The husband locked his pregnant wife in their burning house to please his mistress—but what happened next…
The Nor’easter storm lashed against the wooden walls of the old house on the Montauk coast. The wind howled like the wailing of lost souls, but it couldn’t drown out the pounding of Lucas’s heart.
Lucas, 35, a bankrupt architect, stood before the main bedroom door. His hands trembled, his fingers clutching the silver Zippo lighter – a gift from his wife, Elena, to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary.
Inside the room was Elena. She was eight months pregnant.
“Lucas? Why is the door locked? Open it, I have a terrible stomach ache…” Elena’s voice came from inside, weak and full of fear. She had drunk the hot milk Lucas had prepared. He had crushed four high-dose sleeping pills into it. She should have been fast asleep by now.
Lucas swallowed hard, a cold sweat running down his spine. He couldn’t be soft-hearted. He remembered Jessica – his hot mistress, the daughter of the chairman of the state’s largest construction company. Jessica had given him an ultimatum: “I can’t wait any longer. Either you deal with that woman and the baby, or we’re over. My father will never accept a son-in-law who already has a wife and a child.”
If he divorced Elena now, Lucas would lose everything. The prenuptial agreement clearly stipulated that the assets belonged to Elena – the heiress of a wealthy art-selling family. He needed her dead. An accident. A fire caused by an electrical short circuit during a storm.
“Lucas! There’s smoke… What are you doing?” Elena’s voice became panicked. She pounded on the thick oak door.
Lucas closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, El. I have no other choice.”
He flipped open his Zippo lighter. A blue flame flared up, dancing in the darkness. He tossed the lighter onto the gasoline-soaked Persian rug that ran down the hallway.
Whoosh!
The flames blazed fiercely, engulfing the walls and door frames. The heat blasted Lucas’s face, pushing him back toward the stairs.
Inside the room, the banging on the door grew frantic. “LUCAS! HELP ME! OUR CHILD!”
Lucas covered his ears and dashed down the stairs. He ran to the back door, where his Range Rover was waiting with its engine running. He rushed out into the storm, the cold wind lashing against his face, but he felt relieved. It was over. There was no turning back.
He jumped into the car, floored the gas pedal, and sped away, leaving behind the house that was turning into a giant torch in the pitch-black night.
Lucas drove like a madman on the deserted highway toward Manhattan. He needed to get to Jessica’s apartment. He needed an alibi. He would say he’d argued with his wife and left at 9 p.m., before the fire started.
Lucas’s phone rang. It was Jessica.
“Are you done yet?” Her voice was cold, devoid of emotion.
“It’s done,” Lucas gasped, his eyes fixed on the rain-streaked road. “I did exactly as you said. Locked the doors. Set it on fire from the hallway. She can’t get away.”
“Good,” Jessica said. “Come to me right away. I’ve already opened the champagne.”
Lucas hung up. He looked in the rearview mirror. No police. No one following. He was out. He was about to become a wealthy bachelor (inheriting Elena’s insurance and assets), and the son-in-law of a real estate mogul.
But something was wrong.
A chill ran down his spine. Not from the car’s air conditioning. It was an eerie silence.
He glanced at the passenger seat. Empty.
He glanced down at the floor of the back seat. Empty.
He breathed a sigh of relief. He was utterly terrified.
He turned on the radio to drown out Elena’s screams that still echoed in his head. The late-night news was reporting on the storm.
“…Flash flood warning in the Montauk area. Residents advised to stay indoors…”
Lucas smirked. The flash flood would wash away any remaining traces of gasoline. Nature was on his side.
His car turned into the parking garage of the luxury tower on the Upper East Side. He parked, adjusted his clothes, trying to project the image of a husband who had just stormed off in a fit of anger.
He pressed the elevator button to the 45th floor. Jessica’s penthouse.
The elevator doors opened. Lucas walked to the door of apartment 45B. He knocked in a secret rhythm they used to share: two short knocks, one long one.
No answer.
“Jess? It’s me,” Lucas called softly.
The door wasn’t locked. It creaked slightly.
Lucas pushed the door open and stepped inside. The apartment was pitch black, only the dim light from the fireplace casting a faint glow.
“Jess? Where are you? You said you’d opened the wine?”
Lucas entered the living room. He saw a figure sitting in an armchair with her back to him, facing the large glass window overlooking the stormy New York skyline.
On the table, two glasses of deep red wine sat beside an expensive bottle of Château Margaux.
“You like surprises, don’t you?” Lucas chuckled, approaching and placing his hand on the woman’s shoulder. Jessica’s golden hair cascaded down the armchair.
“We’re free now, my love. That woman is dead. And her illegitimate child too.” (Lucas always suspected the child wasn’t his to justify his cruel actions.)
The woman didn’t answer. Her body was stiff and cold.
Lucas turned the chair around.
