CHAPTER 2: THE WOMAN WHO BURIED HIM ALIVE
The hospital room was sealed shut by silence.
Machines hummed.
Monitors blinked.
But neither of them spoke.
The son stood by the window, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
Behind him, his father lay awake.
Alive.
But barely.
“You shouldn’t stay long,” the doctor finally said, glancing between them. “His lungs were deprived of oxygen for too long. Stress could—”
“I’ll be careful,” the son replied without turning around.
The doctor hesitated, then nodded and left.
The door closed.
That’s when the father spoke again.
“She’ll come,” he said quietly.
The son turned. “Who?”
“Maria.”
His voice wasn’t angry.
It was tired.
“She won’t come to the hospital,” his father continued. “She never likes places where people ask questions.”
The son swallowed.
“Then I’ll go to her.”
The father’s eyes snapped open wider.
“No.”
“I need answers.”
“You need proof,” his father corrected. “Maria doesn’t make mistakes unless she thinks no one will survive to point them out.”
The son exhaled slowly.
Proof.
That word would haunt him.
By evening, the police had opened an official investigation.
A uniformed officer arrived with a detective not much older than the son himself. Questions were asked. Statements recorded.
“How long had your father been ‘ill’?”
“Who was managing his medication?”
“Who ordered the closed coffin?”
Every answer pointed back to one name.
Maria.
But suspicion wasn’t evidence.
And Maria knew that.
She arrived the next morning.
Perfectly dressed. Perfectly composed.
Black silk. Soft makeup. Red eyes carefully practiced in the mirror.
She carried a bouquet of white lilies.
The son saw her through the glass doors before she entered.
Every muscle in his body tensed.
“She’s here,” he said.
His father closed his eyes.
“I’m ready.”
Maria swept into the room like a grieving angel.
“Oh my love,” she whispered, rushing to the bedside. “Thank God you’re alive.”
She bent to kiss his forehead.
The son stepped between them.
“Don’t touch him.”
Maria froze.
Her eyes flicked to the son’s face, then to the heart monitor, then back again.
“I’m his wife,” she said softly. “I have every right—”
“You lost that right when you taped his mouth shut,” the son snapped.
The temperature in the room dropped.
Maria gasped, placing a hand over her heart.
“How could you say such a thing?” she whispered, eyes filling with tears. “I loved him. I thought he was dead. I was trying to protect everyone.”
The father laughed.
A dry, broken sound.
“Protect everyone?” he rasped. “You signed the papers. You rushed the funeral. You refused an autopsy.”
Maria turned to him, trembling.
“I did what the doctors advised,” she said. “You were contagious. They told me—”
“Which doctor?” the son interrupted.
Maria hesitated.
Just for half a second.
But it was enough.
That night, the son didn’t sleep.
He sat at his desk, documents spread out before him.
Medical records.
Pharmacy receipts.
Insurance forms.
Something wasn’t right.
His father’s medication had been changed three weeks before his collapse.
Same brand.
Different dosage.
Double.
He checked the prescription signature.
It wasn’t his father’s primary physician.
It belonged to a private specialist.
A name he didn’t recognize.
The son’s phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
“Mr. Hayes?” a woman’s voice whispered urgently. “You don’t know me, but I worked at the hospital. I saw what happened.”
The son’s heart slammed into his ribs.
“Who are you?”
“I shouldn’t be calling,” she said. “But your father… he was never supposed to be pronounced dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was pressure,” she whispered. “From above. From someone powerful. They wanted the declaration fast. No tests. No second opinion.”
“Who?”
A pause.
“Your stepmother,” the nurse said. “And the doctor she brought with her.”
The line went dead.
The next day, the son met with a private investigator.
A former homicide detective with tired eyes and no patience for lies.
“She didn’t just try to kill him,” the investigator said after reviewing the files. “She tried to make it look natural. Medical. Clean.”
“Can we prove it?”
“Maybe,” he said. “But we need the doctor.”
“Where is he?”
The investigator leaned back.
“He disappeared the day after the funeral.”
Maria knew she was running out of time.
She stood in her study, staring at the family portrait above the fireplace.
Her husband.
His son.
Herself.
A perfect lie framed in gold.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
“Talk,” she snapped.
“They’re looking,” a man’s voice said. “The son. The police.”
“You said this was foolproof,” Maria hissed.
“It was,” he replied. “Until he showed up screaming like a madman.”
“Where are you?”
“Leaving the country.”
Maria closed her eyes.
“You don’t leave,” she said coldly. “Not yet.”
“I’m not going to prison for you.”
“You already are,” she replied calmly. “If I fall, I take you with me.”
Silence.
Then a breath.
“What do you want?”
“Finish what you started,” Maria said. “If he dies now… it looks like complications.”
“That’s murder.”
“So was the coffin,” she snapped.
The call ended.
Maria smiled.
That night, the hospital lights flickered.
A nurse pushed a medication cart down the hallway.
Too slowly.
The son, dozing in a chair beside his father’s bed, woke suddenly.
A sound.
The door handle.
He looked up.
A man in a white coat stood in the doorway.
“I’m here to adjust the IV,” the man said calmly.
The son’s instincts screamed.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The man paused.
Then smiled.
The wrong kind of smile.
The heart monitor spiked.
The son jumped to his feet.
“Get out,” he shouted.
The man lunged for the IV line.
The son slammed into him, knocking the syringe to the floor.
Alarms blared.
Nurses flooded the room.
Security tackled the man before he could escape.
As they dragged him away, the man screamed:
“She told me to finish it!”
The son stood shaking.
“She?” a nurse asked.
The son’s eyes burned.
“My stepmother.”
Maria watched the news in stunned silence.
“SECOND ATTEMPT ON RESURRECTED BUSINESSMAN’S LIFE.”
Her phone slipped from her fingers.
This was spiraling.
She grabbed her coat.
If she couldn’t control the story—
She would destroy it.
The next morning, the son received a message.
A single sentence.
Check the will.
He opened the file.
And felt the floor drop out from beneath him.
Because his father’s signature—
Was dated after the day he was declared dead.
