My fiancé paid a man to attack me before our wedding, then said, “If she’s scarred, even better.”
Chapter 2
A secret folder proved his cruelty had started years before
Gabriel closed the door and leaned over my bed. “Christian has people watching this floor.” My throat felt raw, but my mind had suddenly become clear. “Then we make them believe I’m still unconscious.” He nodded. For eight years, Gabriel had managed Christian’s career. He knew the private accounts, travel schedules, contracts, hidden meetings, and people Christian trusted. More importantly, he had kept copies.
He unlocked his phone and showed me folders filled with emails, payments, messages, and travel records. One was labeled with a date from five years earlier, the year Christian and I supposedly fell in love. Gabriel hesitated before opening it, and that hesitation frightened me more than anything. The first document carried Dr. Lawson’s name. It was a private medical report tied to my treatment.
My hands began to shake before I finished reading. My miscarriages had not been unexplained. Someone had deliberately interfered with my care, and the payments to Dr. Lawson came from an account Christian controlled. I pressed my bandaged cheek into the pillow and whispered, “He planned this before I even knew Sabrina existed.” Gabriel looked sick. “He didn’t just betray you, Genevieve. He built a life around controlling you.”
Then he played a recording of Christian and Sabrina speaking months earlier. Leo was not their only secret. Christian had promised Sabrina that after our wedding he would slowly separate me from anyone who might challenge him. He wanted my money shifted into accounts he controlled. He wanted my public image beside his because fans loved our story. Most of all, he wanted me dependent enough to stop asking questions.
The attack suddenly made terrible sense. It had never been a burst of jealousy or panic. It was another part of a plan designed to make me weaker, more isolated, and easier to manage. I looked at Gabriel and asked the only question that mattered. “What do we do?” He lowered his voice. “We let him believe he won.”
For the next three days, I became the perfect unconscious patient. Christian arrived every afternoon carrying flowers and grief for the cameras. He held my hand beside the bed, then walked into the hallway and told reporters how devastated he was. America saw a heartbroken fiancé. I saw a man checking whether his trap had closed.
While he performed, Gabriel moved. Attorneys and investigators duplicated every document and secured every recording. Hospital administrators were quietly alerted. Then Dr. Lawson was confronted. He denied everything until Gabriel placed the financial records in front of him. After a long silence, the doctor finally admitted Christian had paid him to manipulate my treatment and conceal it. But when investigators followed the money, another name appeared. Sabrina had known about the medical deception. She had known about the planned attack too.
