What A Fool

*Nia's point of view*

I opened the huge safe behind my wedding portrait and brought out the gun I had always kept hidden.

It was one of the valuables my mother had given me before she died.

Now I was going to use it. Not to protect myself, not on an enemy, but on my own husband.

I was going to make him sign our divorce papers while aiming this at his bloody head. The irony wasn't lost on me; the portrait above the safe showed us smiling on our wedding day, young and hopeful. What a lie that had been.

*TWO DAYS EARLIER*

"I'm resigning, Ma'am."

That was Grace, the new house help I had just hired barely a week ago. She looked scared, shaken, and tired, like someone who had been carrying a burden too heavy for her shoulders.

I should have said okay and allowed her to leave, but something in me felt uneasy. The way her eyes darted around, the way her hands twisted together. She might have been going through something. So I asked her about it and if she needed any help.

She burst out in tears the moment I did.

"I can't do this anymore. You're just too kind and innocent. You don't deserve what they're doing to you."

That grasped my attention. I guided her to sit down, comforted her, and asked her what she meant.

"Madam Isla and Sir Caspian... they do a lot of bad things when you're not around. They paid me a lot of money not to say anything about it. I thought I could keep quiet, but I just can't. You deserve to know the truth."

My blood ran cold.

Isla, my cousin, whom I had brought here a year ago when she was homeless, and Caspian, my husband of five years. The two people I had trusted most in the world.

I didn't immediately believe Grace, but I took her seriously. After she left, I did something I hadn't done in months. I went into my husband's room.

Two months after Isla had started living with us, Caspian had told me he was tired of sharing a room with me and needed his privacy.

I was the type to never complain, the type to swallow every hurt and smile through it so I accepted without questions. And since then, I had never stepped into the room. Only the maids were allowed to go into it for cleaning. I had convinced myself it was respect for his boundaries. Now I saw it for what it really was; willful blindness.

I turned the knob and it opened slowly.

I almost lost my footing at what I saw.

Her underwear was everywhere, her makeup scattered on the same vanity table that used to be mine, and her clothes filled the closet. There were packs of condoms right beside the bed, displayed so carelessly it made my stomach turn. They hadn't even respected me enough to be discreet.

All this time, they had both been sharing a room. Isla and Caspian. They had done so under my very nose, in my own house, with my own money keeping the lights on.

Had I been so foolish? Or had I just had so much trust in my husband that I didn't see this coming?

Everything that didn't make sense before began to actually make sense.

Anytime Caspian had a business trip, Isla would also give an excuse to travel too. Whenever I wasn't home, they were both always at home together.

But I had never questioned anything because Caspian hated questions. And I had loved him too much to risk angering him.

I didn't give myself time to cry or hate myself. All I wanted right then was to leave that goddamn marriage.

That same day, I drove to Jenny's firm.

When she saw me walk in with glossy eyes and my fists clenching so hard my nails dug into my palms, she knew I needed her not as a friend but as the ruthless divorce lawyer that she was.

"I want to kill him. I want to kill them both so badly."

But she patted my hands and gave me a reassuring smile.

"That's against the law, sweetheart. But you know what's not against the law? It's you taking back all your goddamn money and leaving them to rot in their miserable lives."

And she was right.

Caspian and I had gotten together through an arranged marriage. My stepfather had wanted me out, and he didn't care how much he had to spend to make it happen. Meanwhile, Caspian's family had been bankrupt and they had needed money to pay their debts.

After the marriage, I had fallen in love with Caspian, and I had made myself believe he loved me too. What a fool I had been.

"For you to get back all your money, sweetheart, you need him to sign some papers. And I doubt he's going to do that willingly."

I looked down at the papers, both the transfer of funds and the divorce papers. I had to make him sign both. I looked up at Jenny again, determined.

"Leave that to me. Give me three days and I'll get them signed.”