shattered promises chapter 2
501 Words
The Woman in the Shadows
The hospital corridor felt colder after those words.
A woman. He wasn’t alone.
My mind refused to stay still.
It kept rewinding Liam’s smile, his voice, the way he kissed my forehead like I was something precious.
All lies?
No,no, no,
It couldn’t be.
Dr. Brooks closed the file slowly, like she was afraid of what came next.
“Miss Carter,” she said carefully, “we recovered some personal items from the crash scene.”
She handed me a small black box.
My hands trembled as I took it.
Inside was Liam’s wristwatch.
The one I gave him on his last birthday.
And a folded piece of paper.
I opened it slowly.
My breath stopped.
It wasn’t a letter.
It was a hotel receipt.
Check-in name: Liam Parker
Companion: Unknown Female
Time: 8:47 PM
The same night he told me he was “tired and going home early.”
My vision blurred.
“So he wasn’t even in Chicago…” I whispered.
Dr. Brooks said nothing.
Because she didn’t need to.
The truth was already screaming.
I stepped out of the hospital like a ghost.
Rain was heavier now, soaking my clothes, but I didn’t feel it.
Only one thing existed inside me now:
He lied.
Not just once.
Not just small lies.
A whole life built on them.
Two Weeks Later
Grief didn’t destroy me.
It sharpened me.
I stopped crying after the third day.
After that, something colder took its place.
Determination.
I wanted answers.
And I would get them.
I sat in front of my laptop late at night, tracing Liam’s last movements.
Flights. Transactions. Locations.
Until I found it.
A hidden charge.
A private membership transfer.
A name attached to it:
Blackwood Holdings.
A company I had never heard him mention.
But when I searched deeper…
My blood ran cold.
Luxury investments. Offshore accounts. Political connections.
And at the top of everything—
A name.
Sebastian Blackwood.
The heir.
The man no one spoke about publicly.
Because according to rumors…
He didn’t just run businesses.
He controlled people.
I leaned back in my chair, my heartbeat uneven.
“What were you involved in, Liam?”
But the answer wasn’t on the screen.
It was in a message that popped up moments later.
Unknown number.
“Stop digging into things you don’t understand, Olivia Carter.”
My fingers froze.
Another message followed instantly.
“Liam’s death was not an accident.”
My breath caught.
Then the final line:
“And now you’re being watched.”
I slowly looked up from my screen.
My apartment felt different.
Like I wasn’t alone anymore.
And for the first time since that night…
I felt fear, real fear that I can control.
But underneath it—
Something darker was waking up inside me too.
Because if Liam was murdered…
Then I didn’t just lose a lover.
I lost him to something dangerous.
And I was going to walk straight into it.
Even if it destroyed me.
- Writer
