Chapter 2

The seven days Director Miles gave me felt like a lifetime. I moved through our house like a ghost, a stranger in my own home. My body ached from the fall, a constant, dull throb in my lower back, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the emptiness inside me. The baby was gone. My husband was gone. Soon, Ava Riley would be gone too.

I was packing a small bag in my bedroom, just the essentials, when Chloe walked in without knocking. She leaned against the doorframe, examining her nails.

"Leaving so soon?" she asked, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. "Running away from what you did?"

I ignored her, folding a plain gray sweater and placing it in the bag.

"You know, Ethan is taking me to Paris next week," she went on, a deliberate cruelty in her tone. "He said he wants to replace all the bad memories in this house with good ones. With me."

I kept my back to her. "Get out, Chloe."

"Or what? You'll push me down the stairs?" She laughed, a high, sharp sound. "Don't worry. I'm not as fragile as you. And my baby will be strong, not some mistake that couldn't even hold on."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself not to react, not to give her the satisfaction.

I turned to leave the room, but she stepped in my way.

"Where do you think you're going?"

She was holding a glass of red wine. With a flick of her wrist, she "tripped," sending the entire glass of dark liquid splashing all over the pristine white carpet at my feet. The final gift Ethan bought me last Christmas.

"Oh, clumsy me!" she gasped, putting a hand to her mouth in mock horror. "Look at this mess. Ethan will be furious."

Just then, Ethan's car pulled into the driveway.

He walked in to find Chloe dabbing at her dress with a napkin and me standing over the giant, ugly stain.

"What happened?" he asked, his eyes immediately hardening when he looked at me.

"I'm so sorry, Ethan," Chloe said, her voice trembling. "I just came to say goodbye to Ava, and she... she got so angry. She threw her wine at me. It missed me, but it ruined the rug."

"I didn't," I said, my voice flat and tired. I didn't have the energy to fight anymore.

"Are you calling Chloe a liar?" Ethan snarled, stepping toward me. He looked at the stain, then at me, his face a thundercloud of disgust. "My mother loved this rug."

"I know," I whispered.

"Clean it up," he ordered.

I stared at him. "What?"

"You heard me. Get on your knees and clean it up. Now."

Chloe watched, a smug, triumphant look on her face.

"Ethan, don't be ridiculous," I said.

He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh. "Are you refusing? After everything you've done? Maybe a night in a jail cell for assault will change your mind. Chloe is happy to press charges."

I looked from his cold, merciless face to Chloe's victorious one. I was trapped. Another fight, another police report... it could compromise the entire project. My departure had to be quiet, seamless.

With a deep, shuddering breath, I sank to my knees. The fibers of the rug were rough against my skin. He threw a small cloth at my feet.

"Use your hands," he said. "I want to see you scrub."

As I knelt, a sharp pain shot through my injured back. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. My hands were already red and raw from scrubbing when a piece of the broken wine glass, hidden in the fibers, sliced deep into my palm.

Blood welled up, mixing with the wine, staining the white cloth crimson.

Ethan just watched, unmoved. "You missed a spot."

I remembered him kneeling on this very spot, proposing to me. He had held my hand so gently, his eyes full of love, promising to cherish me forever. Now he was watching me bleed on the floor.

Tears I didn't know I had left began to fall, hot and silent, onto the stained carpet. I wasn't just cleaning a mess. I was scrubbing away the last remnants of our life together.

He let me clean for what felt like hours. When he was finally satisfied, he pulled me to my feet.

"Now get out of my sight," he said, turning his back on me. He walked over to Chloe and wiped a fake tear from her cheek with his thumb. "It's okay, baby. She can't hurt you anymore."

I stumbled back to my room, my hand wrapped in the bloody cloth. I finished packing. My wedding rings were still on the nightstand. I picked them up, the gold cool against my skin. I remembered the day he slipped them on my finger.

I left them on the nightstand and closed the door behind me.

As I was about to leave the house for good, I had a sudden, panicked thought. Eleanor's notebooks. Her personal research notes, full of calculations and theoretical work that weren't in the official files. They were irreplaceable.

I rushed to her study. They weren't on the shelf where she kept them. My heart hammered against my ribs. I tore the room apart, pulling books from shelves, opening drawers. Nothing.

Then I heard laughter from the living room.

I walked in to see Ethan and Chloe sitting on the sofa. A fire was roaring in the fireplace. And in Chloe's hands was one of Eleanor's notebooks.

"Looking for these?" she asked, holding it up.

"Chloe, no," I breathed, my blood running cold. "Please. That's all I have left of her."

"I know," she said with a sweet, poisonous smile. "Ethan was just telling me how you were obsessed with his mother's work. He thinks you were trying to steal it, to sell it."

Ethan's face was a mask of cold fury. "Is that what this is about? Money?"

"No! It's her legacy!" I cried, taking a step toward them. "You can't destroy it!"

"Watch me," Chloe said.

She opened the notebook and, with a theatrical flourish, ripped out a handful of pages. The sound of tearing paper was the sound of my world ending.

She tossed the crumpled pages into the fire. They caught instantly, curling into black ash.

"NO!" I screamed, lunging forward, trying to snatch the book from her hands.

