The world around me feels like it suddenly tilts.
For a second I don’t breathe. The words echo in my ears, repeating over and over like my mind can’t quite accept that they’re real.
I think I did.
Tears blur my vision until the kitchen lights smear into soft streaks of gold and white. My hand tightens around the phone as if it’s the only thing keeping me standing. The man I thought I knew. The man I married. The man I trusted with every part of my life.
He’s gone. And the truth crashes into me slowly, painfully, like a wave pulling everything away with it. There were signs. So many signs. The late nights, the lies, the feeling in my gut that something was wrong long before I ever had proof. But I ignored them. Because loving someone sometimes means convincing yourself the darkness you see isn’t real. My chest aches as the memories flood back.
Five years.
Five years of birthdays, holidays, quiet mornings, and late-night conversations. Five years of believing we were building something real together. And now I realize something that feels even worse than the confession itself.
That life… the one I thought we had…
It doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe it never did. A quiet grief spreads through me. The kind that settles deep in your bones when you finally understand that something is truly over. There’s no fixing this. No pretending. No going back to normal.
Even if Sophie somehow survived…
Even if Dominic never touched her…
The truth is already here, the truth has already broken us. I feel fear too. Not just of what Dominic may have done. But of the man I suddenly realize I never fully knew.
Because if he’s capable of this…
Then what else was hiding beneath the life we built together? My voice trembles as I try to steady myself, wiping at the tears on my face. Somewhere deep inside me, a quiet certainty settles in. This is the end. There is no version of our marriage that survives this. No version where we pretend everything is okay, no version where we go back to the life we had before tonight.
The man on the other end of the phone is still crying but the man I loved is already gone. “Era please,” Dominic whispers through the phone. “I need to tell you everything. But not like this… please come back to me.”
I wipe the tears from my face.
“No more lies, Dom,” I say quietly. “I need to know the truth.”
“Yes,” he says quickly. “No more lies.”
My chest rises and falls slowly.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll come back home today. I’ll see you at the house.”
“I’ll come pick you up,” Dominic says immediately.
“No,” I interrupt. “Wait for me at the house.”
A pause.
Then his voice softens.
“I love you, Era. Always. I’ll wait for you.”
The call ends.
I stand there for a moment, staring at the phone in my hand. Then I turn and walk back upstairs. Lucien is sitting up in the bed waiting for me. The moment he sees my face he already knows something is wrong.
“Lucien…” My voice shakes. “I need to see him.”
His expression darkens instantly.
“No fucking way,” he says. “I’m not letting you go near him.”
