CHAPTER 3
The heavy oak door didn’t just swing open. It exploded inward with a deafening, catastrophic crack.
Thick splinters of shattered wood rained down violently across the dark Persian rug. The heavy brass deadbolt completely ripped through the doorframe, taking a massive chunk of drywall with it.
A heavy, thrashing mass of shadows hurled through the broken entryway. The shape slammed forcefully onto the center of the floor, right in front of the large mahogany desk.
It was Mark. But he hadn’t kicked the door down.
He had been violently thrown through it.
Buster was completely attached to Mark’s upper back. The dog had seventy-five pounds of pure muscle locked entirely around my husband’s shoulders. The golden retriever’s jaws were clamped deeply into the thick fabric of Mark’s expensive suit jacket and the flesh underneath.
Mark screamed in absolute, unfiltered agony. He thrashed wildly on the carpet, trying desperately to shake the massive dog loose.
Buster refused to let go. He let out a dark, guttural growl that vibrated through the floorboards. Blood was already soaking through the ripped shoulder of Mark’s white dress shirt.
I pressed my back entirely flat against the wooden panels beneath the bay window. My heart hammered against my ribs with terrifying speed. I gripped the sharp metal letter opener in my good left hand, my knuckles turning bone-white.
Mark rolled violently onto his side, crushing Buster’s back legs beneath his heavy body weight. He threw a wild, desperate punch backward. His heavy fist connected sharply with the dog’s ribcage.
Buster let out a sharp yelp, but his powerful jaws merely clamped down tighter. He shook his heavy head viciously, tearing a massive strip of fabric and skin away from Mark’s shoulder blade.
“Get him off!” Mark roared blindly into the dark room. Blood sprayed across the side of the mahogany desk.
A sharp, metallic clatter rang out over the chaotic struggle. Mark’s heavy brass keyring had slipped from his bloody fingers. The keys skittered across the smooth hardwood floor, sliding to a stop just a few feet from my fuzzy slippers.
My eyes locked onto the small, silver master key shining in the dim moonlight. It was the key to the heavy metal fireproof safe in the bottom desk drawer. It was the key to the loaded revolver.
I forced myself onto my hands and knees. The agonizing pain in my dislocated right shoulder flared instantly, sending a wave of dark nausea rolling through my stomach.
I dragged my heavy, pregnant body forward across the carpet. I reached my shaking left hand out toward the shining silver key.
Then a tall, dark silhouette stepped through the shattered wooden doorway.
It was Diane. She was breathing heavily, her thin face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.
She held the heavy, wrought-iron fireplace poker in both of her hands. The solid metal rod was easily three feet long and capped with a sharp, decorative hook. She raised it high above her head.
“No!” I screamed, my voice tearing painfully through my raw throat.
Diane swung the heavy iron poker downward with completely terrifying force.
The thick metal connected solidly with the back of Buster’s skull. The horrific, wet crunching sound echoed sickeningly off the high ceiling of the study.
Buster immediately went entirely limp. His heavy jaws finally went slack, releasing their deep grip on Mark’s torn shoulder. The dog collapsed sideways onto the dark rug, a soft, final whine escaping his throat.
“Buster!” I sobbed heavily, the absolute heartbreak completely shattering my chest.
My beautiful, loyal dog lay completely motionless on the floor. A dark pool of blood began to quickly spread outward from his golden fur, soaking deeply into the expensive wool rug. He had traded his own life to buy me a few extra minutes.
Mark gasped hungrily for air, rolling painfully away from the lifeless dog. His expensive suit was shredded. Deep, ragged bite marks covered his right calf and his left shoulder. He was bleeding profusely, his face pale and slick with heavy sweat.
Diane stood over him, the bloody iron poker resting heavily by her side. She looked down at my husband with an expression of complete disgust.
“Get up,” Diane ordered sharply. “She has the keys.”
Mark snapped his head up. His hollow, empty eyes locked onto my face. He saw my trembling hand reaching desperately toward the silver master key on the floor.
He lunged forward with terrifying, animalistic speed.
He didn’t care about the severe pain in his leg. He threw his entire bloody body across the dark rug. His heavy hand clamped down brutally on my left wrist just as my fingers brushed the cold metal of the key.
I screamed and slashed wildly with the metal letter opener in my hand.
The dull blade tore a long, shallow gash across the top of Mark’s forearm. He didn’t even flinch. He just twisted my wrist violently until the sheer agony forced me to drop the weapon. The letter opener clattered uselessly onto the floorboards.
Mark scooped up the keys and shoved my heavy body backward.
I crashed into the side of the heavy leather armchair. A second, massive contraction suddenly gripped my lower abdomen. The pain was completely paralyzing. It felt like a hot iron band was being tightened relentlessly around my spine.
I curled into a tight ball on the floor, gasping helplessly for air. Warm amniotic fluid continued to pool steadily beneath me, soaking my pale maternity dress. The baby was coming. He was coming right now, surrounded by absolute monsters.
