Chapter 2

The world outside Ava' s window woke up to a bright, sunny morning, completely unaware that her own world had shattered into darkness. She lay in their bed, the sheets cold on the side where Ethan should have been. He hadn't come to bed at all. The guest room door was closed when she finally dragged herself from the living room floor in the early hours of the morning.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, a relentless stream of notifications. She picked it up with a numb hand. It was the anniversary post. More comments had poured in overnight. So happy for you both! You give the rest of us hope! Can't wait to see what the next five years bring! Each message was a fresh stab of pain. They saw a perfect marriage, a fairy tale. They didn't see the divorce papers sitting on the coffee table, a death sentence for the very thing they were celebrating. They didn't know that the groom in their fairy tale now looked at her with pure hatred.

Her mind replayed their life together in a frantic, desperate loop. She remembered the early days, supporting his art while she was still a junior architect working grueling hours. She remembered how he would bring her coffee at 2 a.m. when she was studying for her licensing exams. She remembered the day he sold his first major piece, and they danced around their tiny apartment, drunk on cheap wine and happiness. She had designed this house for them, every line and every window a testament to their shared dream. She had poured her soul into their marriage, into him. How could he believe she would throw it all away?

A soft knock on the bedroom door made her jump. "Ava?" It was Ethan.

She sat up, pulling the comforter around her. "Come in."

He walked in, fully dressed. He looked tired, his eyes red-rimmed, but his expression was still hard. He was holding his phone.

"I think you should hear this," he said, his voice cold. He pressed play.

A voice filled the room, a distorted, tinny recording. "I can't wait anymore. Just get rid of him. I need you. Ava, I need you."

Ava stared at him, her blood running cold. The voice was vague, warped, but it was meant to sound like Liam. It was a clumsy fake, something a teenager would cook up.

"What is that?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"It was sent to me from an anonymous number," Ethan said. "It's a recording of a voicemail Liam left for you. He must have thought he was leaving it on your phone."

"That's not Liam's voice!" she protested, scrambling out of bed. "Ethan, listen to it! It's fake! It's obviously fake!"

"Is it?" he shot back, his eyes flashing with renewed anger. "It sounds like him to me. It sounds like a man who's tired of waiting in the wings."

"This is insane!" she yelled, grabbing her own phone. "I'm calling him. I'm putting him on speaker. You can ask him yourself."

She found Liam's number, her fingers shaking so badly she could barely press the screen. It rang twice before he picked up.

"Ava! Happy anniversary!" Liam' s cheerful voice boomed through the speaker. "I was just about to call you guys. We still on for brunch this weekend?"

Ava took a deep, shaky breath. "Liam... I have a strange question for you. Have you... have you left me any voicemails recently?"

There was a pause on the other end. "Voicemails? Ava, who leaves voicemails anymore? I think the last one I left you was two years ago when I was stuck in traffic. Why? What's going on?"

"Ethan thinks..." she started, but her voice broke.

Ethan snatched the phone from her hand. "Liam, did you or did you not tell my wife that you wanted her to get rid of me?"

The line went silent for a moment. "What the hell are you talking about, Ethan? Is this a joke? Because it's not funny. You know I love you guys. You're my family."

"Just answer the question," Ethan said, his voice dangerously low.

"No! Of course not! What is wrong with you?" Liam sounded genuinely shocked and hurt.

Ethan stared at the phone, his expression unreadable for a second, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. But then his face hardened again. He ended the call and tossed the phone back on the bed.

"He's a good liar," Ethan said. "He's had a lot of practice, I'm sure."

"He's not lying, Ethan! You are being manipulated!" she pleaded, following him as he walked out of the room. "Someone is trying to destroy us!"

He ignored her, walking down the stairs. She felt a wave of despair so strong it almost buckled her knees. He was so convinced, so utterly lost in this lie, that no amount of truth could reach him.

He came home late that evening. Ava had been sitting in the darkened living room for hours, just staring at the wall. When he switched on the light, she didn't flinch. He looked disheveled, and as he walked past her, a scent drifted from his jacket. It was a familiar, cloying perfume, sickly sweet. Scarlett's perfume.

Her eyes narrowed, scanning him from head to toe. There, on the collar of his white shirt, was a faint, almost invisible smudge of pink. A lipstick mark. It was the exact shade Scarlett always wore, a garish Pepto-Bismol pink she called her signature color.

Ava felt a new kind of sickness spread through her, a nauseating mix of disgust and fury. The manipulated voice message was one thing, a phantom she couldn't fight. But this... this was real. This was a physical trace of another woman, his ex-girlfriend, on his body, in their home, on the day he destroyed their marriage. The pieces were starting to come together, forming a picture so ugly she could barely look at it.