Chapter 1 - THE DIAMOND AND THE CELL BLOCKThe small, static-heavy television screen in the correctional facility's common room flickered with the bright, artificial glare of studio lighting.
There he stood. Adrian Vale, polished, immaculate, and smiling effortlessly beside Celeste Monroe, the billionaire media heiress whose family owned half the state's newspapers. As a reporter asked about their upcoming nuptials, Adrian laughed and looked directly into the camera lens.
"Life is too short to postpone happiness," he declared smoothly, slipping a massive, flawless diamond ring onto Celeste's finger.
Six months earlier, I had walked into a prison cell to protect that exact man. I had taken the fall for a fatal drunk driving crash that killed a fifty-eight-year-old school principal named Thomas Reed, believing Adrian's tearful promises that he would spend the rest of his life making it right.
Instead, my legal bills had gone unpaid, my attorney had abandoned me, and my husband had traded me in for a political dynasty.
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The inmates around me fell silent, waiting for me to break down.
I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly walked back to my steel bunk, pulled out my encrypted secure tablet, and opened a password-protected folder Adrian never knew existed.
