When Love Dies, Revenge Begins

Johan Gorski

Modern | Completed

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The day they buried my four-year-old son, Leo, killed by a hit-and-run, the driver, Karyn Morse, showed up at his grave. She smiled, dropped Leo' s favorite toy into his open casket, and called him a "clumsy little thing." My husband, District Attorney David Blair, the city' s pillar of strength, stood by, silent. I, an investigative journalist, knew I' d find justice. I had the evidence, the witness, a Pulitzer-winning track record. But Karyn Morse was different. The judge, beholden to her powerful father, dismissed everything. She walked free. Then, the bailiff called my name. "Eva Benton, you are under arrest." My own husband, Leo' s father, prosecuted me for criminal negligence. He twisted my grief, my frantic search for truth, into a paranoid obsession. My best friend, Cheri, testified against me, claiming I was unstable. The jury found me guilty. Three years in a maximum-security prison. For being a grieving mother. For losing my son. I lost another child in prison, a secret I buried deep. Why? Why did he do it? Why did he betray me? The day I was released, I found him at Leo' s grave, with Karyn and their son. "Daddy, can we go get ice cream now?" Karyn cooed, "We have to say hi to your brother." My world shattered. He hadn' t just framed me; he had replaced me. He had replaced our son. "Worried?" he said, when Karyn asked about me. "Why would I be? She' s nothing to me now." The thread snapped. I called Cheri. "I need your help, Cheri."

Crime Thriller Betrayal Revenge Drama

Chapter 15

01-06 21:37

Chapter 1

The day they buried my son, Leo, the sky was a cruel, perfect blue. He was four. A hit-and-run. The car was a cherry-red convertible. The driver was Karyn Morse.

I stood by the small, open grave, the scent of fresh dirt thick in the air. My husband, District Attorney David Blair, had his arm around me, a pillar of strength for the cameras that flashed from a respectful distance. We were the city' s power couple, now the city' s tragic story.

My grief was a hollow thing, a vast, silent cavern inside my chest. I wanted to scream, to fall into the earth with my son, but my body was frozen.

Then she arrived.

Karyn Morse, dressed in a white linen dress that stood out against the sea of black suits, walked toward us. Her father, the real estate mogul Dick Underwood, followed a few steps behind, his face a mask of grim propriety. He was David' s biggest campaign donor.

She didn' t stop at a distance. She walked right up to the grave, peering in as if it were a curiosity at a museum.

A murmur went through the crowd. My hand, holding a single white rose for Leo, began to shake.

Karyn looked up from the grave, her eyes, cold and vacant, meeting mine. She smiled, a small, sharp thing.

"Such a shame," she said, her voice carrying on the light breeze. She reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a small, plush dinosaur-Leo' s favorite, the one he' d lost at the park last week. The one I' d been searching for everywhere.

She dangled it over the open grave.

"He dropped this, you know," she said conversationally. "Right before. Clumsy little thing."

Then, she let it go.

The green dinosaur fell, landing softly on the polished wood of my son' s tiny casket.

Something inside me snapped. The silent cavern of my grief filled with a hot, roaring rage. My whole body trembled. David' s grip on my shoulder tightened, a warning.

But I couldn' t stop. I took a step forward, my voice a raw whisper.

"You killed him."

Karyn' s smile widened. "The police cleared me, Eva. It was a tragic accident. You should have been watching him more closely."

I would get justice. I was an investigative journalist. I knew how to dig, how to find the truth and expose it to the light. I would use the law, the system my husband represented, to put this monster where she belonged.

The preliminary hearing was a media circus. I sat in the front row, my best friend and colleague, Cheri Reid, beside me. Cheri squeezed my hand, her face a mirror of my own disbelief.

"She' s the daughter of Dick Underwood," someone whispered behind me. "David' s main backer. No way she sees the inside of a cell."

I didn' t care. I had evidence. A traffic cam photo, grainy but clear enough. A witness who saw a red convertible speeding away. I had spent weeks piecing it together, doing the work the police seemed so reluctant to do. I had built a case so solid, not even Dick Underwood' s money could tear it down.

I was Eva Benton. My exposé on city hall corruption had won a Pulitzer. I had brought down powerful men before. This spoiled, soulless woman would be no different.

But she was.

The judge, a man who owed his position to Underwood, dismissed the evidence. The witness recanted his testimony. Karyn Morse walked free without a single charge.

The room spun. I felt Cheri' s arm steady me. It wasn' t over. I would appeal. I would find more.

Then the bailiff called my name.

"Eva Benton, you are under arrest."

I stared, confused. On the prosecutor' s table, a new file appeared. My husband, David Blair, stood up. He wouldn' t look at me.

"For the criminal negligence leading to the death of your son, Leo Blair," the judge read, his voice flat.

They put me on trial. My own husband, the man I had built a life with, the man who was Leo' s father, prosecuted the case against me. He used my grief, my frantic calls and sleepless nights after the accident, as evidence of an unstable mind. He twisted my journalistic inquiries into a paranoid obsession. He claimed I wasn' t watching Leo, that I was on my phone, distracted, negligent.

Cheri was called to the stand. Her eyes were full of tears. She testified that I had been overworked, stressed, not myself. It was a betrayal so sharp, it stole the air from my lungs.

They played up our image-the perfect power couple, shattered by the wife' s carelessness. It was a better story. A cleaner story for a man about to run for mayor.

David' s closing argument was a masterpiece of charisma and feigned sorrow. He spoke of a justice system that must remain impartial, even when it tears a man' s own heart out.

He looked at me then, for the first time. His eyes were filled with a pain I almost believed.

The jury found me guilty.

