All Chapters of MY HUSBAND'S TRAP: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Her cousin, Daniel Rice, sat in the chair closest to the bed, jaw locked so tightly a muscle jumped in his cheek, eyes fixed on Eleanor Smith’s polished performance. Two members of Rice family security stood near the door in civilian clothes that did not hide their readiness. At the foot of the bed, a woman in her late fifties still elegant even in raw grief pressed a trembling hand hard against her mouth as she watched the broadcast.Lottie’s mother.Charlene’s mother.“She looks so small on that screen,” the older woman whispered, voice breaking. “My Charlene. My little empress. They reduced her to a cautionary headline and then they stood on those steps and celebrated that the fire had finished what they started.”Daniel reached for the remote and killed the screen with a sharp, final click. The sudden absence of Eleanor’s voice left the room louder somehow.“They do not get to use her name again,&rd

Supposedly.Eric replayed the footage again.His eyes narrowed.“No.”The word was quiet.Certain.“No, you didn't die that easily.”He reached for the remote.The news footage changed.CONVICTED KILLER LOTTIE SMITH DEAD IN PRISON FIRE.Then came the images.Smoke.Fire trucks.A ruined prison wing.Seventeen dead prisoners.A burned body identified through an identification bracelet.Eric watched without blinking.A slow, humorless smile appeared on his face.“So that's your ending?”His voice carried through the empty room.“They burned a body, found your bracelet, and suddenly everyone stopped asking questions?”He leaned back.For several seconds he said nothing.Then he laughed.It was a low, cold sound.“I don't believe it.”His private in

The rain had not stopped since midnight.It sheeted against the clinic windows in long, silver curtains, turning the grounds beyond into a blurred watercolor of dark trees and wet stone. Every few minutes thunder rolled across the hills like distant artillery, low and continuous, as if the sky itself were grinding its teeth. Inside the private wing the only light came from the low lamp beside Charlene’s bed and the soft green glow of the monitors tracking a heart that had refused to stop when everything else tried to end her.She sat upright against the pillows, knees drawn loosely to her chest, staring at her own hands as though they might suddenly confess what the rest of her mind still refused to surrender. The IV line taped to the back of her left hand looked foreign. The thin hospital bracelet around her wrist felt like a chain she had not agreed to wear. Everything about her body seemed borrowed.Margaret sat close enough that their shoulders almost touched, her fingers laced lo

The cameras found them at the charity gala three nights after the fire.Geoffrey Smith stepped out of the black town car with Vivienne Cole on his arm as though the city had been holding its breath for this exact moment. Her gown was the color of fresh arterial blood silk that clung to every curve and caught the flashbulbs like it had been designed to start wars. His hand rested low on the small of her back, fingers spread in open possession. When she turned her face up to his and smiled, he leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth in front of every lens in the city, slow enough that no one could mistake it for anything polite.The pack of reporters surged forward like sharks scenting blood.“Mr. Smith! How long have you and Ms. Cole been together?”“Was the divorce finalized before the trial or after the verdict?”“Do you feel any guilt about moving on so quickly after your wife’s death?”“Is it true the family completely cut ties the moment she confessed to murder?”Geoffrey sto

“Absolutely dead,” she said, voice rich with triumph. “And she deserved every second of it. Cheers to that.”She crossed the room, heels clicking against marble, and clinked her glass against Geoffrey’s with deliberate force. The sound rang sharp and final.“To the end of the most expensive mistake this family ever made,” Eleanor continued. “Ten years of feeding her, clothing her, tolerating her silences and her desperate little smiles. Ten years of watching her stare at my son like he had hung the moon while she poured our wine like a hired girl. And now the fire has done what the courts were too slow to finish. She is ash. She is headlines. She is nothing.”Priscilla dropped onto the arm of the nearest sofa, legs crossed, smiling like a cat that had finally been allowed to stop pretending it didn’t have claws.“And when,” she asked, tilting her head toward Geoffrey, “is the wedding, b