Chapter 04
He doesn't deserve us
Ethan
As soon as the door closes, I walk toward the family room to see if Mom or Alicia heard anything. They’re in the same place as before. Alicia lost in whatever’s playing on the TV, Mom staring straight ahead, her face distant and unreadable.
I know she’s trying to be strong for us. But I can see how broken she is inside. The way her shoulders stay too stiff. The way her fingers twist together in her lap, like she’s holding herself together.
Yesterday, after school, she sat us down and explained that Dad wouldn’t be living with us anymore. That they were getting divorced. But that nothing would change for us, he’d still be our father.
Alicia is struggling to come to terms with what’s happening. In her mind, it’s just another one of his trips, those times when he disappears for a few days. Just this time, it’s him and Mom fighting, not something that will actually end in a divorce.
He called yesterday, said he missed us and that he’d come by soon. I didn’t talk to him.
I think Mom’s giving Alicia time to process things in her own way.
She’s always been the one closest to Dad, the one who put him on a pedestal, nothing he did ever seemed wrong to her.
But soon, we’ll have to tell her something.
A gentler version of the truth. Something that helps her understand this is final.
I push off the wall before they see me. Before Alicia can ask me to join them.
I can’t fake it right now, not with my blood running this hot, that taste of disgust coating my tongue. Every time the image from this afternoon flashes in my head…
In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of water and wait for Uncle Mark to come back in.
My eyes drift toward the pool area, and suddenly a memory surfaces. Something that happened years ago, but feels as vivid as if it were yesterday.
I must’ve been around four, playing by the edge of the pool with my ball. Dad was on the phone with Mom, she’d gone out to buy a few things. He told me to wait just a minute, then we’d go in together. He asked me to stay put, but my ball slipped from my hands and rolled into the water.
I tried to reach for it, lost my balance, and started to fall—right when I heard him shout my name. “Ethan!”
Before I could even feel the water close around me, his arms were there, pulling me up.
“Ethan! Ethan—are you okay? Hey, talk to me, buddy. Ethan?”
I started crying, mostly from the shock. I wasn’t hurt. Dad held me tight against his chest, his voice shaking as he kept apologizing. He told me everything was okay, over and over, until I finally stopped crying.
“It’s okay, son. Dad’s got you. I’ll never let anything happen to you. I love you. I love you so much, son.”
Then he carried me inside, rushing to call Mom and tell her his phone had fallen into the pool. I remember how he laughed about it later, telling Mom how he jumped in without even thinking about his phone… how everything felt safe again, like it always would be.
Where is that man now? What happened to my dad?
I press my fingers against my eyelids, holding back the tears burning their way up. He doesn’t deserve them. Not one more.
“Shit. I think I’m gonna need some ice for my hand.”
Uncle Mark’s voice startles me. I turn to see him digging through the freezer, pulling out a gel pack.
“They make it look way easier in the movies,” he mutters, pressing it against his knuckles. “Hurts like hell, though.”
It’s only then that I really look at his hand, at the bruised knuckles, raw and red.
“You punched him?”
“Twice,” he says, wincing slightly. “Once for your mom. Once for you and your sister. I would’ve gone for a third, one for each of you, but my hand was already screaming after the first hit.”
I shake my head, managing a small smile.
“So you stopped me from punching him because you wanted to call dibs?”
His expression sobers as he looks at me.
“No, Ethan. I stopped you because he’s your father.”
I open my mouth to argue, but he stops me with a look, one that cuts right through my rising anger.
He holds my gaze, his voice steady. “Hey. Calm down. I know how you’re feeling right now. I know it hurts. But I didn’t want you to carry something like that… something you might regret one day.”
“I wouldn’t regret it,” I mutter. “I’ll never forget. Or forgive.”
Uncle Mark exhales slowly.
“I know. And now you’ll never have to find out, leave it to me.”
He offers a half-smile.
“I’ll work on my strength. My hands are better at hacking than hitting. But next time, I’ll land a few extra punches.”
I give him a small smile in return.
“He didn’t hit you,” I say, noticing there isn’t a mark on his face.
He shakes his head.
“He’s a coward.” I spit the words, unable to hold them back. “Only knows how to strike from behind.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Not gonna argue with that.”
I walk into the living room and pour a glass of the whiskey he likes. When I hand it to him, he thanks me quietly.
