Ellery POV:

Brendan' s eyes, which had been filled with a performance of desperate relief, now lit up with a different kind of light. A greedy, possessive curiosity.

"What' s that?" he asked, his voice shifting to a playful, intimate tone. He reached for the box. "Did you buy yourself something pretty? A present to make up for scaring your poor husband half to death?"

I held the box tightly in my hand, out of his reach. A cold, vengeful idea began to form in my mind.

"It' s for you," I said, my voice smooth as glass.

His face broke into a wide, delighted grin. "For me? Baby, you didn' t have to." He was already imagining cufflinks, a new watch. Something expensive and validating.

"I know," I said.

"Can I open it?" he asked, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet like an eager child.

"No," I said, the single word hanging in the air between us. "It' s a birthday present. You can open it on your birthday."

His birthday. The 24th. The day I would be boarding a flight to a new life. The day the serum would arrive. The day Ellery Rich would cease to exist.

This little black box would be my final message. My last testament. The tombstone of our marriage.

The police, satisfied that this was just a dramatic marital spat, packed up and left with a few condescending remarks about how lucky Brendan was to have a wife who loved him so much she scared him. Brendan saw them off, playing the part of the doting, slightly overwhelmed husband to perfection.

For the next two days, he was a shadow. He canceled all his meetings. He refused to leave my side. He cooked for me, walked with me on the beach, sat beside me on the couch while we watched movies we' d seen a dozen times. He was recreating the early days of our relationship, a frantic, desperate attempt to rewind time, to plaster over the gaping cracks in our foundation with a flimsy layer of manufactured nostalgia.

For fleeting, terrifying moments, it almost worked. As he brushed the hair from my face, his touch gentle, I could almost forget the man whose hands had been on another woman' s body. As he laughed at a familiar joke, I could almost forget the sound of his moans in our guest room.

But my phone was a constant, brutal reminder. It buzzed incessantly in my purse, a venomous snake I refused to touch. I knew who it was.

Kiya.

Her provocations had escalated. While Brendan was playing the perfect husband to my face, she was sending me a running commentary of their sordid history.

Did you know we' ve been together for four years? It started right after you won the Pritzker. He said he needed someone who saw him, not just the husband of a famous architect.

He' s so sweet. He says he loves you, but he needs me. He says your love is like a monument, beautiful but cold. Ours is a bonfire.

I' m going to be the next Mrs. Wiggins, Ellery. You' re just a placeholder. An old, boring placeholder.

Thanks for paying my tuition, by the way. It' s how I got to spend so much time at the firm… and with your husband. You really paid for your own replacement. How ironic is that?

The messages were a torrent of poison, designed to strip away my dignity, to make me feel worthless and old. And then came the video.

Brendan had gone to the store to get my favorite ice cream, another small, pointless gesture of his manufactured affection. I was alone in the living room. My phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen. A video file from Kiya. The thumbnail was a blurry shot of skin.

I knew what it was. I knew it would be them, together. The logical part of my brain, the architect, calculated the file size, the runtime. Probably three to five minutes. Five minutes of him proving, in high definition, that everything we had was a lie.

I felt a strange calm settle over me. This was it. The final piece of evidence I didn't even know I needed.

My thumb hovered over the play button. Brendan would be back any minute.

I pressed play.

The video was shaky, clearly filmed by Kiya. They were in a hotel room, the one he' d claimed was for a "tech conference" last month. He was on top of her, his back muscles flexing, the same muscles I had traced with my fingers a thousand times.

"Is she better than me in bed?" Kiya' s voice, breathy and goading from behind the camera.

Brendan didn' t stop moving. He just grunted, "Don' t talk about her right now."

"Why not? Afraid you' ll feel guilty?"

He paused, lifting his head. He looked straight at the camera, straight at me. "Sex is sex, Kiya. Love is love. They' re separate things. I can fuck you and still love my wife."

The clinical, detached way he said it, as if he were discussing a business merger, stole the air from my lungs.

"So I' m just a fuck to you?" Kiya whined, her voice tilting into a manipulative pout.

"You' re a very, very good fuck," he murmured, leaning down to kiss her. "The best."

"Then give me more," she demanded. "I don' t want to be your secret anymore, Brendan. I want a title."

He sighed, a long-suffering sound. "You can have anything you want. Money, cars, a house. Anything but a title. That belongs to her."

"What if I want a baby?" she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Our baby."

My heart stopped. This was a conversation I' d tried to have with him for years. He always put it off. "Not yet, El. The company' s in a critical phase." "Let' s just enjoy us for a little longer." Excuses. Always excuses.

In the video, Brendan went still. He looked down at her, a strange expression on his face. Not anger. Not refusal. It was… consideration.

"We' re not using anything, you know," Kiya purred, her hand sliding down his stomach, out of the frame. "It could happen anytime."

He didn' t pull away. He didn' t say no. He just closed his eyes and leaned down, whispering something against her skin that the microphone didn' t catch. But I didn' t need to hear it. His silence, his complicity, was the answer.

