Chapter 2 - The Ghost Who Returned
Clara Duncan didn't look like a victim;
she looked like a survivor who had crawled out of hell.
As she walked toward the altar,
the guests parted like the Red Sea.
Jonathan was hyperventilating now,
his hands shaking as the officers pulled his arms behind his back.
“She’s an impostor!”
Rosalind screamed from the front row,
her voice reaching a shrill,
desperate peak.
“My son’s wife died in that storm,
we had a funeral!”
Clara turned to her former mother-in-law,
a small,
sadistic smile touching her lips.
“You had a funeral for an empty casket,
Rosalind,”
Clara replied.
“And you paid the harbor master fifty thousand dollars to ensure no one looked too closely at the wreckage.”
I stood there,
breathless,
watching the woman I had spent six months tracking down.
Finding Clara had been the hardest part of my plan.
I had found her name in the oldest ledgers of Duncan Apex Holdings.
She wasn't just his wife;
she was the original architect of the company.
Jonathan hadn't built the empire;
he had stolen it from her.
When she realized he was funneling money into offshore accounts,
he had tried to dispose of her.
He thought the ocean had taken her,
but Clara was a champion swimmer who had been rescued by a fishing boat miles away.
She had spent a decade in hiding,
terrified of the Duncan family’s reach,
until I found her in a small village in Maine.
I had promised her safety,
I had promised her revenge,
and I had promised her that her story would finally be told.
The detectives took Clara’s statement right there in the vestry.
She handed them a flash drive containing the original blueprints of the company,
and the records of the life insurance policy Jonathan had cashed in.
“Every cent he has is built on my blood,”
Clara told the lead detective.
Jonathan was being led away,
his expensive tuxedo jacket wrinkled and ruined.
He looked at me,
his eyes filled with a murderous rage that no longer had any power over me.
“I will kill you for this,”
he snarled.
The federal agent tightened his grip on Jonathan’s arm.
“Add terroristic threats to the list of charges,”
the agent noted.
Rosalind tried to follow them,
but my attorney stepped in her way.
“Don’t bother,
Mrs. Duncan,”
Sarah said.
“The bank has already frozen the family accounts.
By tomorrow morning,
this house,
the cars,
and the Duncan name will be worthless.”
I picked up my bouquet from the floor,
not because I wanted it,
but because I wanted to feel the weight of it.
It was heavy,
filled with white roses that symbolized a purity Jonathan had never deserved.
I looked at the guests,
the people who had ignored the signs of my suffering for months.
They looked away,
unable to meet my gaze.
I realized then that they weren't shocked by the abuse;
they were shocked that I had the audacity to expose it.
Clara walked over to me,
placing a trembling hand on my bruised shoulder.
“You did it,”
she whispered.
“We did it,”
I corrected her.
May you like
The wedding was over,
but the execution of the Duncan legacy had only just begun.
