Chapter 2
I walked for almost a mile before a car pulled over.
The driver was a woman in her forties, with kind eyes and a concerned look on her face.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’re bleeding.”
I must have looked a mess. My dress was expensive, but my hair was disheveled. There was blood on my chin. I was walking alone on a dark country road.
“I need to get to a hotel,” I said. My voice was hoarse.
“Get in,” she said.
She drove me to a hotel in the nearest town. She even paid for my room.
“Your husband doesn’t deserve you,” she said, looking at my split lip.
I didn’t have the energy to explain. I just thanked her.
The hotel room was small and plain. Nothing like the estate I’d just left.
I locked the door behind me. I slid down against it and finally let myself cry.
Everything came pouring out.
Three years of humiliation. Three years of being judged. Three years of trying to be someone I wasn’t.
Three years of loving a man who would never choose me.
When I stopped crying, I stood up and went to the bathroom.
I looked in the mirror.
My lip was swollen and split. There was a bruise already forming on my jaw. My eyes were red and puffy.
I looked like a victim.
But I didn’t feel like one anymore.
I turned on the tap and washed the blood from my face. I cleaned my lip as best I could.
Then I sat down on the bed and thought.
I knew things.
Dangerous things.
I’d seen the offshore bank account numbers on Charles’s desk when I’d been asked to bring him some papers.
I’d read the emails Ryan had left open on his laptop—emails about bribing city officials for zoning permits.
I’d heard the late-night phone calls about hiding money from the IRS.
I’d even found documents in the home office about a real estate deal that had displaced dozens of low-income families, falsified environmental reports, and made the Whitmores millions.
I’d kept quiet because I thought that’s what a good wife did. Because I thought if I was loyal, Ryan would eventually be loyal back.
Because I was afraid.
But I wasn’t afraid anymore.
I called my best friend, Chloe.
She answered on the first ring.
“Emily?” she said. “Where are you? Ryan called me. He said you left the party and he’s worried. He said you’ve been under a lot of stress and you had an episode—”
“An episode?” I said. I laughed bitterly. “He told you I had an episode?”
“Emily, what’s going on?” she said. She could hear it in my voice. Something was wrong.
“His father punched me in the face, Chloe,” I said. “Right in front of fifty people. And Ryan told me to apologize or leave. So I left.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Then Chloe exploded.
“He WHAT?” she screamed. “That son of a bitch. Both of them. I’m coming to get you. Where are you?”
I told her the name of the hotel.
“I’ll be there in two hours,” she said. “Don’t you dare go back there. Don’t you dare answer their calls. I’m on my way.”
She hung up.
I lay back on the bed.
I stared at the ceiling.
Two hours later, Chloe burst through the hotel room door.
She took one look at my face and her eyes filled with tears of rage.
“I’m going to kill them,” she said.
“Not yet,” I said.
I told her everything. Not just about the party. But about the years of subtle cruelty. The way they’d made me feel less than. The things I knew about their business.
Chloe listened carefully.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
“Emily,” she said. “If what you’re saying is true, we can destroy them. But we need to do this right. We need a lawyer. A good one. One who isn’t afraid of the Whitmores.”
“I know,” I said.
“I know someone,” she said. “Her name is Sarah Jenkins. She’s a lawyer. She specializes in high-stakes family law and white-collar crime. She’s taken down people like the Whitmores before. She’s fearless.”
“Call her,” I said.
Chloe called Sarah that night.
Sarah agreed to meet us the next morning.
I didn’t sleep that night.
I lay awake, thinking about everything I’d been through. Everything I’d lost. Everything I was about to do.
I thought about Ryan.
I thought about the man I’d fallen in love with. The charming, funny, kind man who’d swept me off my feet when we first met.
Where had he gone?
Had he ever really existed? Or had he just been playing a role to get what he wanted?
I thought about Charles.
A man who had everything. Money. Power. Respect. And still felt the need to punch a woman less than half his age because she’d spilled wine on his shirt.
I thought about Victoria.
A woman who’d spent her whole life performing perfection. Who’d watched her husband abuse people and said nothing. Who’d joined in the cruelty rather than risk her comfortable life.
I felt sorry for them, in a way.
All that money. All that power. And they were all so empty. So cruel. So afraid.
But my pity only went so far.
May you like
They’d made their choices.
And now I was going to make mine.
