After My Husband Abandoned Me in the Burning Car

By the second week, I could walk to the end of the garden without shaking.

The island was loud in the mornings. Goats. Church bells. Wind pushing through the olive trees. I stood barefoot on warm stone and pressed my fingers to the bandage on my arm, right over the burn. It had become a habit.

I didn't know what was happening in Seattle. I didn't ask.

I learned it later. Zane told me some. Elias told me more. The rest I watched myself, on a laptop, with the sound turned low and my hands cold in my lap.

This is how it went.

---

Victor Vance didn't knock. He dropped a folder on Seth's desk at midnight and stood there, arms crossed.

"Brake lines were cut clean," Victor said. "Professional. The work order came from a garage contractor. The contractor was paid by a shell company. I followed the shell to a holding firm in Delaware."

"And?"

"And the firm belongs to your father."

Seth didn't answer. He read the signature at the bottom of the page. He knew that handwriting. It had signed his birthday cards.

---

The study smelled like leather and old smoke. Mahogany panels. One lamp. Avery Montgomery sat behind his desk with a glass of scotch, his pocket watch open beside it.

Seth threw the folder onto the blotter.

"Explain this."

Avery glanced at it. He didn't pick it up. "You've been busy."

"You cut her brakes."

"I had them cut." He sipped. "There's a difference."

Seth's voice came out thin. "She was carrying my child. Weeks before."

"She was carrying a stain." Avery set the glass down. His tone was flat, the way he'd order a coffee. "I corrected your mistake, Seth. You should be thanking me."

The room went silent.

Then Seth crossed the desk. He didn't remember deciding to. His hands closed around his father's throat and he felt the pulse jump under his thumbs. Avery's face went red. The pocket watch hit the floor.

A bodyguard hauled Seth backward by the shoulders. Another one caught Avery as he slid sideways, coughing.

Seth stood panting in the lamplight.

"You're done," he said.

Avery rubbed his neck. He laughed, rough and short. "You can't—"

"My lawyers will file tonight. The board gets a statement at dawn. Your name comes off the building." Seth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You're not my father. You're not a Montgomery. You're nobody."

For the first time, Avery's hands shook.

---

Victor had saved the worst for last.

He laid the pages out across the penthouse floor like a crime scene. Seth sat among them in yesterday's shirt.

"The texts first," Victor said. "The ones you saw. Lyra and some man, hotel meetups."

"I confronted her about those."

"They were fake. Forged metadata. Built on a burner phone traced to Aitana's cosmetics account." He slid a printout across. "Your wife never had an affair."

Seth stared at the paper. He remembered Lyra's face when he'd shown her the screen. She hadn't argued. She'd just looked tired.

"Next." Victor tapped a transcript. "Chloe Jenkins. Nurse at St. Anne's. She swapped Lyra's prenatal vitamins for something that thins the lining. She recorded every call with Aitana, probably for insurance. Listen."

He pressed play.

*"Just make sure she takes them,"* Aitana's voice said, sweet as honey. *"I'll take care of the rest."*

Seth flinched like he'd been hit.

"And the suicide attempt," Victor went on. "Two years ago. Pills, wrists, the whole show. You carried her out of the bathroom."

"I remember."

"She bought the razor at a theater supply shop. The blood was stage blood. There's a receipt."

Seth laughed once. It wasn't a laugh. "I stayed with her for two years because of that."

"I know."

"I told Lyra to be patient with her."

Victor said nothing. There was nothing decent to say.

---

The last file was a video.

"Hospital security," Victor said. "The night of the miscarriage. I pulled all the angles, not just the one Aitana showed your family."

Seth pressed play.

A hallway. Fluorescent light. At the far end, a gurney rolled past, and a woman on it curled in half. I could have told him who she was. I could have told him what the floor felt like.

Three doors down, Aitana leaned against the wall with her phone to her ear.

She was smiling.

She checked her nails. She laughed at something. Behind her, I was bleeding through a hospital gown, calling for a husband who wasn't there.

Seth watched it once.

He rewound it.

He watched it a second time. A third.

A fourth.

Victor stood at the window with his back turned. He didn't speak. Rain ran down the glass, forty-two floors up, and the footage kept playing, the same smile, the same hallway.

Seth didn't move. Didn't blink. His hand rested on the mouse like it belonged to someone else.

---

On the island, that same night, I woke up cold.

No fire. No smoke. Just a chill that started in my chest and spread outward, like someone had opened a window in a faraway room.

I pressed my fingers to my scar and lay there until morning.

I didn't know why.