10

Adrian

“Why call me here so urgently?” I demanded the second I slipped through the back door, locking it behind me. “If someone spots me near this property, the entire plan blows up in our faces.”

Vivian leapt up from the sofa, rushing across the foyer to throw her arms around my neck. “Are you alright?” I asked. “Did that little bitch Elena do something to you?”

“Who would dare touch her while I’m breathing?” my mother scoffed, stepping down from the landing. “Take off those ridiculous glasses and the mask, Adrian. She isn’t here.”

I peeled off the silicone mask, the dark sunglasses, and the baseball cap, running a hand through my damp hair. I had been rotting away in a cheap motel two miles down the highway, waiting for the news of my tragic “death” to settle over the city.

“That ungrateful snake!” Mother raged, pacing the marble floor. “How dare she turn on us like this?”

“Will someone please tell me what is going on?” I snapped, my patience wearing thin. “Did she sign the debt release forms or not?”

“You don’t own this house, Adrian,” Lucas said coolly, leaning against the staircase bannister as he descended. “Elena does. Your name on the title means nothing.”

I stared at him, blood draining from my face. “What the hell are you talking about? Tell me you’re joking.”

“He isn’t lying, Adrian,” Vivian whimpered, her lower lip trembling. “We found out this morning when we were getting ready to tell her about the loan sharks. Her father set up a private trust before he died.”

“Where is she?” I roared, turning toward the hallway. “Where is that goddamn bitch? I’ll drag her down here myself!”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Father’s deep voice cut through the air like a blade, halting me in my tracks. “Are you planning to walk up to her and announce that you’ve risen from the dead? Use your head, boy.”

I clamped my jaw shut, my chest heaving. The sheer fury blinding me had made me forget the most basic rule of our game: to the rest of the world, Adrian Blackwood was a corpse.

“Then what are we supposed to do?” I hissed. “Dad, call your attorneys!”

“I already did,” Father sighed. “Because the trust was created strictly under the Hart family name, my lawyers can’t touch it. Your name was only added to the residential title. Now that you are legally deceased, ownership reverts entirely to her.”

My stomach dropped. “Wait... what about the holding company? The shares?”

He gave a slow, bitter nod. “Everything.”

“I get it now,” I muttered, pressing a hand to my forehead as the pieces clicked together in my head. “Is that why she refused to take my surname when we got married? Why she insisted on staying Elena Hart?”

“I thought she was just being headstrong, brother,” Lucas chimed in with a faint smirk. “I thought she was a naive fool. But it looks like we were the ones being played.”

“Nonsense!” Mother waved her hand dismissively. “The girl doesn’t have a single strategic bone in her body. She has no idea what that trust even means.”

“Mom, don’t be blind,” Lucas countered, stepping into the center of the room. “I gave her a glass of milk this morning as a test, and she wouldn’t touch it. She literally flinched from it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Mother asked, frowning.

“You know how she gets around milk,” Lucas said, his eyes darkening. “I used to offer it to her all the time. She knows.”

“She was grieving Adrian!” Mother snapped back. “She was too distraught to eat or drink anything!”

“Will both of you shut up?!” I shouted, shattering the room into silence. “I didn’t risk my life and my reputation to stand here listening to your petty bickering!”

Everything—the estate, the company, the luxury vehicle I’d hidden at my associate’s garage—was supposed to be my reward. The plan had been airtight: let Elena take on the loans I’d engineered in her name, wait for her to break under the pressure, and then eliminate her so I could step back into the light under a fresh identity with Vivian and our unborn child.

It had taken months of meticulous preparation to set the trap. I could still vividly recall my meeting with Kane six months ago in his smoke-filled office, the air heavy with expensive cologne and quiet malice.

“Is the collateral legitimate?” Kane had asked, not even looking up from the stack of financial documents.

“Ironclad,” I had told him, sliding the file across his mahogany desk. “My wife’s signature, her identity verification, fully notarized.”

It hadn’t been difficult. Elena was pathetic in her devotion. She signed whatever I put in front of her. She never read the fine print. Why would she? She trusted me with the same blind, desperate adoration she had shown since the day I first smiled at her.

My mother’s cousin had notarized the paperwork for a fraction of the payout. It took less than an hour to find a signature of Elena’s close enough to copy from the dozens of documents scattered around the mansion, and less than a week of practice before I could reproduce it without a second glance. Taking her passport for a fake “anniversary getaway” had been even easier—she had practically glowed with joy when she handed it over.

“You understand the clause,” Kane had warned, sliding the contract toward me. “If the loan defaults, the collateral becomes mine outright.”

“It won’t default,” I’d told him, signing her name in one smooth, practiced stroke. “My wife is nothing if not reliable.”

She would spend years drowning in debt, thinking she was protecting my memory, completely unaware that she was merely funding my clean getaway.

And now, because of a dead man’s trust, every forged signature and every hour of planning was slipping through my fingers.