I clicked the phone off just as the front door opened.

"Got the mint chocolate chip!" Brendan announced cheerfully, holding up a paper bag.

He looked at my face, my bloodless lips, the tremor in my hands. "Whoa, El. You look like you' ve seen a ghost. What' s wrong?"

I held up my phone. "Just watching a video. It was… unsettling."

"Well, stop watching it," he said, taking the phone from my hand and placing it face down on the table. His casual dismissal, his complete lack of curiosity about what could have upset me so deeply, was the final confirmation. He didn't want to know. He was terrified of knowing.

"You' re right," I said, my voice hollow. "I' ll never watch anything like it again."

Ellery POV:

That night, Brendan insisted we go for a walk on the beach. It was his last night before his "business trip" to Miami-a trip I now knew was a romantic getaway with his pregnant mistress. He wanted to create one last perfect memory, a final coat of varnish on our rotting life.

He held my hand, his grip tight and proprietary, as we walked along the shoreline. He pointed out constellations, his voice a low, romantic murmur against the sound of the waves. He was playing the part of the man I fell in love with, and it was a masterful, sickening performance.

Suddenly, a loud boom echoed across the water, and the sky exploded in a shower of red and gold sparks. A firework. Then another, and another. A full, professional-grade display was erupting over the ocean, painting the dark sky with impossible colors.

People on the beach stopped, oohing and aahing.

"Wow, someone' s going all out," a woman near us said to her partner. "Must be a proposal."

I knew, with a certainty that settled like ice in my veins, that this wasn' t for a proposal. This was for me. Another grand, empty gesture. A fireworks display to distract from a four-year affair.

Brendan squeezed my hand and pointed to the sky. "Look, El. Look."

I looked. High above the water, the fireworks were forming letters. A giant, glittering B, then a +, then an E.

B + E. Brendan and Ellery.

"I love you, Ellery Rich," he whispered in my ear, his breath warm. "Always. Forever."

The crowd around us applauded. Brendan pulled me close, ignoring my stiff resistance, and kissed me. It was a public, performative kiss, and it felt like being branded with a hot iron.

A little girl, no older than five, with wide, wonder-filled eyes, ran up to me and thrust a pink glow stick into my hand. "For you," she said shyly. "You' re a princess."

Brendan beamed, ruffling her hair. "See? I' m not the only one who thinks so."

I looked from the little girl' s innocent face to Brendan' s handsome, lying one. The glow stick felt obscene in my hand, a symbol of a purity his world had tainted. I knelt down and gently handed it back to the little girl.

"Thank you, sweetie," I said, my voice soft. "But I think you should keep it. Some things are too beautiful to share with people who don't deserve them."

The little girl looked confused. Brendan looked annoyed.

"We' ll get you a dozen of them, El," he said, trying to pull me up.

"Brendan, do you want kids?" I asked, my voice cutting through his romantic charade.

He was taken aback. "We' ve talked about this, baby. I love our life, just the two of us. But… if you wanted them, of course I' d want them. I' d love a little girl. One who looks just like you."

His words, meant to be a loving promise, were a poisoned dart. He' d already promised a child to someone else. I could almost see Kiya' s smug face, hear her whispering, He wants a baby with me.

I almost said her name. I almost screamed it. The accusation was right there, burning on the tip of my tongue. But then I caught a glimpse of his neck in the flashing light of the fireworks.

A faint, purple mark, just below his ear. A hickey. Fresh. From the quick, desperate goodbye he must have given Kiya before coming home to play the doting husband.

The fight went out of me. There was no point. You can' t reason with a lie. You can only walk away from it.

"I' m tired," I said, turning away from the garish spectacle in the sky. "I want to go home."

As we were walking back to the car, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, his expression instantly shifting from romantic lead to annoyed businessman.

"I have to take this," he said, his voice tight. "Company emergency."

He walked a few paces away. I didn' t need to hear the conversation. I could read it on his face. The initial irritation, the softening of his expression, the low, soothing murmurs.

"Yeah, yeah, I' m on my way," he said, ending the call and turning back to me, his face a mask of regret. "Baby, I' m so sorry. There' s a server crisis. I have to go to the office."

"It' s fine," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "You go. I' ll get a ride."

He didn' t argue. He was already halfway to his car. "I' ll make it up to you! I' ll call you when I' m done!" he shouted over his shoulder before peeling out of the parking lot.

He was lying. He wasn t going to the office.

I watched his taillights disappear, then pulled out my own phone and opened the ride-share app. When the car arrived, I got in the back seat.

"See that black sedan that just left?" I asked the driver, my voice a dead calm. "Follow it. And don' t be seen."

Ellery POV:

The driver, a young man with a perpetually bored expression, didn' t even question it. He just nodded, pulled out into traffic, and expertly wove through the cars, keeping Brendan' s sedan in sight.

The chase didn' t last long. It didn' t lead to his downtown office. It led to the city's main hospital.

