All Chapters of BENEATH THE SAME SKY: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Eleven o’clock at night.I sat at the head of the long, mahogany dining table, my hands folded neatly on my lap, staring at the flickering flames of the two candles I had lit hours ago. The wax had melted halfway down, forming little stalactites of white and gold, just like my patience—melting, dripping, and slowly hardening into something cold and fragile. On the table, the food I had prepared with so much love was now cold. The roasted chicken, which I had marinated for three hours with Gavin’s favorite herbs, was now dry and pale. The creamy mushroom soup had formed a thin, unappetizing skin on the surface. The salad was wilted, and the bottle of expensive red wine—one of the few things we had kept from happier times—stood there, unopened, gathering dust. Today was our fifth wedding anniversary. Five years. One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days. I remembered the day we got married as if it were yesterday. The sun was shining so brightly, and Gavin looked at me with

The days that followed were nothing short of a living hell.I locked myself inside the room, refusing to eat, refusing to speak. The image of Gavin holding Selina, protecting her like she was his treasure, kept replaying in my mind like a broken record. The way they looked at each other... the intimacy... it was burned into my retinas, haunting me every second of the day.Gavin didn’t come home that night.Or the next night.Or the night after that.He didn’t call. He didn’t text. It was as if I had suddenly ceased to exist in his world. And the silence was louder than any scream. It was suffocating. It was killing me slowly.I tried to tell myself that maybe I was overreacting. Maybe it was just a close friendship. Maybe Selina was right—I was just paranoid and jealous.But deep down, my heart knew the truth. My heart was bleeding, screaming that something was very, very wrong.I needed answers. I needed concrete proof. Not just suspicions, not just feelings. I needed to see it with

That day, after the unexpected encounter with Gavin and Selina, I returned home with a whirlwind of emotions. I thought I had forgotten everything, but seeing them again stirred something within me that I had believed was long dead. Yet this time, it wasn’t pain that rose to the surface—it was curiosity.That evening, as I was sorting through my wardrobe, I found an old envelope tucked away between a stack of books. It was brown, with no sender’s name written on it, and it bore a wax seal that had already cracked. I opened it carefully, and its contents made my breath catch in my throat.Inside the envelope was a legal document stating that Gavin had sold all the assets we owned together—including the house where we had lived—a whole year before we were even married. And the proceeds from the sale… every single penny had been transferred to an account under Selina’s name.This wasn’t just an affair. This was a plan that had been laid long before I had even agreed to become his wife.I

In the days that followed, Gavin’s father and I worked together in complete secrecy. We gathered all the necessary evidence, contacted potential witnesses, and devised a plan to expose every crime Gavin and Selina had committed.Meanwhile, I continued living my life as usual. I went to work, met up with friends, and did my best to appear happy in front of others. I knew Gavin and Selina were almost certainly still keeping an eye on me, so I had to make sure they didn’t grow suspicious of what I was doing.One day, while I was at the office, I received a message from Gavin. He asked me to meet him at a luxury restaurant in the city center."Aria, we need to talk. There are things I want to tell you. It’s important. Come alone."I stared at the message with deep suspicion. What did he actually want? Did he already know I was working with his father? Or was he just trying to use me again?After thinking it over for a moment, I decided to go. I wanted to know what was going through his mi

In the weeks that followed, life began to find a sense of calm I had never thought possible. Gavin and Selina were detained while awaiting trial, and the mountain of evidence we had gathered ensured that there was no way they could escape the consequences of their actions. Gavin’s father slowly recovered, his strength returning day by day, and he made it a point to attend every court hearing, his presence serving as a silent testament to the truth.One afternoon, I received a letter delivered by a court clerk. It was an official summons to appear at the hearing regarding the division of assets. According to the law, since Gavin and I had never officially finalized our divorce before his crimes were exposed, I still held legal rights to half of the assets we had acquired during our marriage—assets that Gavin had tried so hard to steal and hand over to Selina.I sat in my living room, staring at the letter. Part of me wanted to refuse it all. The money, the properties, everything felt t