Chapter 1

Wesley Leroy was dead. I sat frozen on the couch, staring at the divorce papers Sharon Tatham had thrown at me, my blood running cold as if I'd been plunged into an icy abyss. Three days ago, Wesley slit his wrists. Before he died, he made a post on Facebook. The entire post accused me of his misery, saying I’d driven him to his end. He claimed he had lived my life and was returning it by giving up his own. His final plea on the Facebook post was for me to leave his biological parents alone, and in a strange twist, he even urged me to be kinder to mine. Below his post, a photo of a blood-filled bathtub and a death certificate went viral. And just like that, I became a cold-blooded murderer in the eyes of the world. Sharon spent three days at the hospital. The moment she returned, she handed me the divorce papers. "Kaelan Leroy, sign it now, or I’ll make you." I snapped out of my daze and held back the ache in my chest, my eyes burning as I tried to explain. "I didn’t report Wesley for tax evasion. I didn’t expose his shady contracts. The bribes, the backdoor deals with directors and producers—he did that all on his own. I never forced him to do anything. "Sharon, why can’t you trust me? Just this once?" Without hesitation, Sharon slapped me across the face. "Do you think telling me all of this will bring Wesley back? If he didn’t die because of you, then what? Dead men can’t talk, so you can twist the story however you like!" My cheek stung, but the pain was nothing compared to the ache inside. As long as Sharon believed I was to blame, no amount of explanation would matter. Of course, when Wesley was alive, I couldn’t compete with him. In death, it was even worse. I stared at her, my voice cracking with one last question. "In the three years we’ve been married, did you ever love me? Even just a little?" "Never. Not once," Sharon replied curtly. "If you want me to love you, sure, just die." Her harsh words stabbed through my heart like a knife. I let out a bitter laugh. "Fine. I get it. The effort I put into this relationship in the past ten years has gone down the drain. From now on, we’ll go our separate ways." With that, I grabbed a pen and signed the divorce papers. Each stroke of the pen ended the love I had carried for her over the years. However, Sharon’s eyes remained icy as she glared at me, a sneer curling on her lips. "You think signing those papers is the end of this? It’s not that simple. "I want your whole family to pay for Wesley’s death." My blood ran cold as I stared at her in disbelief. I had loved Sharon for ten years. We had been married for three. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this was what I’d get in return for giving her everything. Wesley and I were switched at birth by his parents. He lived the life of a rich boy while I grew up abused in his place. It wasn’t until he had a stage accident and needed a blood transfusion that it was discovered his blood type didn’t match my parents’. I was finally found and brought back to the Leroy family at sixteen. My parents were overwhelmed with guilt and treated me well, but they never stopped loving Wesley. Even when we both turned eighteen, they split five percent of Leroy Group shares between us equally. Nonetheless, Mom insisted I marry Sharon, the girl I’d been betrothed to since childhood. I fell for her at first sight, so I was more than willing. Yet, Wesley was her childhood friend, the one who’d been by her side through the darkest time of her life when she lost both her parents. Naturally, Wesley became her first love. Even now, Sharon was still as beautiful as ever. I thought I knew her better than anyone, but at that moment, I realized I hardly knew her at all. As I fought to keep my emotions in check, I tried to reason with her. "Sharon, calm down. Wesley’s death has nothing to do with my parents! "They’ve treated you like their own daughter. How can you be so heartless and drag them into this?" "Like their own daughter? Don’t make me laugh." Sharon sneered. "If they really saw me as their daughter, they wouldn’t have forced me to marry you. They should’ve let me be with Wesley!"