Discarded Wife, Legal Legend Rises

For three years, I gave up my life as "Nemesis," the undefeated lawyer, to be the perfect wife for LA's star prosecutor, Keith Sampson. I traded my legal briefs for cookbooks, believing I could heal the man I loved.

On our anniversary, he came home drunk, kissed me desperately, and whispered another woman's name.

"Holly," he breathed. "I knew you'd come back to me."

But the final verdict on our marriage came at a restaurant. When a waiter spilled a pot of scalding coffee, Keith didn't hesitate. He lunged to shield his ex-girlfriend, Holly, from a few drops.

The rest of the pot splashed onto my arm, causing second-degree burns. He panicked over the minor red marks on Holly's hand, rushing her to a private clinic.

He never even looked at my blistering skin. He just handed me his credit card.

"Take a cab to urgent care," he said. "I'll call you later."

That was the moment the devoted wife died. I walked out and never looked back. Three months later, I stood across from him in a courtroom, representing the man he was prosecuting in the biggest case of his career.

He had no idea the quiet housewife he'd discarded was the legal legend known as Nemesis. And I was about to destroy his perfect, undefeated record.

Chapter 1

In the world of corporate law, the name "Nemesis" was a legend. A ghost. For three years, the legal community had speculated, wondering where the prodigy who had never lost a case had disappeared to. Some said she burned out. Others whispered she'd made enemies too powerful and was forced into hiding.

No one guessed the truth.

The truth was currently arranging a bouquet of white lilies in a minimalist vase, her movements careful and quiet. Eva Santos, once known as Nemesis, now went by Eva Sampson. She was the wife of Keith Sampson, Los Angeles's star prosecutor, a man with his own perfect, undefeated record.

For three years, she had played the part of the devoted, simple housewife. She had packed away her sharp suits and legal briefs, trading them for aprons and cookbooks. She did it for love, or what she had desperately hoped would become love.

The marriage had been a rushed affair, born from a single night of shared loneliness and a sense of duty on his part. Eva had been a young, rising lawyer, secretly infatuated with the brilliant prosecutor she sometimes faced in mock trials. She saw a flicker of vulnerability in him once, a pain he hid behind his charisma. She thought she could be the one to heal it.

She was wrong.

Keith' s pain had a name: Holly Cobb. His first love, a celebrity fashion designer who had left him to build her empire. He never got over her. Their home was a museum of his obsession. Though there were no pictures of Holly on the walls, her presence was everywhere. It was in the brand of coffee he drank because she liked it, the music he played, the way his eyes would glaze over, lost in a memory Eva had no part in.

Eva had tried. She had learned his routines, his preferences, his moods. She had poured all her strategic genius into one single, unwinnable case: winning her husband's heart.

But after a thousand days of cold indifference, of being a polite stranger in her own home, she knew the verdict was in. She had lost.

The final piece of evidence had come last night. It was the anniversary of their wedding, a date Keith had, as usual, forgotten. He' d come home late, smelling of expensive whiskey and the faint, floral scent of a woman' s perfume. He was drunk, more so than she had ever seen him.

He had stumbled into the living room, where she was waiting. His friends from the DA' s office had been with him, laughing about some old case. They barely acknowledged her, their eyes sliding over her as if she were part of the furniture.

"Keith, you need to get some rest," she had said softly, moving to help him.

He leaned his heavy weight on her, his breath hot against her ear. For a dizzying moment, she felt a flicker of hope. He was close. He was touching her.

Then he kissed her. It was a rough, desperate kiss, nothing like the chaste, perfunctory pecks he sometimes gave her. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Maybe this was it. Maybe the alcohol had finally broken down his walls.

He pulled back, his eyes hazy and unfocused. He smiled, a broken, tender thing that wasn't meant for her.

"Holly," he whispered, his thumb stroking her cheek. "I knew you'd come back to me."

The name landed like a physical blow. The hope inside her shattered, turning into a fine, sharp dust that filled her lungs. She didn't say a word. She simply helped him to their bedroom, undressed him, and put him to bed, her movements mechanical.

He fell asleep instantly, murmuring Holly's name one last time.

Eva stood in the silent room, the moonlight tracing the sharp lines of his handsome face. He was a man celebrated by the city, a titan of justice. But to her, he was a void. A constant reminder of what she wasn't.

She walked out of the bedroom and into her study, a room he never entered. She pulled a dusty box from the back of the closet. Inside were her old things. A framed diploma from her Ivy League law school. Trophies from moot court competitions. And a simple, black business card holder.

She slid one out. It was stark and minimalist.

Eva Santos

Attorney at Law

It felt foreign in her hand. A relic from another life.

She picked up her phone. She scrolled past Keith' s name, his picture a smiling, public-facing lie. Her finger hovered over a number she hadn't dialed in three years.

Doyle Simpson. Her former mentor in New York. The man who had nicknamed her Nemesis.

She pressed the call button, her heart a steady, cold drum. It was after midnight in New York, but she knew he'd answer. He always worked late.

He picked up on the second ring. "Simpson." His voice was as gruff and familiar as ever.

"Doyle," she said. Her own voice sounded strange, rough from disuse.

There was a long silence on the other end. She could picture him perfectly: sitting in his corner office overlooking the city, a cigar probably clamped between his teeth, his sharp eyes narrowed.

"Eva?" he asked, his voice laced with disbelief. "My God, is that really you? Where the hell have you been? The entire New York bar thinks you fell off the face of the earth."

His agitated words were a balm to her frozen heart. Someone remembered her. Someone knew who she was.

"I took a sabbatical," she said, the understatement of the century.

"A three-year sabbatical? Nemesis, you don't take sabbaticals. You take prisoners," he grumbled. "Every time I have to deal with these second-rate corporate sharks, I curse your name for leaving me to handle them alone. They've gotten soft without you to keep them on their toes."

Eva looked at her reflection in the dark window. A pale woman with tired eyes and hair pulled back in a simple bun. She was wearing a soft, beige cardigan. This wasn't Nemesis. This was a ghost.

"Has he found out who you are?" Doyle asked, his voice dropping. He was one of the few people who knew about her secret marriage.

"He never asked," Eva replied, the truth of it hollow and absolute.

Then, she took a deep breath, the cold air filling her lungs and clearing away the last of the dust.

"I'm filing for divorce."

Another silence. Then, a slow, satisfied exhale from Doyle. "Good."

"And Doyle," she said, her voice firming, the old steel returning to her spine. "I'm coming back."

"When?"

"My flight lands at JFK tomorrow afternoon."

She could hear the grin in his voice. "The corner office is waiting. Welcome back, Nemesis. It's time to remind them what a real fight looks like."

She hung up and looked at the signed divorce papers on her desk. She had drafted them months ago, a contingency plan she never thought she'd need.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Keith.

Running late. Holly's in town. Dinner meeting. Don't wait up.

Eva looked at the message, then deleted it without replying.

She picked up a pen and signed the papers with a flourish. Her signature was sharp and confident, the signature of a woman who knew her own worth.

It was over. The charade, the marriage, the long, painful wait for a man who would never see her.

Eva Santos was dead.

Nemesis was coming home.