Well, now I’m watchinghim. I click a few keys and activate the mirroring program I found via a quick internet search. Every feed is now streaming to the encrypted drive I control. Not Jack. Not my mother. Me.
Then I open the dummy email I created under an alias—L.Grey_Archive—and attach the fire and other incriminating footage and a few select financial documents. I type one sentence into the draft subject line:This is just the beginning.
Then I save it to drafts. Not sent. Not yet. A loaded weapon waiting for the right time to pull the trigger. I sit back in the chair and breathe slowly. The plan is already in motion.
Jack thinks I’m broken. My mother thinks I’m hers. My father thinks I’m irrelevant.
They’re all wrong.
Forty-Five
Ellie
I pace the apartment barefoot, the hem of my robe dragging over the polished hardwood. The curtains are half-drawn, just enough to let the evening light slant in, casting long distorted shadows.
I know he’s watching.
The thought prickles the back of my neck, but I keep my performance steady. I let my fingers twitch at my sides like I can’t control them. I mutter under my breath, snatches of nonsense, fractured conversations with ghosts that aren’t there.
“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” I whisper, tugging at the ends of my hair. “It’s not real. It’s not—” I cut myself off with a sharp laugh, too loud, too sudden.
Good. Let him think I’m slipping again. Let him believe he’s winning.
I spin in a slow circle in the living room, then stagger toward the kitchen, knocking an empty wine bottle off the counter. It clatters loudly against the tile, the noise making me flinch for real.
Easy, Ellie. You’re doing this for a reason.
I sink down to the floor beside the mess and press my back against the cabinet. I tilt my head up toward the tiny black pinhole camera tucked into the ceiling molding. Barely visible. Invisible if you didn’t know exactly where to look.
I let a tear slip down my cheek, dragging with it the mascara Jack hates when I wear. I murmur something unintelligible and clutch my knees to my chest. I imagine Jack at his office, sitting at his desk, sipping his evening scotch, eyes glued to the live feed of me falling apart. I imagine the satisfied curl of his mouth.
I push myself up after a few minutes and start moving around the apartment again, rearranging small things in chaotic ways: a chair turned sideways, every cabinet door left hanging open, shoes tossed into the bathtub.
I don’t touch anything important. Only things I can justify later if I need to.
I leave a few moremistakes—a half-eaten sandwich on the sofa, the TV flickering static because Iforgotto change the input. And then, in the darkened hallway outside the bedroom, I set the real trap.
I check the security camera mounted near the front door, the one he installed when we first moved in before upgrading the system. It’s still active, still recording to its old backup server Jack never properly shut down. I tested it this morning. It works. It will catch everything.
I walk back into the bedroom, keeping my steps unsteady. I tug the bedsheets half off the mattress, let the comforter puddle onto the floor. I glance at the camera hidden in the smoke detector and murmur under my breath:
“I can’t remember. I can’t—”
I stop, catching my reflection in the mirror. Hair wild. Robe slipping off one shoulder. Eyes glassy and red. I almost don'trecognize myself. Almost. But I recognize the steel underneath. The part of me that won’t break. Not this time.
I sit on the edge of the bed, rocking slightly, murmuring nonsense about my mother, about Jack, about being alone.
I lie back and stare up at the ceiling, breathing shallowly, counting the seconds in my head.
He’ll be home soon. Maybe not right away, but soon. He’ll come home when he thinks it’s safe to finish the job.
I close my eyes for a moment, letting exhaustion pull at me. Not all of it is fake. The fear is real. The anger. But so is the clarity.
I roll over and carefully, quietly, slip my fingers under the mattress where I hid the flash drive just to confirm it’s still there. I slid it discreetly under the mattress so Jack wouldn’t notice it if he happened to check the security footage.
It already holds copies of everything.
The offshore account files.