And he screamed. A bloodcurdling scream, more terrifying than Elena’s scream in the flames.
The person sitting on
Jessica was sitting in the chair.
But she was dead.
Her bright blue eyes were wide open, lifeless. A deep cut was visible on her neck, the dried blood staining her white silk dress.
And on her lap lay a neatly placed ultrasound image of a fetus.
An ultrasound image of Lucas and Elena’s child.
“Welcome home, my love.”
A voice rang out from the shadows behind Lucas. The voice was so familiar it made the blood in his veins freeze.
Lucas spun around, falling headfirst to the floor.
From the corner of the bedroom, a woman emerged.
She wore a soaking wet black raincoat. Her long, matted black hair clung to her pale face, but her eyes blazed with hatred.
It was Elena.
She was still alive. And her belly was still enormous. In her hands wasn’t baby supplies, but a silenced gun pointed directly at Lucas’s head.
“No… no way…” Lucas stammered, backing away until his back touched Jessica’s body. “You… I locked the door… I saw the fire…”
“You locked the bedroom door,” Elena said, her voice chillingly calm. “But you forgot one thing, Lucas. The house in Montauk was left to me by my grandfather. I grew up there. I know every nook and cranny, including the secret trapdoor under the bed that leads down to the wine cellar and out to the beach. Do you think I didn’t know you changed the main lock? I’ve been preparing for this day since I read your messages with that woman three months ago.”
Lucas’s jaw dropped. “You… you knew everything?”
“Everything,” Elena nodded. “I knew you were going to poison me with milk. I poured it into the plant pot the moment you turned away. I knew you were going to burn the house down. I waited. I waited for you to light the fire. I wanted you to commit real murder, so you could never turn back.”
“But… what about Jessica?” Lucas pointed to the corpse. “Why are you here? Why is she…”
Elena smiled, a cold smile.
“Oh, I didn’t kill her. I didn’t get my hands dirty. I just came here to watch the show.”
“Then who…”
Click.
The bathroom door swung open. A man stepped out, wiping the blood off a dagger with a towel. He was large and muscular, wearing a professional bodyguard’s black suit.
Lucas recognized him. It was Mike, Jessica’s father’s chief bodyguard.
“Mike?” Lucas was stunned. “Why?”
Mike looked at Lucas with contempt. “The boss knows about your mistress’s secret affair with you—a married gold digger. He’s forbidden her from seeing you. But tonight, she’s planning to elope with you after you kill your wife.”
Mike threw the blood-stained towel to the floor.
“Elena was very kind to send my boss an audio file,” Mike said, nodding towards Elena. “The recording of your phone call with your mistress just now. You confessed to killing your wife. Your mistress confessed to being an accomplice. The boss won’t accept a daughter who tarnishes the family’s honor and endangers the corporation by being involved in a first-degree murder.”
“He ordered a ‘cleanup,'” Mike said coldly. “Your mistress was a risk. And you… you’re the scapegoat.”
Lucas understood everything. Elena had played a very clever game.
She not only escaped death. She had used Lucas and Jessica’s plan to trap both of them. She sent evidence to Jessica’s father – a ruthless mob boss – revealing that his daughter was involved in a murder. The mob boss chose to “handle it internally” to cover his tracks, framing Lucas for Jessica’s murder.
“The police are coming,” Elena said, glancing at her watch. “They received an anonymous tip about screaming at this apartment. When they arrive, they’ll see: Lucas, the man who just burned down his house and murdered his wife in Montauk, has run here, killed his mistress in a panic after she threatened to blackmail him, and then been shot dead by his bodyguard in self-defense.”
“Shot dead by his bodyguard?” Lucas asked.
Bang!
Mike fired.
The bullet lodged in Lucas’s thigh. He collapsed, screaming in pain.
Elena approached, bending down to look at her husband writhing in a pool of his own blood and his mistress’s.
“Don’t worry, Lucas. You won’t die,” Elena whispered. “Mike’s shot is spot on. He’ll live to see trial. He’ll be convicted of arson and murder (even though I’m still alive, but I’ll disappear for long enough for him to be sentenced) and murder Jessica (with his fingerprints all over this apartment).”
“You… you’re a devil…” Lucas groaned.
“No, Lucas,” Elena placed her hand on her pregnant belly. “I’m a mother. And a mother will do anything, burn the whole world down, to protect her child from a terrible father like you.”
Police sirens blared loudly in the street below.
Elena stood up, pulling her raincoat hood up to cover her face. She nodded to Mike – a tacit agreement between two predators – then walked out the emergency exit, disappearing into the stormy New York night.
Lucas lay there, between his lover’s body and a pool of blood, listening to the pounding footsteps of the SWAT team breaking down the door and storming in. He knew his life was over, not in the fire he had lit, but in the cruel coldness of revenge.
