Chapter 3

I waited for her in the living room that night. The lights were off, the only illumination coming from the cold, blue glow of the city skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I didn' t turn on a lamp when I heard her car pull into the garage. I let her walk into the darkness.

She fumbled for the light switch, and when the room flooded with light, she jumped, startled to see me sitting there.

"Ethan," she said, her hand on her chest. "You scared me. I thought you were working."

"I came home early," I said, my voice flat. I stood up and walked toward her. "Did you have a good day?"

She stiffened, her professional mask sliding back into place. "It was fine. I ran some errands. Met a friend for coffee."

"A friend?" I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. "Does this friend have a name?"

"It' s none of your business," she retorted, trying to move past me toward the stairs.

I blocked her way. "It is my business when my wife is meeting her 'asset' in the park. It is my business when she' s holding his hand and laughing at his jokes. Tell me, Sophia, is that part of the mission? Is physical intimacy part of the 'cover' ?"

Her face paled. "You followed me." It wasn' t a question, it was an accusation.

"I needed to see for myself," I said, my voice rising with the anger I had been suppressing all day. "I needed to see just how good of an agent you are. And you are very good. You' re a natural. You looked so happy with him. So comfortable. A side of you I' ve never been allowed to see."

"You don' t understand," she said, her jaw tight. "What I do is for my country. It' s a sacrifice. It' s not a romance."

"It looked like one to me!" I yelled, the sound echoing in the sterile, silent house. "It looked exactly like it did in my first life! The secret meetings, the smiles you saved only for him. The only difference is that now I have a file number and a codename for my own personal hell!"

My anger was a raw, living thing. I turned away from her, unable to look at her face, and my eyes landed on a wedding photo on the mantelpiece. It was a large, framed portrait of us from that dreadful day. The two of us, smiling for the camera. A perfect lie in a silver frame.

In one swift, violent motion, I grabbed the photo and hurled it into the fireplace. The glass shattered with a loud crash, the sound ripping through the tense silence. Shards flew across the hearth. Our smiling faces, now broken and torn.

Sophia gasped, a sharp intake of breath. "Ethan, stop!"

"Why?" I spun back to face her, breathing heavily. "It' s all a lie anyway, isn' t it? This house, that picture, this marriage. It' s just a stage, and we' re the actors. Well, I' m done playing my part."

I stormed toward the stairs, intending to lock myself in my room, to put a door between us. But as I passed her, my foot caught on the edge of the rug. I stumbled, my balance gone. I flailed, and my hand shot out, grabbing her arm to steady myself.

The contact sent a jolt through both of us. For a second, we were frozen, standing close in the wreckage of my outburst. Her skin was warm under my fingers. Her scent, a faint trace of jasmine, filled my senses. It was a horribly familiar sensation, a memory from a thousand lonely nights where I' d wished for this closeness. My anger evaporated, replaced by a wave of crushing sadness. My grip on her arm loosened, my fingers tracing the soft fabric of her sleeve. I was so tired of being angry. I was just... heartbroken.

I saw something shift in her eyes. The anger, the defensiveness, it faltered. For a split second, I saw a flicker of vulnerability, a hint of unguarded pain that mirrored my own. Her breath hitched, and she didn' t pull away. The space between us was charged with a decade of unspoken words and unfulfilled longing.

I pulled my hand back as if I' d been burned. The moment was broken. The distance slammed back into place.

I looked at her, my voice barely a whisper, the fight gone out of me. "Just tell me one thing, Sophia. And I want the truth. Not the agent, not the patriot. You. Did you ever love me? Even for a second?"

She stared at me, her face unreadable again. The shutters had come down. The agent was back in control. She didn't answer. She just held my gaze, her silence a more painful answer than any word she could have spoken. The broken glass on the floor seemed to mock me, a perfect reflection of my shattered hope.