It was two days before my body was found. By the time they discovered me, my face and body bore numerous wounds, but my hands remained firmly clutched over my stomach, as though in a desperate attempt to protect the life I had been carrying.
When the rescue team retrieved my remains, their first thought was to contact my husband. But no one could reach him. They then turned to my mother and mother-in-law.
My mother arrived at the scene and, upon seeing my lifeless body, collapsed in grief, sobbing until she fainted. My mother-in-law, similarly overwhelmed, lost consciousness on the spot.
When the two women regained consciousness, they went together to obtain my death certificate and made arrangements to transfer my body to the funeral home. Throughout it all, they tried repeatedly to call Grayson, only to have every attempt met with the cold indifference of a disconnected line or a curt rejection.
My brother, Liam Pearson, stood by the cold storage at the funeral home where my body now lay, weeping like a heartbroken child. A man of over six feet tall, his shoulders shook with the force of his tears.
“Belle,” he choked out between sobs, “I should’ve stopped you back then. I should’ve never let you marry that monster.”
His voice cracked as tears streaked his face. “I should’ve told you to divorce him sooner. If I had… maybe you wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
His tears fell like rain, mingling with his anguish. I hovered nearby, watching his grief with a sigh that seemed to echo in the void. If only I could tell him it wouldn’t have made a difference. Back then, I had been too in love with Grayson—blindly, recklessly in love.
