Chapter Two: The First Step
Selene didn't remember driving home.
The funeral had been a blur of hollow condolences, forced whispers of "stay strong," and the weight of a hundred eyes watching her every move.
Now, she sat alone in her apartment, the silence pressing in around her. The dress she wore was still damp from the rain, clinging to her skin like a second layer of grief. She should have changed, should have showered, should have done anything other than sit here, frozen, with her fingers curled around the stem of a half-full glass of whiskey.
She had never been much of a drinker. Adrian used to tease her about it, saying she could barely handle a glass of wine before getting tipsy.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't do this.
She couldn't sit here and wallow, let herself drown in grief and memories while Victor Langley went on with his life, untouched, untouchable.
Selene opened her eyes and stared at the laptop on the coffee table. It had been sitting there since the night she found out Adrian was dead.
She had avoided it. Avoided looking at his name in the news, avoided reading the lies about him, avoided the rage that lurked beneath the sorrow.
But not anymore.
She set the glass down, leaned forward, and powered it on.
The screen flickered to life, and within seconds, she was staring at the last thing she had pulled up—Victor Langley's profile.
The man who had everything. Wealth. Power. Influence. A reputation so clean it gleamed.
But she knew better.
She clicked on another tab. The one she had opened and closed a dozen times before. The one she had never been able to face.
Adrian Hale—Guilty in Multi-Million Dollar Fraud Scheme
Selene's throat tightened. She forced herself to read.
"Former CFO of Hale & Langley Enterprises, Adrian Hale, was sentenced to twenty years in prison after being found guilty of embezzling over ten million dollars from the company he co-founded with longtime business partner Victor Langley. Despite his claims of innocence, overwhelming evidence proved his involvement. Hale was found deceased in his cell just three weeks after his sentencing. The cause of death has been ruled as suicide."
Selene slammed the laptop shut.
Her pulse roared in her ears. Suicide? That was the story they had gone with?
She had seen Adrian's body. The bruises, the cuts.
It hadn't been a suicide. It had been a message.
Her hands shook as she pulled out a notebook from the drawer beside her. It was blank, fresh, untouched.
She clicked open a pen and wrote the first name at the top of the page.
Victor Langley.
Beneath it, she started a list.
1. Find out who forged the evidence.
2. Track down Adrian's lawyer.
3. Investigate prison records—who had access to his cell?
The old Selene—the woman she had been before Adrian's death—wouldn't have done this. That Selene believed in the law, in justice.
But justice had failed Adrian.
And if no one else would make Victor Langley pay, then she would.
No matter the cost.