I stayed on Briella's couch for three nights. The cushions were lumpy. I didn't sleep much. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw James's shoulder pulling away from mine.
Briella left for work before dawn each morning. She came back after dark with takeout containers and her laptop already open. She didn't ask if I was okay. She asked what I remembered about Corey's work schedule. What time he left the house. What time he came back. Whether he ever mentioned offshore accounts or shell companies or anything that sounded like it didn't belong in a mid-level analyst's vocabulary.
I told her what I could. It wasn't much.
On the fourth morning, I woke up to find her standing in front of a whiteboard she'd propped against the bookshelf. She had a dry-erase marker in one hand and a cold mug of coffee in the other. The board was covered in boxes and arrows and names I didn't recognize.
"Come here," she said.
I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and stood beside her.
She tapped the marker against a cluster of boxes on the left side. "These are entities registered in the Cayman Islands. No employees. No office addresses. Just corporate structures that exist on paper."
She drew a line connecting them to another box. "This one cycles payments through a consulting firm in Delaware. The consulting firm has one client. Harlow's investment company."
Another line. Another box. "And this is where Corey's name shows up. He's signing off on wire transfers that move money from Harlow's firm into these shells, then back out again as 'consulting fees' that get deposited into accounts he has access to."
I stared at the board. The lines blurred together.
"Sylvia." Briella set the mug down. "Corey is laundering money through Harlow's company. This isn't just an affair. This is a criminal enterprise."
I sat down on the arm of the couch. My legs felt hollow.
"How much?" I asked.
"I'm still tracing it. But we're talking hundreds of thousands. Maybe more."
I thought about the Range Rover. The renovations. The private school upgrades. The navy blazer James wore in the gala photo.
"She's paying him," I said.
"She's using him," Briella corrected. "And he's letting her because he likes what it buys."
She capped the marker and turned to face me fully. "You need to understand what this means. If you go after him for custody, for the house, for anything—he's going to fight dirty because he has to. He can't afford a paper trail. He can't afford discovery. He can't afford you."
"Good," I said.
Briella's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "Good."
My phone buzzed on the coffee table. I picked it up.
Corey's name on the screen.
I let it ring twice before I answered.
"Sylvia." His voice was clipped. Businesslike. "You're coming back this weekend."
I didn't say anything.
"Harlow is hosting a client dinner at the house Saturday night. You'll cater it."
"No."
"Yes." He said it like he was correcting a child. "You're still my wife. You still live in that house. You have obligations."
"I don't live there anymore."
"Legally, you do. And legally, you don't have an income. You don't have a lease anywhere else. You don't have a claim to anything until divorce papers are filed." He paused. "So you'll come back. You'll cook. You'll serve. You'll smile. And then you can leave again if that's what you want."
I looked at Briella. She was watching me, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.
"What time?" I asked.
"Six o'clock. Don't be late."
He hung up.
I set the phone down slowly.
"You're not actually going," Briella said.
"I am."
"Sylvia—"
"James is there." I stood up. The blanket slipped off my shoulders. "If I go back, I can see him. I can check on him. I can make sure he's okay."
"And Corey knows that. That's why he's asking."
"I don't care why he's asking." My voice came out harder than I meant it to. "James is in that house. So I'm going back."
Briella studied me for a long moment. Then she nodded.
"Okay," she said. "But you're not going empty-handed."
She turned back to the whiteboard, pulled out her phone, and started taking pictures of every box, every line, every name.
"You're going to smile," she said. "You're going to serve their dinner. You're going to be exactly what they think you are."
She looked at me over her shoulder.
"And while you're there, you're going to pay attention. Because we're building a case. And when it's ready, we're going to bury them."
I picked the blanket up off the floor and folded it. My hands were steady.
"Okay," I said.
Briella smiled. It was small and sharp and nothing like kindness.
"Okay."
