"Exactly."
"What if he says no? What if he doesn't want you to go?"
I let out a dark laugh. “He won't say no. He'll think it's a great idea. He'll be relieved to have me out of the house."
Jamie looks at me for a long moment. "You're sure about that?"
"Positive." And I am. For the first time in months, I feel like I have some control. I'm not just reacting anymore. I'm planning. "I need to do this, Jamie. I need to know everything."
"Then we'll do it." She squeezes my hand. "But promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise me that no matter what we find, you'll let me help you. You won't try to handle this alone."
"I promise."
She pulls me into a hug and I let myself lean into her. My sister. My business partner. The one person who's been in my corner from the beginning. "Thank you," I whisper.
"Always."
We sit like that for a few minutes before I pull back. "There's one more thing," I say quietly. "We can’t stay here or anywhere he’d know to look for me. I need to be smarter than him at every turn.”
“Ryan," she says. "He has properties all over the damn place. Take a dart and throw it at a map of Seattle, you’re bound to hit a Callahan Group property.”
She’s right. “He's the only person besides you who I trust right now. Do you think he'd let us use one?"
"Are you kidding? He'd give us access to anything we want.” Jamie squeezes my hand. "I'll talk to him. We'll figure this out."
I feel some of the tension ease from my shoulders. We have allies. Real ones. And that changes everything.
"I need to go home," I sigh. "If I stay away too long, he'll get suspicious."
"Are you sure you're ready?"
"No. But I don't have a choice."
I drive home in a daze. The streets are familiar but everything feels different now. Like I'm seeing the world through a new lens. A darker one. When I pull into the garage, I sit in the car fora moment and take a deep breath. I can't change my behavior. Not even a little. He thinks I'm upset about therapy, spiraling, and distant. And I want him to keep right on thinking exactly that.
So I don't walk in there as the woman who just learned the truth. I walk in as the woman who's been broken by his orchestrated ambush at therapy. Flat. Distant. Just like I've been the last few days. I get out of the car and walk into the house. Asher is in the living room watching TV. He looks up when I walk in.
"Hey," he says. "How was Jamie?”
"Fine." I set my purse on the counter. "We ate Mexican.”
"That's nice." He turns back to the TV.
I stand there for a moment, watching him. He looks so normal. So relaxed. Like he didn't orchestrate my psychological destruction. Like he isn't counting down the days until he can leave me. "I'm going to take a shower," I say.
"Okay."
I walk upstairs and close the bedroom door behind me. Then I sit on the edge of the bed and let myself feel it. The anger. The betrayal. The absolute devastation of realizing that the man I married never loved me at all. But I don't cry. Not yet.
Because I’m building an illusion of my own now.
Jamie shows up at the house the next morning, right on schedule. I'm in the kitchen making coffee when the doorbell rings. Asher is upstairs getting ready for work. Devon is still asleep.
I open the door and Jamie walks in with a bright smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Hey!” she says, her voice just a bit higher than normal. "I had thebestidea after you left last night.”
