Chapter 3
Liam seemed momentarily surprised by my sudden compliance, but a look of satisfaction quickly smoothed his features. "That’s the attitude you should have had all along. Scrub yourself clean. Don’t embarrass me on Friday."
With that, he turned toward the stairs and left without a backward glance.
I stood alone in the empty hallway, staring down at the divorce papers.
Fine. I’ll go.
If he wanted a highly publicized, picture-perfect severing of ties, I’d give him a blood-soaked banquet he would never be able to wash away.
The InterContinental penthouse ballroom.
The moment I pushed open the heavy double doors, the lilting string quartet seemed to hit a screeching halt.
"Is that Liam's ex-wife? God, she looks like she just crawled out of a grave."
"I heard she never comes home. Mia even goes to the kid's PTA meetings. What kind of shady work does she actually do?"
The cloying mix of expensive perfume and sweet champagne hit my ruined lungs like a physical blow. I swallowed down a violent urge to cough, my pale, corpse-like face a jarring contrast against the sea of haute couture.
Liam approached through the crowd.
He was strapped into a flawlessly tailored Armani tux, Mia clinging to his arm.
"You actually had the nerve to show up looking like a wandering ghost," Liam hissed under his breath, shoving a heavy, cream-colored cardstock into my hand. "Memorize the lines. When the press asks questions, you read this word for word."
I looked down at the perfectly laser-printed script.
[I admit that due to my long-term obsession with money and cold neglect of my family, this marriage has broken down. I sincerely thank Mia for giving Liam not just his life back, but for being his spiritual pillar. I willingly step aside and wish them a perfect union.]
Six years. Two thousand, one hundred and ninety days. Every single cent I'd clawed out of putrid bodily fluids and toxic bio-chemicals was reduced to a "cold obsession with money."
My fingers tensed.
"What? Can't read?" Liam sneered.
Riiiip.
With zero expression, I tore his pathetic lie in half.
My voice was a dry, raspy scrape. "Mia. The skin you're wearing, the diamond on your finger, even the floor we're standing on—it was all bought and paid for with my blood. The person who paid his astronomical medical bills wasn't you."
A deathly silence sucked the air from the room.
Mia went chalk-white, but she pulled off a masterful emotional pivot in half a second. Tears spilled over her lashes as she shrank into Liam's chest, her voice trembling. "Chloe, I know you hate me. But why do you have to use these delusional lies to ruin someone else's happiness on a night like this?"
She sobbed, delicately pulling a gold-embossed document from her clutch and handing it to the front-row reporters.
"This is the official letter of gratitude from St. Jude’s Angel Charity Fund," Mia choked out. "I’m not rich, but I liquidated the trust fund my parents left me and donated everything to Liam’s surgery account. I just wanted him to live. I never wanted anything in return. Chloe, just because you weren’t willing to pay doesn’t mean you get to steal someone else's sacrifice!"
The certificate was pristine. Official stamps, formal letterhead. In an instant, she had painted herself as a radiant, selfless savior.
The surrounding guests immediately shot me looks of nauseating disgust.
I lunged forward and snatched the paper from a photographer's hand.
One glance was all it took to see the forged details. Sure, the donor name was altered to Mia, but the transaction routing number still ended in that glaring sequence: 409.
That was my bio-hazard clearance code for a highly decomposed John Doe! And the contact email? It was the burner account Mia used to sign up for online shopping.
"This is a fake! The reference number ties directly to my work account!" I held the paper up with shaking hands, snapping my gaze to Liam. "Liam, look at it! Did you ever check the original bank statements? You’d rather believe a piece of paper full of holes than the six years of my life I bled out in basements?!"
Liam didn't even glance at the paper. His eyes were pure ice.
"Enough, Chloe," he said, his voice dripping with elite disdain. "Let's take a step back. Even if part of that money was yours, so what? Money doesn't matter. I needed a soulmate. Someone who understands me, who soothes my pain. Not some unhinged woman reeking of copper and rot, trying to hold me emotionally hostage for the rest of my life over a few hospital bills. Your so-called sacrifices? They just make me feel suffocated. They're cheap."
"Please, don't blame her, everyone," Mia added, wiping a tear perfectly on cue. "Chloe does... trauma scene cleanup. Dead bodies. She's been around rot for so long, her mental state has been unstable for years. This persecution complex... she's just sick."
"Oh my god, she cleans up dead bodies?"
"No wonder she smells like a sewer. That's disgusting..."
The crowd erupted into murmurs. The well-heeled guests covered their noses, their revulsion washing over me like physical blows.
I stumbled back. I reached out to grab a chair to steady myself, when a small figure in a prep school blazer bolted from the crowd.
Noah.
Instinctively, I reached out to hold him.
Slap!
My twelve-year-old son violently swatted my hand away. He hit me so hard I nearly slipped on the polished marble.
"Don't touch me!" Noah screamed, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. "You're embarrassing me! Why are you making such a scene? You stink, and you're a psycho liar! I don't even want a mom like you. Why can't you just disappear for good?!"
My hand hung suspended in the air.
Mia wasn't done. With a heavy sigh, she signaled the sound booth. The massive LED screen at the back of the hall flared to life.
It was secretly recorded footage. I was in a hoarder's apartment, knee-deep in trash and leaking bio-fluids. Wearing a stained hazmat suit, I was on my knees, throwing up violently onto the floor from the toxic fumes. The scene cut. It showed me grabbing a supervisor's pant leg, begging like a rabid dog for a measly thousand-dollar bonus.
A malicious supercut, designed to strip away every ounce of my dignity. Cultivating the perfect image of a money-hungry lunatic.
"We just want you to get psychiatric help, Chloe," Mia cooed, using the gentlest therapy-speak to deliver the cruelest strike. "Sign the papers, and we'll send you to the best residential facility. Okay?"
I looked at the screen, at the pathetic wretch crawling in the filth, then back at my husband and son, who were looking at me like I was radioactive waste.
The tearing sensation in my chest that I'd been suppressing finally ruptured. My airways spasmed to their absolute limit. I doubled over.
A violent heave tore through me.
A massive mouthful of thick, blackish blood spewed from my lips, splattering across the floor.
The crowd shrieked, scrambling backward in sheer terror.
Mia screamed, "Oh my god! She actually brought fake blood packets to ruin my night? She is completely insane!"
Liam’s first instinct was to yank Mia and Noah behind him, shielding them from me.
Staring at the puddle of black blood—the literal countdown of my life—I didn't try to defend myself. Not a single word.
What was the point?
The white-hot rage and the suffocating injustice miraculously evaporated. What replaced it was a chilling, absolute zero-degree calm.
If they didn't want the truth, fine. I was done giving it to them.
Fourteen days was too long. Dying quietly in a hospital bed was too peaceful. I refused to fade away into nothing.
I would leave the truth to the scalpel. To the coroner’s toxicology report. To the elite private trust lawyers who had too much money and integrity to ever be bought by Mia.
I was going to forge the evidence into iron nails, and for the next few decades, I would nail these two monsters to the walls of their own psychological hell!
"Security! Get this lunatic out of here! The press has seen enough!" Liam snapped his fingers, turning his back to comfort his trembling new family, effectively erasing my existence.
Four massive security guards descended on me.
"Gross bitch, don't drip on the rug," one muttered under his breath.
I didn't struggle. I let them drag me, the toes of my shoes scuffing the floor.
Clang. The heavy glass doors at the far end of the ballroom were shoved open.
The biting, freezing Seattle wind instantly whipped down my collar. They were pushing me out toward the penthouse terrace.
I smiled, blood staining my teeth.
What a perfect stage.
