7. Cassie
— ? —
Cassie
The elevator doors slide closed, and I finally let myself breathe.
I slump against the metal wall, Charles’s phone in one hand, my own phone in the other. My legs are shaking so badly I’m not sure they’ll hold me up much longer. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, washing everything in that sickly corporate glow that makes even healthy people look half-dead.
I look down at Charles’s phone. The screen is dark now, but I know what’s lurking inside. Months of betrayal, catalogued in neat little message bubbles. Evidence of everything they did together while I was home alone, trying to become someone my husband might want again.
Celine thinks she’s safe. She thinks because she kept her face out of the photos, because she used a cutesy nickname instead of her real name, because she was so careful to maintain plausible deniability, that I can’t touch her.
But I recognized that cream lace bra the moment I saw it on the screen.
I can match the jewelry, the birthmark, the distinctive way she poses.
She’s not nearly as anonymous as she believes.
By the time I’m done, everyone will know exactly who Bunny really is.
My thumbs are moving before my brain catches up, unlocking my own phone, opening the camera app. I need copies, backups, insurance. I’ve watched enough true crime to know that evidence has a way of disappearing when desperate people want it gone.
I screenshot everything. Texts, photos, timestamps, months of betrayal captured in neat little rectangles that I immediately send to my personal email, my cloud storage, a draft folder in an account Charles doesn’t know exists.
Then I go into his sent messages and delete every screenshot I just took.
If he gets this phone back, he won’t know what I have. He’ll think I was bluffing, that I only saw what was on the screen when I walked in. He won’t realize I’ve already built an arsenal.
The elevator dings for the lobby level.
I straighten my spine, square my shoulders, lift my chin. I’m still wearing the red dress I put on this morning, back when I thought I was going to surprise my husband with lunch. The makeup I applied so carefully is probably smeared now, mascara bleeding under my eyes.
I don’t care. I’m done trying to look perfect for people who don’t deserve it.
The lobby is quiet for midday, just a few people scattered on the leather couches, scrolling through phones or waiting for meetings. The receptionist looks up as I approach, her young face breaking into the bright, professional smile she’s been trained to wear.
“Mrs. Wallace! I didn’t know you were coming in today. Is everything.”
I pull my badge off my neck. Remove my access chip from my wallet. Set them both on the polished marble counter with a click that echoes through the too-quiet space.
“I quit.”
Her smile freezes. “I’m sorry?”
“You heard me.” My voice is loud enough to carry, and I see heads turning in my peripheral vision, conversations stuttering to a halt as people tune in to the unexpected drama.
“I quit. Effective immediately. And you should probably let HR know that my husband is upstairs fucking his secretary. Has been for months, apparently. In case anyone was wondering why he hired someone with zero experience and then told his wife to take a break.”
The receptionist’s mouth falls open. Her hand hovers over her keyboard, frozen mid-motion, like her brain has short-circuited trying to process what I just said.
Behind me, I hear gasps and whispers. The distinctive sound of someone saying “Oh my God” just loud enough to be heard.
Good. Let them hear, let them whisper. Let them tell everyone they know what they witnessed in this lobby today.
“I, Mrs. Wallace, I don’t.” The receptionist is stammering now, her professional composure completely shattered. “Should I call someone? Do you need.”
“What I need is for everyone in this building to know exactly what kind of man Charles Wallace is.” I lean forward, making sure my voice carries to every corner of the lobby.
“He’s a cheater. A liar. And if anyone asks?
You can tell them I’m the one who caught them.
In his office. In the middle of the afternoon. On the couch I helped him pick out.”
Someone drops something. A phone, maybe, or a coffee cup. The clatter is loud in the stunned silence.
I smile at the receptionist. It’s not a nice smile.
“Have a lovely day.”
I turn and walk toward the glass doors, my heels clicking against the marble with each step.
I don’t look back. I don’t need to see their faces to know what they’re thinking, to know that the whispers are already starting, that by the end of the day everyone in this building will know exactly what happened on the executive floor.
Let them talk. Let the story spread. Let it reach every client, every colleague, every person who ever shook Charles’s hand and believed him when he smiled.
The glass doors swing open, and I step out into the afternoon sun.
The parking garage is cool and dim after the brightness outside, and I make it all the way to my car before my legs finally give out. I collapse into the driver’s seat and grip the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles white, breath coming in short, sharp gasps that I can’t quite control.
I did it, I actually did it.
I caught them, I confronted them, I announced their affair to half the lobby and walked out with my head held high.
And now I have absolutely no idea what to do next.
I could go home, pack my things, and call a lawyer. Start the long, painful process of untangling five years of marriage from a man who never deserved me.
But there’s something I need to do first. Someone who deserves to know what his wife has been doing while he’s been looking the other way.
I pull out my phone and type: Elliot Beaumont office address.
The results load in seconds. Twenty-three minutes away, according to the map. A glass tower downtown, all sharp angles and modern architecture, a building that screams money and power.
Celine’s husband. The man with the green eyes and the knowing smile who told me my dress was wasted on a man who doesn’t see it. The man whose wife has been fucking my husband for months.
He deserves to know. And more than that, I want to see Celine’s carefully constructed world crumble the same way mine just did.
Is it petty? Absolutely.
Do I care? Not even a little bit.
I put the car in drive and pull out of the garage, leaving behind the building where I worked for five years, the life I thought I was building, the woman I used to be.
She’s gone now, that woman. The good wife, the faithful employee, the one who smiled through every slight and swallowed every doubt and told herself that if she just tried harder, eventually everything would be okay.
In her place is someone new, someone harder, someone who has finally stopped waiting for other people to treat her the way she deserves and started taking matters into her own hands.
Charles Wallace has no idea what’s coming for him.
But he’s about to find out.