My Fiancé Faked His Death for a Rich Heiress

Three days after my mother's ashes disappeared, my phone rang.

I was in the bakery kitchen. Flour on my hands. Renata was pulling a tray of croissants from the oven. The number on the screen wasn't saved, but I recognized it anyway. I'd called it a thousand times three years ago, back when I thought the man on the other end was dying.

I answered.

'Camille.' Devin's voice came through soft and thick. Like he'd been crying. 'I heard what happened. I'm so sorry.'

I said nothing.

'I want to help,' he said. 'I hired a salvage diver. Professional. He thinks he can recover some of what was lost. I know it won't bring her back, but—' His voice cracked. 'You shouldn't have to go through this alone.'

I looked at Renata. She was watching me, her face hard.

'Where?' I asked.

'Pier 58. Tomorrow morning. Six a.m.'

I hung up.

Renata crossed her arms. 'You're not going.'

'I am.'

'Camille—'

'I need to see what he does,' I said quietly. I pulled my phone back out and opened the voice recorder app. I hit the settings and turned on background recording. 'And I need him to keep talking.'

---

The pier was empty at six a.m. Just me, the wind, and the sound of water slapping against the pylons below.

Devin's Range Rover pulled up right on time. He got out alone. No Gianna. No tailor. Just him in a dark coat and boots that looked too clean for a dock.

He walked toward me with his hands in his pockets. His face was drawn. Tired. He looked like a man carrying the weight of the world.

'Thank you for coming,' he said.

I didn't answer.

A white van pulled up behind his car. Two men in wetsuits got out, followed by a third man with a diver's tank and mask. Devin gestured toward the water.

'They've been scanning the area since yesterday,' he said. 'The current's tricky, but they think they found the dispersal zone.'

I watched the diver gear up and drop into the black water. The sound of the splash echoed under the pier.

Devin stepped closer. 'I know you're angry. I know I hurt you. But I never stopped caring, Camille. Not for a single day.'

I looked at him. Really looked. The concern in his eyes was perfect. Practiced. Like he'd rehearsed it in a mirror.

'You didn't have to do this,' I said.

He shook his head. 'Yes, I did. You deserved better than what happened. Your mother deserved better.'

The diver surfaced twenty minutes later. He swam to the dock ladder and climbed up, dripping. In his gloved hand was a small glass vial, sealed with a black cap. Inside was a layer of gray sediment, maybe an inch deep.

Devin took it carefully. He turned to me and held it out with both hands, like an offering.

'It's not much,' he said. His voice broke again. 'But it's something. You were never alone, Camille. You have to know that.'

I took the vial.

His eyes were wet. His jaw was tight. He looked like a man barely holding himself together.

I slipped the vial into my coat pocket and met his gaze.

'Thank you,' I said.

I turned and walked back to my truck without another word. I could feel him watching me the whole way.

I didn't cry until I was three blocks away.

---

The notification came that night.

I was sitting on my apartment floor with the vial on the coffee table in front of me. Just staring at it. My phone lit up with a soft buzz.

An iCloud folder. Shared anonymously. No name. No message.

I opened it.

Two folders inside. The first was labeled 'Journal Entries.'

I tapped it.

The documents were scanned images of handwritten pages. Devin's handwriting. I recognized the slant of his letters, the way he crossed his t's.

The first entry was dated four years ago.

*'Subject selection: Camille Pierce. Age 24. Background: raised by single paralyzed mother, no extended family, financially vulnerable. Psychological profile: high empathy, strong caretaker instinct, low self-preservation. Ideal control case for testing emotional dependency tactics before deployment on primary target (G. West). Risk assessment: minimal. Resources: none. Probability of post-termination complications: near zero.'*

I stopped breathing.

I scrolled.

*'Camille's response to fabricated illness exceeds expectations. Devotion is predictably exploitable. She has secured high-risk employment to sustain financial support. Physical degradation noted but irrelevant to experimental parameters. Emotional conditioning proceeding on schedule.'*

My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone.

I opened the second folder.

One video file. Fourteen seconds long.

I pressed play.

The footage was black-and-white. A care facility room. My mother's room. The timestamp in the corner read three years ago. Two months before she died.

Mrs. Sullivan walked into the frame. Pearls around her neck. Cashmere cardigan. She moved to the bedside table and picked up the medication dispenser. She opened it. Checked the contents. Then she capped it, placed it in her handbag, and smoothed her hair.

She looked directly at my mother's still form in the bed.

Then she turned and walked out.

The video ended.

I sat on the floor of my apartment and played it again.

And again.

And again.

Somewhere around the fifth time, I started laughing. It came out sharp and wrong, like something breaking.

Renata found me there an hour later. I handed her my phone without saying a word.

She watched the video once. Then she looked at me.

'We bury him,' she said.

I nodded.

I touched the vial on the table. The ash inside wasn't my mother. I knew that now. It was probably sand. Or silt. Something Devin bought to complete the performance.

I picked it up and threw it hard against the wall. It shattered. Gray dust spread across the floor like a stain.

'Call Marcus Hale,' I said. 'Tell him I'm ready.'