CHAPTER 2 EVERYONE WAS LYING
Mara didn't sleep.
She lay awake, staring at the ceiling while the rain tapped against the bedroom windows.
Victor had insisted on sleeping in the guest room.
"For your comfort," he'd said with a gentle smile.
Twenty years of marriage had taught her to recognize every version of his smile.
The loving smile.
The charming smile.
The apologetic smile.
Tonight, she'd discovered another one.
The smile he wore when he thought he'd won.
At dawn, Mara slipped quietly downstairs.
The house was silent.
She stopped outside Victor's home office.
Locked.
He had never locked that door before.
Her pulse quickened.
She was about to walk away when she heard voices.
Not inside the office.
Outside.
The patio.
She stepped behind the curtain just enough to see.
Victor stood with his back to her, coffee in one hand.
Lila faced him, wrapped in one of Mara's cashmere shawls.
The one Victor had bought Mara for their twentieth anniversary.
"You should leave before she wakes up," Victor whispered.
Lila shook her head.
"She's smarter than you think."
"Not smart enough."
Victor's answer came without hesitation.
"She believed every fertility specialist who told her she'd never conceive."
Lila glanced toward the house.
"What if she's really pregnant?"
Victor's jaw tightened.
"Then we'll deal with it."
Deal with it.
Not celebrate it.
Not protect it.
Deal with it.
Mara bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
She forced herself not to move.
Not to cry.
Not to scream.
After Lila left through the side gate, Victor walked back inside wearing the face of a devoted husband.
"There you are," he said cheerfully when he found Mara in the kitchen. "I was making breakfast."
She smiled.
"So was I."
For the first time in her life...
They both lied before eight in the morning.
At the office, the lies multiplied.
Board members congratulated Mara on her pregnancy.
Victor answered every question for her.
"She's exhausted."
"Doctor's orders."
"No stress."
It sounded caring.
Until Mara noticed something else.
Every important document passed across Victor's desk instead of hers.
Every executive meeting ended before she arrived.
Her calendar had been quietly changed.
Someone was erasing her from her own company.
Near lunchtime, Lila entered Mara's office carrying tea.
"I made your favorite."
Chamomile.
Exactly what Mara always drank.
"Thank you."
Lila smiled warmly.
"I know this pregnancy must be frightening."
"It is."
"I'm sure Mr. Lang will take wonderful care of you."
Mara watched her carefully.
Lila's smile never reached her eyes.
As she turned to leave, her phone buzzed.
Lila glanced at the screen.
Her face changed.
For less than a second.
Panic.
She quickly locked the phone and hurried out.
But she'd made one mistake.
The notification had appeared across the top of the screen.
Delete the messages. She suspects something. — V
Mara's heartbeat thundered.
V.
Victor.
That afternoon, Mara called someone she hadn't spoken to in three years.
"Dylan?"
A familiar voice answered.
"I thought you'd never need me again."
Dylan Cross had once been the best cyber-investigator in the state.
Years ago, he'd uncovered a billion-dollar accounting fraud for Mara's company.
She trusted him with one thing.
Finding the truth.
"I need you to recover deleted messages."
He didn't ask questions.
"Whose phone?"
"My husband's."
A pause.
"That's never a good sign."
"No."
"It isn't."
By evening, Dylan called back.
"I've got something."
Mara closed her office door.
"Tell me."
"The messages were deleted professionally."
"So?"
"So whoever erased them knew what they were doing."
Her stomach tightened.
"But..."
Dylan continued.
"People forget smartwatches synchronize notifications."
Mara stopped breathing.
"I recovered fragments."
"Read them."
Paper rustled.
"'She knows something.'"
Another page.
"'Move faster before the quarterly vote.'"
Another.
"'The doctor wasn't supposed to tell her.'"
Mara's blood turned to ice.
"The doctor?"
"That's not the worst one."
Silence.
"'Once she's declared mentally incompetent...'"
Dylan stopped.
"Mara..."
"What?"
"'...the conservatorship will transfer control exactly as planned.'"
The room spun.
Conservatorship.
Not divorce.
Not an affair.
Something much bigger.
Someone wanted the court to declare her incapable of making decisions.
If that happened...
Victor could legally control everything.
Her company.
Her fortune.
Even her unborn child.
An hour later, Dylan called again.
His voice sounded different.
Uneasy.
"I ran a background check on Victor."
"And?"
"I think I found a pattern."
"What pattern?"
"There were women before you."
Mara frowned.
"I know about his first marriage."
"No."
"You know about the marriage he admitted."
Dylan emailed a file.
Three photographs appeared.
Three women.
Each beautiful.
Each wealthy.
Each around forty-five when they married Victor.
The first had supposedly died in a boating accident.
The second had disappeared after being committed to a psychiatric hospital.
The third had vanished from public records entirely.
Every marriage had ended within three years.
Every fortune had changed hands.
Every woman had been declared emotionally unstable before she disappeared.
Dylan spoke quietly.
"Mara..."
"I don't think you're Victor's first victim."
Before she could answer, another email arrived.
No sender.
No subject.
Just one sentence.
You're looking in the wrong direction.
Attached beneath it...
...was a recent photograph.
Taken less than twenty-four hours earlier.
Victor.
Lila.
May you like
And Dr. Elena Voss.
Standing together in the hospital parking garage.
