Chapter 2 - Playing the Blind Wife
When Damon walked down the stairs half an hour later, dressed in a fresh polo and smelling aggressively of peppermint body wash, I was sitting at the kitchen island with a steaming mug of peppermint tea. The ultrasound pictures were spread out neatly across the marble counter.
""Look at her profile,"" I said, smiling warmly as if nothing were amiss. ""The technician said she has your chin.""
Damon leaned over my shoulder, resting his large hands on my shoulders. I felt an instinctive shudder run down my spine, but I forced my muscles to relax into his touch. ""She’s gorgeous, Em. Just like you. I promise you I’ll never miss another doctor visit. Today was just... unavoidable.""
""I know,"" I answered, looking directly into his brown eyes. ""You work so hard for us.""
""Always for our family,"" he replied smoothly, kissing my cheek before heading toward the refrigerator. ""By the way, did Claire call you today? I thought she was supposed to help you sort through baby shower RSVPs this afternoon.""
The sheer audacity took my breath away. He was testing me, fishing to see if Claire had reached out or if I suspected anything.
""No,"" I replied casually, taking a sip of tea. ""She texted earlier saying she had an unexpected emergency with her wedding florist. You know how stressed she is about marrying Owen next spring.""
Damon’s jaw tightened imperceptibly at the mention of Owen’s name. ""Yeah. Owen’s a lucky guy. Anyway, I’m starving. Want me to order from that Italian place down the street?""
""That would be wonderful,"" I said.
That night, after Damon fell into a deep, alcohol-aided sleep, his rhythmic snores filling the master bedroom, I slipped quietly out of bed. The house was pitch-black. I carried my tablet down to the guest bedroom at the end of the hall and locked the door behind me.
For the past three years, Damon had handled all our family finances. He worked as a senior portfolio manager at a private wealth firm, and he had always insisted that managing our investments was his duty. ""You just focus on your interior design consultancy and the baby, Em. Let me handle the boring numbers,"" he had always told me with an affectionate chuckle.
I opened our joint bank account. Nothing seemed unusual at first glance—mortgage payments, utility bills, supermarket runs. But then I began digging deeper into the digital statements from his corporate credit cards and a secondary savings account we rarely touched.
Three months ago, a transfer of forty thousand dollars had left our secondary account. The recipient was an LLC titled ""C&D Holdings.""
My pulse spiked. C&D. Claire and Damon.
I opened a separate browser tab and accessed the state business registry. It took less than two minutes: C&D Holdings LLC had been registered five months ago. The listed managing members were Damon Vance and Claire Holloway. The registered address was an upscale luxury condominium complex located just fifteen minutes from our house.
He hadn't just taken her to our bed while I was at our baby's ultrasound. He was buying property with her. He was building an entire second life with my best friend, using the money we had saved together for our daughter's college fund and our future.
Tears burned at the corners of my eyes, but I swallowed them down. I refused to cry. Crying was a luxury for people who had time to mourn. Right now, I was in a war, and Damon had no idea I had cracked his battle plan.
I took high-resolution screenshots of every transaction, every corporate filing, and every statement, uploading them to three separate encrypted cloud accounts. Then, I pulled up Owen’s contact card on my phone.
Owen was Claire’s fiancé—a decent, hardworking pediatric surgeon who adored her with every fiber of his being. He had worked eighty-hour weeks at the hospital to buy her that custom ring and put a down payment on their dream house. He was blind to her treachery, just as I had been.
May you like
I hovered my finger over the call button, but stopped. Calling him now would cause a chaotic explosion before I had all the pieces on the board. If Claire found out I knew, she and Damon would scramble to hide the assets, dissolve the LLC, and rewrite the narrative.
I needed Owen, but I needed him calm, prepared, and ready to strike at the exact right moment.
