LOGIN~~Felix~~Okay so. The villa.I’m not gonna lie, it’s nice. Obscenely nice. The kind of nice that makes you suspicious on principle, because nobody builds a house this soft, this lived-in, this full of little domestic details unless they’re either genuinely in love or actively lying to your face. Everywhere I looked there was some tiny piece of “evidence.” A coffee mug on the counter with a chip in the handle, positioned like someone actually drank out of it a hundred times instead of like a prop department put it there this morning. A throw blanket folded over the back of a couch, one corner dragging on the floor like somebody grabbed it in the middle of the night and never quite refolded it right.It would’ve worked on someone dumber than me.I let Evans give me the full tour anyway. Nodded at the right moments. Let my eyes go soft and a little lost when we passed the framed photos going up the staircase, us laughing on some beach I’ve apparently never been to, us at what looked lik
~~Evans~~ I know he’s playing along. But who cares? It’s just a matter of a few hours before he realizes I’m not lying, or rather, before he believes I’m not lying. There’s a difference, and I’m well aware of it. I already have it all planned out, every contingency mapped, every question he might throw at me already answered three moves in advance. That’s the one advantage I’ve always had over him, even before all this. I plan. He improvises. And right now, improvising is a hard game to win when you’re missing an entire year of source material. He wants a parent, I’ll give him a parent. He wants a phone, I’ll give him a fucking phone. I’m going to be the better player here, and honestly, I should be. I’m the one with the memories. He’s the one without them. So let’s wait and see who blinks first. “We’re home, baby~~,” I said as the car rolled to a stop in front of the villa, gravel crunching under the tires like the whole property was applauding my own genius. “This is home?”
~~Felix~~ Yeah, this dude is cooking. I don’t know what he’s cooking, but he’s cooking so well. What does he mean by, “standard for people like us”? There is no fucking way in hell our security ever merges together, married or not married. I guess I need to play along. I have to make him believe I believe his story. What does he take me for, an idiot? I let my face go soft, confused and harmless. The exact opposite of what was happening in my brain, which at that point was running through every scenario like a war room with too much caffeine in it. “Okay,” I said, voice small, tired, the voice of a man who’d just been handed too much information and needed to shut his eyes and process it. “Okay. I trust you.” I did not trust him. I would sooner trust a snake in a suit. He softened immediately, relief washing over his stupid handsome face, and reached for my hand again. I let him take it this time, because apparently that’s what a loving, memory-wiped husband would do, and fi
~~Evans~~ He yanked his hand away from me like my touch was something contagious, and I let him. I had to. Anything else would’ve cracked the mask I’d spent the last few minutes perfecting. “There’s a lot you don’t remember,” I told him, keeping my voice low, steady, the voice I used when I needed a room full of men twice his size to believe I wasn’t afraid of anything. “But you’ll see. I’ve taken care of everything.” I watched the fear move behind his eyes before he buried it within himself. Good. Fear I could work with. Fear meant he hadn’t figured out yet that the real danger in this room wasn’t the year he’d lost. It was standing right next to his bed, holding a story together with nothing but nerve and a well-paid photo editor. The nurse excused herself. Smart woman. “I want my phone,” Felix said again looking at him like he was second away from strangling me, that familiar fire flaring back into his face even with half his memory missing. It almost made me smile. Even
~~Felix~~ “How long do you think the person who brought me here is gonna take?” I asked the nurse, my eyes doing a slow sweep of the room like it owed me an explanation. Because something wasn’t adding up. In a situation like this, my security detail should’ve already flooded this building. I should’ve had at least four men posted outside this door and one standing way too close to my bed like always. Instead I got beeping machines and a nurse who looked like she’d rather be literally anywhere else. “Well, sir…” she started. The door swung open before she could finish that sentence. And in walked my biggest rival like he owned the whole damn building. Okay. What the actual fuck. That was the only thought my brain could produce. I just stared at him, mouth slightly open, because nothing in my extensive vocabulary of insults and threats felt big enough for this moment. He crossed the room in like four strides, way too confident for a man who was supposed to be my enemy, and
~~Evans~~ Is this doctor being for real? “Are you certain he has amnesia, and not faking it?” I asked, watching the doctor’s face for any flicker of hesitation. I needed to be sure. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d used a lie to get exactly what he wanted from me. “Mr. Evans, I understand your skepticism, but I assure you, I’m not lying.” The doctor set down his tablet and met my eyes directly. “He’s experiencing retrograde amnesia. It’s affected the past year of his life specifically. Everything before that year is intact, his childhood, his family, his early memories. But that one year has been wiped clean. As far as his mind is concerned, it never happened.” My chest tightened. “Retrograde amnesia. What does that even mean, in plain terms?” “It means the injury disrupted his ability to recall memories that were already stored, rather than his ability to form new ones going forward. The trauma to his temporal lobe likely damaged the neural pathways tied to that specifi







