Chapter 5
Damien returned to the house at twelve forty.
I knew the exact time because for the last two hours I'd been looking either at the clock above the mantel, or at the bottom drawer of his desk where Lara's bracelet lay, or at the door behind which sooner or later the man who had destroyed my life would appear—with such calm, almost businesslike precision, as if he'd signed not an affair but just another contract.
The children were at school and daycare.
Sarah was supposed to pick them up after lunch and take them to the park if it didn't rain.
I'd asked her myself, in a short text, without explanation.
"I need a few hours." She'd replied: "Of course.
" And so those few hours became a windowless cell where I sat alone, waiting for my husband to walk in so I could finally stop dying in silence.
The key turned in the lock. Then the short beep of the alarm system.
Then his footsteps in the foyer. Unhurried, unapologetic, uncautious.
Ordinary. Even. Proprietary. That shook me harder than if he'd burst in screaming.
He came back as if he had the right. As if a night away from home after the note, after my trembling, after his dry kiss on my forehead, was just another line in his schedule.
As if I was supposed to greet him with coffee, silence, and the exact expression he preferred: not too happy, so as not to irritate; not too sad, so as not to demand attention.
I was standing in the kitchen. I don't know why.
Probably because that was where all the women in our family had always endured: at the sink, at the stove, at the table, where you could slice bread so thin it was like slitting your own throat and calling it dinner.
On the counter stood clean cups. Six white cups from the set Damien had bought me for our anniversary instead of the trip I'd dreamed of.
"More practical," he'd said then. I'd been happy. Fool.
He walked into the kitchen in his dark jacket, phone in hand, tired, unshaven, beautiful to the point of hatred. His eyes found me immediately, then the dishes, then my bare feet on the cold tile.
"You're not dressed."
I looked down at myself slowly. Black house dress. Hair pulled back any which way. Nicole Grayson, wife of the Commander, ornament of the house, mother of two, a woman who'd spent the entire night being told that truth depends on context.
"I'm home."
"Where are the kids?"
"Somewhere safer than here today."
He froze. Now something clicked inside him. Not fear. Not yet. Attention.
"What does that mean?"
"It means Sarah will bring them home later."
"You decided without me?"
I smiled. My lips cracked, and I tasted blood.
"Can you imagine?"
Damien set his phone on the table. Slowly. Very carefully. He always did that before a conversation he intended to win: freed his hands, cleared the clutter, chose his position.
"Niki, if this is a continuation of last night, I'm not in the mood."
"And what mood am I in, do you think?"
"A destructive one."
"Beautiful word. Almost like 'the dress is too small.' Almost like 'you heard an insult.' Almost like 'don't confuse your insecurities with motherhood.' You have quite the vocabulary, Damien. It's a shame all of it exists to avoid saying one simple word."
"Which word?"
"Cheated."
He looked at me without moving. His face turned to stone so quickly it was as if someone had switched off the human inside him and left only the commander.
"Don't start."
"Too late."
"I said: don't start."
"And I said: too late."
He stepped closer.
"You went through my things again?"
That "again" sliced through me. Not "what did you see." Not "let's talk." He was already putting me in my place: I'd gone snooping. I'd trespassed. I'd been looking. I was to blame—even for what I'd found.
"No, Damien. I went through the cameras. I just watched how my husband kissed my sister in my living room while I was upstairs sucking in my stomach into a dress so he wouldn't be ashamed to stand next to me in the family photo."
Silence.
Then he said:
"That's not what you're making it into right now."
I laughed. Loudly. Badly. The laughter scattered across the kitchen, hit the glass of the cabinets, and came back to me as pain in my ribs.
"You're a genius. Truly. I don't even know what's worse: that you kissed Lara, or that you're about to explain to me that I misunderstood the kiss."
"You saw a few seconds without audio."
"Did I need audio? Was there a voiceover: 'Hello, my wife's sister, let's accidentally collide lips for the sake of client security'?"
"Don't be sarcastic."
"Why not? Don't you like it? Strange. Lara seemed to enjoy it. She actually told me I was pathetic. That I lost you before she ever touched you. Imagine how convenient—you can climb into another woman's bed and still consider yourself a consequence, not a cause."
His gaze sharpened.
"She was here?"
"She was."
"When?"
"This morning."
"And you made a scene?"
"A scene? No. The scene was when she came to me with croissants after kissing you. I gave her the finale."
