For the next four days, I became Christian’s perfect victim.
I cried when nurses changed my bandages.
I refused visitors.
I told Christian I was afraid of cameras.
I asked him whether he would still marry me.
Every performance fed exactly what he wanted to believe.
Control returned to his posture.
His shoulders relaxed.
His security team stopped watching Gabriel so carefully.
He began making phone calls inside my room again.
Sometimes, while he believed I was sleeping, he discussed strategy.
The wedding would be postponed publicly.
No new date announced.
Christian’s team would release a statement explaining that he had “devoted himself completely to Genevieve’s recovery.”
His record label loved it.
A streaming platform contacted Gabriel about a documentary.
Christian Prescott: For Better or Worse.
The title made me want to throw something.
Instead, we recorded everything.
Evelyn had helped law enforcement place a legal recording device in the room after obtaining the necessary authorization through investigators.
Christian did not know.
On the fifth morning, he gave us exactly what Claire wanted.
He stood near my window arguing with someone on the phone.
“I paid Raymond to disappear.”
Silence.
“No, I don’t care what his girlfriend says.”
Another pause.
“Then find him.”
Gabriel’s eyes met mine.
Christian continued.
“If he panics and starts talking, everybody has a problem.”
That recording went directly to the prosecutor.
Dr. Lawson became the next target.
Investigators subpoenaed pharmacy records.
The pattern was horrifying.
Prescriptions altered shortly before each pregnancy loss.
Doses changed without documentation.
Lab results intentionally misrepresented.
The government did not initially know whether Lawson had understood exactly what Christian wanted.
Then Marcus found financial transfers.
More than two hundred thousand dollars from a Prescott-controlled company to a consulting business owned by Lawson’s brother.
Lawson was arrested two days later.
Again, quietly.
Christian learned about it before we expected.
He entered my room pale.
“Something happened?”
I pretended to struggle upright.
“No. Why?”
He forced a smile.
“Nothing.”
His phone rang.
He rejected the call.
It rang again.
Rejected.
Again.
Finally, he walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
Gabriel and I listened.
“What did Lawson tell them?”
Silence.
“How should I know why they arrested him?”
Another pause.
“No, you idiot, do not delete anything.”
Claire nearly laughed when she heard the recording later.
“He really said that?”
“Yes.”
“Defense attorneys around Ohio are going to frame that sentence.”
But Christian still did not know the investigation was centered on him.
Lawson had been arrested on fraud and medication-related charges.
Raymond’s arrest remained sealed.
The police were building something larger.
We were waiting for one final piece.
Sabrina.
I had spent nights imagining her.
Not the glamorous singer from old tour photographs.
The woman who had shared Christian’s bed.
The mother of his child.
Had she known about me?
Obviously.
Had she known about the miscarriages?
Maybe.
The attack?
I did not know.
Part of me wanted to hate her enough that the questions would not matter.
Then, on Saturday afternoon, she appeared at the hospital.
Gabriel entered first.
“You have a visitor.”
“No visitors.”
“You’ll want this one.”
Sabrina stepped through the door.
Her hair was shorter than I remembered.
No stage makeup.
No glamorous clothing.
Just jeans, boots, and a long gray coat.
She looked exhausted.
She stopped when she saw me.
Her face collapsed.
“Oh my God.”
I said nothing.
Gabriel closed the door.
Sabrina’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know.”
“Which part?”
“The attack.”
“Did you know he wanted to marry me?”
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Did you know he had sabotaged my pregnancies?”
Her hand flew toward her mouth.
That answered me.
“He what?”
I watched her carefully.
Claire was watching too from a chair in the corner.
Sabrina looked genuinely sick.
I told her.
Not every detail.
Enough.
When I finished, she sat down without asking.
“I thought he was leaving you.”
“When?”
“He always said after the next tour. After the next album. Then after Leo was born. Then after your first miscarriage.”
The words hurt.
She continued.
“He told me you two weren’t really together anymore.”
I laughed once.
A bitter sound.
“I was sleeping beside him.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew about our engagement.”
“Yes.”
“You knew about the wedding.”
“Yes.”
Each answer made sympathy harder.
Sabrina wiped her eyes.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I was wrong.”
“You slept with my fiancé for four years.”
“Yes.”
“You let your son call him Daddy while the rest of the world thought he was building a future with me.”
“Yes.”
At least she did not lie.
I asked the question that mattered.
“Why are you here?”
Sabrina reached into her handbag.
Gabriel tensed.
She removed a small black tablet.
“Because Christian keeps everything.”
She placed it on the bedside table.
“A second phone. Copies of contracts. Voice memos. Photos. He leaves things at my house because he thinks nobody knows where I live.”
Claire stood.
“What is on that tablet?”
“I don’t know everything.”
Sabrina looked at me.
“But I know there are recordings.”
My breath caught.
“What recordings?”
“Christian records people when he thinks they might betray him.”
