Vanessa in Ethan’s shirt. Ethan asleep behind her. The champagne. The evidence.
Underneath it, I typed one message:
“Looks like our CEO has been working very hard on this new project. Vanessa appears deeply committed to supporting him. Congratulations to both of them. May their happiness last a hundred years.”
I hit send.
The message landed like a grenade sliding across polished mahogany.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then one person read it. Then another. Profile icons began lighting up one by one in the darkness.
I smiled.
Vanessa thought she had destroyed the wife. She had actually ruined the husband.
I powered off my phone, removed the SIM card, walked into the marble bathroom, and flushed it down the toilet. Watching the old version of myself disappear felt strangely peaceful.
The woman who stayed silent. The woman who protected her husband’s reputation. Gone.
I walked to the hidden safe inside my closet. Behind jewelry I never cared about and handbags I never loved sat a black carry-on suitcase I had packed three months earlier.
Passports. Contracts. Financial records. Two encrypted phones. A new identity folder prepared by the best private attorney in California.
I changed into jeans, a black sweater, and sneakers. No diamonds. Nothing that belonged to Mrs. Whitmore.
Downstairs, Ethan’s collection of exotic cars gleamed beneath the garage lights. I ignored the Ferrari and the Aston Martin. Instead, I chose a black Range Rover registered under one of Ethan’s shell corporations. The irony made me smile.
By 4:00 a.m., I was driving through empty streets toward Los Angeles International Airport while the city still slept.
