For three long years, Damien had constantly called her dramatic, weak, and lucky to have married a successful man like him. In front of his friends and his family, he always treated her with a nauseating level of performative tenderness.
In private, however, he never stopped reminding her that she was an orphan with no last name, no money, and absolutely nobody who would bother to look for her if she were to suddenly disappear.
What Damien did not know was that Eloise had been harboring a massive secret of her own.
He had no idea that six months earlier, Eloise had managed to track down and open a sealed adoption file that had been buried for decades.
He had no clue that she had successfully discovered the identity and the name of her biological father.
She had learned that the man who gave her life was actually Harris Campbell, the owner of Campbell Insurance Group, which was one of the most powerful financial empires in all of the United States.
Damien was even less aware that the fifty million dollar life insurance policy he had so greedily taken out on her was, through a strange twist of fate, underwritten by a subsidiary company linked to that very same group.
Eloise had not told him the truth yet because she still did not feel emotionally ready to look a total stranger in the eye and call him father.
But now, as the heavy mountain snow began to cover her up to her chest, she finally understood that this terrifying secret was the only thing that could save her life.
Hidden deep inside the heavy lining of her coat was a small, high-tech emergency locator device.
Harris had sent it to her anonymously weeks earlier, after his private investigators informed him that she was living with a dangerously controlling man.
“Only press this button if you are ever in immediate, life-threatening danger,” he had told her in a brief, encrypted note.
Eloise moved her numb, shaking fingers under her coat, desperately searching for the small, hard plastic button.
She finally found it.
She pressed it with all the strength she had left.
Then, she simply closed her eyes and waited for the darkness to take her.
When she finally woke up, she realized she was not dead, but instead lying in a quiet, sterile private hospital room. She was connected to a series of rhythmic monitors, her face was covered in heavy bandages, and she could feel a constant, comforting weight resting on her swollen belly.
The steady, rhythmic sound of her baby’s heartbeat filled the silent room.
She was alive, and so was her child.
A tall, distinguished figure with shock-white hair and a bespoke tailored suit was standing right beside the bed. His eyes were red, but they were not filled with the weakness of grief, but rather with a terrifying, cold fury.
“Eloise,” said Harris, gently taking her limp hand in his. “My precious daughter, you need to tell me exactly who did this to you.”
She slowly looked out the window, where the relentless snow was still falling over the quiet, hidden medical facility.
Her split, swollen lips barely managed to move as she spoke.
“First, I need you to let me bury myself,” she whispered.
Harris did not respond with words, but his facial expression shifted into something predatory.
It was in that moment that Eloise realized Damien had made the mistake of provoking a man who would never, under any circumstances, forgive a betrayal committed against his own blood.
Chapter 2: The Widower’s Performance
Damien Finch acted the role of a grieving widower long before there was ever an actual corpse to bury.
He wept openly in front of the television cameras, lowered his gaze at the local funeral home, and allowed himself to be hugged by weeping women who kept repeating, “You poor man, you lost both your wife and your unborn child in one terrible blow.”
He pressed his lips together, pretended he was too overcome with emotion to speak, and covered his face with a clean, white handkerchief.
Wendy was always nearby, though she was careful to never stand too close. She introduced herself to everyone as a close family friend, dressed entirely in black and wearing diamond earrings that Eloise had unknowingly paid for with her own savings.
“My wife was my entire world,” Damien told the aggressive reporters gathered outside the cathedral in the city of Blue Ridge. “And my daughter, my poor daughter, she didn’t even get the chance to take her first breath in this world.”
Some of the onlookers sobbed openly at his words.
Others shared the video clip online, where thousands of people commented things like, “What an absolute, soul-crushing tragedy.”
From a private medical suite that was guarded by armed security personnel, Eloise watched the live broadcast on a tablet.
Her face was no longer the same, as a jagged scar ran from her cheekbone down to her jawline, and she walked with a constant, throbbing pain in her hip. Her left hand trembled uncontrollably whenever she tried to hold a glass of water.
But her daughter was still alive and kicking inside her, and every little movement was a promise of a future.
On the other side of the room, Harris was holding an emergency meeting with his best lawyers, forensic investigators, and the head of the anti-fraud department for his insurance group.
“Damien filed the formal claim exactly four hours after they found your torn, bloodied coat in the ravine,” the chief investigator said, sliding a folder across the mahogany desk. “He didn’t wait for any remains to be recovered, he didn’t wait for a coroner’s report, and he certainly didn’t wait for any official investigation.”
“He was in such a hurry to get the money,” Eloise murmured from the bed.
“He wasn’t just in a hurry, he was starving for it,” Harris corrected, his voice sounding like grinding stone.
Spread out on the table were high-resolution photographs, decrypted audio recordings, detailed bank statements, and hundreds of messages that had been deleted from Wendy’s phone.
One of the investigators played a recording that had been recovered from the emergency locator device.
Damien’s voice filled the room with chilling clarity.
“When the insurance company pays out the fifty million, nobody will ever have to speak her name again.”
Then, Wendy’s voice cut through the silence.
“Just make sure you make it look like a tragic accident.”
Eloise closed her eyes, but it was not because of fear.
It was because of a white-hot, burning anger that finally made her feel strong again.
Harris placed both of his hands firmly on the table and leaned toward the investigators.
“He tried to murder my daughter and my granddaughter just to collect a payout from my own company,” he stated.
One of the lawyers spoke up, adjusting his glasses.
