Chapter 4

I was standing by the window, watching Dimitri sleep, when my phone vibrated on the nightstand.

One new email. No subject line. No sender name I recognized. Just a string of numbers and an attachment folder labeled with a date range: three years ago.

I opened it.

The first photo was Dimitri and Anya sitting in an obstetrician's waiting room. She was holding a clipboard, filling out paperwork, and his hand was on her lower back, casual, comfortable. The kind of touch a husband gives his pregnant wife.

The second photo was them leaving a pharmacy. Anya was carrying a bag of prenatal vitamins. Dimitri was carrying her purse.

The third photo was an ultrasound appointment. I could see the grainy black-and-white image on the monitor, and Dimitri was leaning forward in the chair next to the exam table, staring at the screen with an expression I had never seen him give me. Wonder. Pure, unfiltered wonder.

There were dozens more. Weeks of photos. Months. Every stage of Anya's pregnancy was documented, and in every single one, Dimitri was there. Grocery shopping with her. Assembling a crib. Painting a nursery. Holding her hand in the hospital corridor. Standing outside the delivery room door, pacing, his phone pressed to his ear.

The timestamps matched perfectly with his "business trips." Every single one.

He wasn't overseas closing deals. He wasn't in meetings. He wasn't doing any of the things he told me he was doing for weeks at a time while I sat home alone, missing him, trusting him.

He was with her. He was with her for everything.

My hands were shaking so bad the phone nearly slipped out of my grip. Something hot and sharp was climbing up my throat, and I couldn't tell if it was a scream or vomit or both.

I looked at him sleeping peacefully in our bed. This man who had looked me in the eyes and lied. Not once. Not a few times. For an entire year. He had constructed an elaborate, detailed, airtight wall of lies and maintained it without a single crack while his wife waited at home like a fool.

I crossed the room in three steps and slapped him across the face.

His eyes flew open. Confusion first, then pain, then that stupid, patronizing concern he wore like a mask.

"Katya? What— Hey, what happened? Did you have a nightmare?"

"Do I look like I'm sleeping, Dimitri?"

He sat up, rubbing his cheek, blinking at me like a man who had just been woken from a dream. Not a man who had been caught in a lie. A man who genuinely had no idea why his wife's hand was across his face at seven in the morning.

"Baby, calm down. Whatever it is, just tell me—"

"Don't call me baby." I threw my phone at him. It bounced off his chest and landed on the sheets, screen up, the photos still glowing. "Look at it."

He picked up the phone. I watched his face change. The concerned husband expression dissolved, replaced by something harder, tighter, like a door slamming shut behind his eyes.

"Where did you get these?"

"Does it matter where I got them? Those are your business trips, Dimitri. Every single one of them. You weren't in meetings. You weren't closing deals. You were holding Anya's hand at doctor's appointments. You were at the hospital when Misha was born. You were there for her entire pregnancy, and you lied to me about all of it."

"Katya, listen to me—"

"No, YOU listen. You looked me in the face for a year. A full year. You called me from wherever you were, told me you missed me, told me work was crazy, told me you'd be home soon. And the whole time you were with her. Playing husband. Playing father. Building a life with another woman while I waited at home like some pathetic dog you forgot to feed."

My voice cracked on the last word and I hated myself for it. I didn't want to cry. I wanted to be cold and sharp and untouchable. But the photos were right there on the screen, and every single one of them was a knife.

Dimitri set the phone down slowly. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked at me with that expression. That calm, rational, "let me explain" expression that made me want to throw something heavier than a phone.

"My brother had just died, Katya. Anya was pregnant and alone. My parents were destroyed. Someone had to step up. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd react exactly like this."

"React exactly like what? Like a wife who found out her husband secretly lived with another woman for a year?"

"I didn't live with her. I was helping her. There's a difference."

"You were at every single appointment. You were at the delivery. You painted the nursery, Dimitri. You painted the damn nursery. What part of that is just helping?"

"She's my brother's widow! Misha is my brother's son! What was I supposed to do, let them go through it alone?"

"You were supposed to tell your wife!"

He stood up and ran both hands through his hair, pacing toward the window. I could see him building the wall. Brick by brick. Excuse by excuse.

"I didn't tell you because you never liked Anya. Even before my brother died, you made it clear she wasn't your favorite person. If I had told you I was helping her through the pregnancy, you would have made it about yourself. You would have turned it into a fight. So I handled it quietly. That's not betrayal, Katya. That's me protecting the peace."

Protecting the peace. While destroying everything I thought our marriage was.

"Your imagination is running wild. I never crossed a line with Anya. Not once. Everything I did was for my brother's memory and nothing else."

I stared at him. This man who could look at a stack of evidence and still stand there with a straight face, telling me my own eyes were wrong. My own feelings were wrong. My own pain was an overreaction.

No amount of logic would ever reach him. No evidence would ever be enough. He had his story, and he was sticking to it until death did us part.

And in his version, I was always the crazy wife. The jealous wife. The wife whose feelings were just inconvenient obstacles standing between him and his noble duty.

"I want a divorce, Dimitri."

"We already talked about this."

"We're going to keep talking about it until you're sitting across from me at the County Courthouse. Sign the papers or don't. I'm leaving either way."

He turned away from me, staring out the window, jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides. And I stood there, holding my ground, knowing that nothing I said, no photo I showed, no tear I shed, would ever make this man admit the truth.

He was committed to his own lie. And in his world, my feelings, my dignity, my sanity, they were just noise.