Chapter 9
I spend the rest of the day doing something I haven’t let myself do in a long time: shop like I can afford to.
Clothes. Shoes. Lunch sandwiched between boutiques like I’m someone who has a lifestyle and not just a job.
For so long it was thrift stores, clearance racks, coupon codes.
Now? Now I swipe my card without looking.
I’ve earned this. Apparently, what I’ve really earned is shoes, because that’s all I seem to be buying.
Still, even while browsing heels longer than my husband’s dick, my mind flickers, stupid, persistent, to Michael.
I met him during the last year of my bachelor’s. I was interning for Judge Miller, yes, that Miller, and Mike, full name Michael Ren Miller, was the golden boy the judge wouldn’t stop talking about. His son. His legacy.
So of course, one day he introduced us. Like he was handing me a gift.
At first, I thought maybe Mike was just dating me to score points with his emotionally unavailable father.
But then he looked at me the way no one ever had.
Like I wasn’t just someone to admire, I was someone to believe in.
That attention, that overwhelming affection, it made me feel like, ‘the one’.
But somewhere along the way, that belief faded. Or maybe it curdled into something worse.
The higher I climbed, the more he seemed to shrink. He’d tell his friends I was “killing it” at work, but at home? At home he’d shut down every time I mentioned a new deal, a win, a long night. I was the top legal counsel for an entire division, and he was still at a job he swore was temporary.
I think the real break happened at Judge Miller’s retirement party.
The judge introduced me as his daughter. Gushed about my career. My credentials. Meanwhile, Mike, his actual son, stood two feet away, invisible.
I tried to talk to him about it later. I could see the way it gutted him. But he brushed me off, said I was reading too much into it. After that, every time I brought up work, he half-listened, nodded in the wrong places, changed the subject. Eventually, I just stopped bringing it up.
Then ‘the Leonard’ situation started. The harassment. The fear. The gaslighting. For the first time in months, Mike actually listened. Really listened. And at the end of it, all he said was, “Quit.”
Like he was waiting for the chance .
That was his solution to everything after that. Quit. Don’t fight. Don’t escalate. Just quit. And when I didn’t, when I couldn’t, not without burning everything I’d worked for to the ground, he stopped listening again.
The last six months? Practically nothing between us but silence.
He started accusing me of choosing work over him. Of prioritizing it. Maybe I did. But maybe I had to. Because at least it respected me.
Now, with this new opportunity, this huge, ridiculous promotion, I don’t even want to call him. I don't want to hear the quiet in his voice. I don't want to downplay it just so he doesn't feel small.
Even if the cheating is all in my head…
Even if he’s done nothing wrong…
I don’t know if our marriage will survive this.
I don’t know if I want it to.
I check my phone again.
Last ping from the Air Tag shows Mike almost home.
Shit.
He was in the office an hour ago. How is he already there ?
I’m more than an hour out, closer to two with traffic. I don’t even remember where I parked. Somewhere near that last boutique. My arms are full of bags, shoes, dresses, a stupid amount of crap I probably bought to distract myself.
I break into a jog, heels clacking against tiles. People stare. Let them. I probably look insane, sweating, juggling Dior and Zara like a reality TV meltdown in motion. I don’t care.
I find my car. Toss everything in the trunk, slam it shut.
Driving home is a blur. I’m flooring it and also gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles go white. A part of me wants to slow down. To breathe. To pull over and throw up. The other part wants to catch him red-handed. Wants to know. Once and for all.
I get there nearly two hours later. Apparently, my version of driving carefully is still too slow when your heart’s sprinting ahead.
I park across the street. Kill the engine.
The house looks the same. The street looks the same. Everything looks normal. But it feels off.
I walk to the door quietly, heart in my throat.
It’s unlocked.
Mike. Always forgetting. It has to mean he’s alone, right ?
I push the door open as silently as I can. Step inside.
No voices. No footsteps. No TV hum. Just the hum of the AC and the blood rushing in my ears.
There’s no one in sight, only a beer bottle on the coffee table.
But something in me says not to let my guard down yet.
My heels whisper up the stairs. Tap, tap, tap. Like they’re announcing me to God and whoever else is listening. The house is quiet, too quiet. That kind of heavy silence you only get right before the storm or right after a crime scene. And I don’t know which I’m walking into.
The bedroom door is open and the light is on.
Maybe he forgot.
I should turn around. I should. I should get in my car, go anywhere, pretend none of this ever happened.
But instead, I move forward. One step. Then another. Slow. Heavy. Like my feet are filled with concrete and every breath tastes like the end of something I haven’t named yet.
