CHAPTER 5 The First Wife
Khloe stared at Marcus.
“You told me there was one kiss.”
“There was.”
“You told me there was never a relationship.”
“There wasn’t.”
“Then why was she writing to you about your future children?”
Marcus looked trapped.
Not by Isabella.
By his own lies.
Samuel stepped between them.
“This conversation matters, but Khloe needs to be moved now.”
Khloe looked at Marcus.
“No more delays.”
“Khloe—”
“No more pieces. No more protecting me from the truth.”
Marcus’s shoulders dropped.
“Isabella believed we were engaged.”
Khloe’s face went blank.
Elaine slowly looked away.
Detective Brooks stopped writing.
“What?”
Marcus spoke carefully.
“Our families discussed a marriage arrangement when I was twenty-nine.”
Khloe could barely process the words.
“An arrangement.”
“My father and hers wanted to merge several business interests.”
“And you agreed?”
“No.”
“But Isabella thought you did.”
“I attended dinners. Events. Meetings.”
“You kissed her.”
“Yes.”
“You let her believe she was going to marry you.”
“I ended it before anything was announced.”
Khloe stared at him.
“How?”
“I told both families I would not marry for business.”
“And then?”
“Three months later, I met you.”
Khloe laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“So to her, I stole the life she had already planned.”
“You didn’t steal anything.”
“She didn’t see it that way.”
Marcus lowered his voice.
“No.”
The nurses began moving Khloe’s bed toward the maternal intensive care unit.
Marcus walked beside her.
Samuel and Detective Brooks followed.
Elaine remained behind to give a formal statement.
As they moved through the secured corridor, Khloe looked at Marcus.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was ashamed.”
“Of the arrangement?”
“Of how I handled it.”
“How did you handle it?”
Marcus looked ahead.
“I ignored her.”
Khloe waited.
“That’s all?”
“I blocked her calls. Returned her gifts. Refused meetings.”
“And the letter?”
“I destroyed it.”
Detective Brooks spoke from behind them.
“Was there only one letter?”
Marcus hesitated.
“No.”
Khloe turned her head toward him.
“How many?”
“Eleven.”
The hallway blurred.
“Eleven letters?”
“Over two years.”
“And you never reported them?”
“My security team documented everything.”
“Where are those records now?”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“With Daniel Reeve.”
His security chief.
The man searching for Vanessa Cole.
Detective Brooks immediately called him.
No answer.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
Marcus took out his own phone.
He called Daniel directly.
The call went to voicemail.
“That’s not normal,” Marcus said.
Samuel looked at a security officer.
“Find him.”
The elevator doors opened.
The medical team pushed Khloe inside.
Marcus stepped in.
Samuel followed.
Before the doors closed, Detective Brooks received a call.
She listened.
Then raised her hand.
“Wait.”
The nurse stopped the doors.
Brooks looked at Marcus.
“Digital forensics accessed the hidden memory card.”
Khloe’s heart jumped.
“Did it record the attack?”
“Yes.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
Relief moved through him.
Brooks did not look relieved.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“The recording began forty minutes before Khloe entered the suite.”
Samuel stepped out of the elevator.
“What did it capture?”
Brooks checked the message on her phone.
“Isabella meeting someone inside the room.”
“Who?”
“They’re still enhancing the face.”
Marcus looked at her.
“Man or woman?”
“A man.”
Khloe’s mind raced.
Daniel Reeve.
A hospital employee.
Someone from the Rossi family.
“Did they hear what was said?” she asked.
Brooks’s expression darkened.
“Yes.”
The hallway became still.
“What did Isabella say?” Marcus asked.
Brooks read directly from the preliminary transcript.
“She said, ‘Once Khloe loses the baby, Marcus will come back to the woman he married first.’”
Khloe looked at Marcus.
The words did not make sense.
“The woman he married first?”
Marcus’s face went white.
Samuel turned toward him.
“You were married to Isabella?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Brooks studied him.
Marcus pressed both hands against the elevator wall.
“I never married her.”
Khloe’s voice was barely audible.
“Then what did she mean?”
Marcus looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
Brooks’s phone buzzed again.
This time, the message included a still frame from the hidden recording.
She opened it.
Then froze.
Samuel noticed.
“What is it?”
Brooks handed him the phone.
The image was grainy but clear enough.
Isabella stood inside Suite Twelve.
Across from her was a man wearing hospital scrubs.
His face was partially turned toward the camera.
Samuel stared at the screen.
His expression changed from suspicion to disbelief.
Khloe saw his hand begin to shake.
“Uncle Samuel?”
He did not answer.
She looked at the image.
The man beside Isabella had silver hair.
Dark eyes.
A hospital badge.
He looked almost exactly like Samuel.
But younger.
Khloe studied the face.
Then she understood.
It was the man from the family photographs her mother had hidden after her father’s funeral.
The man no one spoke about.
Samuel’s younger brother.
Khloe’s second uncle.
Dr. Julian Vale.
A former hospital surgeon who had disappeared eighteen years ago after being accused of causing a patient’s death.
A man legally declared dead seven years earlier.
Samuel looked at Marcus.
“This isn’t about Isabella stealing you.”
Then he looked at Khloe.
“It’s about your father.”
Khloe felt the room close around her.
“My father has been dead for sixteen years.”
Samuel’s eyes filled with a fear she had never seen before.
“No,” he said.
May you like
“Your father was murdered.”
And the man standing beside Isabella in the recording had been blamed for it.