Of course he did.
Predators feared predators.
Sabrina unlocked the tablet.
The files went back years.
Meetings.
Phone calls.
Arguments.
One folder was labeled LAWSON.
Claire connected headphones.
She listened to the first recording.
Her face changed.
Then she handed them to me.
Christian’s voice.
Lawson’s voice.
A restaurant somewhere.
Christian said, “I don’t want another pregnancy.”
Lawson answered, “Then stop sleeping with her.”
Christian laughed.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
Lawson lowered his voice.
“What you’re suggesting could hurt her.”
“I’m paying you to manage it.”
“What happens if she notices?”
“She trusts me.”
I closed my eyes.
Three words.
She trusts me.
My entire life with Christian reduced to the weapon he had used against me.
Another recording discussed dosages.
Another discussed my laboratory results.
The final one was recorded after my third miscarriage.
Lawson said, “This has gone too far.”
Christian replied, “It’s already done.”
Then came the sentence prosecutors would later repeat to a jury.
“She’ll blame herself. Women always do.”
Sabrina began crying.
I removed the headphones.
“Why did you stay with him?”
She looked down.
“Because I kept believing the version of him he showed me.”
I understood that answer more than I wanted to.
Then she told me something else.
Christian planned to come to her house the following evening.
A private ceremony had been arranged.
A minister.
Two witnesses.
No legal license.
No records.
Christian intended to give Sabrina the wedding experience she demanded while continuing to present himself publicly as my devoted fiancé.
“He said after the ceremony, things would change.”
Sabrina laughed bitterly.
“I’ve heard that sentence for four years.”
Claire looked at me.
We were both thinking the same thing.
The ceremony was an opportunity.
Christian would likely talk freely.
Sabrina agreed to cooperate.
The next evening, police installed surveillance equipment throughout her home.
I remained in the hospital.
Christian kissed me goodbye at six.
“Business meeting.”
I pretended disappointment.
“Will you come back tonight?”
“Of course.”
He smiled.
“I always come back to you.”
At eight fourteen, Christian stood in Sabrina’s living room wearing a dark suit.
Leo was upstairs with Sabrina’s sister.
The ceremony had not yet started.
Sabrina wore a simple ivory dress.
On the hidden camera, she looked at Christian.
“You’re sure Genevieve doesn’t know?”
“She knows nothing.”
“What if she remembers something?”
“She was unconscious.”
“And Raymond?”
Christian’s smile vanished.
“That situation is being handled.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means stop worrying.”
Sabrina crossed her arms.
“You said nobody would get hurt.”
“I said you would get what you wanted.”
“You had her attacked.”
Christian stepped closer.
His voice turned hard.
“Do you want this ceremony or not?”
Sabrina stared at him.
Then asked, “Did you do something to her pregnancies?”
For the first time, Christian looked startled.
“Who told you that?”
“Answer me.”
“Sabrina.”
“Did you?”
Christian’s jaw tightened.
“She was never supposed to get pregnant.”
My hand shook as I watched from the hospital tablet.
Sabrina whispered, “So you did.”
“It was necessary.”
“You killed her babies.”
“Do not be dramatic.”
Even the detective beside me flinched.
Sabrina stepped backward.
Christian reached for her.
She pulled away.
“And her face?”
“She’ll recover.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She has the best doctors money can buy.”
“After you paid somebody to hurt her.”
Christian’s patience disappeared.
“You wanted a life with me.”
“Not like this.”
“There is no life with me without sacrifice.”
That sentence ended the operation.
Police entered the house.
Christian initially thought they were security.
Then Detective Alvarez announced his name and told Christian to place his hands where officers could see them.
Christian laughed.
Actually laughed.
“This is ridiculous.”
Then Sabrina stepped away.
Officers moved forward.
The smile vanished.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
Sabrina said nothing.
They placed him in handcuffs.
Christian’s eyes swept across the room.
He saw one of the cameras.
Understanding hit him.
“No.”
He lunged toward Sabrina before officers restrained him.
“You stupid—”
The rest disappeared beneath shouted commands.
In my hospital room, I watched the man millions considered untouchable being led outside in handcuffs.
Reporters were already gathering.
News moved faster than police cars.
CHRISTIAN PRESCOTT ARRESTED.
Singer facing allegations connected to attack on fiancée.
I stared at the screen.
For five days, I had imagined feeling triumphant.
I did not.
I felt tired.
Then the door opened.
Gabriel entered.
“It’s over.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Christian’s arrest was not the ending.
People like Christian survived scandal by rewriting it.
He would call me unstable.
Call Sabrina jealous.
Call Gabriel corrupt.
Call Raymond a liar.
His attorneys would attack every witness.
His fans would defend him.
The real fight was beginning.
And this time, I would not fight from a hospital bed with my eyes closed.
I looked at Gabriel.
“Get me a mirror.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow I’m going to let America see me.”
---