"What did you do?"
"Why, Commander—didn't check the cameras?"
He took another step, and I suddenly saw on his face not guilt but anger. Cold. Controlled. Not at himself. At me. At the fact that I'd dragged the filth out of the folder where he'd planned to file it away and lock it with a passcode.
"You had no right to touch Lara."
Just like that.
The world cracked for good.
I looked at him and understood that I was about to either die or finally scream.
There was no third option. Inside me rose something enormous, black, with teeth—built from every night I'd stayed silent, every morning run on an empty stomach, every glance he'd aimed past me, from Lara's bracelet, from Tim's "don't lie to me like a baby," from Marta's "Daddy promised," from every second of that recording where he'd looked around before kissing my sister.
I grabbed the first cup and hurled it at the wall.
The porcelain exploded in a white flash.
"Niki!"
The second cup flew after it. Then the third. I wasn't counting. I just picked them up and threw them, and every impact was not a dish but a word I hadn't been able to say in time.
"BASTARD!" I screamed. "You're a bastard, Damien! Do you hear me?! BASTARD!"
He lunged toward me.
"Calm down!"
"WITH MY SISTER!" I grabbed a plate, but he caught my wrist. "WITH MY OWN SISTER!"
"Stop it!"
"How could you?! How could you even look at me after this?! How could you hold Marta with those hands, kiss Tim, sit at the table while she stood right there?! How could you tell me about the dress when her hair was on your shoulder?!"
"Niki, enough!"
"NO! Not enough! I've had enough for eight years! For eight years I've been eating your crumbs, Damien! 'Beautiful,' if I earned it! 'Good girl,' if I kept my mouth shut! 'Don't be dramatic,' if I cried! And this whole time you were sleeping with my sister?!"
He grabbed me and pinned both my arms. Not painfully, but firmly. So firmly that my entire breakdown slammed against his chest and thrashed there like a trapped bird.
"Watch your mouth."
"And what were you watching when you kissed her in my living room?"
"I said: watch your mouth."
"Why? Is the word dirty? But the act was clean?"
His face was very close. Dark eyes, clenched jaw, the smell of the street, coffee, his skin.
I hated him so fiercely I was shaking, and at the same time some sick part of me was still waiting: any second now he'll break.
Any second he'll say "I'm sorry." Any second he'll admit that he destroyed me.
But Damien Grayson didn't break. He broke others.
"Yes, I kissed Lara," he said, low. "And right now you want to turn that into the end of the world because it's convenient for you to have a reason for everything that hasn't been working between us for a long time."
I stopped struggling.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"Say it again."
"No need."
"Say it again, Damien. Finish me off. You do love precision."
He released my arms but didn't step back.
"It's been bad between us for a long time. You know it. I know it. Lara is not the cause here."
It felt as though I'd been sliced open from throat to navel and left standing.
"She's not the cause?"
"No."
"Of course. She's just the sister who accidentally ended up in your bed."
"Niki."
"No, I'm curious. What did I do wrong? Loved too hard? Gave birth too often? Didn't lose the weight fast enough? Breathed too loudly next to your majesty?"
"Don't turn this conversation into a circus."
"Into what should I turn it? A report? A deposition? 'Mr. Grayson, when exactly did you begin sleeping with your wife's sister?'"
"Don't put words in my mouth I didn't say."
I froze.
"Did you sleep with her?"
The pause was short. But I had lived in a marriage with Damien long enough to understand: his pauses were sometimes more honest than his words.
"Answer me!"
"Yes."
One word.
The world didn't just collapse. The world detonated.
I didn't scream right away. First, it was as if someone had pulled my spine out.
My knees buckled and I sat down right on the floor among the shards, not feeling one of them cut into my palm.
Blood appeared in a thin red line, and I stared at it almost calmly.
There it was. Finally—pain you could see.
"Niki," Damien crouched beside me. "Your hand."
"Don't touch me."
"You cut yourself."
"Don't touch me!"
He took my palm anyway, pulled the shard out, pressed a napkin to the wound.
Carefully. Almost tenderly. And that tenderness wrenched me worse than the confession.
Because he could. He was capable of all of it.
Capable of being gentle when he wanted to.
Capable of not causing pain. He simply chose differently with me.
"How long?" I asked.
"That won't help anything."
"How long?"
"Niki."
"TELL ME!"
He raised his eyes.
"A few months."