Chapter 2

The next morning, Christian was the perfect, doting husband.

He brought me coffee in bed, his brow furrowed with pretend concern. "You seemed so stressed yesterday. I was worried about you."

His hand rested on my forehead, a gesture that once brought me comfort. Now, his touch felt like a spider crawling on my skin. I had to fight the urge to flinch away.

"Just a long day," I said, forcing a smile. I took the coffee, the warmth of the mug doing nothing to stop the ice forming in my veins.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his face a mask of sincerity. "I have to go to a deposition out of town today. But I was thinking... maybe we should take a trip next month. Just the two of us. Get away from all this campaign madness."

"That sounds nice," I said, my voice hollow.

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The deposition is near the old Hobbs estate. Every time I go out that way, I think about her. About Isabelle."

My blood ran cold. He was using the memory of the woman he was secretly living with as a cover story. The sheer audacity of it was breathtaking. It wasn't just a lie; it was a desecration.

He was using my supposed sympathy for his past grief to hide his present betrayal.

"I understand," I said, my voice perfectly level. "Take all the time you need."

"You're the best, Elara." He tried to kiss me. I turned my head at the last second, so his lips brushed my cheek. I blamed it on taking a sip of coffee. He didn't seem to notice.

He stood up, grabbing his briefcase. "I'll call you when I get there. Don't work too hard."

The moment the front door clicked shut, I moved.

There was no time for grief. Grief was a luxury for the woman who died yesterday. I needed proof. Hard, undeniable proof that would burn their world to the ground.

His home office. It was the one place he was meticulous about his privacy.

I walked into the room that smelled of his cologne and our shared life. It was a lie, all of it. I went straight to his desk, to his secure work laptop.

The lock screen was a photo I took of us in Italy, smiling under the Tuscan sun. The image was a bitter pill. I tried the usual passwords. My birthday. Our anniversary. The name of our dog. Nothing.

Then, a thought struck me. A cold, sharp thought.

The child. The little boy. Leo.

I remembered hearing Isabelle call his name yesterday.

I looked closer at the desk. Tucked under a stack of legal pads was a small, silver picture frame, facedown. I had never seen it before. I turned it over. It was a photo of the boy, Leo, smiling, a gap in his teeth. On the back, etched in silver, was a date.

His birthday.

I typed it in. `Leo0518`.

The screen unlocked.

I felt a moment of grim triumph, immediately swallowed by a wave of nausea. The desktop background wasn't me. It was Christian, Isabelle, and Leo, standing in front of a Christmas tree. They were a family. The real family.

I ignored the searing pain in my chest and started clicking. There were folders. "Family Vacation - 2022." "Leo's 4th Birthday." "Summer at the Lake." Hundreds of photos. A complete history of the life he lived when he wasn't with me.

I found what I was really looking for in a password-protected folder labeled "Household." The password was even simpler: "Vance."

Inside were bank statements. Scans of wire transfers. Monthly payments from something called the "Vance Family Strategic Fund"-my father's personal political slush fund-to the "Serenity Meadow Retreat."

The payments started five years ago, a month before Christian and I had our first date.

It wasn't just Christian. It was all of them. My father, Franklin. My stepmother, Gwyn. They hadn't just known. They had orchestrated it. They had paid for it. They had built my marriage on a foundation of lies to keep a political scandal buried and to protect their "true" grandchild.

My wedding vows echoed in my head. Christian's voice, thick with emotion, promising to be my partner, my anchor, my truth.

"In you, Elara, I've found my home."

The room started to spin. I gripped the edge of the desk, my knuckles white. I wanted to scream. I wanted to break everything. But I couldn't. Not yet.

My eyes fell on one last file, buried deep in a subfolder. A video file, named with a simple date from six months ago. I clicked play.

A Zoom window opened. I saw my father's face, stern and commanding. Gwyn, cool and poised beside him. And Christian, looking earnest and concerned.

"The primary is heating up," my father said. "We can't afford any mistakes. Elara's strategy is flawless, but she's getting too close to the finances."

"She's smart," Gwyn added, her voice like ice. "If she finds out about Isabelle and the boy..."

Christian shifted uncomfortably. "She won't. I've been careful."

"Careful isn't good enough," my father snapped. "We need a contingency plan. If she discovers the truth, if she threatens the campaign... we leak the stories. We have the background already prepared. Her mother's history of instability. Her isolated childhood. We paint her as emotionally volatile, a liability. We discredit her before she can discredit us."

Christian looked down. He didn't protest. He just nodded. "Understood."

The video ended.

I sat there, frozen. It wasn't just a betrayal. It was a premeditated character assassination. They weren't just hiding a secret. They were prepared to destroy me to protect it.

The family I thought was my anchor was my prison. The man I loved was my warden. And my father... my father was the architect of it all.

The pain was gone. The nausea was gone. All that was left was a terrifying clarity.

I copied the entire hard drive onto a small, encrypted flash drive. I put the drive in my pocket. It felt heavy, like a weapon.

My phone rang. It was Christian.

"Hey, just got to the hotel," he said, his voice casual. "Everything okay?"

"Everything's perfect," I said, my voice a flawless imitation of his loving wife. "Just missing you already."

"I miss you too," he lied.

I hung up the phone. I would not be a victim. I would not be their liability.

I was the brilliant political strategist who had resurrected a dying campaign. I built their dynasty.

And now, I was going to be the one to burn it to the ash.