chapter 2: The threat

Evelyn

I drove home with my hands shaking on the wheel. The streets blurred past, traffic lights and storefronts and people living their normal lives while mine burned down around me. I kept seeing Julia’s face, mascara running, coffee dripping. I kept hearing Alfred’s voice telling me to go home, like I was a child who’d misbehaved.

The house was empty when I pulled into the driveway. Clara my sixteen year old daughter was probably out shopping with friends. Nathan who was my oldest at twenty was at college. It was just me and the silence and twenty-two years of lies waiting inside.

I poured wine even though it was barely noon. Stood in the kitchen drinking it while staring at the family photos on the wall. Our wedding day, both of us young and stupid. The kids as babies and photos where we looked like the perfect couple.

My phone sat on the counter opened with all the pictures I’d taken from Alfred’s phone because he’d been too busy fucking his secretary to remember to password-protect it. I opened it. Scrolled through his texts with her.

“Can’t wait to see you tonight.”

“Last night was amazing”

“Your wife doesn’t have to know.”

My hand tightened around the phone until my knuckles went white. Then I grabbed my laptop.

It took ten minutes to set up. Fake email address. VPN to hide my location. Anonymous social media accounts with a random generated name. I wasn’t stupid. I’d been a lawyer before Alfred convinced me to give it up, before I became the woman who stood beside him smiling while he lied.

I knew how to cover my tracks.

I uploaded the first photo. Alfred and Julia in his car, her head on his shoulder, his hand on her thigh. The timestamp showed it was taken three weeks ago. I’d recovered it from his deleted folder last night while he snored on the couch.

Then another photo. Julia at a hotel, sending him a selfie in lingerie. “Room 412. Waiting for you.”

Then the videos.

I didn’t watch them. Couldn’t. Just uploaded them with shaking hands, my stomach twisting with each click.

A video of them in his office after hours, her bent over his desk, his hands in her hair. Then a video of them in the back of his car, windows fogged, her moaning his name.

I captioned the posts simply: “Gubernatorial candidate Alfred Cole. Family man. Liar.”

Then I hit publish.

All of it. Every photo, every video, every text message. I sent them to gossip blogs, political news sites, anyone with an email address I could find. I posted them across every platform I could think of.

By the time I was done, my hands had stopped shaking. I closed the laptop. Poured more wine. Turned off my phone. Then I sat in the quiet and waited for the world to burn.

It was almost evening when I heard his car in the driveway.

I’d been sitting in the living room for hours, watching the sun sink lower, finishing the second bottle of wine. My head felt light, my body heavy. I didn’t move when I heard his key in the door.

Alfred walked in and went straight to his office without calling my name. I heard him on the phone immediately, his voice rising and falling.

Ten minutes later he appeared in the living room doorway. His tie was gone, his shirt wrinkled, his face red like he’d been screaming.

“What the hell was that today, Evelyn?”

I looked at him over the rim of my wine glass. “What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You threw coffee in Julia’s face in front of my entire staff. You fired her. You humiliated me.”

“I humiliated you?” I set down my glass. “That’s interesting.”

“Everyone thinks you’re insane. Lawson has been fielding calls all afternoon from staff asking if you’re okay, if I’m okay, if the campaign is okay.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“That you’re under a lot of stress. That you’re not yourself.” He loosened what was left of his tie. “That it won’t happen again.”

“Won’t it?”

His jaw clenched. “Evelyn, I need you to fix this. Tomorrow you’re going to call Julia and apologize. Then you’re going to…”

“I’m not apologizing to her.”

“Yes, you are. Because if you don’t, she could sue for harassment. She could go to the press. She could…”

“Let her.” I stood up. “Let her go to the press and explain why she was sitting on your desk with her blouse open or maybe you will need to do the explaining to the press why you have been fucking your secretary “

Alfred’s face went dark. “You’re being irrational.”

“I’m being very rational. You fucked your secretary. I threw coffee. We’re even.”

“We’re not even.” He crossed the room, got in my face. “You embarrassed me in front of my entire staff. You made me look weak. You made me look like I can’t control my own wife.”

“Control?” I laughed. “Is that what this is about? Control?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. And that’s the problem.”

He grabbed my arm, not hard enough to bruise but firm enough to make his point. “Listen to me very carefully. You’re going to apologize to Julia. You’re going to smile at the next campaign event. You’re going to stand beside me and play the supportive wife the way you’ve been doing “

I yanked my arm free. “No.”

“No?”

“I’m done, Alfred. I’m done lying for you. I’m done smiling while you fuck anyone you want. I’m done being a wife to a whore.”

His eyes went cold. “You think you can just walk away? You think you have options here?”

“I think I have a good lawyer.”

“You were a lawyer years ago. Now you’re nothing, Evelyn. You’re a housewife with no income, no career, no money of your own. Everything you have, I gave you. This house, your car, your credit cards, all of it. Mine.”

My stomach dropped.

“You want to leave?” he continued, his voice getting quieter, more controlled. “Fine. Leave. But you’ll leave with nothing. No house, no money, no reputation. Because I’ll make sure everyone knows you’re the one who destroyed this family. I’ll make sure everyone knows you’re unstable, vindictive, crazy. I’ll take the kids, the house, everything and when I am done with you, I will make sure you have no past career to even go back to”

“You can’t do that.”

“I can. And I will.” He stepped closer. “So you better sit your ass down and shut the fuck up before you lose everything you have left.”