Chapter 1 - The Call at Four in the Morning
The room suddenly felt freezing. I gripped the phone tighter as one terrifying thought hit me: this was not a wrong number, and whatever Ryan was about to say was going to change my life forever. The sound of a grown man sobbing into a microphone in the dead of night is visceral, rattling through your chest before your brain even processes the danger.
“Ryan?” My voice barely carried across the dark bedroom. “Where is Evan? Is he hurt? Did something happen on the drive home?”
“He’s… he’s not hurt, Lauren,” Ryan choked out between ragged gasps of air. “I mean, he’s in the emergency room right now at Harborview, but he’s not the one who’s bleeding out. It’s a mess. A total, sickening mess.”
I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress, my bare feet hitting the cold hardwood floor. Outside, the Seattle rain pelted against the glass like thrown gravel. “Ryan, stop crying and speak clearly. Start from the beginning. Why are you calling me from an unknown number at four in the morning?”
“Because they took my phone, Lauren. Nick took it. Evan told him to delete everything, but I grabbed a burner from my glovebox. I ran out to the parking garage behind the club because I couldn’t look at him anymore. I couldn’t be a part of it.” Ryan paused, drawing in a shuddering breath that sounded like tearing paper. “The guys never said you weren't good enough for him. None of us ever said that. Evan made that up. He used us as an excuse to break you down because he was already seeing someone else, and tonight… tonight that lie destroyed a girl’s life.”
The air left my lungs in one hollow rush. Two weeks ago, Evan had stood by our kitchen counter, swirling an IPA, casually crushing my soul under the guise of casual locker-room banter. He had blamed his circle of college buddies, claiming they pitied him for settling with a quiet marketing coordinator when he was on the brink of making partner at his firm. I had spent fourteen days quietly packing away my dignity, believing his friends saw me as an anchor dragging him down.
“Who was he seeing, Ryan?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.
“Her name is Chloe. She’s twenty-two, an intern at his firm’s downtown branch,” Ryan whispered. “Evan brought her to the private lounge tonight. He told Nick and me that you two were already separated, that you had checked out weeks ago and were moving out. He was showing her off like a trophy. He drank too much tequila, Lauren. Way too much. When Chloe tried to take his keys away in the alley behind the venue, he shoved her. She fell backward into the iron staircase railing. Her head… there was so much blood.”
My hand flew to my mouth. Nausea rose in a hot wave up my throat. “Is she alive?”
“She’s in surgery. The police are at the hospital right now. Evan is sitting in the waiting area trying to construct a story. He told the officers that Chloe tripped on her heels, and he told Nick to back him up so his career wouldn't get torpedoed before Monday morning. He looked me in the eye and begged me to lie for him. That was when I realized what a monster he actually is.”
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“Where are the police right now?” I demanded, walking swiftly toward the closet and pulling on a pair of jeans and a dark wool coat.
“They’re taking statements in the main trauma lobby,” Ryan replied, his voice hardening as the tears dried. “Evan thinks you’re fast asleep at home, oblivious, waiting to be his alibi if they ask when he left the house. He told Nick, ‘Lauren will cover for me, she always cleans up my messes.’ You need to come down here, Lauren. Not to save him, but to bury him before he buries you with him.”
