Ellen POV:
I stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing my hands with scalding water and dish soap until the skin turned red. I dried them off, changed into a faded gray tracksuit, and drove Cameron to his public elementary school.
Watching my seven-year-old son run toward the chain-link fence wearing scuffed, discounted sneakers solidified the ice in my veins. My hesitation was entirely gone.
When I returned to the empty house, I walked straight past the kitchen and opened the door to Adrian’s home office.
The room reeked of cheap cigars—a habit he picked up to look wealthy in front of his tech bros. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and pushed the heavy glass window open to let the crisp morning air in.
I walked to the bottom drawer of the mahogany filing cabinet and dug out my old MacBook Pro. It was a relic from my college days, heavy and scratched. I plugged the frayed charging cable into the wall and pressed the power button.
The familiar Apple logo lit up the screen. The mechanical whir of the old hard drive gave me a strange sense of grounding.
I opened the Safari browser and navigated to the iCloud login page. I typed in the credentials for our shared family account. It was an old account we set up when Cameron was born.
The screen loaded, revealing a grid of mundane family photos, grocery lists, and shared calendars. I ignored them and dragged the cursor to the left sidebar.
Hidden down at the very bottom was a folder titled "Taxes & Insurance."
I clicked it.
A security prompt instantly popped up on the screen: *Two-Factor Authentication Required. Enter Passcode.*
I frowned. This wasn't standard. He had put a secondary lock on this specific folder. I typed in the last four digits of his Social Security Number.
*Incorrect.*
I typed in his mother's birth year.
*Incorrect. 1 attempt remaining before account lockdown.*
I yanked my hands off the keyboard as if it were on fire. If I failed the last attempt, iCloud would immediately send a security alert to Adrian’s active phone. I couldn't risk it.
I dragged my hands through my hair in frustration. I grabbed the wireless mouse and slammed it down hard on the leather desk mat. I closed my eyes, taking deep, measured breaths to force my heart rate down.
I needed a different angle. I opened a new tab and typed in the URL for Bank of America.
Years ago, Adrian had a separate checking account he used to pay off his student loans. He claimed he closed it, but liars rarely close their back doors. I typed in the old account number from memory.
The site loaded a prompt: *Password Expired. Please send a reset link to your security email to proceed.*
Below the text, the recovery email was partially masked: *A***7@gmail.com.*
I stared at those characters, my eyes narrowing. A-seven. I mentally scrolled through ten years of memories, searching for the pattern.
Suddenly, a vivid image flashed in my mind. We were sophomores at Cornell. We were sitting in the campus library, and Adrian asked to borrow my laptop to submit an application for an elite fraternity. I watched him type his email address over his shoulder.
His middle name was Alexander. His high school football jersey number was 7.
I opened a third tab and went straight to the Gmail login page. I typed in *AAlexander7@gmail.com*.
The screen accepted the email and asked for the password. I took a deep breath, my hands hovering over the worn keys.
Adrian was a narcissist. He believed his own hype. A man like that didn't use random strings of characters; he used monuments to his own ego.
I typed: *StateChamp2009!*
It was the year he won the Texas state football championship. It was the peak of his physical glory, a story he forced everyone to listen to at dinner parties.
I hit the Enter key.
The screen turned white. A small blue circle appeared in the center, spinning.
My breath caught in my throat. I stared unblinking at the loading icon. The physical delay of the old laptop stretched the seconds into eternity.
The circle vanished. No red error text appeared.
The screen instantly populated with a chaotic, heavily loaded Gmail inbox.
I was in. I felt a massive rush of adrenaline, a sharp thrill of victory that made my fingers tingle.
But as my eyes focused on the bolded subject lines of the thousands of unread emails, the thrill died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, freezing horror.
"Just how much have you been hiding from me..."
