Cora POV:
I pressed the stiff, stained silk right up against my nostrils and took a slow, deep breath.
The scent hit the back of my throat like a physical blow. It was a smell you could never confuse with anything else in the world. It was sweet, cloying, with a distinct metallic tang and the heavy, sour scent of dried milk.
It was baby formula. Spit-up.
My pupils blew wide open. The world tilted violently on its axis, and my brain short-circuited. For one second, there was absolutely nothing but white noise roaring in my ears.
Then, the truth dropped on me like a concrete block.
My knees gave out. I collapsed onto the freezing laundry room tiles, my spine hitting the edge of the washing machine. I slapped both hands over my mouth, biting down hard into the meat of my own palm to trap the agonizing scream tearing its way up my throat.
*Three years ago.* The ultrasound monitor. The cold gel on my stomach. The silence in the room where a heartbeat should have been.
Hudson’s voice echoed in my head, cold and clinical as I sobbed on the hospital bed. *Cora, look at yourself. You can barely handle a dinner party. Your mental state is a wreck. You are in no condition to be a mother.*
He had used my dead baby as proof of my inadequacy. He had weaponized my empty womb to break my mind.
And now, he smelled like baby spit-up. He was coming home to me, locking me in a medicated prison, while he was out playing father to another woman's child.
The red polka-dot tie wasn't an emergency replacement. It was a trophy. The mistress had deliberately tied it around his neck, knowing I would see it. She was marking her territory, mocking the barren, crazy wife locked in the mansion.
A ragged, silent laugh ripped through my chest. Hot tears spilled over my cheeks, splashing onto the back of my hands. The pain was so absolute, so devastating, that it burned right through the grief and ignited into something else.
The shaking stopped. The tears dried up, leaving my skin tight and cold.
I pushed myself off the floor. I folded the navy tie exactly as I had found it and shoved it deep into the bottom of the hamper. I smoothed out the shirts on top. No trace.
My eyes felt like shards of ice. Every ounce of weakness, every lingering shred of hope I had harbored for my marriage, evaporated.
I didn't go back to the bedroom. I turned on my heel and walked silently down the hall, opening the heavy door that led to the basement.
The air down here was damp and smelled of old cardboard and dust. This was the graveyard of my past life. Hudson had boxed up everything related to my architecture career and banished it down here "for my own peace of mind."
I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight, keeping the beam pointed at the concrete floor. I navigated the maze of stacked boxes until I found a stack labeled *Drafting Supplies* in Hudson's neat handwriting.
I dropped to my knees and started hauling the heavy boxes off the top. The rough cardboard tore at my cuticles. One of my nails bent backward and snapped, a bead of dark blood welling up from the nailbed. I didn't even flinch. The physical pain was nothing compared to the fire in my chest.
I dragged out the heavy black plastic tote at the very bottom. I popped the latches and threw the lid back.
Inside was a mess of tangled charging cables, old hard drives, and dead cell phones. I shoved my hands into the electronic junk, digging frantically toward the bottom corner.
My fingers brushed against a small, hard square of plastic.
I pulled it out. It was a micro-camera, no bigger than a coat button.
Three years ago, right before I was committed, I had bought this. I had suspected Hudson was gaslighting me about his late nights. I bought it to prove I wasn't crazy. But before I could install it, Hudson had found the receipt. He used it as the final piece of evidence to convince the doctors I was suffering from severe paranoia.
I gripped the tiny black square so hard the sharp edges dug into my palm. It was the weapon that had destroyed me. Now, it was going to be the weapon that saved me.
I dug through the cables until I found the matching micro-USB cord. I crawled over to the wall outlet behind the water heater and plugged the block into the wall. I attached the camera.
For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Then, a tiny, microscopic red LED light flickered to life.
It was charging.
I sat back on my heels on the cold concrete. I closed my eyes, pulling up the architectural blueprint of Hudson's first-floor study in my mind. I calculated the sightlines, the blind spots, the angles of the windows.
I sat there in the dark, watching the red light blink like a heartbeat.
"Your good days are over, Hudson."
