When my husband’s family was caught in a massive pileup on the highway, he was at the beach with the woman he had loved before me—and this time, instead of begging him to come home, I let him go.
Chapter 3
The funeral drew hundreds of people.
Richard Larson had built factories across three states. Eleanor had funded schools, shelters, and community clinics. Sophie was only eighteen, but half her graduating class attended.
Ryan arrived late.
He looked ten years older.
Serena followed several yards behind.
Aunt Helen saw them.
She walked straight to Ryan and slapped him.
The sound echoed through the chapel.
“You told me they were safe!”
Ryan didn’t defend himself.
Helen grabbed his jacket.
“Lily begged me to send blood. You told me she was having another jealous breakdown.”
“Aunt Helen—”
“Sophie was eighteen!”
Her voice broke.
Derek stepped forward.
“I recorded the calls.”
Ryan turned.
Derek’s face was hard.
“Our corporate system archives executive calls. I have you ordering staff not to leave for blood donation. I have Serena laughing in the background while I told you Sophie was in surgery.”
Every face turned toward Serena.
She took a step backward.
“I didn’t know.”
Derek looked at her.
“You answered Ryan’s phone.”
“I thought Lily was lying.”
“So did everyone else,” I said quietly. “Because Ryan made sure you did.”
Ryan sank beside Sophie’s casket.
For the first time in all the years I had known him, grief stripped him of arrogance.
“Sophie.”
He touched the polished wood.
“I’m sorry.”
I stood several feet away.
His mother had spent her final conscious moments searching for him.
I could have told him.
Part of me wanted to.
Then I realized I no longer wanted revenge.
The truth was punishment enough.
Three days later, an emergency board meeting convened at Larson Group headquarters.
Ryan assumed he would inherit control.
He was wrong.
Richard and Eleanor had placed their controlling shares into a family trust months earlier after Ryan’s increasingly public affair damaged the company’s reputation.
Their estate plan named Mia as ultimate beneficiary.
Until she turned twenty-five, I controlled the voting proxy.
Combined with Lewis Pharmaceuticals’ existing position, I held majority control.
My attorney, Arthur Harrison, placed the documents in front of the board.
“Effective immediately, Ryan Larson is removed as chief executive and from the board.”
Ryan stared at me.
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
“This is my father’s company.”
“Your father protected it from you.”
He stood.
“Lily, please.”
I had never heard him say please like that.
“I lost everyone.”
“So did I.”
“I made a mistake.”
“A mistake is forgetting an anniversary.”
I met his eyes.
“You ordered people not to donate blood because you were more concerned with proving I was jealous than checking whether your sister was alive.”
He sank back into his chair.
Security escorted him from the building.
Two days later, Captain Vance came to see me.
He carried surveillance photographs.
“We identified who sabotaged the Mercedes.”
He slid one across the desk.
A woman in a dark hoodie stood inside the Larson family’s private garage.
I recognized the designer handbag.
Serena.
My breath slowed.
“Why?”
“Money.”
Ryan had recently purchased large executive-continuity insurance policies on his parents and sister during a corporate restructuring. He was primary beneficiary.
Serena knew.
Police found searches for overseas property on her laptop.
They also uncovered an anonymous message sent to Richard Larson the morning of the crash, telling him a birthday gift for me was waiting at a boutique north of the city.
Serena had deliberately put them on that highway.
“How did she get into the garage?”
“Ryan’s access card.”
He had given her one months earlier.
Police arrested Serena at a condominium Ryan owned downtown.
She was packing cash and jewelry.
Ryan was there too.
He sat on a couch staring at a bottle of whiskey while officers put Serena in handcuffs.
Then she saw me.
“Lily, tell them they’re wrong.”
I said nothing.
Captain Vance placed the evidence photographs on the table.
Serena looked at Ryan.
Something vicious replaced the fear in her face.
“You really didn’t know?”
Ryan stared at her.
“Know what?”
“That your family was in my way.”
His face emptied.
Serena laughed bitterly.
“You promised we’d be together. You promised me the company, the money, everything.”
Ryan shook his head.
“No.”
“Your mother hated me. Your father would’ve cut you off. Sophie treated me like garbage.”
“So you killed them?”
Her expression hardened.
“I fixed the problem.”
Ryan lunged toward her.
Police stopped him before he reached her.
Serena screamed as officers dragged her toward the elevator.
“You helped me, Ryan! You gave me the key. You ignored every phone call. You stopped the blood donors!”
Ryan collapsed.
I had never seen a human being physically fold under guilt before.
That night, I finally understood something.
In my previous life, Ryan blamed me for Serena’s death because blaming me was easier than accepting that Serena had chosen to enter the ocean.
In this life, he would have to live with the reverse.
He had chosen Serena.
And that choice had helped destroy everything else.