Mark ignored my agonizing groans. He dragged his bleeding body over to the heavy mahogany desk. He shoved the bottom right drawer entirely open.
The heavy metal face of the fireproof safe gleamed coldly in the moonlight. Mark fumbled frantically with the keys, leaving thick, dark smears of blood across the silver metal.
He found the right key and shoved it violently into the lock. He turned it sharply to the right.
The heavy steel door popped open with a low hiss.
Mark reached his bloody hand entirely inside the dark metal box. When he pulled it back out, his fingers were wrapped firmly around the heavy black grip of a .357 Magnum revolver.
The metallic click of the hammer being pulled back sounded as loud as a cannon in the quiet study.
All of the chaotic, violent energy in the room suddenly evaporated. The air grew completely still and suffocating. The absolute power dynamic had shifted entirely in a single, fatal second.
I was lying helpless on the floor, bleeding and in active labor. He had a loaded gun. The fight was over.
Mark leaned his heavy back against the mahogany desk, catching his breath. He pointed the long, dark barrel of the revolver directly at my swollen stomach.
Diane stepped carefully over Buster’s lifeless body. She walked over to the desk and picked up the scattered life insurance documents from the floor. She smoothed the crumpled papers out with complete, chilling calmness.
“Look at her,” Diane sneered softly, looking down at me with entirely cold eyes. “She actually thought you loved her, Mark.”
I stared up at them through my blurry, tear-filled vision. The searing pain in my shoulder throbbed perfectly in time with my racing heart.
“Why?” I choked out, coughing weakly. The metallic taste of blood was thick on my tongue. “We have money. I gave you everything. Why make her the beneficiary?”
Diane burst into a sharp, grating laugh. It was a genuinely amused sound that completely chilled me to the bone.
“Sister?” Diane mocked, shaking her head slowly. She reached out and affectionately wiped a smear of blood off Mark’s cheek. “You really are completely clueless, Sarah.”
My breath completely stopped. My mind scrambled frantically to process the horrific scene unfolding above me.
“Diane and I have been legally married for fifteen years,” Mark said quietly. His voice was completely devoid of any emotion. It was entirely cold and mechanical.
The words hit my chest like a physical sledgehammer.
Married. They were married. My husband of twelve years was actually married to the woman I had spent a decade believing was my terrible sister-in-law.
“We met in college,” Diane added smoothly, tapping the life insurance policy against her leg. “We were broke. We realized very quickly that playing the long game is the only actual way to get rich in this country.”
My entire life, my entire reality, shattered violently into a million irreparable pieces.
The quiet dinners. The romantic vacations to Napa. The endless discussions about painting the nursery. Every single tender moment I had ever shared with the man standing above me was a calculated, manufactured lie.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered brokenly, the hot tears finally spilling rapidly down my cheeks.
“It’s a very simple grift, Sarah,” Mark explained coldly, his grip perfectly steady on the heavy revolver. “We find a wealthy, successful woman. Usually someone a little older. Someone absolutely desperate for a family and a traditional life.”
He gestured with his free hand around the expensive, dark wood study.
“I play the perfect, loving husband,” Mark continued smoothly. “I move in. I get my name on the mortgage. But a standard divorce only splits the assets in half. We don’t want half, Sarah. We want everything.”
“And the best way to get absolutely everything,” Diane interrupted coldly, “is a massive life insurance payout completely untaxed.”
I stared at the black barrel of the gun. The absolute, terrifying depth of their depravity was entirely impossible to fully comprehend. They hadn’t just targeted my bank account. They had targeted my soul.
“But the baby,” I sobbed heavily, resting my broken, throbbing hand on my stomach. “You cried at the ultrasound. You wanted this baby.”
Mark let out a heavy, tired sigh. He looked at me with complete, clinical detachment.
“The baby is simply a multiplier,” Mark stated flatly. “The adult life insurance policy is capped at two million based on our joint income. But a fatal accident involving a late-stage pregnancy? The emotional damages and specific unborn riders push the payout over three million.”
The third contraction suddenly hit me with massive, blinding force. I screamed loudly, my entire body locking up in pure agony. The heavy pain ripped through my pelvis, entirely consuming my mind.
I writhed frantically on the bloody carpet, totally unable to stop the primal sounds tearing out of my throat.
“Quiet,” Mark ordered sharply, taking a heavy step closer. He leveled the gun entirely at my head now.
When the brutal contraction finally passed, I lay completely limp against the leg of the armchair. I was heavily panting, my vision swimming dangerously with dark spots.
A horrifying, sickening thought suddenly pierced through the heavy fog of my pain.
“The IVF,” I whispered, my voice completely shaking with absolute dread. “The three miscarriages before this one.”
Mark didn’t say a single word. He just stared at me coldly.
“You did it,” I choked out, pure, unadulterated horror flooding my veins. “You caused them.”
Diane smiled thinly. It was the most completely terrifying expression I had ever seen.
