Chapter 3

That night was torture.

I sat in the dark, watching the red dot of Eli' s location on my phone. It was at Kasey' s house. The heart rate monitor on my linked watch pulsed violently, a steady, sickening rhythm that mirrored his activities in another woman's bed.

Upstairs, Cody screamed.

Eli had sent all the staff home for the night, wanting me to "bond" with the boy. Leaving me alone in the cavernous house with the product of his betrayal.

I went to Cody's room. He was throwing toys, his face red with rage.

"I hate you!" he shrieked when he saw me. He charged and body-slammed me, his small frame surprisingly strong.

I pushed him away, and he fell to the floor, instantly bursting into theatrical sobs.

"You hit me! I'm going to tell my daddy you hit me!"

He wasn't a child. He was a weapon, trained by his mother.

"I have a mommy! You're a bad woman!" he screamed.

My face was a mask of stone. On my wrist, the watch showed Eli's heart rate spike again.

I spent the entire night listening to a symphony of torment: Cody's incessant wailing from upstairs and the silent, pulsing evidence of my husband's betrayal on my wrist.

By morning, I felt like a ghost.

I remembered Eli's promises. After Leo died, I was a wreck. He never left my side. He held me, fed me, shielded me from the world. He had soundproofed our bedroom so nothing would disturb my fragile sleep.

Now, I was sitting alone in the living room, waiting for my husband to come home from another woman's bed, while their child screamed obscenities at me from upstairs.

The house staff returned in the morning, and I forced myself to go to my room, desperate for a moment of sleep, a moment of silence.

The door was kicked open.

Eli's mother, Florence Stark, stormed in. Her face was a storm cloud of fury.

She grabbed me by the arm, her nails digging in, and dragged me out of bed and down the stairs.

"You useless woman!" she shrieked. "Cody has a fever! What did you do to him?"

She shoved me into Cody's room. Eli was there, standing by the bed. Kasey was beside him, dabbing Cody's forehead with a damp cloth.

When Cody saw me, he recoiled, pulling the blankets over his head.

"Don't let her hit me!" he screamed, his voice muffled. "Don't make me take a cold shower again!"

I stared in disbelief. Florence grabbed my hair, yanking my head back.

"You monster!" she spat, her face inches from mine. She slammed me against a dresser, the corner digging into my ribs. "You killed my first grandson, and now you're trying to kill this one too! You worthless, barren shrew!"

Her words were poison. She' d always despised me, my middle-class background a stain on her precious family name.

"That's not true," I gasped, pain shooting through my side. "Check the security cameras."

Kasey burst into tears, falling to her knees. "It's my fault," she sobbed. "I shouldn't have left him with her. She was just so angry, she took it out on the poor boy."

She looked up, her eyes pleading. "Look at his legs."

Florence ripped the covers off Cody. His legs were covered in angry, blue-green bruises.

The sight sent Florence into a rage. She slapped me across the face, the force of it snapping my head to the side.

My cheek stung. I looked at Eli, searching his face for any sign of support, any hint that he knew me, that he knew I would never do this.

His eyes were ice.

The protest died in my throat. He believed them. Of course, he did.

"Harper," Eli's voice was low and heavy with disappointment. "This has gone too far."

He didn't look at me. He looked at the wall behind me.

"Take her to the reservoir," he commanded the bodyguards who had appeared at the door. "Lock her in the pump house. She needs to cool off."

My pupils trembled. The pump house at the reservoir. A small, dark room that often flooded.

Water.

My greatest fear since Leo.

I didn't fight. I let them drag me away, my body numb.

They shoved me inside the small, concrete room and locked the door. Water was already seeping in, cold and black. It rose quickly, climbing past my ankles, my knees, my waist.

I closed my eyes, and I was back there, four years ago. The bright sun, the blue water of our pool, the terrifying silence. Leo's small body, floating. My own screams, raw and useless.

Eli had been the one to pull me out of my fear. He'd spent months patiently helping me, holding me in a pool until I could breathe again without panicking. He' d built a wall against my terror.

And now he was using that same terror to punish me. For a crime I didn't commit.

The cold water reached my mouth. The darkness and the suffocating pressure closed in. A nightmare I could never wake from.

In the blackness, I saw Leo's face. He was smiling, reaching for me.

A tear escaped my eye, mixing with the frigid water.

My love, my trust, my entire life with Eli. It was all rotten to the core.

I let myself sink.