Chapter 3 - THE MAN I THOUGHT SHE WAS SLEEPING WITH
I did not let Alina leave alone.
She hated that.
“I have been taking myself home for seven months.”
“And somebody has been photographing you.”
“My attorney knows.”
“I’m still coming.”
“You don’t get to become protective because you saw my stomach.”
That stopped me.
We stood beneath the courthouse awning while rain streaked the sidewalk.
Owen had left after denying everything.
Oliver had disappeared faster.
I wanted to follow both of them.
Instead, I looked at my wife.
“You’re right.”
She blinked.
“I am?”
“I don’t get to show up seven months late and act like I’ve been protecting you.”
Her expression softened by maybe one degree.
“But let me drive you home anyway.”
After a long pause, she nodded.
Her apartment was in Brooklyn.
Small.
Warm.
Nothing like our old townhouse in Westchester.
I noticed baby things immediately.
A folded bassinet.
Tiny blankets.
Boxes labeled NEWBORN.
A half-assembled crib stood in the second bedroom.
The sight almost took my knees out.
“You’ve been doing all this alone.”
Alina removed her coat.
“My sister helped.”
“You never told Sofia either?”
“She knew from eight weeks.”
Of course.
Everyone who mattered enough had known.
I had not.
I stood awkwardly in the living room.
Then I noticed a photograph on the bookshelf.
Alina beside Daniel Reyes.
The man I believed she had slept with.
My chest tightened automatically.
She saw me looking.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“The one that ended our marriage.”
I looked at her.
“Tell me what really happened.”
“I already told you there was no affair.”
“You never told me why you were meeting Daniel in hotels.”
“Because I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
She studied me.
Then walked to a small desk.
From the bottom drawer, she removed a thick envelope.
“You remember when your father left me voting shares in Bennett & Vale?”
My family’s construction and infrastructure company.
Thirty-two years old.
My father had built it from one truck and a rented office.
When he died, he left me forty-one percent.
Owen twenty-nine.
Alina eighteen.
The remaining twelve belonged to employee trusts.
I had never understood why Dad left so much to Alina.
He had simply said she was the only person in the family who knew how to read a balance sheet without lying to herself.
At the time, Owen laughed.
Maybe he hadn’t found it funny.
Alina placed papers on the table.
“Two years ago, I found duplicate payments inside the Harbor East redevelopment accounts.”
I frowned.
“That project was Owen’s.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“At first? Six hundred thousand.”
“And later?”
“Twelve point four million.”
My stomach dropped.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
She slid bank records toward me.
Vendor payments.
Consulting fees.
Invoices.
Companies I did not recognize.
“Daniel Reyes is a forensic accountant.”
I knew that.
I also knew he was divorced, handsome, and often photographed with Alina.
That was apparently the only information I had cared about.
“He contacted me after your father died,” she continued. “Your father had asked him to review several old projects if anything happened to him.”
“Dad knew?”
“He suspected.”
“Why not tell me?”
“I tried.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Apparently everyone tries to tell me things.”
Alina flinched.
Fair.
I lowered my voice.
“Why didn’t you tell me directly?”
“Because one of the questionable vendors was connected to Owen.”
“He’s my brother.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought I’d protect him?”
“I thought you would confront him before we had proof.”
She was right.
I would have.
“Owen controlled project records. If he knew we were looking, everything could disappear.”
“So you met Daniel secretly.”
“Yes.”
“At the Carlton Hotel?”
“There’s a private business center there.”
“The photos showed you going upstairs together.”
“To a conference suite.”
I remembered the anonymous envelope that arrived at my office.
Alina and Daniel entering the hotel.
Daniel touching her back as they crossed the lobby.
Another photograph of them embracing outside.
“What about the hug?”
Alina stared at me.
“His mother had died that morning.”
I closed my eyes.
God.
“Did you tell me that?”
“I told you he was going through something.”
“You wouldn’t explain.”
“Because the investigation was confidential.”
“And I assumed the worst.”
“Yes.”
My voice came out rough.
“There were messages.”
She frowned.
“What messages?”
I pulled out my phone.
