I thought everything would go smoothly, but right before the charter flight took off, the crew called me in a panic.
"The gentleman's condition isn't good. His wife says he has a heart condition, and with the severe weather here—rain, flooding, everything waterlogged and impassable—he's had a serious scare. He's gone into cardiac arrest. There aren't any decent medical facilities in the area, so we're putting him on the plane and bringing him back. But I can't promise he'll make it. You need to prepare yourself."
Before I could say a word, there was a deafening crash on the other end of the line, followed by people screaming. Two minutes later, the signal tower collapsed.
After that, I couldn't get through at all. Two days passed before the plane finally landed, and it brought the news I'd been dreading.
"We got the gentleman out, but he died on the plane halfway back."
I staggered forward. Paige was on her knees, her legs too weak to hold her, her voice shredded raw from crying. She had draped her own coat over Grant Mason's face, clutching him as though she could hold him in this world a little longer.
"Sybilla... Sybilla..." Her voice broke. "Your father-in-law... he's gone."
I rushed to her and wrapped my arms around her. She collapsed against me, sobbing so hard her whole body shook. Crumpled in her fist was a glossy travel brochure—cherry blossoms, blue skies, a paradise that had never been meant for her.
Hudson had planned to send them both on a vacation—somewhere beautiful, somewhere they could see the flowers in bloom and breathe fresh air. But Emily had deliberately booked the wrong tickets, routing them straight into a disaster zone.
His parents, trusting and unsuspecting, had been shipped off to a nightmare. They'd spent days surrounded by terror, watched lives snuffed out around them, and were only pulled out when it was already too late. Everything had changed.
Guilt gnawed at me until I could barely breathe. I kept blaming myself, over and over.
"This is my fault. If I'd handled the arrangements myself instead of letting Emily do it, none of this would have happened."
Paige's eyes brimmed with tears again. She pulled me close, told me not to blame myself, and asked me to help her take care of the funeral.
Seven days later, Grant was cremated and laid to rest. Paige had survived, but the woman who came back was a hollow shell. Every spark of life had drained out of her. She was running on sheer willpower alone, and the only thing she kept saying, again and again, was that she needed to see Hudson.
Hudson never showed. Not once. He wasn't at the office, either. I only found out where he was after scrolling through his and Emily's social media.
He'd taken Emily to the Maldives. The two of them were having the time of their lives.
Emily had posted a photo of an enormous diamond ring on her finger, captioned with four words in bold: "Officially on the job." As if she wanted the entire world to know that Hudson and I were divorced.
Meanwhile, with my help, Paige filed a police report. She was determined to make Emily answer for what she'd done.
The moment Emily and Hudson touched down at the airport, the police were waiting. Emily was arrested on the spot.
I followed right behind the officers. Emily's face was white with panic, and she clung to Hudson like a drowning woman, refusing to let go. But Hudson didn't look nervous. He didn't look concerned for her at all. Instead, the faintest smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—so subtle most people would have missed it.
That was when I knew. Emily had walked straight into Hudson's trap.
"Hudson, save me! Help me, please!" she begged, her voice pitching higher. "I just made one tiny mistake and they called the police on me. Tell them—explain it to them!"
Hudson turned back to her, his voice still gentle, still reassuring.
"The innocent have nothing to fear. Just cooperate with the investigation. The police will clear your name."
Emily went quiet instantly. The fear drained from her face, replaced by blind trust. She stopped struggling, stopped pleading, and let the officers lead her away without another word.
She actually believed he would come for her. Believed he wouldn't hold a workplace mistake against her. She had no idea she was already dancing on the end of his strings.
I still couldn't make sense of what I'd just seen. When Hudson got into his car, I climbed in right after him, shut the door, and asked him point-blank what the hell he was doing.
