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Chapter Fourteen Collateral Damage
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2025-04-30 00:46:00Elena
The silence after a storm is never peace. It’s pressure. Dense and invisible. The kind that makes your lungs ache when you try to breathe. That’s how it felt the morning after Sophie showed up at my door—unhinged, humiliated, hungry for blood. I stood at the kitchen sink, staring out at the garden like I hadn’t just lit a match to someone’s carefully constructed life. But I wasn’t naïve. Sophie Mitchell wasn’t going to crumble quietly. She was going to claw her way back up—no matter how many bodies she had to step over. And I knew exactly who she’d come for first. Me. The first shot came mid-morning. A news article leaked. “Former Doctor Elena Hart Accused of Falsifying Patient Records During Divorce Investigation.” I blinked at the headline, heart thudding in my chest. It was a lie. But it was exactly the kind of lie Sophie would craft—just enough truth to raise suspicion, just enough poison to spread fast. Rachel called immediately. “You need to lawyer up. Now.” “I have nothing to hide,” I said, but my voice didn’t sound convincing. Not even to me. “That doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “Sophie isn’t fighting to win in court. She’s fighting to destroy your reputation.” I sank onto the couch, suddenly exhausted. “She’s trying to bury me in mud before she drowns in it.” “She’s desperate,” Rachel said, softer now. “Desperate people are dangerous.” I hung up and stared at my phone, fingers cold and stiff. Sophie was cornered. And a cornered animal doesn’t think. It bites. Daniel came home that evening, the air between us thick with things unsaid. He hovered near the kitchen doorway, like he didn’t know where he belonged anymore. “Did you see the news?” I asked without turning. He sighed. “Yes.” “And?” “I didn’t know she’d go this far.” I turned to face him slowly. “No, Daniel. You just didn’t care what she was capable of until it bled onto your life.” He flinched. Good. He needed to sit in the wreckage he helped create. But then he said something I hadn’t expected. “I went through her files,” he said quietly. “Before the story broke. Before everything. There’s something you need to see.” My heartbeat stumbled. “What?” He pulled out a flash drive and set it on the table like it was cursed. “She was planning this before she ever touched me,” he said. “You were the target, Elena. Not me.” I stared at the flash drive. “You’re saying… she never loved you?” “I don’t know if she’s capable of love,” he whispered. I didn’t touch the drive. Not yet. Because the truth wasn’t always a comfort. Sometimes, it was a curse. That night, I locked myself in my home office and opened the files. Emails. Audio recordings. Notes. And then, buried beneath folders of cold calculations, I found it: A video—grainy, shaky—but clear enough. Daniel. In our bed. With Sophie. And she wasn’t drunk. She wasn’t unsure. She was smiling at the camera. Winking. Recording it for leverage. My hands shook. It wasn’t just an affair. It was intentional. Planned. Orchestrated. I pressed pause and sat back in my chair, bile rising in my throat. She hadn’t stolen my husband. She’d used him. And he let her. I felt the grief again—cold and sharp—but I didn’t cry. Because anger had taken its place. And from that anger, a new plan began to form. I wasn’t going to let Sophie ruin my name. I was going to make sure she never got the chance to use hers again.
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