But behind the elusive parties, Clara’s life is a controlled dream
CHAPTER 1: THE PARTY ON THE 88TH FLOOR
The gentle melody of a violin drifted across the thousand-square-meter penthouse at 432 Park Avenue. From this height, all of Central Park in New York lay sparkling in the night like a chest filled with diamonds.
Clara Sterling stood with her back against the glass balcony. Wearing a deep-V sapphire-blue evening gown, her slender fingers idly swirled a glass of champagne. In the eyes of Manhattan’s elite media, Clara was the definition of perfection: a former interior model and the wife of Julian Sterling—the powerful titan behind Sterling Capital.
“Standing out here alone again?”
A warm hand rested on Clara’s waist. The scent of cedarwood mixed with expensive cigar smoke drifted into her nose. Julian Sterling appeared, offering a polite smile to a few passing congressmen.
“I’m just a bit dizzy,” Clara whispered, flashing a textbook smile. “Lately, the new medication Dr. Evans prescribed makes me forgetful and causes hallucinations.”
Julian softly stroked her hair. His eyes overflowed with affection, but the depths of his gaze remained as ice-cold as the Hudson River in winter. “Don’t worry, my love. Dr. Evans is the best. You just need to stay home, take your medicine on time, and be good. Leave everything else to me.”
The real drama began at two in the morning, right after the last guest had departed.
Upon returning to their private estate in The Hamptons to prepare for their fifth anniversary, the air inside Julian’s study suddenly turned suffocating.
Julian tossed a stack of documents onto the marble coffee table. “Sign this, Clara.”
Clara frowned, opening the contract. It was an agreement transferring all her shares in the hedge fund and renouncing her inheritance rights to the Sterling family fortune. The reason was explicitly stated in the attached medical record: Patient Clara Sterling suffers from severe schizophrenia and paranoia, rendering her mentally unfit.
“What… what are you talking about?” Clara stood frozen, the glass slipping from her hand and shattering on the floor. “I’m not crazy! You swapped my medication!”
“You’re having an episode again,” Julian shook his head coldly, pulling out his phone to play a video recording.
In the video, Clara was screaming, thrashing around the master bedroom, claiming someone was watching her last week. But Clara knew the truth: that night, Julian had used a sound system to simulate footsteps and hired someone to act like an old enemy outside her window. He had staged the entire thing, filming her panic to use as evidence in court.
The door to the study opened.
A young woman walked in, her sharp heels stepping over the broken glass. She wore a tight-fitting dress, her hand gently resting on a slightly swollen belly. Evelyn Ross—Julian’s executive secretary.
“Julian, darling, don’t bother her anymore. The doctor said mentally unstable women shouldn’t be agitated,” Evelyn smiled arrogantly, stepping forward to wrap her arm around Julian’s. “Especially when she’s about to hand over the title of Mrs. Sterling to me and my baby.”
Clara stared at the two people in front of her, her body trembling violently. “Evelyn… you…”
“I’m four months pregnant with Julian’s son,” Evelyn whispered maliciously into Clara’s ear. “A woman with no background who has gone completely insane… what right do you have to keep this seat?”
Julian didn’t even look at his wife. He spoke in a flat tone: “Tomorrow, I’m putting you into a private psychiatric facility in upstate New York. Sign the papers nicely, and you’ll still have enough money to live out the rest of your life.”
Clara backed away, her eyes wide with panic and burning resentment. Turning around, she ran out into the pouring rain of The Hamptons.
CHAPTER 2: STORM ON THE BEACH
The next morning, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) received an emergency call.
Detective David Miller arrived at the scene just as the Sterlings’ private beach was cordoned off with yellow tape. Thick fog hung over the rocky shoreline.
A female corpse had washed ashore, wedged tightly between the rocks. The victim’s face was completely disfigured from the heavy impact and sea life, making identification impossible. However, on her ring finger, a 10-carat blue diamond ring—the iconic symbol of Clara Sterling’s marriage—remained intact.
Julian Sterling stood leaned against his Rolls-Royce, his eyes bloodshot, head buried in his hands.
“Mr. Sterling,” Detective David approached, pulling out his notebook. “Can you confirm this is your wife?”
“Yes… it’s her,” Julian choked out, his voice trembling with grief. “We had a fight last night. She’s suffered from severe depression for years. She threatened to kill herself… I never thought she’d jump off the cliffs into the ocean.”
Evelyn stood right behind him, pretending to dab away tears, though her eyes failed to hide her satisfaction.
David Miller narrowed his eyes. With fifteen years of investigative experience, he felt something was horribly off. The head trauma on the victim appeared to have been caused by a blunt object before falling into the water, not from hitting the rocks.
Three days later, David received the DNA and fingerprint analysis from the forensics lab. He slammed his hand onto his desk in disbelief.
