Karma Wears My Wedding Ring

The Signed Contract.

Golden champagne foamed across the white marble tiles, soaking the hem of Sienna’s designer dress.

She stared up at me with wide, terrified eyes, her lips trembling as if she were looking at a ghost risen from the bottom of the Seine.

"Sienna! What's wrong with you?" Zane hurried over and grabbed her arm, shooting a warning glare at her pale face to stop her from giving herself away. "Are you feeling dizzy?"

Jaxson frowned from the top of the stairs and started walking down toward her, his voice tightening with concern before he quickly caught himself and glanced back at me. "You should sit down on the sofa, Sienna. Zane told me you've had low blood sugar lately."

I walked slowly down the marble steps, my hand resting calmly over the strap of my handbag where the black ledger and offshore tokens were hidden.

"Why did you look so frightened when you saw me, Miss Sienna?" I asked softly, stopping right in front of the puddle of broken glass. "Did you think I wouldn't be home tonight?"

"No... of course not, Mrs. Murphy!" Sienna forced a stiff, unnatural laugh, clutching her handbag against her stomach as cold sweat beaded on her forehead. "My hand just slipped! By the way... where is your sister-in-law Vesper? Didn't she take your daughter out today?"

She was practically begging me to tell her why I wasn't dead at Pier 4.

I smiled warmly and turned to Jaxson. "Vesper called me an hour ago. She said Nyx was having so much fun with her cousins that she wanted to take her to a resort outside the city for the weekend. Since you brought guests home to celebrate, I figured it was better for Nyx to stay with Vesper tonight so we wouldn't be disturbed."

"A resort?" Sienna blurted out, her voice rising an octave in sheer disbelief. "Vesper called you and said that?!"

Jaxson narrowed his eyes slightly, looking between Sienna and me. "Wait, why didn't Vesper call me first? And Lyra, you Still haven't answered my question. Why were you coming out of my private study with your handbag just now?"

Zane stepped closer, his sharp eyes locking onto the leather strap on my shoulder. If he or Jaxson demanded to look inside my bag right now, they would find the Swiss ledger and know the safe had been opened.

Without blinking, I unzipped the outer flap of my handbag just enough to pull out the thick leather folder Jaxson had given me at the office earlier.

"I went into your study to borrow your gold fountain pen so I could finish signing the bridal villa agreement you gave me," I said, holding the leather folder out to him with both hands. "I didn't want to keep the real estate lawyers waiting tomorrow morning."

The moment Jaxson saw the leather folder, every trace of suspicion vanished from his face, replaced by a wave of poorly hidden excitement.

Even Zane let out a long breath, exchanging a thrilled glance with Sienna. In her mind, even if Vesper had somehow failed to kill me at the river, I had still walked right into their financial trap on my own two feet!

"You already signed it?" Jaxson took the folder eagerly and flipped straight to the final page.

However, he had no idea that while Ryder was driving me back to the house earlier, Dante’s courier had met us at an intersection and swapped the inside pages of the contract.

The top page was still the glossy bridal villa brochure, and the bottom signature line still carried my name. Yet the middle pages—where Jaxson required the co-buyer’s counter-signature and corporate seal—had been replaced by Dante’s irrevocable personal debt assumption agreement and a legal waiver transferring all of Jaxson’s remaining personal assets to Nyx’s trust fund in the event of marital infidelity.

"I signed my part on the right side," I said gently, pointing to the blank line next to my name. "The clause at the bottom says both spouses have to sign and stamp it together for the property title to take effect immediately. Why don't you sign yours right now while Zane is here to act as our witness?"

"Right now?" Jaxson’s eyes gleamed with greed. If he signed and stamped it tonight, he could take it straight to the registry at nine o'clock tomorrow morning before I ever realized I had signed away my company shares. "Of course! Anything to make my wife happy."

He pulled his gold pen from his breast pocket, didn't bother reading a single line of the middle pages he thought he had drafted himself, and signed his full name across the bottom in bold strokes. Then he pulled his personal corporate seal from his briefcase and pressed the red ink firmly over his signature.

"Done!" Jaxson laughed brightly, handing the folder back to me like a loving husband presenting a trophy. "Keep this copy safe in your room, sweetheart. Tomorrow morning after the lawyers file the duplicate, you’ll officially have the grandest wedding gift in Paris!"

I took the folder back, feeling the crisp weight of his legal death sentence between my fingers. "Thank you, husband. Since we have guests tonight, let me go to the kitchen and bring out some wineglasses and fruit."

"Go ahead," Jaxson smiled, waving me off casually as I walked toward the kitchen hallway.

Instead of turning into the kitchen, I stepped silently behind the heavy velvet drapes separating the dining alcove from the living room and took Vesper’s confiscated phone out of my coat pocket.

The second they thought I was out of earshot, Sienna grabbed Jaxson’s sleeve and hissed in a low, panicked whisper, "Jaxson, something is wrong! I tried calling Vesper three times on the way here, and her phone goes straight to voicemail!"

"What are you panicking about?" Jaxson wrapped his arm boldly around Sienna’s waist right in the middle of my living room and kissed her neck. "Didn't Lyra just say Vesper took the kid to a resort? And you just saw her hand me the signed transfer with my own eyes! Starting tomorrow, this villa, the company, and every cent she owns belongs to us."

"Still, I have a bad feeling," Zane frowned, glancing toward the kitchen entrance. "Why is she acting so calm? Let me call Vesper’s boyfriend to double-check where they are."

Behind the curtain, my eyes narrowed. If Zane called the scarred man’s phone—which was sitting turned off in Ryder’s van—he would realize immediately that Vesper had been intercepted!

Before Zane could dial the number, I unlocked Vesper’s phone, selected the high-definition video of the pier where Sienna was laughing in her bathtub ordering Nyx’s murder, and tapped the AirPlay button to connect to the eighty-five-inch smart TV mounted on our living room wall.

Wait—before hitting play on the TV, I didn't want just the three of them watching it.

I opened the company’s official executive group chat on my own phone—which included all twelve board members, our major bank creditors, and the city’s top financial reporters—and started a live video stream pointed directly at the living room through the gap in the curtains.

Then I tapped play on Vesper’s phone.

Instantly, the massive living room television screen flickered to life at maximum volume, blasting Sienna’s voice through the surround-sound speakers across the entire villa:

"Good job, Vesper! Now, just like we agreed, we can't leave that little brat alive to fight my son for the family inheritance later! Push both the mother and daughter into the river and tell Jaxson that Lyra jumped in with the kid after finding out about our affair!"

In the living room, Jaxson froze as if struck by lightning, his head whipping around toward the giant television screen where Sienna’s naked shoulders and cruel, laughing face were displayed in crystal-clear quality.

"What... what is this?!" Jaxson’s voice cracked in horror as he stared at the screen, where the camera panned over to show the scarred man dangling four-year-old Nyx over the black river water. "Sienna?! You told Vesper to drown Nyx?!"

"No! Turn it off! How is that on the TV?!" Sienna shrieked at the top of her lungs, lunging for the remote control on the coffee table.

Just as Jaxson shoved Sienna backward in shock, the heavy oak front doors of our villa burst wide open from the outside, and flashing blue and red police lights flooded the entire living room!