Chapter 3: Victoria’s Warning

Victoria closed the front door carefully and locked it. Then she grabbed the wine bottle from the counter, poured herself a glass, and sat down across from Elena.

“Start from the beginning,” she said. Her voice was steady, but her dark eyes were sharp with concern. “And don’t leave anything out.”

Elena told her everything. The phone call. Isabelle’s voice on the speaker. Marcus’s words, nothing else matters. The box of photos hidden in his office. The recent pictures prove Isabelle had been alive for months.

Victoria listened without interrupting, her expression getting darker with every detail. When Elena finished, her friend drained her wine glass in one long swallow.

“That son of a bitch,” Victoria said quietly. Then louder: “That lying, manipulative son of a bitch.”

Elena’s laugh came out bitter. “I was so stupid. Five years, Vic. Five years I thought if I just tried harder…”

“Stop.” Victoria reached across the table and grabbed Elena’s hand. “You weren’t stupid. You were in love with someone who didn’t deserve it. That’s not the same thing.”

“Feels the same.”

“It’s not.” Victoria squeezed her hand hard. “Elena, listen to me. Marcus is the one who’s broken, not you. You gave him everything, and he threw it away for a ghost. That says nothing about you and everything about him.”

Elena wanted to believe that. But the voice in her head, the one that had been getting louder for five years, kept whispering that she wasn’t enough. That if she’d been better, prettier, more like Isabelle, maybe Marcus would have loved her.

Victoria seemed to read her mind. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this. Marcus married you knowing he was still in love with someone else. That’s on him, not you.”

“He married me because I looked like her.” Elena said it out loud for the first time. “That’s why he noticed me at that gala. That’s why he asked me out. I look enough like Isabelle to be a substitute.”

She’d always known it on some level. The way Marcus would stare at her sometimes, like he was seeing someone else. The way he’d get angry when she cut her hair or wore the wrong color. The way he’d never really seen her at all.

Victoria was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, carefully, “I’ve suspected that for a while.”

Elena’s head snapped up. “What?”

“I’m sorry, I should have said something, but I…” Victoria ran her hand through her short black hair. “I saw a photo of Isabelle once. Last year, when I borrowed Marcus’s laptop to check my email. He had a folder on his desktop labeled ‘IL.’ I clicked it by accident, and…” She trailed off. “You could be sisters, Elena. The resemblance is that strong.”

Something cold settled in Elena’s stomach. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I tried!” Victoria’s voice rose. “I dropped hints. I asked if you were happy. I suggested marriage counseling. But every time I got close to saying something, you’d defend him. You’d make excuses. And I thought—” She stopped, her voice breaking. “I thought if I told you outright, you’d hate me for it. I thought you’d choose him over me.”

The hurt in her friend’s voice made Elena’s anger deflate. Victoria had been there for her through everything. Every forgotten anniversary, every canceled plan, every moment of loneliness. She’d been Elena’s only real friend while Marcus systematically isolated her from everyone else.

“I wouldn’t have believed you,” Elena admitted quietly. “Not last year. I was still in denial.”

“And now?”

“Now I heard him say it himself. Nothing else matters compared to Isabelle.” Elena took another drink of wine. “I can’t un-hear that, Vic. I can’t pretend anymore.”

“Good.” Victoria’s voice was fierce. “You shouldn’t pretend. You should get angry. You should hire a lawyer and take him for everything he’s worth.”

“I need information first.” Elena pulled out her phone and showed Victoria the photos she’d taken. “I need to know what Isabelle’s been doing. Where she’s been. Why she faked her death. And I need to know if Marcus was in on it from the beginning.”

Victoria scrolled through the photos, her expression getting darker. “Some of these are recent. Like, last week recent.”

“I know.”

“He’s been tracking her. Stalking her, maybe.”

“Or they’ve been in contact longer than three weeks, and he’s just really good at lying.” Elena’s voice was hollow. “Either way, he’s been planning this. Planning to leave me for her.”

“Then let him go.” Victoria put the phone down and grabbed both of Elena’s hands. “Let him go, take half of everything he owns, and build a better life. You’re only twenty-seven, Elena. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“I don’t want half of his things.” Elena pulled her hands away. “I want to know the truth first. I want to know exactly what I’m dealing with before I make any moves.”

“So you’re hiring an investigator.”

“Do you know anyone?”

Victoria was quiet for a moment, chewing her lip. Then she said carefully, “I might know someone. But Elena, if you do this—if you start digging—you need to be ready for what you might find. Sometimes the truth is worse than you imagined.”

“It can’t be worse than what I’m already thinking.”

“You’d be surprised.” Victoria pulled out her phone. “There’s something else I need to tell you. Something I probably should have mentioned before, but I didn’t think it mattered until now.”

Elena’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“Isabelle Laurent didn’t just disappear. I did some research after I saw those photos last year—just curiosity, I told myself.” Victoria scrolled through her phone. “Six months after she supposedly died, she married a man named Harrison Laurent. He was eighty-three years old and worth about two billion dollars.”

“She faked her death to marry a rich old man?” Elena felt sick. “That’s…”

“It gets worse. Harrison Laurent died six months ago. Heart attack, supposedly. Left everything to his widow—with one condition.” Victoria looked up from her phone. “If Isabelle remarries within five years of his death, the entire fortune goes to charity. But if she stays single, she keeps it all.”

The pieces clicked into place in Elena’s mind. “So she can’t marry Marcus.”