My cracked phone still held a faint signal. I pressed it against the lid and tried to reach emergency services while the air grew thinner. I managed to identify the family plot before the connection broke. I kept talking to the boys, promising that rescue was coming even when I could barely keep myself conscious.
Rain and machinery eventually sounded above us. The lid opened, and rescuers pulled us into the storm. Paramedics placed oxygen masks over Lucas and Ethan while strangers lifted me from the grave. The three people someone intended to bury without examination were alive.
At the hospital, doctors said a neurotoxin was leaving our systems. The boys were recovering in the next room. That explanation confirmed that our collapse had not been a shared medical accident. We had been poisoned, declared dead and rushed underground before anyone could discover the truth.
Julian tried to control the story, and my mother insisted that an immediate burial was necessary. Her demand to skip autopsies had been part of the plan. Marcus began gathering evidence, including a burner phone and records linking the conspiracy to money.
The motive extended beyond Julian wanting me out of his life. Documents connected Victoria Sterling to financial arrangements built around my death and the deaths of her grandsons. Our lives had been converted into values on a ledger while the people responsible ate birthday cake beside us.
