Chapter Three — The Fall Begins

The kitchen was quiet that Tuesday morning — the kind of quiet that feels staged, artificial, as if the universe is holding its breath.

Amara Linton stood barefoot on the cool tile floor, one hand absentmindedly rubbing slow circles at the top of her belly while the other rested on the polished granite counter. She was reviewing her presentation for the upcoming board meeting, trying to ignore how her ankles ached and how her daughter seemed intent on reshaping her ribcage from the inside out.

Caleb had left early. Too early. He kissed her cheek instead of her lips, muttered something about a “client breakfast,” and disappeared out the front door before she could ask anything beyond two sleepy syllables.

She told herself not to worry. He was tired. Work was stressful. They were preparing for the baby.

She kept repeating these words like a prayer she didn’t quite believe anymore.

The quiet was broken by a buzz.

Caleb’s phone.

It lay on the counter where he’d forgotten it — unusual, because for the past two months he guarded the device like it contained nuclear launch codes. He often carried it into the bathroom. Into the shower. Even into the backyard when taking out the trash.

But today, it sat openly, almost innocently.

Buzz.

Another message.

She ignored it.

Buzz.

Again.

Buzz.

Her heartbeat picked up. Something inside her — some deep, primal instinct — began to rise, slow and heavy, like a storm tide.

And then the screen lit with a name she had come to resent without fully understanding why:

Serena Vale.

A woman who lingered too long at Caleb’s side during work mixers.

A woman who sent Caleb “urgent strategy questions” at midnight.

A woman with a predatory smile that always felt directed at him, never at Amara.

This was not jealousy.

This was intuition.

The message preview flashed:

Miss you already. I didn’t want you to leave this morning.

The air shot out of Amara’s lungs.

Her hand trembled.

Her daughter shifted inside her, as if reacting to the spike in her mother’s pulse.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no…”

She told herself not to jump to conclusions. Not to be irrational. Not to be paranoid.

But survival instincts ignore decorum.

Before she realized what she was doing, she reached for the phone, her fingers trembling as they hovered over the screen. She felt like she was standing at the edge of a cliff — and no matter how tightly she clung to the safety rail, something was pulling her forward.

She typed in the passcode.

Caleb’s birthday.

It unlocked.

The ease of it almost felt cruel.

A flood of messages filled the screen.

Serena:

I can still smell you on me.

Her heart dropped.

Serena:

I love waking up next to you. Wish you were here instead of with her.

A sob strangled in Amara’s throat. She pressed a hand to her belly as if holding herself together from breaking into pieces.

She scrolled further.

Voice memos.

Photos.

Selfies — Serena in hotel rooms, in his shirts, on his lap.

Conversations that made Amara’s vision swim.

And then the message that ended the world:

Serena:

Once the baby comes, she’ll be too busy or too exhausted to fight you. It’ll be perfect.

A cold, black wave washed over her.

She kept scrolling until she found the worst one:

She’s clueless. It’s almost funny.

Amara stopped breathing.

Her knees buckled, and she caught the counter with one hand while the other clutched her stomach. Tears fell silently, hitting the tile floor like fragile glass.

The house shifted around her, stretching and shrinking. Time thickened. Her heartbeat hammered in her ears.

Then the front door opened.

Caleb walked in with a paper bag of pastries and a cardboard coffee tray, humming a tune he used to sing to her on road trips.

He froze when he saw her on the floor.

Saw his phone unlocked in her hand.

Saw the messages.

Saw the truth he had never intended for her to discover.

His expression didn’t show fear.

It showed irritation.

“Amara,” he said flatly, “why are you sitting on the floor?”

She looked up at him with eyes full of betrayal.

“You’ve been cheating on me,” she whispered. The words tasted like blood.

Caleb sighed — actually sighed, as though she were the unreasonable one.

“You weren’t supposed to see that.”

And with that one sentence, the world as she knew it collapsed.