로그인EvelynI continued to scream hoping that my voice would make someone come to my rescue, whoever Serena was speaking to on that phone, I needed them to hear me, needed them to know I was here, needed that one thread of sound to travel far enough to matter.The call ended.Serena turned from the phone slowly and looked at me with the particular stillness of a woman who had just run out of patience entirely, and then she crossed the room and hit me across the mouth with her fist.My head snapped sideways and I felt the split at my lip immediately, warm and sharp, and before I could recover the second punch landed at my jaw and the chair rocked with the force of it."You stupid bitch," she hissed, grabbing my face with one hand and forcing me to look at her, "what were you trying to do, what exactly were you trying to do?"I spat blood onto the concrete floor and looked at her directly. "I was trying to make sure someone knows where I am."She hit me again."Speak," she screamed, her comp
CharlieMy phone chimed with a text and my heart immediately skipped.I looked at the screen expecting Frank's name but it was a number I did not recognize, and below it a string of digits with a short message that read, Julian Carver, Evelyn's business partner, call him.Before I could process it my phone buzzed again, Frank calling back."Yo bro," Frank said the moment I picked up, "I could not get her number but I got you the next best thing, that guy she was with at the gala, Julian, I sent you his number, call him, I am sure he can reach her.""Frank, thank you," I replied, already pulling the number back up, "seriously, thank you.""Do not make it weird," Frank muttered and ended the call.I dialed Julian immediately, standing beside Evelyn's empty car in the middle of an empty road with her ID card still in my hand.He picked up on the third ring."Julian Carver," he answered, his voice was crisp and alert for a man receiving a call from an unknown number at this hour."Hi, thi
Evelyn"What the fuck Serena," I screamed.She stood in front of me with her arms crossed and her head tilted with that slow unbothered smile that I had grown up watching her use on people she had already decided she had won against."Well, well, well," she murmured, moving around me slowly, "look who we have here, tied to a chair like some animal.""Serena, watch your tone," I snapped.She stopped walking and turned to face me and the smile sharpened. "Or what?" She stepped closer, close enough that I could smell her perfume, the same one she had worn since we were teenagers."You are going to call the police?" She laughed, low and unhurried. "That is all the power you have got, but me," she spread her arms slightly, "I have all the weapons that can blow your head clean off your shoulders." She tilted her chin. "Look around you."I looked.Men lined the walls, four of them at least, armed in a way that made the room feel smaller than it already was, their expressions were flat and co
CharlieWhat in the world was wrong with Serena.I was reading her text for the third time when Frank caught up with me in the parking lot, slightly out of breath, his jacket was open and his keys were jangling in his hand."Bro, we have to talk," he called out, falling into step beside me."Not now Frank," I muttered, my eyes were still on the screen."Would not be home tonight. Love, wifey." I read it again and felt something between relief and suspicion because with Serena those two things were rarely far apart."Serena is crazy," I announced, not entirely to Frank, "Serena is damn crazy."Frank slowed. "What is the matter?""Nothing," I replied, shoving the phone into my pocket, "I am just tired, what does she even mean she will not be home tonight, where the hell is she going?"Frank looked at me for a moment and then did the thing he always did when he thought I was overreacting, which was laugh, the short easy laugh of a man who had never been married to Serena."Just one of th
EvelynI had waited for Julian to come home, not because I missed him, well not entirely, but because I wanted to see the look on his face when he found out I was going somewhere he had absolutely no idea about.He did not come home.By seven the makeup artist was packing up her kit and looking at me the way people look at something they are proud of."Ma'am," she said quietly, stepping back to take me in fully, "I have been doing this for eleven years and I have never seen such beauty in all my life."I smiled at my reflection and said nothing because there was nothing to add.The gold dress hit differently tonight, sharper somehow, and my hair was pinned in a way that made my neck look long and my posture deliberate, and I looked exactly like a woman who had somewhere to be and intended to be felt when she arrived.I walked to Leo's room first.He was already asleep, one arm thrown over his face the way he always slept, his mouth was slightly open, his toy figures lined up along the
CharlieAfter crazy Serena had burned the papers, I was utterly convinced that I was not getting out of this marriage easily.I had sat in front of that fireplace for a long time after she went back to bed, staring at the ash, and the thing that kept circling my mind was not the inconvenience of reprinting documents or the delay to the legal process, it was the calm on her face when she turned around, the absolute absence of regret, like she had done something completely reasonable and was prepared to do it again.I called Harrison first thing that morning."She burned them," I said when he picked up.He paused for a second. "The divorce papers?""Every page. She burnt everything."He kept quiet, longer this time. "Are you somewhere you can talk?""I am in my car," I replied, pulling out of the driveway before Serena could appear at a window and watch me leave."Alright," Harrison sighed, I could hear him thinking, the particular silence of a man reorganizing his approach. "This is n







