Clara's world fell apart faster than she could handle. Just weeks after the wedding, her father's health suddenly collapsed. The liver cancer, once under control and even showing signs of improvement, had spread aggressively. The doctors who had once spoken of recovery now avoided her eyes, offering only vague explanations.
She stayed by his bedside every day in the cold, quiet hospital room, holding his frail hand and listening to the steady beeping of machines. Her strong, confident father had become a shadow of himself, thin, weak, and full of sorrow.
"I'm sorry, Clara," he whispered again and again. "I thought I was giving you security… a future."
Clara blinked back tears, trying to stay strong for him. "You did," she said softly. "You always have."
But inside, her mind was spinning. Something didn't feel right. The treatment had been working. The latest reports were promising. So how had things gone downhill so fast?
The more she thought about it, the more uneasy she became. Her instincts told her this wasn't just the cancer. Something else had happened.
When her father passed a few days later, the pain was crushing. But even through her grief, one thought remained clear:
She needed to find out the truth.
When her father passed, everything felt unreal. The world blurred. The funeral followed quickly, heavy and suffocating. Black veils fluttered in the breeze, white lilies lined the walkway, and strangers offered carefully rehearsed condolences. Clara stood still by the graveside in a fitted black dress, her veil pulled back, her face expressionless, like carved stone.
Alex stood next to her, his arm firm around her waist. To others, it looked like support. But to Clara, it felt like control. He nodded and shook hands with mourners like it was a business event. She didn't hear most of what was said, couldn't smell anything beyond the fading scent of roses. It all blended into a dull hum.
But then she saw Liam.
He stood quietly at the back, away from the crowd. No suit too polished, no words rehearsed. Just a solemn presence, and eyes that searched for hers like he still saw her beneath all the grief. Her heart gave a painful lurch.
He stood a little apart from the crowd with his parents, dressed in a tailored black suit, his hands clasped in front of him, eyes fixed on her with quiet reverence and sorrow. Something about the way he looked at her with no pity, no judgment, just aching understanding, brought back everything she had buried beneath duty and mourning.
After the service, as the crowd began to thin and the casket was slowly lowered into the earth, Liam made his way over. Clara stood a few paces from the grave, her arms crossed loosely over her chest, lips pressed into a pale line. She didn't move when he approached, but her eyes flickered to meet him.
"I'm sorry, Clara," he said softly, voice carrying just enough over the wind. "Your father was a good man. He loved you deeply. He would be proud of your strength." Her composure cracked, just for a second. Her lips trembled, her eyes glistened—but she held herself steady, nodding once. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice rough. "I wish… I wish he'd had more time."
Liam nodded, eyes never leaving hers. "So do I."
Before she could respond, Alex appeared at her side, his presence swift and assertive, like a shadow stepping into light. He placed a possessive hand on the small of her back and gave Liam a polite but firm smile. "Liam," he said with a subtle nod. "Appreciate you coming today." His tone was cordial, but it held the finality of a closed door. Clara stiffened slightly at the contact, but said nothing. She glanced once more at Liam, her eyes heavy with unshed words, then turned her face away, allowing Alex to steer her gently back toward the waiting car. Liam stood still, watching as she walked away with her husband's hand resting too firmly on her back.
The days after the funeral passed in a haze of grief, the weight of Clara's loss pressing against her chest like wet stone. She moved through the grand halls of the Grant estate like a shadow, her eyes hollow, her thoughts adrift somewhere between memory and numbness. Her father was gone. He was the one person who had loved her without condition, whose voice had steadied her for as long as she could remember.
Most days, she couldn't even bring herself to speak. But Alex, in contrast, had little patience for mourning. Just three days after the funeral, as dusk fell across their bedroom like a veil, he reached for her. His hands slid across her waist with a hunger that felt deeply out of place, a need sharpened by possession rather than intimacy. "You've grieved long enough," he murmured against her ear, his voice low and expectant. Clara froze beneath his touch, her body tense with resistance.
"Alex, please, not now," she whispered, her voice barely audible, the tremble in it unmistakable. But he didn't stop. His fingers tightened around her wrist, his breath hot against her neck. When she tried to push him away, a tear-streaked plea caught in her throat, he snapped. In a flash of rage, he struck her with open-palmed, swift, and brutal. The sound cracked through the room like a whip. Clara stumbled backward, her hand flying to her cheek, stunned not just by the pain but by the sickening realization of who she had married. Alex stood over her, chest heaving, but even in that moment, he didn't offer an apology. He simply turned and left the room as if nothing had happened, leaving her crumpled on the floor, her grief now laced with fear. She didn't tell anyone. She told herself it would pass, that maybe it had been a mistake, a moment of weakness in the wake of stress. But the ache in her bones whispered otherwise.
Besides that, Her father's death haunted her, not just the pain of losing him, but the questions left unanswered.
She couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.
One afternoon, while sorting through her father's documents in his home office, she came across a locked drawer she hadn't noticed before. The key was tucked beneath the drawer liner. Inside were his medical files, the test results, prescriptions, treatment summaries. Her breath caught as she flipped through them.
There were inconsistencies. Dosage amounts that didn't match. Medications listed that she didn't recall the doctors ever mentioning. One entry in particular made her stomach turn, a chemo drug that had been abruptly replaced with something far weaker just a week before his sudden decline.
Confused and alarmed, Clara called the hospital.
"Yes, that change was submitted through the family representative," the nurse confirmed after checking. "Mr. Alex Grant."
