Five years after I buri:ed my husband, I visited a colleague and stepped into a bright nursery—only to see Daniel Mercer standing there alive. The man I had mourned was holding a baby bottle, while my mother-in-law fussed over another woman and her newborn like this was a normal family scene. Daniel looked at me, turned white, and dropped the bottle onto the floor. That was when I understood the coffin had been empty. Before nightfall, the lie that protected his entire family would destroy them all.

"Step away from the terminal," Sophie ordered, gesturing with the weapon.

I raised my hands slowly, analyzing her posture.

She held the gun with a practiced, professional grip.

"You are not just an accountant, are you?" I asked, stalling for time.

Sophie let out a dark, melodic laugh.

"Voss Financial does not hire random accountants."

"I work for Marcus."

"I was assigned to keep an eye on Daniel, play his little wife, and ensure the money kept flowing."

I glanced at the monitor out of the corner of my eye.

The download was at eighty percent.

"And the baby?" I pressed.

"An orphan Marcus acquired to make our domestic cover look authentic," she said coldly.

"Daniel is a weak man."

"He needed the illusion of a family to keep him compliant."

"But then you had to show up and ruin everything."

"Where is Daniel now?" I asked.

"Tied to a chair in a warehouse, waiting for Marcus to finish him off," she replied.

"Daniel tried to warn you."

"He actually thought he could save you and run away."

The download chimed, hitting one hundred percent.

I grabbed the flash drive and threw it into the darkness of the server racks.

Sophie instinctively tracked the movement with her gun.

I lunged at her.

I grabbed her wrist, twisting it upward as the gun went off with a quiet, suppressed cough.

The bullet shattered a glass panel above us.

I drove my knee into her stomach, forcing her to drop the weapon.

She collapsed, gasping for air.

I picked up the gun, retrieved my flash drive, and pointed the weapon at her.

“Which daughter is yours?” should have been a harmless question

The first wineglass shattered at 8:07 p.m

The moment the mafia boss’s wife called me “an illiterate servant,”

"Tell me where the warehouse is," I demanded.

Before she could answer, the server room door hissed open, and someone plunged a syringe into my neck.

Chapter 7 - The Fixer