2026-02-03 00:57:13“Stop lying to me.”
The words came out calm, which surprised him. His chest was on fire, his hands shaking, but his voice stayed level, almost polite.
His wife didn’t look up from her tablet. “I’m not lying.” “You changed your passcode.”
That finally got her attention. She raised her eyes slowly, irritation flickering before it gave way to something smoother. Colder. “So?”
“So you promised we wouldn’t have secrets.”
She sighed, like he was a child dragging mud across a clean floor. “I promised a lot of things before I became CEO.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She set the tablet down with deliberate care. “Listen to yourself. You quit your job. You chose to stay home. Don’t act as if I forced you.”
“I did it for you.”
“No,” she corrected. “You did it because you wanted to feel needed.”
The words landed harder than a slap. He swallowed. “Is there someone else?”
A beat. Just one. Too long. She laughed softly. “This again? You’re paranoid.”
“Then let me see your phone.”
Her smile sharpened. “Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t owe you that.” She stood, straightening her blazer. “I’m late.”
“For what?”
“For success,” she said, already walking past him. “You wouldn’t understand.”
The door closed behind her with a soft, final click. He stood there for a long moment, staring at the space she’d left behind.
Then her phone, forgotten on the counter, buzzed. Once. Twice. He told himself not to touch it. The screen lit up again. Evan: Did he suspect anything?
His breath caught. He picked up the phone with hands that no longer shook. The screen unlocked easily—her birthday. Of course.
The message thread was long. Too long. He scrolled. Laughter. Late nights. Complaints about him. Then a voice message. He hesitated—pressed play.
Her voice filled the kitchen, warm and intimate in a way he hadn’t heard in years. “He’s harmless,” she said, amused. “He built the foundation. I’m living in the penthouse.”
A man laughed on the other end. “Cold.”
“Efficient,” she corrected. “Meet me tonight. Same place.”
The message ended. Something inside him went quiet. He set the phone down carefully, as it might explode. Then he grabbed his jacket. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Evan’s smile was easy. Too easy. The kind worn by men who’d never been told no and believed consequences were for other people. “You’re sleeping with my wife.”
Evan laughed. “Is that how she put it?”
“Answer me.”
“She said you’d be emotional.” Evan leaned against the glass railing, the city lights blazing behind him. “She didn’t say you’d be stupid.”
“Where is she?”
“Watching,” Evan said, nodding past him.
He turned. She stood near the elevator, arms crossed, face carefully blank. Not surprised. Not angry. Just… distant. “Say something,” he said.
She didn’t. Evan stepped closer. “You know what she likes about me?”
He ignored him. “I asked you a question.”
She met his eyes at last. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
The words cut deeper than the truth ever could. “I gave you everything.”
“You gave me limits,” she said. “I outgrew them.”
He laughed then, a broken, disbelieving sound. “So that’s it? You cheat, and I’m the problem?”
“She didn’t cheat,” Evan said. “She upgraded.”
His fist connected with Evan’s jaw before he realized he’d moved. Evan stumbled back, shocked more than hurt. Then he smiled. “Bad idea.”
Two men stepped out of the shadows near the maintenance corridor. He looked around, suddenly aware of how empty the rooftop was. How quiet. “Camera’s down,” Evan said casually. “Blind spot.”
She took a step back. “Call them off,” he said to her. “Now.”
She hesitated. That was all it took. Pain exploded at the back of his skull. He hit the ground hard, breath knocked from his lungs, a boot pressed into his ribs. “Wait,” he gasped. “Please.”
Evan crouched beside him. “You really thought love was enough?”
He looked past Evan, searching her face. She was crying. But she didn’t move. Evan whispered, “Turn around.”
She did. The world narrowed to concrete, blood, and the sound of his own heartbeat slowing. Darkness rushed in—Thump—a heartbeat. Not fading. Starting.
His eyes snapped open. And for a moment, the dark pulsed as if it were alive.
