The Placeholder Wife: His Too Late Regret

Brooke POV:

The elevator doors didn't just close. They sealed my fate.

I pressed the button for the ground floor, my finger shaking so hard I missed it twice. The metal box descended, taking my stomach with it. I didn't cry. Crying was for women who still had hope, and hope was a luxury I had just left on the penthouse floor.

My phone buzzed against my palm.

It was a vibration that felt like a warning. I looked down.

Unknown Number.

A video file.

I shouldn't have opened it. I should have thrown the phone down the elevator shaft and let it shatter. But pain is an addiction, and I needed my fix. I pressed play.

The video was dark, grainy, shot in the guest room I had just fled. The audio was clear, though. Too clear.

"I can't refuse you," Ethan groaned. His voice was thick, desperate. "You know I can't."

The camera shifted. I saw Kylie's face, triumphant and cruel, her lips pressed against his neck, marking him. She looked directly into the lens and winked.

Then came the text.

He is mine. He always was. Give up, factory girl.

The elevator dinged. The doors opened to the lobby, but I couldn't move. I stared at the screen until it went black.

Factory girl.

That was all I was to them. Disposable labor.

I walked out into the cool night air. I didn't wait for the driver. I hailed a yellow cab, something Ethan forbade because it was "unsafe for a Spencer wife."

"Take me to the river," I told the driver.

He looked at me in the rearview mirror, eyeing my red dress and the smeared lipstick.

"You okay, lady?"

"Just drive."

We didn't go to the river. I had him pull over near a storm drain three blocks from my apartment. I got out. The street was empty.

I looked at my left hand. The diamond was huge. Flawless. Cold. It was a Spencer family heirloom, worth more than my mother's life earnings. It was a shackle made of carbon.

I twisted it off. My finger felt naked. Lighter.

I held it over the grate.

"This is my resignation," I whispered.

I dropped it.

It didn't make a sound when it hit the darkness below. It just vanished. Five years of loyalty, gone in a second.

I got back in the cab and went home.

When I entered the apartment, I expected silence. Instead, I found war.

The door was unlocked. The lights were blazing.

Ethan was standing in the living room. Kylie was sitting on my sofa, crying into a tissue.

"Where is it?" Ethan demanded. He didn't ask where I had been. He didn't ask why I wasn't wearing my ring.

"Where is what?" I asked, closing the door behind me.

"Don't play dumb, Brooke," he snarled. He took a step toward me, his presence filling the room with menace. "The diamond necklace. The one I bought for... for the anniversary. It's missing from my study."

I looked at him. I looked at Kylie.

She looked up, her eyes dry but her voice trembling.

"I saw her take it, Ethan," she lied. "When she went into the study this morning. I didn't want to say anything because she's your wife, but... it's a family asset."

It was a setup. A clumsy, brutal setup.

"I didn't take your necklace, Ethan," I said calmly. "It was in your desk. Next to the note you wrote for her."

Ethan flinched.

Kylie stood up. "She's lying! She's a factory rat, Ethan. Stealing is in her blood. Her mother probably put her up to it to pay for more surgeries."

My vision went red.