I silently covered $750 for a struggling woman at the walmart, then when i stepped into the mansion, my fiancé smiled and said,…
The November drizzle in Seattle wasn’t enough to wash away the weariness on the face of the woman standing before me at the Walmart checkout counter. She was about my age, around 30, but her sunken eyes and rough skin made her look a decade older.
She was trying to buy a can of Enfamil infant formula, a pack of diapers, and some discounted loaves of bread. When the cashier scanned her card, a jarring beep sounded, indicating the transaction was rejected.
“Please try again,” she whispered, her voice trembling, clutching her frayed, thin windbreaker.
“The card was rejected, ma’am. Do you have cash?” the cashier asked impatiently as the people behind her began to murmur.
She lowered her head, intending to leave the can of formula behind – the most important item. I saw utter despair in her eyes. It was the look of a mother at her wit’s end.
I didn’t think much. I stepped forward, pulled out a $100 bill and a $50 bill from my wallet.
“Let me pay,” I said softly, placing the money on the counter. “And you can keep the change.”
The woman looked up at me. For a brief moment, I saw her pupils dilate. Not out of gratitude, but out of… horror. She stared at the 5-carat diamond engagement ring on my finger, then at my face as if she’d seen a ghost.
“Take it,” I shoved the change and the receipt into her hand.
She trembled as she took it, her fingernails lightly scratching my palm, leaving something hard and tiny, icy cold.
“Don’t go home,” she whispered, her voice so low it was almost swallowed by the supermarket noise. “He’s not the person you think he is.”
Before I could ask again, she grabbed her bag and dashed out the automatic door, disappearing into the gray rain.
I stood there, my heart pounding. In my hand was a tiny metal USB drive, the kind used for spy recording devices.
Chapter 2: The Perfect House
I drove my Mercedes back to the secluded villa on Mercer Island. The USB drive was burning hot in my jacket pocket. The stranger’s warning echoed in my head. “He’s not who you think he is.”
Him? Did she mean Mark?
Mark Sterling, my fiancé, was the epitome of perfection. A successful venture capitalist, handsome, chivalrous, and incredibly doting. We were getting married this weekend at a Napa Valley vineyard. I am the sole heir to the Vance Pharmaceutical Group, and Mark has always said he loves me for my soul, not for the billions of dollars I’m about to inherit.
I walked into the mansion’s entrance hall. The house was warm, filled with the scent of sandalwood candles. Mark was sitting in the living room, enjoying a glass of red wine, a laptop on his lap.
When he saw me enter, he put down his glass and smiled. That smile was as captivating as ever, but today, under the dim yellow light, it suddenly seemed as cold as a scalpel.
“You’re back, Clara?” Mark asked, his voice warm and deep. “Did you have fun shopping?”
“It was alright,” I tried to sound natural, my hands tucked deep into my coat pockets, clutching the USB drive. “I just stopped by Walmart to buy some odds and ends for tomorrow’s trip.”
Mark stood up and walked towards me. He put his arm around my waist and leaned down to kiss my forehead. Then he whispered in my ear, words that made the blood run cold:
“I got a notification from the bank. You withdrew $150 in cash at counter number 4. And the security camera I installed on your phone shows you talking to a woman.”
He stepped back slightly, looking deep into my eyes, his smile widening but his eyes devoid of any amusement.
“You’re so kind, Clara. You just paid for dinner for my deceased wife.”
Chapter 3: The Truth in the Closed Room
“Wife… dead?” I stammered, backing away and bumping into the decorative table. “You said your ex-wife died in a car accident three years ago?”
“That’s right,” Mark casually turned back to the sofa, picking up his glass of wine and swirling it gently. “Legally, Sarah is dead. The car plunged into a ravine and exploded. The police only found mutilated remains. He collected the $5 million insurance payout and used it to start his current investment fund.”
He took a sip of wine, leisurely, as if telling a fairy tale.
“But that woman was incredibly persistent. She survived, but was disfigured and suffered from amnesia for a while. When she remembered and came back to find him… well, he couldn’t let a ghost ruin his plan to approach you – the biggest whale of his life. He pushed her to the bottom of society, used his power to block all her job opportunities, making her live like a rat. He preferred watching her die a slow death rather than killing her again. Lower legal risk.”
He looked at me, his eyes full of control.
“And today, his innocent fiancée has come to its rescue. How ironic. But it’s okay, Clara. We’re getting married tomorrow. After you sign the power of attorney, Sarah or anyone else won’t matter anymore.”
I trembled. Mark wasn’t just a gold digger. He was a monster.
A psychopath. He’d been stalking me, controlling my finances, and now, shamelessly confessing his crimes because he believed I was completely under his control.
“Do you think I’ll marry you after knowing this?” I yelled.
Mark laughed. He pulled a silenced pistol from under the sofa cushion.
“You’ll marry me, Clara. Or you’ll have a sudden heart attack from an overdose of tranquilizers – the kind I’ve been secretly mixing into your tea for the past month to make you look mentally unstable in front of the doctor. If you die tonight, as your fiancée and insurance beneficiary, I’ll still get my share.”
