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Chapter 10: What Eleanor Confessed
publish date:
2026-07-03 02:12:38
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IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 10: What Eleanor Confessed
Jeremy's POVThe house on Birch Hill had not changed in thirty years. Same ivy on the brick, same circular drive, same housekeeper who had worked for my mother since before I was born and who let me in without a word, her eyes carrying the particular sympathy of someone who knew more than she was allowed to say.My mother was waiting in the study, a glass of sherry untouched on the table beside her, her posture rigid in the way it only got when she was bracing for something."Sit down, Jeremy.""I'd rather stand.""Sit down." It was not a request. I sat."I know about the wire transfers," I said, before she could control the direction of the conversation the way she controlled every conversation she had ever had with me. "I know Vivienne handled them personally. I know about the document with your handwriting on it. Burn the originals, mother. Did you really write that?"Her face did not change, which told me everything."Sit there and judge me if you want," she said. "But understand
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 9: The House on Birch Hill
Madeline's POVI did not tell Nathan about the document.I told myself it was strategy, that I needed to verify its authenticity before bringing it to anyone, and that moving carefully was the only way to ensure it could not be discredited later. Some of that was true. The rest of it was that I did not yet know whether I trusted him with it, and that not knowing scared me more than I wanted to admit.I brought it to Dara instead."It's real," she said, after running it through three different verification processes, comparing signatures, checking metadata, cross-referencing the letterhead against authenticated company documents from that period. "Or it's the best forgery I've ever seen, which would require resources neither of us has any reason to think the sender has.""So it's real.""It's real."I sat back in my chair, the weight of it settling into my chest. Five years of believing one woman's jealousy had destroyed me, and the truth was so much larger, so much colder. A financial
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 8: The Story They Printed
Jeremy's POVThe headline ran on a Thursday morning, on the front page of the city's largest business publication, the kind of placement that does not happen by accident.FORMER CONVICT TURNED CORPORATE SPY: INSIDE MADELINE CRAWFORD'S RETURN TO HAVENPORT.I read it standing in my kitchen with my coffee going cold, and by the third paragraph, my hands were shaking with an anger I had not felt in years. The article painted Madeline as a woman using Cross Industries as a vehicle for personal vendetta, citing anonymous sources within Whitman Corporation who claimed she had been seen accessing confidential information during her time as my assistant, information that conveniently lined up with the very accusations that had sent her to prison in the first place.It was a hit piece. A well constructed one, with just enough plausible detail to make readers who did not know better assume there was fire beneath the smoke.I found Vivienne in her office an hour later, the printed article in my h
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 7: What Nathan Did Not Say
Madeline's POVI should have told Nathan about the meeting with Jeremy. I told myself I would, the next morning, over coffee, the way I told him everything.I did not get the chance, because Dara found me first, in the kitchen, with a face that meant she had not slept."We have a problem," she said."What kind?""The kind where I found out something I wish I hadn't." She sat down across from me, pushing her tablet across the island. "I was running a deeper background check on the Eleanor accounts last night. Standard work, cross-referencing every name connected to the holding companies. And I found something that doesn't have anything to do with Eleanor at all.""Dara.""Nathan's sister was engaged to Jeremy. Before you."I stared at her."Before me," I repeated.Eleven years ago. Camille Cross. The engagement lasted eight months. It ended right around the time Eleanor started making calls to a law firm that specializes in, and I'm quoting the firm's own marketing materials here, repu
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME CHAPTER 6: The Card in His Pocket
Jeremy's POVI carried the card for four days before I called the number.Four days of meetings where I could not focus, of Vivienne's hand finding my arm at exactly the moments I drifted, of lying awake doing arithmetic I did not want to finish. March eleventh. My mother's birthday. A login that should not have existed.I called from my car, parked two blocks from the office, because I did not trust myself to make this call from anywhere Vivienne might walk in.She picked up on the third ring."Madeline Crawford.""It's Jeremy."A pause, brief, controlled. "I wondered how long it would take you.""I want to talk. In person.""I assumed that was the point of the card.""Tonight," I said. "Somewhere quiet."She gave me an address, a small bar on the east side I had never heard of, which told me everything about how far apart our lives had drifted. I used to know every restaurant and bar worth knowing in this city. Apparently, that had stopped being true the day she stopped being in it.
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 5: Blood in the Water
POV: MadelineThe Whitman shareholders' lunch was held at Harlow's, which was the kind of restaurant that had no prices on the menu, required reservations three weeks in advance and served food in portions designed to make you feel like you were receiving a gift rather than a meal. I had eaten there twice. Once with Jeremy, years ago, when he was trying to impress me at a time when he did not yet know that the way to impress me was not with restaurants but with remembering things.The second time was last Thursday, alone, to make sure the staff recognized my face.Today I arrived five minutes before the lunch was scheduled to begin.Not too early. Not late. The arrival of someone who is comfortable with their own punctuality.The room held twelve people. Nine of them I had studied for months. Their investment histories, their professional grievances, their relationships with the Whitman family, their vulnerabilities and their ambitions. I walked in knowing more about most of them than
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