Chapter 3

A week later, after wrapping up my tasks early at the office, I ended up crashing on the couch in my private suite. I slept like a rock—the recent stress had clearly caught up to me.

Because of that long afternoon nap, I couldn't sleep deeply that night. Sometime past midnight, I drifted awake and realized my wife wasn't beside me.

Assuming she was in the bathroom, I closed my eyes, ready to go back to sleep.

Then, hushed whispers filtered in from outside the bedroom door.

Was she on the phone?

An instant knot of dread tightened in my stomach. Why was she sneaking around the living room making calls at this hour? Was something wrong with our marriage?

I quietly crept to the door, pressing my ear flat against the wood. My wife's voice came through clearly.

"Rachel, please, just help me out one more time! Your company hasn't paid you in months, right? As long as you do this for me, I'll give you another thousand... no, two thousand bucks, okay?"

She was talking to Rachel? My racing heart slowed down a bit. But then Rachel's voice answered—not through a phone speaker, but right there in the room with her.

"No, Serena, I can't. No matter how broke I am, I can't keep doing this. Your husband almost caught me last time..."

I froze. Almost caught her doing what?

Serena pressed on. "That was just an accident! Don't worry, I swear it won't happen again."

"Look, if you agree, I won't just give you two grand. I'll get my husband to hire you at his firm. The pay will be way better than your old job."

A long silence followed.

My mind was spinning. What extra money? What was Serena begging her to do? And why did it involve me? What the hell was going on?

After repeated pleading from Serena, Rachel finally wavered, though her voice remained troubled. "Seriously, Serena, I don't understand why you're doing this. Anyone can see how much he loves you. Why don't you two just have a baby? Maybe that would settle you down."

My breath hitched again.

Serena's voice remained low, but her tone was dripping with disdain.

"And ruin my body? No way. I want to have fun while I'm still young. You have no idea—every single time after we have sex, I secretly pop the morning-after pill."

"I can't survive without the raw thrill of younger, hotter guys outside!"

The words hit me like a sledgehammer. My knees nearly buckled. The dutiful stay-at-home wife was sneaking out behind my back to sleep around. All her talk about needing to 'live' was pure garbage.

And the child we had tried so hard to have? It was all her deliberate sabotage.

Betrayal, agony, and blind rage flooded my head. I wanted to kick the door open, slap her across the face, and demand to know how she could be so vile.

Before I could move, she pleaded with Rachel again.

"Come on, Rachel. He's been totally burned out lately. Once he's out, he sleeps like the dead. You could lay a corpse next to him, and he wouldn't notice a thing!"

A flash of lightning seemed to rip through my brain, piecing together a horrifying truth.