Chapter 6 - A House of Cards
The front hallway felt like a pressure cooker on the verge of exploding. The nurse, whose name badge read Dr. Chloe Hayes beneath her crumpled collar, looked around the silent, tense foyer. Her eyes darted from Maya’s blank, terrifying composure to Evelyn standing frozen in the background, and finally to Nia, who was clutching her pregnant belly in the dining room.
"I asked you a question," Maya said, her voice barely above a whisper, yet it cut through the foyer with the lethality of a razor blade. She looked directly at Chloe. "Who are you to him?"
Chloe swallowed hard, her hand instinctively dropping to rest against her own slightly rounded stomach beneath her winter coat. "I’m... I’m his girlfriend. We’ve been together for two years. We live together in the suburbs."
Maya let out a dry, humorless laugh that sounded more like a sob. She turned her head slowly to look at Marcus, who hadn’t moved an inch.
"Two years," Maya said, tasting the words like poison on her tongue. "We’ve been engaged for eighteen months. We bought a dog together. We share a bank account. And you had a whole other life, a whole other woman, a whole other baby in the suburbs?"
"Maya, let me explain," Chloe pleaded, stepping further into the house, her anger instantly evaporating into shock as she pieced the scene together. "He told me he wasn't with anyone. He said he broke it off with his ex months ago!"
"Ex?" Maya’s voice spiked, a sudden surge of white-hot fury breaking through her numbness. She turned on Marcus, lunging forward before Evelyn or anyone else could stop her, and shoved him hard against the wall. The impact rattled the framed family photos hanging behind him. "Ex?! I was sleeping in his bed last night! I made him breakfast this morning!"
Marcus didn't fight back. He slid down the wall slightly, his braids coming undone as he rubbed his face with both hands. "I'm sorry, Maya. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to get out of hand."
"You didn't mean for it to get out of hand?" Nia shrieked from the dining room, staggering to her feet, her face flushed with betrayal. "You told me you were leaving her! You told me you loved me and you were going to marry me after the baby was born!"
Chloe gasped, spinning around to face Nia. "You’re the sister? The one he told me was just a roommate going through a hard time?"
"Roommate?!" Nia screamed, bursting into real, ragged tears as she grabbed a plate from the table and hurled it toward the hallway. It smashed against the wall inches from Marcus’s head, showering everyone with ceramic shards. "He told me you were just a coworker crashing on his couch sometimes because of your long shifts!"
Evelyn threw her hands up over her ears, crying out in distress. "Stop it! Stop this screaming in my house! Have some respect!"
"Respect?" Maya spun around to face her mother, tears finally streaming down her face. "You talk to me about respect when you sat here and watched this man lie to my face for years? Did you know about her too, Mom? Did Chloe come over for Sunday dinner as well?"
Evelyn dropped her hands, her face pale. She wouldn't meet Maya’s eyes.
"Oh, you knew," Maya whispered, the final pillar of her world crashing down around her. She looked at the three of them—Marcus, Nia, and her mother—and realized they were all tangled in a web of lies so thick it choked the air out of the room.
Maya stepped back, wiping her face with the sleeve of her maroon top. She grabbed her car keys off the entryway table.
"Where are you going?" Marcus asked, finally looking up, desperation in his eyes.
Maya paused at the door, giving him a look so cold it froze him in place.
May you like
"I'm going to a lawyer," Maya said flatly. "And then I'm going to empty every single account we share. Don't ever call my phone again."
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