Chapter 1 - THE DEAD MAN AT THE ALTAR
The first thing Willa Hayes heard at her wedding was a man laughing.
“The groom looks great,” someone whispered. “For a corpse.”
More laughter rolled through the private chapel.
Willa kept walking.
Her wedding dress had cost nineteen dollars at a thrift store.
Her shoes were cracked.
Two nights ago, she had been sleeping in the back seat of a dead Honda outside a roadside diner.
Now she was walking toward Everett Kane.
Chicago’s most feared crime boss.
Her future husband.
And a man who hadn’t opened his eyes in eight months.
Everett lay in a hospital bed beneath a white marble cross. Someone had dressed him in a black suit. An IV ran into his hand. A heart monitor beeped beside the altar.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Willa stopped beside him.
In the front pew, Sterling Kane smiled.
Everett’s cousin looked like he belonged on the cover of a business magazine—silver tie, expensive watch, perfect hair.
He was also the reason Willa was there.
Forty-eight hours earlier, Sterling had found her finishing a twelve-hour shift at the Lakeside Grill.
He knew everything.
Her nursing license had been revoked.
Her apartment was gone.
Her mother, Ruth, suffered from severe memory loss and was about to be removed from her private care facility because Willa couldn’t pay the bills.
Sterling had placed one document on the table between them.
“Marry my cousin.”
Willa had stared at him.
“What?”
“Everett isn’t waking up.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Our doctors do.”
“And what does marrying him have to do with me?”
Sterling smiled.
“You remain his wife until he dies. Your mother’s care is paid for. Permanently.”
Willa stood.
“No.”
Sterling didn’t move.
“Your mother is being discharged Friday.”
She froze.
“What did you say?”
“I called the facility.”
“You had no right.”
“I didn’t need one.”
He slid the contract closer.
“If Ruth goes into state care, there’s no guarantee she keeps the same doctors. No guarantee she gets a private room.”
Willa’s jaw tightened.
“You’re threatening a sick woman.”
“No. I’m giving her daughter a choice.”
So Willa had signed.
Now the minister cleared his throat.
“Do you, Willa Marie Hayes, take Everett James Kane—”
“Yes.”
The room went quiet.
The minister blinked.
Then continued.
“And legal authorization has been provided on behalf of Mr. Kane.”
A lawyer handed Willa a gold band.
She took Everett’s hand.
Warm.
Heavy.
Alive.
As she pushed the ring onto his finger, her old nursing instincts woke up.
She noticed his skin.
His breathing.
The IV pump.
The heart monitor.
Something didn’t feel right.
Willa bent toward Everett’s ear.
Her hair hid her mouth from the guests.
“I don’t know who you are,” she whispered, “but I know what it feels like when people decide your life is over before you’re ready.”
Behind his closed eyes, Everett heard her.
He had heard almost everything for eight months.
Sterling discussing his companies.
Lawyers dividing his assets.
Men planning who would replace him.
Dr. Alan Whitfield saying, “Another few months and his body will do the work for us.”
Everett had screamed inside his own skull.
Nobody heard him.
Now a woman he had never met held his hand.
Willa whispered again.
“They’re laughing at both of us.”
Her thumb brushed his knuckles.
“But I promise you something.”
Everett listened.
“I won’t treat you like you’re dead.”
For the first time in eight months, Everett felt something stronger than rage.
Hope.
Then Willa looked at the clear medication entering his vein.
Her eyes narrowed.
Because three years earlier, before she lost everything, she had been one of the best ICU nurses at St. Ambrose Hospital.
And whatever was dripping into Everett Kane’s body—
May you like
It wasn’t normal.
Cliffhanger: Willa had entered the Kane estate as a purchased bride. Before the wedding was even over, she suspected someone was slowly killing her husband.
