Chapter 2 - The Proposal
703 Words
Sophia stared at the glowing screen until the letters blurred.
Don’t marry him. Alex’s death was not an accident.
Her stomach dropped. She read it again, then a third time. This had to be a sick joke. Someone cruel enough to torment her on the day they buried Alex. She tapped the number and hit call. It rang once and went straight to an automated message: This number is no longer in service.
She typed back with shaking fingers: Who is this?
No reply.
Memories started slipping in, uninvited.
Alex canceling their dinner dates at the last minute with vague excuses about “family business.” The way he kept glancing over his shoulder when they walked in the city. That one evening she’d walked into the study and heard him arguing with Damien in low, angry voices—both men had gone silent the second she appeared.
She remembered one night on the balcony when she’d asked him about the company. Alex had tried to play it off with a laugh. “If the board ever smiles at you, run.” She had laughed too. He hadn’t.
Now that joke sat like ice in her stomach.
She opened Damien’s contract email again and forced herself to read every clause.
Cohabitation at his penthouse. Public appearances as a married couple. Immediate financial coverage for her mother’s surgery. Divorce allowed after the inheritance was secured.
She hated every word.
At the hospital, her mother looked smaller in the bed but lit up the moment Sophia walked in.
“There’s my girl,” she said softly. “Come sit. I was just thinking about the wedding. Alex would have made such a wonderful husband.”
Sophia forced a smile and took her mother’s hand. The words stuck in her throat.
The doctor pulled her aside afterward. His voice was gentle but serious. “We need to move the surgery up. The latest scans show the blockage is progressing faster than we hoped. Ideally within the next few days.”
Sophia nodded, chest tight. The message was clear: no money, no surgery.
Across town, Damien stood at the window of his downtown office, city lights glittering below. His lawyer, Marcus, set the contract folder on the desk.
“You’re really going through with this?”
Damien didn’t turn around. “Because Alex trusted her.”
Marcus looked surprised. “And if he trusted her…?”
Damien closed the file with a quiet snap. “I’m willing to do the same.”
Back in her quiet apartment, Sophia stood motionless in the middle of the room. The white wedding dress still hung on the bedroom door. Her engagement ring sat in a small dish on the coffee table. Photos of her and Alex smiled down from the shelf.
She cried—deep, wrenching sobs that left her curled on the couch.
When the tears finally stopped, she thought of her mother’s hopeful face in that hospital bed. She opened the contract, scrolled to the signature page, and signed it.
Her phone rang almost immediately.
Damien.
She answered, voice tight. “I just signed.”
“Be ready at nine,” he said flatly. “A car will be outside.”
Sophia’s grip tightened on the phone. “You don’t get to order me around.”
A short, humorless pause.
“I just did. Don’t be late.”
He hung up.
"Arrogant jerk" she says
as she turned off the lights and tried to sleep.
Just as her eyes began to drift shut, she heard footsteps in the hallway outside her apartment. Slow. Deliberate.
A soft knock sounded on the door.
Sophia froze. She waited, barely breathing, then crept to the door and looked through the peephole.
No one there.
She opened the door anyway, chain still latched. The hallway was empty.
On the floor lay a small plain envelope.
She picked it up with trembling fingers, stepped back inside, and locked the door. Inside was a single photograph.
Alex stood beside a black car, looking over his shoulder with a tense expression. The timestamp in the corner was dated the day he died.
On the back, written in red ink:
He knew he was going to die.
- Writer
