The Missing Insulin

Chapter 4 The Fake Crown Shatters

The IV cleared the haze from my vision. As the stretcher reached the helicopter door, I turned my head toward Noah. I wanted to hear this part.

Elias spoke over the rotors. “Every role, every five-star review, every endorsement that put your face on a billboard. You thought your talent and charm did all of that.”

He laughed once. “You are a product, Noah. An expensive one. The woman you left in the mud was your only investor.”

He pointed toward my stretcher. “This island belongs to Sterling. The production company is a Sterling subsidiary. Aria Sterling paid your agent, your publicist and even for the suit you wore to the Golden Globes. She bought the introductions that put you in audition rooms, covered the early losses and kept studios interested after your first film failed. She built the career you used to humiliate her.”

Noah shook his head. “No. You’re lying. Aria, she’s nobody.”

“She’s my sister. The sole heiress of the Sterling empire. You were going to marry her, and you threw her medicine into the mud for ratings.”

Noah looked down at his clothes, the crew and the helicopters. His self-made story had lasted until Elias listed the invoices.

Then he turned on Lily.

He caught her arm and dragged her into the mud beside him.

“This is your fault! You said she was holding me back. You said I had to get rid of her to be a real star!”

Lily clawed his hand off. “My fault? You complained about her every day. ‘She’s too needy. She doesn't understand the pressure.’ You saw the ratings and the chemistry. You wanted the headline as much as I did!”

They rolled through the mud, shouting old complaints and private plans in front of the crew. Noah accused Lily of feeding stories to entertainment reporters. Lily shouted back that he had approved every photograph and every staged display of chemistry. Security let them expose each other before pulling them apart.

I listened without anger. Three years with Noah had ended sometime before he told the director to keep filming.

The medics secured my stretcher inside the helicopter. When the cabin door started to close, I raised one hand. The pilot stopped it.

The diamond engagement ring was still on my left hand. I had transferred the money for it so Noah could claim he bought it himself.

My fingers were numb, but I managed to pull it free.

I leaned toward the open door. Noah and Lily looked up. Hope appeared on Noah’s face when he saw the ring in my hand.

I tossed it.

It landed in the patch where Lily had crushed the insulin pen. Mud closed over half the stone.

Noah stared at it, mouth open.

I addressed Elias’s head of security by the door.

“The watch on my wrist has an audio file. Preserve it as evidence. I want them both charged.”

The door closed. Through the window, I watched security separate Noah and Lily and cuff them beside the ruined camp.

The helicopter lifted. The broken pen and the ring stayed in the mud below.