Chapter 4

For the next week, Brooks played the part of the dutiful husband. He was a constant, silent presence in her hospital room. He peeled her apples, cutting them into perfect, even slices. He fluffed her pillows and adjusted her blankets. When the pain in her shoulder became too much, he would hold her hand, his touch firm and impersonal, until the morphine kicked in.

The old Alex would have been ecstatic. She would have seen this as a breakthrough, a sign that he finally cared. She would have clung to these small gestures like a starving woman given a crust of bread.

But the new Alex felt nothing.

His presence was a weight, his care a performance. She looked at his handsome, earnest face as he held a glass of water to her lips, and all she felt was a vast, desolate emptiness. The fire she had carried for him for so long had been so completely extinguished that not even a single ember remained.

She had always believed that falling out of love would be a long, drawn-out process, a slow, painful death. But it wasn't. It was instantaneous. It was the crack of a bottle against her skull. It was the sight of him comforting her attacker.

Letting go of someone you loved wasn't a process. It was a single, brutal moment of clarity.

The day she was discharged, he was there, his black Maybach waiting at the curb. Alex walked out of the hospital, feeling weak but resolute. As she approached the car, the back door opened.

Sitting inside, looking petulant and bored, was Chastity.

She was wearing a pale pink dress, her face a mask of sullen innocence. A small, almost invisible bandage was still taped to her cheek, a ridiculous parody of injury. Her eyes, when they met Alex' s, were full of unconcealed animosity.

"What is she doing here?" Alex asked, her voice flat.

Brooks opened the front passenger door for Alex. "Chastity is coming home with us. She'll be staying for a while."

He didn't look at Alex as he spoke. He looked at Chastity, and his voice held a soft, chiding note. "Chastity, what did we talk about?"

Chastity rolled her eyes, then turned to Alex with a syrupy, insincere smile. "I'm sorry, Alex. I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just so upset, and I get... emotional." She shrugged, as if her violent assault was a charming, girlish quirk.

Brooks had arranged this. A forced, meaningless apology to smooth things over. To manage the "unseemly family matter."

Alex didn't bother to respond. She got into the car, the silence stretching taut between the three of them.

During the drive, Brooks and Chastity sat in the back, while Alex sat in the front, a pane of soundproof glass separating them from the driver. It felt like she was the chauffeur for their twisted love story.

Through the rearview mirror, Alex watched them. Brooks's eyes kept drifting to Chastity, a constant, worried surveillance.

Chastity, meanwhile, was scrolling through her phone, deliberately provocative. "Oh, look," she said loudly enough for Alex to hear. "Brandon Carmichael just sent me a friend request. He's so cute, isn't he, Brooks?" She held up her phone, showing a picture of a handsome, smiling young man.

A muscle twitched in Brooks's jaw. His hand shot out and covered her phone screen. "Delete it," he ordered, his voice low and dangerous.

"Why?" Chastity whined, pulling her phone away. "I'm allowed to have friends."

"You're not allowed to have 'friends' like him," Brooks said, his voice tight. "Delete his number. Now."

"You're so controlling!" she pouted, but her eyes held a flicker of triumph. She had gotten the reaction she wanted. She pressed a few buttons, then showed him the screen. "There. Happy?"

"Yes," he said, his shoulders relaxing slightly.

Alex watched the entire exchange with a kind of detached fascination. It was so obvious. He wasn't her brother. He was her jealous, possessive lover, trapped in a role he couldn't escape. The thought filled her not with jealousy, but with a profound, weary sadness for the years she had wasted.

When they arrived home, Alex went straight to her bedroom and closed the door. She didn't want to see them. She didn't want to hear them.

But the house was not big enough to contain their presence. Laughter drifted up from the living room-Chastity's high-pitched giggles and Brooks's rare, low chuckle. The sounds were a constant reminder of her exclusion, of the easy intimacy they shared that she had never been granted.

A dull ache spread through her chest, a familiar pain she had come to associate with her marriage. It was the ache of being on the outside looking in.

Later, the sounds died down. Alex, thirsty, crept out of her room. She padded silently down the hallway, the thick carpet muffling her footsteps.

The living room was dark, save for the soft glow of the city lights filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

And on the couch, she saw them.

Chastity was asleep, curled up like a child, her head resting in Brooks's lap. And Brooks... Brooks was looking down at her with an expression of such raw, unguarded adoration that it stole the breath from Alex's lungs. His hand gently stroked Chastity's hair, his fingers tracing the curve of her cheek. It was a look he had never once given Alex. It was the look of a man gazing upon his entire world.

Asleep, Chastity murmured his name. "Brooks..."

She shifted, her lips parting slightly. She reached up in her sleep, her hand circling the back of his neck, and pulled his head down towards hers.

Their lips met.

It was an accident, a sleepy, unconscious gesture from Chastity. But for Brooks, it was a spark on a tinderbox.

For a split second, he froze, his body rigid with shock. Then, something inside him broke. The carefully constructed walls of the saint crumbled into dust. He groaned, a sound of pure, agonizing need, and leaned into the kiss. He kissed her not like a brother, but like a desperate, starving man. His hand tangled in her hair, his body trembling with the force of his repressed desire.

Alex stood in the shadows, a silent, unseen witness to the ultimate betrayal. The sight didn't even hurt anymore. It was just... confirmation.

It was the final piece of the puzzle, locking everything into its terrible, inevitable place.