“Let them think you’re dead,” I said, my voice entirely devoid of emotion. “In fact, we’re going to ensure they are absolutely certain of it.”

I turned to Dr. Mitchell. He saw the look in my eyes and stepped back.

“Doctor,” I said smoothly. “I need you to officially list Brooke Vance as a Jane Doe in the hospital system under critical lockdown. No visitors. No press. And if anyone calls from the Vance estate asking if a pregnant woman died tonight… you tell them yes.”

Part 3: The Ghost at the Gates
The next morning, the rain had cleared, leaving a thick, suffocating fog over the Vance estate.

Inside the grand dining room, Trevor Vance and his mother, Victoria, were sitting at a long mahogany table. The silver teapot sat on a tray, meticulously polished. Trevor was scrolling through his phone, a slight smirk playing on his lips, while Victoria calmly turned the page of her morning newspaper.

Suddenly, the heavy oak front doors of the mansion were violently kicked off their hinges.

The sound echoed through the house like a gunshot. Trevor leaped out of his chair, knocking his teacup to the floor, while Victoria stood up with a sharp gasp.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Victoria shrieked as heavy, authoritative footsteps echoed down the grand hallway.

I walked into the dining room. I wasn’t carrying gasoline this time. I was wearing a tailored black suit, flanked by four federal agents from my old division, their badges gleaming under the chandelier. Behind us, local police cruisers flooded the long driveway, sirens wailing against the fog.

“Elena?” Trevor stammered, trying to quickly mask his panic with his usual wealthy arrogance. “What the hell is this? You can’t just break into our home! I’ll have your badge—I’ll have your entire life destroyed!”

“You don’t have the power to destroy a cockroach anymore, Trevor,” I said, walking slowly toward the table.

Victoria stepped in front of her son, her pearls rattling against her neck. “Where is that useless daughter of yours? Did she finally realize her place and run back to whatever gutter you raised her in?”

I didn’t answer her. Instead, I placed a digital audio recorder squarely on the table and pressed play.

Brooke’s voice, recorded only hours prior from her hospital bed, filled the room: “Victoria held me down by my hair… Trevor used the golf club… They said the baby was a mistake.”

Trevor’s breath hitched, his eyes darting toward the door. “That’s a lie! She’s crazy, she’s unstable—she probably fell down the stairs!”

“Fell down the stairs?” I repeated, a cold smile touching my lips. “That’s a very specific excuse, Trevor. It’s a shame the federal warrants we just executed on your private cloud servers tell a completely different story.”

One of the agents stepped forward, sliding a tablet across the table. It displayed a deleted video file from the mansion’s internal security system, recovered from the remote backup servers. The footage showed Victoria pinning Brooke to the floor while Trevor raised a golf club.