My husband takes me on a seaside getaway, coaxing me to lean over the ship’s railing to enjoy the view. With half my body stretched out over the edge, he waits for the perfect moment—then shoves me into the water without hesitation. My terrified scream is swallowed by the deafening roar of the waves, which crash over me and drag me mercilessly into the depths. Victor casts me a fleeting glance, no more than a flicker of acknowledgment, before his lips curl into a triumphant grin. Pulling out his phone, he eagerly calls his mistress, who conveniently works for an insurance company. “She’s overboard,” he says, his voice brimming with excitement. “Now we can finally cash in on that massive payout!” Water rushed into my throat, choking me violently. A suffocating sensation gripped me as I coughed and sputtered, my vision blurring in the chaos. Overwhelmed by terror, I begged desperately. “Victor, please! Save me! I don’t want to die! Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. Just help me!” But my husband, Victor Bennett, simply ended his call and stared at me with cold indifference. Fueled by sheer survival instinct, I found a surge of strength, flailing my arms and legs until I managed to grab onto the ship’s rope ladder. For a moment, hope flickered—I could save myself. But Victor’s expression darkened the instant he noticed. His mistress, Ruby Monroe, appeared on deck just then. Victor turned to her and pointed at a metal rod leaning in the corner. “Hand me that,” he commanded. Without hesitation, Victor swung the sharp rod at my fingers. Blow after blow landed, turning my hands into mangled, bleeding messes. My grip faltered, and with every swing, he yelled furiously. “Just die already! I’m doing this for a better life—for us! Weren’t you always willing to do anything for my happiness?” Pain radiated through me as I tried to hold on, but his strikes grew harder, and the agony unbearable. At last, I lost my grip and plunged back into the sea. The water consumed me. I thrashed, desperate for air, but the waves dragged me under. Soon, the surface of the sea stilled, silent and ominous. From the depths, I could faintly hear Victor’s voice above. “Relax. Lillian’s a terrible swimmer—there’s no way she’ll survive. Besides, I destroyed her hands. She couldn’t even save herself if she tried.” Ruby’s doubtful voice followed. “If she can’t swim, why would she agree to come out here?” Victor laughed, his tone dripping with contempt. “I told her it was a romantic anniversary cruise. That idiot jumped at the chance.” He wrapped an arm around Ruby’s waist, pulling her close. They kissed passionately on the deck, their intimacy a knife twisting in my heart. Five years of marriage, and Victor had betrayed me without hesitation. When the kiss ended, Ruby playfully patted his shoulder and left. Victor adjusted his expression, his face contorting into a mask of panic as he began screaming. “Help! Someone help! My wife fell overboard! Please, save her!” Hearing his anguished cries, the ship’s crew rushed to alert the coast guard and search for me. But out here, in the vastness of the ocean, the sea swallows fragile lives quickly. Hours later, the rescue team returned empty-handed. Spectators patted Victor on the shoulder, consoling him as he slumped to the ground, seemingly devastated. But I noticed the faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. I returned to shore on a small boat, drenched and trembling as the cold wind bit through my soaked clothes. Despite knowing this betrayal was coming, my heart felt like it had plunged into an endless abyss of despair and pain. A month earlier, I had stumbled across an insurance policy hidden in our closet. The payout was enormous, and Victor was the sole beneficiary. The agent handling the policy? None other than Ruby, his first love and long-time secret mistress. My thoughts were interrupted by the ring of my phone. Shaking, I opened my social media app with my battered hands, only to see Victor’s latest post. “Please help me find my wife! She fell overboard!” In the video, Victor knelt on the ground, sobbing hysterically, pleading for the sea to return his beloved wife. It went viral almost immediately. Witnesses from the cruise commented in his defense, painting him as a grieving, devoted husband. But I knew better. This was all part of Victor’s elaborate plan to stage my death as an accident. When I returned to the hotel I had secretly booked in advance, I dried my hair and prepared to call my lawyer. But muffled sounds from the hallway caught my attention. Pressing my ear to the door, I recognized the voices instantly. Victor and Ruby. I crouched by the peephole, my stomach churning with disgust. They were entangled, completely lost in each other, oblivious to everything else. Although I had booked the room next to theirs to gather evidence of their affair, watching it unfold in real time made my stomach turn. Fighting the nausea, I steadied myself, only to hear Ruby’s coy voice drift through the door. “When I checked in, the receptionist mentioned that the guest in the room next door had the same name as Lillian. I told them I was her best friend and got a spare key. Should we take a look—just in case?” Ruby pulled out the keycard, inching closer to my door.