I watched from the tinted window of the cab as Brendan' s car screeched to a halt at the emergency room entrance. The passenger door flew open and Kiya stumbled out, her face streaked with tears. She was wearing a coat over the same t-shirt she' d had on that morning.

She threw herself into Brendan' s arms, sobbing hysterically. He held her, stroking her hair, murmuring words of comfort I couldn' t hear but could easily imagine. He draped his own suit jacket over her shivering shoulders.

And then he did something that made the world tilt on its axis.

He knelt. He knelt on the grimy pavement of the hospital drop-off lane, in front of God and everyone, and gently, reverently, kissed her belly.

Kiya swatted at him playfully, a watery giggle escaping her lips. "Stop it, people are watching." She sniffled, wiping her eyes. "The doctor said… the doctor said I had signs of a threatened miscarriage, but that seeing you… seeing the baby' s father… stabilized my emotions. He said the baby is fine now. We' re fine."

The baby. Our baby, she had said in the video.

The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "You want me to pull over, miss?"

"Stay here," I ordered, my voice a choked whisper. "Don' t move. I' ll double your fare."

I couldn' t look away. I was witnessing the death of my life, and I had to be a faithful mourner.

Brendan' s face, when he looked up at her, was transformed. It was a look of pure, unadulterated joy. A look I had dreamed of seeing on his face, directed at me, for years. He scrambled to his feet and swept her up in his arms, spinning her around in a circle, his laughter echoing in the night.

"A baby!" he shouted, a joyous, triumphant sound. "We' re having a baby!"

Kiya wrapped her legs around his waist. "Husband," she murmured, loud enough for me to see the word form on her lips. "I knew you' d be happy."

Husband. She was calling him husband.

He finally set her down, his hands hovering protectively around her waist as if she were made of spun glass. "A boy or a girl?" he asked, his voice giddy. "I want a girl. Just like you."

The echo of his words from the beach, now repurposed for her, was a fresh stab of pain.

"You just gave Ellery a whole fireworks show," Kiya pouted, her tears miraculously gone. "You love her more than me."

"I' m just getting her to calm down," he soothed, brushing a stray hair from her face. "Don' t be jealous. I' ll take you to the Maldives next week. Just us. We' ll celebrate."

"Promise?" she demanded.

"Promise," he said, and sealed it with a long, deep kiss that was anything but brotherly concern for his wife' s mentee.

A car behind us honked impatiently. The driver cleared his throat. "Miss?"

"Go," I croaked. "Get me out of here."

As the cab pulled away, I watched them in the side mirror, two people silhouetted against the harsh hospital lights, planning a future that had been stolen from me.

My phone buzzed. It was a picture message from Kiya. A black and white, grainy ultrasound photo. A tiny, bean-shaped flicker of life.

The message below read: Four weeks along. The doctor said the scare was from stress. I guess the baby knew his daddy was with his boring wife. He' ll be much happier now.

Then, another message. Oh, and I saw you in the cab. That' s a good look for you, Ellery. Watching from the sidelines. Get used to it. Or do the decent thing and get out of the way.

My fingers moved of their own accord, typing a reply.

As you wish.

My phone rang almost immediately. Brendan' s name flashed on the screen. I let it ring four times before answering.

"Hey," I said, my voice surprisingly steady.

"El! Baby, are you home safe?" His voice was breathless, full of false concern.

"Yes. I' m home."

"Listen, I am so, so sorry. This thing at work is a total nightmare. It looks like I' m going to have to fly to the Miami office to deal with it in person. I' ll be gone for three days."

Three days. The exact amount of time it would take for the serum to arrive.

"Okay," I said.

He paused, clearly expecting a fight, or at least some disappointment. "Okay? You' re not mad?"

The sound of Kiya' s impatient voice came from the background. "Brendan, are you done? The doctor said I need to rest."

"In a minute!" he snapped, covering the receiver. He spoke to me again, his voice dropping to that low, intimate tone he used when he wanted to manipulate me. "I' ll be back on the 24th, I promise. We' ll celebrate my birthday together. Just us. Wait for me, El. Please. Don' t go anywhere."

"We' ll see," I said, and hung up the phone.

I stared out the window at the blurred city lights. He was juggling us. Compartmentalizing. He thought he could have it all-the respectable, brilliant wife and the young, adoring mistress with his baby. He thought I would just wait patiently for him to come home.

He had no idea that I was already gone.

When I got back to the empty house, a small, discreetly packaged international parcel was waiting on the doorstep. I picked it up. It was light, but felt heavier than the world.

Inside, nestled in foam, was a small, clinical-looking vial filled with a clear liquid, and a single sheet of paper with instructions printed in stark black letters.

Directions for use: Ingest entire contents. Effects will begin within one hour. Retrograde and anterograde amnesia targeting specified neural pathways will be comprehensive. WARNING: The effects of this serum are absolute and irreversible. Proceed with extreme caution.

I placed the vial on my nightstand, next to the small, black velvet box. My escape plan was now complete. All I had to do was wait for the clock to run out on my old life.