I spent my wedding night alone because my husband’s grandmother said every groom in their family had to sleep beside “the matriarch” before joining his bride. My husband told me not to make a scene. By morning, I was done being polite. I opened the door and found him unconscious beside her, with an unfamiliar stain on the sheet and a tiny puncture mark on his arm. That was when the story stopped looking like a disgusting tradition and started looking like something much darker.

The sterile walls of the consultation room seemed to close in on me.

My husband had been paralyzed and harvested on his own wedding night by his own grandmother.

I demanded that the doctor call the police immediately.

The doctor lowered his eyes and whispered that Arthur had already confiscated the hospital’s security footage.

He warned me that the local police chief was Arthur’s brother-in-law.

If I wanted to save Julian, I could not rely on the local authorities.

I had to find hard, undeniable evidence of what this family was actually doing.

I thanked the terrified doctor and slipped out the back exit of the hospital.

I hailed a taxi and directed the driver back to the sprawling family estate.

The massive iron gates were wide open because the entire family was currently at the hospital trying to silence the staff.

I crept through the massive front doors, the silence of the empty mansion feeling heavy and oppressive.

I walked straight up the grand staircase and down the hall to Eleanor’s master suite.

The bed was stripped bare, the stained sheets already destroyed by the house staff.

I began tearing the room apart, pulling out drawers and searching behind expensive paintings.

Underneath a loose floorboard beneath her heavy vanity, I found a small, iron lockbox.

I grabbed a heavy bronze bookend from her desk and smashed the rusty padlock until it shattered.

Inside the box was a thick, black leather ledger dating back nearly eighty years.

I flipped through the brittle pages, my heart pounding violently against my ribs.

The book contained a list of every male heir in the family, followed by the names of their brides.

Next to each bride’s name was a specific date, always exactly one year after their wedding night.

I scanned the columns, feeling a wave of absolute, sickening dread wash over me.

Every single woman who had married into this family had died exactly one year after her wedding.

The causes of death were listed in neat handwriting as heart failure, aneurysms, and tragic accidents.

I turned to the very last page of the ledger.

My name was written in fresh blue ink.

Next to my name was a date exactly three hundred and sixty-five days from today.

When my newborn 'passed away,' my mother-in-law leaned in and said

My Husband Left Me Alone in My Car While I Was in Labor

“You’re Dead When We Get Home,” He Snapped

And directly below my name was a single, terrifying medical note.

It read that my blood type was the perfect match for the matriarch's upcoming transfusion.

Chapter 3 - The Black Book