“Clara Sterling’s” fingerprints yielded a complete blank in the national database. Her name, Social Security Number, and academic records were all ghost profiles created just five years ago.
In other words, “Clara Sterling” had never truly existed.
At that exact moment, inside an abandoned warehouse at the Brooklyn docks, a woman sat before a mirror.
Removing her large sunglasses, she revealed sharp eyes devoid of a single tear. Gone was the fragile, innocent facade of Clara Sterling.
Her real name was Sienna Cruz—the sole survivor of a bloody financial scam orchestrated by Julian Sterling ten years ago, an event that had destroyed her family. She had spent five years undergoing plastic surgery, altering her identity, and infiltrating Julian’s life just to wait for this day.
The body on the beach? It belonged to the hitman Julian had secretly hired to eliminate her that night. Sienna had anticipated everything. She knocked the assassin out, slipped her ring onto his finger, crushed his face, and threw him into the sea.
Sienna opened an encrypted laptop and dialed a secret number.
“Evelyn,” Sienna spoke into the phone in a ice-cold tone, a stark contrast to her panicked demeanor nights ago. “Is the man you’re holding onto feeling sweet?”
On the other end of the line, Evelyn gasped in terror. “Who… who is this?! Clara?! You’re not dead?!”
“I’m not dead, but you’re about to be,” Sienna chuckled softly. “Are you sure the baby in your belly belongs to Julian? Or should I send the real DNA test results to him right now?”
Evelyn froze. She had no idea that Sienna was the mastermind who had facilitated her approach to Julian in the first place, even swapping the IVF results to turn Evelyn into the spark that would ignite Julian’s paranoia.
“What… what do you want?” Evelyn trembled.
“I want you to do just one thing,” Sienna whispered. “Drag him straight to hell.”
CHAPTER 3: THE BLOODY AUCTION
One week later. The Plaza Hotel, Manhattan.
Julian Sterling hosted a charity gala while celebrating the 2-billion-dollar merger between Sterling Capital and a European partner firm. Dressed in a sleek tuxedo, he walked the floor with his arm around Evelyn’s waist. Though his previous wife had “committed suicide” not long ago, he had swiftly laundered his public image by donating millions to a mental health foundation.
Detective David Miller was also present, observing Julian from afar. He had just uncovered a crucial clue: the antidepressant Dr. Evans had prescribed to Clara was actually a banned neurotoxin designed to induce long-term hallucinations.
At exactly 9:00 PM, Julian stepped up to the podium.
“Distinguished guests,” Julian began in a warm, deep voice. “Tonight, we are here to honor life and—”
BZZZT!
Every light in the Plaza’s grand ballroom suddenly went out.
Panic broke out in the darkness. Seconds later, the massive LED screen behind the podium flashed to life. But it wasn’t a presentation slide for the 2-billion-dollar deal.
It was a high-definition video. In the footage, Julian Sterling was seen personally dropping poison into his first wife’s glass (who had supposedly died of a stroke six years prior), followed by an audio recording of him discussing plans with the hitman to eliminate “Clara” in The Hamptons.
It didn’t stop there. The screen began rolling through hundreds of Swiss bank documents, exposing a massive money-laundering and financial fraud network worth billions operated by Sterling Capital.
“Turn it off! Turn it off now!” Julian screamed, his face drained of all color. He lunged toward the AV team, but was knocked down by the surging crowd.
“We can’t! The system is completely hacked!”
Evelyn backed away in terror, but police officers immediately swarmed in, placing her under arrest as an accomplice to financial fraud based on evidence just delivered to the prosecutor.
The chandeliers burst back to life.
Through the main entrance of the ballroom walked a woman. She wore a crimson gown as vibrant as blood, her black hair cascading in waves, her heels stepping deliberately down the red carpet.
It was none other than Clara Sterling—or more accurately, Sienna Cruz.
Gasps echoed across the room. Julian’s eyes widened in horror as he collapsed onto the floor as if staring at a ghost. “No… you’re dead… What on earth are you?!”
Sienna approached him, leaning down to look at the man who had tried to control her life. She flashed a brilliant yet deadly smile.
“You trapped me in a glass cage, Julian,” Sienna spoke, her voice echoing clearly through the lapel mic. “But you forgot one thing: glass shatters easily. And its shards can cut your throat.”
Detective David Miller stepped forward, pulling out a pair of gleaming handcuffs.
“Julian Sterling, you are under arrest for attempted murder, financial fraud, and money laundering. You have the right to remain silent…”
Julian was dragged away amid the flashing cameras of hundreds of journalists. The Sterling empire had fallen in a single night.
Sienna stood in the center of the grand ballroom, holding her head high and taking a deep breath. The New York air was cold tonight, but for the first time in ten years, she tasted pure freedom.