He pointed the gun at me. “Now, give me that thing Sarah slipped into your hand. I know what she gave you. She always likes playing spy.”
Chapter 4: The Gamble
My hand was drenched in sweat in my pocket. The USB drive. That’s the proof. But if I give it to him, he’ll destroy it and kill me. If I don’t, he’ll kill me too.
I need time.
“Okay, Mark,” I said, trying to take a deep breath. “I’ll give it to you. But let me ask you one question.”
“Go ahead, your last words.”
“Why didn’t you kill Sarah as soon as she came back?”
“Because I wanted her to see me succeed,” Mark snarled, his face contorted with madness. “I wanted her to see me marry you, living in luxury, while she had to beg at Walmart. That was her punishment for daring to survive!”
I slowly pulled my hand out of my pocket. But instead of the USB drive, I pulled out my phone.
“Mark,” I said, holding up the phone screen to him. “You’re very tech-savvy, aren’t you? You installed tracking software on my phone. But you forgot one thing: I’m the heir to a pharmaceutical corporation, but my college major is Cybersecurity.”
Mark frowned. “What did you say?”
“This morning, when I noticed my phone was unusually hot, I checked and found your spyware. I didn’t uninstall it. I reverse-engineered it.”
I pressed a button on the screen.
“From the moment I entered the house until now, the camera and microphone on my phone haven’t been transmitting data to your server. It’s livestreaming on my cloud platform, sent directly to my private attorney’s email, the Seattle Police Chief, and… my father.”
Mark’s face changed color. He stared at my phone.
“You’re lying!”
“Check your phone,” I challenged.
Mark instinctively glanced at the open laptop screen on the desk. Instead of the surveillance camera footage, a bright red line of text flashed: DATA UPLOADED. POLICE ARE ON THEIR WAY.
Chapter 5: The Twist of Fate
“You bitch!” Mark yelled, pointing his gun and pulling the trigger.
BAM.
The bullet lodged in my left shoulder. The excruciating pain ripped through my flesh, causing me to collapse. But I didn’t die. I managed to lunge behind the thick armchair.
Sirens blared outside the mansion. I wasn’t lying. I had actually livestreamed this conversation the moment I entered the house and felt uneasy.
Mark panicked. He knew he had no way out. He grabbed his laptop, intending to run out the back door.
But the front door had been smashed open. The SWAT team stormed in.
“Put the gun down! Lie down!”
Mark was thrown to the floor, his gun flying away. He was handcuffed, his face pressed against the expensive Persian rug he always prided himself on.
I was helped to the ambulance by paramedics, my hand still clutching the USB drive.
As we passed Mark, he looked up, his eyes glaring at me: “You win this round, Clara. But you’ll never find proof of my murder. That confession was just empty words. I’ll hire the best lawyer!”
I stopped, suppressing the pain in my shoulder, and looked down at him.
“Mark,” I whispered. “What do you think this USB drive contains?”
“Proof of adultery? Or Sarah’s diary?” Mark sneered. “It has no legal value whatsoever.”
I shook my head.
“No. I managed to plug it into the computer in the car just now to check. Sarah didn’t give me the logbook. She gave me the dashcam video.”
Mark’s eyes widened.
“The dashcam footage is from Sarah’s car on the night of the accident three years ago. It was thrown out of the car, and Sarah found it at the scene after she regained consciousness. In that video, you can clearly see your face cutting her car’s brake lines before she drove off, and more importantly… you were standing on the cliff watching the car burn without calling for help.”
Mark’s face turned from white to ashen. It was undeniable first-degree murder evidence.
“Sarah kept it as a safeguard so you wouldn’t dare kill her immediately,” I continued. “But when she saw me – the next victim – she decided to give it to me. My $750 didn’t just buy milk for her child. It bought justice for both of us.”
Chapter 6: Dawn After the Rain
Mark was dragged away, screaming in despair.
Six months later.
I sat in a small café on the outskirts of town, the scar on my shoulder had healed, but it reminded me of the price of blind trust.
The café door opened. Sarah walked in. She looked healthier, her complexion rosy, and she was accompanied by…
She was a chubby little girl learning to walk.
Sarah no longer had to run away. With the compensation from the lawsuit against Mark and the support from my charity, she had started her life anew.
“Hello, Clara,” Sarah smiled, setting a cup of coffee down on the table. “Thank you.”
“No, Sarah,” I took her hand—the hand that had once clawed at mine in desperation. “Thank you. Without the $150 and your courage that day, I would now be a name on a tombstone next to your fake grave.”
We looked at each other, two women who had been deceived by the same man, but now connected by life and freedom.
Outside the window, the Seattle rain had stopped. A rare ray of sunshine pierced through the gray clouds, illuminating the street. I knew the nightmare was truly over. And Mark Sterling – the man who once smiled arrogantly in his mansion – will now spend the rest of his life smiling within the four walls of a Washington state prison.
That was a fitting price for his cruelty, and the true value of that $750 bill.
