I typed:
Me: I did.
The response came almost immediately.
Daniel: Alyssa, we need to talk. Now.
I stared at the message.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
Then another message appeared.
Daniel: There is something you need to know about Jasmine.
My heart stopped.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Jasmine.
I had known something was wrong with that woman from the moment Aaron hired her.
Not because she flirted with him.
That alone wasn’t enough.
It was the way she watched me.
Always smiling.
Always polite.
Always careful.
But never once looking at me like a subordinate looked at the CEO’s wife.
She looked at me like someone waiting for me to disappear.
I typed:
Me: What about her?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then Daniel sent:
Daniel: Not over text.
I frowned.
Before I could reply, another message arrived.
Daniel: And don’t trust anyone in Aaron’s inner circle.
I locked my phone.
For the first time that morning, my anger was replaced by something colder.
Suspicion.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a black sedan.
The driver was someone my family had employed since I was nineteen.
He didn’t ask questions.
He simply drove.
I watched the city pass outside the window.
Four years.
Four years of marriage.
Four years of pretending I didn’t notice the little things.
The late-night meetings.
The unexplained transfers.
The new accounts.
The sudden changes in Aaron’s passwords.
The way he had started keeping his phone face-down.
The way Jasmine somehow became involved in decisions that used to come through me.
I had noticed everything.
I simply hadn’t wanted to believe it.
Because love makes intelligent people stupid.
And I had been very, very stupid.
My phone rang.
It was my mother.
I answered.
“Alyssa.”
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
“Mom?”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
A pause.
Then she said something that made my stomach tighten.
“Your father wants you to come home.”
I stared out the window.
“Why?”
“He says it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
Another pause.
