All Chapters of The Man Who Was Supposed To Die: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

The wedding took eleven minutes.I counted every single one.Not because I was trying to be dramatic about it. I just needed something to hold onto that was not the look on the registrar's face. He kept glancing at me the way people look at a child standing too close to the edge of something dangerous. Like he wanted to say something but had been paid not to.I understood the feeling.There were two witnesses whose names I never caught. There was Roland standing near the back with his hands folded and that smile of his that never changed no matter what was happening around him. And there was a framed photograph of Damien Voss sitting on a small table to my left because the actual Damien Voss was currently unconscious in a hospital bed across the city and could not be expected to show up to his own wedding.The photograph had been enough for the paperwork apparently.I said the words. I signed my name. The registrar handed me my copy of the marriage certificate with both hands, slowly,

I counted three cars.Six men.They were standing very still beside those cars the way people stand when they have been trained to stand still, back straight, hands visible, eyes forward. Not aggressive. Not yet. Just present in the way that a locked door is present. You have not tried to open it yet but you already know it is not going to move."What do they want with me?" I said.Petra shook her head. "They told security they were sent to collect you. That you were needed back home."Collect.Like I was a package. Like I was something Roland had loaned out and was now calling back.I stared down at those cars and something shifted in my chest. Not fear exactly. Something older and quieter than fear. The feeling I used to get as a child when Roland would walk into a room and smile at me and I would smile back and somewhere underneath the smile I would be thinking, what does he want now.I had spent six years pushing that feeling down.I was done pushing it down."Where is Damien?" I

Dr. HaleHis name was Dr. Hale.Dr. Patrick Hale. My mother's primary physician for the past two years. The man who called me every time her condition changed. The man whose voice I had come to associate with either relief or dread depending on the first three words out of his mouth. The man who had sat across from me in a consultation room eight months ago and explained, gently and carefully, exactly what my mother needed to survive.He was the one who told me the surgery cost four hundred thousand dollars.He was the one who told me there was no other way.I picked my phone up off the floor. My hands were not entirely steady."That is her doctor," I said. My voice came out strange. Flat and far away like it was coming from another room. "He is the one who told me about the surgery. He is the one who told me how much it cost."Damien was already on his phone. He said one sentence to whoever answered. "Get me everything there is on a Dr. Patrick Hale. Medical license, financial recor

Damien moved first.He was already out the door and into the corridor before the second wave of alarms hit, walking fast with that controlled urgency that was somehow more frightening than running would have been. I was right behind him, my heart slamming against my ribs, my mind trying to catch up with what was happening.The whole estate had come alive.Staff were moving in every direction, doors were opening, voices were calling out across floors, and through it all the alarms kept screaming, sharp and relentless, bouncing off the marble walls and filling every room with sound.Marcus appeared at the end of the corridor, phone to his ear, already talking fast.Damien reached him in four strides. "Where.""East wing," Marcus said. "Ground floor. Someone cut the feed on two cameras before they came through.""How many.""We think two. Maybe three."Damien turned to me. His eyes were sharp and very calm, the way deep water is calm, still on the surface and full of current underneath.