Chapter 1

My husband, Harrison Phelps, was the FBI's golden boy, the hero negotiator who never lost his cool. To the world, we were the perfect couple.

Then a bank robbery went wrong. The desperate kidnapper grabbed two women as human shields: me, and Harrison's colleague, Brooke. He gave my husband a choice: save one.

Through the megaphone, my husband's voice boomed, clear and decisive for the whole world to hear.

"Let Brooke Shelton go! She is a national asset!"

He rushed to embrace her, shielding her with his body, never once looking back at me. The kidnapper, enraged, turned his gun on me. I saw the flash before the world went black.

I woke up in the hospital and the first thing I did was call a lawyer. I wanted a divorce. But he returned from retrieving our marriage certificate with a strange look on his face.

"There's a problem, Mrs. Phelps," he said, sliding the document across the table. "According to official records, this was never filed. Legally, you were never married."

Six years. Our home, our friends, our life-all built on a lie. It was all for her. He built a perfect, fake life with me just so he could wait for Brooke to come back.

Chapter 1

Harrison Phelps could talk a man off a ledge. He could disarm a bomber with a steady voice and a well-placed promise. On every news channel, he was the FBI' s golden boy, the hero negotiator from the Hostage Rescue Team who never lost his cool. I watched him on the screen, his jaw set, his eyes calm, and felt a familiar mix of pride and a cold, empty space beside me on the couch.

Everyone saw the perfect couple. Celebrated Hero Finds Love with Devoted Wife, Ava Peterson, one magazine headline read. Our friends sighed with envy at dinner parties. "You two are what everyone hopes for," they' d say. Harrison would smile, a perfect, polished smile, and squeeze my hand. It was an excellent performance.

But when the cameras were off and the friends were gone, that hand would drop. His eyes, so focused and empathetic on television, would look past me, through me. The warmth was a switch he flipped for the public. For me, there was only a polite, consuming distance. He was a professional in control of everything, except the ability to truly love the woman he called his wife.

The phone rang, shattering the evening quiet. Harrison answered, his voice instantly changing, becoming warmer, more alive than I had heard it in years.

"Brooke? You' re back?"

A sharp, brutal cramp seized my abdomen. I gasped, doubling over, the remote clattering to the floor. Pain, hot and vicious, tore through me.

Harrison barely glanced my way. "A welcome party? Of course, I' ll be there."

"Harrison," I managed to say, my voice tight with agony. "Something's wrong."

He covered the receiver. "What is it, Ava? I'm on the phone."

"The baby," I whispered, a wave of nausea and terror washing over me. "I think... I' m losing the baby."

He looked at me then, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. He said into the phone, "I'll be there soon, Brooke. Can't wait to see you." He hung up and turned to me, his face a mask of impatience. "Are you sure? It' s probably just a stomach ache."

"No," I cried, another wave of pain making me see spots. "It's not. I'm bleeding."

He sighed, a sound of profound inconvenience. He pulled out his wallet and tossed a credit card on the coffee table. "Call a cab. I have to go. This party is important."

"Important?" I stared at him, the pain in my heart now rivaling the pain in my body. "More important than this? Than our child?"

"It wasn't really a child yet, Ava," he said, his voice cold and dismissive. He straightened his tie. "It was barely a clump of cells. Don' t be dramatic."

"Brooke' s return is a major event," he continued, his tone shifting to the reasonable, professional one he used on criminals. "She' s a key figure in counter-terrorism. My presence is a professional necessity. You understand."

I couldn't speak. The cruelty of his words stole my breath. He saw my silence as acceptance. He patted my shoulder, a gesture devoid of any comfort.

"I' ll check on you later."

Then he walked out the door, leaving me bleeding on the floor.

He went to her party. I went to the emergency room alone. The doctor' s words were a dull buzz in the background. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Phelps. We did everything we could."

Hours later, Harrison appeared at my bedside. He smelled of expensive perfume and champagne. He held a bouquet of cheap hospital flowers. His face was a well-rehearsed mask of concern.

"I'm so sorry, honey. I came as soon as I heard."

The lie was so blatant, so insulting, it made me feel sick. I turned my face to the wall.

"Don't touch me," I said, my voice flat.

He tried anyway, his hand on my arm. "Ava, I know you're upset. Brooke and I, we' re just old friends. It was a professional obligation."

"Get out," I whispered.

He sighed, the patient negotiator dealing with an irrational subject. "Fine. I'll give you some space." He left, and the silence he left behind was a relief.

The next week was a blur of grief and emptiness. Then came the call that changed everything. A bank robbery downtown. Hostages. Harrison was the lead negotiator. I watched it on the news from my bed, a hollowed-out spectator to his heroism.