Clara froze. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, ma'am. He signed the release. Said it was under doctor advisement. We were told to follow his instructions directly since he was managing affairs on behalf of the family."
Her phone slipped slightly in her hand. The nurse's voice became a distant hum. Alex had changed her father's medication. Without telling her. Without permission.
And shortly after that, her father had deteriorated beyond saving.
Clara hung up in a daze and stood in the silence of the study. Her heart raced, not with grief this time but fury. Disbelief. Betrayal.
Clara returned home, her body heavy with exhaustion and the overwhelming emotions after finding out the truth. She climbed the stairs with slow, weary steps, her fingers trailing along the polished banister only to stop cold outside their bedroom door.
It was open just enough.
And what she heard before she saw hollowed her out.
Alex's voice, thick with contempt, slithered through the crack in the door. "God, she's unbearable," he muttered, the bed creaking under his weight. "Plays the innocent virgin like it's some prize. Won't even let me touch her properly."
A woman's laugh was sharp and mocking cut through the air. "Poor little rich girl doesn't know what to do with a real man?"
Clara's hand flew to her mouth, her nails biting into her palm as she finally peered inside. Alex was sprawled across their bed, naked, his fingers tangled in the honey-blonde hair of a woman Clara didn't recognize. The stranger's legs were hooked around his waist, her red-smeared lips curled in a smirk as Alex leaned down to nip at her neck.
"Pathetic," Alex growled, his hands roaming possessively over the woman's body. "Thinks she can keep me waiting forever with that timid little act. Like I'd be satisfied with some—"
The rest was lost in the woman's moan as Alex crushed his mouth to hers.
Clara didn't gasp. Didn't cry out. The scene before her burned into her vision with Alex's hungry hands, the stranger's arched back, the way their bodies moved together in the bed Clara had never even shared with him.Her heart didn't race. It simply broke, clean and final, like a bone snapping under pressure. She turned without a word.
Each step down the hallway was heavier than the last, her heels sinking into the plush carpet as if it were quicksand. Behind her, the woman's laughter rang out again, followed by Alex's low, dark chuckle.
Clara didn't run. Didn't slam doors. The weight of her realization settled over her with eerie quiet, the clarity of betrayal fully seen, fully understood.
Alex had never wanted her. Only what she represented.
And now, as the echoes of their pleasure still clung to the air behind her, Clara Harper finally understood the depth of the trap she'd stepped into.
Clara didn't sleep that night. After witnessing Alex's betrayal, something in her had snapped, not in grief, but in clarity. The tears that had once come so easily were now gone, dried up and replaced by something sharper, more dangerous. She spent the next morning silently moving through the estate like a ghost, gathering what scraps of strength she could. She didn't know what she expected from confronting him, but she could no longer remain silent,not after everything. She waited until evening, when the house had quieted and the staff had retreated to their quarters, before she stepped into Alex's study.
He was seated behind the massive oak desk, scrolling through reports on his tablet with the calm arrogance of a man who believed he had already won. When he looked up and saw her standing there, her posture rigid, her eyes steady,he didn't bother pretending surprise. "Clara," he said smoothly, setting the tablet down. "I took it last night was… unpleasant for you."
"Unpleasant?" Her voice was ice, clear and low. "You were in our bed with another woman."
He shrugged. "You've been emotionally and physically unavailable since the wedding. I have needs. Surely you understand."
Clara took a step forward, jaw clenched. "I can tolerate your infidelity. I can even endure your violence. But what I can't accept," her voice cracked slightly, then steadied, "is what you did to my father."
Alex's expression froze, the mask slipping just slightly. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I know you changed his medication," Clara said, her voice deadly quiet. "I found the pharmacy records. The switch happened two weeks before his health suddenly declined and it wasn't authorized by his doctors. You replaced his stabilizers with something that accelerated the failure of his liver."
Alex leaned back in his chair, the silence stretching between them like a drawn wire. Then, he smiled. Cold. Crooked. "Well. You're smarter than I gave you credit for."
Clara's stomach turned, but she didn't flinch. "You killed him," she said, every word sharp as a blade. "You murdered my father so you could get your hands on the Harper Group."
"And it worked," Alex said smoothly, rising to his feet, "if you'd just played your part. You're his heir, his darling daughter and everything he had built was going to fall to you, and now it falls to us."
"No." Clara's voice rang out like a gunshot. "You won't get it. Not while I'm alive."
Alex's smile vanished. In a blink, he was across the room, his hand striking her hard enough to send her crashing into the wall behind her. Her vision blurred from the impact, but she stayed conscious, blood pooling at the corner of her lip. The ringing in her ears barely masked the sound of his next words.
"Then I guess," he hissed, "you won't be alive for much longer."
Before she could scream, his hand closed around her wrist like iron. He dragged her through the back hallway, down the servant stairs and into the wine cellar, ignoring her kicks and cries. Behind a heavy shelving unit, he revealed a steel-reinforced door she had never noticed before. With the press of a code, it clicked open, revealing a small room.
"No one will hear you," Alex said, shoving her inside. "And by the time they do, Harper Group will be mine. The world already believes you're grieving in private. Let's keep it that way."
The door slammed shut, plunging Clara into darkness. The sound of the lock clicking into place echoed like a final heartbeat. Alone, bruised and breathless in the pitch-black silence, she pressed her palm to the stone wall and whispered to herself through gritted teeth, "This isn't the end. I'm not done yet."
She wouldn't let her father's legacy fall into Alex's hands.