Chapter 3

The guest bed became my temporary fortress. Damian tried to talk a few times; I used Mabel’s birthday to block him. Maybe he thought I was resigned or still “processing.” He stopped pressing. He even came home for dinner sometimes, playing dutiful husband and father.

How funny. He enjoyed the eerie calm, never guessing at the undertow of evidence I was hauling in day and night.

The family cloud was a gold mine. I watched the transfers grow larger. Their flirty messages turned pointed. I found him funneling money from our joint account to buy luxury goods for the riverside condo—our second investment property.

Each entry was an ice splinter—and it clarified me.

I needed more. Not just numbers. Pictures. Something that would nail them to the floor.

One name sharpened in my mind—Edward Archer. My biological father. Missing for most of my childhood; throwing money at my adulthood; a man with a massive network and a cold hand.

Our relationship was complicated—distant but bounded by respect. Right now he was the sharpest blade.

I dialed his private number. The international call picked up quickly.

“Aurora?” Surprise. Usually we only spoke on holidays.

“Father.” I didn’t waste time. My voice sounded like I was talking business that had nothing to do with me. “I need your help. Pull your investment from Damian’s company.”

Silence hummed. The sum wasn’t small. That investment was crucial to Damian’s European expansion.

“What happened?” Archer’s voice lost a bit of steel to something like concern.

That shift pinched my heart.

My fingertips dug into my palm. Cold school memories flashed—empty seats in the cafeteria; rotting fruit in my locker; Lila tearfully accusing me of stealing her “grandmother’s precious necklace” in the teacher’s office as suspicious eyes turned on me…

That feeling of an invisible hand closing on my throat hadn’t dimmed much with the years.

“He’s cheating—with Lila White.” I paused, breathed, swallowed the lump. “In school she led two years of isolation and slander. Now she’s in my husband’s bed.”

A longer silence. Then a soft, cold exhale.

“I understand,” he said crisply. “It will take a little time—we’ll do it quietly. Aurora—” He said my name like he was testing a role he’d never gotten to play.

“Whatever happens, I’m here. You have somewhere to lean.” He hung up cleanly. But I heard it.

We don’t know each other well. Loving each other isn’t optional.

After drop-off I went to the café across from Damian’s office and chose a window seat out of sight. There was a compact scope and a long-lens camera in my bag.

I bet he’d spend lunch at the riverside condo.

I won.

At 12:30 his car pulled up. Minutes later, Lila floated up to him in a too-tight dress, a day-uneasy butterfly. He slid an arm around her waist and kissed her, the two of them sticky and shameless as they went inside.

Click. Click.

The camera did its honest work. Their oblivious intimacy pricked the last of my illusions—and hardened something inside me.

That night Damian came home on time for once, with a toy for Mabel.

After we got her down, he stood in the door of her room, speaking in a tone like a benefactor’s olive branch. “Aurora, about the divorce—”

I cut him off and held up my phone—our text thread.

“After Mabel’s birthday.” I typed and read it out, eyes on him. “On the fifteenth next month you’ll meet the lawyer to start the paperwork. Nothing that ruins her mood before then. In the meantime, be a bare-minimum father. Keep the peace. Agree?”

He searched my face for softness and found ice. Maybe he thought this was the best “stay” I could wring out of him. He nodded and took out his phone.

“Okay,” he texted back.

I screenshotted the single cold word.

Good. Timeline—locked.