My Husband Forced Me to Carry His Mistress's Cure

Noemi stood in the garden at Maximilian's Long Island estate and watched the rain coming.

The sky was low and gray. The kind of gray that pressed down on everything. The hedges were too neat. The gravel paths too straight. Everything about the place felt like a man who'd spent his whole life trying to prove something.

Maximilian sat on the stone bench near the fountain, his coat buttoned against the wind. He didn't look at her when he spoke.

"Lara Edwards is becoming a problem," he said.

Noemi tilted her head. Folded her hands in her lap. Let her face arrange itself into the expression of gentle concern that everyone always believed.

"A problem?" she asked softly.

"She's still breathing," Maximilian said. "And she's connected to the Gordon family. Keegan Gordon specifically." He looked at her then. His eyes were cold. Assessing. "That makes her an unacceptable variable."

Noemi was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded.

"I understand," she said.

Maximilian studied her. "Do you?"

"Yes." She looked down at her hands. "Thursday night. There's rain in the forecast. The highway outside the city gets slick. Accidents happen."

Maximilian's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.

"Good," he said.

Noemi stood. Smoothed her skirt. Smiled that soft, trembling smile.

"I should go," she said. "Nathaniel will wonder where I am."

She walked back toward the house. Behind her, the fountain kept running. The rain started to fall.

She was already thinking about the black SUV. The shell company registration. The stretch of highway where the shoulder dropped off steep and the barriers were unforgiving.

She was already thinking about the phone call.

Thursday came with rain that turned the city gray and slick.

I left the Midtown office at eight. The streets were emptying out. Traffic thinned as I got onto the highway heading north. I wasn't going anywhere in particular. Just driving. Just moving. The way I'd been moving for two weeks straight because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant feeling and I couldn't afford to feel anything yet.

The rain got heavier.

I turned on the wipers. Checked my mirrors. The highway stretched out ahead, dark and wet, headlights reflecting off the asphalt in long blurred streaks.

That's when I saw it.

Black SUV. Two lanes over. Keeping pace.

I changed lanes. It changed lanes.

I sped up. It sped up.

My hands tightened on the wheel.

I reached for my phone. Pressed Keegan's number. It rang once.

The SUV swerved.

Hard.

Right into my lane.

I yanked the wheel. Too late. The impact was huge. Metal screaming. My car spun. The world tilted. I saw the concrete barrier coming and couldn't stop it.

The crash was loud and then quiet.

I was pinned. My left arm trapped between the door and the seat. My right hand free but shaking. Blood running down my face. Hot. Sticky. I couldn't feel my legs.

I smelled gasoline.

Then I heard it. The soft crackle. The heat building.

Fire.

I turned my head. Flames at the engine. Six feet away. Moving closer.

I reached for my phone with my right hand. It was still in my lap. Screen cracked but lit. I dialed Nathaniel's number.

My hand was shaking so hard I almost dropped it.

It rang.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Someone picked up.

I opened my mouth. Tried to speak. My voice came out broken. Wet.

"Nathaniel—"

There was a pause.

Then a voice. Soft. Familiar.

"Just die already."

The line went dead.

I held the phone against my chest.

The flames were four feet away now.

I looked at the screen. At Nathaniel's name still displayed. At the call duration: eleven seconds.

Something inside me that had been cracking for three years—through the bedroom, through the hospital floor, through the orchids, through the voided divorce papers—completed its fracture.

Not with a scream.

With a silence.

I pressed my fingertips together one last time.

Then I reached down with my right hand and found the steel bracelet on my wrist. Found the inner clasp. Pressed it.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The flames were two feet away.

I heard sirens in the distance. Saw headlights. Voices shouting.

I used my right hand to brace against the seat. Pulled. My left arm screamed. I pulled harder. The door frame bent. My arm came free.

I crawled.

Out through the shattered window. Across the wet asphalt. Into the smoke. Into the rain.

Behind me, the car exploded.

Heat. Light. Sound.

I kept crawling.

Someone was shouting. Emergency vehicles. Lights everywhere. But the smoke was thick and the rain was heavy and in the chaos nobody saw the woman in the dark coat dragging herself into the trees at the edge of the highway.

I made it to the tree line.

Turned back once.

The car was burning. Fully engulfed. Flames reaching up into the rain like hands.

Let them think I burned, I thought.

Let them think I'm dead.

I turned away.

And disappeared into the rain.