I gripped my phone tightly, my palms clammy with nervous sweat. Just as Ruby pressed her keycard against the lock’s sensor, Victor reached out and stopped her. “Forget it,” he said, his voice low but firm. “We saw Lillian fall into the ocean with our own eyes. There’s no way she survived. My post is going viral right now. If we do anything suspicious and it gets traced back to us, we’ll lose the payout. The insurance company won’t pay a cent.” Ruby hesitated but eventually nodded, letting him lead her back into their room. Moments later, muffled, intimate noises resumed through the wall. I quickly called my lawyer, my voice steady despite the storm inside me. Afterward, I went to the hospital to treat my injuries and then handed all the evidence I had collected over the past month to him. I had first discovered the insurance policy by accident. From the moment I saw it, something felt wrong. The payout was enormous, and Victor was the sole beneficiary. Even worse, the agent handling the policy was Ruby, his first love and long-time mistress. At the time, I thought I could confront Ruby directly, but Victor caught on quickly. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he murmured sweetly into my ear. “This is just a safety net for our marriage,” he explained smoothly. “Look, I even got a policy for myself. If either of us ever has an accident, the other will have the strength to go on. Isn’t that what love is? Taking care of each other?” Foolishly, I believed him. But soon after, I noticed his search history—articles about staging accidents and foolproof methods to make them look natural. The unease in my chest grew heavier with each passing day. Then came the moment that shattered every lie. One afternoon, I went to Victor’s office to drop off some papers and found him in the breakroom, passionately kissing Ruby. The truth hit me like a freight train. Everything he’d ever said about love was a sham. I took out the insurance policy that night and began my investigation. When I found that Ruby had altered several key clauses in the policy, making it more beneficial to Victor, I realized this wasn’t just an insurance document—it was my death warrant. From then on, Victor’s behavior changed. He began suggesting we try extreme sports or risky activities. One night, I was startled awake by a faint noise coming from the bathroom. Quietly, I got up and tiptoed toward the light. Inside, I saw Victor fiddling with the wiring, tossing loose cables into the bathtub. My blood turned cold. Every morning, I took a bath as part of my routine. There was no need to explain what he intended. Tears streamed down my face as I leaned weakly against the doorframe, my entire body trembling. Victor noticed me, his expression flickering for just a moment before he smoothed it over. “The wiring must’ve short-circuited,” he said calmly. “I’ll fix it tomorrow.” I couldn’t say a word. After that night, Victor became more cautious, his actions more calculated. Yet Ruby’s occasional visits to our home revealed her impatience. Her glances, sharp as knives, betrayed their shared intent. The day I overheard Ruby talking about booking a cruise, I knew they were planning to exploit my inability to swim. So, I decided to play along, baiting them into making their move. At the hospital, I overheard the nurses chatting in hushed tones. “Did you see that news about the wife who fell overboard? That poor husband, crying on his knees. He looked so heartbroken.” “He must’ve really loved her. It’s so tragic.” I bit my lip, forcing back a bitter laugh as I shook my head. Leaving the hospital, I instinctively opened Victor’s social media. As expected, he had posted another video. This time, he had hired a professional salvage team and vowed to spare no expense in finding his beloved wife. The comments were flooded with sympathy and praise. But my sharp eyes caught something—the profiles of the people commenting. Their faces were eerily familiar. They were the security staff from Ruby’s company. Victor had planned every detail meticulously. If I hadn’t known better, even surviving this ordeal wouldn’t have saved me. He would’ve lured me back, playing the concerned husband, only to finish what he started. The thought made me shiver, my stomach twisting into knots. I had come so close to being ensnared in his web.
