My billionaire husband smiled, kissed my forehead, and invited me on a romantic helicopter ride over the California coast while I was pregnant. Seconds later, he shoved me out of the open door, believing he was about to inherit everything I owned. What he didn't know was that I'd been expecting his betrayal for months... and I had already prepared for the moment he tried to kill me.

Six months later.

The San Francisco Superior Courthouse was surrounded by three rings of barricades to hold back the thousands of onlookers, international reporters, and true-crime streamers who had gathered for the sentencing of Richard Vance.

The case had been dubbed The Sky Murder Trial. For four months, the legal teams had fought a desperate, futile battle against an mountain of evidence so overwhelming it felt like an avalanche.

My legal team hadn't just presented the 4K video of the fall. They had presented the flight recorder logs, the Cayman Islands paper trail, the encrypted text messages with Victoria Sterling, and the testimony of the crooked technician who confessed to tampering with the helicopter's emergency beacons for fifty thousand dollars.

Victoria Sterling had turned state's evidence three weeks into the trial, pleading guilty to corporate conspiracy in exchange for a twelve-year sentence in a federal prison.

Today was Richard's final day in court.

I sat in the front row of the gallery, dressed in a navy blue silk dress. In my arms, wrapped in a pale pink cashmere blanket, sat three-month-old Clara Thomas Hayes. She had her father's dark hair, but when she opened her eyes, she possessed the sharp, brilliant blue gaze of my father.

The heavy wooden doors opened, and two bailiffs led Richard into the courtroom.

He looked unrecognizable.

The polished, handsome investment banker was gone. He wore a baggy, orange inmate jumpsuit. His dark hair was shaved close to his scalp, showing grey at the temples. His face was gaunt, his eyes sunken and hollow, staring blankly at the floor as he was led to the defense table. He had lost thirty pounds during his stint in county jail.

He didn't look at the press. He didn't look at his public defender.

As he sat down, his eyes drifted slowly toward the gallery, catching mine.

He looked at me. Then, his eyes dropped to the pink blanket in my arms. He saw the tiny hand of his daughter peeking out from the cashmere fold, her fingers opening and closing against the warm air.

A ragged, choking sound tore from Richard's throat. He reached out one shackled hand, as if he could touch her across the fifteen feet of mahogany railing separating us.

"Quiet in the gallery," the judge commanded, tapping her gavel.

Judge Eleanor Vance—no relation to Richard—looked down from her high bench with an expression of cold, unyielding disgust.

"Richard Vance," Judge Vance began, her voice echoing through the silent courtroom. "In my thirty-five years on the bench, I have presided over cases of unfathomable cruelty. But your actions represent a level of calculated, sociopathic depravity that shocks the conscience of this court."

She looked over her glasses at the broken man in the orange jumpsuit.

"You were given love, trust, wealth, and the opportunity to build a life with a woman of extraordinary intellect and character. You responded to that generosity by attempting to murder her and your own unborn child for financial gain. You did not view them as human beings; you viewed them as line items on a balance sheet."

Richard kept his head down, his shoulders shaking as silent, pathetic sobs wracked his body.

"For the charge of attempted premeditated murder, I sentence you to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole," Judge Vance announced, slamming the wooden gavel down with a deafening THUD. "For the charges of corporate fraud, wire fraud, and grand larceny, I add an additional forty-five years, to be served consecutively."

"You will spend the remainder of your natural life in the maximum-security facility at Pelican Bay. Court is adjourned."

The courtroom erupted into a deafening roar of applause from the spectators. Reporters rushed for the exit doors to break the news.

Richard was pulled up by the bailiffs. As they dragged him through the side door toward the holding cells, he turned his head, screaming my name over the noise of the crowd.

"Amelia! Amelia, please! Look at me! Let me see her! Just let me hold her once!"

I didn't answer. I didn't smile. I stood up slowly, cradling my daughter against my chest, shielding her tiny ears from his desperate screams.