Chapter 1

The little red light, hidden in the smoke detector, blinked.

I stared at it from my wheelchair.

Another one.

Ethan, my husband, loved his gadgets.

This one, though, felt different.

He' d been installing them for weeks, these new "smart home" devices.

"For your safety, Ava," he'd said, his voice smooth like always. "So I can make sure you're okay when I'm not here."

My "skiing accident" was two years ago.

Ethan was there. He said I lost control.

He said I was lucky to be alive, even if my legs didn't work right anymore.

He was a real estate developer, charismatic, always in control.

He controlled the narrative of my accident.

He controlled my recovery, or what he told me was my recovery.

But I had a secret.

A physical therapist, Sarah, who came when Ethan was at his firm.

She didn't believe his story about my permanent impairment.

"You have strength, Ava," Sarah would say, her hands firm on my legs. "We just need to wake it up."

And we did. Slowly, painfully, I was getting stronger.

I could stand. I could walk, a little unsteadily, but I could.

Ethan didn't know.

He liked me dependent.

This new blinking light, though. It wasn't for safety.

I waited until he left for a "late meeting."

I wheeled myself to the bookshelf, pushed a specific book.

A small panel slid open. Inside, a laptop.

Not Ethan's. Mine.

I'd learned a few things about his "gadgets."

The new smoke detector wasn't just a smoke detector.

It was a camera.

I typed, and the feed appeared. My living room. Me, in my chair.

My stomach twisted.

He was watching me.

How many were there?

I spent the next hour finding them.

One in the bedroom, disguised as an air freshener.

One in the kitchen, a tiny lens in the new smart fridge.

Even one in my studio, my old architectural haven, now mostly unused.

He saw everything.

The anger was cold, sharp.

Then, another email notification popped up on the screen I was using to check the cameras.

Not mine. Ethan's.

He'd left his personal tablet on the kitchen counter, synced to his phone.

Careless. Or arrogant.

I hesitated.

Then I clicked.

It was an email chain with "Chloe M."

Chloe. His young marketing associate.

Pictures. Dates. Hotel receipts.

My breath caught.

It wasn't just surveillance. It was betrayal.

The blinking red light seemed to mock me.

He wasn't just watching me be helpless.

He was watching me while he lived another life.

My promising career as an architect, stalled.

My body, supposedly broken.

My husband, a liar.

The pieces clicked into place, ugly and sharp.

My escape plan, once a distant hope, suddenly felt urgent.

I looked at my reflection in the dark screen.

The woman there wasn't fragile.

She was furious. And she was getting ready.