“If anything happens to Paxton, you will be the first one blamed,” my mother-in-law told me coldly. She placed a bottle of sleeping pills right in front of me on the table. At that moment, I did not understand why her words sounded less like worry and more like a threat.
My name is Nicole Hunter. I am thirty-four years old, and I work as an accountant in Phoenix. I had been married for almost six years to Paxton Hunter. He was the youngest son of a rich family from Scottsdale. His family only cared about looking perfect to other people.
Albert, my father-in-law, ruled the house and never let anyone disagree with him. Lillian, my mother-in-law, loved to insult people with a sweet smile on her face.
Raymond, the oldest brother, ran luxury makeup shops. Holden, the second brother, managed the family bank accounts and business contacts. Paxton did not want the easy office job his father offered him. Instead, he opened his own industrial fridge repair business in Glendale. He fixed large cooling units for local farmers and meat factories. To his parents, working with his hands was a total embarrassment.
During a family Christmas dinner, Raymond talked loudly about opening a new shop. Albert raised his glass and made a toast to children who actually bring in money. Lillian looked directly at Paxton’s rough hands.
“A man from our family should run big corporations,” Lillian said with a smirk. “He should not show up to dinner smelling like machine oil.”
Paxton lowered his head, and I bit my lip to keep from getting angry.
Right after dinner, Albert called Paxton into his private office. I stood out in the hallway and heard the real reason for their sudden invitation. Raymond and Holden needed three million dollars immediately. Their imported goods were stuck at the port of San Diego, and the banks were about to cancel their loans.
“I cannot just take millions of dollars out of my business like it is my own wallet,” Paxton told his father. “I have workers to pay, taxes to clear, and expensive machines to fund.”
“We are your own brothers,” Raymond snapped back. “Are you going to ask your own family for legal guarantees too?”
“Because we are family, everything must be written down on paper,” Paxton answered.
That night, Paxton held my hands and asked me for a favor. He told me that if anyone in his family asked about the business money, the insurance policies, or the workshop deeds, I must tell them that I knew absolutely nothing.
Two days later, I received a scary phone call from Donald, his workshop manager.
“Nicole, come quickly because Paxton just fell down the high workshop stairs,” Donald said over the phone. “He told me earlier that he felt very dizzy, and the ambulance is taking him to the hospital right now.”
At the hospital, Donald told me a detail that made me freeze. One of Raymond’s drivers had brought Paxton a lunch box and a fruit smoothie. The driver said it was a gift from Lillian. Paxton drank half of it before he lost his balance and fell.
Raymond arrived at the hospital an hour later. The first thing he asked about was the corporate life insurance policy. He did not even ask if his brother was awake.
The next morning, Albert brought a legal medical paper. He claimed Paxton signed it before the accident, giving Albert total control. He ordered Paxton to be moved back to the family mansion immediately. A private doctor named Dr. Hugh Emerson claimed that Paxton had almost no brain response.
They set up a hospital bed right in the middle of the living room. They also hired a private nurse named Kelly to watch him. She carried a thick black notebook and wrote down everything I did around the bed.
“Nicole gave him the liquid medicine,” Kelly wrote. “Nicole fed the patient herself, and Nicole stayed as the only caregiver today.”
One afternoon, I looked closely at the notebook and saw an entry written for a time that had not even happened yet. It read, “7:30 PM. Nicole gave the patient a heavy sedative.”
It was only six o’clock in the evening.
“You need to change this right now because this time has not happened yet,” I told the nurse angrily.
Raymond walked into the room and laughed at me. “You are so dramatic, Nicole. You act like you just discovered a murder plot.”
That same night, my mother-in-law handed me the bottle of pills. She ordered me to take one every day to help me sleep. Then, the entire family suddenly announced they were flying to Tokyo to fix their business problems.
Before leaving the house, Albert pointed his finger at the black notebook. “Sign every single page of these records. If anything happens to Paxton while we are gone, everyone will know you were the only one taking care of him.”
They left me completely alone with my unconscious husband, a camera watching me from the wall, and a nurse writing down my guilt before anything even happened. I did not know that the black notebook was a trap to destroy me, and I could not guess the shocking truth that was coming next.
