Chapter 2

That night, I heard Ivan come home, smelling of wine and Kiera's perfume. I should have had a glass of hangover soup waiting for him, as was our custom. But when he came upstairs, he found me sitting quietly on the edge of the bed.

He moved to embrace me, but I instinctively flinched away. He sighed, assuming I was still upset about the amusement park.

"I'm sorry, Allie," he said, his voice smooth. "I'll make it up to you. I'll buy you that new Birkin bag you wanted, okay?"

I just stared at him, my face a blank mask, thinking of all the birthdays he'd forgotten, all the promises he'd broken.

He wrapped his arms around me, his embrace feeling like a cage. "You've been working too hard on that new script. You need to rest," he murmured, every word a lie.

A cold, sharp anger sliced through the pain, but I let him guide me into bed, my expression unreadable as I accepted his fake concern.

The moment his breathing evened out into a deep sleep, I went straight to his office.

It was always locked. He'd told me it was because of sensitive work documents. I used to respect that. Now, I knew it was a vault for his secrets. I tried our anniversary. The date we met. My mother's birthday. Nothing.

Then, a painful thought struck me. My fingers trembled as I typed in the date of my own birthday-which was also Leo's.

The lock clicked open.

The room was pristine, dominated by a large mahogany desk. I started there. In a locked drawer, I found a small, leather-bound photo album. My hands trembled as I opened it.

It was picture after picture of Ivan, Kiera, and their son, Leo. At the park, on a beach, celebrating birthdays with cakes and candles. A perfect, happy family. In one photo, my parents were there, too. My mother was holding Leo, beaming, while my father stood with his arm around Kiera. They looked happier in that stolen moment than I had ever seen them with me.

The evidence was damning, but I needed more. I turned to his laptop. The password was the same. His files were meticulously organized. I found a folder labeled "Personal." Inside, another folder: "L."

It was everything. Videos of Leo's first steps. His first words. Scans of his birth certificate, listing Ivan as the father. And a subfolder named "Finances."

I clicked it open and my blood ran cold. There were monthly wire transfers from a joint account belonging to my parents, Richard and Eleanor Donovan, to a shell corporation. The memo line on each one was the same: "Reese Gallery Investment." The amounts were staggering. Millions of dollars over five years.

They hadn't just enabled this; they had funded it. Every kind word they'd ever said to me, every expensive gift, every hollow promise of family, was paid for with the same money they used to prop up the woman who tried to ruin me and the secret family my husband was raising with her.

The illusion of their love wasn't just a lie; it was a transaction. I was the price they paid to soothe their guilt over Kiera.

I copied everything onto a small, encrypted flash drive. Every photo, every video, every bank statement. As the files transferred, I picked up my phone and called Debi. My voice was eerily calm.

"Debi, I need you to find out everything you can about Kiera Reese for the last five years. Everything." I knew I had to confront them, but I would do it on my own terms, armed with undeniable truth.

My phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.

Kiera. She must have noticed me lurking outside the gallery.

She sent a picture. It was of the family photo I had just seen, the one with my parents.

"Thank you for the lovely painting your husband bought me today. It's beautiful. He said the landscape reminded him of the day we first met. You'll always be the outsider, the convenient replacement."

The taunts were meant to break me. And they did, for a moment. I leaned against the desk, the flash drive clutched in my hand, and a single, hot tear of rage and grief rolled down my cheek.

But then, the grief hardened into something else. Something cold and clear.

She was wrong. I wasn't going to break. I was going to burn their whole world to the ground.