Until now.
Untilme.
I pace the kitchen—our kitchen—and suddenly the space feels unfamiliar. Cold. This was never my home. It was a stage set. A carefully curated illusion where I played the role he cast me in.
But I’ve read the script now.
And I’m rewriting the ending.
I return to the laptop, open the folder again. I watch him do it three more times—small manipulations caught on silent, grainy video. Planting the gun in the sink. Drugging my orange juice before bringing me breakfast in bed. Deleting files from my phone while I sleep. All while telling me that I’m just “overwhelmed.”
Every time I doubted myself, Jack was there to confirm that I should. Every time I questioned him, he said I was tired, hormonal, or unstable.
No. I wasn’t broken. I wasbeingbroken.
On purpose.
And now that I see it, I can’t unsee it. I grab a legal pad from the drawer and begin to write. Not notes—a plan. Not just to leave. Not just to survive. To ruin him.
I have the footage. I have the financial contracts. I have the bank account numbers he never thought I’d find. And now, I have something more powerful than all of that: clarity.
A manipulator. A fraud. Maybe even evil. But I see it now—I see him clearly. And I see myself clearly, too. Not the victim he wanted me to become. Not the wife who smiles through betrayal. Not the woman who doubts her own mind.
I hold every key to destroy him.
All I have to do isturn the lock.
I sit down, take a breath, and press record on my phone. Myvoice is calm, steady.
“This is my statement,” I begin. “My name is Elyse Valentinja Taylor, and if you’re hearing this, I’ve already exposed Jack Taylor, alias Julian McCallister, and the crimes he’s committed.”
I smile as the red recording light blinks. Because now, I’m not just surviving his story.
I’mwriting my own. And this time—he’s the one who won’t see it coming.
The phone buzzes against the table.
My hands are still shaking from watching Jack set the fire, drugging me over the weeks and months, planting the gun in the sink—watching himtuck me inbefore lighting the burner, as if that somehow absolved him. I glance at the screen, expecting another meaningless notification. Instead, it’s a message from an unknown number.
We finish this, together. Like mother, like daughter...
I stare at the text, reading it once, then twice more. The room shifts around me. Not with fear. With clarity. She knows. She’s watching, too. Not just Jack. My mother.
The woman I thought had died in a psychiatric hospital when I was ten. The woman I thought had been broken by my father, locked away and left to rot. But now I know the truth—she didn’t die. She disappeared. And she’s beenwaiting.
My mind scrambles to find comfort in the words.Togethersounds good.Mothersounds like salvation.
But I don’t trust that voice anymore.
My mother didn’t send this message because she wants to save me. She sent it because she sees herself in me—becausewe’re two sides of the same blade. And I don’t know which one of us is sharper.
I grip the edge of the table to steady myself. The message is a warning disguised as comfort.
I can’t trust her. I can’t trusteitherof them.
I turn back to the laptop. The grainy image of the kitchen burner hissing to life stares back at me. Jack’s figure moves like a shadow on a stage. He’s a monster in plain sight now.
I click through the folder, reopen the surveillance system. Live feeds begin to flicker to life across the screen—bedroom, hallway, balcony. Cameras he installed under the guise of protecting me, securing our home. They’ve been watchingmeall along.
