Chapter 4

The rules of my return were unforgiving, a code I had written myself in a different lifetime. They were designed to ensure that the Club was never used for petty grievances. To reactivate my status as Athena, the betrayal had to be absolute, and the response had to be total.

Rule one: The target must be dismantled using their own tactics. David used charm, manipulation, and the facade of the family man. I would have to turn his charm against him, out-manipulate the manipulator, and use his own family-man persona as the weapon of his destruction.

Rule two: The destruction must be comprehensive. It wasn't enough to divorce him. I had to ruin him financially, shatter his professional reputation, and turn him into a social pariah. He had to lose everything he valued, especially the things he used to deceive me.

Rule three: No collateral damage to the innocent. This was the most important rule. It was the one that separated us from common criminals. It was also my biggest challenge.

That challenge had a name: Ethan.

The next morning, I was in the kitchen making pancakes, the picture of domestic bliss. Ethan came bounding down the stairs, his face bright with a child' s morning energy.

"Morning, Mom!" he said, sliding into his chair at the table.

"Morning, sweetie. Pancakes are almost ready."

David came in a few minutes later, dressed in his expensive suit, smelling of cologne and ambition. He kissed my cheek, then ruffled Ethan' s hair.

"Morning, champ," he said. "Don' t forget our little secret, okay? We want it to be a big surprise for Mom." He winked at Ethan.

Ethan giggled and nodded vigorously. "Our secret, Dad."

My heart went cold. David was reinforcing the lie, turning our son into his co-conspirator right in front of me. He was teaching Ethan that secrets and deception were fun, a game you played against your own mother.

Later that day, I was putting away laundry in Ethan' s room when I noticed his tablet on his bed. He' d left it on. A chat window was open with one of his school friends.

His friend had typed: "Can you play online later?"

Ethan' s reply made me stop breathing. "Can' t. My dad is taking me to the arcade. He said if I tell mom we' re going to the library, he' ll give me extra money for the claw machine."

The casualness of it, the easy way Ethan had adopted his father' s deceit, was horrifying. This wasn' t just about David' s infidelity anymore. It was about the poison he was dripping into our son' s heart, day by day. He was remaking our son in his own image.

I couldn' t let that happen. Ethan had to be protected. He had to be removed from the battlefield before the war began.

I closed the laundry drawer, my mind made up. My plan had to be accelerated. I took a deep breath and walked out of the room, my movements calm and deliberate. I went downstairs and picked up my phone. I scrolled through my contacts until I found the name I was looking for: Olivia Rodriguez. My sister.

Olivia was everything I had pretended not to be for the past eight years. She was a high-powered marketing executive, sharp, pragmatic, and completely unsentimental. She never understood why I gave up my career. She had always been suspicious of David' s perfect facade.

She answered on the second ring. "Sarah? Everything okay? You never call me on a weekday."

"I need a favor, Liv," I said, my voice low and steady. "A big one. I need you to take Ethan for a while. Maybe a few weeks."

There was a pause on the other end of theline. "Take Ethan? For weeks? What' s going on? Did something happen?"

"Something' s happening," I said, choosing my words carefully. "I can' t explain it all over the phone. But I need to get Ethan out of this house. He' s not safe here right now."

"Not safe? Sarah, what are you talking about? Is David... is he hurting you?" Her voice sharpened with alarm.

"Not in the way you think," I said. The financial ruin, the emotional manipulation, the psychological warfare-it was all too much to explain. "I' m handling it. But I need Ethan away from here while I do. Can you do this for me? No questions asked, just for now."

I could hear her thinking, weighing the strangeness of my request against the genuine urgency in my voice. Olivia might be pragmatic, but she was my sister. And she loved Ethan.

"Okay," she said finally. "Okay, Sarah. I' ll come get him this weekend. But you and I are going to have a long talk very, very soon. I mean it."

"I know," I said, relief washing over me. "Thank you, Liv. You have no idea what this means."

I hung up the phone. The first move had been made. I had secured my most precious asset. Now, with Ethan safe, the gloves could come off. The real game could begin.