“Mr. Blake, you once mentioned a job opportunity for me. Is the offer still on the table?” Standing by the window, I watched Victor dramatically perform his role as the grieving husband on the pier while making the call. “Lillian Carter? A sudden change of heart, I see. Weren’t you all about staying home to care for your husband before? Now you’re ready to get back into the grind?” Samuel Blake’s teasing tone made me smile wryly. When Victor and I got married, he insisted I quit my job and focus on being a full-time wife. At the time, I had just been offered a promising promotion, and Samuel had presented me with an incredibly tempting deal. But Victor’s words—”I don’t want you to tire yourself out. I just want you to be the happiest woman alive”—had swayed me completely. I resigned without hesitation. Looking back, that may have been the moment he started severing my ties to the outside world. If I ended up dead, there would be no one left to question his narrative or demand justice. “I guess I was too naive back then to realize that, for a woman, a career is her greatest shield,” I said. Samuel chuckled, clearly pleased. “Glad to see you’ve come around. The company’s main operations are now based in Harbor City. Would you be willing to relocate?” “Of course,” I replied without hesitation. “I’ll have my assistant book your flight.” The call ended, and I let out a relieved breath. Until everything was resolved, staying close to a familiar face seemed like the safest option. Victor and Ruby, no matter how resourceful, wouldn’t dare make a move on me in the company of my colleagues. The next day, as soon as I landed, a notification from the family photo-sharing album popped up on my phone. I opened it and froze. Victor had uploaded over a dozen explicit photos of himself with Ruby. They were everywhere—against the hotel’s floor-to-ceiling windows, in the bathtub, on the dining table… As I scrolled through, I noticed something else. With each picture, Ruby seemed to be flaunting more jewelry. The final photo revealed her wearing an unmistakably new, extravagant diamond ring. Victor could never afford something like that—not on his own. Then it clicked. The insurance policy. One of its clauses had been troubling me since I first uncovered it. According to the terms, my disappearance for fifteen days would qualify as an accident. A full month would legally declare me dead. Clearly, Ruby had exploited her position to draft such irregular clauses, likely releasing funds prematurely. It was blatant insurance fraud—grounds for severe legal repercussions. Victor and Ruby had kept this a tightly guarded secret. But now, convinced I was gone, they didn’t even bother removing me from the shared album. I saved every incriminating photo as evidence. Over the next month, Victor played the role of a grieving widower for the public while secretly indulging in a life of luxury with Ruby. They burned through our savings at an alarming rate, dining at expensive restaurants, shopping for designer goods, and taking lavish trips. Finally, the day came. One month since my “disappearance.” The time to legally confirm my death had arrived. Victor and Ruby returned to the country, eager to cash in on their charade. I watched them enter the police station, application forms in hand, ready to finalize my “death.” Exchanging a determined glance with my lawyer, I took a deep breath. It was time for this deceitful duo to face justice. Victor handed the paperwork to the officer, his face carefully crafted into an expression of sorrow. “Officer,” he began, his voice tinged with grief, “my wife fell overboard in a tragic accident. We’ve searched tirelessly, but there’s no sign of her. I believe it’s time to officially confirm her death.” Ruby stood beside him, her eyes brimming with anticipation. The officer reviewed the documents carefully and then nodded solemnly. “If there’s no contrary evidence, we’ll proceed with the standard procedure. Sir, my condolences for your loss…” Just as he was about to stamp the papers, I burst into the room, my voice sharp and clear. “Not yet!” Every head turned toward me in stunned silence. “I’m the victim of that so-called accident,” I declared, stepping forward. “I am not dead!”
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