Chapter 3
“Just wait five days. Then everything will be fine. I’m sorry for everything Jarren has done to you I’ll make him pay–him and his mistress.” -Aurora
My fingers trembled slightly as I read the text again. And again.
Aurora. Jarren’s grandmother. The only person in that wretched family who had ever treated m like I mattered. I never expected her to respond, let alone help me. I thought they had poisoned her too–with their lies, their versions of truth. I thought she had turned her back on me like everyone else.
But she didn’t.
After I’d called her, sobbing and desperate, she came to me quietly. Held me while I fell apart Listened as I poured out everything–the abuse, the betrayal, the ten attempts on my life.
I expected doubt. Judgment. Maybe even silence.
But Aurora only said one thing:
“They’ll regret ever touching you.”
She told me she never believed Elisa’s story about the affair. She had hired her own people to look into everything. The drugged wine. The fake photos. The staged betrayal. She knew the truth now.
And she was ready to help me vanish.
Divorce, she said, wasn’t enough. Not for people like Jarren, who held chains tighter than rings. So we’d fake it.
We’d fake my death.
Let them think they won. Let them dance on my grave. And let that be the beginning of their end That same afternoon, I started cleaning my room like I was purging a ghost. I pulled every box from the closet. Every album. Every token of the life I had once called love.
There were photos–smiling, bright. Me and Jarren at the beach. Me in my wedding dress. His arms around me, both of us laughing like we believed in forever.
We were once so full of dreams. I remember lazy Sunday mornings, sunlight spilling through the curtains while he made pancakes in the kitchen, humming off–key. I used to sneak up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist, and he’d lean back into me like I was his home.
remember road trips with no destination, just his hand on mine over the gearshift, our favorite songs echoing through the car speakers. Nights we stayed up talking about everything and nothing. How he’d lift me off my feet in the rain just to keep my shoes dry. The way he looked a me like I was magic.
I remember the first time he kissed me.
The first time he told me I was his world.
Lies.
I tossed the albums into the fireplace one by one.
Chapter 2
7:15 pm G
Letters. Cards. His shirt that still smelled like him.
Burned. The flames danced, eating away at what little innocence I had left. Smoke filled the room. I didn’t flinch.
I was done. But just as I dropped the last photo in, the door creaked open behind me.
Elisa. She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, lips twisted in her usual smugness. “What are you still doing here, bitch?” she sneered. “Haven’t you died enough? Ten lives aren‘ enough for you?”
I didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
“Elisa,” I said calmly, “Don’t worry. I’m leaving in days…”
I stepped past her.
“You’ll never see me again.”
But she grabbed my wrist, nails digging into my skin.
“You’d better mean that. You don’t deserve him. You never did. He’s mine–you were just the placeholder.”
I stared at her hand until she let go, then walked out without another word.
Five more days. Just five.
Later that evening, I was folding what little I planned to leave behind–just enough to sell the illusion that I was still here–when the bedroom door slammed open.
Jarren. His face was dark with suspicion.
‘What did you do to my grandmother?”
blinked up at him.
‘She’s asking for both of us to come to dinner. And now she’s talking about not giving the nheritance yet when she told me I would have it.” He stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “Did you ell her something? Huh? Did you tell her about us?”
swallowed. “No. I didn’t say anything.”
His jaw tightened. “If I find out that you ruined my chances, Hayley–if I learn you told her lies to sabotage me–you’ll be dead for real this time.”
And then he left, slamming the door behind him.
My breath caught, but I didn’t cry.
was beyond that now. A soft ding vibrated from my phone. I turned it over.
‘Fake death plan has been completed. Plane ticket confirmed. Five days.”
Chapter 3
