Chương 5
Not because I wanted to torture myself.
Because I needed evidence.
I needed something solid.
Something that existed outside of my memory.
The problem with betrayal was that it changed the past.
Every moment became suspicious.
Every smile.
Every trip.
Every late night.
I hated that.
I hated that Marcus had taken my memories and made them unsafe.
After nearly an hour, I found something.
A message from him dated nine months earlier.
It was not romantic.
It was not an admission.
It was worse.
It was ordinary.
“Running late again. Big client issue. Don’t wait for dinner.”
I stared at it.
A normal message.
Except I remembered that night.
I remembered waiting.
I remembered making his favorite pasta.
I remembered sitting alone at the table until the food became cold.
At the time, I had thought I was being supportive.
Now I wondered who had been sitting across from him.
My phone buzzed.
The unknown number again.
This time there was a photo attached.
My hand went cold before I even opened it.
The picture showed Marcus outside a building.
Not a restaurant.
Not an office.
A medical clinic.
The date was nine months ago.
I zoomed in.
The sign above the entrance was clear.
A fertility center.
My heart started pounding.
I looked at the image again.
Then again.
A thousand thoughts moved through my head at once.
Rachel had said she knew about our fertility struggles.
Marcus had admitted seven months.
But this picture was from nine months ago.
Before the affair began.
Or before he admitted it.
I walked downstairs holding the phone.
Arthur saw my face.
“What happened?”
I handed him the phone.
He studied the picture.
Then his expression changed.
Not shock.
Recognition.
“You know that place?”
I looked at him.
“What?”
Arthur placed the phone down slowly.
“I have seen that building before.”
The room became still.
“When?”
He did not answer immediately.
That frightened me more than anything.
“Arthur.”
He looked at the staircase.
Then at the phone.
“I need to tell you something about Marcus.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
He folded his hands together.
“The day before your twins were born, Marcus called me.”
I waited.
“He wasn’t calling about the babies.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
“What was he calling about?”
Arthur looked at me.
“He asked me how to protect his assets if his marriage ended.”
The words barely registered.
Protect his assets.
While I was in labor.
While my children were about to enter the world.
“He planned this before they were born.”
Arthur did not correct me.
He did not soften it.
He simply said the one thing that hurt the most.
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
The word stayed between us.
I looked at Arthur, waiting for him to explain something that would make the situation less painful.
A misunderstanding.
A mistake.
Something.
Anything.
But he did not offer one.
“Why?” I asked.
My voice sounded smaller than I wanted.
Arthur looked down at the table.
“I don’t know all of it.”
That answer bothered me.
Because it meant there was still a part of this story happening somewhere outside my reach.
“How much do you know?”
He took a long breath.
“Not enough.”
Marcus appeared in the doorway.
He must have heard the last part.
His face had lost whatever color it had left.
“Dad.”
Arthur turned.
“Is there anything you want to tell her before I do?”
Marcus did not answer.
That was enough.
I felt something inside me close.
Not break.
Close.
Like a door I had spent years trying to keep open finally reached the end of its hinges.
“Marcus,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Were you planning to leave me before the babies were born?”
His mouth opened.
Then stopped.
A person can lie with words.
But not always with silence.
“Yes,” he finally said.
The honesty hurt more than another lie would have.
I sat down slowly.
Elena, who had been standing near the kitchen counter, covered her mouth with her hand.
“Why would you wait until after?” I asked.
Marcus looked exhausted.
“I didn’t know how to do it.”
I stared at him.
“You knew how to have an affair.”
His eyes dropped.
“You knew how to lie.”
He swallowed.
“But you didn’t know how to tell the truth?”
“I was scared.”
The answer came quickly.
Almost automatically.
I looked at him for a long moment.
“Of what?”
Marcus rubbed his palms together.
“Of losing everything.”
The irony almost made me angry.
Almost.
Because I wanted to scream that he had already lost the thing he was afraid of losing.
He just had not understood it yet.
“You were afraid of losing your family,” I said quietly.
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You were afraid of losing the version of yourself where you still got to have everything.”
Nobody spoke.
Marcus looked away.
And I knew.
Because that was the truth I had been avoiding.
He did not want a divorce because he had stopped caring.
He wanted a divorce because he wanted a different life without paying the full price for destroying this one.
Arthur stood.
“Valeria, there is something else.”
I looked at him.
Something in his voice made my stomach tighten.
“What?”
He glanced at Marcus.
“Your husband did not just ask me how to protect his assets.”
Marcus immediately stepped forward.
“Dad.”
Arthur ignored him.
“He asked me about the trust.”
My eyebrows pulled together.
“What trust?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
Arthur continued.
“The Vance family trust.”
I remembered the folder from the night before.
The documents.
The accounts.
The mention of my children becoming beneficiaries.
“What does that have to do with this?”
Arthur looked at Marcus.
“That depends on whether he was planning to leave before or after he secured control.”
Marcus’s face hardened.
“That’s not fair.”
Arthur turned.
“Then explain it.”
Marcus said nothing.
Again.
That silence was becoming a language.
May you like
A terrible one.
I looked between them.
