As soon as I saw the payment—five hundred dollars for three hourstopsof surveillance-only work—I knew I had no choice but to take it. I was serious when I told Gabriel that I wanted to pay off my divorce debt on my own. He’s already doing so much for me, this, I need to do for myself. This is one thing that I can’t let him carry for me.
I turn up the air conditioner and angle the vents to pointdirectly at my face. Connecticut has already warmed up significantly since spring arrived, and though I’d love to have my windows rolled down to breathe in the fresh air, I’m trying not to draw any attention to myself.
I pull out my phone and skim the instructions for the first time with five minutes to spare.
He goes to this gym every night at seven o’clock. Works out for thirty minutes, then leaves to get a protein smoothie at the shop next door.
After that, I don’t know what he does, but I think he’s meeting up with a woman. He doesn’t make it home until close to nine at night. That’s an hour unaccounted for that I want footage of.
This is a routine assignment. Suspicious gaps that aren’t accounted for when a partner is supposed to be doing something that doesn’t warrant two hours of time. It’s textbook behavior of a cheater. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that I’ve caught a guy cheating with someone at the gym. Only thing left is to review the photo and get a name.
I scroll down to the attached images and click on the first image. The name that pops up with it has my heart stopping and stomach dropping.Brian.
I blink, my throat tightening, my vision blurring as I scroll through the photos that the client sent. Black and white. Color. Five angles of a man I once knew like the back of my hand. Whose body I’d memorized, and who I’d trusted with my heart before he destroyed it completely.
My ex-husband is the target.
Chapter 36: Alessia
All the air leaves my lungs and all I can do is blink and stare. At the eyes I used to gaze into when we made love. The lips I used to kiss, thinking they were the only ones I’d ever want to kiss again. The shoulders I once pressed my face against when he promised me forever. The arms that held me when I crumbled to the floor, another negative pregnancy test clutched in my shaking hands. The same arms that, all along, had been holding someoneelse, too.
I’ll never understand that level of cruelty. The cruelty of a man who can promise forever and tell me he loves me in one breath, then watch me struggle and cry myself to sleep night after night. A man who can look me in the eye and say I’m his whole world while secretly carrying on an affair behind my back.
I don’t understand how someone lives with that kind of lie. How you can possibly exist with that much deceit inside of you knowing you’re wounding your spouse. And the truth is, I hope I never do. Because understanding it would mean rationalizing it. Finding some way to make it make sense. And I never want to make sense of something that sick. Something that twisted. Something that downrightwrong.
My chest burns, and when I blink, a single tear drops onto my phone—right over his face, obscuring his features that I used to think were handsome.
Now, all I see is a boy who couldn’t be a man. A boy who was too weak to walk away before he broke my heart.
The sting is still there, but it’s duller now. I don’t miss him. For a long time after he filed for divorce, I did—despite knowing he cheated; despite knowing he got his girlfriend pregnant, I still missed him. But with time, I realized I was never mourning him. I was mourning theideaof him. The illusion of what we’d built together. The man I thought I married, not the one he really was at his core.
Because if someone loves you unconditionally, they don’t leave when things get hard. They stand beside you. And Brian hadn’t. Not when I needed him most and not when he told me he was filing for a divorce. And all the ways I thought he was on my team—supporting me, standing beside me through the pain of infertility, through the struggles of being newly married, of finding my way in New York City—he wasn’t.
I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hands frantically. I haven’t cried over Brian in months. And these tears aren’t about him, about me, or about us. Tonight, I’m not crying for me; I’m cryingfor her.
I wipe at my eyes, dragging the sleeve of my hoodie over my face as I sniff, grounding myself back in the present and reminding myself that this isn’t about getting proof for me anymore. This is about getting proof for her.
I glance at the gym entrance then scan the parking lot, my pulse spiking as I spot his familiar car. I draw in another deep breath. It’s really him. This isn’t my mind playing tricks on me. This isn’t some sick coincidence. His new girlfriend has paid to have him watched.
I flip back to the case details, scrolling to the section that showswho booked the request. I don’t feel relief when I get that confirmation. Confirmation that the woman he cheated on me with paid for this. Because now he has a baby with her. And if my math is right, that baby is only a few months old.
I don’t feel victorious at seeing this. I don’t feel smug, justified, self-satisfied orhappyto know that she’s getting hurt the same way that I once was. I feel even more pain than I thought was possible. Like my heart’s breaking all over again for this stranger. Because if she’s hiring someone like me, then she’s already in the place I was once in—questioning, doubting, searching for answers she probably already knows in her gut. And worse for her, she’s postpartum. A brand-new mother. So sensitive and vulnerable.
I swallow hard and wrap my fingers around the leather of my steering wheel, trying to ground myself. For a moment I consider storming out of my car, marching up to him, and demanding answers. Shake him and ask what thefuckis he doing!?Why?How could he do this again?What made you this way? What made you such a small man?
But I can’t do any of those things because this isn’t about me anymore. Because if I do that, I compromise myself. I ruin the company’s reputation. And I jeopardize the woman who hired me, who, no matter how I feel about her, deserves the truth and the chance to safely get away according to her own terms.
I square my shoulders, straightening in my seat. Pulling out my camera, I check the time.
7:30 on the dot.
The gym doors swing open, and there he is. A gym bag is slung over one shoulder and he’s wearing sunglasses to shield against the setting sun. He’s dressed in nothing but basketball shorts and a cut off t-shirt and looks completely oblivious to being watched for now.
I exhale slowly, steadying myself as I discreetly hit record,tugging the hood of my black sweatshirt up over my head to avoid being spotted. I’m good at this. I know that much. And unless he’s specifically looking for me, he shouldn’t notice me watching.
His eyes sweep the parking lot as if heislooking for someone though. But whatever he’s searching for he doesn’t find. Then he moves to his car, climbs inside, and I follow, years of experience guiding my movements.
I stay far enough behind that he won’t notice me, but close enough that I won’t lose him. And just like his girlfriend said, he pulls into the smoothie shop next door.
