Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Ellie
The hotel room smells like fresh linen and lemon polish. The kind of cleanliness you can’t get at home, no matter how hard
you scrub. I sit cross-legged on the king-size bed, the duvet bunched up around me, Jack’s laptop balanced on my thighs.
It’s been two nights since I left Jack with champagne in his lap on the rooftop of The Peninsula during our anniversary dinner.
I’ve been using my dad’s credit card to pay for the most absurdly expensive hotel room at The Peninsula. Outside the window,
Manhattan hums with horns, sirens, and life moving forward without me.
I should feel safe here. High up. Anonymous. Alone.
Instead, I feel flayed open. Raw. Betrayed.
The cursor blinks in the email I sent myself two nights ago. The attached files—hundreds of them, labeled by date and time—contain
security footage pulled from the hidden system Jack tucked in vents and perched discreetly atop cupboards. The system he thought
I’d never find.
I press play on the first clip.
It’s me.
Sleeping.
For hours, nothing happens. I shift, murmur something in my sleep. The footage is grainy, cold, almost forensic. It feels
like I’m watching a stranger.
Next clip: me getting ready for work. Pulling a dress over my head, towel-twisting my hair. Private moments stolen and archived
without my knowledge.
Another clip: me in the kitchen, fumbling with a broken wine glass. A bright slash of blood blooms across my palm. I flinch
as I remember that night—the phantom ache still present.
I click through hours of my life, feeling smaller with each file. Nothing unusual. Nothing criminal. Just the slow erosion
of trust, dignity, self.
Maybe this was pointless. Maybe there’s nothing here but a graveyard of my own humiliation. I’m about to close the window
when a clip catches my eye—timestamped just over a week ago. 2:14 a.m.
I frown. I was asleep then.
I click play.
At first, I see the familiar layout of the living room: cream sofa, coffee table littered with Jack’s whiskey tumblers, the
soft halo of the lamp by the window.
And then—movement.
Jack.
And Aubrey.
At the door of the apartment.
Arguing.
My heart slams into my ribs. Aubrey’s hair is pulled into a messy bun, her sweatshirt slipping from her shoulders. Jack is
in jeans and a t-shirt, pacing like a caged animal.
I freeze the video and crank up the volume, but the microphone wasn’t designed for this. Their voices are tinny, distorted. I catch fragments.
“You promised—” Aubrey hisses, stabbing a finger at Jack’s chest.
“She wasn’t supposed to find out!” Jack fires back, face twisted in a way I’ve never seen before.
“She’s not stupid, Jack! She’s starting to suspect—to remember!” Aubrey says, frantic. She grabs his sleeve, shaking him.
“If she figures it out—if she pieces it together—”
Jack yanks his arm free. He glances toward the hallway—toward the bedroom. Toward me.
I’m there. Sleeping, just down the hall. Oblivious.
My stomach twists.
Aubrey’s voice lowers, desperate. Almost pleading. “We have to end this.”
Those five words ricochet around the hotel room, louder than any scream.
We have to end this.
The feed crackles. The footage blips, distorting into gray static. Gone. I stare at the frozen screen, my breath sawing in
and out of my chest. They were in my home. Plotting. While I slept a few feet away.
Aubrey—the friend—my sister—who held my hand when I thought Jack was pulling away.
And Jack—my husband. My betrayer. My jailer.
My mind races, sifting through the hundreds of conversations Aubrey and I shared over coffee, wine, endless afternoons spent
pretending everything was normal. Had she been studying me? Reporting back?
Had Jack been pulling the strings the whole time, or had Aubrey joined him willingly?
How deep does it go? And what exactly do they think I’m starting to suspect?
I dig my nails into the duvet, grounding myself. Think, Ellie. Think.
The strange gaps in my memory. The sleepwalking episodes. The overwhelming sense that someone was always watching.
Maybe I wasn’t crazy. Maybe I wasn’t breaking.
Maybe they were making me believe I was.
My gaze flicks to the laptop again. There are more videos. Dozens I haven’t opened yet. I swallow hard, suddenly afraid of
what else I might find. More proof of their lies? Evidence of something worse?
Aubrey said She’s starting to suspect—to remember.
What did they make me forget?
I scroll back through the folder, looking for another clip around the same date, desperate for more context. But the videos
jump hours ahead, as if the feed was deliberately cut.
Deleted. Erased.
But not before I found that sliver. Not before they revealed themselves.
I sit back against the headboard, cradling the laptop like it’s a bomb wired to my heartbeat. They want me to doubt myself.
They want me to lose track of what’s real. That’s the weapon. Not force. Not bullets. Doubt.
I’m not playing their game anymore.
I click into a secure cloud account I set up a few days ago, back when adrenaline and fear first shoved me out the door and
into this hotel. I upload the video—the damning clip of Jack and Aubrey in my apartment—to the drive.
Insurance.
Because if they come for me, if they try to bury me under another layer of lies, I’ll bury them first.
A cold, steady resolve coils in my chest. They think they can erase me. They have no idea who they're dealing with. Not anymore.