The Widow's Verdict Novel by Fizzynovel _ Novel





The Widow's Verdict Chapter 01
I was picking out flowers for my husband's memorial when his best friend sent me a photo — of my husband, alive, kissing another woman in Paris.
My hands went numb. The white lilies I'd been holding scattered across the floor of the flower shop.
For three months, I had been grieving. For three months, I had worn black. For three months, I had cried myself to sleep in our empty bed, believing the love of my life had died in a plane crash over the Atlantic.
His company told me there were no remains. The ocean took everything, they said. I held a funeral with an empty casket. I gave a eulogy through sobs so violent I could barely stand.
And now I was staring at a photo of him — very much alive — with his tongue down another woman's throat at a café in the 7th arrondissement.
My best friend Drake's message followed immediately.
[Eloise, I'm so sorry. I didn't want to send this. But I saw him with my own eyes. He's not dead. He's been in Paris this whole time.]
Another message.
[There's more. He transferred all your joint assets into a new account two days before the "crash." The house, the savings, your inheritance from your grandmother — everything. It's all gone.]
I called Drake. My voice was barely a whisper. "Are you sure it's him?"
"I walked right past him. He looked me dead in the eye, Eloise. He recognized me. Then he grabbed the woman's hand and walked away like I was a stranger."
I sank to the floor of the flower shop, surrounded by lilies meant for a dead man who was alive.
For three months, I had refused to eat. I had lost twenty pounds. I had taken leave from my position as Chief Legal Counsel at Ashford & Whitmore, one of the most prestigious law firms on the East Coast, because I was too shattered to function.
My husband, Dominic Hale, had married me four years ago. I was already a rising star in corporate law. He was a mid-level project manager at a real estate firm — charming, warm and always saying the right thing.
My grandmother had left me her entire estate — a brownstone in Manhattan worth four million dollars and a trust fund worth another six. When we married, Dominic convinced me to put everything into joint accounts.
"We're a team, Ellie," he'd said with that smile that made me melt. "What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine."
I was brilliant in a courtroom but a fool in love.
Now I understood. The plane crash was fake. The grief was engineered. He had stolen everything I had and disappeared to start a new life with another woman, leaving me to mourn a ghost.
I stood up slowly. My hands had stopped shaking.
Something cold settled in my chest — not grief, not sadness. Something sharper.
I had spent ten years building a legal career that made powerful men nervous. I had won cases that Fortune 500 companies thought were unwinnable. I had once made a billionaire cry on the witness stand.
Dominic thought he married a soft woman. He was about to meet the lawyer.
I wiped my eyes, picked up my phone and called my paralegal.
"Rebecca, cancel all my leave. I'm coming back to the office tomorrow."
"Also, pull every financial record tied to Dominic Hale for the past two years. Every wire transfer, every shell company, every hidden account."
"And get me the best private investigator in the country. Not good — the best."
I looked down at the lilies on the floor. Then I stepped over them and walked out.
My husband wanted me to believe he was dead?
Fine. I'd bury him for real.
[CHAPTERCONTENT]

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