I swallowed.
Sweet Dreams. He had to be talking about Sweet Dreams.
My fingers trembled a bit where I penned the next address.
Nathan went on, irritation sharpening each word. “If you screw this up for me, I will make sure you regret it. You know I will.”
He hung up, and I tapped into the app on my phone that I’d hidden in a folder calledperiod cycle apps. Quickly, I cropped and saved the recording, and then I put my phone away before Nathan’s footsteps came down the hall.
This was what my weeks had looked like since the night I had with Shane. My heart was never steady, constantly pounding in my chest and vibrating in my ears as I collected as much proof as I could. I didn’t know if what we had would be enough, but I knew I wouldn’t stop trying. I knew I would give our plan everything I had — even if we all ended up burning in the end.
Later that night, when Nathan was in the shower, I dismantled our cameras in our shared security app and slid into his office long enough to peek at his laptop. There was a spreadsheet minimized in the corner of the screen, and I didn’t hesitate.
I clicked into it immediately.
The numbers for Sweet Dreams were familiar — donations in, expenditures out — but the middle column was new. There were transfers routed through Sweet Dreams that never appeared in the final budget — and the amounts were too precise to be accidents, too consistent to be coincidence.
I snapped a few photos before slipping out of the office and turning the cameras back on before I plopped down on the couch, stomach in knots as I pretended to watch a home design show on HGTV. I was smiling because I could feel my freedom inching closer.
“What are you smiling about?” Nathan asked when he joined me.
“My birthday,” I said lightly. “It’s just going to be so fun, this big party full of people. Such a wonderful celebration.”
Something flickered in his eyes, one brow ticking up as he watched me like he wasn’t sure he could believe me. I kept my smile in place, my eyes soft.
“It will be a lovely party,” he said finally, taking a seat next to me. He pulled out his phone immediately, scrolling through it. “You’re going to love it.”
And I knew I would.
But not for the reasons he thought.
“Looks like our cameras cut out for a bit,” he mused with furrowed brows.
“I think the Internet was on the fritz,” I offered with a shrug, eyes still on the TV. “We lost streaming, too.”
The next few days were a blur of decorations and fake normalcy.
I confirmed the catering. I double-checked the guest list. I listened while Nathan talked about which executives would be there, who mattered, who I needed to charm. I nodded when he reminded me — again — how important it was that everything go perfectly.
“We only get one chance to make the right impression with our new team, and this is a big part of our first year,” he told me the night before the party. “I need you focused. No disappearing. No silly girl hangouts like you had at the Gala.”
I met his eyes. “Of course.”
That night, after he was asleep, I locked myself in our bathroom and copied the ledger files from his email onto my burner phone. My reflection stared back at me in the mirror when I was through — and I was the perfect picture of calm composure, my appearance betraying the unsteady waters inside me.
You are not trapped, I told the woman staring back at me.Not anymore.
I thought about the scar on my hand, the one my stepfather had inflicted on me at such a young age I could never forget it. He’d stayed with me my entire life, not by choice, but because he’d marked me in a way I couldn’t erase. And I thought aboutthe way Nathan had grabbed me and then acted like it was nothing, like his hand bruising my wrist was deserved.
I thought about birthday candles, about Christmas lights, about how long I’d been shrinking myself to keep the peace.
And about how I was about to be the storm that disrupted everything, the hurricane Nathan would never see coming.
The evening of the party, I stood in front of that same mirror and adjusted my dress, my pulse steady for the first time in weeks.
I looked exactly like the woman Nathan believed he controlled.
But I wasn’t her anymore.
