THE PRICE OF GOLD

My name is Veronica, and this is my story.

Today was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. The church bells rang, the hall glittered, and people smiled as if my joy was their own. I married a very wealthy elderly man, and the world applauded me for it. They said I was lucky. They said I was wise. They said my future was secured. No one asked what my past had done to me, or what hunger had carved into my heart.

When everyone left that night and the laughter faded, silence wrapped the house like a heavy curtain. My husband signed his will in my name, his hands shaking with trust. Before dawn, he was gone. By morning, I called his family. We cried together. We mourned together. The police came, asked questions, found nothing, and left. He was buried with dignity. Life went on for me.

I told myself I had done what life forced me to do. I promised myself I would never be poor again. I would never beg. I would never watch my children starve the way I once did. My parents died with empty hands and tired dreams, and I swore I would not follow them into that grave of struggle. Wealth, to me, was not comfort it was survival.

So I married again.

The second man was wealthier, older, and lonely. He adored me with the desperation of someone who feared dying alone. Almost immediately, he willed everything to me. People whispered about my luck. Some envied me. Some admired me. On the third day after our wedding, he died. The report said it was stress from work, complications of age. I dressed in black, soaked my eyes with practiced tears, and accepted condolences like a grieving widow should.

By then, I was very rich.

Money changed how people saw me. Doors opened. Smiles widened. Respect followed my footsteps. I moved like someone important. Yet inside me, fear grew. I had crossed a line I could not return from, and the only way to silence that fear was to keep moving forward further into darkness.

I planned one more marriage. One last step, I told myself. After that, I would leave the country and start again, clean and untouchable.

When I met the third man, the rumors grew louder. People asked why I only married elderly wealthy men. Some said I was cursed. Others said I was dangerous. Some even whispered about rituals. I heard them all, and I did not care. Words could not stop me now.

We married quietly. I waited a month, thinking patience would make everything safer. One evening, I made a simple move that I believed would end it all quickly. When I returned from the kitchen, he was already on the floor. It happened too fast, but I felt no panic only relief. It had worked again, I thought.

I reached for my phone to begin the performance once more.

That was when the police trucks arrived.

Before I could understand what was happening, they were inside the house. My heart pounded as if it wanted to escape my chest. Then, slowly, the man I believed was dead stood up. He looked at me not with anger, but with disappointment so deep it frightened me more than rage ever could.

He told me he knew my plan. He said he suspected me long before the wedding. He never drank what I gave him. He had called the police himself. Every step I took, every lie I told, had led me straight into their arms.

I was arrested that night.

At the station, my secrets spilled out like blood from an open wound. Two men were dead because of me. A third had nearly joined them. There was no escape, no money big enough to save me now. The court sentenced me to life imprisonment.

Prison stripped me bare.

In that place of iron and concrete, there were no fine clothes, no respect, no flattering smiles. There was only time long, unforgiving time and memory. I cried until my chest hurt. I suffered until sleep became my only mercy. Everything I ran from caught up with me in that cell: poverty, fear, shame, and regret.

I chased wealth to escape pain, but I only multiplied it. I wanted power so I would never feel small again, yet I ended up smaller than I had ever been locked behind bars, forgotten by the world.

My life did not end because I was poor.

My life ended because I chose greed over conscience, shortcuts over truth, and money over humanity.

This is my story.

And this is the price of gold.