Chapter 4

The next few days were a blur of cold meals left on a tray outside my door and the distant sounds of a happy family I was not a part of. Sarah, Mark, and the twins. They laughed, they played in the garden, their voices drifting up to my window. I was a prisoner in my own home, relegated to the guest wing like an unwanted relative. The contrast was a constant, grinding torment.

One afternoon, desperate for something to do, I went into the attic. I was looking for old photo albums, searching for a time before her, a time when my life was my own. I found a box labeled "College."

Inside were pictures of me with my friends, laughing, carefree. And then I saw her. Emily. A girl from my literature class. We weren't close, just friendly acquaintances, but seeing her smiling face in a photograph brought back a memory of a saner, simpler time. I remembered her kindness, her sharp wit.

It was a painful reminder of how different my life could have been, a sharp contrast to the cold, calculated cruelty that now defined my marriage.

As I was putting the box away, I heard voices from the master bedroom below. The old house had a laundry chute, and sound traveled easily through the vents. It was Sarah and Mark. Her voice was soft, full of a raw emotion I hadn't heard in years.

"I love you, Mark," she said, her voice thick with tears. "I've always loved you. Everything I've done, it's all been for you. To give you a family, to give you a legacy."

"I know, Sarah," he replied, his voice weak but content. "You saved me."

The words struck me with the force of a physical blow. She loved him. She had always loved him. My entire marriage, our entire life together, was a lie built to serve her devotion to another man. I wasn't even a second choice, I was just a tool.

A means to an end. A walking bank account and a source for organ donation. I sank to the dusty floor of the attic, the air thick with the smell of old wood and forgotten memories, and I felt something inside me finally, irrevocably, break. The man who had tried to hold on, who had hoped for justice, was gone. All that was left was a hollowed-out shell filled with a cold, burning rage.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text message from an unknown number. I opened it. It was a video. My hands shook as I pressed play. It was a security recording from a hospital room. The date stamp was from five years ago, the day of my "vasectomy."

The video showed Sarah, standing by a hospital bed where Mark lay sleeping. She leaned down and kissed him, a long, tender kiss full of a love she had never once shown me. Then she looked directly at the camera, a small, triumphant smile on her face, and sent a text.

A moment later, my phone buzzed with the memory of a message she had sent me that day: "Thinking of you, darling. Can't wait for you to be home." The video was a calculated act of cruelty, a message from the past designed to twist the knife.

Beneath the video was a line of text: "He was always the one. You were just the convenient fool."

My blood ran cold. Who sent this? How did they get this footage? Then another video arrived. This one was from a lavish party. Sarah's parents were there, clinking champagne glasses with Mark. Her father clapped Mark on the shoulder. "Welcome to the family, son," he said, his voice booming. "Sarah always gets what she wants."

The realization hit me with the force of a tidal wave. It wasn't just Sarah. Her whole family was in on it. They had watched me, entertained me, welcomed me into their lives, all while knowing I was being used, that my body and my fortune were being plundered to save their preferred son-in-law.

The betrayal was deeper, wider, more monstrous than I could have ever imagined. The ground beneath my feet had completely disappeared.