CHAPTER 5

Elena's POV

The word hung in the air between us.

Divorce.

I had said it. Actually said it. Out loud to his face.

And for a long, terrifying second, Damien just stared at me. Like the word didn't compute. Like his brain needed extra time to process the fact that his quiet, patient, always-waiting wife had just looked him dead in the eye and asked him to let her go.

Then he laughed.

Not a real laugh. It was short and sharp, like he found the whole thing ridiculous. He turned away from me and tossed his shirt onto the chair by the window.

"Elena." His voice was calm. Too calm. "Stop being dramatic."

I blinked. Dramatic?

I looked down at the ultrasound picture still trembling in my hand. Georgina's ultrasound. His mistress. The woman I had been donating blood to. The woman carrying his child.

"Damien." I forced my voice to stay steady. "Look at me."

He didn't.

"Look at me!"

The sharpness in my voice surprised even me. It was a voice I didn't recognize. It had edges. It had weight. It wasn't the soft, pleading tone I always used with him. And maybe that's why it worked, because Damien finally turned around. His eyes met mine.

I held up the ultrasound picture.

"Georgina is pregnant." I said it slowly. "And this picture has been in your pocket. So tell me, Damien. Tell me right now, to my face, that she is your cousin."

Something moved across his face. Just for a second. A flash of something that looked almost like guilt. Then it was gone, replaced by the cold, hard mask he always wore.

"Where did you get that?"

"It fell out of your pocket." I said. "Answer the question."

He was quiet.

The silence was louder than anything he could have said.

My chest cracked open slowly, like ice splitting under pressure. Even though I already knew the answer, some pathetic, desperate part of me had been hoping he would deny it. Hoping he would look me in the eye and tell me I was wrong. That I was being paranoid. That there was some explanation.

But he said nothing. And his silence told me everything.

"How long?" My voice broke on those two words.

Still nothing.

"How long, Damien?!"

"Elena—"

"How long have you been sleeping with her?!"

He exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair. Like I was inconveniencing him. Like my devastation was just another thing on his long list of annoyances.

"It's complicated," he said finally.

Complicated. Five years of my life, five years of giving him everything I had, and the best he could offer me was complicated.

I let out a laugh that didn't sound like me. It was hollow and humorless and it echoed in the bedroom that had never really felt like mine anyway.

"Georgina and I...." He stopped. Started again. "We have history. Before you. Long before you. When she came back, it just—"

"Just happened?" I finished for him. "Is that what you were going to say? That it just happened?"

He didn't answer.

"Did you ever love me?" The question came out before I could stop it. I hated myself for asking it. But I needed to know. After five years, after everything, I needed to hear him say it.

His jaw tightened. He looked away.

And that was his answer.

My knees nearly buckled. I pressed my hand against the wall to steady myself. The room was spinning but I refused to fall. Not here. Not in front of him.

"I want a divorce." I said again, quieter this time. "I meant it the first time and I mean it now."

Damien turned back to me and this time, something shifted in his expression. It wasn't guilt or remorse. It was something else. Something colder.

"You're not going anywhere, Elena."

I frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Think about what you're doing. Think about what you're throwing away. You have a good life here. You have everything."

"I have nothing here," I said quietly. "I have been invisible for five years. I have nothing."

"You have my name." His eyes hardened. "Do you have any idea what that's worth?"

The arrogance of those words hit me like a second slap. His name. He actually thought his name was supposed to be enough. Supposed to make up for everything.

"Your name means nothing to me anymore." I held his gaze, my voice steady. "Sign the papers, Damien."

He stared at me for a long moment. Something dangerous flickered in his eyes. Then his lips curved slightly, and the smile that appeared on his face was not warm or amused. It was threatening.

"You'll regret this," he said softly.

I said nothing. I placed the ultrasound picture on the dresser between us, turned around, and walked out of the bedroom.

I didn't slam the door. I closed it quietly. And somehow, that felt more powerful than screaming ever could have.

I went to the guest bedroom at the end of the hall, the room I had been sleeping in more often than not over the past year anyway. I sat on the edge of the bed, my hands in my lap, my heart pounding. The adrenaline was already fading and in its place came the trembling.

My whole body shook.

I pressed both hands flat against my stomach and closed my eyes.

"We're going to be okay," I whispered to the tiny life inside me. "I promise you, we're going to be okay."

But even as I said the words, I wasn't sure I believed them. Because the terrifying truth was this: I had no job. Damien had stopped me from building a career years ago. I had no savings of my own. No plan. No place to go. I was pregnant, alone, freshly betrayed, and completely unprepared for the world outside these walls.

I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The night stretched out around me, long and quiet and heavy.

Then my phone buzzed.

I picked it up. An unknown number. A text message with only four words. "Are you alright, Elena?"

My heart stopped.

I sat up slowly, staring at the screen. How did they get my number? Who was this?

I typed back with shaking fingers. Who is this?

Three dots appeared. Then the reply came: "Someone who noticed your bruised elbow."

My breath caught.

The stranger from the hospital. The one who had sent the pharmacy bag. The one who signed his note with only the letter A.

I stared at the message for a long time. Outside, the city hummed quietly. Inside the house, I heard Damien's footsteps pacing down the hallway past my door without stopping.

And as I sat there alone in the dark, with no plan, no money, a secret pregnancy, and a marriage that had just collapsed completely, one strange and completely irrational thought crossed my mind.

Who exactly was A?