“Those first three pregnancies happened way too fast,” Diane explained casually, as if she were discussing the weather. “The massive insurance policies hadn’t cleared the strict medical underwriting yet. We couldn’t afford for you to actually have a baby before the ink was totally dry.”
I felt a massive, violent surge of pure bile rise entirely up my throat.
“Mifepristone,” Mark stated quietly. “It’s an abortion pill. I completely crushed it into your decaf coffee every morning during your first trimester. It always looked exactly like a tragic, natural miscarriage.”
My mind completely snapped.
The three tiny, beautiful heartbeats that had simply stopped. The endless, agonizing nights I spent completely sobbing on the bathroom floor, blaming my own aging body for failing to carry my children. I had held this monster’s hand while he comforted me over the exact murders he had committed.
He hadn’t just planned to kill me tonight. He was a serial killer who had repeatedly murdered his own unborn children just to ensure the paperwork was completely perfect.
A sudden, fierce, completely blinding rage erupted entirely within my chest.
It completely burned away the paralyzing terror. It burned away the heavy shock. It entirely burned away the agonizing pain of my dislocated shoulder and my broken fingers.
I was looking directly at the literal devil. And he was holding a gun at my child.
“But this time,” Mark continued calmly, stepping directly over Buster’s body to stand completely over me. “The policies are perfectly active. The baby is full term. The payout is completely guaranteed.”
“So shoot me,” I spat fiercely, the absolute venom dripping heavily from my voice. I glared entirely up into his hollow, empty eyes.
Mark chuckled darkly. He slowly lowered the barrel of the revolver.
“I’m not going to shoot you, Sarah,” Mark said smoothly. “A gunshot entirely ruins the accident narrative. The police would ask entirely too many questions.”
He flipped the heavy metal gun around in his bloody hand, completely gripping the hot barrel. He raised the thick, solid steel butt of the heavy handle high into the air.
“A severe tumble down the solid oak stairs causes massive blunt force trauma,” Mark explained clinically. “It causes severe skull fractures. It causes completely fatal abdominal injuries. The medical examiner will simply assume you hit the banister entirely on the way down.”
He was going to beat me to death with the heavy steel handle of the revolver.
He was going to physically smash my stomach until my miracle baby was entirely dead, and then he was going to cave my skull in.
“Hold her good arm down,” Mark instructed Diane coldly.
Diane stepped forward immediately. She completely dropped the bloody iron poker onto the desk and knelt heavily on the carpet beside me. She grabbed my left wrist with both of her hands, pinning my only completely working arm tightly to the floorboards.
I thrashed violently, but the heavy physical exhaustion and the massive blood loss had made me entirely too weak. I couldn’t break her grip.
Mark stood directly over my stomach. He raised the heavy steel butt of the revolver entirely above his head. His bloody muscles tensed tightly for the brutal downward strike.
“Goodbye, Sarah,” Mark said softly.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. I braced every single broken muscle in my body for the completely fatal impact. I silently begged God to let my baby die entirely instantly, completely without pain.
But the brutal, crushing strike never came.
Instead, a completely different sound shattered the thick silence of the study.
It was a wet, heavy, agonizingly slow tearing sound.
Mark let out a sudden, completely high-pitched gasp. It wasn’t a sound of anger. It was a sound of completely absolute, unexpected terror.
I snapped my eyes entirely open.
Buster wasn’t dead.
The massive golden retriever was heavily dragging his paralyzed, broken back legs across the dark carpet. His entire face was completely covered in thick, dark blood from the horrific poker strike. His breathing was wet and ragged.
But he had used the last ounce of his rapidly fading life to completely lunge forward.
Buster’s powerful jaws were entirely clamped around Mark’s right ankle. And the dog wasn’t just biting down.
Buster was violently violently violently violently violently tearing his head backward with terrifying, absolute savage force.
Mark screamed loudly, a horrific, completely piercing sound that tore through the dark room. He completely dropped the heavy revolver in shock.
The massive metal gun hit the solid edge of the mahogany desk, completely bounced off the wood, and landed heavily on the carpet exactly two inches from my pinned left hand.
Diane completely panicked. She completely released my wrist and lunged frantically forward to grab the weapon.
But my raw, maternal rage was entirely faster.
I completely ignored the agonizing pain. I entirely ripped my left hand across the dark carpet. My shaking fingers closed completely tightly around the heavy, warm metal grip of the .357 Magnum.
I didn’t hesitate for a single microsecond.
I entirely leveled the long barrel directly upward. I didn’t completely aim. I just completely squeezed the heavy metal trigger with every single ounce of absolute strength I had left in my entire body.
The dark room completely exploded with blinding, absolute white light.
The deafening, completely catastrophic roar of the gunshot entirely shattered the glass of the bay window behind me. The violent, heavy recoil sent a massive shockwave of pure agony completely up my arm.
Someone screamed completely in the dark.
A heavy body completely collapsed violently onto the floorboards right next to me, entirely splashing warm, dark blood completely across my face.
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The heavy grandfather clock in the completely silent room ticked exactly once.
Then, completely nothing.
