Chapter 2

They let me go after hours of questioning, "pending further investigation."

Isabella had already left, claiming she needed to make arrangements, her demeanor cold, distant.

I drove home in a daze, the city lights blurring through unshed tears.

Her words echoed in my head, "He left the apartment... I saw him."

Why? Why would she lie like that, so deliberately, so destructively?

It made no sense, none of it.

I sat in my car in the silent garage, the engine off, the darkness pressing in.

My mind raced, searching for an explanation, any explanation.

Then, a flicker of memory: the dashcam.

It was cloud-synced, always on. I' d installed it after a minor fender bender years ago.

My hands trembled as I pulled out my phone, navigated to the app.

The footage from earlier that evening was there.

I scrolled to the time Isabella claimed I' d left, then a little earlier, when she herself had come home from her law firm.

Her car pulled into her usual spot.

The audio was clear, painfully clear.

Isabella wasn't alone.

Marcus Thorne' s voice, smooth, arrogant, filled my car.

Marcus, her old college flame, the one she always said was "just a friend."

Marcus, the slick film producer who' d tried to poach my projects for years, my rival.

"He'll be devastated about Olivia, of course," Marcus was saying, a smirk in his tone.

Isabella' s reply was clipped, "It has to be this way, Marcus, it' s the only way we can be together, and you can finally get those scripts."

My blood ran cold.

"And the girl?" Marcus asked, "She just stumbled upon us, bad timing."

Isabella' s voice, devoid of any warmth, "She saw you near the alley, didn't she? She can't identify you if Ethan takes the fall."

Then Marcus, his voice like a viper, "Don't worry, darling, I was... persuasive. She won't be talking for a while, if ever."

He chuckled, a low, guttural sound that made my stomach churn.

"And Ethan? His alibi?"

"I've taken care of it," Isabella said, "He'll be out of our lives, and his precious film company will be yours."

The recording continued, detailing their plan to frame me, to destroy me, to take everything.

Olivia, my sweet Olivia, hadn't just been attacked, she'd been silenced because she was a witness.

A witness to her own mother' s betrayal with the man who then nearly killed her.

I leaned my head against the steering wheel, a silent scream trapped in my chest.

The woman I loved, the mother of my child, was a monster.