Reid
She was a criminal.
The nerve of it. To come back here. To stand there with her beautiful face and her wide eyes and ask him to doubt what he knew was true.
He had done the right thing.
It didn’t matter what she said. It didn’t matter how convincing she sounded. It didn’t matter how upset she’d looked.
Maya had fooled him once. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
Criminals lied. Especially when they had something to lose.
She had stolen from children, from the elderly. From the people she claimed to care about most in the world.
He exhaled slowly and leaned back in his chair.
He could still see her standing there.
The way her hand had tightened around that fucking plastic bag. The way she had looked at him, like he was the one thing in the world that could make sense of what was happening.
The back of his neck prickled.
It had been calculated. She knew exactly how to reach him, exactly what to say, exactly how to make him question himself. That was the point. That was why she was with him.
She was everything that drew people in. She was magnetic.
Reid was dull.
He worked with spreadsheets and audit trails.
Why else would someone like Maya marry someone like him? He loved her. Of course he loved her. But it had been unimaginable hubris to think she could have loved him back.
He pushed away from the table and stood, the movement abrupt.
It was done.
Where she went now was not his concern. She had a lawyer. None of that was his problem anymore. The legal system didn’t bend for personal relationships. The law told you what was right and what was wrong.
He didn't care where she slept tonight. He didn't.
The house felt wrong without her.
For a moment he stood there, like he was waiting for Maya to appear. For everything to be different. For her to be there.
A knock sounded at the door behind him.
For a split second—one impossible second—his chest lifted.
Maya. She had come back. She was here. She—
He was already at the door. His hand grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
Julian stood on the other side.
“Reid,” he said, taking him in with a quick, assessing glance. “How are you handling things?”
Reid was already turning away.
Julian followed him inside. "You did the right thing," Julian said behind him.
Outside, a car moved slowly down the street. Everything ordinary, everything unchanged, as though the day had been a normal one.
"I wish I caught it sooner," Julian said. A pause. “But I couldn’t imagine her stealing that money. I should have been more suspicious when things felt wrong.”
Reid said nothing.
"You did the right thing," Julian said again. "Whatever it cost you. What you did today was right."
"I know," he said.
His wife was a thief and a liar.
His fists clenched.
Now he knew how he’d managed to attract her attention in the first place.
She married him because the IRS badge made her feel safer.
He thought of her warmth beneath him, her hands in his hair, the joyous way she laughed.
Not real.
None of it.
She had been laughing at him.
Every time she'd kissed him and asked about his day. Every time he'd come home late and she'd left dinner in the oven for him and asked, sleepily, if he'd got to the bottom of it. All that warmth. All that softness. A performance.
He'd poured himself into her, and she'd let him. Let him make a fool of himself.
He had shared a life with her. He had woken up beside her, listened to her talk about her work, watched the way she cared about things that didn’t benefit her at all.
He had trusted that. He had been wrong.
His chest felt tight. Like he couldn’t quite get a full breath. He was pathetic.
“Women like her don’t look twice at men like me,” he said, voice rough. “She’s—” He broke off, gesturing vaguely, frustrated by the lack of words. “She’s everything. She walks into a room and people orbit her. She makes things happen. She matters.”
And him?
He let out another harsh laugh.
“I’m not like you. I’m not a catch. I work for the criminal investigation arm of the IRS,” he said. “I sit behind a desk and chase rounding errors.” He laughed. “And I pretended to myself that she loved me.”
Julian’s voice softened. “Reid, you couldn’t have known—”
“That’s bullshit” he snapped, sharper now. His hands curled into fists at his sides. “I wanted it to be real,” he said. “I was kidding myself.”
The room felt too small. Too quiet.
“I always knew it was too good to be true.”
Reid exhaled hard, scrubbing a hand over his face. His mouth twisted.
“She didn’t choose me,” he said. “She used me.”