The stranger nodded.
“Every dollar disappears.”
Twenty-four hours later, I stood inside Simon Wexler’s waterfront mansion wearing a wedding dress someone else had chosen.
The ceremony lasted eleven minutes.
Simon barely looked at me until the bedroom door closed behind us.
He was thirty-six, broad-shouldered, frighteningly calm, and nothing like the monster my father had described.
“You look terrified,” he said.
“I was traded for a debt.”
His expression changed.
“Is that what Walter told you?”
My stomach tightened.
Simon crossed to his desk and removed a folder.
“Your father never owed me four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
I stared at him.
“He owed ninety thousand.”
My knees nearly weakened.
“Then why—”
“Because someone altered the agreement before my men reached your house.”
Simon opened the folder and showed me the original ledger.
My father’s signature appeared beside $90,000.
Beneath it was another document claiming the debt had increased to $480,000 and offering me as settlement.
The signature at the bottom looked like Simon’s.
“It’s forged,” he said.
I backed toward the bed.
“Then why did you marry me?”
“Because when I discovered the substitution, you had already agreed, and I needed to know who wanted you inside this house.”
A chill moved through me.
Simon studied my face.
“Now tell me what else your father lied about.”
I said nothing.
His gaze dropped toward the small silver pendant around my neck.
“Especially that.”
My hand flew to it.
Mom had given me the necklace before she died and made me promise never to remove it.
Simon stepped closer but didn’t touch me.
“That belonged to Evelyn Wexler.”
I stopped breathing.
“My mother’s name was Laura Preston.”
“No,” Simon said quietly.
“Laura was the woman who raised you.”
He opened a locked drawer and placed an old photograph between us.
A young woman smiled beside Simon’s father.
Around her neck hung my exact pendant.
On the back, someone had written two words.
For Abigail.
Then three gunshots shattered the windows downstairs.
Simon pulled me behind him as footsteps thundered through the hallway.
The bedroom door burst open.
My father stumbled inside.
But he wasn’t frightened anymore.
He was holding a gun.
…