Then the situation escalated. The robber, desperate, made a break for it, dragging two women with him as shields. The camera zoomed in. My blood ran cold. One was a stranger. The other was Brooke Shelton.

They were cornered in an alley. Another figure appeared on screen-Ava. She had been nearby, and in a moment of chaos, the robber grabbed her too. Now he held both women.

The feed was live. A police captain was speaking. "The suspect is demanding a choice. He says Negotiator Phelps has to choose who gets to walk away."

The camera was tight on Harrison' s face. He looked torn for a moment, a perfect picture of agony for the audience. But I knew him. I saw the calculation in his eyes.

He raised the megaphone to his lips. His voice boomed through the speakers, clear and decisive.

"Let Brooke Shelton go! She is a national asset!"

My world stopped. On the screen, the kidnapper shoved Brooke towards the police line. Harrison rushed forward, enveloping her in a protective embrace, his body shielding hers. He never once looked back at me.

The kidnapper, enraged and cornered, turned his gun on me. I saw the flash. A searing pain exploded in my side. The world went black.

I woke up to the sterile white ceiling of a hospital room. The first thing I did was call a lawyer.

"I want to file for divorce," I told a man named Mr. Davies.

He looked at me with pity. "Of course, Mrs. Phelps. A terrible ordeal. We'll just need a copy of your marriage certificate to get started."

I had him retrieve it from the safety deposit box. He returned to my hospital room an hour later, his expression strange.

"There's a problem, Mrs. Phelps."

"What is it?"

He slid a document across the bedside table. It was our marriage license. Or what was supposed to be our marriage license.

"This document," he said gently, "was never filed with the county clerk's office. It's a fraudulent copy."

I stared at it. The looping signature of the officiant, the date, our names-all looked real. "What are you talking about? We had a wedding. Six years ago."

"I'm sorry," Mr. Davies said, his voice firm. "I checked the official records myself. There is no record of a marriage between Ava Peterson and Harrison Phelps. Legally, you were never married."

The words didn't make sense. A six-year lie. Our home, our friends, our life-all built on a piece of paper he never filed. A fake. It was all a fake.

It was for her. It had always been for her. He built a perfect, fake life with me so he could wait for Brooke to come back.

My phone rang. It was my brother, Dustin, a senior agent at the DEA. His voice was grim.

"Ava, are you sitting down? I've been digging into Harrison. And into Brooke Shelton."

"What is it, Dustin?" I asked, my voice a dead monotone.

"The terrorist bombing that killed Mom. The intelligence failure that led the response team to the wrong location... the analyst who made that fatal error was scrubbed from the official report."

A cold dread seeped into my bones.

"The analyst's name, Ava," Dustin said, his voice laced with fury. "It was Brooke Shelton."

The phone slipped from my hand. Harrison hadn't just covered up for his obsession. He had married me, the daughter of one of her victims, as the ultimate cover. My life wasn't just a lie. It was a desecration.

I went back to the house that was never my home. Harrison was there, his face a mask of fake concern.

"Ava, thank God you're okay. I was so worried."

I pushed past him, refusing his touch. The man was a stranger to me. A monster.

"I tried to explain at the scene," he started, his voice dripping with false sincerity. "Brooke is a national asset. The choice was a strategic one, a cold calculation for the greater good."

"You're a stranger," I said, looking at him as if for the first time. The charming facade was gone. I saw only the rot beneath.

"You really think she's a hero, don't you?" I asked, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. I held up the fraudulent marriage license, the paper trembling in my hand. "Just like you think this is real."

This was my life. A placeholder wife for a narcissistic monster obsessed with an incompetent fraud who killed my mother. The thought was so absurd, so horrifying, I felt nothing. Just a vast, cold numbness.

I pushed past him and went to my room, locking the door. I needed to escape. I needed to disappear. I fell into a restless, exhausted sleep.

A housekeeper sent by Harrison knocked on my door with a tray of food. I ignored it. Later, one of Harrison' s FBI colleagues, a man who always looked at me with pity, came to the door.

"Ava, Harrison is a good man," he said through the wood. "He's just... complicated. And Brooke, she's been through a lot. That mistake years ago... it wasn't her fault. It was a high-pressure situation."

His words confirmed everything. Harrison had built a wall of lies around Brooke, using his reputation and power to protect her. And he used me as the foundation for that wall.

I realized then that my love, my pain, my lost child-they meant nothing to him. They were just inconveniences in the grand, obsessive story he had written for himself and Brooke.

The numbness receded, replaced by a cold, clear focus. I would not be a victim. I opened my laptop, my fingers flying across the keyboard. It was time to stop being Ava Peterson, the gentle wife. It was time to be who I really was.