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CHAPTER 12 — The Phantom Investor
The city’s pulse was muted tonight. Rain slicked streets reflected neon streaks, but he didn’t notice them. His attention was on the screen in front of him: a live stock ticker, flashing irregularly, rhythm disrupted.A subtle anomaly, almost invisible to anyone not paying absolute attention. Not random, he thought. Calculated.His fingers hovered over the keyboard. A soft ping alerted him to an incoming call. Caller ID: “Market Liaison.”“Evening,” a smooth, practiced voice said. “You’ve noticed the fluctuations?”“Notice? I predicted them,” he replied evenly, letting the words hang.A pause. “I see. You’re… confident.”“Confidence isn’t the word. Awareness is.”There was a soft laugh. “Interesting. Most people think awareness is reaction. You… anticipate.”“Exactly,” he said. “Which is why I called. Or rather, why you called.”He knew the intermediaries, the whispers behind the real investors. The board thought they were untouchable, hidden behind layers of proxies and shell corpora
CHAPTER 11 — Shadows in the Boardroom
The city lights stretched like veins below him as he adjusted the webcam on his laptop, the glow reflecting off his sharp, calculated eyes.His apartment felt colder tonight, sterile, but he preferred it that way. No distractions. No witnesses. No emotion.He opened the secure virtual conference link he’d acquired months ago, back when ambition and careful observation had been the only allies he trusted.The boardroom appeared on his screen, sleek, leather chairs filled with familiar faces he once called enemies. Some unaware of how easily he could pierce their control. Some already suspecting.He typed quickly, a few keystrokes here, a minor script there, then leaned back. The video feed remained unaltered, the audio channel clean. He wasn’t just watching, he was inside.“You’re muted,” a voice complained on the feed.He smiled faintly, pressing a key that let a single line of text appear in the private chat channel. Only the CFO received it. Check subledger 7B. Transaction 34. Overs
CHAPTER 10 — The Second Rule of Survival
He didn’t sleep. Not because he couldn’t, but because sleep belonged to the man he used to be.The apartment was silent except for the hum of electricity and the soft ticking of a wall clock he hadn’t noticed before.He sat at the table, the file still open on his laptop, blue light carving sharp angles into his face. A test. A candidate. A contingency.They hadn’t just removed him. They had selected him. He closed the file. Slowly. Deliberately.Emotion rose, hot, instinctive, but he pressed it down before it could bloom. Rage was inefficient. Grief was a liability. Even satisfaction had a cost. “Rule one already failed,” he said quietly. “I cared.”The whisper stirred, faint approval brushing the edges of his thoughts. You learned.“Yes,” he replied. “I did.”He stood and moved to the whiteboard he’d bought that morning. It still smelled faintly of plastic and solvent. He erased the names he’d written earlier, hers, Evan’s, the board members.Personal targets. Too small. He wrote th
CHAPTER 9 — Enemies in Silk Suits
“They want to meet.”The voice on the phone was careful, practiced. A man used to saying dangerous things without sounding like it. “Who?” he asked.A pause. Just long enough to matter. “People who have an interest in how this ends.”He smiled faintly. “That’s vague.”“It’s intentional,” the man replied. “Tonight. Private room. No records.”He didn’t hesitate. “Send the address.”The call ended. He didn’t ask how they’d gotten his number. He already knew. The restaurant sat above the city, glass walls curving outward like the edge of a blade. No signage. No reservation list.The kind of place where money didn’t announce itself, it assumed obedience. He arrived alone. Inside, three men and one woman waited.All dressed impeccably. Silk suits. Subtle watches. Calm faces that had never learned panic. She wasn’t there. That told him everything. “Mr. Hale,” the woman said, standing. “Thank you for coming.”“I’m curious,” he replied. “That’s different.”One of the men gestured to a chair. “
CHAPTER 8 — Ghosts Don’t Stay Quiet
The whisper came before the sound did. Move. The word slid through his head like a blade through silk. He stopped walking.A second later, a delivery truck roared past the corner he’d been about to cross, horn blaring, brakes screaming. Wind slapped his coat as the truck missed him by inches.People shouted. Someone cursed. Time snapped back into place. He stood there, heart pounding, not from fear, but from recognition. “That wasn’t instinct,” he murmured.His phone buzzed. A news alert flashed across the screen.COURT ACCEPTS EXPEDITED HEARING — DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS ADVANCEGood. He stepped back onto the sidewalk, moving slower now, senses stretched thin. The city felt… wrong.Sounds lagged, like audio out of sync with video. Footsteps echoed a half-second too late. Conversations blurred into a low, underwater murmur until individual words surfaced, sharp and isolated.“…lawsuit”“…camera footage”“…he’s unstable”Faces did it too. People’s features smeared when he looked at them dir
CHAPTER 7 — Divorce Is Just the Beginning
“You’re asking for assets you don’t legally control.”The attorney’s tone was careful. Too careful. Across the table, she sat perfectly straight, hands folded, face composed in a serene enough expression to fool strangers.The glass walls of the conference room reflected her confidence in her like a crown. He leaned back in his chair. “No,” he said. “I’m asking for assets I built.”She laughed softly. “You cooked dinners.”“I structured cash flow,” he replied. “I negotiated early vendor contracts. I rewrote the first investor deck when your English wasn’t good enough to sell ambition.”Her smile twitched. “That was informal support,” her attorney cut in. “There’s no documentation.”“There is,” he said calmly.He slid a folder across the table. Not thick. Precise. Emails. Drafts. Timestamped revisions. Wireframes. A signed NDA she’d forgotten she'd made him sign, one that listed him as a Strategic Consultant.Her attorney flipped pages, frowning deeper with each turn. “You never told m
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