And then I hear her.
“God! You feel so good without the condom.”
I freeze .
My brain sputters. That voice, oh my God, I know that voice.
No. No no no no no. Not her. Please not…
But there it is. The back of his head. His hand on her hip. His mouth on her chest like he’s starving.
She’s moaning like it’s her job, throwing her head back like she’s in some goddamn softcore porno.
And my husband, my actual, literal husband, is sucking on the tits of my nineteen-year-old sister like he’s got no wedding ring, no vows, no fucking soul.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe.
My body’s doing that thing where it feels like it’s underwater but my skin is on fire.
I think I might vomit. Or scream. Or faint. Possibly all three in a very dramatic, Oscar-worthy pile.
But instead, because apparently, I’m now a woman of supreme restraint, I pull out my phone.
Hans’ voice echoes in my head like a shitty little Greek chorus: “Don’t forget proof.”
Right.
Proof.
So, I hit record. My hands are shaking so badly the image looks like I’m filming an earthquake, but it’s enough. More than enough .
And that’s when he sees me.
Mid-thrust.
Still inside her.
Face slick with sweat and sin.
His eyes lock with mine and I wish I could say he jumped back in horror. I wish I could say he gasped, or shouted my name, or even pretended to be sorry.
But he doesn’t.
He just stops moving. Looks at me like I’m an unexpected plot twist in his soap opera sex life.
And that’s when I break.
“What the actual fuck, Michael?” I snap, voice cracking like glass. “Was my sister just the last available hole in the zip code or was this your way of twisting the knife even deeper?”
Still nothing from him. Just frozen. Still buried in her like some grotesque human pushpin.
And my sister, oh, sweet, stupid girl, just grabs the sheet like it makes a fucking difference now. She won’t even look at me.
I don’t know what to feel first. The betrayal? The rage? The bone-deep humiliation that not only is he cheating, but with my fucking sister?
He finally, finally jumps back .
Like his body just got the memo his brain’s been too damn slow to read.
There’s a clumsy tangle of limbs and sheets and cheap gasps as he scrambles off her like that’ll make any of this better. Like putting distance between his body and hers will somehow rewind time and erase the moment I caught my husband balls-deep in my baby sister.
Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.
His face is flushed, frantic, stupid with guilt. “Leni, wait, I can explain-”
Oh. Oh, we’re doing that?
I actually laugh. A full, loud, deranged laugh that sounds like it belongs in a padded room with soft walls and no sharp objects.
“Explain how you fell into my nineteen-year-old sister, Michael,” I snap, voice climbing so high it threatens to split the goddamn ceiling. “Jesus, how long has this been going on?”
He stammers. One foot tangled in the sheets as he scrambles to make himself decent like that’s the problem. Like covering his dick is going to un-fuck my reality.
“You’ve known her since she was ten.” My voice shakes now, with rage, betrayal, nausea. “Have you been preying on her this whole time? What the hell, Mike? What the actual hell?! ”
“No! No, God, Leni, I would never, I didn’t-” he’s fumbling, red-faced and pathetic, reaching for the nearest pair of boxers like a man who thinks pants can preserve dignity. “It just happened, okay? It wasn’t planned. I swear. It was, this was the first time—”
And then.
“Since Christmas,” Keira says.
Calm. Barely a whisper.
Like it’s not a fucking nuclear bomb going off in my chest.
My head whips to her so fast I see stars. “What?”
She won’t look at me. Won’t even pretend to be ashamed. “It’s been… since Christmas.”
Two months.
Two. Months.
My whole body goes cold before the heat rises, volcanic and blinding and unholy.
“You’ve been fucking my baby sister for two months while I-” I can’t even finish the sentence. The fury eats it whole.
Instead, I start grabbing whatever I can get my hands on.
A pillow. A picture frame. A lotion bottle. A lamp .
I throw it all.
Screaming, crying, breaking apart at the seams as I hurl betrayal back at the people who carved it into me.
“You fucked her in our bed,” I scream, aiming a throw pillow at his stupid, ducking head. “On my goddam pillow! You looked me in the eye and lied! Both of you!”
They duck. They scramble. They fucking flinch. Good. I want them to flinch.
Because I flinched every day, I suspected something and convinced myself I was being crazy.
Not anymore.
Keira tries to speak again, tries to justify it maybe, but I cut her off with a raised hand.
“Don’t,” I snarl. “Don’t say a word. You’ve done enough.”
My heart feels like it’s breaking, exploding, burning up and collapsing in on itself all at once.
And the only thing I know for sure?
“Get. Out.” I never want to see either of them again .