Chapter 3

The Wolfe mansion was quiet in the way only empty houses managed to be quiet — not peaceful, just hollow, the kind of silence that pressed against the eardrums instead of soothing them.

Selene stood in the doorway of the bedroom she'd shared with Tristan for three years, keys still warm in her palm from the drive over. Moonlight fell across the untouched side of the bed, the one that had stayed untouched for longer than she cared to count.

She set down the empty boxes she'd carried in from the car and got to work.

The closet came first — easiest, impersonal, just fabric and hangers. She folded blouses into neat stacks without looking at them too closely, the way you handle something you've already decided not to feel anything about.

Then she reached the shelf above the dresser, and her hands slowed.

The wedding album sat where it always had, spine cracked from being opened too many times in the first year and not once since. She lifted it, and it fell open on its own to a page near the middle — her in white, laughing at something just out of frame, Tristan's hand resting against the small of her back like he never intended to move it.

Her thumb hovered over his face in the photograph.

She closed the album and set it in the box without letting herself look again.

The ultrasound photo was tucked inside her nightstand drawer, beneath a stack of receipts she'd never bothered to throw away. The paper had gone soft at the edges from handling, a small grainy shape frozen mid-motion, forever the same size it had been the day the doctor pointed to it and said, “there's your heartbeat.”

Selene's fingers trembled around the edges of the photo.

She set it down on the bed and reached for the small drawer beneath it, and that was where she found the socks — impossibly tiny, white with a yellow trim, still folded in the tissue paper from the store because she'd never gotten the chance to use them.

Something in her chest gave way.

She sank onto the edge of the bed, one hand pressed hard against her mouth, the socks clutched in her other fist like they might dissolve if she let go. Her shoulders shook once, twice, the sound she made muffled and raw against her palm.

Tristan lifted her off her feet the moment the doctor left the room, spinning her once before setting her down, both hands cradling her face like she'd handed him the entire world. "We're having a baby," he kept saying, disbelieving, and delighted, while pressing his forehead to hers. "Selene. We're having a baby, thank you for this beautiful gift.”

Then he kissed her softly with warmth.

The memory dissolved as fast as it had come, leaving only the socks in her hand and the empty room around her.

She wiped her face with the back of her wrist, forced her spine straight, and folded the socks carefully into the box beside the ultrasound photo. Some things you didn't leave behind, even in a house you were leaving forever.

A voice cut through the quiet from the doorway.

"Looks like you're finally taking the hint."

Selene didn't turn immediately. She recognized the voice, the particular tone Bianca used when she thought she'd already won something.

"You could've knocked," Selene said, closing the flaps of the box with more force than necessary.

"It's not really your house to knock in anymore, is it?" Bianca stepped further into the room, arms crossed, studying the half-packed boxes with the satisfaction of someone touring property they already considered theirs. "Careful with that album Tristan might want it, for memories."

"He can burn it for all I care."

Bianca's mouth curved. She wandered closer to the bed, gaze dropping to the small stack of baby items Selene hadn't managed to box away yet, and something flickered across her expression — gone before it could be named.

"You know," Bianca said, voice dropping into something almost gentle, almost kind, which made it worse, "you were only ever useful to him because of the baby. Once that was gone, so was your purpose." She tilted her head, watching for the wound to open. "I actually feel a little sorry for you."

Selene's hands stilled on the box lid. She didn't look up right away, letting the words settle into the room the way smoke settles into fabric — inescapable, but not something she intended to carry out the door with her.

When she finally lifted her head, her face had gone smooth, unreadable, a door closing somewhere behind her eyes.

"Careful, Bianca," she said quietly. "Pity looks a lot like guilt on you."

Something flickered across Bianca's face — quick, almost imperceptible — before her composed mask slid back into place.

Selene reached for the ring on her finger. It came off easier than she expected, three years of weight lifting free in a single motion. She set it on the nightstand without ceremony, the metal clicking softly against the wood.

"I hope you're worth everything I lost," she said, not to Bianca, not really — the words aimed somewhere past her, toward the house, the album, the socks folded into a box that would never see a nursery.

She picked up her things and walked out without looking back, her heels echoing down the marble staircase, through the foyer, out into a night that smelled like rain and freedom in equal measure.

Bianca stood alone in the bedroom long after the front door clicked shut.

She waited until the sound of Selene's car faded from the driveway before she moved, crossing to the small fireproof lockbox tucked behind Tristan's side of the closet. Her fingers found the hidden key without hesitation — she'd known where it was for months.

Inside sat a single folded document, its edges yellowed with age, a hospital letterhead stamped across the top.

Bianca carried it to the fireplace in the adjoining sitting room, struck a match with steady hands, and watched the flame catch the corner of the paper.

She didn't blink as it curled black and crumbled to ash, the last piece of evidence that could have unraveled everything she'd built disappearing into smoke before anyone would ever think to look for it.