Chapter 2 Overture: The Last Shred of Faith

Anastasia Greene Johnson I shook my head violently. She's lying. She wants me to surrender without a fight. Even if Ethan betrayed me, he could never do something as monstrous as murdering his own children. I know him. I have to. I just have to win his love back. Tears spilled before I could stop them. My knees gave way, and I crumpled before Valerie, every last scrap of pride dissolving beneath the weight of my desperation. "Please," I rasped, clutching at her skirt as though it were the only thing keeping me from drowning. "Don't take him away from me. Don't break my family apart. I'm begging you." I would have crawled a thousand miles over broken glass if it meant salvaging my marriage. But mercy had abandoned me. Valerie's stiletto came down on my hand, the heel grinding into flesh until pain tore a cry from my throat. Even then, I endured it. For Ethan. "You think that's going to soften me?" she sneered, her laugh brittle as shattered glass. "You stole him from me, and he still came crawling back. And now you have the nerve to beg me to give him up?" I had no answer. My silence only seemed to delight her. "I'm afraid it's far too late for that." She sighed with manufactured sympathy. "You saw the photographs. Ethan wants me, not you. And when a man like Ethan decides what he wants, nothing stands in his way. So take your son and disappear. Consider this the end of your little fairytale." "No. . ." The word barely made it past my lips. "No, this can't be. Ethan loves me. He-" The slap came without warning. My head snapped sideways. Valerie caught my chin, forcing me to look at her. Triumph glittered in her eyes. "Listen carefully, you deluded little country-bum," she hissed. "I could bury you beneath enough evidence to make you wish you'd never opened your eyes this morning. But I'll be merciful." She reached into her handbag and pulled out a gleaming credit card, flicking it towards my feet. "Take it. It's enough for a plane ticket and a new life somewhere far away from him. Find some miserable little room where you can lick your wounds in peace. Why cling to a man who doesn't want you when you might still find some pathetic fool willing to take pity on you?" My fingers trembled. I stared at the card but did not touch it. "I... I can't. I love him." "But he doesn't love you," Her smile turned cruel. "You heard him yourself." I had. Ethan's drunken words still haunted the room. And yet some stubborn fragment of faith refused to die. "I'll believe it," I whispered, my voice shaking but steadying with every word. "When he's sober and tells me himself. When he looks me in the eye and says he doesn't love me." Something in Valerie's expression hardened. "Fine," she unlocked her phone again. "Remember-you asked for this." Her thumb moved across the screen with deliberate precision. Then she thrust the screen on my face and pressed play. The video featured her and Ethan, tangled in bed together in a fancy hotel room. Valerie's sultry voice emerged first. "I love you, Ethan. I love you so much." My stomach twisted. Then came his raspy voice as he kissed her. "I love you more... I'm sorry for leaving you." The visuals and sounds that followed-muffled breaths, quiet moans, the intimacy of people who should never have been there together-finished what her words had begun. The room tilted. Bile climbed into my throat as I stumbled backwards, horror hollowing me from the inside. "No..." My voice broke. "No, no... this isn't real." Valerie merely smiled. "Oh, there's more." Her tone was almost playful. "Shall we open another little Easter egg?" She tapped the screen again. A voice note. Dr. Owen. My former gynecologist. Her voice came hesitant and uneasy. "Mr. Johnson, this isn't right. Not without your wife's consent-" Ethan interrupted. Cold. Controlled. "You're being paid. Do as I say. Prescribe the pills. Make certain they aren't life-threatening. No lasting side effects." "But Mr. Joh-" "Do not make me repeat myself, Dr. Owen. She's already three months along. It can't continue. The babies must be removed. No more delays." Silence. Then Dr. Owen's trembling reply. "Al-alright." Rustling. Movement. Then- "Here. Mix it with her food. Be careful with the dosage." "Thank you. The money will be in your account as soon as possible." The recording stopped. So did something inside me. The memory came rushing back in one brutal wave-the cramps, the blood, the terror. The maid bringing my lunch. That strange bitterness lingering on my tongue. So Valerie was telling the truth? Did Ethan-my Romeo-arrange for our children to die before they were even born? "Not only that," Valerie said, her voice thick with satisfaction. "He wanted to get rid of your son, too." My blood ran cold. "The first time, he wanted the same outcome-a miscarriage. He only stopped because you were too far along. Removing the child then would have resulted in legal threats. Otherwise, you'd have lost that child as well." She paused. "If you still doubt me, I can-" "I believe you." The words left me before I could think. My voice sounded strange. Thin. Hollow. "I... I understand now." I wiped the tears from my lashes with a shaking hand. Valerie smiled. A serpent pleased with the venom it had delivered. "Now we're talking." That smug little triumph settled the last uncertainty inside me. The photographs. The recordings. The miscarriage. All of it carried Ethan's imprint. How could I remain beside a man whose hands had plotted the deaths of my children? Infidelity might have broken me. But this. . . this was beyond betrayal. A bitter, soundless laugh trembled through me. How blind I was. Love had not merely softened me. It had shackled me. Ethan's so-called protection had always been a gilded cage. His refusal to let me work. His insistence that I remain inside walls he owned, spending his money while he decided what my life should look like. He never let me form new relationships unless he approved. I had mistaken possession for devotion. He had feared my independence because independence meant I might eventually see him clearly. And leave. My heart twisted beneath the weight of grief and disgust. The man I had adored with reckless devotion had never loved me in the way I loved him. To Ethan, I had been something manageable-a beautiful ornament, a pliable soul dressed in silk and kept exactly where he wanted me. A marionette. And he had been pulling the strings from the beginning. But no more. I won't be his obedient little prisoner anymore. I have Ruslan. My son deserves better than this. He deserves kindness. Compassion. Humanity. I will raise him differently. I will break this chain here, before he grows into the very man I now believe his father to be. "Thank you," I murmured. There was no anger left in my voice. Only ice. "Thank you for telling me the truth. I'll leave him. I'll take my son and disappear from his life," I swallowed. "May you find whatever happiness you were denied with him." Without waiting for an answer, I turned away. In the bedroom, I tore through drawers and cabinets, gathering passports, documents, cash and whatever else I could carry. My hands would not stop shaking. Then I saw it. The wedding portrait. Mounted above the king-sized bed. Ethan and me, frozen beneath a frame of golden light-smiling as though the vows between us were indestructible. For one wild second, I wanted to rip it from the wall. Smash the glass. Destroy every trace of that woman I had once been. But Ruslan was waiting. I had no time for ghosts. I hurried into his room and gathered my sleeping son into my arms. His little body curled instinctively against me, warm and trusting, utterly unaware that his world had just been turned upside down. When I returned to the living room, Valerie was still there. She sat beside Ethan with feline ease, stroking his hair while he slept, oblivious to the wreckage surrounding him. My grip tightened around the suitcase handle. The wheels whispered harshly across the marble. Seven years together since high school. Three being married. And this was what I was handed in return - betrayal. The cruelest kind. I took some of the scattered photographs from the floor as proof and left. I did not look back. Not at Ethan. Not at Valerie. Not at the penthouse that had once felt like home. I walked into the night with my son in my arms and the remains of a love I no longer recognized scattered somewhere behind me.