Chapter 3
Scott stood up, looking down at me, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
He said, "I was doing just fine in Veyra. Who asked you to show up? And why today, of all days?
"Now that you're here, don't even think about leaving."
A chill ran down my spine as I asked, "What are you planning to do?"
Scott pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and methodically wiped the blood off his shoe.
He added, "I paid someone to set up that car accident back then. The body was some nameless corpse I bought, all so I could fake my own death and walk away free.
"I also stopped giving that old witch her meds on purpose. Her ending up paralyzed was perfect. It saved me from having to deal with her.
"Once you're all gone, who's left to prove I'm Scott? Then I'll be the Amberly family's prized son-in-law."
I stared at him, frozen in shock, my body trembling.
So it wasn't an accident that my mother-in-law ended up paralyzed.
Turns out, these three years of hell were all his doing.
"You... You'll die a miserable death!" I spat.
Scott let out a cold snort and turned to open the massive freezer door beside us.
A blast of icy air hit me in the face, sending chills straight to my bones.
This was the hotel's industrial freezer, where they kept all the premium seafood. The temperature was always set at 0°F.
Scott said, "This place is perfect. Soundproof, and no cameras.
"Go on, step inside and cool off. Tomorrow morning, I'll have you thrown out as a vagrant who wandered in.
"Freezing to death is painless. You will drift off quietly."
Scott gestured to the bodyguards waiting outside.
With blank faces, the two bodyguards came in, each took hold of one of my arms, and dragged me over, tossing me into the freezer.
"Scott, you'll rot in hell! Scott!" I screamed.
I clawed at the doorframe, my nails breaking and leaving bloody streaks behind.
But it was no use.
Bang!
The heavy iron door slammed shut.
The sound of the lock snapping shut cut through the dead silence.
The room was swallowed by darkness, with only the faint red glow of the emergency light overhead.
It was cold.
It was bone-chilling cold.
This wasn't the dry chill of the north. It was damp, seeping in like a thousand steel needles threading through every crack in my bones.
The soaked down jacket on my back instantly froze into a layer of ice, sticking to me like some kind of torture device.
I rushed to the door, frantically pounding on the heavy metal.
"Open up! Is anyone there? Help!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.
No answer.
Only the roar of the freezer echoed around me, as if it were mourning my death.
I curled up in the corner, pulling my knees to my chest, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.
Frost coated my eyelashes, and my breath came out in icy shards.
My head was getting fuzzy.
Was I going to die here?
Was I going to die at the hands of this heartless bastard, on this New Year's Eve?
No.
I wasn't going to give in.
Why should I be the one to die? He was the one who deserved it.
A surge of hatred flared up in my chest like a ball of fire, thawing the ice that was starting to freeze my mind.
My phone...
Scott had crushed it under his heel.
But...
Suddenly, I remembered. Back when my mother-in-law was paralyzed, I'd sewn a hidden pocket inside my thermal underwear, in case she ever needed to call me.
That was where her old smartphone was hidden.
My hands trembled as I struggled to unzip the hidden pocket in my thermal underwear, my fingers so numb and stiff that they felt like sticks.
I finally got it!
The icy phone was my only hope of survival.
I woke up the screen.
Only fifteen percent of the battery was left.
The signal bar... just one, barely hanging on.
It was enough.
Even though the freezer was sealed tight, it was close enough to the kitchen's Wi-Fi router that I could barely catch a weak signal.
I opened the short video app I'd downloaded for my mother-in-law's boredom.
My hands were trembling so hard that I could barely press the red "Go Live" button.
In the title bar, I gritted my teeth and, with fingers numb and purple from the cold, typed out each word.
[Live: Rich family's son-in-law is killing me, his wife. I'm trapped in the Marenis Hotel freezer!]
The camera wobbled a few times before finally settling on my face, ashen and tinged with blue from the cold.
Behind me were mountains of frozen fish crates and the heavy iron door, locked tight.
As soon as the stream started, only a handful of people stumbled in by accident.
[What is this? Some kind of stunt or prank?]
[Clickbait much? Rich son-in-law? Someone's been reading way too many webnovels.]
[But this looks legit... Is that actual frost on the streamer's eyebrows?]
I propped my phone up on a foam box full of frozen shrimp, curled up tightly, my teeth chattering as I stared into the camera.
I said, "My name is Stella Weston... I'm the legal wife of Scott Helberg, the Amberly family's son-in-law...
"Right now... I'm trapped in the basement freezer of the Marenis Hotel in Veyra...
"My husband... faked his death for three years so he could become the Amberly family's son-in-law...
"Just now... he shut me in here... planning to freeze me alive..."
My words came out in fits and starts, each one puffing out in a cloud of white breath.
To prove I wasn't spinning a story, I struggled to fish my ID out from the hidden pocket sewn inside my clothes.
Then I pulled out the copy of our marriage certificate, bundled up in several layers of plastic and stashed deep in my underwear.