Chapter 2
The silence that followed the illumination of the phone screen was heavier than the marble tabletop resting between them. Elena stared down at the words glowing against the dark glass, the blue light casting harsh shadows across her cheekbones. Her fingers trembled slightly, not from fear, but from a cold, creeping realization that the man she had shared a bed with for half a decade was essentially a stranger wearing her husband's face.
"A transfer?" Elena whispered, the anger draining from her voice, replaced by a hollow disbelief. "What transfer, Marcus? We live in a luxury high-rise, we drive foreign cars, but our joint account balance has been hovering near zero for months. Where did five million dollars come from?"
Marcus didn't move toward her. He remained rooted on the opposite side of the table, his hands gripping the edge of the white stone so tightly his knuckles turned white. The dark green polo shirt he wore clung to a thin sheen of sweat on his chest.
"It's not what you think," Marcus said, his voice strained, stripped of its usual commanding authority. "It's corporate protection. If I don't move that capital tonight, everything we built—this apartment, my firm, our entire life—vanishes."
"Corporate protection?" Elena let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking her head. "No, Marcus. That sounds like embezzlement. Who sent this message? Was it Julian? Or was it Sarah?"
Marcus flinched at the mention of Sarah's name, a microscopic twitch in his left eye that confirmed every suspicion Elena had harbored in the dark hours of the past month. Julian and Sarah were his former business partners at Apex Architecture—partners who had supposedly dissolved their relationship with Marcus years ago under amicable circumstances. Or so he had claimed.
"Sarah has nothing to do with this," Marcus lied, his eyes darting toward the floor-to-ceiling windows where the twilight had finally surrendered to a pitch-black night.
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"Stop lying to me!" Elena slammed the phone back onto the marble table, the impact cracking the screen protector. "Sarah died three years ago in a car crash on the coastal highway. At least, that's what you cried about at her funeral while I held your hand and comforted you!"
Marcus opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His breath hitched in his throat as the elevator chime echoed softly down the private hallway outside their double doors. Someone had just stepped off the private elevator and was walking toward their foyer.
