He exhales like he’s trying not to collapse under the weight of it all.
I slide my arms around him, press my body against his. He lets me.
“You did what you had to do,” I murmur against his ear. “You made the choices no one else had the stomach to make.”
His hands close around my waist. He leans into me like a man on the edge of a cliff. I lower my voice, right into his ear. “Vanquishing evil isn’t pretty, Jack. Sometimes there’s collateral damage. But it’s worth it in the end.”
He doesn’t respond. But he doesn’t pull away either. And that’s all I need.
Forty-Four
Ellie
The laptop is exactly where I found it last time—hidden inside a small black safe on the bookshelf. If I didn’t already know to look for it, I’d have missed it again.
But I know Jack now.
I know where he hides the truth.
I carry the laptop to the dining table, fingers trembling as I plug it in. The screen flickers to life. The desktop is bare, sterile. A single folder sits in the corner labeled simply:ARCHIVE.
I open it.
Inside are dozens of subfolders—each labeled with dates, timestamps, and generic location titles:Living Room Cam,Kitchen Feed,Bedroom 2.
I click on one marked03–16_Kitchen_2AM.
The video loads slowly, and then I see it: my kitchen, dark and quiet. I’m there, barely visible in the corner of the frame, curled on the couch, motionless. Sound asleep.
The camera doesn’t move. But Jack does.
He walks into frame at 2:17 a.m., barefoot, in a T-shirt and pajama pants. He moves with purpose—turns each burner onone by one.
He opens the cabinet, takes something out. A rag. He dips it in a bottle of alcohol and leaves it precariously near the flame. I watch, horrified, as he stands for a moment, gazing at the flickering gas blue beneath the pan like he’s admiring a painting. Then he walks over to the couch—to me—and gently lifts my head to place a pillow beneath it.
He brushes the hair from my face. Soft. Loving. A performance.
Then he walks out of frame.
Ten minutes later, the fire starts.
I slam the laptop shut so hard the click echoes through the room.
My heart pounds, not from fear—but from rage.
He did it. He set the fire. While I slept.
He wanted the chaos, the smoke, the confusion. He wanted me to wake up shaking, afraid of my own hands, convinced that I’d nearly burned down our home.
It worked.
I cried in his arms. I believed him when he said I needed help. I swallowed the pills he gave me.Just to help you sleep, sweetheart. You’re not yourself.
Iwasmyself. I was the only real thing in the whole damn apartment. Jack just drugged that version of me into silence. Because he needed a sweet, simpering wife at home.
He wanted the best of both worlds. Me: the pristine wife. Aubrey: the uninhibited escape.
And all the power and profit of my father’s empire, untouched by suspicion. He’s a master of compartmentalization. Every part of his life in its place.
