He Planned To Steal My Fortune And Lock Me In A Psych Ward

I made it four blocks before I had to pull over.

The car idled beside a closed flower shop. Buckets of dead tulips sat in the window. I gripped the wheel until my knuckles went white, then let go one finger at a time.

*Breathe, El. You can scream later.*

I picked up my phone and pressed play on the recording again. I skipped ahead past the laughing. Past Laney's whining. Past the part where he called me a sad little rich girl.

Near the end, there was a line I had missed the first three times.

"*Relax. The real drafts aren't even here. They're in my study at home. Holding company papers, the trust timeline, all of it. Elowen never goes in there.*"

I stopped the recording.

He was right. I never went in there. He told me once that his study was "the only place my brain can shut up." I thought it was sweet. I gave him his space.

I gave him a safe.

I dialed his private number. Not the office line. The one he said was "just for you, sweetheart."

It rang twice.

"El?" His voice came out too fast. Behind him, something rustled. A drawer slid shut. "Hey. Hey, what's up?"

"Hi. I just wanted to hear your voice again."

"Oh. Yeah. Of course." A pause. His breathing was uneven. "Listen, babe, I'm actually about to walk into a meeting."

"A meeting? It's past seven."

"Closed-door thing. Senior team only. Harlan stuff, you know how it is." He cleared his throat. "Very boring. Very long."

Somewhere behind him, a woman giggled. Then it cut off, like someone had pressed a hand over her mouth.

I stared at the dead tulips.

"Who's there with you?" I asked lightly.

"What?"

"I heard someone laugh."

"Oh. That's—Laney. She's setting up the conference room. Printing agendas." He laughed too. It came out thin. "She says hi."

"Tell her I said hi back."

"Will do."

"And tell her not to stay too late. She works so hard for you."

Silence on the line. Just one beat too long.

"Yeah," Kael said. "She really does."

I pressed my thumbnail into the leather of the steering wheel. Hard. It left a little crescent mark.

"Promise me something," I said.

"Anything."

"Don't push yourself tonight. You always forget to eat when you're stressed. Order something real. Not those protein bars."

He let out a long breath. I could hear the relief in it. The fool thought he'd gotten away clean.

"God, I love you," he said. "You're too good to me, you know that?"

"I know."

He laughed again. This time it sounded real. "I'll call you when we wrap up. Could be midnight, though. These guys love to hear themselves talk."

"Take your time," I said. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Sleep, okay? Take your pills if you need them."

*Take your pills.* Another brick in the wall he was building around me.

"Goodnight, Kael."

"Night, sweetheart."

The call ended.

I sat there for exactly ten seconds. Then I flipped on my turn signal, swung the car around, and drove toward the Calder Tower.

Home.

---

The penthouse took up the top two floors. My father bought it the year I turned sixteen. Kael moved in after the wedding and changed the art, the furniture, the scent in the hallway. Cedar and something sharp. His cologne lived in the walls now.

I took the service entrance and used my own keycard for the private lift. Nobody saw me.

The apartment was dark. I left the lights off and used my phone's flashlight instead.

The study sat at the end of the east hall. The door was shut.

I tried the handle. Locked.

Of course it was.

I stood there for a second, staring at the brass knob. Then I remembered something. Two winters ago, Kael locked himself out after a business dinner. He was drunk and furious. I'd laughed and pulled a spare key from the back of the hall closet, taped under the top shelf.

"How did you know that was there?" he had asked, squinting at me.

"My dad hid it," I'd told him. "This was his house first."

He had never asked me about it again. I bet he forgot it existed.

I reached into the closet, ran my fingers along the underside of the shelf, and felt the tape.

Still there.

The key turned with a soft click.

His study smelled like whiskey and printer ink. His laptop was gone, but the desk was a mess of paper. Contracts. Sticky notes. A coffee mug with a ring of dried brown at the bottom.

I set my phone face-up on the desk so the light shone at the ceiling. Then I started pulling drawers.

Top drawer. Pens, a stapler, receipts.

Second drawer. Old tax files. My name on half of them.

Bottom drawer. Locked again.

"You paranoid little snake," I muttered.

I grabbed a letter opener from his pen cup and wedged it into the gap. My hands were sweating. The blade slipped once and scraped the wood. I tried again. The cheap lock popped.

Inside lay a single black folder. Thick. Heavy. A yellow tab stuck out of the side.

Someone had written on it in Kael's tight, slanted handwriting.

*Wren Holdings — Phase 2.*

My pulse pounded in my ears.

I lifted the folder halfway out of the drawer. The first page showed a chart. Boxes and arrows. At the top sat my name. At the bottom sat his.

Every arrow pointed down. From me to him.

Then I heard it.

A low hum, deep inside the walls. Then a soft mechanical whir.

The private elevator.

Someone was riding it up.

I froze with the folder in both hands. The only people with a keycard to that lift were me, the building manager, and my husband.

My phone buzzed on the desk. A text lit up the screen.

*Kael ❤️: Meeting ended early. Heading home to grab some files. Love you.*

The whirring grew louder.

Floor by floor, he was coming up.