Betrayal.

Chapter 1

Alison’s Pov

Two months earlier

“I’m telling you, Ally, if Mr. Lucis asks me to rewrite that quarterly marketing report one more time, I’m going to lose my mind,” Julie groaned. Her heels clicked loudly against the concrete floor of the apartment complex hallway.

She shifted a heavy stack of folders to her left arm and sighed as we walked toward the elevator.

“He acts like we don’t have lives outside of the agency. He asked me to redo the proposal four times already. I’ve been staring at spreadsheets since eight this morning.”

I offered her a half-hearted smile, adjusting the strap of my purse on my shoulder.

“Look on the bright side,” I said. “The weekend is finally here, the campaign has been approved, and we actually managed to leave the office before dark for once.”

Julie muttered something under her breath as the elevator came to a halt. The doors opened, and we stepped out into the hallway.

“Barely,” Julie countered, though the tension in her shoulders eased slightly.

“But you’re right. Tomorrow is a problem for future me. Right now, all I want is a glass of cheap wine and your couch. Thank God Jake is still at work, or I’d feel like a total third wheel crashing at your place.”

“He wouldn’t mind, and you know it. Besides, he’s not even supposed to be back until later tonight,” I said, digging into my purse for my keys.

The familiar metal jangled in my palm. Just thinking about Jake brought a subtle, comforting warmth to my chest. We had been together for four years—four years of building a routine, sharing keys, and planning a life together.

Lately, things had felt stretched thin, like an old rubber band ready to snap, but I told myself it was just because of how busy our schedules had been.

I couldn’t even remember the last time we were both in the same place for more than an hour. It was either him traveling or me working late. It had been a rough couple of months, but that was all supposed to change this weekend. Jake and I were heading to Boston for our anniversary.

I slid the key into the lock and turned it until the deadbolt clicked open. “Make yourself at home. I think I still have that bottle of Pinot—”

The words died in my throat the moment the door swung inward.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Julie muttered, stopping dead in her tracks right behind me.

The entryway, usually spotless, was a disaster zone. The mess started right at the doorway.

A pair of high-heeled strappy sandals sat discarded near the umbrella stand. Further in, a tailored navy suit jacket—one I recognized instantly because I had bought it for Jake as an anniversary gift—lay crumpled carelessly on the hardwood floor.

My stomach dropped.

The air in the apartment felt heavy and suffocatingly still, yet thick with the faint, unmistakable scent of a floral perfume that definitely didn’t belong to me.

“Ally?” Julie’s voice lost its teasing edge, replaced by sharp, protective alertness.

I couldn’t answer. My feet moved on autopilot, ignoring the warning sirens screaming in my head.

I followed the trail: a silk blouse, a pair of men’s dress socks. Each item on the floor felt like a stepping stone leading me deeper into a nightmare.

My heart hammered against my ribs so violently I could hear the thumping in my ears, drowning out the ambient noise of the city outside.

As I approached the end of the hallway, sounds drifted out from my bedroom—giggling and low, breathless whispering followed by a familiar deep laugh that used to make me feel safe.

The blood in my veins froze.

I reached the doorway. My hand trembled so hard it slipped off the frame. I forced my eyes to look.

There were two people tangled beneath my cream-colored duvet.

My boyfriend of four years was lying there, his arm wrapped tightly around another woman. Their faces were mere inches apart as they shared a joke, without a care in the world.

As I stood rooted to the spot, the woman turned her head toward the door. Her features caught the dim evening light.

“Ruth,” I muttered under my breath.

My vision blurred at the edges, tunneling until all I could see was her face.

Ruth. My best friend since high school. The girl who lived across the street, whose parents shared Sunday brunch with mine. We were supposed to be inseparable. She was my anchor, my other half.

I couldn’t move. I wanted to scream, to lash out, to demand an explanation, but my vocal cords felt paralyzed.

A heavy, numbing shock washed over me, rendering me completely helpless.

Before the silence could swallow me whole, Julie stormed past me into the room, her face twisted in pure rage.

“You have got to be kidding me!” she roared. Her voice echoed off the walls.

The two forms in the bed gasped and wrenched apart instantly.

Ruth scrambled backward, pulling the top sheet up to her chest. Her cheeks flushed a deep, guilty crimson. Jake sat up quickly, his chest heaving as his eyes darted from Julie to where I stood frozen in the doorway.

Seeing her cover herself in shame in my bed, next to my boyfriend, broke something fundamental inside me.

The worst part was the sudden, sickening clarity that crashed over me. The puzzle pieces I had desperately tried to ignore for months finally locked into place.

The late-night phone calls he’d take out on the balcony. The sudden influx of last-minute “work trips.” The fragile excuses I had blindly accepted because I chose to trust him.

“What are you doing here?” Jake asked, his voice rough. He cleared his throat and tightened his jaw. “You’re not supposed to be back until later.”

A bitter, hollow laugh escaped my lips before I could stop it. It wasn’t because anything about this was funny. It was because the sheer absurdity of his reaction shattered whatever remaining respect I had for him.

There was no panic in his eyes. No immediate apology. No desperate plea for forgiveness. Just cold, defensive annoyance that his secret afternoon had been inconvenienced.

“How long?” I whispered. My voice sounded small and thin, like it belonged to someone else.

Neither of them answered. Ruth looked down at her lap, refusing to meet my gaze, while Jake simply stared at me, his expression hardening.

“How long has this been going on, Jake?” I demanded. A fraction of my anger finally broke through the numbness.

The silence that followed was deafening. It was, in fact, a confession in itself.

It told me everything I never wanted to know—that this wasn’t a one-time mistake. It was a calculated, ongoing betrayal by the two people I trusted most in the world.

My chest tightened so painfully that it felt like a physical weight was crushing my lungs.

“Ally, please, I can explain,” Ruth whimpered. Her voice trembled as she rushed out of the bed, stretching a hand toward me. “Please, it’s not what it looks like.”

The sight of her hand moving toward me snapped something inside me.

“Don’t touch me!” I choked out, flinching away sharply as if her touch would burn me.

Startled by the intensity of my reaction, Ruth stumbled backward against the edge of the bed frame. She lost her footing in the tangled sheets and slid hard onto the hardwood floor with a soft cry.

“Ruth!” Jake reacted instantly.

He didn’t look at me. He didn’t check to see if I was okay. Without a second thought, he threw the covers aside and lunged across the space to kneel beside her on the floor. He gathered her into his arms, checking her over with desperate, frantic tenderness and wrapping his arms around her as if she were the victim.

As if she were the one whose world had just been obliterated.

I stood completely hollowed out, my throat burning with unshed tears. So this was my worth after four years. This was what I meant to him now.

Nothing.

Jake helped Ruth up carefully, guiding her back onto the mattress and making sure she wasn’t hurt before he finally turned his attention to me.

When our eyes met, any trace of the man I had loved was completely gone. The warmth, the affection, the history—all gone. His eyes were dead, replaced by a cold, cutting look of disgust.

My chest tightened further, the air leaving me entirely. I asked myself the question I knew I didn’t want to answer: Where did it all go wrong?

And in that agonizing moment, staring at the wreckage of my life, I knew one thing with absolute certainty—I couldn’t stay here another second.