Three years.

They gave me three years in a maximum-security prison. For being a grieving mother. For losing my son.

The three years were a blur of concrete and gray uniforms, of violence I learned to survive and a hollowness that never left. I lost a pregnancy in a brutal fight I didn' t start, another secret I locked away. All I did was survive, fueled by a single, burning question I wrote in a thousand letters David never answered: Why?

The day I was released, the sky was a hazy, indifferent gray. I didn' t go to a halfway house. I took a cab to the one place I needed to see. My son' s grave.

I expected it to be unkempt, a testament to my absence. But it was pristine. Fresh flowers, a small, polished stone angel at the headstone.

As I stood there, a familiar car pulled up. A black sedan.

David got out. He looked older, more powerful. He was the mayor now.

He wasn' t alone.

Karyn Morse stepped out of the passenger side, her hand possessively on his arm. And from the back seat, a nanny helped a small child, a boy, maybe three years old. He had David' s dark hair and Karyn' s sharp features.

They walked toward the grave, a perfect family unit.

The boy ran ahead and hugged David' s leg.

"Daddy, can we go get ice cream now?"

Karyn smoothed the boy' s hair. "In a minute, sweetie. We have to say hi to your brother."

My mind went blank. The world dissolved into a roaring white noise.

Brother.

Daddy.

I stumbled back, hiding behind a large oak tree, my hand clamped over my mouth to stifle a scream.

I watched them. The three of them. David placed a new bouquet of flowers on the grave, his hand briefly brushing Karyn' s. They looked like any other family paying their respects.

A family built on the ashes of mine.

The cold truth hit me with the force of a physical blow. It wasn' t just about his career. He hadn' t just framed me to save his campaign.

He had replaced me. He had replaced our son.

My heart felt like a hollow, gaping wound. Cold wind howled through it. My body shook violently, and I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, just to keep from crying out.

He had chosen them. This whole time, he had been with her.

My mind flashed back. A photo on our mantelpiece, the three of us, beaming, in front of the house we had bought together. The house we were supposed to fill with more children, with laughter, with a lifetime of memories.

We had both come from nothing. We met at law school, two hungry kids from the wrong side of the tracks, fighting our way up. I remembered the scars on his back from his father' s belt, a past so brutal he rarely spoke of it. I was the one who held him during his nightmares. I was the one who, as a young intern, leaked the evidence that put his abusive father in jail, risking my entire future for him.

He' d held my face in his hands that night, a raw cut on his cheek from where his father had thrown a bottle at him, trying to stop me.

"I' ll never let anyone hurt you, Eva," he' d sworn, his voice thick with emotion. "Anyone who tries, I' ll put them behind bars for the rest of their lives."

We had made it. He became the youngest DA in the city' s history. I became a star journalist. We married, had Leo, moved into a beautiful home. We had everything.

I remembered him standing in Leo' s nursery, holding our son, tears in his eyes.

"Everything I have," he' d whispered to me, "is because of you. Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me."

All of it. A lie.

My perfect life. My perfect husband. My beautiful son. All gone. Destroyed.

From across the cemetery, I heard Karyn' s voice, sharp and mocking.

"David, darling, I heard your ex got out of prison today."

She was looking right at my hiding spot.

"Do you think she' s doing okay? Are you worried about her at all?"

I held my breath, my entire being focused on his answer. The last, fragile thread of hope I didn' t even know I was holding onto, waiting to be snapped.

David didn' t even glance in my direction. He adjusted his tie, his voice cool and distant.

"Worried? Why would I be? She' s nothing to me now."

The thread snapped. My nails dug into my palms, breaking the skin. Blood dripped onto the dry leaves at my feet.

They got back into their car, the picture of a happy family, and drove away, leaving me alone with the ghosts of what we were.

I stood there, trembling, until the sun began to set. Then, I pulled out my burner phone, the one I' d kept hidden for three years, and dialed the only number I had left.

Cheri.

Her voice was hesitant when she answered.

"Eva?"

"I need your help, Cheri." My voice was a wreck.

A beat of silence. Then, a flood of remorse. "Eva, I' m so sorry. I' ll do anything. Anything. I' ll help you. We' ll get him. We' ll get them all."

Tears I hadn' t been able to shed finally fell, hot and silent.

I had nowhere to go. The apartment I' d shared with Cheri felt alien. So I went to the only place that still felt like a sliver of mine.

The house. Our home.

The key was still under the loose brick by the door. I let myself in. The air was stale, but everything was just as I had left it. My books on the shelves, my favorite mug by the sink.

Except for one thing. The family photo on the mantelpiece was gone.

A floorboard creaked behind me.

I spun around.

David stood in the doorway, his silhouette blocking the fading light. His eyes were dark, unreadable pools.

We stood in silence, the space between us charged with three years of pain and betrayal. He looked at me, his face a complicated mask of emotions I couldn' t decipher.

He took a step forward, his voice soft, almost normal.

"You' re back."

He held out a bottle of water. "You must be thirsty."

I didn' t take it.

"I prefer my water without any special ingredients," I said, my voice dripping with ice.

He sighed, setting the water down. He went to the kitchen and came back with a mug of hot tea. The steam warmed the air between us.

"Here. You' re cold."

This time, I took it. My fingers wrapped around the familiar ceramic, desperate for the warmth. The mug, a gift from him on our first anniversary, felt heavy in my hands.

And then it slipped.

It shattered on the hardwood floor, the hot tea splashing across my worn-out shoes.

The sound broke the spell. I looked up at him, my body shaking with a rage that was finally finding its voice.

"That red convertible," I began, my voice trembling but clear. "Tell me about the red convertible, David."