I still had screenshots.
Daniel: SAME PLACE THURSDAY. I MISS HOW EASY THIS IS WITH YOU.
Alina stared.
Her face changed.
“I’ve never seen that.”
“Your number.”
“No.”
“It was from a phone registered to you.”
“I never sent it.”
I scrolled.
Another.
WE CAN’T LET MARCUS KNOW UNTIL IT’S DONE.
That one she recognized.
“I sent that.”
My chest tightened.
“To Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“About Owen?”
“About the forensic review.”
I felt sick.
Someone had mixed real messages with fake ones.
Enough truth to make the lie believable.
“Who had access to your phone?”
“Almost nobody.”
“Did Owen?”
She thought.
“At your father’s funeral, yes. My phone died. He took it to the office charger.”
I looked at the financial papers.
Then at the threatening photograph.
Pieces were moving into place.
Not enough.
But too many.
Alina sat.
Her face suddenly tightened.
“Are you okay?”
“Baby moved.”
I crossed the room automatically.
Then stopped myself.
“Can I?”
She knew what I meant.
Her hand over her stomach.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she took my wrist and placed my palm against the curve beneath her ribs.
I stopped breathing.
Nothing.
Then—
A kick.
Sharp.
Real.
My child.
I laughed once.
It came out broken.
Another kick landed beneath my hand.
“He does that when I’m stressed.”
“He?”
Alina looked at me.
“You didn’t know.”
A son.
We were having a son.
I sat beside her because suddenly standing seemed difficult.
“What were you going to name him?”
“I hadn’t decided.”
“You didn’t pick anything?”
“One.”
“What?”
“Jonah.”
My father’s middle name.
I looked at her.
She shrugged.
“He was good to me.”
Emotion pressed behind my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“All of it.”
She looked away.
“That’s too much for one apology.”
“I know.”
I wanted to say I would fix it.
I stopped.
That was the old Marcus.
Problem.
Solution.
Move on.
Instead I asked, “What do you need?”
Her eyes came back to mine.
“That’s new.”
“I’m trying.”
She took a breath.
“I need you not to turn this baby into a reason we pretend nothing happened.”
Painful.
Fair.
“I won’t.”
“And I need you not to confront Owen until Daniel secures the remaining records.”
My jaw tightened.
“You’re asking me to act normal around him?”
“For twenty-four hours.”
“I can do that.”
“Can you?”
“No.”
That almost made her smile.
Then my phone rang.
Oliver Kane.
My divorce attorney.
I answered.
“Marcus, we need to discuss today.”
“Yes.”
“I understand Alina made some allegations involving Owen.”
I looked at her.
“How do you know that?”
Silence.
“Oliver?”
“Owen called.”
“Why is my brother calling my divorce lawyer?”
“He’s concerned about you.”
“No.”
I stood.
“Why did you never give me Alina’s letter?”
Another silence.
“What letter?”
“The one she sent when she found out she was pregnant.”
Oliver exhaled.
“Marcus—”
My skin went cold.
“You received it.”
“It was not a formal notice.”
“You received it.”
“Yes.”
Alina closed her eyes.
I gripped the phone.
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“Owen said she was using a possible pregnancy to delay the property settlement.”
The room went completely silent.
“You took instructions from my brother?”
“He was acting as liaison on the corporate elements.”
“My marriage was not corporate.”
“Marcus, I was trying to protect—”
I ended the call.
Alina stared at me.
I could barely speak.
“Owen knew.”
“What?”
“He knew you were pregnant.”
Her face drained.
Three months ago, someone had told her to sign the divorce and keep the baby out of Bennett business.
My brother had known about the pregnancy before I did.
Then Alina’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She opened the message.
A photograph appeared.
Taken through her apartment window.
Us.
Sitting together five minutes earlier.
Below it:
MARCUS CAN’T SAVE YOU THIS TIME.
I was already running toward the window.
Down on the street, a black SUV pulled away from the curb.
And suddenly fourteen years of marital failure became something else entirely.
May you like
Someone had been waiting for my wife to become vulnerable.
And I had helped them by walking away.
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