Episode 3: The Phantom Wife
Victor stared at the warning note, the jagged loops of Eleanor’s handwriting burning into his mind. The cold wind howling through the shattered window offered no answers, only a freezing draft that stirred the sheer curtains like ghosts.
"Father? Thank God you're down here."
Julian stepped into the room, his footsteps muffled by the plush carpet. He looked completely unbothered by the smashed window, his handsome face smoothed back into an expression of calm, paternal solicitude. In his hands, he carried a silver tray bearing two crystal flutes filled with amber, bubbling vintage wedding champagne.
"The security guards told me she escaped through the courtyard," Julian said smoothly, stepping closer and offering a glass to Victor. "You're trembling, Dad. Take this. Drink it. It will calm your nerves after such a crazy night. We'll find her together, I promise."
Eleanor’s words screamed in Victor's head: Do not drink the wedding champagne.
Maintaining the mask of a broken, compliant father, Victor took the glass. "Thank you, son," he murmured, his voice hollow. "Give me a moment alone. I need to gather my thoughts."
Julian nodded with a faint, tight-lipped smile and turned his back to close the heavy door. In that split second, Victor leaned over a massive, potted exotic orchid sitting on the windowsill. With a swift, practiced movement, he tipped the crystal glass, discreetly pouring the effervescent liquid into the dark soil. He then touched the empty rim to his lips just as Julian turned back around. Within two agonizing minutes, as Julian watched his father with calculating eyes, a horrific reaction occurred in the pot. The vibrant, purple petals of the orchid violently curled, turning a charred, toxic black as the plant withered and died before their eyes.
A cold, venomous fury ignited beneath Victor’s skin. He knew he was living with a viper.
The next morning, Victor secretly delivered a sealed vial of the remaining champagne residue to a trusted, high-security forensic toxicologist in the city. Hours later, the report came back, absolute and damning: the vintage champagne was laced with a lethal, concentrated dose of arsenic. Julian wasn't just trying to gaslight him; he was actively attempting to assassinate his own father to secure his absolute silence.
Refusing to let the psychopath win, Victor used his immense wealth to hire a rogue cyber-forensics hacker, a ghost in the digital underworld. Victor tasked him with breaching the original, hard-coded mainframe of the family's security archives from ten years ago to recover the raw, unedited data file of the warehouse murder video Julian had shown him.
By midnight, the hacker had bypassed the encrypted layers. The monitor illuminated Victor’s face in a cold, blue light as the unedited, restored footage played.
The terrifying truth was laid bare. The grainy, manipulated video Julian had used to frame his mother was a masterful edit. In the raw, pristine footage, it wasn't Eleanor holding the firearm; it was a younger, remorseless Julian. He had murdered the business partner in cold blood over a embezzled fortune, violently forced his stepmother into the warehouse, forced her hand onto the weapon to plant her fingerprints, and then set the mansion fire to erase the evidence and keep her captive forever. Julian was a murderous, calculating psychopath who had spent a decade torturing his stepmother, and he was now pivoting to eliminate his father.
Armed with the unedited video file and the toxicologist’s report, Victor didn't hesitate. He drove straight to the central precinct, bypassing the lower ranks to hand the iron-clad evidence directly to Lead Detective Miller, a veteran cop who had handled the Ashford corporate accounts for years.
Miller watched the video, his face unreadable. He reviewed the arsenic report. Then, he grimly closed the folder, stood up, and drew a pair of heavy steel handcuffs from his belt.
Before Victor could speak, Miller grabbed Victor's wrists, forcing them behind his back with a sharp, metallic click.
"What is the meaning of this, Miller?" Victor roared, his voice echoing off the cinderblock walls. "The evidence is right there! My son is a monster!"
Miller didn't look remorseful. Instead, he reached into his desk and produced a newly surfaced, legally binding corporate will, bearing a forged biometric stamp. "According to this newly filed corporate clause, Victor, if Julian is arrested or incapacitated, the entire multi-billion-dollar Ashford empire immediately defaults to you. I'm arresting you for using advanced deep-fake technology and toxic tampering to maliciously frame your own son in a desperate bid to seize total control of the company."
The terrifying reality set in like a suffocating weight. The police department wasn't an ally; the lead detective was squarely on Julian’s payroll. Victor hadn't brought his son to justice; he had walked right into a meticulously prepared trap.
Victor was stripped of his phone, his wallet, and his power, and violently thrown into a dark, damp holding cell at the forgotten lower level of the precinct. Hours bled into one another in the suffocating dark. He was entirely isolated, waiting for a staged "suicide" or an accidental death.
Suddenly, a soft, metallic scraping sound broke the silence of the cell block.
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From the shadows of the dim precinct hallway, a figure stepped into the flickering fluorescent light. Victor gasped. It was Serena—the beautiful, young, angelic bride from the wedding, still wearing a dark coat over her stained silk dress. She slipped a stolen master ring of keys into the lock, the heavy steel door swinging open with a muted groan.
She looked at Victor, her eyes wild with an urgent, breathless terror as she whispered, "We don't have much time, Victor. Julian found her. He took Eleanor to the old abandoned shipyard on the north pier, and he is going to execute her tonight. We have to go now."
