My mother-in-law pressed a pillow over my face while I lay helpless in a body cast, whispering that I should have died when I went over the balcony. She thought she was finishing what she'd started—but detectives were already listening, and what they uncovered afterward revealed I wasn't the first wife Ethan Morgan had nearly lost.

At four o'clock that afternoon, a certified mail courier pulled up to my driveway in a white van.

He walked up the brick path holding a thick, padded envelope bound with heavy red security tape.

"Mrs. Claire Morgan?" the courier asked politely.

"Just Claire Vance now," I corrected him with a gentle smile, taking the clipboard to sign my signature. "Thank you."

"This came directly from the Fulton County Superior Court Evidence Lockers," the courier explained. "It was unsealed this morning following the final closure of the Morgan trial assets."

I carried the heavy envelope back to my study, sitting down at my mahogany desk.

Using a silver letter opener, I sliced through the red security tape and emptied the contents onto the blotter.

Inside sat three items: my original wedding ring, a copy of Ethan's final asset forfeiture decree, and a small, leather-bound diary that had been recovered from Margaret Morgan's private safe during the police raid six months ago.

I opened the diary.

The yellowed pages were filled with Margaret's sharp, cramped handwriting, spanning over fifteen years.

I flipped through the entries, skimming past her bitter rants about her social rivals, corporate investments, and her suffocating obsession with controlling Ethan's life.

Then I reached an entry dated five years ago—one year before Ethan married Emily.

My breath hitched in my throat.

“Ethan brought another girl home tonight,” Margaret had written. “A quiet girl from Boston named Sarah. She thinks Ethan loves her. She has no idea why we chose her. If she survives the fall, we will proceed with the third phase of the trust acquisition.”