Ethan grabbed me, throwing me back onto the floor. "Don't you touch her!"

He stood over me, his shadow eclipsing the firelight. "You want them? Fine." He took the remaining notebooks from the coffee table. "Beg for them."

I stared up at him, my vision blurred with tears. "Ethan, please. This was your mother's soul."

"My mother is dead because of you!" he roared. He held a notebook over the flames. "Kneel."

I didn't move.

"I said, KNEEL!"

He let the corner of the notebook dip toward the fire. The paper started to brown.

"Okay! Okay!" I scrambled to my knees, the pain in my back flaring. "Please, just give them to me."

He laughed, a hollow, broken sound. "It's pathetic, watching you grovel."

He dropped the notebooks on the floor, just out of my reach. I crawled toward them, my hands shaking, and gathered them into my arms, clutching them to my chest. They were all I had left.

As I held the charred, torn remains of Eleanor's life's work, I looked up at the man I once loved. The man who was destroying me.

And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I had to survive. I had to finish this. For Eleanor. And now, for me.

The final night came. It was my birthday. Director Miles had arranged a small farewell dinner for me with a few trusted government officials at a private club. A quiet goodbye.

As I walked into the main hall, my breath caught in my throat. The room was filled with people. All our friends, colleagues, Ethan's family. There was a huge banner that read "Happy Birthday Ava!"

For a dizzying second, I thought Ethan had done this. That this was his apology. A way to make things right.

Hope, that stupid, stubborn thing, flared in my chest.

Then I saw him. He was standing on a small stage at the front of the room, a microphone in his hand. Chloe was beside him, her hand resting protectively on her stomach.

"Thank you all for coming," Ethan said, his voice booming through the speakers. The room fell silent. "I know this was supposed to be a birthday party for Ava."

He looked right at me, his eyes full of ice.

"But we have something much more important to celebrate."

He smiled, a wide, predatory grin. "Chloe and I are getting engaged! And," he paused, letting the drama build, "we're going to have a baby!"

A collective gasp went through the room. People turned to stare at me, their faces a mixture of shock, pity, and confusion. The banner with my name on it suddenly felt like a cruel joke.

My world tilted. The air was sucked from my lungs. This wasn't a party. It was a public execution.

Ethan's friends, who were like brothers to me, looked horrified. "Ethan, what the hell are you talking about?" one of them, Mark, shouted from the crowd. "You're married to Ava!"

"Not for long," Ethan said, his voice dripping with venom. "I've filed for divorce. I could no longer be married to the woman who murdered my mother."

The room erupted in whispers.

Chloe stepped forward, tears welling in her eyes. "He's right," she sobbed. "I saw her. She pulled the plug. And she was cheating on him. The baby she 'lost'... it wasn't even his."

The lies were so outrageous, so monstrous, that I couldn't even speak. I just stood there, frozen, as my life and reputation were systematically dismantled in front of everyone I knew.

Director Miles moved to my side, ready to intervene, to stop this. But I put a hand on his arm.

"Don't," I whispered. "It's the only way. Let them believe it."

If they all hated me, if everyone thought I was a monster, no one would look for me when I disappeared. My vanishing act would be complete.

So I stood there and took it. I absorbed every lie, every hateful glance, every pitying whisper.

Chloe pointed a shaking finger at Director Miles. "She was cheating with him! I saw them! That's her sugar daddy!"

That was the last straw for Ethan. With a guttural roar of rage, he jumped off the stage, grabbed a bottle of champagne from a table, and smashed it on the floor at my feet. Shards of green glass flew everywhere.

"Is it true?" he screamed, his face inches from mine, spittle flying from his lips. "Were you sleeping with him while my mother was dying?"

I looked into his eyes, eyes I once knew better than my own, and saw nothing but a stranger filled with hate.

"It doesn't matter anymore, Ethan," I said, my voice eerily calm. "We are over."

The words seemed to break something in him. He grabbed my shoulders, shaking me violently. "You ruined my life!"

"You ruined your own life," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

He raised his hand to hit me again, but this time, I didn't flinch. I just looked at him, my heart a dead, heavy stone in my chest.

He hesitated, his own pain and confusion warring with his anger. He looked lost. For a second, I saw a flicker of the man I married, a boy grieving his mother.

Then it was gone.

"Get out," he choked out, his voice thick with unshed tears. "Get out of my life and never come back."

I saw a tear escape his eye and track down his cheek. In that moment, I knew he was crying for the love we had lost, the love he himself had destroyed.

Director Miles put a protective arm around my shoulders and guided me out of the room. As we walked away, I didn't look back.

Outside, the cool night air was a relief. I looked up at the moon, a perfect white disc in the black sky.

"May my country prosper," I whispered to the silence. "May my people live in peace."

In the car, I took out the divorce papers Ethan had thrown at me. I signed them without reading. Then I took out my own identity documents, my passport, my driver's license.

One by one, I fed them into the small, portable shredder Director Miles had in the car.

I watched the pieces of Ava Riley turn into meaningless confetti.

"I'm ready," I said, looking at him.

He nodded, a look of profound respect in his eyes.

"Goodbye, Ava Riley," he said softly.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cool glass of the window. I was no one now. And I was finally free.