
I quietly stood up, took off my wrinkled, ruined wedding dress, and put on a black silk robe. I stared at Julian’s phone resting on the nightstand. He had left it face up.
May you like
I took my phone, snapped a photo of his sleeping face, and then reached out to grab his phone. I needed to find out how deep this conspiracy went. But just as my fingers brushed the glass screen, Julian’s eyes snapped open. He grabbed my wrist with a grip like iron.
“What do you think you’re doing, wife?” he whispered, a cruel smirk spreading across his face.
