Chapter 4

The email arrived the next morning. It was from her gallery, the one that had represented her for five years.

The subject line was "Termination of Representation."

The body of the email was short, cold, and brutally professional. Due to the recent "allegations" and the resulting "reputational damage," they were severing all ties, effective immediately. All of her scheduled shows were cancelled. Her work was being removed from their website.

Olivia read it three times, the words swimming in front of her eyes. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she had to grip the kitchen counter to keep from falling.

Her world wasn't just collapsing. It was being systematically dismantled, piece by piece, by the man who had helped her build it.

She felt a familiar, creeping numbness start at the edges of her mind. It was the depression, a thick fog rolling in to suffocate what little was left of her spirit. She walked to the bathroom cabinet and opened a new bottle of her medication. The doctor had told her to take one a day. She swallowed two, chasing them with water from the tap. She needed the silence. She needed the numbness.

She spent the day in a daze, wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, staring at the blank television screen. The city outside her window roared on, oblivious.

Late in the afternoon, she heard a key in the lock.

Her heart leaped with a sudden, stupid hope. He came back. He was going to say it was all a mistake.

But it wasn't just Ethan who walked in. Chloe was with him.

They stopped in the entryway, looking at her huddled on the sofa. Ethan's face hardened with annoyance. Chloe looked at her with an expression of pity that was more insulting than any glare.

"I need to pick up some of my books," Ethan said, his voice cold. He didn't ask how she was. He didn't acknowledge the wreckage of their shared life around them.

He went to the bookshelf, pulling down heavy art tomes. Chloe lingered in the doorway, her presence a violation of the space that had once been Olivia's sanctuary.

"What are you still doing here, Olivia?" Ethan asked, not looking at her. "I thought you'd have gone to your parents or something."

The question was so callous, so devoid of care, that it jolted her out of her stupor.

"Gone where, Ethan?" she replied, her voice a low croak. "This is my home. Or at least, it was."

She looked at Chloe, who was watching their exchange with wide, interested eyes. "I see you brought your new investment with you."

The sarcasm was sharp, and it landed. Ethan's jaw tightened.

"Don't start, Olivia," he warned.

"Don't start?" She stood up, the blanket falling to the floor. "You bring your little protégée, the girl you ruined my life for, into our home, and you tell me not to start?"

"She and I are not what you think," Ethan said, the denial automatic and unconvincing.

"Oh, I think I know exactly what you are," Olivia retorted, her voice gaining strength from the sheer, white-hot rage that was finally burning through the fog of her depression.

Ethan ignored her, turning to Chloe. "Chloe, would you like something to drink? Water? Tea?"

Chloe smiled sweetly. "Some water would be lovely, thank you, Ethan."

Then Ethan looked at Olivia. His eyes were flat, his voice a command.

"Get her some water."

The request hung in the air, thick and suffocating. He wasn't asking. He was ordering her. Ordering her to serve the girl who had taken everything from her, in the home they had once shared.

It was a deliberate act of humiliation. A power play to show her exactly where she stood.

Beneath him. Beneath Chloe. Beneath contempt.

A storm of fury and despair raged inside her, so powerful it made her feel dizzy again. She wanted to scream, to throw something, to claw at their smug, composed faces.

But she didn't. She just stood there, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, the rage a silent, choking thing in her throat. She felt the pressure building behind her eyes, the world starting to tilt on its axis.