The jury didn’t deliberate for long. A wealthy heiress, a dying billionaire father, a motive of accelerating an inheritance, and a damning audio confession.

Twenty-five years. No possibility of early parole.

“Nobody is coming to rescue you, Eleanor,” Arthur mouthed through the glass, pulling me back to the cold reality of the penitentiary holding room. A small, chilling smile played on his lips, a crack in his grieving-widower facade meant only for me.

I looked down at Chloe’s protruding stomach. The nausea finally hit me, cold and absolute. That child wasn’t a mistake of passion. Arthur had intentionally gotten my protégé pregnant right as my father’s health began to mysteriously decline. It was an insurance policy. A biological key. If my father’s complex trust contained a bloodline or heir clause to release the controlling shares of Whitmore Holdings, Arthur now possessed the mother of the next generation.

The heavy steel door behind me clicked open, the sound echoing like a gunshot against the concrete walls.

“Time’s up, Inmate 8490,” the guard barked, stepping forward with a pair of heavy iron shackles.

Arthur adjusted his bespoke tie, checked the reflection of his Rolex, and turned his back on me without a second glance. Chloe followed, her arm linked through his, her eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

As the cold metal of the cuffs locked around my wrists, biting into my skin, a strange, terrifying calm washed over me. The Eleanor who had loved that man was dead, buried in the same plot as her father. Arthur thought he had won the game. He thought he had buried me alive in a concrete tomb.

He didn’t realize that in the dark, the only thing left to do is grow claws.

I let the guards lead me down the fluorescent-lit corridor toward the maximum-security wing, the rhythmic clinking of my chains masking the sound of a new, dangerous heartbeat. My husband had just made his first, fatal miscalculation. He had left me alive.