Skip to content 
Daniel disappeared upstairs.
Silence swallowed the basement once again.
A single ant crawled across a crack in the cement. Elena felt just as insignificant.
Six years earlier, she had been the sole heiress to Morrison Global Holdings, one of the most powerful financial empires in America. At her wedding in Napa Valley, luxury cars lined the vineyard roads while two thousand guests toasted the marriage of America’s newest power couple.
Richard Whitmore had promised her forever.
Three years later, he moved Sophia Bennett into their mansion after claiming she’d suffered emotional trauma from a car accident in San Diego.
That very morning, Sophia had deliberately thrown herself down the staircase while carrying a bowl of boiling soup. Richard never questioned her story for a second.
He ordered Elena punished.
And he nearly beat her to death for it.
The sharp clicking of heels echoed down the basement stairs.
Sophia appeared moments later wearing an expensive yellow cashmere sweater, followed by two terrified housemaids.
She crouched beside Elena with a cruel smile.
“So,” Sophia whispered mockingly, “what does it feel like getting beaten for three straight hours?”
“You pushed yourself,” Elena muttered weakly.
Sophia laughed coldly.
“Of course I did. But Richard is stupid… and obsessed with me.”
Then she crushed Elena’s injured hand beneath her stiletto heel.
Elena’s body jerked violently.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Sophia continued casually. “Richard checked the security cameras. They caught your precious Daniel sneaking around with the jade pendant. His life is over.” She leaned closer. “Nobody cares about a broken woman, Elena. Your entire family is dead.”
Despite the agony, Elena smiled faintly.
“The Morrisons,” she whispered, “never disappeared.”
Suddenly—
The deafening scream of police sirens exploded through the night.
Red and blue lights flooded the mansion windows from every direction.
Sophia’s face instantly drained of color.
No one inside the Whitmore estate could possibly imagine the storm that was about to destroy everything.
The thunderous roar of engines and flashing emergency lights consumed the estate within seconds.
Sophia stumbled backward in panic while the maids screamed.
Then came a massive crash.
“FEDERAL AGENTS! NOBODY MOVE!”
The voice boomed through the mansion like thunder.
Boots pounded down the staircase as tactical officers stormed the basement alongside paramedics carrying medical equipment. And behind them all, walking with the quiet authority of a king, came an elderly man with snow-white hair dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit.
He leaned heavily on a dark mahogany cane.