Chapter 2

Alison Moody POV:

The next morning, I made Adam breakfast, the motions automatic. Scrambled eggs, toast, coffee. I set his plate down in front of him at the kitchen island. He grunted a thank you without looking up from his phone. I felt less like a wife and more like a short-order cook in a diner he frequented. The silence was thick with unspoken words, a heavy blanket smothering what was left of our relationship.

I drove him to the small recording studio he rented downtown, a space he now claimed was only for collaborating with other musicians, not for his "serious solo work." That, apparently, required the sacred ground of my garage. The car ride was just as silent as breakfast.

When I got to my own office at the firm, I moved with a clipped efficiency that surprised even me. I answered the most urgent emails, rescheduled a non-essential meeting, and told my boss I had a sudden dental emergency.

Instead of driving my own car home, I called an Uber. I couldn' t risk Adam seeing my car in the driveway if he decided to come back for some reason. The driver dropped me at the end of the block, and I practically sprinted up the driveway, my heart pounding with a mixture of fear and adrenaline.

This was it. I was going to get my answers.

I fumbled with my keys, my hands shaking as I unlocked the front door. I didn' t bother to take off my shoes. I went straight for the door to the garage, my purse still slung over my shoulder. I reached for the knob, a sense of triumphant vindication surging through me.

And then my fingers brushed against cold, unfamiliar metal.

I stopped. Stared. The simple brass doorknob that had been there yesterday was gone. In its place was a sleek, silver electronic keypad lock, a single red light glowing ominously in the center.

My blood ran cold. He had changed the lock. He had installed a keypad, a fortress gate on a simple interior door. My breath hitched. I couldn' t get in. I was locked out. Again. Permanently this time.

A wave of pure, unadulterated fury washed over me, so potent it made me dizzy. Taking a shaky step back, I pulled out my phone and took a clear, high-resolution picture of the new lock. I didn' t know why, but my analyst brain told me to document everything.

Suddenly, the front door slammed shut behind me.

I whirled around, a scream catching in my throat. Adam stood there, his chest heaving, his face a mask of thunderous rage.

"What the hell are you doing home?" he snarled.

"I... I had a toothache," I stammered, my mind racing. How did he know?

He took a menacing step toward me, his phone clutched in his hand. "A toothache? Really? Because your office said you had a dental emergency. And my Find My Friends app says your emergency is right here, trying to break into my studio."

He had been tracking me. The realization was a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.

Before I could even process the violation, he lunged. His hand shot out and clamped around my upper arm, his fingers digging into my flesh like talons. He squeezed, hard. A sharp, searing pain shot up my shoulder.

"Ow! Adam, you' re hurting me!" I cried, trying to wrench my arm free.

"What were you doing?" he repeated, his voice dangerously low, his face inches from mine. I could smell the coffee on his breath.

"Let go of me!" I shouted, yanking my arm with all my might. The sudden movement threw him off balance, and he stumbled back a step, his grip loosening just enough for me to pull free.

"This is my house!" I yelled, my voice trembling with pain and rage. "I can be wherever I want to be in my own damn house!"

"Not in my studio, you can' t," he hissed, his eyes blazing.

"When were you going to tell me you changed the lock?" I demanded, rubbing my throbbing arm. A dark bruise was already starting to form.

"I was going to tell you when the time was right," he said, dismissing my question as if it were irrelevant.

He took another step toward me, his hands clenched into fists. I flinched back, my heart hammering against my ribs. In that moment, I was genuinely afraid of him. He saw the fear in my eyes and a flicker of something-satisfaction?-crossed his face.

I instinctively dodged as he reached for me again. This time, I was ready.

"You touch me again, Adam, and I' m calling the police," I said, my voice shaking but firm. I held up my phone, my thumb hovering over the emergency call button.

My arm ached. My soul ached. A single, hot tear of pure rage slid down my cheek. This was it. The line had been crossed. This wasn't a disagreement or a secret anymore. This was abuse.

The threat of the police stopped him cold. Panic flashed in his eyes, wide and stark. He visibly deflated, the aggression draining out of him to be replaced by a desperate, cunning fear.

"Okay, okay," he said, lowering his voice, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Let' s not be dramatic, Ali."

"Dramatic?" I laughed, a harsh, broken sound. "You tracked me, you assaulted me, and you' re calling me dramatic? I' m calling the cops."

"No, wait!" His voice was sharp with urgency. "Don' t. We can sort this out. If you call them... we' re done. Is that what you want? To throw our marriage away?" He took a step closer, his tone shifting to one of pleading. "We' ll get a divorce."