“Are you staying a little longer?” I ask, rubbing the back of my neck, suddenly awkward. “I want to go for a run, but I don’t want to leave the two of them alone.”
Uncle Mark’s been here most of the time since we got back from my grandparents’ on Sunday night. He even brought some of his work with him, only going home to sleep.
He smiles. “Of course. Go ahead. I’ll take care of our girls. Just don’t go too far, stick to the neighborhood. And don’t take too long. You’ve got school tomorrow.”
He pats my shoulder, and I head upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.
I change into my running clothes and sneakers, then step outside, asking Uncle Mark to let Mom know. I don’t want her to see me like this.
The moment my feet hit the pavement, I start running—faster with every step. Each stride pulls me farther from the ghost of the past, and with it, all the betrayals.
Mark
I find Ceci in the sunroom, one foot propped on the chair, her chin resting on her knee. Her eyes are fixed on the laptop screen, but it’s clear she isn’t seeing it.
Every time I remember how I found her that day—just a few blocks from that bastard’s office—broken, defenseless, curled against the glass of a storefront…
“Mark, I can’t… I can’t breathe. No air.”
I try to push the memory away, but it refuses to let go. I’ll never forget carrying her to the car while people stared, Cecily gasping for breath, her body trembling in my arms.
Taking her to my loft. Watching her stand in front of the window for nearly half an hour. Motionless, hollow. And when she finally spoke, when the words started coming—her suspicions, the perfume, the lipstick, her visit to his office—I almost wished she’d stayed silent.
I never liked the way he always seemed to put work ahead of his family. But the way he looked at Cecily… the way he touched her, the way he took care of her in his own way, I would’ve never believed he could do something like this. Not if it had come from anyone else.
Cecily asked me to help her prove she wasn’t losing her mind. That what she’d been feeling for months—the voice she kept trying to silence—wasn’t madness, but truth demanding to be seen.
She didn’t even have to ask; I would’ve done it anyway.
The first thing I did was hire a PI to keep an eye on him. It didn’t take long to get real evidence. After that, I sent a bait link for a designer-brand sale straight to his assistant.
Ceci installed an app I’d developed on Colin’s phone herself.
“I looked for messages, photos, emails… there was nothing,” she told me. “Could I really be that wrong? His password’s still our wedding date…”
Even I didn’t expect her to find something so blatant, or for him to be stupid enough to change his phone password after all this time.
But that’s the thing about what you try to erase. It always leaves traces. And I followed every single one of them. Every. Single. One.
From exchanged texts to cross-checking charges on his personal and corporate cards, I tracked every purchase that could be tied back to the affair.
If they were in the same place—grabbing coffee, ordering room service, having dinner at a hotel, renting a room for an hour or two on one of his so-called business trips— I kept a record of it all.
The more evidence I gathered, the harder it became to hand it over to Cecily. Knowing was one thing. Making her know was another. When I knew I couldn’t hold it back any longer, I started giving her crumbs.
Colin’s geolocation, cross-checked with his mistress’s, placed them in the same locations for months—at hours no one could mistake for innocent. Photos of him entering and leaving her building. Text messages showing he was on his way.
By the week of his trip, I knew I couldn’t keep it from her anymore. I called her Tuesday night, and we agreed to meet the next day.
I showed her everything and watched my friend literally fall to her knees, the evidence trembling in her hands. Some of it made her sick… literally. I drove her home that day and stayed with the kids while she went to her room to rest.
I left there at midnight and that son of a bitch hadn’t shown up yet.
But I was tracking him. I knew he was less than ten minutes from the house, coming straight from his mistress’s place. I didn’t want to risk running into him, didn’t want a confrontation while Cecily was being forced to swallow the full weight of the truth.
And now I have to break my friend’s heart a little more.
I step into the sunroom, making noise so I don’t startle her. I check the living room, the stairs, then close the door behind me.
“We need to talk,” I say, my voice low.
Cecily folds in on herself, burying her face against her knee.
“If it’s more of what you found… save it for tomorrow,” she says, her voice muffled. “I can’t. I’m trying to focus on the research I have to finish. That article’s never going to get written.”
I run my hand through her hair.
“Are you sure you don’t want to ask the editor to hand the piece off to someone else? Maybe you need more time.”
She shakes her head, hard.