With a deafening crack, the doors exploded open. The sound echoed through the cavernous church, cutting off the choir mid-hymn. Every single head in the pews turned. The silence that fell over the room was absolute.
I walked slowly down the center aisle, my heels clicking rhythmically against the marble floor.
I held tight to my father’s arm—Arthur Sterling, the billionaire CEO of the company Victor was trying to rob. Victor had been holding his mistress’s hand. He dropped it like it was on fire. All the blood drained from his face, leaving him a sickening shade of gray.
His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He looked like a man watching his own execution. Whispers broke out among the guests as they realized it wasn’t a trick of the light. I was alive. And I was walking straight toward the altar.
When we finally reached the front row, I stopped directly in front of Victor. He was trembling, completely paralyzed by shock and terror. “Hello, Victor,” I said, my voice echoing clearly in the silent church. “I hear you’ve been having some trouble processing my life insurance claim.” Before he could even attempt to stammer out a lie, my father stepped forward.
“Victor Hale,” Arthur said, his voice booming with the authority of a man used to destroying empires. “You pushed my daughter off a cliff for fifty million dollars of my money. The police are waiting outside.” As if on cue, the side doors of the cathedral opened, and four uniformed detectives walked in.
Victor finally snapped out of his shock and tried to bolt toward the sacristy, but my father’s security team had already blocked the exits. He was screaming, begging, crying real tears as they slammed him against the marble baptismal font and cuffed him.
His mistress was shrieking in the front row as an officer read her her rights as an accomplice to attempted murder and insurance fraud.
I stood there, feeling the baby kick strongly against my ribs one more time, and watched the police drag the man who tried to kill me out of his own twisted theater. I didn’t shed a single tear. He thought I was just a useless woman he could discard.
He didn’t know I survived the fall. He didn’t know who my family was. And he certainly didn’t know that my baby and I were going to live happily ever after on the fortune he threw his life away for.