Divorce. The word hung in the air between us, ugly and final. I froze. I thought of my parents, of their quiet disappointment. I thought of my grandmother' s legacy, the foundation she' d given me, and the shame of having it all crumble in less than a year.

And I thought of the house. My house. In a divorce, he' d be entitled to half of its value. Half of my inheritance. The thought was nauseating.

He saw the hesitation on my face and pressed his advantage. "Call the cops, and I walk away with half of this house. Your grandmother' s house," he said, his voice laced with venom. "Or... you let this go. You promise to respect my privacy, you stay out of the garage, and we forget this ever happened. Your choice."

It was a checkmate. He had me cornered, using my own assets, my own family pride, as a cage. A wave of helpless fury washed over me. I wanted to scream, to lash out, to break something.

Instead, I looked him dead in the eye and said, "Fine." The word was a shard of glass in my throat.

He wasn't finished. "And you will apologize for sneaking around behind my back and trying to invade my space."

The audacity of it was breathtaking. I stared at him, my vision blurring with tears of rage. I felt a stinging pain in my palm and looked down to see my own nails had dug crescent-shaped wounds into my skin. The physical pain was a welcome distraction from the inferno of humiliation burning inside me.

I turned without another word and walked away, the echo of his smug victory following me up the stairs.

Back at the office that afternoon, my best friend and colleague, Hayden Chavez, took one look at me and frowned. "Rough trip to the dentist?" she asked, her eyes narrowing on the faint purple mark on my arm that my sleeve didn' t quite cover.

I quickly pulled my sleeve down. "Something like that."

"You look like you' ve been crying," she observed, her cynical data-analyst brain missing no detail. "Trouble in paradise with the misunderstood musician?"

I forced a weak smile. "Newlywed stuff. You know."

"No, I don' t," she said flatly. "Which is why I remain happily single. Speaking of couples, the signup sheet for the annual corporate retreat is going around. Two nights at that fancy lakeside resort. I already put you and Adam down as a 'maybe' ."

A fresh wave of exhaustion hit me. "Oh. Right. I' ll go if he goes."

Hayden snorted. "Good luck with that. I saw him in the lobby earlier when he dropped you off. He told Mark from accounting that there was 'no fucking way' he was going on some 'corporate drone bonding trip' ."

The casual cruelty of it, not even having the decency to tell me himself, was just another small cut. "I' ll ask him myself," I said, my voice tight.

I found Adam by the coffee machine, charming a new intern. He was back in his element, the charismatic artist, all smiles and easy confidence. I waited until the intern walked away, blushing.

As I approached, I overheard him talking to Mark. They were discussing a catastrophic multi-car pile-up on the interstate last week, a tragedy that had killed a young family. It was a somber topic, yet Adam spoke of it with a strange, almost clinical detachment.

"Adam," I said quietly, approaching his side. "Hayden mentioned the corporate retreat."

He turned to me, his smile vanishing. His eyes were flat, devoid of any warmth. "I' m not going."

"Adam, my boss is expecting us. It looks bad if we don' t show up. It' s important for my career."

Suddenly, his voice boomed across the quiet office. "I said I' m not fucking going! Are you deaf? How many times do I have to say it?"

The entire office fell silent. Every head turned. Every pair of eyes was on us. My face burned with a spectacular, all-consuming humiliation. I felt naked, exposed, a hundred invisible needles of judgment pricking my skin. I could see the pity in Hayden' s eyes from across the room.

In that moment, any lingering trace of love I might have had for him, any shred of the man I thought I married, evaporated. It wasn't chipped away; it was incinerated, leaving behind nothing but cold, hard ash.

The illusion was shattered. I wasn' t married to a struggling artist. I was married to a monster.

Later, Hayden found me in the breakroom, staring blankly at a cup of coffee I had no intention of drinking. She didn' t say anything, just handed me a slip of paper. On it was a name and a number.

"He' s a locksmith," she said quietly. "Also does security systems. He owes me a favor. He can tell you what kind of lock that is on your garage and how to get past it."

I looked from the paper up to her face, my eyes welling with tears I refused to let fall.

"Thank you," I whispered.

She squeezed my shoulder. "Whatever is going on, Ali, you' re not in it alone."

As she walked away, I glanced back out into the main office. Adam was standing by his desk, pretending to be on a call, but his eyes were fixed on me, narrowed and watchful. He knew I was planning something. And I knew he was watching.

The game had changed.