His Dead Wife Came Back For Revenge

"Who sent the text?" Caspian asked. He nodded toward my trench coat pocket.

"A coward who likes to play games," I lied smoothly. "It doesn't matter."

"It matters if they know you're sitting in my garage next to a rigged explosive."

"Focus on the bomb, Caspian."

"I am." He picked up the plastic square, examining the frayed wires. "Military grade. Kael isn't playing around. He wants you vaporized."

I reached into the deep pocket of my coat. My fingers brushed against the thick manila envelope I had stolen from Kael's hidden floor safe earlier tonight. The paper felt heavy. It carried the weight of a ghost.

"He's eliminated problems before," I said.

I pulled the envelope free and held it out.

Caspian glanced at it, then back at my face. "What is that?"

"The real reason I need your help."

He wiped the grease off his hands with a shop rag and took the envelope. He popped the metal clasp. A stack of folded hospital records slid out onto the workbench.

"These are from October," Caspian noted, his eyes scanning the top sheet. "The night you fell down the terrace steps."

"I didn't fall."

He stopped reading. "What do you mean?"

"Turn to the second page. Read the original attending physician's notes."

Caspian flipped the paper. His dark eyebrows drew together. "Blunt force trauma to the abdomen. Defensive bruising on the forearms." He paused. The silence in the garage stretched tight. "Fetal demise."

"I was eight weeks pregnant," I told him. My voice stayed perfectly level. "Seraphina cornered me on the balcony. She told me I was a placeholder. When I tried to walk away from her, she shoved me down the stone stairs."

Caspian's grip on the paper tightened, crinkling the edges. "Kael told the entire family you tripped over a loose paver. He said you were clumsy."

"He paid Dr. Aris fifty thousand dollars to alter my chart." I pointed a trembling finger at the third page. "That is the wire transfer receipt. I pulled it from his private safe tonight."

Caspian stared at the numbers. A muscle ticked rapidly along his jawline.

"He protected her," Caspian muttered.

"He covered up the murder of his own child to keep his mistress out of a jail cell."

"Why didn't you go to the police?" he demanded, his voice rising. "Why stay with him after this?"

"Because I didn't know!" I shouted back. "I woke up in the hospital heavily medicated. Kael sat by my bed and held my hand. He told me the baby just didn't survive the fall. I believed him. I believed the man I was going to marry."

Caspian threw the files onto the metal table. The sharp smack echoed off the walls.

"Then how did you get these?" he asked.

"I woke up tonight. The blindfold finally came off. I broke into his office and found his insurance policy." I stepped closer to him. "He kept the original records to blackmail Seraphina if she ever tried to leave him."

Caspian ran a hand through his messy dark hair. He paced a tight circle around the workbench, his boots scuffing against the concrete.

"He's a sociopath," Caspian said.

"He's a sociopath who is about to inherit a dynasty."

Caspian stopped pacing. He turned to face me. The cynical, detached mechanic was gone. Pure, unadulterated fury burned in his eyes.

"He drowned my dog," Caspian whispered. "He locked me in the cellar for three days when we were teenagers. But this... this is a new level of depravity."

"And now I'm pregnant again." I gestured to the blinking explosive. "He doesn't want another hospital visit. He wants a guaranteed elimination."

Caspian stared at the bomb. Then he looked at my flat stomach.

"I'm in," he said.

"I need more than financial records," I pushed. "If I take these papers to the police, his lawyers will claim I forged them. I need a confession. I need them caught in the act."

"They don't meet in public."

"Then we catch them in private."

Caspian walked over to a tall metal tool cabinet. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a sleek black tablet.

"My father is a paranoid man," Caspian explained, bringing the device to the table. "He wanted eyes on the staff. He had hidden cameras installed across the main estate five years ago."

My pulse jumped. "Kael doesn't know?"

"No one knows. Except me." Caspian powered on the screen. "I wired the system."

A grid of black-and-white video feeds illuminated the dark garage. Dozens of tiny squares showed the empty, pristine halls of the mansion.

"Audio and video," Caspian added. He tapped a square, enlarging the image of Kael's private study. "Every drawing room. Every guest suite."

"We can record them," I said, a fierce sense of triumph blooming in my chest.

"We will record them." Caspian set the tablet down. "We'll catch them planning the hit. We'll get the confession on tape."

I stared at the glowing screen. A thought struck me.

"Can you pull up the garage feed from tonight?" I asked.

Caspian frowned. "You want to see the mechanic plant the bomb?"

"I want to see his face. I want to know exactly who Kael trusts with his dirty work."

Caspian tapped the screen a few times. The live feed vanished, replaced by a time-stamped recording. The underground garage appeared in black and white.

My silver coupe sat in the corner.

"Fast forward," I instructed.

The timestamp blurred as Caspian sped up the footage. At exactly two hours before I came downstairs, a figure slipped through the heavy metal doors.

"Stop," I ordered.

Caspian hit play.

We watched the man walk up to my car. He knelt beside the front tire. He reached under the chassis and planted the explosive.

Then, the man stood up. He turned his face directly toward the hidden lens tucked in the ceiling corner.

The blood drained completely from my head. The cold garage suddenly felt like a furnace.

"Caspian," I whispered, my throat tightening.

"I see it," he replied. His voice sounded entirely hollow.

It wasn't Kael's mechanic.

It was my own father.