The flowers came on the third day.
Two dozen white roses. No card. Wesley must have thought the gesture spoke for itself.
I set the vase on the kitchen counter and stared at it. The petals were perfect. Probably expensive. I wondered if he'd used the same credit card he'd used for Kahlani, or if he'd opened a new one I hadn't found yet.
My phone buzzed.
*I'm so sorry. I'll do anything to make this right.*
I read it once. Set the phone face-down on the counter. Went back to folding laundry.
The texts kept coming. One every few hours. Always the same shape. *I never meant to hurt you. I'll never contact her again. Can we start fresh?*
They sounded like he'd Googled them. Maybe he had.
On the fifth day, he came home.
I heard his key in the lock and felt my spine straighten automatically. I was at the stove. I'd made pasta. His favorite. I hadn't planned it. My hands had just moved.
He stood in the doorway to the kitchen and didn't come closer.
"Audrey."
I turned off the burner. Wiped my hands on a towel. Looked at him.
He looked smaller than I remembered. His shoulders were tight. His eyes were red around the edges, like he hadn't been sleeping. Good.
"I forgive you," I said.
His face crumpled.
He crossed the kitchen in three steps and tried to pull me into his arms. I let him. I even put my hands on his back. I felt his breath hitch against my shoulder and wondered if he was crying.
I felt nothing.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered into my hair. "I'll fix this. I swear. I'll fix everything."
"I know," I said softly.
He pulled back and looked at me. His hands were on my shoulders. His eyes were searching my face for something. Permission, maybe. Absolution.
I gave him a small, tired smile. The kind a woman gives when she's cried herself empty and arrived at exhausted acceptance.
He exhaled. His whole body sagged with relief.
He believed me completely.
---
I went back to the routines.
Dinner at seven. Laundry on Wednesdays. His shirts folded the way he liked them, sleeves in first, collar flat.
Edith came by on Saturday with a casserole dish and a lecture about my weight.
"You're too thin, Audrey," she said, setting the dish on the counter with a pointed thud. "You need to take care of yourself. Especially now. You'll want to try again soon."
I was rinsing lettuce at the sink. I kept my hands moving. Kept my face neutral.
"I'm fine, Edith."
"You don't look fine." She opened the fridge without asking, rearranging things to make room for the casserole. "You need to eat. You need to rest. And you need to stop moping around like this was some kind of tragedy. These things happen. You're young. You'll have another baby."
I turned off the water. Dried my hands on a towel.
"Okay," I said.
She looked at me. Her mouth thinned.
"Wesley told me you forgave him," she said. "That's good. That's the right thing to do. A marriage takes work, Audrey. You can't just give up the first time things get hard."
I met her eyes. I didn't blink.
"I know," I said.
She studied me for another moment, then nodded. Satisfied. She picked up her purse and let herself out.
I stood at the sink and listened to the door close. Then I went to the bedroom, opened the laptop Wesley didn't know I owned, and added another line to the spreadsheet.
Joint checking account. Joint savings. The apartment deed. His 401k. The car title.
I was rebuilding the map of everything we shared. Every asset. Every liability. Every point of leverage.
I worked until my eyes burned.
---
I texted Maeve on Sunday night.
*Can we meet?*
She replied in thirty seconds.
*When and where.*
Not a question. A confirmation.
*Tuesday. 2pm. That café on 47th. Not our usual place.*
*I'll be there.*
---
The café was small and anonymous. Narrow tables. Bad lighting. The kind of place where no one looked up when you walked in.
Maeve was already there when I arrived. She had a corner table. Two cups of coffee in front of her. Both untouched.
I sat down. She didn't say anything. Just waited.
I opened my bag and pulled out a folder. Set it on the table between us.
"I need your help," I said.
She opened the folder. Her eyes moved across the pages. Bank statements. Loan documents. The apartment deed. The list of joint assets I'd compiled.
She didn't ask why I had all of this. She didn't ask if I was sure.
She just looked up at me and said, "What's the plan?"
I told her.
I told her about the apartment sale. About the wire transfer I was going to intercept. About the embezzlement scheme I needed her to build — something clean, something documented, something that would send Wesley to prison without a single fingerprint pointing back to us.
I spoke for two hours. She didn't interrupt once.
When I finished, she was quiet for a long moment. Then she pulled her laptop out of her bag, opened a spreadsheet template, and turned the screen toward me.
"Let's build this properly," she said.
Her voice was calm. Professional. But her eyes were bright and hard, and I knew she wasn't doing this because it was smart.
She was doing this because she loved me.
I pulled my chair closer. We started typing.
