After She Sank My Family’s Yacht, I Divorced Him

Chapter 3

I waited for ages outside the medical examiner's office. I never got the autopsy report I'd come for.

Instead, the coroner dropped the bombshell: the bodies had already been claimed by the family. They were going to be crammed into the salvaged cruise ship, crushed under high pressure, and destroyed for good, and the official investigation into their cause of death was being closed for good.

I stared at Ethan's signature scrawled in the signature box, and a cold, heavy ache sank deep into my chest.

There wasn't a second to lose.

I slammed my foot on the gas and sped all the way to the steel mill.

By the time I arrived, the bodies were already loaded inside the cruise ship. The whole vessel was hoisted into the air by a crane and carried straight to the high-pressure compression chamber.

Ethan stood there stock still, his face a blank, unreadable mask.

Lillian curled against his chest, her whole face glowing with barely hidden excitement and triumph.

I stormed forward in three long strides and threw myself right in front of the machine, screaming, "Stop this right now! Ethan Foster! We don't even know what killed them yet! If you destroy their bodies now, they'll never rest in peace!"

My repeated attempts to stop him had frayed his last nerve. He snapped.

He nodded at the bodyguards behind him, and they lunged to grab me.

"Stop making a scene! This was all written in the wills of your mother and brother. It's what they asked for."

"You're lying! I would know if my own mom and brother made a will! How come I've never heard of this?!" I shouted back.

Ethan snorted coldly, a mocking sneer twisting his lips. "You're too overbearing. They never dared say anything like this to you, but they told me all the time.

"Rowan said when you die, you're just bones anyway. There's no point keeping anything left. If it could be arranged, he wanted to be compressed and thrown into the incinerator, to leave this world clean and gone."

The moment the words left his mouth, the compressor roared to life instantly.

I panicked and lunged forward to stop it, but Ethan grabbed my arm and held me back so tight I couldn't move an inch.

My mind raced, and I spat the accusation at him. "The case isn't even closed! You're breaking the law by destroying the evidence like this!"

Lillian immediately puffed up like she'd been dealt some terrible insult and rushed to defend herself, "Nora, I didn't want to say this, okay? You forced me to. Your brother hangs out with a bunch of drug addicts all day. He's been rotten to the core for ages.

"He took way too much this time and insisted on sailing into the restricted sea area. How is that any of our fault?"

I'd barely opened my mouth to yell that it wasn't true, but Ethan cut me off before I could get a word out.

Picking up right where Lillian left off, he pulled out a folded lab report.

"This is the toxicology report from the coroner. Illegal drugs were found in the victim's system. You can't deny this fact. Your mom and your brother are both gone. I know you're hurting, but that doesn't give you the right to hurt other people. Lillian is innocent here."

In just a couple of cheap lines, they pinned all the blame for Lillian's drunk driving straight onto the dead victims.

The crowd of onlookers erupted immediately.

"He was on drugs?! Running him over was letting him off easy! They ought to hang him up to dry into a crisp!"

"Serves him right!"

"I'll never forgive drug addicts! He got exactly what he deserved!"

Worse and worse, ugly, vicious words drilled into my ears.

My chest clenched so tight it hurt. Thinking of those poor souls who'd died with their truth unspoken, every breath felt like dragging lead through my lungs.

While I was reeling, the compressor roared to life. Its massive hammer arm creaked slowly downward.

I sprinted forward and threw myself in front of the machine, screaming, "Ethan, stop this right now! The person inside isn't even my family!"

Ethan snorted derisively. "Have you lost your mind? Gone off the deep end of all this shock, huh? You'll make up any ridiculous lie just to stop me, won't you?"

My brother's words suddenly popped into my head, and panic clawed at my throat.

"Stop it first! What if the person inside this cruise wreck means something to you?"

Ethan's lip curled even further in disgust. "Your mother? Your brother? Why the hell would I care about either of them?"

Lillian chimed in right beside him, all soft cooing sympathy, "Ethan, don't be angry. She's just using two dead people to threaten you, she can't stand seeing us happy together."

That was all it took to stoke Ethan's temper. He shoved me hard, sending me stumbling backward.

"Nothing you say today is going to stop me!" Ethan flicked his hand in a lazy signal.

The hammer slammed downward hard and fast.

Suddenly, the gate behind us burst open hard, and a young voice shouted, "Sis! I figured out who stole my yacht!"

Ethan and Lillian spun around so fast their necks cracked.

When they saw it was my brother's face, their eyes blew wide as saucers.