ANMELDENArthur’s screen flickered as another data set loaded, the room lit by the cold blue glow of evidence trying to become truth. Sophia leaned over his shoulder, close enough that her breath warmed his collarbone, close enough that the tension between them sharpened the silence. Numbers scrolled. Names blurred. Time compressed into a narrow tunnel of focus.
“Here,” Arthur said. “Pause it there.”
Sophia’s finger hovered, then tapped. The ledger froze, a constellation of transfers branching out like veins. Her pulse thudded in her ears. “Those aren’t donations,” she said. “They’re consulting fees. Too regular. Too clean.”
Arthur nodded. “And too small to trigger alerts. Someone wanted them invisible.”
The document arrives just after dawn, slipped beneath the penthouse door like a quiet threat.Julia sees it first—thick cream paper, embossed seal, the weight of authority pressing through the envelope. She doesn’t open it immediately. She stands there barefoot on cold marble, coffee untouched in her hand, heart already racing as if it knows.When Brandon comes out of the bedroom, tie half-knotted, phone pressed to his ear, he stops mid-step.“What is it?” he asks.She hands it to him without a word.He doesn’t sit. He doesn’t breathe. He reads standing, shoulders squaring with every line, jaw tightening until the muscle jumps. The silence stretches, sharp and brittle.
Julia writes the letter at the kitchen counter while the city breathes outside their windows.It starts formal, restrained—language she learned long before love complicated it. This decision is made with respect. Her fingers hesitate, then continue. The words feel heavier than contracts, heavier than court filings. This isn’t a resignation from a job. It’s from a life that has learned to bruise them both.She doesn’t cry. She can’t afford to. Each sentence is a controlled incision, clean and careful. For the sake of stability. For the sake of what you’re fighting. She reads it back once, jaw tight, heart pounding so hard it blurs the margins.
Julia watches the interview alone.The apartment is dim, curtains half-drawn against a gray afternoon, the television casting a cool glow across the room. Vanessa sits perfectly framed on-screen—soft lighting, neutral makeup, hands folded like restraint itself. Her voice is calm, almost wounded, and it makes Julia’s stomach tighten.“I’ve been misunderstood,” Vanessa says gently. “When you work closely with powerful people, assumptions follow.”Julia doesn’t blink. She leans forward, elbows on her knees, fingers threaded so tightly they ache. The first three minutes are exactly what she expected—measured humility, careful omissions, a practiced sadness that invites rescue.“And the rumors?” the interviewer
Arthur doesn’t sit when he tells them.He stands near the window of the conference room, city lights fractured by rain, tablet in his hand like a weapon he doesn’t yet know how to swing. Julia feels it immediately—the tension, the contained urgency—before he even opens his mouth.“This is incomplete,” Arthur says. “But it’s real.”Sophia leans forward first. “Incomplete how?”Arthur turns the tablet toward them. On the screen: a series of transfers, timestamps, names half-redacted. Julia’s pulse picks up as she recognizes one of them.Vanessa.“She paid a director,” Arthur continues. “Not dir
The bed feels too large for two people who refuse to move closer.Julia lies on her side, facing the window, the city’s glow bleeding through the curtains in pale strips of light. Brandon is behind her, close enough that she can feel the heat of him through the thin barrier of sheets and distance, but not touching. Not really. The space between them hums with everything they are not saying.Stress has a way of turning silence into something sharp.She shifts slightly, the mattress dipping. His breath stutters, just once, like he noticed. They are acutely aware of each other—every movement, every pause—yet frozen in restraint, as if crossing the line would break something fragile they’re trying desperately to protect.“You awake?” Brand
Julia sees the photo before she’s ready for it.It’s waiting on her phone when she wakes, screen glowing softly in the half-dark of the bedroom. Vanessa’s hand is curved against Brandon’s shoulder. Her mouth is close to his cheek—too close. His head is angled just enough to make it look intimate. Familiar. Chosen.The framing is cruelly perfect.Julia sits up slowly, sheets sliding from her shoulders, pulse loud in her ears. For a moment, she doesn’t breathe. The world narrows to pixels and implication, to how easily a single image can rewrite a marriage.It looks real.That’s the most dangerous part.Brandon is in the bathroom, water runn







