His Brother's Wife, My Parents' Grave

As I did every night, I handed Caleb a glass of whiskey laced with a mild sedative.

Lately, Caleb and his brother, Julian, were locked in a fierce battle for the position of the group's CEO.

With the succession race so volatile, Caleb was on edge, and insomnia had become his constant companion.

I poured him his nightly whiskey and watched him drink it all in one go.

After confirming he was fast asleep, I slipped out of the bedroom and into his dark, closed-off study. The desk was immaculate, everything arranged in perfect order.

Years of marriage had taught me Caleb's habits inside and out.

I went straight to the safe and keyed in the password I'd painstakingly cracked.

With a soft click, the lock disengaged. The encrypted hard drive felt cold and heavy in my hand, humming with the secrets it held.

The thought sent a sharp pain through my chest.

Shoving the feeling aside, I connected the drive to his computer with a tense urgency, my movements almost rough.

There weren't many files on the drive. I scanned through them quickly and found what I was looking for in the last folder.

It was a screenshot from the dock's surveillance camera. In the corner of the photo, I saw the blurred figures of my parents, and I saw the cufflink my mother was clutching tightly in her hand.

That pair of cufflinks was a one-of-a-kind custom design; there couldn't possibly be a second set.

I remembered vividly how I had once pressed Sienna about why only one of the beautiful cufflinks remained.

Her eyes had darted away, her voice trembling as she blamed a clumsy waiter.

But, on second thought, that waiter had always been meticulous; he would never have made such a mistake.

The only logical explanation was that Sienna was lying.

I took a photo of the screen with my phone. The proof I needed. Just then, I noticed a terminated internal investigation report on the drive—with the investigator's name at the end.

I was about to write it down when the study door creaked open.

The door creaked softly. I snapped my head up and met Caleb's eyes.

I kept my breathing steady. My face a blank mask, I stood and placed the hard drive back in its slot.

"You're awake?" I asked.

"I thought I might have left an old design draft in here," I said, my voice even. I walked past the desk to face him, schooling my features into a look of mild concern. "Just came to check."

In the shadows, a cold smirk touched my lips.

It didn't matter if Caleb believed me or not; he would find no flaw in my composure.

The next day, I tracked down the original investigator. It took some doing, but I found him, and he was willing to talk.

I had just walked in the door with the new evidence when Caleb's voice stopped me.

"Aria, the annual charity gala is coming up. You're not thinking of sneaking out to cause trouble, are you?"

Caleb sat at the dining table, his narrow eyes raking over me.

I flinched slightly but forced myself to meet his gaze.

Caleb squinted, his lips pursed in disapproval. When he noticed the file folder in my hand, his brow furrowed even deeper.

Before I could explain, my mother-in-law Eleanor’s sharp voice cut down from the top of the stairs.

"Aria. It's the morning. Why aren't you at the table with your husband? Is that any way for a wife to behave?"

I clutched the folder tighter and walked past Caleb, not bothering to answer.

Caleb must have sensed my resistance. He stood, pulled me back to my seat, and his deep voice rumbled above me.

"Finish your breakfast. Then, you're coming with me."

I was sick of being ordered around. The refusal slipped out before I could stop it.

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

Caleb seemed startled by my defiance, but his grip didn't loosen. Instead, he dragged me out the door without a shred of care.