Julian McCallister.I flip through the passport, fingers trembling. Multiple stamps from the Cayman Islands. Germany. Singapore.
I remember the offshore accounts I found. So much money funneled from my father to him. I believed Jack when he said he was handling sensitive cases for my father. God help me, I believed everything.
I open the laptop. Password protected. But Jack—or Julian—is so predictable. His favorite author’s name, all lowercase, gets me in.
What I find makes my heart stop.
Thousands of files. Financial spreadsheets, encrypted communications, hidden work documents I’ve never seen before. And security footage. Dozens of folders, each labeled with a date. My hand hovers over the most recent.
Today.
I click.
The screen splits into four feeds. Living room. Kitchen. Bedroom. Bathroom.
My knees nearly buckle. It’s me. It’s me standing at the kitchen sink. Just seconds ago. Recorded. Archived. Watched.
He’s been spying on me.
Not just for days. Or weeks.
For a year.
A year ago—when I had the emotional affair. When I thought Jack had grown distant and cold and I turned to someone else for comfort. We never touched, but we talked. About everything. About Jack.
Jack heard it all.
He saw it all.
Every conversation. Every private moment. Every breakdown. Every night I curled into myself and cried in the shower.
All of it.
And Aubrey. She’s in the footage too. In our apartment. Laughing with me on the couch. Telling me I’m too good for Jack. Hugging me. Sharing wine as we bitched about men and life and love.
I step back from the desk, dizzy. The air feels thick, poisoned.
I think of my father. Of how he told me my mother died in that psychiatric facility when I was five. But she didn’t.
He lied. Just like Jack. Why?
And what else are they hiding from me?
The psychiatric facility closed years ago—its records scattered, shredded, buried. But maybe my father knows more than he admits. Maybe he and Jack have always known more than they say.
My father vouched for Jack when we met. Said he was trustworthy. Loyal.
“Just like me,”he’d said about his new intern.
Maybe that’s the problem.
They’re exactly alike.
A chill slithers down my spine. I think of my father’s penthouse, high above the city, his fortress of privilege and control. What does he keep there? Files? Photos? Anything about my mother? Maybe it's time I find out.
I tuck the fake passport into my sweatshirt pocket. My reflection glimmers in the dark laptop screen, fractured and unfamiliar. I’m not sure who I am anymore. A grieving daughter? A cheating wife? A murderer?
The gun is still in the sink. I glance toward the kitchen and wonder again if it’s the same one used to kill that CEO. If I touch it again, am I leaving my fingerprints, or were they already there?
